The Doxy Effect

Malaria is a horrifying disease - especially if you don’t treat it and don’t have any natural resistance (Like most white people don’t).

To solve this problem of getting deadly sick, most people take what is known as “Malaria-Prophylaxis” or more commonly known as “Malaria-Pills”. There are several kinds/compounds/drugs/brands on the market and they all the various pro’s and con’s.

Lariam (Mefloquine) is effective, fairly cheap, needs to be taken only once a week, but the side effects range from nightmares to paranoia, depression and schizophrenia.

Malarone, which is the newest and most recommended drug, is taken once a day, very effective, very few side effects – but a single pill (daily dose) costs around 6$(30dkr). Multiply that by 5 months and you are at $900(4.500dkr). Money I would rather spend elsewhere.

The final choice is Doxycycline. It’s actually an antibiotic – but seems to work as a Malaria Preventative Pill as well. You take 1 pill a day, lower dosage (100mg) than if you were treating a disease. Side effects include: sunburn and photosensitivity (though I haven’t felt anything yet) – and of course the problems that might come up from taking antibiotics non-stop for 5 months. But!: The prices for 5 months is $24(130dkr). And here comes the interesting part:

If you Google Doxycycline uses, the following things come up:
• Treatment of bacterial infections
• Acne treatment
• An alternative for the prevention of malaria
• Treatment of anthrax infections
• Treatment of rosacea
• Treatment of periodontitis (gum disease).

Bacterial Infections
Doxycycline can be used to treat a number of different types of infections caused by bacteria. It is most commonly used to treat infections such as:

• Certain types of pneumonia
• Chlamydia
• Rocky Mountain spotted fever
• Typhus fever
• Tick fever
• Syphilis (when unable to take penicillin)
• Some respiratory or urinary tract infections (UTIs)
• Plague
• Cholera
• Tularemia
• Gonorrhea
• Lyme disease.

Essentially, doxy is protecting me from a whole range of diseases (or at least that is what I like to tell myself). Kaisa had Typhoid Fever a few weeks ago – but I like to tell myself that due to the Doxy-Effect, I did not get it – since the vicious Doxy-drug butchered any typhoid bacteria that might have entered my system. (or my vaccination against typhoid worked).

I’m not a doctor – so I don’t know if this is actually true. Can antibiotics be used as a prophylaxis against say – bacterial infections from wounds and food?
If it can – well, that’s the Doxy Effect for you. The best externality Malaria-Prophylaxis can get you!

"Obruni Magic”

“Obruni” is the Twi (local language in southern Ghana) word for “white person” or “foreigner”. Wherever we go we are always addressed as “Obruni”. The sales women will yell, “Hey Obruni – what do you want”. People on the street will say “Hey Obruni”, and all the children I come by always yell “Obruni, Obruni, Obruni” while waving aggressively.

Usually when I’m out in town or just playing with all the kids, who hang out at the night market close to my building, I’ll do one of my two magic tricks that I’m really proud of. They are both very simply, but advanced enough to trick a 5-year old, which I find great amusement in (you have no idea how much street respect you get from doing magic in a quite superstitious society). One of the tricks is an old one my dad used to do when I was a kid. It involves me removing my thumb and then reattaching it again. It looks quiet real – but works best on children. (For some reason most grown-ups are too smart).

The other trick, which I do more frequently and in several variants, is the “make the coin disappear-trick”. I’ll take a coin (or a stone), put it in my hand, close my hand and make it disappear. The kids usually scream and look very surprised when I open my hand and the stone is not there anymore.

This has made some of the local kids give me the nickname “Obruni-Magic” – which I find quite funny and amusing. Not that I consider myself very magical – but if I can entertain some kids and make them laugh – my day is saved.
My two tricks have also found many uses beyond our little Accra World. Whenever we travel and meet some kids, I always pull one of them off. Almost always the reaction is surprise, joy and excitement. Very entertaining. It in someway proves that children all around the world are basically the same. They all love to play an have fun.

