Trackback test

Writing on my own blog Going to Ghana I will reference a related blog Chicagohogans.com. Then I will add the trackback url for the post I am referencing below and see what happens.

Ghana Video Test 3 – Original video through YouTube

This is video taken using a FlipVideo camera, uploaded to YouTube and posted here by pasting the YouTube embed code into the HTML code view.

Ghana Video test 2 – YouTube embed original video

This is a link to uploaded video on You Tube added to the post by using the “add media” function in post edit window. Paste the YouTube url in url field and save to post. Edit link text in anchor text as desired.

Sunyani marketplace video

Ghana Test Video 1 – Embed code

YouTube video added by plugging embed code into html view of WordPress post

Pomp, Circumstance And Kumasi

Friday was Graduation Day.  Most of the students dressed up for the occasion. Two wore western-style suits and looked ready for their first shareholders meeting. Many more wore traditional clothing: flowing, colorful shirts, dresses and ’suits.’  They were effusive in their thanks, acknowledging they really didn’t know what to expect when they arrived on Monday, but they were especially impressed by our faith that they can make a change — by themselves — for Ghana.

Saturday was the long drive from Sunyani to Accra, with a stop in the ancient Ashante capital of Kumasi. We had hoped to see some history, but were running behind and only had time to check out a craft shop. The drive was something of an adventure… watching extremely top-heavy trucks navigate the two-lane, no guardrail road… we saw a few that didn’t make the turn and toppled over… can’t imagine the lost revenue for that business.  At one construction stoppage, we were swarmed by more than two dozen women, wares on their heads, nearly pressed against the window trying to get us to buy fruits or sweets. We could tell that this ad hoc marketplace had sprung up due to the construction…30 some-odd had just moved their operation to the construction zone, knowing they would have a captive audience. We bought a few oranges, but otherwise disappointed them.

More on our Friday trip to a truly heroic pair of schools in our next blog… as well as a stop in what might soon pass for a college town in Ghana.

Fuzz

Friends in a Snap

Living within a new culture for a week, you are bound to learn a few interesting subtleties. One of these is trying to master the handshake. There is the traditional western handshake that will do in most situations, but then there is the snap shake or so I call it. If another man is feeling chipper and wants to give you a real friend handshake, kinda like a high five, they give you more of a finger tip handshake but as they release they slide their fingers over yours and use your middle finger to make a S-N-A-P-! noise. If you do it right you can do that to them at the same time and both snaps blend together. I only got it right a few times, but its really fun and if you do they laugh and laugh. All great fun.

 Not so fun is our flight home. Yesterday we found out that our flight is delayed out of Accra for 20 hours. This is a quick post, but in the next few days, when we have a bit of time and internet bandwidth, I will post some more pictures and a better decription of what we did during the trip.

 Stephen

82 Degrees in February

After three days of travel, the guys have finally arrived. Fuzz called today to say they are tired but happy to be in Ghana. The hotel is comfortable though hot water is not an amenity. No word on cable TV. The weather report in Accra today calls for a high of 82 degrees F, but it feels like 94. Take that Chicago! Tomorrow the work begins. Good luck!

Away we go!

I am excited, a bit nervous as usual. Packing, trying not to forget anything, We have updated and finished our course work and we have collected our “chotchkes.” Chochkes (origin unknown) are pens, pencils, pads, calculators, that we give away as part of our class to the students. We have confirmed that there will be 40 students on this trip. There are five of us traveling together. If we can manage Internet access when we get there,  we will let you know.

Oddly, we have discovered that George Bush will be coming over to Ghana when we are there. It affects us because we have to share our security detail, limosine, private jet, cooks and everything with him. I wish he would get his own staff. So frustrating!

Anyway, the adventure begins. Photos to come soon.

Stephen

Ghana at a Glance

Check out these beautiful photos of Ghana posted on YouTube by Rupesh Singh, an Indian engineer working in West Africa.

What’s to know

Many people ask me why I go to Africa. What type of “business” do you teach. “Why are you spreading capitalism overseas when we can see what corruption it breeds here in the US?”

These are good questions and, if I am honest, some of the same questions that I asked myself before I first went. The answer is always formulated a little spontaneously on each trip (this will be my fourth). We have a prepared week-long course, but we find that the course changes with each new group of students.  What is obvious in rural India might be novel in Africa and vice-versa.

One such challenge occurred in a course we taught in the Fall of 2004. We were teaching a group about budgeting in order to run a small business. Like most businesses, there had to be a carry over of funds from one month to the next to buy new inventory. (I think we were talking about a business that made and distributed men’s shirts). Carry over was quickly equated to “savings” by the class.   Savings were almost taboo in this very poor society. In their culture, if one had any money, they were  obliged to share it with any family member in need.  There was always a family member in need, so……no savings, no inventory, no sustainable business.

Many people in the class struggled with this notion. Most of them were Christians, and it seemed very un-Christian for us to be teaching such things.   Some people had savings, but they had to be kept more or less a secret, or a distant cousin was likely to show up for some assistance.

We struggled with how to explain this notion.   One of our group, an entrepreneur from North Carolina, came up with an analogy that seemed to help. He explained, “Suppose you were extremely poor, but you had a chicken, and that chicken produced eggs.  Each day you could eat the eggs and if someone in dire need came by, you could share the eggs with them.  Now, what if someone in dire need wanted the chicken? If you were to give the chicken you would have neither a chicken or eggs, and both of you would be in dire need.”  So the savings he explained, were like the chicken. They produced the income month after month so that in the long run, there was much more to share.

This simple analogy was powerful enough to move the class towards a collective questioning of a long-held set of values. Were we teaching them to be selfish or wise? I leave that to you to decide and comment upon. These are the real issues that we face each time we teach. In a future post, I will talk about the exportation of capitalism and the negative lessons of capitalistic imperialism.