Ghana – The final reflections

Apologies for taking so long to finish up my reflections on the Ghanaian Adventure. This year’s study tour was extremely busy and for the most part Internet access was crappy so it was easy to push off the writing!! J Of course I’ve now moved on from Ghana and am just about finished my Ugandan adventure so will post a final section on Ghana and then move onto writing about Kampala and the ATLAS Africa conference. Tomorrow I leave for Kenya but that’s another story!!

The primary purpose of this year’s trip was to explore the relationship between community-based ecotourism and poverty reduction – with a primary focus on the costs/sacrifices and benefits experienced by the people who live adjacent to protected areas. To do this, the students and I spent a week at the Wechiau Community Hippo Sanctuary and two weeks in Larabanga and Mole National Park (10 days in Larabanga) where we talked to people who worked in the protected areas and who lived in the communities surrounding them.

This was a great experience for the students as they got to apply their knowledge of research – more importantly they got to experience how ‘messy’ field research can be! I was so incredibly proud of the way that they learned from each experience and move forward to the next interview! It was great to have Aaron and Michael join us in Larabanga and Ebenezer join us at Wechiau – the students did such a great job that it allowed KAS and I to hold a series of higher level meetings and to sit back and observe how the process went! Three giant cheers for students!!

The best part of the entire research process for me was the reporting out session that we ran in Larabanga. The first thing you all need to know is that we were not going to deliver a happy message – in fact we essentially ‘called out’ the leadership and the youth of the community on their conduct! Nothing like that to get the blood flowing! Our research clearly showed that: a) unless the leadership of Larabanga can settle the internal conflict and be ‘allowed’ to offer tourism, nothing can be done and we are not in a position to be able to help, b) their current structure of offering tourism services (management structure) was open to corruption but more importantly it caused folks to seek out ‘unauthorized” forms of tour guiding as it did not allow for individual benefit at all, and c) the unemployed youth of the community (mostly males 16 – 25ish with a little education, decent English skills, and a desire to be ‘western’ and not farmers) and their aggressive behaviour towards tourists were a huge problem!

The meeting was held at 5:00 pm next two the ‘new’ central Mosque. The elders for that section sat on the raised platform, where they could be found most days in between prayer sessions at the Mosque. The rest of the community leaders sat on multi-coloured plastic prayer mats which are surely imported from China (must of Ghana looks like a dollar store exploded), wrapped up in head scarves and wearing long tunics and trousers that illustrate their Muslim faith and African heritage. They formed a half circle that is quickly filled in by multiple rows of adults, men and women, sitting thigh to thigh on a circle of wooden benches that keep all of us (the research team) in a small corner on plastic chairs (FYI: Wooden benches do not promote Swass…think about it…like plastic chairs do). We were quickly surrounded by a group of children who spent much of time trying to get close to the ‘brunies’ in the crowd.

The meeting started off with some cultural dancing and drumming and before you know it I was out in the middle of this group doing my best to not look like a total ass! This was all before I reported out to the community that our primary finding was that they needed to get their act together and stop the infighting or tourism would never work. I also stepped into the fray and called out the ‘Larabanga Boys’ who have not quite single-handedly destroyed the reputation of the town with their predatory behaviours towards tourists. I believe that the analogy I used in the meeting was “that the boys approached tourists like hyena on a dead guinea”! Overall the heard the message well – although there was some quick talking from the local elected assembly man when I started talking about the amount of money we had spent in the community over the ten days!! J

Overall the success of this year’s study tour comes down to two things for me – an amazing group of students that adjusted well, worked hard, and most importantly did their very best to adapt to tough situations with humour and adventurous spirits, and a wonderful Ghanaian team lead by KAS and Jones at S-Poly! KAS did a fantastic job of picking Ghanaian students to join our team (and we became a team) and Jones, along with Vincent and Aminu, did a great job coordinating our transportation and Sunyani accommodation logistics! Thanks for the great work team!

As you may have guessed I have run out of steam talking about Ghana – why? Well for the past two weeks I’ve been in East Africa! J I had a wonderful week in the City of Kampala in Uganda. I attended the 2011 ATLAS Africa conference with friends Donna (of the Hippo Sanct), Joy, and Rick (colleague from VIU). AT the conference I met some very cool folks including two Maasai gentlemen from the Mara. You guessed it – I headed out to the Maasai Mara with them for 3 nights and felt like I was living in the BBC Planet Earth Series!! So from here on out you’ll hear about the East African experience – skipping Uganda as I really only saw a limited amount of the city/country!!