Through Dan’s Eyes

Ghana is divided into 10 regions which are further delineated into districts. Districts are governed by an assembly which comprises elected assembly-people from electoral areas within the district. Musah Zakaria is the assemblyman for the Mankpan electoral area in the Central Gonja District where I am working with the local government to deliver improved public services. To better connect with the beneficiaries of our work, I spent the Christmas holiday with my friend Musah and his family in Mempeasem, a small fishing and farming village off the White Volta.

The 5:00 a.m. alarm bell rang in the form of 20 chickens proudly exercising their audible strength. Before the sun had risen, the men were preparing for a day in the field while the women busily swept the debris gathered on the dirt ground from the previous day. The entire family headed to the farm together and I followed closely behind Musah for the three kilometre trek. By mid-afternoon, the blisters on my tender hands were starting to pop from digging up harvested cassava and shoveling new mounds for the next growing season. I sat watching for a while, and felt discouraged that I didn’t have the stamina to keep up with my African counterparts. Musah saw the look of frustration on my face and said “Would I be efficient working behind a computer all day long. We all have our different strengths.”

One day, I followed Musah as he traveled to four of the sixteen villages in his electoral area which he visited on a weekly basis to stay connected. We first crossed the river by canoe to visit a fishing village which the previous year had flooded, destroying half the houses. At the time, the district was not responding quickly and the World Food Program had delivered two months worth of rations but had suddenly stopped. In response, Musah took the homeless villagers into his village, filling ten to a room and feeding them even with his food stocks running low. Their school, which had also been flooded, was being re-constructed by the district on the opposite side of the river on higher ground. The community was expressing concern about transporting all the school children across the river without enough canoes. Musah intently listened to their problems and said he would take their concerns to the District Assembly, but not making any promises.

Musah and I hitching a ride from a local fisherman

Throughout the day, every person we passed would call out “assemblyman” and every time he attentively walked over to hear their complaint or grievance. One man’s daughter was very sick but had no method of transporting her to the clinic 50 kilometres away. At every village we visited that day, we would greet every household. I soon discovered that if Musah missed a household on a visit, he would get an earful the next time he came by. Being used to my private Canadian lifestyle, at least in comparison, my patience started to wear thin. But Musah kept on going like the energizer bunny. But he did stop at one pointing and asked “How can I continue to work under these conditions”. It was then that I found out he did not get paid for his services as an Assemblyman and was only provided with a one speed bike to travel from village to village. It was a slow mode of transportation and often broke down.

On my final day I got up at 6:00am and helped Musah to gather dirt for his new house. Recovering from a bout of malaria, he took the shovel and aggressively started ploughing into a new layer of compacted dirt which felt like a rock to me. After he finished three rounds with sweet beading down his face, he looked up at me from behind the pile of dirt and said, “how do people like me in these conditions survive without determination?”. I froze and thought to myself how this ‘village stay’ was an experience for me, but was life for Musah. He was farming with no fertilizer, no tractor, nor any other agricultural input besides seeds; performing assemblyman duties with no bicycle and no pay; and living in a village with no borehole, no latrines, no electricity, with the closest health centre 50 kilometers away. But still Musah had the determination to persevere through these many challenges.

After a week’s stay, I said my goodbyes to the village, biked two kilometers with Musah to the dirt road where I hitched a ride with a Fulani man in the back of a pick-up truck nestled between two cows. As the truck drove away I looked back at Musah who was enthusiastically waving goodbye in jumping jack fashion with a big smile on his face. Now that was truly a man of the people, and not just his own people, any stranger who passed his way.

Current Water Situation

In Canada, rarely does a critical service like municipal water fail. Redundancy is built into the design to ensure standby equipment is ready when the active equipment fails. This is not the case in the Central Gonja District of Ghana where I am currently working. Two kilometers outside the district capital, Buipe, a broken-down water system lays dormant, flooded in water.

Flooded Buipe Water System

Located in a geologically suitable location, this borehole can yield up to 500 liters per second. One submersible pump transfers clean drinking water to an overhead tank close to town which provides the pressure necessary for piped connections at fifteen locations spaced evenly throughout town. Since July of 2008, the Buipe town water system has not been functioning. The system was damaged beyond repair from extreme flooding during the rainy season and the 10,000 villagers have been utilizing other wells and boreholes in the interim. These sources are now drying up as the middle of the dry season approaches. Villagers are drinking water straight from the Black Volta River, or small dams that hold stagnant water all year round.

