RELIGIOUS BOI....

Boi is one of the many small villages in the Abokobi Electoral Area The village is located in the Ga East Municipality of the Greater Accra Region, and about 800-900 meters away from the Abokobi township, with an inhabitant population of close to thousand persons.
 

Boi is largely under-developed and irregularly placed kiosks and squatter settlements greet a first timer into the community, predominantly inhabited by Ga-speaking people.

irregularly placed kiosks @ Boi

The community, a part of the Ga East Municipality appears to have been cut-off the normal urban communities, and as a result of the low standard of living of inhabitants, farming is their main occupation.

For decades, the community had to make do without some basic social amenities, such as schools, health centers, public toilets and the like.
 

some settlements @ Boi

But for the benevolence of some NGO’s in health and education, as well as private stakeholders, establishment of the current CHPS compound and some schools here would not have seen the light of day.

Despite these welcoming initiatives in the area, a lot seems to be lacking in an attempt for the community to achieve developmental status like their more fortunate sister communities in the municipality.

Proper waste management systems here are pretty much non-existent, hence compelling inhabitants to dump refuse in an open space close to some homes, to the left of God’s Grace barbering shop, in the community.

This dump site also invariably serves as a public toilet for some inhabitants. On my visit, I spotted some children defecating on the dump site, bare-footed.

defecation on open refuse dump @ Boi

Unlike urban Accra, Boi and her surrounding communities have had to grapple with persistent neglect by city authorities. Until recently, Boi was a squatter community in total darkness.

The connection of the soon-to-develop area to the national grid came as welcome news and a breath of life into the community.

An action, which has led to the upsurge in petty business enterprises in the area, serving as a source of livelihoods for the people.

That notwithstanding, some dwellers here earn below the minimum wage of about six cedis for the least form of work done.

Some private investors identifying the community as a thriving ground for business have established some four private institutions of learning.

This move has in a way bridged the huge education gap among residents, but even this, is a reserve for the few town folk who can afford the fees.

Framers of the 1992 constitution, and their dream to see the citizens attain education in a certain form, seems not to be one that people of this community are entitled to.

The community lacks anything close to a public school, which would have served the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) needs of the people. For residents who were interested in some form of education for their wards, the children have to trek over a kilometer to the Abokobi district school far away in the municipal capital, Abokobi.

 If this is not a disincentive for getting education, what else can be?

With the outset of the rainy season, while some residents are heavily anticipating a good farming season, a few others whose dwellings are affected by the rains are dreading the rains. 

Marcus,tilling a piece of land @ Boi

I see Marcus busily tilling a piece of fenced land readying the portion for planting maize later in the week.

He is not alone; many other inhabitants are doing same.

The rains also usually leave in its wake huge gullies which make the already deplorable road networks unmotorable at times.

some roads @ Boi when it rains

Among the consequences of the season associated with rains,‘troskis’ do not ply the full distance of the road, leaving commuters and passengers stranded midway through their  journey.

Child exploitation does not appear abating anytime soon, at least not at Boi.At a facility close to the main chemical shop in the vicinity, some masonry work is on-going.

A number of below fifteen year old boys were busy fetching water from a half-broken bridge for use by the mason in his work.

The question which immediately arose in my mind was whether or not these young boys were doing these with the express consent of their parents.

I called one of the boys to have a word with him; he tells me his mother was aware of his participation of an activity like this.

How much are they paid for their work?

Surprisingly, the monies these guys are paid after such heinous work cannot even provide an average lunch meal for them.

One cedi per child, after several buckets of water fetched for the concrete works going on, this in its consistent form could be serious crime against these children and their rights.

 

some children in the community being exploited

A striking feature in this community is their religious nature. For some reason, many of the stalls and establishments in the area have religious inscriptions on them. Some were King Jesus International School, Christian Educational Center, To God be the glory hair saloon,’Nyame beye’ cold store among others.
And just as I decide to leave the community, I crush into a fascinating scene. Some weird missionary group had invaded the near-slum community and was performing some eye-catching displays, chanting and singing. Their energy was phenomenal.

