Day Six - Just Coming

We do what we have to do, whether joyfully or otherwise. Wake-up call this morning is 3:00 a.m. because, as the thinking goes and I don’t disagree, one-hour to finish departure preps, check-out, one-hour to negotiate the 35-mile broken road to Robertsfield (Jay drives as usual), 5:00 a.m. check-in for the 7:30 Asky Air flight to another world, Ghana.

It has been 13 years since we have done any work here. It's a Rip Van Winkle arrival experience, polished new terminal, highly digitized, crisply uniformed personnel, we flow easy to the exterior.

OK, here’s the familiar. The semi-circle of a hundred-plus legit drivers, opportunists and improvisors, all eyes on the emerging travelers. These guys carry special radar for even the subtly bewildered. That hasn’t changed.

Our hotel guy finds us (easy man, just look for that older white guy) and, ever eager to help, I navigate and amuse him by conjuring the route to the Coconut Grove Regency (CGR) from my 2005-2009 memory circuits. Not half bad.

The city is very high-rise now, particularly around the airport, wide boulevards, properties set back, traffic circles in the British (cannon-ready anti-insurrection) style, the vibe relatively unhurried, no Liberian-style frayed humanity.

We phone-connect with our host Richmond, a Jay contemporary and a project manager for the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).

“Since wars begin in the minds of men and women, it is in the minds of men and women that the defenses of peace must be constructed.” UNESCO Constitution.

Small World Department: Richmond, who has devoted his working life to education and seems to have lines to the players everywhere, is long-friend of Abubakar, a Ghanaian who works under Colin’s son Xane in Florida. Richmond has toured ABLE in L.A. in 2017, understands Study Tech’s value and is ready to roll with meetings all over in the less-than-three days we have here.

So, at 3:00-ish we do roll out from CGR “headquarters” to meeting no.

one, over at the National Teaching Council (NTC) with Charles Ahet-Tsegah, former Director General, Ghana Education Service (GES), former Executive Director, National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NaCCA) and the first president of the NTC.
Ghana, oh yes I remember now, LOMMMA, that “Land of Many Multiple and Multiplying Acronyms.”

The way over from CGR to NTC is on the circuit road, so many personal landmarks. GBC stands out, the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, which dear friend (and the Ghanaian glue that made all possible there) Sammy Jacobs Abbey (SJA), July, 2008 claimed to be “just by” and “just coming” (JC) already late for the start of our rainy

Sat. morning student human rights competition at the CGR.

Driving time between GBC and CGR: ten-minutes, counting parking and even in the pulsing, Biblical downpours that day.

30 minutes later, no SJA. Another call.

SJA is still JC but now just a little further away than GBC.

Another 20 minutes. Call. SJA still JC but now still further off.

SJA rolls in over an hour past starting time and we begin eventually, all well, all possible in Africa, with just coming (JC), just by GBC (Ghana Broadcasting Corp.) now part of our lore. (Turns out SJA was at home getting dressed on that first call, but saying so SJA judged (rightly) would have caused a diplomatic meltdown.

So meanwhile, back in present time, 2022, we are well to the south of GBC with Charles in the shared office of two NTC guys – Dennis (PR) and Nick (programs) – doing our African meeting thing: each person speaks in turn, no one interrupts, patiently attentive until the guy runs out of gas. No one (was I the exception?) is too out-there fortunately.

Charles is last to speak, affable and enthused at our prospect. Looks like he’s worked in every level of Ghanaian education, more acronyms than super-humanly possible to grasp at first impression. Looks like he knows all the current players too. Cool.

Now the two-way communication can begin. Pilot project is the thing. Yep, that’s why we’re here, to meet/greet with position people, trial run from there. Charles is on board. Collaboration confirmed, pic taken and we are out.

Our meeting no. two will be back at the ranch, the CGRegency.

We stayed here year-by-year in the Youth for Human Rights days (07 - '09). Wednesday nights – and it’s Wed. night now – were Salsa Nights, with hundreds of local 20-somethings packing the pool area, liquid humanity in waves. Yet, SNs have been history since the pandemic and, good thing, since pool’s empty this evening.

We meet Addison Ayeshat, “MYP” (don’t recall what that stands for) and instructor at the SOS-Herman Gmeiner International College in Tema. SOS is Societas Socialis, “social service society.” This secondary level institution thus educates for competence, with an in-the-world, public service application paramount. This puts us on the same page. Staying in touch and collaboration are next.

Liberia and Ghana are more at opposite ends than they were 15 years ago. While Liberia wears its loose-ends poverty on its sleeve, Ghana sports structure, planning, and a higher-end definition of disadvantage that at least might not shock most in our insulated West.

Yet, not sure that the Liberians with whom we are embarked don’t have that key advantage over our Ghanaian collaborators. The former could never fall prey to selective blindness of the conditions around them. The latter could mistakenly take the relative comfort of their circumstances as good enough. Yet, nothing stays static.

Tim Bowles
Accra, Ghana
Wed., July 27, 2022