Its been nearly a week since I came back to Tamale from the village where I have my household surveys ongoing. This “nearly-a-week” has actually given me some breathing space (although breathing is becoming harder by the day literally due to increasing concentration of dust in the air as Harmattan approaches). In fact the day I left the village to come back to Tamale, I had sore throat, which got better after a day or two in Tamale. But, the breathing problem with stuffy nose (started with runny nose in the village, now its the opposite!) continues. All these minor problems have however made me rest a bit and give myself a breather after a month or so of intense work. The “broadband” internet at my friend’s office is working like a charm thesedays, which means either before going to work (when working in the afternoon) or after work (when I’m working early mornings), I just come around and suck the juice out of this 256kbps “broadband” with BBC podcasts downloads and updating my computer software etc. It has also given me chance to play a bit more on facebook and chat with friends on IMs. And to top it all, I just had a nice conversation (via type-chat on Skype) with my supervisor, which means I won’t have to write an email to update him on my progress for a week or so!
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Got an email from my brother (last week actually) - he was over the moon after passing his finals - he has become a doctor now - the one who treats people - and not the kind that I am trying to be!! In fact, I feel more and more vindicated in my choice of the field of study now that among us five siblings, we have a doctor, a nurse, an engineer, and a physicist - and the odd one out - me - a social scientist! And honestly, I wouldn’t even know how to specify my area of expertise other than generally say I’m a social scientist. Anyway, a very good news from home in a week of not-much-progress (typical week) in Ghana. I am eating well, sleeping well, and trying to work well with not much success, and that sums up my time in Ghana so far. Too much to complain about but am afraid of acting like a “yankee-nepali lad” so will keep them to myself.
But then I have to tell you this. I was in the kitchen, preparing dinner earlier this week when Habiba, the lady who does my laundry and house-cleaning, came around with a younger girl - all stressed. She then started telling me the reason. The younger girl’s niece - a 3-year old girl - had got lost earlier that morning, and a good Samaritan apparently took her to a local radio station. They only found out where she was after hearing an announcement on the radio about the missing girl. Now they had to go and get her back from the station. She then told me that the radio station charged 25000 cedis (just over US$ 2.50) to release the girl “because they spent their airtime on the announcement”. And the radio station is government owned!! I just couldn’t believe it. I mean the government is already taking money off the people from tax and what not and this station wanted to charge this poor family to take their girl back just because they had to use half a minute of their “airtime” announcing about the girl!?!
Continue reading ‘news from home…news to home…’
copylefT 2008
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