My magic skills were also used a lot on some of the longer journeys in 2009 in Sierra Leone. I remember once when Clem and I got stuck in a little tiny village, cause out motorbike ran out of fuel. The driver borrowed a regular bicycle and biked 2 hours back-and-forth to the nearest village to get some fuel. In the meantime we entertained the entire village with magic and - despite the language barrier - made very good friends with the elders and the people not out working the fields.

So yeah – if you ever come to Ghana and hear someone yell “Obruni Magic” – I’m probably not far away. (Or someone copied my tricks!)

Water in a bag, Typhoid Fever, How to send an e-mail and other peculiarities.

Water in a bag is an extremely practical invention. Instead of buying a bottle, you buy water in a small plastic bag (locally known as sachet-water). The water from the tap is not clean enough for drinking, so you have to rely on purified water for drinking unless you want to experiment with all kinds of waterborne diseases and stomach problems. A 1L water bottle cost 1 Cedi (80US Cent, 4 Kr) and a bag of 30 Sachets with 400ml in each cost 1.35 Cedi. A lot of money to save. Plus, they are super convenient. So cool. Maybe I should try to introduce those back home. Wonder if they would be a success?

Last weekend was a stay-at-home-weekend. I spent most of my time trying to catch up with some homework. The plan was to go to Benin this weekend and take advantage of our 30 day visa for Togo. (you have to cross Togo to enter Benin, unless you want to travel 2000 Km around Togo).

Unfortunately Kaisa wasn’t feeling too good this Tuesday. She had a lot of stomach pain so decided to go to the hospital to have a check up. It turned out she had gotten typhoid fever. It sounds a lot worse than it is. Yes, she was sick and spent 2 days in bed. But the disease is easily treatable with antibiotics and if it is treated it is not much worse than a small flue. Typhoid is transferred when you eat something that has been in touch with human feces from a person who had typhoid fever. Essentially it’s important that you avoid eating shit – or make sure that the people who cook you food wash their hands before cooking – and that you make sure to wash your own hands before eating (its here the golden invention of Hand Sanitizer comes into the picture).

Last night Kaisa was already feeling better, and came by my room and hung out for a while. Hopefully she’ll be fully fine by Monday – so she’s ready to leave for Benin next Thursday.
School have been relaxing so far. It is not always the most challenging classes, yet almost always very interesting. In two of my classes (out of 5), I’m the only white/foreign student. Sometimes feels a bit weird sitting in a classroom with 200 Ghanaians and being the only white person. Especially because you really can’t hide. Fortunately the teacher in that class is really nice, even though he keeps asking me questions in front of the entire class (which is really awkward!)

Oh – and I got homework this week. My homework consists of sending an e-mail. Jep, in one of my other classes the professor asked everyone to send him an e-mail, to show him that we knew how to send e-mails. Such a different world. Think I sent my first e-mail in 1999, when I was in the US on a CISV camp. More than 11 years ago – and now we are asked (in a 4th year university course) to send one has homework. Just so different.

I’ve also got a group project for another class. One of the group members had never heard of Wikipedia. When you think about it, it’s not that strange –but for me as a student it was still quite surprising. (Just for the record, the project is actually a “real project” we have to write a 4 page critique of the modernization theory).
Having mentioned that, I have to underline that even though there are several computer cafes on campus, and many students do have computers.. However I yet have to see one bring a laptop to class (which is not the norm in Canada). I have thought a bit of brining mine, but I think it would be strange since no one else does it. Even though I miss being able to look up words or facts on the spot – as the lecture goes on.

So yeah all is well. I even started swimming. Me swimming? I know – it’s hard to believe. Me swimming? But they’ve got this 50meters (Olympic size) pool 5 minutes walk from my residence. And for the majority of the time, the pool is completely empty – so I’ve got the entire pool to myself. Quite ideal for swimming. It’s especially nice when you are all soaked in sweat and the temperature reaches 30 degrees with insanely high humidity.

