A Rather Long Update

Friday, July 11, 2008

The past two days have been quite busy, so I haven’t had much time to write. Yesterday morning, after waking up early, eating breakfast with Raph and Comfort, I traveled to the internet cafe close by to mail some emails and post my last update. The connection isn’t exactly fast, but it works pretty well for email.

When I came back, it was already late morning, so I ended up deciding to hand-wash a few clothes with Comfort. Even though the power situation is pretty much resolved now, I still don’t trust that washing machine. Last year, some clothes went in and didn’t come out for nearly nine hours! Anyways, I think I am getting better at hand-washing, and it gives me some time to think and talk to Comfort.

After laundry, Comfort and I went across town. Comfort was getting her hair done, and I ended up deciding to chop mine off as well. (Actually, I really shouldn’t say chop, because the haircut I got is actually really nice.) It’s shorter than I’ve had it in a long time—just a bit shorter than shoulder-length. Hopefully I will be able to post a picture at some point. Unfortunately, everyone here, particularly Comfort, is appalled that I have cut it. The irony was that Comfort was getting this really crazy thing done to her hair where they braid it really close to the scalp, and then sew fake hair onto it. Not kidding. It looks like her normal hair, except a little longer and much neater. Apparently this “wig” lasts about a month, which is enough time for the hair underneath to grow longer so that it can be trimmed. Anyways, the hair cut is much more comfortable in this weather, and easier to clean in a cold shower without much water pressure.

While Comfort was getting her hairdo, I met up with Raph and we went back across town to the new shopping mall that they put in near Shashie (really close to the East Legon house) to buy groceries. Traffic horrible as per usual.

Comfort and Raph left early this morning for their honeymoon, so now I find myself alone in the East Legon house. I’m finally starting to get to work on research. I realized yesterday when I was walking to the internet cafe that I had to go look at the walking paths in at least a few of the neighborhoods before I start any real measurements. I think I’ve walked all of the paths at least five times (except Asylum Down, which I only did once). But I was never focused entirely on the gutters, and I realized that I needed to see them before I finalize my protocol. Since I’d already seen parts of East Legon, I decided to go to Nima today to re-familiarize myself with things there.

For the whole project, we have done work in four major areas: East Legon, Asylum Down, Jamestown and Nima. East Legon is our “wealthy” neighborhood, Asylum Down we consider “middle class” and Jamestown and Nima are both “low income”. I’m always fascinated by the differences between Jamestown and Nima, however. Jamestown is right along the ocean, and is the old, colonial part of Accra. Some of the buildings there are quite old, and it’s actually listed as a site in some tourist guides. However, Jamestown is, to put it bluntly, dirt poor. The people there are Ga, and, I was surprised to find out, few of them are actually migrants. The households we surveyed there are much older than those in the other neighborhoods. Nima, on the other hand, is a Muslim area, and the people there are primarily Hausa. The people in Nima are generally more reserved than in Jamestown, and I feel like I draw less attention, which makes me more comfortable. Also, most of our field workers come from Nima, and it was also our “control” neighborhood for the air project, so we are more familiar there as well. In any case, I decided to go there today for a few hours and meet up with Kilu, one of the “Nima boys” who works with us. All the “Nima boys” are a fair bit older than me and most of them are married, so I’m not sure why we call them “boys,” except that they work with Fatah at an organization called the Federation of Youth Clubs (FYC). We walked the Nima walking path—the air quality project last year had a series of paths through the area where we used mobile monitoring to study air pollution at the sub-neighborhood level. The paths are all around 10km, so our walk was a little over 2 hours long. But it was good because I had a lot of time to ask Kilu about water/sanitation issues, and he, like all the Nima boys, is very knowledgeable about the area, and vocal about the issues facing his neighborhood.

I first asked Kilu about the Al-Hamdu gutter, which runs through the central part of Nima/Mamobi. The area is at a lower elevation than most of the neighborhood. Along the walking path, the gutter is about five meters across, five meters deep. The water right now is not high, only a few centimeters. Bridges for walking access run every 20 meters or so across the gutter—most are fairly wide but none have rails. The gutter is also clearly used by some for solid waste disposal. It runs all the way from Airport Residential through Nima/Mamobi, then to Asylum Down and then flows into the sea via the Korle Lagoon (I have to check on this, but I believe it). Kilu claims that when it rains, the water will sometimes rise above the gutter level and flood the nearby street. When the gutter was built (sometime around 15 years ago) the plan was to cover the gutter and have it as underground sewage, but it has remained above ground since it was built. He claims that local politicians often make it a campaign issue when they run for office, but nobody has ever followed through.

We also discussed drinking water, because I’m trying to get a better idea of which households to sample. Comfort told me that the majority of Accra’s water comes from a common source, a reservoir which is to the west of the city. Some of the water for the eastern part of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Region (GAMA) still comes from the Akosombo Dam (at the base of Lake Volta). However, Kilu claims that some areas (East Legon and Airport Residential maybe among them) get water from Akosombo as well.

Kilu also tells me that the water supply to Nima/Mamobi is infrequent and irregular. Usually piped water is available once every 3-4 days. Most residents take the giant cartons that can be bought with cooking oil, and wash and recycle them for use as water storage. Each carton can hold about 4-5 gallons of water, and this is the water that is used while the tap is off. Kilu also tells me that often people will use the water more than once—for bathing, and then for washing clothes or dishes. I think that our piped water is also irregular, but we also have the huge storage tank and drink the purified sachet water. So storage is clearly important, which is making me more fond of the idea of measuring water quality both from the local source (indoor/neighborhood pipe) and at the point of consumption (give me a glass of water, please!).

I’m a little nervous about taking all these measurements after today. It’s hard not to be self-conscious here, and I get many strange looks already just walking around the areas where I work. Raphael thinks that the work I will do here may be interesting and important, but that I will still be recognized by everyone in Nima as the “girl who is researching the trash”. Oh well, best get at it…