New Eyes, Same Canvas

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Sakshi

After Three Weeks in Accra
As I walk towards the bus stop to work on a sunny, hazy morning, I have my first realization that Accra feels familiar. When I get on the school bus and a man gives up his seat to an elderly woman, I recognize a warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart. Somewhere inside me a change has taken place about my temporary home.

I can’t pinpoint when it happened, but my attitude had changed. For the first week that I was in Ghana, I was uncomfortable. By my third week, Accra felt comfortable – like new shoes that have been worn in.

I have come to appreciate that Ghanaians are friendly – they go out of their way to make you feel welcome, they always ask you to share their meals (“You’re invited!”) and they are happy to take a longer route to their destination in order to show you where you need to go so you don’t get lost.

I wake up in the mornings wondering how to write this blog post. According to an article in the Kenyan Airlines magazine that I read on the way here, Africa is grossly misrepresented in the international media. NGOs like World Vision bombard our T.V. with images of poor, barefoot, starving children. I often read stories about North Americans returning home after visiting Africa and changing their lives because they appreciate what they have so much more. I find this depiction of Africa extremely frustrating.

Accra might not be a modern city but there are many signs that it’s developing. There is lots of construction underway to improve the roadways. The first and only mall opened in 2009, with a new movie theatre. A Ghanaian-American who came back four years ago has built the only mini golf course in West Africa. Progress is slow – very slow – but steady.

By no means do people here live an easy life. Ghanians work hard to make ends meet. The median class doesn’t have much disposable income. They work long hours and spend almost all their free time at Church or listening to a sermon on the radio. Many parents are only be able to educate their first-born, who then helps educate the next sibling.

At some point in these three weeks, I have also come to terms with some of my own biases. I’ve come to realize that people are, for the most part, the same all over the world.

After Six Weeks In Ghana
I’m frustrated again, but for completely different reasons. Almost all the Ghanaians I’ve met want to leave their home.

Whenever anyone finds out that Sarah, (one of our co-volunteers) is American, she overwhelmingly gets the same response: “That’s my dream country.” “Find me an American husband.” “Take me with you.” “Help me get a visa.” One of the nurses at the hospital where we were both volunteering brought in all the paperwork so he could ask all of his questions about getting a work visa. Several of the administration staff asked me to help find them foreign wives.

The most bizarre experience, however, was when a nurse at the hospital was showing us photographs of her daughter.

Me: “Your daughter is adorable.”
Her: “Take her with you.”
Me: “Won’t you miss her?”
Her: “No, I’ll call her and keep in touch”

This phenomenon was best captured by the experience of a Toronto acquaintance speaking with a Ghanaian-Canadian at a Toronto coffee shop. According to the Ghanaian, “the reality is that if a slave ship landed on West African shores tomorrow, even the horrors of the past would not stop thousands boarding so long as it was destined for Europe [or North America].”

How can a country ever progress when it’s people all want to leave? Ghanaians believe that there are more opportunities abroad. Perhaps this is true, but they don’t think about what they would be leaving behind – a real sense of community, and a rich, colourful culture. I wish Ghanaians would be proud of what they do have and strive to make it better, instead of dreaming of leaving.

On a more personal level, I find other things frustrating. The men here often tell me they love me – in tro tro stations, at my volunteer placement, walking along the street. Often they position themselves in such a way to grab my arm – if only for five seconds. I’ve become really good at dodging at the last minute. But I find myself losing my temper – I feel like I’ve entered a time machine and now live in the universe of Mad Men. I appreciate, more than ever before, the respect with which I’m treated at home.

Never before have I seen so many pregnant women. I am told by the woman running the West African Aids Foundation that having children is considered a woman’s raison d’etre here. If a woman cannot have children, it’s likely that she’ll soon find herself single. The growing number of maternity clinics are one of the most profitable businesses in Accra.

Even in my last week here, after thinking I’ve seen it all, some things continue to astonish me. Getting off the tro tro, the mate (the guy collecting the money and calling out stops), grabs the lunchbox in my hand: “I like.” What follows is a mini tug of war until he realized I wasn’t going to give up my lunchbox.

The most insightful conversation I have happens unexpectedly while sitting on a tro tro, on my way home. I turned in surprise when the lady sitting next to me asked for change in a British accent. In conversation, I learned that she had been working for an IT company in Ghana for two years and had also opened a school for underprivileged children. In our short conversation, I realized that she has come to many of the same conclusions as Trevor and I have in our six weeks here.

Mismanagement is rife. Ghana is rich in natural resources – gold, cocoa and most recently oil. There’s no reason for the country not to be developing more rapidly. When oil was discovered, Sierra Leone told Ghana that they had signed an unfair diamond contract years ago and didn’t want the same thing to happen to them. They were willing to help provide the capital Ghana needed. But the corrupt politicians signed a contract where the profits (I heard up to 80 per cent) are going out of the country. Similarly, when a company from China sets up shop, they bring in their own workforce, so they’re not creating jobs for Ghanaians. When I asked the Britisher: “The companies don’t hire any of the locals?” She whispered back that Ghanaians were only hired for the most menial, tedious tasks – implying that it was a modern form of slave labour.

A limited perspective. Ghanaians think that their home is a microcosm of the rest of the world. Most have had very little exposure to the rest of the world or to foreigners. For example, they believe that everyone is as religious as they are. They are not taught to think differently and this is partly a failing of the education system, partly because of the lack of exposure and partly because their lives revolve around the Church, leaving little space for a life outside religion. When our volunteer coordinator Poppo met his first Western volunteers, he was shocked to learn they were atheists – his immediate reaction was that they risked going to Hell. Poppo’s perception of the world has changed, but most Ghanaians never make this transition.

Final Thoughts
I didn’t want to come here. I’ve never been interested in Africa, much less Ghana. I knew this was going to be well outside of my comfort zone. But as I now know, you have the most to gain by being in a place that challenges you. I learned more in six weeks than in the previous four months I spent travelling before i got here. About myself. About life. About living in Accra.

The lasting image that I will carry is that of the adorable children calling out ‘Obruni’, enthusiastically waving and smiling when you look back. I hope they will grow up in a Ghana that has found it’s feet.

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Black Star Falling

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Trevor

“The darkest thing about Africa has always been our ignorance of it.”

Of all our travels, Ghana was the greatest disappointment – but whether in the country or myself, I still don’t know.

Sakshi and I had paid for a six week volunteer program through BaseCamp International (also known as VolunteerAbroad) in the capital city of Accra. While Sakshi was offered a public communications placement at the West African AIDS Foundation, an international NGO, I was given a placement with the municipal Waste Management Department. According to the Project Overview I received, I would connect with local youth groups and civic organizations to hear their waste management needs and concerns, develop a plan to establish a local facility and carry out public awareness and change behaviour campaigns as well as organize beach clean-ups. I was thrilled to start and work on some of the waste issues that inspired me in the Green Bin Project. I hoped that my experiences would be the foundation of a new career in sustainability.

After a week’s orientation to Accra and Twi’ language lessons, I showed up at the Waste Management Department (WMD) offices to find they had no clue who I was or why I was there. The WMD Director had not informed any of his staff of my impeding arrival, and BaseCamp had failed to follow up with WMD to confirm my placement or the work I would do. I was bitterly disappointed as my hopes for a meaningful work experience evaporated. Meanwhile, BaseCamp’s volunteer coordinator had arbitrarily changed Sakshi’s placement to MAB General, a private, for-profit, locally-run hospital, for no other reason than he thought the NGO clinic was too far away (1 hour and a half) and a Westerner couldn’t cope with the bother of getting there. He gave no consideration for the kind of work Sakshi would do, nor the value of the experience, and never asked for her input.

THE SHELL OF PROGRESS
Writing about Ghana has been exceptionally hard. I’ve struggled to find the words that justly express my frustration and remain true to my feelings, while keeping a balanced perspective and avoiding generalizations across the whole country and continent.

Were my expectations too high? I don’t think so. I knew Ghana as a beacon of stability and prosperity in West Africa, the “Black Star” of the continent. The first African colony to win independence, a recent history of peaceful elections and transitions of power – homeland of Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations! Everything I read gave the impression of a country firmly on the path to modernity.

