This weekend, after a delicious dinner, some friends and I visited a rooftop drinking spot in Osu. As I slowly drove my motocycle into the crowded parking lot, a man reached out, put his hand on my leg, and slid his hand up my skirt as I went by on the moto. It took me a moment to register what had happened, and by that time, I had passed the group of men, and wasn’t even sure who had done it. After fuming for several minutes, I joined my friends, had a double whiskey, and did my best to forget about the incident and enjoy the rest of the night.
As I write this, several days later, I am still furious—furious with the man, but more furious with myself for failing to give the man any disincentive to repeat his actions. The options were many: yell at the man; report him to the police; hit him; run over his foot with my moto; or in my most vengeful fantasy, castrate him with my moto keys. Why didn’t I do any of these things? It wasn’t that I am incapable of standing up for myself. For the most part, it was simply because I wasn’t quick enough to react, but riding away had its advantages: I wasn’t physically hurt, I got out of a potentially harmful situation quickly, none of my friends had to be involved in a mess, and I was able to move on and continue my night. It’s hard to imagine a better outcome had I chosen to confront the man—but at what cost did this efficient short-term result come? What does it take to prevent this type of behavior? Minor physical assault and sexual harassment is not uncommon in Accra. My recent experiences include: · A man grabbing me around the waste and pull me away from my friends to try to get him to dance with me at an outdoor dance spot. I peeled him off of me and started yelling at him; another Ghanaian intervened and convinced him to leave us alone. · A man repeatedly came up to my friends and me in a dance club and rubbed against us, even though we were not dancing. After asking him three times to stop, I told him to “F-k off” and shoved him. He drunkenly fell on the ground and then went away. · A man on the street grabbed my hand as I was walking by him one evening and would not let go. I dug my keys into his wrist as I twisted my hand free. He let me go on my way. Let’s be frank—women face these types of encounters everywhere. I have a close friend in New York for whom catcalls are a humiliating but regular part of her daily commute. She has experimented with every type of reaction I can think of: anger, humor, honest conversation, and simply ignoring it. Nothing seems to make a difference. Is a man with a key gouge on his wrist less likely to try to grab a woman’s arm than one who got away unscathed? The truth is, I don’t think any reaction from a victim of harassment is enough disincentive to put a stop to this behavior. To be an effective deterrent, punishment must come from broad society. Men who sit on steps and catcall in New York City should face the disapproval of the grandmother next door and the scorn of the respectful men who pass by and see them as the boys they are. Men who assault women in Accra bars and clubs should be unwelcome in those spots, and those who grab women on the streets should be ostracized by other vendors there, who face lost business when women avoid those spots. In some cases, this happens. Too often, it doesn't. As long society fails to punish men for this behavior, a they will continue to bet that victims won't punish them either.
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The STC public bus company continued its losing streak, canceling its service to Sunyani on Monday without notifying me. After arriving at the station at 5:30 in the morning and finding out there was no bus to Sunyani, I requested a refund for my ticket, and hiked over to the transport yard hoping I might find a bus going to Sunyani sometime that morning.
In the transport yard, buses typically leave whenever they are full. I was lucky, finding a bus that already had a good number of passengers, and the rest came along quickly. I soon discovered that, besides the prompt departure, there was another difference between the transport yard bus and an STC bus. It started with an extra-long prayer upon the departure of the bus. Well, I thought, it's normal to pray at the beginning of a bus journey, and maybe transport yard buses are perceived to need a little more prayer in order to arrive safely. After readings from John and Genesis, receiving a booklet on "Exploring the Bible: Truth and Consequences", five hymns, and a sermon, I was forced to conclude that I was on the Bible Bus. I went to sleep and woke up several hours later, just in time to see service conclude with the pastor making fun of my glasses in Twi and an offer to buy pomade for 1 Ghana per tin. I am now writing to you from beautiful Brong Ahafo, where the cars are strong, the chameleons are good looking, and all the roads are above average.
Sadly, though the cars are strong, there is a shortage of shared taxis here unlike any I have encountered anywhere in Ghana. (Shared taxis run routes, and pick up anyone who wants to go on that route. Most of the time, they are a convenient and inexpensive means of transport.) Getting a shared taxi in Sunyani involves standing at a corner and yelling where you want to go as taxis go by, and then when one stops, rushing to beat the hoards all going for that taxi. The first time I was there, I got a taxi because a driver felt sorry for the poor clueless white girl and made it a point to get me in his car. The next time, I got a taxi based on my rushing merit, which was infinitely more satisfying. Why don't more people run taxis here? Why don't they raise the price of taxis? I later discovered that the taxi shortage was being caused by a diesel shortage. Many of the taxis converted to run on diesel were not running. Yet again, things that appear to make no sense to an American economist have a logical explanation. The diesel shortage was temporary; sticky prices and fixed capital costs prevented the market from clearing. Given the shortage, what is the appropriate way to allocate taxis? Free marketers might suggest they be allocated to those willing to pay the most. However, if your concern is allocating them to those who have the most need for them, and you think the welfare created by this outweighs the extra supplier surplus that would go to the taxi drivers, there are other ways of allocating them, which might be more efficient in a context of high income inequality. One, the use of lines, would allocate taxis to the people most willing to spend their time waiting for the taxi. Another, the one actually in use, is to make people spend effort. Those most willing to run, fight, and look foolish must be the ones who value the taxi service the most. About 10% of the cloths I brought to Ghana go unworn. There’s the long, patterned skirt that I thought would be perfect for a hot climate where women don’t show their legs, but whose synthetic fabric catches uncomfortably on sweaty skin. There is the cool-looking white blouse that turns see-throw when it gets wet in sudden rainstorms. There is the sharp, sexy pencil skirt that is physically impossible to ride on a motorcycle in.
