The Pooping Fields: How to Shit in Larabanga

The Pooping Fields: How to Shit in Larabanga

If you look up Larabanga in most guidebooks they will tell you to avoid it if possible! The reputation of this town has taken some serious hits in the international travel blog and writing community – unfortunately most of it has been earned! However, after living there for ten days I would say it is a diamond in the rough!!

We rolled into Larabanga having just spent a week at Wechiau and a couple of days at Mole National Park. Our home for the next ten days was a mostly finished guesthouse that came complete with power (a changed from the Talawana lodge) but no ready access to clean water or clean latrines (think of the worst bar bathroom ever and then add two holes to the floor… more later)!

 In Talawana we were able to access clean (and safe) water from a close borehole but in Larbanga our water was accessed through a dip-bucket into a large poly-tank. The source of the water was rain capture and borehole; unfortunately that ran out quickly and we were filled up with water from the local dam. The lack of easily accessible ground water (versus the surface water from the dam) is a real issue for this community as the dam water contains run-off that filters through mounds of plastic waste, faecal matter from humans, goats, sheep, etc., not to mention that with the heat it is a great place to grow bacteria and algae. The students on my study tour are pretty hardy and solution orientated though so they simply added Dettol or Tea Tree oil to the water and when it got a little too much they had us fill the dozens of empty water bottles when we were at Mole!!

As for the latrines…well I really don’t know what to say about those!! They constructed a public latrine on the far end of town (leading to the Mystic Stone), which was a good location for us as it was across the road. As for the construction… Well that I’ve yet to come us with a rational explanation for!!! The latrines were divided into men’s and women’s sides with each having 4-5 stalls. The stalls were the same size as a small mall-washroom stall but these babies didn’t have toilets.

To enter the stalls you needed to do a couple of different things: a) plug the nose or figure a way to mouth breath (this could lead tasting the smell though L), b) suspend all need for personal hygiene, c) have your toilet roll ready, e) dodge the corn cobs, papers, and piles of faeces that missed the hole, and f) hope that you are not in anyway freaked out by bugs as they live there in herds!! Oh yeah, you also need to step up onto a ledge that is about 4 – 5 inches tall, 1 ½ - 2 feet deep and 3 feet wide (width of stall). You then select which of the two holes you are going to squat over!!

That’s right there are two holes!!! Each hole is about 6 inches in diameter and the leading edge (closes to door) has a slight V to the end so that they are almost teardrop shaped. These holes are located about 5 – 6 inches from each side wall so basically you get as close to the side wall and back wall as possible (squatting in a corner really), without actually touching either as they are covered in bugs and other less appealing substances, and then you have to focus on keeping your aim on the hole while trying to avoid any foot slippage as it could result in your outside foot ending up in the other hole!!!

As mentioned earlier, my students are very hardy and tend to focus on solutions and on the positive. So they took a couple attempts at the latrines before deciding that the really big field next to our place was used by locals and animals, so why not us too! Thus the “pooping fields” became a central part of our daily life!! As you can imagine I have spent some time talking to folks in Larabanga about the need for good latrines!! I spoke to our guesthouse landlord and suggested that he build a pit-toilet (I’m not sure that ANYONE in larabanga has a toilet and many still squat outside… or in ditches but that seems to be limited to small children J). I figure he could charge 50 pesewa (cents) to use a clean pit toilet and the ‘Brunnie (white) tourists would probably pay it!

One final cautionary note and then I’ll get back to the real goods on what we did in Larabanga! When purchasing a mosquito net it is a good idea to follow the directions and let them air-out prior to trying to sleep under them!! Three of us (me included) ended up have adverse reactions to the chemical – it kind of felt like battery acid had been misted on my face!!! It went away but after it came back the next night I decided that I would trust my Malarone (anti-malarial) and sleep without the net.

The purpose of our visit to Larabanga was to assess current levels of tourism, explore costs and benefits of tourism, and generally get a feel as to whether or not we wanted to continue working with the community in the future. We were successful in achieving these; however, the path to their achievement was not really a straight one!