I saw a hollow modernity. Accra boasts a state-of-the art cultural hall (built with Chinese money, by Chinese workers) that mostly sits empty for the near-complete lack of an arts and entertainment scene. A large Western-style shopping mall has opened up, but nearly half the shop units in the mall remain empty, and all but a handful of the rest are stocked with dismally few wares. Only the food court, supermarket, and movie theatre are bustling. These empty edifices are the achievements of the “hippo generation”. (More on this in a later post.)

Progress in Ghana has gotten stuck. The country is not truly improving, it’s merely treading water. Frustratingly, the heaviest weights dragging it down aren’t a lack of resources or money – it is mismanagement, underpinned by blinkered attitudes. I saw this in government workers, in university students, in nurses and doctors, in educators, in administrators and elected officials. I did not see it in the Ghanaian diaspora – Ghanaians born or raised abroad, who returned to seek their fortunes or improve the country. People we met like Naa Ashiley, the Dutch-Ghanaian who founded the West African AIDS Foundation, or Ed the New Yorker, who invested and started the only mini-golf course in Western Africa. All of these stories will be told over next few blog posts.

Every culture and society has it’s own blindspots, wastefulness and anachronisms. Why do I judge Ghana so harshly? Perhaps I was predisposed to be negative, given my failure of a volunteer placement. Perhaps it was because I thought that Ghana could ill-afford such wastefulness that could be so easily solved and when there was such need. (What does that mean? That blindness and wastefulness is a privilege of the rich?)

I don’t know. I have no answers. I only know that I was powerfully, viscerally moved by what I experienced in Ghana and not in any redeeming or positive way. In the end, I cannot help but believe that Ghana’s only hope for real progress lies with Ghana’s returning diaspora, because I see scant hope for home-grown solutions. The stories that follow will explore this uncomfortable line of thought, and, though you may disagree, I hope you will at least see why I feel as I do.

A FALSE ECONOMY
It is difficult to accurately measure Ghana’s true prosperity. Politicians, academics and Wikipedia all say that Ghana is an African success story: politically stable, able to feed all of its citizens, and enjoying a booming economy, roaring along at nearly 15% annual GDP growth in 2011. I asked Ghanaians I met and worked with if they agreed.

“That’s what they say, but I don’t believe it,” says Victor, a project manager at the Accra municipal Waste Management Department.

“Ghana’s economy is growing, but not 15%,” says Kingsley, an Accra realtor and art merchant. “It was growing before the discovery of oil, and it is still growing afterwards, but [the oil] hasn’t changed anything. The important thing is, people are optimistic.”

And why not be? In the cities and villages that I saw, people seemed poor, but never destitute. Money was tight but no-one was starving; our volunteer coordinator, “Poppo”, budgeted a mere 3 cedis a day, 21 cedis per week, for entertainment and luxury food. A beer costs 3-4 cedis, a shawarma 8 cedis, a film 12-16 cedis. There is no room for waste, but it’s enough to go out once a week with friends. Poppo is a sound example of Ghana’s growing “median class”: not poor but hardly wealthy, with savings hard to come by.

Perhaps Ghana’s greatest success has been its ability to grow enough food to feed its 24 million citizens. The economy is largely agrarian and grows a bounty of plantains, palm oil, chilies, cassava and coconuts, as well as cocoa and nuts for export. There is no drought and most Ghanaians are well-off enough to afford to eat meat (chicken or fish) three or four times a week. This is no small achievement.

Yet it could be so much more. Ghana is richly embued with valuable natural resources – oil, gold, diamonds – but the development of oil fields or mineral mines has fuelled a heady GDP growth that creates the illusion of prosperity. Thanks to weak or self-serving leadership, successive Ghanaian governments have wasted golden opportunities by signing contracts allowing foreign developers to keep all but a sliver of the profits of development. This is hardly unique to Ghana, but the lost opportunities are still frustrating. Such resources can only be extracted once.

There is a Ghanaian proverb that when a white man dies in the West, his clothes come to Africa. Walking through Accra’s busy Kaneshie Market, I saw the truth of it. More than half the people were wearing clothes clearly donated from the West: an anti-Obama political t-shirt, a ballcap for the Toronto Maple Leafs, a polo shirt belonging to the West Toronto Soccer Club, a t-shirt with a haiku joke. (Haikus are easy/But sometimes they don’t make sense/Refrigerator.) When a sports team loses a championship final, thousands of pre-produced apparel proclaiming them Stanley Cup/World Series/Superbowl champions are gotten rid of, and much ends up in Africa. The continent exists in an alternate reality: somewhere, the Buffalo Bills are four-time Superbowl winners and Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Vancouver have all won the Stanley Cup in the past decade.

Ghana is a second-hand society, furnished with the rest of the world’s hand-me-downs and unwanted products. The country doesn’t seem to create any goods; its prosperity comes from selling its raw commodities to the rest of the world to manufacture and sell as more useful products. Consumer luxuries like big screen tube TVs and surround-sound speakers are commonplace, but if Ghanaians have acquired the trappings of modernity, it’s only because the rest of the planet produces far too much, and these excess goods must go somewhere. Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of electronics are shipped to Ghana each year. Their abundance is more reflective of the prodigious production capacity of the industrialized world, rather than Ghanaians’ purchasing power or affluence.

This wasn’t what I expected. I anticipated a modernizing country, like India, China, Taiwan or South Korea from 20 or 30 years ago. I don’t believe that industrialization is the only path to progress, but a country needs a thriving middle class to prosper, and that simply doesn’t exist in Ghana. If Ghana was an African success story, the bar was set far lower than I had imagined.

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Sunrise in the Serengeti

Posted on May 21, 2012 by Trevor

“Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes.  No reward is offered for they are gone forever.”

Daybreak over the Serengeti.  I unzip the entrance to our tent, and the cool pale light spills inside.  In an hour or two, the sun will shred away the cloud cover and bathe the plains in a blazing heat, but for now, the weak dawn light is not yet warm enough to banish the night’s chill.

Standing outside, I scan the tall grasses for any sights of wildlife.  Not far away are the telltale white marks of hyena dung.  It is the calcium in the bones that give the hyena’s refuse its unusual white colour – a hyena’s bite can snap bones in half and they can digest almost anything.  They were not far away from us last night.  We heard them snuffling around outside our tent, lowing to each other to in mournful whines, not the cackles that one might expect to hear.

This is the contradiction of camping in the Serengeti.  To wake up and step outside and be there in the African wilderness is a magical experience.  Each day, I emerge from our luxury tent hoping to see a herd of elephants strolling through the campsite – alas, they never come.  At the same time, walking from our sleeping tent to the breakfast tent never fails to be a nervy experience – who knows what predators are lurking, watching, stalking, invisible in the tall grasses?  Last night, our camp stewards escorted us to our sleeping tents after dinner, and the white beam of their flashlights caught the reflection of a hyena’s beady gaze ahead of us.  It turned and gently loped away 20 yards or so before turning back to watch us hurry back to our tents.  It is wary of us, but not afraid.

MAGIC MOMENTS
In one week, we have seen thirty different species of mammals and reptiles, plus at least eight types of gigantic birds.  The full diversity of East Africa’s fauna is on display, and although we have missed the annual Great Wildebeest Migration (a compelling reason to return!), we have been privileged to see other, more rarer sights.  Within our first hour in the conservation reserve, we watched in wonder as a small herd of half a dozen elephants trundle past us, each one so close to our open-topped Land Cruiser that we could reach out and touch their weathered skin if we wanted to.  I have seen many elephants on two prior safaris, but never as near as this.  It is breathtaking.

We spend half an hour parked among a troop of baboons, enjoying their antics – young playfully tussling on the forest floor, peers fastidiously grooming each other.  The youngest, scrawniest infants gaze up at us with wonder; staring into their bright sapphire eyes, I am moved by how familiar – how human – their visage is.  (Eye contact is only possible with infants; adult baboons will interpret it as an aggressive challenge and will react violently.)  One youngling has an intense curiosity about us; it inches closer and closer to our vehicle until it is abruptly swept up into the arms of a protective parent and carried away to a safe distance.

