work?

So you’re probably wondering what the heck I’ve been doing here in Ghana; well, besides playing li hing mui tricks on Ghanaians, trying my best to not shit my pants, detoxing (although some how I had one beer in a remote area not even in my town with a friend, and some how every one knew, I guess this is what Britney Spears feels like), playing with junji, and perfecting my cooking skills... and I can say that I honestly haven’t done much yet to save the world, or at least Ghana.

I want to give you a little background so maybe you’ll understand why I haven’t done much yet… but I know I have lots of work ahead of me.

Okay, so the Ministry of Tourism came and funded the building of the visitor center in Ntonso. (this was about a little more than a year ago or so) People in this community have been doing Adinkra stamping for many many years, so tourist have been coming here way before this visitor center was built. There is one family here in Apatem that has been doing the demonstration for the tourist (the family does it the traditional way using carved calabash, while most people now days do screen printing) but apparently members of the TMT has had problems with this family. There is also a chieftaincy dispute in my community; there hasn’t been a chief for 19 years; so we have a queen mother. I have yet to meet the queen mother because she lives in Kumasi and doesn’t like to come to Ntonso that often because people here will “attack” her because they want a chief. So apparently, people that oppose the queen mother dominate the TMT and the family that does the traditional printing is on the side of the queen mother. (are you confused yet? It gets better.) So after the visitor center was built the TMT wasn’t functioning properly for the Ministry of Tourism/Ghana Tourist Board to feel comfortable handing over the management of this new facility to the community of Ntonso, so they hired a private company FM24 to run the visitor center for 2 years.

Then, the TMT was given a contract with FM24, but it was never signed because the TMT didn’t agree with what was stated on it. (so I thought that apparently means that the contract doesn’t exist?) It was given to them on March 2008, and it still sits at the desk unsigned in its envelope. But then again, I guess since the “real” contract is with the Ministry of Tourism it doesn’t really matter. Once the community found out that the visitor center was handed to a private company, it was no longer solely a community based project. Meaning, that money generated from tourist, will be split between the private company and the community. Personally, I wouldn’t have signed the contract either. The community would/is basically making no money off of tourist coming here, sometimes even losing money. There was a part in the contract that stated that if tourist didn’t buy any cloth from the demonstrators that the TMT was to pay the demonstrators, which I totally agree with since the demonstrators aren’t paid and they should somehow be compensated, but the TMT isn’t making much money off of the tourist so having the TMT pay would mean that they are losing money by having tourist come here. The TMT makes .30 peswa off every tourist, if they don’t buy cloth they pay the demonstrators .50 peswa. Tourist pay $4 cedi if they are foreign or $2.50 cedi if they are Ghanaian.

Visitors are suppose to report to the visitor center and register (pay fees) and then they will get a tour of our museum with introduction about adinkra and then get taken to the demonstration site (Apatem) to watch the process of adinkra stamping. But like I said, the family has been doing demonstrations long before people had to register, so most tours know just to go straight to the demonstration site. (the family is suppose to tell them to come here to register if they just go their first, but they don’t tell the tourist, and seriously why would a tourist want to come to register if they know that they will have to pay something when they could get away with it?) My counterpart and I have been visiting the regional manager of the Ghana Tourist Board to talk to him about this problem, but hes told all tour operators that they must come to the visitor center, but they still don’t come. It sucks because I do language lessons and I’m friends with the people at Apatem, so I’m usually there in the mornings, and I see many tourist that come, and then when I head to the visitor center to see Mavis and ask her if people came she always says no.

Even when tourist come to the visitor center first to register, things are still not functioning properly to be worth coming to register first. There are two tour guides (well, really only one because the other one refuses to give tours because of FM24, although if they just come without registering he gives tours… because he knows that he’ll get money from it, while if they register he doesn’t get any money) who are suppose to get called when there are tourist at the center. Mavis apparently doesn’t like to call them when there are tourists here, so she gives them the tour herself. She gives a very brief information about adinkra, and then walks them over to the demonstration center and sits while the people at Apatem take over the tour. Since Apatem doesn’t like the idea of FM24 getting the money from tourist, they somehow are able to charge tourist as well. They let tourist stamp their own adinkra on a piece of kente cloth for 5 cedis. When tourist come to the visitor center to register they pay 4 cedis. I know that 9 cedis doesn’t seem like a lot of money (it really isn’t for foreigners, but for people living here/volunteers, it’s a heck chunk of money), but its fricken expensive for a half hour tour. (I recently found this out because a PCV came to my site to do the tour and told me, she also told me that right as they are about to stamp the cloth they are told about the 5 cedi)

The TMT wants to build their own demonstration center on the side of the visitor center and create a mini market of adinkra and kente (excellent idea I think). The TMT hasn’t seen a penny off the money made off of tourist coming to Ntonso, so there is no capital to invest in an extension. (well, that’s what they tell me, they’re always like FM24 has all our money, we haven’t seen any of the profits.) The land that they want to build on is part of farming land for some people in the community and although they have been told to uproot their crops, none of that has been done. The one bonus of this all is that the people at Apatem are working outside of their house, which is on school property (I’m told that they were asked to move, but nothing has been done of yet) so hopefully it will be easy to convince them to move if this demonstration center is built.

Since no one is happy about FM24 running the center, we are working on a letter to the Ministry of Tourism asking for complete ownership of the running of this facility. But we also need to make sure that the TMT is capable of managing the center if it is handed over, and make sure that is what they want to do. The TMT just finished writing their constitution and will hopefully go sometime soon to the District Assembly to register the TMT as a CBO (community based organization), and then start working on a short term/long term plan for this project. Start looking for agencies interested in African textiles to write proposals to so hopefully we can make this demonstration center/market area a reality.

So that’s kind of the situation in Ntonso, I’m still trying to figure it all out… everyday I seem to get a bit more information from people, but I hope everything works out. I guess its good that I still have pretty much two years to get shit done.

Wanna know something funny, Mavis hasn’t gotten money from FM24 for three months to pay the electricity bill, but somehow we still have electricity! Gotta love Ghana sometimes. I would love it even more if they put up free electricity in my house!

So in addition to my Twi word of the day, I thought I would add adinkra symbol of the day. (: enjoy!

Twi word of the day: me ko eduwamah (i'm going to work)

Adinkra Symbol of the day: Onyankopon adom nti biribiara beye yie

“by gods grace all will be well”

Literal Meaning: hope, faith, providence