To go to Togo

Funny right? If you say Togo slowly it sounds like “To Go”. Ok, actually it’s not that funny. But it gave us a good laugh. Spent the weekend in Togo. Very interesting and different country.

I traveled with Kaisa, Rochelle and Jessica. So the same quartet I traveled with to Cape Coast last weekend.
I studied with Kaisa and Rochelle in Canada at Simon Fraser University. They are both UWC’ers. Rochelle and I also studied together in Norway, so we’ve known each other for a while. Jessica is Canadian, studies in Montreal and speaks French. A good skill to have when going to a Francophone country.

So off we went in a little “Tro-Tro” (Mini vans with rows of homemade seats, functioning as a bus) to the Togolese border. The rural areas of Ghana are significantly poorer than Accra, yet still more developed than Sierra Leone. The road was paved all the way, and most villages and cities had electricity. A thing Togo did not. Not even in Lomé, the Capital.

We made it to Togo about 5pm. The border crossing was a joke. The Togolese immigration office consists of two tables standing under a small thatched roof. I wasn’t allowed to take a picture, but it was so strange. Standing there in the open filling out Visa forms. We filled out our papers and paid the 10.000 West African Francs the Visa cost. In most (all?) Francophone countries in West Africa they use the same currency, the West African Franc, which should make trade and traveling between the countries a lot easier (haven’t tried myself yet – so can’t tell for sure).

Lomé is essentially on the border – which meant we could walk from the border to our hostel. Quite convenient.
People in Togo are very friendly, and in many ways less harassing and direct than people in Ghana. Personally I was not too comfortable with the country in the beginning, but I think it mainly stems from the fact that I don’t speak French (and hate admitting to people that I don’t speak their language). It makes you feel very handicapped, when you have no clue what people are telling you. Not sure how we would have survived without Jessica’s help in a country where people barely speaks English.
About Lomé: It is a lot smaller than Accra, but still in some respects a very beautiful city. Unfortunately due to several years of political unrest and bad economic policies the cities has been allowed to fade. You can sense that it used to be a grand and magnificent city once upon a time. Which sadly enough is the feeling you get in many African cities. Things where built in better times, but never maintained.

In on the Friday in Lomé we visited a Fetish (in the French meaning of the word – i.e. “object of spiritual meaning” or something like that) market. Many people in Togo still swear to the old traditional beliefs. A part of this belief involves buying lots of small articles to protect yourself and your house and to cure you from diseases and curses. Some of these things are quite obscure. How about the head of a monkey? Or what about the claw of an eagle? For not to mention the shell of a turtle, the skin of a leopard, a horse skull, some snake skin, or maybe just a dead owl on a stick. . . .?
(They wanted money for pictures, so unfortunately I don’t have any, but there are a few good ones here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/05/africa_togo0s_voodoo_market/html/1.stm and here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pritheworld/3351359593/in/photostream/ )
We went to see the “chief/medicine man” who told us about these small items with magical properties (which he of course tried to sell us): The ebony fruit/nut makes you sleep better if blessed by the chief, the telephone fetish (little piece of pink wood), provides safe travels if you whisper in it and so on. Could not really make up my mind as to whether this was a tourist scam or whether people really believed in it – but interesting non the less. Yet , it didn’t really seem like a place many tourists came. The market was too hard to find, and too big to only survive on tourism.

Saturday morning we went to a West African Art/Culture museum. The museum was founded by a Swiss anthropologist who wanted to give African Art back to Africa. He has spent the last couple of years traveling in West Africa collecting old cultural items and art pieces. A few years ago he opened his private collection to the public, essentially turning it into a museum. Very interesting to see all the strange and different statues, bracelets, helmets etc that the various cultures used for ceremonies.
After the museum trip we bargained with a cab driver and made him drive us 2 hours north to the city Kpalimé (pronounced Palime), for the same price the bus would have cost us.

