A day in the life of Adam & UBF Syndrome…

Wow... youtube and Ghana are NOT friends! Many failed upload attempts. I'll have to switch up my approach. It is a lot of work to upload videos (5 hours travel and a stay overnight, fighting with power outages, ...), but you're worth it so I'm going to keep on doing it!







Before I get to my self diagnosed UBF Syndrome, I want to share a few experiences with you.



After arriving in Tamale, all Ghana JFs (short term volunteers like me) were sent out on a scavenger hunt to get some basics (cellphone, hat, medicine…) and some fun stuff (a house warming gift, season #4 of Lost…). Two specific interactions stand out as a stark contrast; one from a girl selling “pure water” sachets and another from a salesman hawking DVDs. When we approached the DVD stall in the market, the salesman eyed us up as an easy target and set his price “25 cedis… any DVD you want… 25 cedis.” Now in Canada $25 isn’t bad for a whole season, but what we were buying appeared to be some kind of pirated copy so I countered with “ah! That is too much… I think it is only worth 5 cedis.” The salesman agreed and I felt good having bartered down by a factor of 5 only to find out that DVDs go for 3 cedis. Meh… under 200% was my goal for the first day and I’m getting better. That’s a classic example of someone trying to take advantage of a foreigner. Compare that with the following girl selling water.



Later that night I went out to buy some “pure water” and found a girl no older than 14 selling them from a cooler near the guest house we were staying. I wanted to buy 0.45 cedis worth of water and only had a 0.50 cedis coin. The girl did not have exact change and so I told her that it would be ok if kept the extra 0.05 cedis, but to my surprise she politely refused and hesitated about what to do. Eventually she decided to give me a 0.10 coin effectively GIVING ME 0.05. Now this girl is out late at night and probably has to go to school in the morning and this is likely what is helping to pay for her way… and she would rather give me the extra rather than take it. The polite pride in her eyes took me a back so we stood there in silence for a few moments as I sure as heck wasn’t taking her 0.05 extra coin! Eventually we came to the conclusion that if I bought an additional small snack then we could make the exact change and both parties would have received their fair goods.



Since then I have met countless farmers in Sawla that upon hearing that I’m involved with Agriculture become very excited and ask for me to come visit their farm. The pride that they have and the will to improve their livelihoods is very touching and drives me to work hard everyday.



Next blog post will profile and exceptional female farmer I met last week, but the internet café is closing and I am being kicked out… till next time!



Adam

Ooopps almost forgot. UBF = Ukrainian Baba Feeding Syndrome… my host family is feeding me a small mountain of yams and green leaf stew every night for supper and it is delicious, but WAY too much. I have tried saying I’m full many ways, but they prepare it especially for me so I feel obliged. They are very kind, so I’ve since given up eating lunches so that I don’t explode at supper :)