Changes - March 2005

A lot has happened in the last six months. Here in West Africa, two countries to our West and East (Cote d’Ivoire and Togo) went to hell, while Ghana was able to keep the lid on and hold peaceful and fair Presidential elections (President Kufuor was re-elected). My husband and I missed out on most of this fun though, because we were back in the U.S. having a baby. Elias Gates Landberg-Fernandez was born in Washington, D.C. at Sibley Hospital. I was not as brave as some girlfriends here who decided to stay and have their babies in Ghana. I fully admit being wimpy in comparison. It also helps a great deal that the State Department pays for soon-to-be mothers to be evacuated to the U.S. for childbirth from places like Ghana. Living in Africa has made me appreciate the U.S. health system so much more. Few modern childbirth aids exist in Ghana, so I figured I’d take advantage of as many as I could back in the U.S. A Doula? Sure. Epidural? Thank you. Lactation consultants? Definitely. And it sure was nice to have all that family support too.

But back to West Africa. Next door, Cote d’Ivoire was pretty bad for a while, but the situation has improved. At one point, foreigners were being evacuated, and many who stayed behind were being pulled out of their cars and beaten up if they were French (and after a while they stopped caring about that and unruly crowds beat up any foreigner they could find). Anyway, the word is that the “crisis” is over. Now we will wait and see if peace and recovery follow.

In Togo, you may recall my previous account of how the President there did a good job of ruining what used to be a nice country by West African standards. Well, he died (no tears shed by me), but before he did, in true Democratic fashion, he appointed his son to take over the country. When that happened, the people of Togo had had enough. They started to protest in the street, and the protests were so popular and widespread, the former President’s son promised to hold elections soon. So, on April 24, Togo has a chance to make a change. I’m excited to see who gets elected and what happens next. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that no matter what happens, the transition is peaceful. The last thing we need is another crisis in the region.

In new baby news, we hired a nanny to help me take care of the baby in the mornings while I get some sleep and shower and get ready to go to work part-time in the afternoons. My bosses are being awesome to me in the transition back to work. Even though by law they didn’t have to, they held my job for me while I was gone, and are letting me work part-time as long as I need to. I am eternally grateful! Anyway, when foreigners take on new employees in Ghana, they immediately start issuing debt. Within a week of my nanny’s employment, she asked my husband and I for a loan of approximately $150. It wasn’t for a frivolous expense; it was to build an extension to her mother’s house so she could live next door to her kids. Her landlord was kicking her out and she had nowhere to go. There are few laws protecting tenants here, so she had no choice. While she takes care of my child, her mom takes care of the nanny’s two children. As parents, how could we say no to the loan?

Our Nanny is the third household employee is indebted to us. Our gardener also needed a loan to make a down payment of rent on a new place when he was kicked out of his home. The norm here is for owners to require a year’s deposit of rent up front. Who can afford that? Our maid/cook also needed money to pay for her son’s education, so we paid for that too. The employees pay us back each month when we withhold funds from their salaries. I guess it’s not so different from what employers used to do in the U.S. before credit unions took off.

The financial sector in Ghana is not anywhere near meeting the needs of its population. I know I’ve complained about this before, but I find it such a wasted market opportunity. Think of the money banks or credit unions could be making off of working people like our employees while benefiting the economy at the same time. But financial institutions here like to make loans to self-employed people about as much as I like to clean bathrooms, and no one is forcing them to change their behavior. And even if we could get the financial sector to lend to the self-employed, the interest banks charge on loans is close to usury (anywhere between 25-30% per year). This is a country that totally neglects the needs of its small businesses sector, and I don’t think that Ghana’s dependence on foreign aid helps. With countries falling apart around it and with even more foreign aid flowing in because of its “winner” status, why should Ghana change? It’s a classic “Catch-22” of international development.


But back to baby news, because that is where my mind is mostly these days. What does one do with a baby in Ghana? Not much. We learned last weekend that you don’t take them to the grocery store. The biggest, fanciest grocery store here is more like a 7-11 in terms of size. No one else here takes their babies to the store. Most foreigners and rich Ghanaians send their staff to the store, so we really were an anomaly when we went last Saturday. There was no room for his stroller in the aisles, and when he started fussing, my husband had to pick him up and scope out a little corner to quiet him down and dodge people from running them over while I checked us out. Not a successful outing!

We could take our baby for a walk outside, but there aren’t really any sidewalks, and our jogging stroller that would allow us to successfully navigate the bumpy streets hasn’t arrived yet. Also, with cars whizzing by, it’s questionably safe to walk on the main roads. It’s also 90 degrees and muggy outside, and when the sun is not out in force, deadly mosquitoes are.

Take him to the park, you say? Ha! No parks! No playgrounds! The only one that existed (the Embassy’s Bud Field) was taken away from us when the State Department decided the land was better used for a new, and more secure Embassy compound. Bastards! The best we can muster up is a little pool at a compound of U.S. government-rented houses with shade. Otherwise, the poor guy has so stay inside all day, with the occasional trip outside to our garden. Having a baby definitely changes your perspective about living conditions. We will have different priorities when we pick our next post. And first on our list will be a place outside of a malaria zone. We give our little guy Larium in his milk and it just kills us. But what is the alternative? Let him possibly get Malaria? If anything happened to him, we would never be able to live with ourselves.

Now that I am a working and breastfeeding mother, I have to squeeze in these updates quickly in between feedings and work. There is no time for my husband to censor me, and I’m fairly sure that lack of sleep is affecting the quality of these, so please bear with me. Until next time.