"Sharing Minds"- Abokobiisi Part 1

I spent 5 days in a village called Abokobiisi, in the Upper East Region of Ghana, and it may have been the most powerful 5 days of my life.

When I returned, I thought to myself, “how can I communicate all of this learning back to Canada?” … I soon realized that just one blog post could never possibly capture it all, so decided to write a short series on Abokobiisi… welcome to Part 1, Sharing Minds.

When you think of a Ghanaian farmer, who do you picture? Previously, I probably would have thought of a middle-aged black man, wrinkled face, family man, working hard every day in the fields.. this isn’t completely false, there are farmers like this.

But I met many others whose profiles are quite different, many women here are farmers (more than 60% of Ghanaian farmers of women- see the women above from Abokobiisi’s Women’s Group) and there are also a lot of young farmers, many who farm because they have no other choice.

I begin the series highlighting the person who most inspired me: Amos. A 19 year old boy: young, lean but muscular, hardworking, kind, and he speaks English (one of the 3 in the whole community that I could communicate with), and did I mention exceptionally bright. He is currently a farmer by default, by unfortunate circumstances, but things are looking up for Amos.

Last year, he graduated from JHS (Junior High School) with excellent grades. He hoped to move on to SS (Secondary School), which is 3 years and requires you to board in another town, and pay steep school fees. When I asked why he didn’t go to SS he said “because of poverty, we are suffering”. Unable to pay the school fees, (hundreds of dollars), he had to stay in Abokobiisi- a village that is an hour bicycle ride to the nearest hospital, an our walk through rivers and streams to the nearest market, no electricity, no formal sanitation… probably the typical “African village” you see in your mind.

So for the past year he has been farming, and extensively helping the community. He is currently hoping that, with community support and help from the Assemblyman, he can go to SS this year. I am really hoping he is able, and am anxiously awaiting him telling me the good news.

Each day I spent with Amos, I learned something new about village life, something new about poverty, and something new about the human spirit.

More surprisingly, I kept finding out different roles he played in the community. It took 3 days for me to discover that every night, Monday to Friday from 8-9pm, he teaches night class (remember- there is no electricity in Abokobiisi). When I asked him why, he said “We don’t want our mothers to be illiterate”.

Then, I attended the Women’s Group Meeting, where he also sat in. After, I looked at his book and realized that the whole time he had been listening to the meeting in Fra Fra, translating to English in his mind, and writing in English- almost word for word- what was discussed at the meeting. In this same book, he records which ladies go to the field each day to weed the soya field, and much much more.

I can definitely say that all of my most fruitful conversations in the village involved Amos. He is so intelligent, would ask me great questions about life in Canada, and some funny ones (Can you open the window when you’re flying on an airplane?).

He really pushed my thinking. I had the mentality that I didn’t want to bring many luxurious items to the village because a) they are unnecessary and b) I don’t want to show people material things that they’ve never seen, have them become fascinated by them, and subsequently want to have their own (it is unlikely they will ever be able to afford them).

So I didn’t bring my laptop and didn’t bring many clothes, etc, but I did bring my MP3 player to listen to music in the morning/at night. I had no intentions of bringing it out. But on the third day, when I was fairly close with Gilbert and Amos, we were sitting out in the early morning- as we always did- and I decided to bring it out. Of course they loved it. They had never seen one or heard of it before- they initially thought it was a different cell phone. They loved the beats, wanted it really loud, and I soon realized they preferred the more upbeat, hip hop type songs so would put those on for them.

I went away and returned, grabbed the MP3 to change the song for them and realized that Amos had already been navigating through the MP3 and had changed things. I was very amazed- (minutes earlier, he didn’t know how to change the volume).

Later in the day, walking to the market, I confessed that I hadn’t intended on showing them the MP3 (for reason B mentioned above). And Amos said “No Robin. It is wonderful for us to see these things. Then, when I see it later, I will know what it is, how it works, and then I won’t just be a villager, again”.

Leaving Abokobiisi was difficult. I was happy to stay longer than intended- due to the rains. The night before I left, Amos said: “I’m praying it will rain again tomorrow so you can stay another day”, I said “I know, it’s very painful. But why do you want me to stay”, he said: “So we can converse. So we can share minds.”

Please stay tuned for more on the beautiful people of Abokobiisi, and how they have enriched my life.