Lions take pride of place among our nature sighting.  We chance upon a solitary young male, his mane nothing more a teenage fuzz around his neck, feasting upon his zebra kill in the shade.  He eats quickly, pausing only to anxiously scan the horizon for signs of foragers or predators who would steal his kill, piercing yellow eyes above a red maw.  We watch two lionesses climb a tree and perch comfortably and lazily in the wide looping branches – highly unusual behaviour, as lions are rarely if ever seen as tree-climbers.

Our most exceptional moment requires extraordinary luck.  Seeing three vehicles parked in row, we pull up next to them and are shocked to see a leopard parading in clear view before the awed sightseers.  For 20 hushed minutes, it paces back and forth almost as if it was modeling itself, stalking up and down a dirt catwalk as we snapped hundreds of photos.  Leopards are endangered – there are less than a dozen living in the Serengeti park – and are typically seen (if at all) reclining in the shadowed canopy of a tree at least 100 yards away from the vehicle tracks.  To see such a cat in the open, less than 10 ft away, is a once-in-a-lifetime event, one that I imagine even National Geographic photographers would marvel at.

Any safari is a mix of patient waiting – and, yes, even boredom – between the thrills of a close encounter with nature.  It is magical memories such as the above that sustain you on the long periods of downtime while you drive through the parks, ceaselessly searching for wildlife, looking past the thousands of zebra and gazelle, longing for any signs of elephants, rhinos or the rarest wild cats.  In the tall grasses of the plains, you could pass mere yards by a serval, cheetah or even a lion pride reclining among the reeds and never know they were there.

THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY
The Serengeti and surrounding conservation reserves would not be nearly as bountiful but for the Great Rift Valley.  The Rift is a range of highland peaks and volcanoes that stretch from the Red Sea at the Horn of Africa south to central Mozanbique, and its earth is seeded with rich minerals from each volcanic eruption and lava flow.  These minerals nourish a flourishing verdant environment and create a plentiful home for African wildlife.  The process of destruction and creation is ceaseless and ongoing; Kilimanjaro – itself a defunct volcano – only became the highest mountain in Africa when the Ngorongoro volcano collapsed in upon itself.

Now, the Ngorongoro Crater is a 260 square kilometre depression where virtually every iconic African animal can be found, including the rare Black Rhinoceros.  Still flirting with extinction, we nonetheless saw a mother rhino and two young – a positive sign for the species’ survival.

For centuries, human tribes have reaped the benefits of this fertile volcanic soil, tilling crops and sheparding their herds.  There are over 120 native tribes in Tanzania, with the Maasai being the largest group still living a pastoral lifestyle.  On our final day, we stay in a Maasai village and are welcomed with traditional Maasai song and dance; a wonderful stamping, yodeling music of falsetto pitches and high vertical jumps.  In the morning, we visit several of the villagers with the Chief.  They are happy to answer any questions we pose: about their governance, their family life, their farming methods.

The Maasai have acquired the accoutrements of modernity – the men who danced to welcome us wore their Maasai shawls over printed t-shirts and wore toques and natty flatcaps; during the dance one of them stepped away to take a call on his cellphone.  But their fundamental lifestyle and values are slow to change.  A man may marry as many women as he likes (so long as he can afford to build a separate home for each wife and their offspring), although our host Chief has been married to his sole wife for about 20 years.  His father married nearly a dozen women.  Cattle-herding remains at the heart of Maasai culture, and a man’s wealth is still measured in the heads of cattle he owns rather than any amount of currency.  A bride’s dowry is paid in cattle; the going rate is 49 cows.

Our host village boasted a primary school funded by our tour company, and fully 87% of pupils (75 pupils) graduated to secondary school, but other Maasai outside the village may not be so fortunate.  As we drove along the dusty roads, we saw many Maasai boys guiding their cattle herds and young men who recently passed the rites of adulthood.  These “new men” are an ostentatious sight, as they dress in all-black robes, daub their faces with white paint and decorate themselves with the largest ostrich feathers they can find.  However, in modern Tanzania, there is little need for warriors to defend the tribe.  The young men I see at the roadside appear the picture of abject boredom – without fail, every man stops and stares at each car that zooms by.  For a handful of moments, we are eye-to-eye, the tourist and the tribesman, yet our lives are worlds apart.

Although the Maasai may drive their cattle across Ngorongoro and the Serengeti, they must be gone by sunset.  No permanent human settlements are permitted on the Crater floor or the grasslands.  Our luxury campsite can be set up and taken apart in a day, but still features a comfortable sitting area with couches, coffee tables and a small library; our dinner is served on elaborate silverware, and our sleeping tent is fully furnished with wooden desks, chairs, a king-sized four-post bed, and a low-flush, mobile working toilet and private shower (basically a hanging bucket with holes punched in the bottom).

Cradled in the arch of a gently sloping valley, the Serengeti stretches away for miles below us.  At dawn, the plains are sheathed in a layer of fog slowly being peeled away by the daylight.  The Maasai are beginning their cattle drives, the wildlife continue their dance of life, and Sakshi, Sarah, Casey and I prepare for another morning of sightseeing.

A perfect quiet blankets everything.  Waking up in the middle of the Serengeti is an awesome sight in the original meaning of the word.  Beneath a sun still stirring from it’s slumber, I share this moment of daybreak with all the creatures on the Serengeti, and it has made all the difference in the world for me.

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Accra: Bringing the Heat

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Sakshi

At 5:30 am on Easter Saturday, my eyes fluttered open. I was on the bottom of a bunkbed in my new home. The fan had just stopped. No worries, I thought. The electricity will come back.

Accra is hot and humid. Weather reports will list the temperature in the low 30s but with humidity, it crosses into the 40s even at night. We get the most acute sense of how hot Accra is while travelling in tro-tros – privately owned vans that have been retrofitted with as many seats as possible. Sitting extremely close to people, with the only respite being the breeze from the tro-tro being in motion, with sweat dripping down my neck is evidence enough that the city is sweltering.

When the church kitty corner from us started it’s Easter celebrations using a loudspeaker at around 8am, I knew it was time to get out of bed. It was too loud and too hot to stay in bed.

The early start in Easter celebrations, after a late end to the celebrations the night before was our first indicator of how religion plays such a large role in Ghanaian society. It was further reinforced when we started noticing that many businesses were in God’s name – O! The Blood of Christ Tailors or Christ Cares Photocopies or Jesus, Jesus, Jesus Second-hand Tires. Often a Ghanaian will get on the tro-tro and start preaching the Bible – they are moved to do this from the goodness of their heart, to share God’s love with those around them. Religious conferences over the weekends are also popular – that first week we saw multiple saw signs proclaiming a “Three Day Explosive Cruasade!” all over the city.  

The electricity came back after 36 hours but our celebrations were short-lived. It went out again after a short respite and only came back after another 46 hours – by this point it was Tuesday evening.  

We managed to stay as comfortable as possible by spending the day in the Orientation Room, which had a cross breeze and the evenings on the terrace. A couple of times, we headed to Osu (arguably the downtown of Accra) to sit in an air-conditioned restaurant gorging American food like pizzas, double cheese burgers and warm brownies. 

Walking around Accra, locals, young and old, would call out to us to get our attention – Obruni, Obruni. Obruni is the local term used to call out to a foreigner. It is adorable when the children start calling us and wave enthusiastically when we turn around. At one point, seven or eight children in the neighbourhood swarmed Sarah (the blonde, blue-eyed volunteer from the U.S.) chanting “Obruni, Obruni” and practically jumping on her. It is not nearly as endearing when adult men shout and wave to us – one odd fellow passed us by on the street muttering Obruni under his breath as if the word had spilled from his stream of consciousness. For all the attention we were getting, we could have been celebrities. Surprising, considering how many Obrunis are in Accra. 

The days were long but the nights were worse. I was too hot to fall asleep so I would head to the terrace with a book and headlamp. When the mosquitos became too much, I would head downstairs to the dining table to finish my book. I could only fall asleep around 3am when I was too tired to keep my eyes open and then wake up again about four hours later. 

To stay cool, I drank lots of water. Sold either in water bottles for 1 cedi (50 cents) or in 500 mL plastic bags for 10 pesewas (5 cents), we became experts in ripping open the corner of the bag with our teeth before consuming more water than we ever did while climbing Kilimanjaro. A few of these plastic bags are recycled and converted into funky handbags and other accessories. 