The male missionaries had their haircut in a funny way with all the hair, but a small round portion on the back of their heads, shaved, like a monk.hahahahaaaaaaa… 

missionary group displaying in the community

If any of these sign postings are anything to go by, then inhabitants of the near-slum community, Boi must be really God-fearing. In their own small way, people of Boi are living the days as they come, and life for them is as modest as it gets.

ANY HOPE OR FUTURE FOR CHEMUENAA??

Sea @ Chemueenaa

general view of chemu sea

Few meters away from the last stop at Chemuenaa,a fishing community in chorkor,it was evident that sanitation conditions around here was on the low.But the gentle breeze that greeted us aboard the twenty year-old rickety Troski,compensated for the situation.

How serious the community folk took fishing and fish-mongering was overwhelming.We could remotely smell stale fish odour from where we were seated,the next lane behind the "mate".

Jemima had to conduct some interviews for a project she was working on,but could not speak Ga,which is the local language of the people.So I escorted her to assist her do the interviews,since I could put a few ga words together to make a complete thought better than she could.

It was Wednesday afternoon,approaching the sea shore,there were many children and adults doing any,two or all of swimming,fishing,crab-hunting,defecating,washing and playing football,synonymous with holiday beach scenes.

docked canoes at the shore

A few steps away from the shore,up a hill were wooden structures which served as abode for the fisher folks and their dependents.Tired parents laid on benches while their children played in the sea.
Jemima is shocked by what she sees.Children as young as four year olds are busily swimming and hunting crabs and fish.But I tell her it's normal in areas like these,speaking from experiences I had had growing up in Labadi.

Sowah is seen keenly observing a phenomenon while about fifteen meters into the sea away from the shore. Kotey,his five year old younger brother was playing with about eight fishes his brother had caught with his hook and line in a blue plastic bowl.Sowah was watching closely to see if his bait had caught a fish.

[Boy,boy,Jemima calls out to Kotey who comes to tell us that Sowah was actually fishing.] We told him we were explorers who wanted to know how the fishing experience was,and life at the sea shore.

[Sowah smiles at us and begins to speak with us.He is a class five pupil whose English speaking ability was not as terrible as the few guys we spoke to earlier.He tells us he comes occasionally to catch fish with his hook and line after school for use in the kitchen for food.]

[He is enthused about the numbers he had caught that day.He offers to teach us how but Jemima would not even go close to the sea.]
During the time of our conversation with Sowah,I noticed their parents were watching with keen interest from a distance,perhaps threatened by our presence.

[Alex is a seventeen year old boy who quit school while in class four.]He had to drop out to help his father fish and his mother monger the fish his father harvested.
Alex and his family are able to make 400 cedis on a good day from fish sales.
It appears Alex is a local champion here,[all the kids gather around us,while we are speaking with him.]

Asked whether he would like to go back to school,he responded in the negative.He wants to be a "fisherman"in future.
Francis is fifteen,and also a crew member of the young fishing clique here.For him,aside fishing,he would like to be a mason or a drivers' mate.He has not been to the classroom before and holds no ambition for schooling.

Though pathetic,these children,male and female find ways to entertain themselves in this community.They are excited about playing football among themselves and swimming.

More worrying was the conditions around the shore.[Just about a yard away from the shore,young and Older men are seen comfortably defecating along the sea.They are unfazed by our constant spying and would not even cover their "valuables".]

some residents defecating @ the shore

As the sea water occasionally waved towards the shore,it washed into it all the excreta the area folk left along the shore.
[Heaps of refuse stand in front of the wooden structures on a hill,while liquid waste drains from the heap into the sea.]

[We see some stray pigs having a good bathe as well together with the children.Close to the long heaps of refuse are half-destroyed pig Stys from which dark liquid and solid waste are seen trickling slowly into the sea.]

The challenges of those living here at chemuenaa are a multiplicity of issues.Mr. Mensah just returned from easing himself at the shore,and [tells us there is no public toilet facility around here,so whenever those living here felt like attending nature's call,the closest is the shore.]
[He doesn't find anything strange about it,partly because it has become their way of life.]

 At the sea shore, a group of pregnant female inhabitants led by Maa Korkor are having their monthly spiritual fortification. Every month, pregnant women go to the shore and undertake this activity. Turn after turn, each pregnant woman is asked to roll back up, front up, very close to the sea, to cover a certain length of space, under the guidance of Maa KorKor.