Kpalimé is very different from Lomé and a lot smaller. Located in a lush green region of hills and cocoa farmers it is the center of agricultural commerce in Togo. This was very visible from the fantastic agricultural market in the center of the village. Fruits, vegetables and spices everywhere. In addition the beautiful location, the people were a lot more friendly and relaxed (Perhaps, more a country-side mentality than a clear cultural difference).

We spent the night in Kpalimé. Sunday morning we did a hike in the beautiful countryside. We simply caught a ride 20 minutes out of town where we found a little path, which we followed it up along a mountainside. On out little hike, between banana and mango trees, we found a ripe cocoa that we shared next to a little waterfall. Not the worst lunch. On the way back we must have touched some poisonous tree or bush, cause all of us had red spots on our arms and legs (We are all still alive).

When we got back to Kpalimé we caught the oldest and most rusty car I’ve ever seen in my life to the Ghanaian border (100km North of Lomé). Here the Ghanaian border officials joked with us and took down out names from the Declaration Card so they could find us on Facebook. They also wanted our numbers. I took down one guy’s number, and when I didn’t to call him later that night, he called me monday morning and complained. (He must have taken my number off the Declaration Card!) A little weird, but a normality by now. Many people want to make “professional friends” with you. He called me and asked how I was and said he would call when he came to Accra so we could meet. I spoke to the guy for about 1 minute when I filled out the declaration form. Not the way I usually make friends.

We however made it safely back to Accra with a Tro-Tro sunday night, and all in all had a great trip to Togo. Bon Voyage!

Leapfrogging Development: Mobile Banking

For those new to the phenomena I’ll try to explain it briefly:

In most “Developing” countries cell phones works through a “top-up” system. You simply buy a little voucher off one of the street vendors who stands at basically every corner, and use this voucher to add credit to your phone. Or – you pay a vender to “send” you credits electronically. (The vender will send credits from his phone to your phone).

At some point people figured out that this “credit” could also be used as a currency. So instead of paying people in cash, they paid in “credit”. They simply sent credits from their cell to the salesperson’s cell, when they purchased something. This means that people do not have to carry cash, which in an almost purely cash based economy is a major step forward.

Yet, the true ingenuity with mobile banking is the transfer of credit (money) between relatives. In many African countries family members often live far apart. Perhaps the dad is a seasonal migrant worker, or the mother moved to the city to see that the kids could go to school. For whatever reason family members often live far apart. Earlier this meant that transporting money was a tedious process.

To continue with our example:
Imagine the husband seeking work in the city, while leaving the family behind in the rural areas. In the city there are better work opportunities and higher wages. Earlier, when he wanted to send remittances (money) back to his dependants (children, wife etc), he would either have to give up a few days of work and travel all the way home with a big stack of cash. In this way he did not only loose valuable days of work, but traveling with a big stack of cash is not very safe in countries where poverty is widespread and theft or pick pocketing happens on a wide basis. With mobile banking, he can simply send the money back home electronically.

Since the start of just sending “credits”, the system has developed so you now have a separate mobile bank on your phone. I added 10Cedi (about 8 USD) to my account. When I owed my friend Kaisa 2 Cedi, I simply sent them to her from my phone. If you need to cash to the money, you simply drop by one of the many official venders or co-operating banks and send them your money, which they in turn will give you as cash. Brilliant right?

Ghana: A Developing Country….or?

The obvious answer to this question is “yes”. Ghana is a developing country by all means. A very fast developing country in fact.
Which in many ways challenge the way people think of “Developing Countries”. Many developing countries fail to develop all together, why the use of the word “developing” (though politically correct) is somewhat misleading.

A more suitable question to ask would be something along the lines of: Is Ghana a hopelessly lost economically stagnant country, caught in a poverty trap with no or few good prospects for the future? Absolutely not.

