My Journey Thus Far (6/20)
After having been in the country for nearly a month, I can
now collect my thoughts and present a more well-rounded view of my experience
in Ghana. At first the task seemed difficult. How exactly is one supposed to
feel when one is confronted with spellbinding rainforests while simultaneously
witnessing the ubiquitous shanties that dot the mountainside? Or when beautiful
instances of human generosity are extended against blatant acts of
discrimination? Instead of settling on one grand, overarching adjective, I am
of the opinion that Ghana’s story and character is yet to be decided. There is
much at stake even in this coming year. Elections for a new president will take
place against a backdrop of economic revival. Talk of change and of a brighter
future is in the air. I think that anything less than a mixed review is
disservice to the former British colony.
But I did not expect to feel that way. I came in to the
Fellowship thinking that I was going to help make a difference. To be sure, I
was expecting a huge learning curve and plenty of opportunities to be
humiliated, but few enter into an independent research project thinking
otherwise. Having taken a class about the economics of less developed countries
with John Strauss at USC, I started my research into cocoa fertilizer usage
with a lot of frustrations. Why aren’t the Ghanaian farmers using fertilizers?
Why don’t they fix the inaccessible roads that increase transport costs? I
posed these questions to district directors from the Ministry of Food and
Agriculture, professors from the University of Cape Coast and consultants at
non-governmental organizations. Naturally, they all gave me different answers.
The farmers don’t have the financial ability to afford fertilizers, one would say,
and the potholed roads are at the end of the priority list. Another would
venture that farmers wanted to subvert government efforts as an act of
rebellion, and that the roads were being fixed as we spoke. The myriad of
responses were intriguing but exasperating as well.
On the day of my 22nd birthday I took a trotro to
Kruwa, a small farming village twenty minutes away from Nyamedom, the village
neighboring our quaint Asuansi. Upon the request of the farmer group leader I
had bought 54 packets of soda crackers at 9 cedis (around US$4.81). We give
away presents on our birthdays, the leader says. What altruism, I thought. As the farmers snacked on my meager
offering, I interviewed them one by one. How many years have you been
a farmer? How big is your farm? Do you use fertilizer? Here, without the pretenses of academia, was the
forefront of grassroots research. Data were the toothy grins and inquisitive
smiles in front of me. The farmers welcomed my questions and thanked me for the
great help I was being. I was horrified. No, thank you! I
was riding a huge high.
I have more than a week left in Ghana, but I am excited to
continue my research. I still have unanswered questions, but one thing is
increasingly clear: people, not crunched data, are what we need to care about.
I’ve never been so humbled in my life.
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