The Yanks are coming....

So the big day is finally here – Obama arrives in Accra this afternoon. There is a fair amount of excitement here (hyped up through the TV and radio media) and pride in the fact that he is coming to Ghana. There are Stars and Stripes across the city and huge “Welcome Home” signs, which is a bit strange as Obama has no connection with Ghana or West Africa whatsoever. There are a plethora of Obama songs played constantly on the airwaves – I like Black Rasta the best – and expectations are riding high as to what the saviour will do. I heard the former President on the radio today saying that if they can do it (meaning America), we can lift Africa up quickly – what?! Of course the politicians are milking this, especially the new NDC Government who wants to claim that the visit is some sort of affirmation of their election success. But what is really happening? There are some dissenting voices – why is he visiting Ghana? Would it not be more appropriate for him to visit one of the conflict zones – Congo DC perhaps or at least speak of Dafur or Somalia – what does he want here? One explanation given is the recent discovery of offshore oil – well probably not, USA will buy the oil anyway whatever. A more likely explanation I think is that Bush having failed to persuade the last government to accept an American base in the country, Obama is going to make a new pitch with the NDC – he will come bearing gifts and promises but the trade off will be an American military presence in the most stable, friendly and English speaking country in the region.

Whatever the reason Obama is not going to make a public appearance and his many fans will be disappointed. Security is hyper tight and he will be making his speech on Africa to a carefully selected audience of predominantly “Big Men” before being whisked off to visit one of the slave forts and then flying out. There are Obama Tee shirts everywhere on sale and various other knick knacks and souvenirs – after all this is a chance to cash in. I heard of a funeral casket maker who has rebranded his business as Obama and funnily enough the caskets are white. Meanwhile all the potholes on the visiting President’s route are being filled in and all the street hawkers being removed from the area – cleansing for God forbid that Obama should catch a glimpse of real Accra. There has been torrential rain the last 4 or 5 days or so and the gutters and drains are blocked in many parts of the city resulting in horrendous floods which have already caused a number of deaths. Until yesterday evening there was no fuel in the city but of course suddenly that has been resolved. Many roads were blocked by abandoned vehicles and huge queues at filling stations but do not worry the mighty one is amongst us today.

We were just in Accra for five days, launching a major new VSO Pilot project. Kiran has been leading the first Conference on establishing learning organisations and the project involves Ghana, Cameroon and Gambia. It will be a huge challenge but we are looking forward to being part of the project across the year. One of the things that always seems to come up in these meetings, and usually on the last day, is the issue of “sitting allowance”. By this I mean that it is the expectation of most Ghanaian participants that they should be paid a daily allowance to attend conferences and workshops (despite the fact that all expenses are paid, they are put up in rather good hotels and are still actually being paid for their regular job). It is a real mountain to climb here to try and counter this. At the conference I organised a few weeks ago for a Danish NGO it manifested itself as “Give us something small to motivate us” – what!!! However at this conference it was challenged by a few Ghanaians (so it was not left entirely to the whites to take up the issue) and interestingly these were people who had left Ghana about 20 years ago and returned in the last few years. They said that this whole issue of expecting payment is something relatively new and was not there when they left the country. This week the plea was for “inconvenience cushioning” – a wonderful phrase but what the heck outrageous. When I told the participants of what these Ghanaians had said at the other conference there was total distain – one delegate said that they must have forgotten about their sitting allowance. What really gets me is that most of these people have very good jobs and are well educated. They do not want to ask the question as to where this money will come from and how this will mean less for the actual projects and beneficiaries. Where the whole concept comes from remains a mystery but some people say it was introduced by the World Bank who paid huge allowances for people to attend meetings and that it then took root in the NGO Development world – another strong argument against the way development has been managed and imposed.

So we now have a set of wheels – we collected “Kofi” yesterday – an ageing little red 4x4 jeep, a bit the worse for wear but still running (hopefully). Of course we had to pick the day when there was no fuel in Accra so it was touch and go as to whether we would make it back but fortunately we found some petrol in Tema just outside Accra and chugged back to Ho. I like the style of the car but have to say that it does make some really strange noises. Watch this space as we negotiate the police blocks, the dash, the break downs and the fun which most of all I hope we have. Next week we are off again to the Northern Volta Region for the second phase of our work with marginalised groups of people with disabilities. We are working on supporting them to form self help groups and will be in Dambai and Kpassa – so no internet again for a while and some tricky roads to negotiate.