 

pregnant women @ the fortification

pregnancy fortification

This, I gather from some residents is done to keep the babies in their right places and to as well create that bond among the mothers, babies and the gods. A group of ten females are having this session at the time of my visit. What ran through my mind spontaneously was whether this act was medically advisable. How would pregnant women roll on their protruding bellies? What would be the long term ramifications of the act on the women and their health?
Could this be a contributory factor to the increasing numbers of maternal mortality cases being recorded in the country?.......................................................................................................................

Elsewhere tired Nii, one of the many fisher folk who went fishing earlier on this holiday, is seen lying at the shore. It might have been a really hectic trip. As if the conditions here are not bad enough, livestock being reared by dwellers move into the sea and wash themselves. Some pigs, I spotted had just finished splashing the sea water over themselves and were scavenging through the heap of refuse, just on the side of the sea.

insanitary conditions @ the shore

tired fisherman,Nii takes a nap

According to residents, the community lacks a public toilet. All attempts to contact the municipal assembly of the area, residents tell me have over the years proven futile. Just as the typical politician, the municipal chief executive only comes to solicit votes from the slumdwellers only when elections beckon.................

The facility which serves the need of the people is located far off the sea shore, hence those living close by are unable to have access. They lament this has left them with very little by way of choices. An uncomfortable scenario of fisher folk running about 200 meters from the shore to the public toilet is a lot of work, and dwellers are not ready to suffer such torture, while their best bet is as free a range as the sea shore.

As a result, all the inhabitants defecate by the sea, and whenever the waves roared up shore, it was sure to sweep away remnants of the fecal matter in their huge numbers, some solid, others watery, into the sea. A situation which poses serious long term health risks to these same people who use the water for their routine activities. No wonder this community records high cases of cholera.

Leaving the community,I saw an information van.The announcement bellowing from the speakers of the information van,was that,the next two days after my visit,there was going to be a massive community-wide clean-up exercise,to rid the area off some of the filth accumulated in the slum.

information van @ chemueenaa

 
While walking ahead still along the shore,Jemima lost the sole of her high heels,we called Nii to help us locate a provision shop,where she bought a pair of "aka me last" flip flop,and decided that we had had enough of the tour.

Meandering through the crevices and corners corners,we made for the roadside.
We left chorkor chemuenaa with a lot of emotions.Life has not been as easy for people living here like it has for some of us in the cleaner,more planned settlements,with if not all,a large chunk of social amenities at our disposal.
Education for instance is more of a luxury for people here than a necessity in the face of growing advancement in technology.
All we could do was to lament what the
future looks like for the children here,and what the future of the community itself is ????????..............
Komla Adom-GIJ- 19/02/14

kingsleykomla@gmail.com
www.kingsleykomla.blogspot.com

"CHORKOR IN MY EYES"

A closely-knit community,usually bashed for their way of life generally,and known for their predominant fishing occupation as a result of their proximity to the sea in the greater Accra region of Ghana,Chorkor is densely populated,with settlements scattered here and there,not your trassaco or east legon-type area,NO.

parts of chorkor slum

The inhabitants,despite their below average income earnings,are easy-going and open-minded,one of the reasons why I would love to live here.

It is a rainy day on Thursday,Ghana's celebrating her 57th independence anniversary,I have decided to travel to Chorkor to experience how a typical holiday like this means for the people here and their daily activities.

I alighted at "White House" and walked some meters up road,and before I got to Naa Tsotsoo's place,I had gone through three other people's compounds,with some sharing a common corridor.

It was slippery though,and my small umbrella I purchased at Tema station earlier at six cedis bargained price,could not prevent me from getting drenched by the rain drops.
If there is any word like shyness,certainly not in Chorkor.

[Sowah is urinating in the drain opposite the road which faces the frontier of Korle's father's house,seen that anywhere in urban Accra?]
Many of the children I met here are not schooling,just a handful are.

Gaming is their pride,especially of the young boys.They have become so addicted to TV games so much that,the least chance and coins they get,off to Nii's TV Game Center.

It costs just twenty pesewas to play.
Holidays are interesting days here.The boys and girls organize themselves and go for 'excursions'.

What they mean by excursion are trips to the beach,cinemas,hotels-especially when there are 'jams'.