Borehole being used by the community until it runs dry

Guinea Worm

Guinea worm thrives in open stagnant water, and villagers who drink this water have a higher chance of swallowing the guinea worm egg. Once inside the human body, the egg finds a home to rest. A couple of months later, the egg hatches and the worm starts its journey through the body. At around four months, the victim starts to feel sharp pains where the worm resides. Eventually, the thin 2-foot long worm penetrates the skin and pokes its head. It is slowly removed with the hope that it comes out easily and in one piece. If the worm wraps itself around vital arteries, the disease can be fatal. But more often than not, the painful disease renders the patient idle for three or four months, normally around harvest time. If subsistent farmers are unable to work their fields, it is likely they won’t grow enough food to meet the basic dietary needs of their family, thus continuing the cycle of poverty that caused the guinea worm to occur in the first place.

UNICEF I-WASH Project

A UNICEF project called I-WASH is currently operating in the district and has the goal of eradicating guinea worm in Ghana, which is one of five countries in the world that has yet to do so. The Northern Region is the guinea worm epicenter of Ghana, home to 95% of all recorded cases, and the Central Gonja District has the most recorded cases in the region. Activities range from gathering baseline data, supplying endemic communities with ceramic filters, promoting community-led total sanitation (CLTS) initiatives, and hiring dam guards to ensure villagers are filtering the water.

Restoring the Water System

Representatives from the district and regional governments, a local engineering consulting firm, and UNICEF were brought together to resolve the Buipe water problem. We met at the borehole location and started to discuss feasible technical solutions. It was energizing to be part of a brainstorming session with local water experts who were articulating technically-sound solutions. My experience with water projects at CH2M Hill in Canada proved useful. I was familiar with the engineering design, procurement, and construction terminology that was being used and was able to contribute ideas. I was surprised at how similar the processes were to Canada. At the end of the meeting, we decided on a two-phase approach. The first phase was to immediately repair the generator, flush and disinfect the borehole, and replace the pump if inoperable. These were the essential tasks to get the system back up and running. The second phase and long-term solution was to relocate the control panel and generator to higher ground across the river, and to raise the borehole to an elevation above the flood level. A nearby village had not witnessed a flood of this magnitude since the 1960s and we used this info to ascertain the flood to be a 50-year storm. The team was satisfied that raising the borehole to this height was an acceptable design basis. Not exactly following the scientific rigor I’m used to in Canada, but was the best use of available data.

Technical brainstorming session with local water experts

With the technical solution established, I thought the wheels were in motion to execute the agreed upon action items. Development reality struck me hard at that point, as it was apparent that the previous delay in refurbishing the water system was not from a lack of technical solutions but the lack of political or donor will. UNICEF was willing to fund all aspects of the refurbishment except the electrical supply including generator and re-connection to the grid. At the same time, the district was not willing to release what little it had left in its internal budget, which had been ear-marked for other projects. The local Buipe Water Board was supposed to collect user fees from residents, but the level of supervision and management only supported enough funds to pay for minor repairs and not major system overhauls. UNICEF was looking for commitment and ownership from the district, and the district was looking for more support from UNICEF. Neither party at the table was willing to budge, nor likely having to drink water directly from the dam. Only those whose voices could not be heard were likely in that predicament.

Woman collecting water from the nearby open dam

Moving Forward

It is a common for donors to prefer funding new infrastructure which can easily be captured in a ribbon cutting ceremony or photo which can appease decision makers from above. Retrofitting and maintaining existing infrastructure does not receive this same prestige and glow. Operation and maintenance is typically left in the hands of the district government which does not have the money or institutional capacity to make the systems function. A culture of maintenance is required at both the donor and government level to ensure the full utilization and effectiveness of existing infrastructure.

I am confident the wheels are now at least rolling to get the Buipe water system back up and running. The director of the district has taken it upon himself to resolve the issue. However, it is still an uphill climb and will likely take another four months until issues get resolved at which time the peak of the dry season will have passed and villagers will have had to persevere through an entire dry season with poor drinking water. An entire dry season that they will be more susceptible to guinea worm, the one disease the project is aiming to eradicate.