Spring Break in Ghana - Part 2

Outside the orphanage

The "work" portion of our trip was a key aspect of what made this a rewarding and great spring break overall, but much of our time was actually spent exploring the culture and sites of Ghana and also just relaxing and enjoying ourselves.  Going into all the details of the 10 day trip will take too long, but hopefully this post will give a fuller description of the cultural and recreational activities of our trip to Ghana.

The team left for Ghana at 1 pm on St. Patrick's Day, about 24 hours after our last final of the winter quarter, and arrived in Africa around noon (Ghana time) the following day. Isaac had a lot of Delta points and was able to upgrade us to seats with excellent legroom which would have made for a very pleasant flight, if it wasn't for the arctic-like temperature of the plane.  We landed in the only airport in Ghana, in the capital city of Accra.  We had a pleasant lunch at Frankie's, "the best restaurant in town," which was tasty and had air condition, but was basically a diner.  Afterwards we did a major grocery shopping trip to get food for the week since we didn't want to trust street vendors for most food, and there weren't any grocery stores closer to where we would be staying.  Accra itself seemed more developed than I was expecting, but as we drove towards the orphanage where we would be staying, the environment increasingly felt like a 3rd world country.  There seemed to be more buildings that were partially completed (but no longer being constructed) than finished, and no real businesses to speak of.  The roads were swarming with goats and street vendors selling every item under the sun (ranging from fruit, to sunglasses, to coloring books to action figures).  Traffic was a nightmare (as apparently it always is near Accra), and it took us 3-4 hours to get to the orphanage. 

I was very impressed with the size and quality of the orphanage.  It was a two story building on a 17 acre property and had a multitude of rooms.  There were enough bedrooms that each of us got our own room (except for the two girls, Kate and Daphne, who decided to stay in the same room).  There was a large dining/living room area with several ceiling fans, where we spent most of our time, eating meals, playing games, and getting our work done.  There were no children staying at the orphanage, but 3 young men, who were watching after the building, and served as our hosts and guides for the week.  Still, conditions were far from what we were used to.  Even with the fans, we were hot and sweaty throughout the stay.  There were insects (we had to sleep with mosquito nets over our beds) and the building (less than 10 years old) had lots of structural damage.  Privacy in the group bathrooms was limited in that some of the toilet and shower stalls had only thin curtains that didn't cover the entire stall, but many of them had no privacy at all.  There was no hot water for the showers (although this normally felt pretty refreshing). The electricity was spotty, and went out for around 12 hours one night (which would make the area pitch black if it wasn't for the moon) leading to an especially sweaty sleeping situation.

Overall, we actually ate very well on the trip. Our breakfasts and dinners were all put together ourselves in the orphanage. Isaac whipped together a delicious fish dinner one night which was designated as the best meal of the trip. We had one authentic Ghani dish, Fufu, which took several hours and a lot of pounding to prepare. We ate at Frankie's on our return to trip to Accra, and made two other lunch stops at restaurants during the trip. The fresh fruit was outstanding (we ate a ton of pineapple), and I stand by my claim that the mangos I ate there were the best I've ever had. 

Latenight game of cards

As far as nighttime activities go, we wasted little time in setting the precedent for the trip.  Even on the first night, we realized that since we couldn't leave the premises, we'd have to find ways to entertain ourselves.  Luckily we had several decks of cards and multiple bottles of alcohol.  It became our nightly tradition after dinner to make some cocktails and play some games.  We usually started with a large communal game that all 7 of us could play (occasionally Ben, one of the Ghanaians staying at the orphanage, would join too).  This usually involved games of Mafia, Family Business, or Kings/Queens/Pauper.  Occasionally people would start getting sleepy and when there were 4 of us we would start playing different games (Turnip, a Arab game similar to Spades, was our late-night game of choice), and after that ended a couple of us would just hang out for a bit.  Partially because I struggled to sleep in the heat, but mostly because I found these nights highly entertaining, I was always one of the last to go to bed, usually after 2 am, and as late as 4 on one occasion.  More because of the amount of time spent hanging out than because of aggressive drinking, we managed to average a bottle of whiskey a night, but luckily liquor stores were prevalent in the closest town, Kasoa.  And although these nights had very little to do with Ghana itself, they ended up being some of the more fun, laugh-filled parts of our trip, and wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the conditions we were staying in.  Sometimes you just need to get away from technology and city distractions to get grad students to enjoy the simple pleasures of a night of games with some friends (and a couple glasses of whiskey, of course).   

Some of the children at a local village

On our first full day we stopped at several small villages to visit a couple children that Suzie had worked with on previous visits to Ghana. These communities were a stark contrast to Accra, or even Kasoa. The villages were just as undeveloped as you might imagine when trying to picture a 3rd world country. The shelters are basically just one room huts and there seemed to be way more people in the towns than there seem to be room to house them all. Many villages didn't have electricity or any other amenities. But despite the conditions, the people seem happy, and were especially friendly to us. We played with some of the children in the first village for awhile, and they seemed very receptive to us taking their pictures and hanging around.