Some go to the children's park,national stadium,but for others,another day at the Game Center.
This is exactly the situation today.Everyone is busy at something.

At the local spot further down the street,some of the guys are seated with their female counterparts,I'm told are their girlfriends nodding to "Shatta wale's dancehall king" tune,while others are busily 'buggi-ing' the azonto and alkaida to match.

[Many of the guys prefer going fishing @ Chemuenaa with or without their parents on normal days,so I sought to find out if they still go fishing on holidays.I get to chemuenaa and my word,this time not fishing,everyone is swimming and chatting with their friends,with little time to have a chat with me.]

Some young guys are burrowing the sea shore in search of crabs.Its amazing how they do this.All they did was use an empty can to dig into the sand,and as they do this and pick up signals of crab presence,they dig on.They are very smart to detect whether crabs live in a particular burrow or not.

After harvesting them all,they sell them to some inhabitants.Kojo tells me he sells five crabs for a meager twenty cedis.He is only eight years.

A few other children having put their creative caps on,improvise  swings which they play with.They have hung ropes from some fishing nets around the edges of the docked boats and are seen swinging back and forth,all in excitement.

swinging for pleasure @ the shore

crab hunting on indece day @ the shore

[Some mothers are using this day to clean up their fish ovens,baskets,and trays ahead of the next normal business day,while others are busily smoking their catch.]

a resident smoking her catch

daniel and myself at his brother's shop

Do they know about Ghana's Independence anniversary?Well yeah,they do,but there's very little they can do to celebrate.
[Unlike in urban Accra,where many stores and shops do not operate on holidays,over here it's different.All the shops and stores are open,and petty trading is still going on.]
[Daniel is twenty one years old,he is by far the only one I have met today,who speaks average English,not too surprised.He recently completed Osu Presec.]

[While his friends and the community folks are out and about 'chilling',he is attending to customers at a small [building materials store-"God is able ",the name of the enterprise,which he tells me his elder brother owns.]
Although he was born and raised here,he has a different opinion about life.

He revealed to me some really shocking issues.Not that I had not heard,that teenage parenthood is rampant here,but the admission by an inhabitant,to me was deep.

[He tells me everything.Amorous relationships among the youth here is over the top.And sex happens to be a normal exercise among the youth.

No wonder I see many very little children under three around here.Their mothers, are hardly seventeen years old themselves.]

Atwei,who had a baby a week ago,and I suspect is less than twenty years, is having an outdooring ceremony in the middle of the street which separates the local Guinness bar and her parents’ home.

It is fascinating how the outdooring is panning out. The MC calls out to residents here via a microphone to come and purchase rice mini packs and tins of milk at fixed prices of five and three cedis respectively.This,I am told is done primarily to raise some funds to support the upbringing of the child,who was being outdoored on Ghana’s 57^th independence commemoration.

Atwei sitting as outdooring continues

Amidst music and some jamming commentary interspersing each sequence,well-wishers thronged the centre where Atwei sat,to offer their widows might,a gesture which kept me wishing I had a child myself.After a few minutes of observing a typical outdooring here in Chorkor,I return to Daniel’s shop.

According to Daniel,he has very few friends,he does not want to get corrupted.He tells me he is one of the rarest non-sex having young guys I would find here.He holds a dream of remaining chaste until marriage,which inhabitants here are less enthused about.

There is an activity in the vicinity,everyday-funerals,parties,and naming ceremonies,and on Sundays,they go for church service.On a holiday,he comes to work like any other day,and hopes his elder brother who's shop he operates,will foot his polytechnic education bill soon.

Evenings are the more fascinating.Inhabitants hang out in their numbers just to chit-chat and deepen neighborhood ties.They seldom bear grudges against each other.

It was dusk,the community was still wet,and was loosing the brightness of the sky,I had to be making my way towards the roadside to get a Troski back to tema station.Making my way onto the streets,I came across women preparing kenkey and frying fish for sale in the evening.They will surely spend the holiday evening at work, as their other neighbours pop a bottle or two at the closest drinking pub.

kenkey and fried fish ready for sale

myself,preparing to leave chorkor

There was a certain 'feel good'sense around the community,apparently there were holiday bashes all over later in the evening,so the kids were preparing.They are pretty excited,both boys and girls,and hope to have a Funtime.

