So my sporadic blog entries are due to the fact that I am a
busy-busy bee here in Ghana. Many
education volunteers speak of free time and only teaching a few classes a
week. That is not the case for me. I teach, plan lessons, and grade papers for 12-two
hour classes a week. Not complaining but
it has been a bit draining lately and I am ready for the term break. Aside from teaching I am also assisting in
planning a week-long national leadership conference for senior high students, leading a health club at my school, and
working on grants for a computer lab and library. Just wanted to give a brief update on what
I’ve been doing before I get to the real topic of this blog.
If you
look at Ghana, its politics, and it’s freedom, it is one of the most if not THE
most progressive nation in West Africa.
We recently successfully held a free and fair election for a new
president. The Minister of Human Rights,
appointed by the president himself is a supporter of LGBT rights in a nation
where homosexuality is widely frowned upon, not to mention illegal. But there are many things that I see far too
often that remind me I am far from home.
It’s my own belief that strict traditional gender roles and whole
hearted beliefs in taboos and witchcraft will continue to separate Ghana from
the modern world.
The
first topic is one that did not come up so often in my first few months here, but
as I make friends and get more social, it has been appearing in conversation
time and time again, so I felt compelled to write about it. It is the widespread belief in witchcraft,
and it is truly amazing. It is not to
say that all Ghanaians believe in it, but I am frequently shocked at the
caliber of some individuals that do.
College educated people with multiple degrees are among the
believers.
My
favorite subtopic here is the issue of Ghanaian Witchcraft vs. American
Witchcraft. My students as well as
friends and co-workers have all told me that Ghanaian witches use their powers
to bring despair and suffering to people that they are envious of. That is why Ghanaians are suffering. If something bad happens, it is not uncommon
that it was at the hands of a witch.
American witches, though, they use their powers to bring prosperity and
goodness to their people. That’s just
another reason why America is so great.
It has good witches! I tell them
that the overwhelming majority of Americans do not even believe in witches,
including, myself. They tell me that is
good, because if you do not believe in them, they cannot harm you. “??” So I ask, why doesn’t everyone just stop
believing in witches and we will all be in the clear! That just confuses them completely.
This
seems like an innocent traditional cultural belief, and it can be, but it has
also proven to be very dangerous. For
example, in the northern regions of Ghana they have ‘Witch Camps’ where people
who are believed to be witches are sent to live out their entire lives,
isolated from society, unable to do ‘harm’.
Hundreds of women have been forced into witch camps, and most of the
time these women are uneducated and illiterate.
They do not know any better, and that kind of trauma might cause many of
these people to believe they are actually witches. If someone eats food and gets sick, the
person that prepared the food might be deemed a witch. Off to the witch camp you go. Bacterial food poisoning maybe? Nope, definitely a witch’s doing.
Other
tragic cases often involve children. A
child born with deformities might be considered to be a ‘spirit child,” one
that is intent to do harm to all people that encounter him/her. Or if the parents fall ill soon after
birthing a child, it might also be a ‘spirit child.’ Many of these ‘spirit children’ have been
killed by ‘conconction men’ that make a poisonous brew of toxic roots to give
to the child in order to kill it and stop it from doing harm. There has been accounts of a father dying
shortly after he gave a punishment to a child.
The child is then accused of being a witch and killing the parent in
anger. The child may then be severely
neglected and isolated from the family, or worse.
I discussed this issue with the chief of a
large district in Kumasi, a major city in Ghana. He is a highly educated man and one that does
not believe in witchcraft. He made an
interesting point that it is a problem of illiteracy and poverty. He told me that a rich person would never be
accused of being a witch, no matter what tragedy presents itself. A very unfortunate side effect of poverty is
lack of education, which leads to lack of understanding of the workings of the
natural world.
Let’s
move to gender roles. Ghana is an
extremely traditional society and women simply do not enjoy the same treatment
as men. It is a highly patriarchal
society. One of the first real gender shockers
I encountered came on behalf of both a student and fellow teacher at my
school. The action that set the stage
was a perceived mishandling of a student’s attendance record. We have what is called a ‘register prefect’
which is a student appointed to record all student attendance for the
school. This register prefect is a
female student. A male student happened
to view his attendance record and believed he was marked absent when he was
present. This inspired him to go to the
register prefect and hit her in the back of the head with a closed fist, hard
enough to bring tears to the girl’s eyes and a bump on her head. This of course sent her wailing and throwing
rocks at the boy. The entire encounter
was witnessed by a male teacher. We had
a small staff meeting to decide how to punish the boy and if it was necessary
to punish the girl for marking the register incorrectly. My input was that physical violence should
never be tolerated no matter the reason and the boy should be punished. There was a dispute among teachers on whether
or not the girl should be punished for making an error in the register. It was amazing that the conversation was
focused more on the accuracy of the register than the fact that a male student
physically abused a female student. It
did not seem to be a very big deal. Almost
as if it was acceptable for the girl to be hit if she marked it
incorrectly. One of the male teachers
also gave his input that if we do not want the boys to abuse the girls, we need
to train the girls not to insult the boys in case the boys cannot control
themselves and feel the need to hit the girls.
My mental reaction was: “WWWHHHHAAAAAT!??” But I did not lose face and decided I would
have a private conversation with the teacher later. That conversation ended in me convincing the
teacher that maybe counseling the
boys on withdrawing from physical violence might
help but it would be better to teach the girls to respect the men so they don’t
get hit……Because in Ghana it is not uncommon for a man to control his wife with
his hands……but doing trying both strategies is a good idea. Small progress…small progress.
It is
also very common for the girls in school, even the bright and promising girls,
to act dumb and pretend they do not know the answers in class in order to not
insult the boys by making it appear the girls are smarter. This even happens at the university
level. I was with a Ghanaian friend of
mine, who attends a teacher training college, while he was telling his
elementary school sister, who is her class captain, not to speak out in class
all the time if the boys are keeping quiet.
I asked him why he was teaching his sibling to be submissive and he said
that’s just how it is, even at his university.
The boys should always be stronger.
Families are also more likely to send a son to university and not worry
about the daughters education as the main concern there is that the woman finds
a husband and will not need to work.
Finally,
women are simply not as respected as they should be. I was having a drink with my friend after a
funeral and his friend and wife later joined us. The first thing his friend said to me was
“Wow! Nice American lady! I always said that I wanted to marry a white
woman but I had to marry her instead” as he gestured to his wife. I could not believe he would make such a
comment in the presence of his wife, who just looked down and did not say a
word the entire time. It was
uncomfortable. I thought he was joking
but he continued to talk about how all Ghanaian men want a white wife and
Ghanaian women only disturb their husbands.
I am positive that in this particular case, the husband was doing the
disturbing. But then again, this type of
society encourages women to be passive and submissive to their husbands, so maybe
she didn’t mind. I did.
So,
needless to say, these things remind me of how different the world is outside
America. Something like witchcraft, that
we think is pure nonsense and a cheap form of entertainment in the movies is a
serious and scary reality for some people.
Women’s rights and equality have come along way in the U.S. but even a
progressive nation like Ghana has a lot of catching up to do in that
field. I also believe that America is
less like the rest of the world than any other nation. There are more third world countries out there
that lack education and freedom and that perpetuates these views. Many are hundreds of years behind Ghana. I think most of the world’s nations have
views and ideas that are less like Americans and more like traditional
Ghanaians. But you just have to get out
in the world and find out for yourself!
Otherwise you’ll never know.