This wasn't until later in the trip, but in one community encounter that I found especially interesting, we went to the area chief's village. The chief himself had actually recently passed away, so Suzie wanted to pay respect to the family. We were greeted very warmly when entering the village, and then were ushered into the chief's house where we met his wife, brother, and other family members. The chief's family were all clothed in extravagant robes and walked with large staffs. It's really tough to explain, but it was a fascinating experience that was partially ceremonial in nature, and seemed almost otherworldly.

Our second day featured a trip to a local beach.  It took us close to 2 hours to get there (our hired driver kept getting lost), but eventually we arrived.  We had to walk through a village of gawking locals to get there, but the beach itself was fairly nice.  There were some solid waves, and a lot of area to walk around.  We played Frisbee with some local kids, and just relaxed and soaked up the lovely weather throughout the afternoon.  The walk back to our van was a little more interesting.  The tide had come in, so we needed to pay the locals to take us back on their canoe to get us back to town.  We also may or may not have walked past lots of human waste products throughout the village, which made us question how clean the water had been that we'd just spent the day swimming in.

Boti Falls

Our business plan work started on the third day, but other recreational/sightseeing activities during the week included a canopy walk over a rain forest, feeding crocodiles at a restaurant, touring an old slave fort, browsing a food market and a craft market, a trip to Boti Falls (this was an 11 hour excursion in all, and we only spent 15 minutes at the waterfalls before a monsoon-like storm came through and forced us back to the van), and a final relaxing afternoon swimming and hanging out at the nicest hotel in Accra. 

There are plenty of more details and stories that can be said about the trip, but I think I've captured my main thoughts and impressions.  I'll let the photos speak for themselves to fill in the blanks of the rest of the stories and activities.  The link below is the condensed album for the trip (I took 300 pictures, and Isaac, with his new SLR camera, took 1,500).  Enjoy:  https://picasaweb.google.com/eric.schaaf/Ghana2011#

Spring Break in Ghana - Part 1

Overlooking the land owned by the orphanage we stayed at

Going into my spring break trip to Ghana I really had no idea what to expect.  Admittedly it's an odd vacation destination for what will probably be the second-to-last true spring break trip of my life.  There was plenty of uncertainty with the plans and logistical details, possibilities of health and safety risks, and a high chance of discomfort from sweating through humid 95 degree days. But I felt like this was a unique, can't-miss opportunity to spend some time in Africa (a continent I had never previously entered) for a fair price (the organization would be funding most expenses besides airfare) while trying to do something productive.  So although it may not be as relaxing as a beach trip to Costa Rica, or as cultural as the Anderson-wide trip to China, I knew 9 days in Ghana would be instantly memorable.  And with a solid group of classmates already signed up, I knew we'd make the most of it and have a good time.  This all proved to be true and then some.

(Sidenote: The only other alternative trip I had seriously been considering was the annual Anderson trip to Japan, which I'm obviously glad I didn't choose since it ended up being canceled following the tragic natural disasters a week before spring break).

Exploring the land

So the premise behind the trip was that my classmate Isaac's mom (Suzie) had founded orphanages in many 3rd world countries.  They had all been successful except for the one in Ghana, which was facing staffing issues, funding shortfalls, and many additional operational problems.  The main issue that Suzie wanted us to tackle was to decide if there was a way that the orphanage could generate income on its own, to supplement the sporadic funding from the organization's donors.  The orphanage was on 17 acres of land, and since Ghana is largely an agricultural country, the obvious choice seemed to be to convert some of this land into a farm.

To gather our research while in Ghana, we spoke with a number of local consumers, interviewed the manager of a large pineapple planter and exporter, visited food markets, and explored the property.  Over the course of several days we collected a plethora of data and information on every aspect of the processes and risks involved in farming, and became mini-experts in the surprisingly complex world of pineapple farming in undeveloped countries.  We then used all this data to put together some really groovy looking financial models, cash flow projections, and sensitivity analysis in Excel to determine if this was a feasible plan and if it could actually be profitable.  Finally we presented our full short and long term business plan for this endeavor to Suzie.  Having met a lot of the natives and gotten to know some locals pretty well, we even made staffing recommendations.  Suzie loved what we put together, and asked if we would be willing to put together a full Power Point presentation and accompanying report, fly out to Denver and meet with her biggest donors to make a pitch to them asking for the start-up capital to get this project off the ground.

Team Ghana hard at work

All in all, it felt really good seeing how much quality work we got done in such a short time, how much Suzie appreciated our efforts, and how, if everything works according to plan, this could make a difference for the future of the orphanage.  I've said it plenty of times before, but I'm continuously impressed with the quality level of students at Anderson, and this was certainly a prime example of that. It was a team effort, but in such a unique situation with cultural and language barriers, the way certain members of the team seemed to naturally know who to talk to, what to ask, the proper way to analyze and synthesize the information, and then put it all together into a coherent and convicing presentation was very impressive.

In a weird way (probably because we're business students), we enjoyed putting all that stuff together and was getting caught up in the experience.  But don't worry, this spring break trip wasn't all work.  I'll leave the details of our other activities during our 10 day trip for the next post.