It was time to leave a lively community,to leave my new friends.The people here live life without the stress associated with living in some of Accra's urban areas,the stress of trying so hard to please neighbors in our communities,and the stress of keeping up a certain 'class' to feel valued in society.
  Everyone here relates well with their neighbors,and the kids appear even more united in their own small corners where their parents and grandparents reside.
These are the positive features of this community that make me feel like living here.

I wish I could join the "boys boys and girls girls" to the area jams this holiday night.I certainly have found a new home here,but there has to be an intensive sex education drive ( Sex education which is the lifelong process of acquiring information about sexual behavior,sexual relationships,and sexual health and of forming attitudes,beliefs and values about relationships,identity,and intimacy) for these kids,for it is surprising how many of them at my age and lower have their own children not one,some two and even three.

Komla Adom-GIJ
6/03/14.
www.kingsleykomla.blogspot.com
kingsleykomla@gmail.com
Twitter:@kingsley_komla

KROKOYILI; A SLUM WITH A COCKTAIL OF ISSUES

They were having a conversation while taking a rest behind Games Palace, on the Accra High Street. It was incredibly sunny, and a bunch of kayayei were seated at this basement trying to put themselves together.

Poor me! I could not understand a word. Can you blame me? I do not speak Dagbani.
 

a group of kayayei resting 

It was the first time I had been curious to have a hint of what the convo was about. I had always seen scores of these kayayei at bus terminals and market centers, be it rainy or sunny, unperturbed by the sometimes harsh weather conditions, carting heavy loads on their heads from one place to another.

I approach the girls and after a battle with the twi language on their part, I gather that they live around Agbogbloshie.My curiosity pushed me to attempt finding out exactly which part of the market they lived, and then my journey began.

About a hundred meters away from arguably the most popular foodstuff hub in Accra, opens up a channel leading to the suburban slum.

Agbogbloshie itself has over the years been noted as a destination for dumping electronic waste and other forms of waste materials. That was evident as thick dark fumes clustered in the atmosphere, and made vision somewhat difficult, no wonder it was ranked the world’s most toxic and largest electronic waste dump .

entrance into Krokoyili

an e-waste scrap dealer at agbogbloshie

Few meters on, I get to Krokoyili,a slum here in the city capital. The name according to Adamah,a slum dweller I meet means ‘a chief’s area,palace or residence’. The population of this irregularly arranged settlement numbers over a thousand individuals, largely consisting of migrants from the three northern regions and some other rural areas who have come to seek pastures green in the capital.

ACTIVITIES

Despite glaring lack of some basic amenities and the insanitary conditions here, as well as the health risk from the fumes emanating from burning electronic waste, inhabitants are full of life and are seen going about their economic activities.

Wooden structures, barely secure are the homes of these slum dwellers. A better place to lay their heads after each hectic day, unlike their less fortunate colleagues who have to put up under bridges, at lorry parks and market places at night. A look at the plight of female porters (kayayei).

unfortunate kayayei sleeping on the street

 Again it is open secret that slums in the city serve a lot of the time as haven for robbers, prostitutes, drug peddlers, among others.But,Krokoyili may well not be a slum, high in criminal activities.

The youth are seen carrying out various activities. Some weaving cane baskets, others operating a television center where they take 1.50p from customers to watch a football match, the ladies are seen preparing food for sale later in the evening, those who have motor bikes I am told are off to the Agbogbloshie market for business, many of whom I saw on my way to the community.

While a number of the girls operated a table-top saloon, others did petty sewing for other inhabitants at a fee.

a slum dweller weaving cane baskets

 Many kayayei live here, and rightly so, all of them are not home. They are busy in the markets carting people’s loads from the markets to their destinations.

busy day for krokoyili slum dwellers

 I enter a compound where Adamah lives with many other kayayei. She tells me she did not go to work because of ill-health. All her friends were out in the market. I find out from her whether she has seen a doctor, and it appeared as though I had offended the gods.

 She looks at me and shakes her head. Going to hospital is more of a luxury here than a necessity. Even if there were a health center here, Adamah tells me she would not attend.