It was an unfortunate beginning to a portion of our trip that we were very much looking forward to – we thought unpacking, being in one place for six weeks and getting a break from flying was going to be luxurious.

Electricity in Accra is sold much like a pay-as-you-go plan. You must buy electricity credits – if you run out in the middle of the night, you have to wait until the next morning to buy additional credits. Even more odd (as if the pay-as-you-go system isn’t odd enough) is the fact that credits for the first and second floor of the same house are bought separately. The next time I had to get through the night without the fan was because we had run out of credits for the second floor. 

When I landed, I believed I would immediately fall in love with Accra, forgetting that it took me years to fall in love with Toronto.

On the plane ride here, Trevor and I had a conversation about eating at Pizza Hut in a modern Accra. We were certain that Accra would rival a modern Indian city. This myth was quickly dispelled. International companies like Pizza Hut and McDonalds have not yet entered the market. The amount of garbage strewn everywhere was one of our first indicators that Accra was not what we expected. Open sewers on both sides of the often unpaved roads taught us to breath through our mouth and not our nose while we were exploring. Vendors at Kaneshie market (the second largest market in Accra located less than a 10 minute walk from home) sells the world’s second-hand goods – shoes, once worn that have been fixed and polished, t-shirts clearly once marketed to a North American audience and hats from sports teams (such as the Toronto Maple Leafs) unheard of by Ghanaians.

Instead of pizza, our palates have been experimenting with Ghanaian food – jollof rice with fried chicken, fried plantains with peanuts and yams with fish are just a few of the local dishes that have come across our plates. Ghanaians love their rice, chicken, tomatoes, plantains, yams, beans and tomoatoes. Every dish is a combination of these items. The locals have tried little else – eating mostly at home and ordering Ghanaian food even at restaurants. 

We end our week at Epus, a bar in Osu, cheering on Hearts of Oak (Accra’s soccer team) as they play archrivals Asante Kotoko (the team of Kumasi, Ghana’s second city). The rooftop is busy, people are enjoying their 6 cedi beer and the fans are in full spirit, breaking out into song when the Hearts score an equalizer in the 87th minute. But of the two screens (placed right next to each other) only one is playing the Hearts/Kotoko game. The other screen is showing the English Premier League. The speakers are set-up with one in the front of the bar and the other in the back. Sit in the front and you’ll hear commentary from the EPL, at the back you hear commentary for the local soccer game. We would soon learn that Ghanaians are bigger fans of the EPL than their own, with the majority being diehard fans of Chelsea because of its large African roster. We didn’t know it then but this powerful fixation on the foreign was a sign of things to come.

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On the Roof of Africa

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Sakshi

“If you want to go fast, go alone.  If you want to go far, go together.”

It is 4a.m. on summit day. We have been climbing at a 45 degree incline for 3 hours and 45 minutes and the end is nowhere in site. Our guide has just finished complaining that we’re too slow when the three Brits catch up to us. They are 19, 19 and 21. While our guide is congratulating them on their speed (they left two hours after us and still caught up), I catch the last guy saying “Absolute hell” as he overtakes me. I assure you, it was worse.

SIX DAYS EARLIER
Casey and Sarah could not have chosen a better time to join us on our travels. A combination of leaving India and some sad news from Toronto had left me desperately homesick. They brought home to us.

Some big bear hugs, a comment on how much darker I’ve become and last minute shopping for essentials (such as sunglasses) at the only store at the domestic airport and we were on the plane to Arusha, chatting non-stop.

After a sumptuous dinner at Ahadi Lodge, we headed to our rooms to sort out the things we were leaving behind and things we needed to take.

DAY 1
I started my day with an extra long shower – it was going to have to last for five days. I was nervous the next morning but over breakfast, Sarah calculated that we were only walking 8.2 km; almost the same distance from her house to work. Surely, the four of us could manage that.

The description of the climb on the first day said that we would be making our way through a heavily rooted forest area parallel to a flowing stream. I interpreted this to mean it would be relatively flat. I was  wrong. It was steep. Our bodies were not used to such physical exertion. We weren’t mentally prepared for the climb. Only Trevor seemed to be coasting along.

After lunch, it started to pour – this made Trevor join the grumpy club, but only temporarily. When we arrived at camp six hours later, I just needed to lie down. I had a blister on the both of my heels (serves me right for keeping my hiking boots in pristine condition at the bottom of my bag) and my back was killing me. My saving grace was the smell of popcorn wafting through the campsite – delicious!

It would be a great disservice to our experience not to describe the bathrooms at the camp. Someone took a hoe and dug a hole and called it a bathroom. The size of the hole depended on the laziness of the worker. Although, I must admit that this person was always kind enough to add a door. Squatting was painful after six hours of climbing uphill.  I have never appreciated hand sanitizer more.

DAY 2 (Our first day without a shower)
Our guides (Julius and Holson) had told us that our climb would be shorter (not by much) but much steeper. They didn’t mince words.

This time, I was mentally prepared for the challenge. The climb the previous day had taught me a lot. This time, I was almost managing to keep up with Trevor – of course it helped that he stopped every once in a while and waited for me to catch up. I was also grateful that one of the porters – Samuel – assumed temporary guide duty. He told me numerous times that he was sure I would be able to summit and I believed him.

Unfortunately, Sarah wasn’t feeling well. She hadn’t been feeling well since we met because of something she ate in Zanzibar. Julius told her that it would be easier to return to civilization from the next campsite, where a car could pick her up, rather than backtrack. So she persevered. That evening she was feeling better – well enough that she was talking about continuing our uphill, torturous trek. By this time, the three of us (Trevor excluded) had asked each other and ourselves “why are we doing this?” at least a million times.

DAY 3 (Day 2 without a shower)
After breakfast, we said goodbye to Sarah and headed in the opposite direction. I was sad to see her leave but a nosebleed coupled with not being able to keep her dinner down for the second night in a row made us all agree that this was probably the best decision.

The guides had told us that it was going to be a long day but not a steep climb. This information along with the success of my climb the day before led me to believe I was unstoppable.  

At first, the three of us stuck together and the climb was manageable. Eventually, the altitude started to take it’s toll and I was exhausted.  It took all my willpower not to sit on the next rock ahead of me and not move anymore. Many times I wondered why I hadn’t descended with Sarah.

Casey was on a roll. He was so far ahead that the only way for us to keep track of him was to look for bright yellow – it was the rain cover on his backpack that was like a ray of sunshine in the distance. We knew he was doing well because he made Trevor seem like a slow climber – an achievement I would not be able to claim on this journey.

At the fork in the trail, Casey and Trevor went up to Lava Rock and I took the “easy way” back to camp. My alternate route still involved more uphill climbing, a steep decline and two and a half more hours to get to camp. My crowning achievement was that I arrived at camp 30 minutes before the boys. It was irrelevant that they reached a higher altitude and took the longer route.

DAY 4 (3 days without a shower)
Since we arrived, I had asked every guide and every porter who would listen how hard this day would be. We were going to be scaling the Barranco Wall – the most challenging of them all. This time the boys decided that they wanted to move at Sakshi speed and let me lead. At one point, Trevor commented that moving at my speed was relaxing. I was aghast at his suggestion.

By no means was scaling the wall easy, but it wasn’t difficult either. I think this was partly because of my expectations and partly because there was so much scrambling to do to get to the top. I was too distracted to feel the pain.

It is at the top of the wall that we first meet the infamous Brits. When we ask them if they trained they are quick to reply in the negative. It seems to us that they are finding this adventure more than manageable, and dare I suggest, easy.

DAY 5: MORNING (Day 4 – No Shower)
It is a short ascent – only four hours long. Our guides assure us that it’s fairly easy. I’m thankful because our climb to the summit begins in approximately 16 hours.

We find out that it’s only easy by Kilimanjaro standards and involves a lot of ascending, then descending just to ascend again.

It’s the last descent that I find the most frustrating. We have just passed (what looks like) Pride Rock and we know that we’re close to camp because we can see it. The problem: To get to the other side, we have a difficult descent followed by a choice of two equally unappealing trails leading up to camp. One is shorter but steeper; the other is less steep but longer. (Why couldn’t the park build a bridge, I mutter to myself.)