The key finding for us in Larabanga was that there is no Unity in the Community! That became our key phrase!! If you want tourism and the benefits of tourism, you need “unity in the community”! We also discovered that the model of tourism management and benefit that they were using was almost entirely focused at the community level and through the ecotourism board – people were largely expected to volunteer their time and energy (guides and tour stops) without any real financial benefit or motivation to do a good job or improve the service. It was also clear that the Larabanga boys for whom the town has become infamous are doing a good job of capturing the bulk of the funds currently moving into town.

While in town the students split into two groups to collect information – moving about the town interviewing folks and discovering the conflicts that exist, the perceived benefits or potential benefits, and exploring the area to determine what potential tourism products exists. However, like WCHS, the people are the experiences that I’ll take away from our stay.

The children of Larabanga are beautiful and I think that the first words of English that they learn are: “Brunnie, give me your bottle!” You are greeted with that from the moment the bus rolls into town – or perhaps the simply chant of “Brunnie, Brunnie, Brunnie!” As we were trying to model good behaviour we never handed over ANYTHING to children unless it was a thank you gift or reward of some kind. We also actively discouraged them from trying to hold our hands or follow us or hang’ out at our house! Of course we also needed to discourage the young adult males from hangin’ at the house too!!

Our primary contact for the past year is Ibraheem – a former elected and now appointed member of the District Assembly in Damongo. Ibeem is a tall lanky fellow with a huge heart, strong dedication to his community, and the biggest smile that I’ve seen! His commitment to us, the work that we were doing, and his community was amazing to see and he was GREAT to work with. There were three others that I came to rely on as well: Awbusco, Ibrahim (guide), and Ahmed. These men were also dedicated to their community and to making our stay a fruitful one!

Awbusco and Ibrahim (guide) are also the primary founders of an evening educational program for young girls in the community. Both are high school graduates (rare for this community) and Awbusco teaches at the local primary school (he has received a professional teaching certificate). Both recognized that girls are often left behind in education, as they are more likely to be pulled from school by their parents to help with other children or to work on the farm. Girls are also less likely to go to senior high school; however, additional education can help over come these and can dramatically increase the age at which girls become wives and reduce rates of teen pregnancies. These two also want to help preserve local traditional culture and as such have started the: Larabanga Active Education and Cultural Foundation (LAECF).

The primary purpose of LAECF is to provide supplemental education to girls within the community – focusing on instruction in Kamara (unique traditional language), English (tourism’s and Ghana’s official language), and Arabic (official language of Islam). These two men have the biggest of hearts and have been working with next to nothing regarding supplies. The nursing students from VIU have donated $500 GHS (about $330 CDN) and based on what they can do with that I have agreed to help them out. To build a learning centre on the land that was given by the primary section leader, they will need about $3000 CDN so no much money for how much impact – but first we need to see what is done with the $500 Ghana Cedis. FYI: I received a call two days ago letting me know that they were waiting on a truck to haul the load of sand that they needed to start building bricks (you build them in Ghana… No Home Depot here!), which will prevent people encroaching on the centre’s land.

Ahmed was our landlord (his father’s building?) for the week and despite his tendancies to watch Ghana soaps really loud, really late… he was great! He worked hard to ensure that our compound was clean, we had water, and that we were not over run with local kids! The students weren’t too sure of his technique of disbursing the kids (rock throwing) but as it worked well with the goats and the kids they didn’t argue too much! I think it helped that he never actually hit anything! J Amed also turned out to be a great supplier of Bolga baskets – I simply asked if anyone in Larabanga sold them and the next thing you know he’s arranged for some to be sent to town!! He even took mine into Damongo to have the handles covered in leather!

I would be remiss if I did not mention the talents of Affie – she was our cook during the time we spend in Larabanga and she was great! Affie introduced us to most of the common dishes of the north and went out of her way to ensure that we were having meals that were good for all. Even better, she always greeted us with big smiles and for lunch there were always Fan Ice to take the edge off the heat!! She is one of the hidden gems of the town and I hope to work with her in the future to help her develop her catering business for tourists.

Of course there were many others who helped to make the week special but these are the Larabangan’s who really made out time enjoyable and fruitful. The other three people who made this aspect of the trip so GREAT were KAS, Aaron, and Michael! KAS and I have worked together in Ghana for three years and he’s even visited the Island (same with Aaron who is a student) as part of our other project! He was my partner in crime for the organizing and implementation of this year’s field school but was only able to stay with us for about ½ the time in Wechiau – in Larabanga he was with us full time. Aaron and Michael, who are both studying ecotourism at FFRT, were a huge asset to our program. These two bonded so completely with our team that it became clear there was not “Team Canada” and “Team Ghana” but rather there was research team!