Mobile drug vendors are those that serve their health needs, besides all she needs are a few tablets of analgesics to relieve her pain, which Iddrisu carries around for sale.

children of kayayei in an unkempt 'room'

Then, I wondered how many more people here were being ‘killed’ by these medicine sellers who do not have any medical locus whatsoever to dispense drugs.

Adamah's slum home

 As the conversation wore on, I spotted many children in an enclosure, some eating, some sleeping, others playing.Ndaa, a sixty year-old nanny is responsible for keeping watch over these children.
During the day, she uses her room as a ‘children’s home’ where she keeps children whose kayayei mothers are gone for work. This is how she makes a living in the slum. She charges one cedi per child, 1.50p for two and two cedis for three. During the day, she keeps watch over these kids, and feeds them before their mothers return to pick them up after work.

Those that are slightly older, she teaches them Arabic songs and local Arabic poems. This is the slum version of a ‘pre-school’ run in the urban cities. Access to free compulsory basic education as enshrined in the constitution of the country seems unheard of here, leaving me to question the provision which makes basic education a right, and not a privilege in these parts of the country.

The conditions under which these children are kept is worrying. The room itself appears unkempt, while some children had peed and ‘pooed’ on themselves, others had their noses running.

Once the many kayayei living in this slum took the decision to migrate down south, inadvertently, they made the decision to become teenage mothers.

According to a 2010 survey of kayayei conducted by the GHAFUP (Ghana Federation of the Urban Poor)  ,an affiliate of Slum Dwellers International, and Peoples Dialogue on Human Settlements, the majority (58%) of 15,000 respondents were engaged in some farming prior to their migration.

Out of this number, only (11%) had attended some basic school, while 13% had been idle. The low attendance is inconsistent with the spirit and intent of the Ghanaian constitution, especially when youths in the northern regions are supposed to have access to free education even at the Senior High level.

While those that fall victim to rapists and unscrupulous characters get pregnant, other get deceived by men, who promise them a better life, sleep with them and abscond.

kayayei children being fed in the slum

Adiza and Majia are both seventeen year olds who have a daughter each. They tell me their husbands are in Tamale, leaving the burden to upbringing on the tiny shoulders of these girls alone in the city. Asked whether their husbands send them monies to assist cater for their children, the response as expected was a big NO!

There are however a few of these girls here whose boyfriends and husbands live with them.

City family structure here is distorted, as on a daily basis, everyone wakes up and goes to work. There is hardly a time when mother, father and children can share the moments together.

To get a bucket of water here to bath costs 40 pesewas, to use the public bath house here costs a further twenty pesewas just as it costs to use the loo.

In all, before inhabitants set out for the day’s activities they well have to spend 80 pesewas to have access to basic amenities. You can imagine what would become of those who cannot genuinely afford this on a consistent basis.

An average dweller spends about eight cedis everyday on amenities and food here.

Despite all these inconsistencies, inhabitants find time to strengthen neighborhood ties. They gather around a television to watch the now popular television series, Maria Cruz at least to entertain themselves and laugh off their stress.Occasionally.they travel to their home villages and families especially during festivities.

During these times, such as Christmas ,Easter, and the Muslim Feasts, those who do not travel, organize themselves and go for trips to some recreational facilities to chill.

With time, some of them get employed as trading assistants, watchmen, house-helps chop bar attendants and the like. Some after gathering an appreciable amount travel back to their home villages, others also learn a trade or two; hairdressing, sewing, bead-making etc.

For some, this slum would be their dwelling until such a time when city authorities would ask them to vacate the place, a situation they dread.

The people are cool, friendly and welcoming. My visit demystified a lot of things that hitherto I thought were features in all slums. In every community, though, there is bound to be a bad nut, and definitely this slum is no different. But looking at the bigger picture, the prospects of some of these slum dwellers look bright.

Leaving the community however left many questions lingering on my mind.

Do these inhabitants have any hope for a better tomorrow?

Where would help come from?

How would they get social amenities like water, health care facility, and toilets without having to pay on a daily basis for these?

For how long would the kayayei living here continue the kaya business at the expense of their young children?

As for education, it is least the residents here are concerned about, but what will become of these children, our future leaders?

future leaders in a fix

Notwithstanding all the challenges confronting dwellers of this slum, they see some light at the end of the tunnel, however dim it may be.