In many ways Ghana reminds me more of Central America ( e.g. Honduras or Nicaragua) than of Sierra Leone, which I have previously visited. Granted, Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries on the earth, but the difference is still striking and serves as an important reminder that box-categorizing sub-Saharan Africa as “Poor” is wildly misleading. Africa has more than 50 countries. Putting them all into the same category is not only very simplistic, but also rarely useful when talking about development.

So back to Ghana:
All the roads are paved. There are streetlights almost everywhere. Reliable electricity. Cell phone connectivity is impressive. EVERYONE has a cell phone, and there are 4 or 5 major companies competing for customers. Recently “Mobile Banking” made it to Ghana. Though it is not yet used on a wide basis, the concept is still interesting. For more on that you’ll have to wait on my next post, which (for sure) will be about mobile banking.

I have still only seen few parts of the country, (have not yet been to the north, which is suppose to be the “poor” part) but so far things seem to be moving at insane speed. There are building projects going on all over Ghana. Hotels, Malls, Office Centres. Everything. While most of the billboards next to the central roads leading from my university into Accra advertise for cheap cell phone deals, some advertise for everything from Birkenstock Sandals(which are now sold at the newly built Accra Mall), to Ford Escape. This indicates that the middle class has now grown big enough to demand these things.

It is however also a fact that there is a great inequality in Ghana. If you are rich you are often superrich and being poor is still not happy times, yet literacy rates for 15-24 years olds are still above 75% (in 2005 – probably higher now) and primary school enrollment is free and is attended by more than 90% of both genders.

All this is positive news and definitely great for the country. In general I also feel a very positive vibe from people down here.
The mood is generally high, people are really friendly and helpful and I feel very safe and secure walking around most places.

The other night we spoke to a Ghanaian woman who started her own company helping NGO’s carry out there projects. She told us about a school where the kids sat on benches, and her suggestion was to find chairs with backrests to the children so they could sit better.
This in many ways hit me as good news. I mean, ok – its sad that the children are sitting a benches. But if that’s their biggest problem, then I’d say they’re doing rather well.

But yeah, I guess the situation looks somewhat different when I make it to the rural areas in the north. I’ll fill you in on that when I get there.

Currently planning a trip to Togo for the coming weekend. Hopefully we’ll be able to get a Visa from the border. My biggest task at the moment is to find someone who speaks French who I can bring along – cause my French is basically non-existent.

Two Weeks in Ghana

I’ve now been in Ghana for exactly two weeks. On the one hand it feels like time has flown by at amazing pace, on the other hand I’ve experienced so much that it feels like I’ve been here a lot longer.

I spent the last 2 days at Cape Coast, which is a city 100km west down the coast from Accra. One of the oldest and biggest European Castles outside of Europe is located there. Pretty cool trip. Went with Rochelle and Kaisa, whom I study with in Canada and another girl we met who studies in Montreal.

Getting there was an interesting experience in itself. We went outside out hostel and found ourselves a “tro-tro”, which is a mini-van-turned-into-bus. The driver said he would drop of us off at a bus station, from were we would be able to catch another tro-tro to Cape Coast. And so we did. The moment we arrived at the bus station a friendly man guided us over to another waiting tro-tro, and we immediately jumped in a drove off towards the coast. Always more fun and convenient to drive in the small local buses, compared to the big and infrequent “public” busses. Though I have to admit that if the ride is any longer than 3 hours, sitting with your knee’s under your chin is not exactly comfortable. Even though the price is often less than half.

Touring the castle was a cool experience and it was really scary to see how the slaves were handled before they were sent off to the Americas and the Caribbean.

When we made it back to Ghana yesterday night, we just made it in time for the “Welcome Durbar”. An event put on by the international programs office to welcome all the new international students. Lots of good Ghanaian food and dances for entertainment. So yeah, all in all a good first two weeks.