Our guide, Julius, suggests it might be good practice for things to come to take the steeper route but I refuse to put my body through any more than I absolutely have to.

Trevor, who is continuing to enjoy the “relaxed” pace, chooses the steeper route. Casey and I huff and puff up the other way. When I’m completely exhausted, I turn the bend and there Trevor is, leisurely relaxing on a giant rock with a big grin across his face. It’s as if he flew up the hill – even the guide admitted that he was having trouble keeping up with my husband.

I walk past him at my usual snail’s pace (slightly grumpy) and head to our tent. Truth be told, I’m happy because we’ll be summiting soon and that means I’m that much closer to going back to my luxurious lifestyle of showers and sleeping on beds.

DAY 5: 10:00 P.M.
I wake up with a horrible stomach ache. 30 minutes later I am standing behind a rock, throwing up my dinner.  I look up to briefly admire the stars before I’m forced to look down again.

DAY 6: 12:15 A.M.
We leave camp. What we don’t know is that it will take us 10 hours of almost continuous movement to get back to this campsite.

When I tell Julius that I had a rough night, he suggests that I go back to bed. But even though I’m not feeling my usual 100%, I’m determined. I didn’t go through the physical and mental exertion over the past few days to give up now. And somewhere deep inside myself I hear a voice that assures me I’m going to be just fine.

It’s a good thing that we left in darkness. If I could’ve seen our path, I would’ve given up close to the beginning. It is nothing like what we’ve climbed so far – so much so that I’m convinced nothing can really prepare you for that final ascent.

It’s steep. Casey and I were making lots of stops. And then when we were too exhausted to think, the Brits overtake us. At some point soon after that, I realize that if I keep stopping I’m not going to make it to Stella Point. And organically, the three of us end up splitting up with one guide each.

At some point, Julius changes his mind about me. I’ve managed to prove him wrong – he later admitted that he was convinced I wouldn’t make it. He becomes encouraging and supportive. He keeps repeating how impressed he is by my determination. He starts talking about how he’s sure I can make it to Uhuru Peak and I must do it. And he encourages me to grab onto his bag so he can help me by partly pulling me up the mountain.

As we start to be able to make out Stella Point in the distance, the light starts to change. Julius points out the beginning of best sunrise I will probably ever see. It starts off as a single line on the horizon, slightly curved with the bend of the Earth. This line gently begins to expand. With every 20 steps, I turn around to get another look but I know in my heart that I’m too tired to fully enjoy it. I know that if I stop, I may not make it. So I keep going.

Somehow I make it to Stella Point and collapse in front of the sign. By this point, we have been climbing for seven hours and I am exhausted. I have decided that I’m not going any further but a combination of Julius’ encouragement and the fact that we can see Uhuru Peak and it doesn’t look very far convinces me to keep going.

Even Trevor is exhausted during this one hour journey – the first glimpse I get that he doesn’t possess superhuman powers.

We get a close view of these massive, phenomenal glaciers. We pass by the crater of Kilimanjaro’s volcanic past. And at one point, I summon up just enough energy to kick a piece of the glacier like a ball. The glacier is sitting right beside our trail.

I don’t know how I made it. I think I even managed to surprise myself. We were at Uhuru Peak for a grand total of 10 minutes. Eight hours of ascending for 10 minutes of glory, with just some photographs to prove it.

The mood was lighter and I was happier during the two hour descent. When I saw what we had climbed, I was shocked. There was so much scree that Casey saw the Brits use their walking poles to ski down the mountain. He himself ran down.

We arrived at camp to all our guides and porters clapping and singing the Kilimanjaro song. Watching the the video Casey took of our arrival, I can see how proud and happy I am despite having swollen fingers, a split lip and a peeling nose.

Unfortunately, we were only given a measly two hours to eat and rest before we spent another four hours descending to our last campsite. On our way, I ask if a car can pick us up from our final campsite. Julius replies: “You don’t want to do that. You want to complete what you started.” Frankly, I just wanted to shower. Julius and Holson form a human chair three times and carry me down sections of Kilimanjaro. It was the most fun I had on the entire journey. My thighs ached more with each step. That evening, I eat popcorn for dinner before falling into a deep sleep.

DAY 7 (6 days later: I smell!)
There were three highlights during our final descent. Seeing black and white monkeys in the trees. Seeing a cow on the trail – Trevor asked Casey if he was hallucinating but since they both could see it they figured they were okay. But the best part of our descent was when Holson told me that all the guides and porters thought only Trevor would be able to summit but I had forced them to think twice about their judgements on who would make it.

FINAL THOUGHTS
My shower was as amazing as I thought it would be. As we were being briefed by our next guide Muba about our safari, (right after we arrived back to civilization but before we were presentable enough to re-enter that world) I realized I could smell myself and I stank.

For the next few days, Casey and I hobbled about – it was hard to walk. We wholeheartedly agreed that after our physical feat, there would be no hiking or camping for the rest of 2012.

A few times on our journey, Trevor reminded us that after we successfully completed this journey, we were one seventh of the way to climbing the highest summits on each of the world’s continents. I firmly replied: “You’re on your own.”

Casey said the more time that passes between the climb and the present, the more we would appreciate it. He was right. Now after more than a month, the memories of the bathrooms are starting to fade and my memories of the sunrise have started to become enhanced. I cherish the uninterrupted hours we had with Casey and Sarah – the long, wide-ranging conversations and the countless Race games we played. And I’m just as proud of myself now as I was when in Casey’s video. So in retrospect, it was worth it.

PS: For Casey’s take on the Kili Climb (with photos and videos!), check out The Tanzania Chronicles Parts 7, 8, and 9 at his blog!

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Mumbai Madness

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Sakshi

Mumbai was not in our original itinerary; circumstances (by this I mean cheaper airfare) forced us to make a stopover in this city.

We only had 25 hours to experience the home of Bollywood, but I was excited to be back in India. We landed around 2a.m. and were told by the immigration officer that Trevor would have to register with the police the following morning because he was re-entering the country within six months – failure to do so could result in us not being allowed to leave. This is despite the fact that he had a double-entry visa. 

My friend, Sagar, picked us up from the airport at this god forsaken hour – we were very grateful. 

We woke up the next morning and took our time – the immigration officer had told us that the office was open from 10 to 4p.m. We arrived at the registration office at 1:30 p.m. That’s when the nightmare of dealing with Indian bureaucracy began.

First, we were told that the office closed half an hour ago. Then, after some pleading, we were told that because the immigration officer in New Delhi forgot to stamp Trevor’s first entry to the country, we would have to go back to Delhi and get the stamp. Finally, we were informed that they would send a fax to their New Delhi office and if they received a reply confirming Trevor had indeed arrived in Delhi, the necessary paperwork would be processed. Otherwise we would have to cancel our ticket to Dar-es-Salaam. During this whole process I never understood why it was easier to enter the country than leave it.

At this point, we knew we needed reinforcements. We called my parents, who called Chachi. She suggested that we call my Dad’s cousin who works in the Indian Foreign Service and is currently posted in Delhi. It is because of Sunil Uncle that we were able to make it to Tanzania on time. He hassled the Delhi office to get the fax to the Mumbai office and then hassled the Mumbai office to process our paperwork. 

While we were waiting, I met a British girl in the same office, who had lost her passport. As it turned out, without her passport no hotel would let her stay – it is against the law for them to accept a guest who cannot show their passport. Luckily, someone was kind enough to give her a room even though it could’ve cost the staff member his or her job. 

This confirmed what I realized earlier on our trek through India: foreigners have to be brave and adventurous to travel through this country. Even though there is beauty in the madness, it can feel overwhelmingly chaotic. Add to this the constant attempt by the locals to overcharge you for services. Many people don’t speak English. And as we found out, if something goes wrong, dealing with the bureaucracy can be a maddening experience. 

By the time, we walked out into the fresh air it was past 5p.m. – but not before we were practically forced to make a nice comment in the guest book. 

It had been an extremely stressful and frustrating afternoon.  We were mentally too exhausted to do any sightseeing, so we got into a cab and headed to Sagar’s office. 