The highlight activities for me while staying in Larabanga – beyond getting to meet such amazing and dedicated people – included cultural dances, a long discussion on the different styles of ‘dropping a deuce’, watching the students learn about each other, and our football match against the local team (teenagers).

The cultural dance was done by the girls from Ibrahim and Awbusco’s education program. Ibrahim led them through a series of four dances (explaining each) and then had the students join in the fun! It was a great event and had I not been suffering from ‘running stomach’ I would have been in there too! (if you think hard enough about ‘running stomach’ you’ll figure out what it is and why I hated the latrines so much J). I am hoping that with a little effort that this program would be able to be offered to tourists and the funds can be used to help make the Larabanga Active Education and Cultural Foundation more self-sustaining.

Given our latrine situation it wasn’t all that surprising to have a lengthy discussion about the protocols and procedures that folks used… both in Larabanga and at home! I even learned that there are specific washrooms at VIU that are best for ‘dropping a deuce’! I learned a lot and will never ask some of these students why they are late from class as I’m not sure I’ll really want the answer! Never again will I comment on someone who takes reading material into the loo… Devon and Cody spoke of creating a man-cave, complete with technology and specific reading materials, in order to encourage their bodies! They both estimated that this process took a minimum of ½ an hour!!! Who has time for that! J This discussion became a common one and we engaged in some cross-cultural exploration! The women got into it to but for us it was more focused on what outfits were best for the procedure in the field – long skirts and 2 – yards were tops!

FYI: 2 – yards refers to a piece of fabric that is 2 yards (or 3 in my case… more of me to cover) that almost all women carry in Ghana. The material becomes a blanket, a towel, a baby carrier, and for Obrunies it also makes a good cover-up if you forget to wear modest clothing and need to work within the community (i.e., knees need to be covered as do shoulders).

Our football match in Larabanga was way too much fun! KAS played keeper for a while and we have some great pics of the ball going passed him! The girls and I played again (defense), something that causes all kinds of delight with the audience! I love playing here as people never expect anything from me and are surprised with I don’t totally turn away and/or suck!! Thank God for U of A intramurals as I’ve retained some really old skills! The kids along the sidelines were calling me John Mensa (spelling) who apparently is “Ghana’s last defender” – I’ll have to find a jersey with his name on it before heading back to Larabanga!

My favourite parts of the game were watching Shannon and Gareth running after the ball like crazy people and scaring the opposition!! I also love that Brianne and Ashley kept practicing their victory dance – like that was going to be needed!! They reminded me of Kelly and Heather (cousins) when there were really young!! Devon was killer like always and on this occasion Cody was official photog. Of course we were joined but a host of Ghanaians (other than KAS, Michael, and Aaron) and better yet we had our 12^th man on the field – Ibrahim (from LAECF) was the ref and even I was questioning the number of calls going our way!! At the end he told the kids that they only got to keep the ball if they let us score!!! J

So despite what the guidebooks would lead me to believe – Larabanga was a brilliant part of our trip and I can’t wait to return and work with the great people who live there. That being said – I would warn any visitors to seek out some of the folks spoken of here for a tour and/or know that you don’t need to take the harassment – tell them to back off! As for the children of the community – do yourself, other visitors, and the kids themselves a favour and don’t hand over bottles, money, or even ‘gifts’ as it teaches the kids that school is not necessary to get ahead in life!

FYI: I am actually down on the coast right now preparing for the end of the 2011 Tourism Research & Study Tour. The students and I will spend our last night together at the Anomabo Beach Resort a $15 GHS taxi ride from Cape Coast. I will continue to reflect on and describe my experiences here in Ghana but will be doing so from Uganda! I head there on Friday and will be attending the 2011 Atlas Africa conference in Kampala. As always leaving Ghana is bittersweet and this year I’m feeling really weird!  We could have easily spent another couple of weeks (months!) in each of the communities that we visited!

Look for blog entries on Mole (really close encounters with Elephants this year), our research, and of course Cape Coast!