The slum we passed en route, was the most interesting we had seen yet. It was settled on what was clearly meant to be a sidewalk and  was well-established – each of the supposedly temporary huts had it’s own postal number and satellite dish. 

Our evening was lovely – the perfect antidote to our afternoon. I bought some clothes at the mall. We had a fascinating conversation with Sagar and Anupama (his fiancee) over a delicious dinner about the insurance industry. We felt like ourselves again – relaxed and happy. 

We drove back to Sagar’s house, picked up our bags and then Sagar and Anupama dropped us off at the airport at 11:30 pm.  We got the nicest security officer in line. And just like that we were officially on the next leg of our journey – Kilimanjaro. But not before deciding, never to backtrack into India within six months until Trevor could get his PIO or “Person of Indian Origin” card making visas and registration unnecessary.

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The Maldives: Of trouble in paradise, a seven-year break in luck, and an uncertain future

Posted on May 9, 2012 by Trevor

“Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.”

A BEAUTIFUL, DOOMED LAND
The room is dimly lit, and crowded with people grabbing any seat they can.  There is an anxious and excited edge in the air.  Many more people are outside agitating to get in, but we snuck through security early.  They won’t kick us out now.  A man strides before us, offers a few bons mots, then welcomes the evening’s guest of honor: Mohamed Nasheed, the President of the Maldives.

September 2011.  The Toronto International Film Festival.  Sakshi’s Mom secured tickets to the world premiere of The Island President, a documentary chronicling Nasheed’s journey from democracy and media activist to the Maldives’ first democratically-elected President in generations.  His struggle to guide the country from thirty years of brutal dictatorship is matched only by the challenge of how to protect his country from the imminent threat of global climate change.  Whether a man-made crisis or part of a naturally-occurring earthly or solar cycle, the bottom line is that the Earth is warming, polar ice caps are melting and the rising oceans will swamp the Maldives.  Home to over 390,000 people in 280 islands scattered across nearly 300 square kilomatres, the highest natural vantage point in the archipelago is a mere two and a half metres above sea level.  There will be virtually no defence against the rising tide.

That evening, we saw images of beautiful cobalt ocean, vibrant reefs and a capital city of glass towers rising out of the waters like Atlantis in its glory days.  Sakshi and I immediately decided we had to see the Maldives before it was too late.

Fast forward to February 2012.  Our Uncle Sanjay has set a new definition for generosity and arranged a five day stay at one of the luxury resorts, Soneva Fushi (thank you again!!).  But political trouble roils across the islands.  Barely two weeks before we are scheduled to arrive, the armed forces stage a coup and force President Nasheed to resign.  Under the pretext that Nasheed was “un-Islamic” and an inept administrator, old loyalists to the ex-dicatator Gayoom seize power, Gayoom’s son and daughter are given prominent Cabinet positions, and Gayoom himself returns from exile.  Nasheed goes back to agitating from the streets, and the airport is briefly closed while demonstrations rock the capital city.

Sanjay Uncle tells us not to worry about our safety; we will be met at the airport by one of his local colleagues, who will escort us to the seaplane terminal where we will fly to Soneva Fushi.  The hotels, each operating their own private island paradise, exist in a bubble of perfect luxury, shielded from any hint of day-to-day Maldivian life.  While the resort’s decadence will be lovely, we’re disappointed that we’ll miss a firsthand look at ‘ordinary’ life in the capital city, Malé.

UNNATURAL UTOPIA
As our tiny ten-seater seaplane gently touches down at the Soneva Fushi lagoon, we are amazed by what we see.  The beaches are as gorgeous as the tourist brochures would have you believe.  The sand is soft, fine and white, the waters blue and crystal clear.  Every island is encircled by a shallow reef shelf that extends dozens of metres before plummeting into a deep, dark blue, home to radiant schools of fish and other sea life.

Soneva Fushi has only one rule: “no shoes, no news”.  Our climbing boots are gently taken from us and returned in a cloth bag; for the next few days we will mostly go barefoot.  The hotel itself is the epitome of blissful luxury and comfort: our cottage is large and boasts elegant wooden furnishings, a king-size four-post bed, an iPod with thousands of songs and a cutting edge surround-sound system, a private outdoor shower, and two bikes for our movement around the island.

In fact, it’s almost too flawless for my liking.  As Sakshi and I prepare for Tuesday’s entertainment – an evening cocktail party held on a pure white sandbar half a kilometre away from the main island – I feel ill at ease with so much unnatural luxury.  The perfection is overwhelming: if the Stepford Wives were marooned on a tropical island, it might feel like Soneva Fushi.

A PERFECT STORM
As Sakshi and I recline in a hammock and watch the hotel staff set up a grill and a bar on the sandbar, we realize that one corner of the sky is decidedly darker and cloudier than the rest.  As more and more guests disembark from the speedboat onto the sandbar, the winds begin to pick up and the clouds become heavier, more purple, bulbous with the promise of pent-up fury that only a tropical rainstorm can unleash.  The horizon disappears in a thick gray veil and I know we’re minutes away from a torrential drenching.

It hits us suddenly and hard.  Our rattan mats and plush white cushions blow away in the wind, and Sakshi and I bunker down underneath thin white parasols, but it hardly helps.  Peering out from cover, I see hotel staff hustling to cover up food and many guests streaming back to the speedboat or huddled under their own umbrellas.  But after a few moments, I feel that the rain isn’t as cold as in Vancouver, New Zealand or Australia and the sea is choppy but free of large swells or waves.  There’s no lightening either.

Screw it, I think.  It’s only water.  I hand my umbrella to a sodden-looking Korean couple and race out to the edge of the sandbar.  I’m soaked to the skin in seconds, but my mood lifts instantaneously.

Arms wide out, feeling the full force of wind and rain buffet my body, I feel exhilarated and liberated.  I wade ankle-deep into the surf and the tropical water feels astonishingly warm, the ideal counter-balance to the cool rain.  Soneva Fushi’s illusion of carefully controlled, managed perfection has been ripped away, but there’s no harm done, I have a cold Sri Lankan beer in hand and I’m absolutely loving it.  With some coaxing, I take Sakshi by the hand and guide her to wade into the shallow waters.  When she feels how warm the clear waters are, she also tosses away her umbrella and joins me in carefree play.  For the next half hour, we dance, run and take photos in the downpour while the remaining guests look on, bemused.

Our perseverance is eventually rewarded as the rain lets up, the staff fire up the grill and open up the bar again, the hardy few who stuck around enjoy a flow of hors d’eurves, drinks and champagne.  Afterwards, the hotel manager tells us that he’s hosted a sandbar cocktail party every week for seven years, and he’s never had such a rainstorm.  Sakshi and I count ourselves incredibly fortunate.

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
Even in a luxury resort, we still find adventures for ourselves.  In a date befitting The Bachelor, Sakshi and I picnic at our own private island for a day – but even this perfect excursion has it’s imperfections, as we discover the isle is ruled by a colony of rats that enjoy raiding our picnic basket.  Ceding the forest to the rodents, we set up our deck chairs right by the water’s edge, but it still takes a few well-aimed stones before the vermin are convinced to leave us alone. Happily for us, Soneva Fushi sends us a replacement fruit platter by speedboat to replace the fruit eaten by the rats.

Courageously, Sakshi agrees to try her hand at diving again.  Our instructor – a no-nonsense, middle-aged German – teaches us how to control our own buoyancy but she lacks the calm patience and encouraging demeanor of our Australian dive master.  Nor do I experience another “Zindagi” moment quite like the first time, although I do feel awed at the plethora of wildlife around me.  We are surprised to see that the fish seem larger, more colourful and more varied here than at the Great Barrier Reef – and more dangerous as well.

It is spawning season for triggerfish.  Big as a badger and almost as mean, the triggerfish will protect its eggs by relentlessly tearing into any trespasser.  While wandering at the edge of the reef shelf, we almost drift into the path of a yellow-and-blue-striped triggerfish grazing on the coral.  Sakshi and I don’t see any of its roe, but our instructor grabs Sakshi by the arm and hauls her away with powerful kicks, and I quickly follow.  Because of the conical nature of the triggerfish’s territory, the safest escape isn’t towards the surface but diving deeper, further into the open blue.  Eventually we circle back to the reef and head back to the shore via an alternate route.

In total, we are submerged for nearly 40 minutes at a maximum depth of about 10 metres – a phenomenal improvement for Sakshi.  Despite this success, our centurion of an instructor advises Sakshi to “give up” diving as she is not comfortable being and breathing underwater.  Considering the massive improvement Sakshi has made to battle her fears, I respectfully disagree.

IN SEARCH OF NORMAL
Occassionally, we are able to catch glimpses of ordinary Maldivian life behind the immaculate resort facade.  While en route to the hotel’s health clinic for antibiotics, I hear a drumming and singing reverberating through the forest.  Arriving at the clinic, located in the centre of staff living quarters, I discover a volleyball game in full swing between Soneva Fushi staff and that of a rival hotel.   The players are bedecked in bright Adidas uniforms and the atmosphere is as impassioned as any soccer game, as the crowd sings and beats drums to cheer on the home team while the visitors have brought a vociferous supporter’s section of their own.  Here, Maldivians can be themselves without worrying about serving their pampered guests and I don’t linger long, not wishing to intrude on their private down time.  Later, I find out that Soneva Fushi came back from 0-2 sets down to take three straight and win the match.

When not walking from place to place, we are driven by hotel staff in electric golf carts, and Sakshi and I take this opportunity to ask our drivers all sorts of questions about life outside the resort.  The staff reply thoughtfully and honestly: when I ask one young man how he reconciles handling and serving alcohol to guests (the Maldives is an Islamic society and alcohol is prohibited outside the resort), he responded that each person must make peace within himself.

GREEN DREAMS
Unique among Maldivian resorts, Soneva Fushi boasts an “eco-centre” where guests can come and learn how the hotel reduces its environmental footprint.  Expecting to see a series of slick displays and marketing spin, we are surprised to arrive at a small industrial workyard with heavy machinery, a furnace and carefully sorted refuse pits.  We meet the chief engineer, who is happy to answer all our questions (sometimes more frankly than I think his employers would prefer).

The heavy machinery crushes glass to a fine, smooth dust, which is used to mix concrete and sand.  Salvagable wood is put to good use by the hotel carpenter, and the remainder is given to the furnace to supply half of Soneva Fushi’s charcoal.  Metals and aluminum are sold to scrap merchants and recyclers from Malé.  The hotel’s organic waste is separated, properly composted, and used in the island’s gardens for home-grown herbs and vegetables for the restaurants.

Soneva Fushi has bold hopes, but seems to have met with intermittant success.  Paper recycling grew too expensive and inefficient and was put on hold.  So too was Soneva Fushi’s plan to harvest natural gas from composting and use it to fuel their kitchens.  The hotel has set up a field of 520 small solar panels, but the 70kw of energy generated is barely 5% of the hotel’s needs.  When I ask whether these programs are fiscally worthwhile, the engineer admits that the savings don’t really cover costs but that it’s important for Soneva to do (and, I would suggest, be seen to be doing) something.  There are great aspirations for more solar energy and an official target of 0% mixed waste to landfills, but these goals are far from becoming a reality.  Better outcomes might be reached through collaboration with the neighboring island resorts, but the hotels are fierce competitors and are unlikely to cooperate without an industry association or government mandate.

There are many more questions we want to ask, and again we regret that we have no time to explore Malé.  Nasheed sought to make the Maldives the first country in the world to be carbon-neutral, but given the vast distances between the populated islands and the necessity of diesel-powered ferries and seaplanes, this promise seems a pipe-dream.  As international mediators broker negotiations between the ousted democrats and coup leaders, it remains to be seen whether the next government will view climate adaption with the same sense of urgency. Even if Maldivians arrive at a united solution, will it be enough to save their islands? 

AN ISLE OF RARE BEAUTY
Soneva Fushi is unimaginably luxurious and bizarre, but always magical.  When not matching wits in games of tennis, ping-pong or chess, Sakshi and I relax in deck chairs outside our cottage, listening to the gentle swish of waves falling ashore and the rattle of palm leaves in the breeze.  Around us, we hear the crows of roosters, the rustle of wild rabbits in the underbrush, and the leathery flap of giant fruit bats swooping from palm to palm.  On our final night, we sit together at the end of the wooden pier, dozens of small reef sharks swimming in the floodlit shallows beneath us, our gaze lifted up at Mars, Venus and Jupiter, all shining brightly in the starry sky.

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A Moment Worth Noting

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Sakshi

On May 1st at 8:15 p.m., Accra local time, Trevor was homesick for the first time since we left Toronto four months ago. We were in a movie theatre of all places.

And now back to your regular programming.

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Pastoral Paradise

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Trevor

Note: On reflection, I wasn’t too happy with this post, so I’ve added a post-script in the Comments that’s much clearer about what I really appreciated about Kerala and why.

“Unchecked, the tourist will climb over the fence and come right into your house to take pictures of you in your habitat.  Cities mindful of tourists have built elaborate “tourist traps” which, luckily, work.  Tourists are kept confined to these, and few escape. There is, of course, the type known as the ‘intrepid tourist.’ This one has to be watched carefully or he can become most annoying.”

The tropical backwaters of Kerala are India’s sanctuary of peace and serenity, as far removed as possible from the bustle of Delhi or the dusty Deccan plateau.  A low-lying land of rice paddies intersected by natural and man-made canals, the backwaters fully deserve their moniker as the Venice of India.

Most visitors charter one of many private luxury houseboats that patrol the rivers, but the boats run on noisy, smoke-belching diesel engines and, in the evenings, moor close enough to easily hear the neighbours’ loud satellite TV on all sides.  They are very much a tourist trap, and Sakshi and I found a far better experience at the Green Palms homestay.  We booked rooms for three nights, and our stay was near-perfect.

From the moment we embarked on the paddle canoe and crossed the river, we felt different.  Far away from busy roads and cities, the Green Palm Homes was an idyllic refuge from the noise and crowds that we had experienced over the last few weeks.  Although I very much enjoyed the bustle of Delhi and Hyderabad, as we walked alongside fish ponds to our small but luxurious guest cottage, I realized that I had not heard silence in over a month.

Located on a small island in a river lagoon, the homestay is very much a part of its community; part of the proceeds are even shared with the islanders.  The homes were large, well-furnished and air-conditioned, and our cottage had a beautiful balcony view of the lush green rice paddies.  The homes are run by two brothers (Thomas and Michael) and their brother-in-law (Philip).  Philip was our host and a good reminder about making misleading assumptions.  Dressed in the traditional Keralan mundu, you’d never know he was an ex-financial advisor who had lived and worked in Manchester, England until he grew tired of the rat-race and moved his young family back to their roots.  Dinner was prepared by his wife and mother-in-law – it was simply amazing, full of coconut flavours and delicious, unqiuely Keralan “puffy rice”.

In the evening and mornings, Thomas would lead guests on stroll alongside the canals to the rice paddies.  As we walked, he pointed out kingfishers – small bolts of neon blue and red amidst the trees – and explained how his faith, the Syrian Christian Church, had arrived in Kerala from Arab traders centuries before the European colonialists.  Thomas’ love for his community and the land was clear whenever he spoke.  His authentic desire to share this with his guests and his welcoming nature made him an excellent guide.  The tourism brochures also called Kerala “God’s own country”, and seeing the lush abundance all around us, it’s hard to dispute the claim – we saw trees and fields blooming with rice, cashews, coconuts, bananas, jackfruit, pineapples, mangoes, passion fruit, tamarind and even more unusual fare like sapodilla.  We made the return trip by paddle canoe and Thomas led the oarsmen in singing local Keralan folk songs, their vibrant voices made louder in the darkness of the new moon.

Through Thomas, I learned far more than I can relate here about agriculture and the technologies of pastoral life.  I learned how essential and reliable the coconut crop is to village life and how it can be used for rugs, activated carbon (used in water filters like the LifeStraw), cooking oils or even home-brewed “toddy” beer.  I saw the turbines that the farmers use to flood and drain their paddy fields, glimpsed the German-made “paddy harvesters” that collect the rice, and smelled the pungent plants grown to repel pests (they still need to spray with pesticides, however).  I learned how the waterways are cleansed of thousands of choking water lillies by opening up the dykes to let in salty seawater, but the villagers must stockpile fresh water during this time and wash their clothes in the briny water.  Back at the homestay, Thomas showed me how their rainwater system harvested, filtered and kept water fresh for over a year and I watched Philip manage the pH levels of the farm ponds he had built before adding new fish.

We met some fascinating people during our stay, including a retired French couple who offered to house-swap their cottage in Bretagne for a vacation if ever we were interested, but perhaps the most illuminating conversation was with a man involved in India’s teak forestry industry.  He was forthright in explaining how pervasive bribery is.  Border guards demand large payments whenever lumber crosses state borders.  This eats up his profits, so to make his business worthwhile, he cuts more than his permitted share.  For every truck of licensed lumber that leaves the forest, two more trucks of illegal wood follow (with additional bribes for the forest reserve guards).  All companies do this, and although they do plant some trees, it is nowhere near enough to be sustainable.  The permits to cut down wood are sold at official auctions for the highest bidder, but here also bribes are essential for winning bids.

With the exception of an unpleasant Ayurvedic massage, we felt an overwhelming sense of peace throughout our stay.  Although we took no photos of their “habitat”, Thomas and Philip were extremely generous to open up their homes and give us a authentic look at their lives in the backwaters.  One afternoon, we tried fishing with plasti thread tied to a short bamboo stick: we caught eight small fish, threw half back and fried the rest with chilies and coconut oil for dinner.

Mostly, we simply enjoyed sitting on the edge of the short ferry pier outside the homestay, watching the river traffic – ponting boats and canoes, with the occasional ferry.  At noon, dozens of the lumbering houseboats would chug by, looking like armoured water bugs scooting about on the water.  But once they had gone, we were again left with tranquil silence, broken only by birdsong and the soft slap of washerwomen cleaning clothes in the river.

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Hyderabad: History, Healthcare and Holi

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Sakshi

It has taken me ten years to make it back to Hyderabad. I absolutely loved it on my first visit – everything from being picked up at the airport in an official car complete with the Indian flag (Chachi is the Principal Auditor General for the state) to exploring Golconda Fort with Chacha to reading bedtime stories to Sahir and Tarini. I was excited for Trevor to experience it all. 

This time, Trevor and I arrive on a hot, sunny Friday afternoon at a new airport. Chacha and Chachi are waiting for us and have brought two cars – one for our luggage and one for us. Tarini had mused that we must be carrying lots of luggage on our six-month journey.

At first glance, Hyderabad is different from what I remember – located at the centre of the Deccan Plateau, it has a dry landscape and giant rock formations, balancing at precarious angles but actually immovable for thousands of years. But the next day, as we drive through the older part of the city, it is just as I remembered. There are historical buildings in every corner, re-purposed for modern use; one is now a hospital, another a college.  Unfortunately, when we visit Chowmala Palace, we discover that some have been destroyed. A dining hall that once seated 100 people and whose acoustics allowed even those at opposite ends of the table to converse with ease was demolished; in its place now sits a road.

Even within India’s incredible diversity, Hyderabad has a curious history.  For over two hundred years it was ruled by the Nizams, a remnant of the old Mughal Empire.  When India won its independence, Hyderabad had no intention of joining the Indian union and continued to operate as an independent state until the Indian army invaded and annexed it in 1948.  Hyderabad sent a delegation to the United Nations seeking membership, but it arrived too late.  Currently part of the state of Andhra Pradesh, even now the city of Hyderabad seeks recognition as an Indian state in its own right.

Golconda Fort is still my favourite historical site. It was home to the Qutb Shahi dynasty that lasted seven generations before it fell to the Mughal empire. The entrance to the fort is a beautiful, ornate, heavy door. I wonder how many men were required to open and close it. At the entrance to the inner fort, a clap at the right spot can be heard at one of the highest points – this was used to alert the royal family of danger. There’s a room where you can have whispered conversations standing at opposite corners and hear each other perfectly because of the acoustics. And when the king went to his royal court, his seat would be carried by four men – two short and two tall so that he would be level while coming up the many stairs.  Unfortunately, there is graffiti everywhere, even on the walls of what was once the workers’ mosque. 

At the other end of the city, “Cyberabad” is the future of Hyderabad.  Founded by a forward-thinking ex-Chief Minister, Cyberabad now boasts many large IT offices, including the second-largest Microsoft office in the world and a growing, successful MBA school, the Indian School of Business.  We met many of these MBA students at a party that Chachi held in our honour. They were interesting, ambitious and well-travelled.  When we toured the MBA school, I also got the chance to catch up with a childhood friend of mine – he was the third friend from Riyadh that I’ve managed to connect with on this trip.

From our comings and goings from Chacha and Chachi’s house, we learnt the government built an apartment complex directly across from the local slum and gave it to the slum dwellers as a new home. The slum dwellers, however, would rather stay put and rent out the apartments for additional income (so they are, quite literally, slum landlords).  The persistance of the slum continues to frustrate the other area residents, particularly as the only road to the neighbourhood runs through the slum and is badly potholed and in need of repairs.  The road cannot be fixed until the slum is cleared, which the government is reluctant to do for fear of reducing their reliable vote bank.

Perhaps our most unusual experience was visiting the state legislature to see the government house in session. I should note that the legislature is not open to the public but Chachi managed to get us access to the Visitors’ Gallery. The proceedings would take place in Telegu (the local language), but we would get headphones with immediate English translations.  Security was shockingly lax and laissez-faire, and nobody knew where the Gallery was. Some people didn’t know there was a Gallery; others pointed us in the wrong direction. Finally, we were informed that the Visitors’ Gallery was closed and instead were directed to the Media Gallery. My enquiry about headphones was met with a blank look. What we got instead were baffled stares from journalists wondering who we were and how we got access. Interestingly, we got much more attention as we were leaving. It seemed that every ten steps, a security guard stopped to ask us who we were, how we got in and what we were doing. After we answered the same questions for the tenth time, it became comically frustrating.

One night, I accompanied Chacha to the local pharmacy to pick up medication for Sahir.  I was surprised that we didn’t need a prescription for the antibiotics. Chacha’s medical degree comes in handy at these times but those with no medical background tend to rely on advice from the shopkeeper, who often has no training as a pharmacist.  To stress-test this system, the next day Trevor tried to purchase Valium with Chachi’s amusement and cooperation; they were unsuccessful only because the doctor’s name wasn’t registered in the pharmacy’s computer.

A tour of Apollo Hospital revealed more surprises about India’s health care system. Every private hospital has their own fleet of ambulances and their own emergency number. The emergency room is small, but the wait times are non-existent. The hospital advertises heavily using many hoardings on the streets – “When my brother got into an accident, I chose Apollo.” The communications department includes a sales staff of six to eight who market their services to smaller clinics in the hopes that patients will be referred to them. Competition for patients amongst the private hospitals is stiff. From what we heard and saw, the CEO’s focus was dedicated to getting more patients and maintaining an excellent customer experience.

My favourite memory of Hyderabad would have to be our second-last day. Trevor, Sahir, Tarini and I woke up, got dressed in old clothes, put oil in our hair and stepped outside. We were ready. Once our bucket was full of coloured water and our pichkaris (water guns) were loaded, the games began. It was Holi, the Indian festival of colour, and I’m happy to report that when I got back to the house, I was soaked and colourful. At one point during the proceedings, Trevor dangled me over a massive barrel of red water, poised to throw me in. At the last minute, he changed his mind and put me down, perhaps to get away from my screams. I was lucky; if the roles were reversed, Trevor would have gone home red as a tomato.

I’m always surprised to discover that sometimes I get the most enjoyment doing everyday things in a different city. Perhaps, this is why, when I look back at our short week in Hyderabad, I will remember our fascinating conversations at the dinner table ranging from politics to how both my Dad’s brothers changed their names. I will remember going grocery shopping with Chachi and having staff not only bag the groceries but also carry everything to the car. I will remember baking vegan cupcakes with Tarini, and how she savoured a small, delicious bowl of the batter – my favourite part of baking. And I will always treasure washing out the red colour from my hair after the Holi celebration.

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