Knowing what to bring, and when to wear it, can be a challenge in my work. You have to be prepared for everything from meetings with government officials to dusty trips to the field, in weather that ranges from swelteringly hot to cool and dumping buckets of water. In every case, you have to consider cultural norms that are not your own. For armies of interns about to pack their bags and head off to get their toes wet (and dirty, and sweaty, and mosquito bitten) in West Africa, here are my tips for dressing for development work: DO focus on material for comfort. No matter what you are doing and where you are going, it will be hot. Look for very lightweight, natural materials (like linen or cotton) to stay comfortable. I favor light, knit shirts that fit neatly and have some embellishment that brings their formality up a notch. DO focus on cut for appearance. Comfortable materials can be cut to look professional. Men should look for very light weight collared shirts and slacks. Light-weight khaki pants with a sharp cut can go from office meetings to the field. DON’T bring stuff that can’t get wet. Between sweat and monsoons, it will. DON’T bring stuff you love. Handwashing is rough on cloths. So is falling in sewers, being grabbed by random children, getting bitten by goats, and being lashed by wind and rain. If it will break your heart if it gets ruined, leave it at home. DON’T bring white stuff. It will get dirty super fast. Khaki, brown, red, green, black or dark blue are much more field friendly. DO bring jeans. They are an awful fit for the climate, but everyone wears them, and you probably will too. DO wear a hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen. DON’T wear shorts while working. Shorts are rarely worn in Ghana, and never in the workplace. Very short shorts will always draw attention. Short sleeves are fine; nice sleeveless shirts are usually okay. DO wear skirts, if you are a lady. Skirts are a great way to keep cool while looking nice; they are the loophole in the “no shorts” rule. Just keep them around knee level or below, and unless you are adept at riding side saddle, don’t wear tight skirts if you are planning to ride moto. DON’T forget to bring fun clothes—outfits for working out, clubbing, dates, hanging around the house, or trips to the beach. And don’t forget a swimsuit! DO wear nice sandals. If you are a man, look for nice local-made leather sandals that can be worn with your lightweight khaki trousers. Ladies can wear any nice looking sandal. DON’T wear heels, except on carefully considered occasions, but DO bring a pair. The ground is very rough here, and you will walk, so find nice-looking shoes that are comfortable. Also, it is very hard to drive a motorcycle in heels. Some clubs require ladies to wear heels to get in, so come prepared for that. DON’T wear “bathroom shoes”. Bathroom shoes are inexpensive flip-flops that Ghanaians wear to go to the bathroom. If you can’t tell the difference between bathroom shoes and potentially work-appropriate flip-flops, don’t wear flip-flops at all. IPA Ghana officially does not allow flip-flops in the Accra or Tamale offices. DO get something made locally. The tailors in Ghana are talented and inexpensive. DO ask a local friend or coworker if your clothing is appropriate. This is especially true if you are attending an unusual function, like a funeral, or if you are experimenting with local fashions. DO consider the impact of your appearance. Ghanaians are often inappropriately forward with ex-pats in a way that they would not be with a fellow Ghanaian; this is especially true for women. Consider whether your appearance will encourage people to treat you as a professional; clothing that is too casual or sexy will encourage advances. It’s no fun to be shooing off suitors while walking into a partner meeting. DO break at least one of these rules. Putting on that one dress you really love, or wearing shorts to the market, or (gasp!) wearing a pretty pair of flip flips to the office can be a fun, harmlessly subversive way to escape from the constant pressure of fitting in to another culture. After 11 months in Africa, I spent two wonderful weeks in the United States visiting friends and family. Some of my thoughts during the trip, in chronological order:
1. British people get really pale in the winter time. 2. People don't really buy all those expensive handbags, do they? 3. The North East is really cold. 4. The average American doesn't have ANY idea what life is like for the average African. 5. Oregon is really cold. 6. What's tempranillo? 7. I'm dehydrated; why isn't anyone selling water sachets?....oh yeah I can drink the tap water. 8. Los Angeles is sometimes really cold. 9. Wow, Hulu might actually make money with its premium service. 10. DC is really cold. 11. GAAH what is this Friday song?! I need to go back to Ghana! 12. Tamale is really hot. George the monkey eats his dessert (apples) first, then picks the green peppers out of his salad. When I am in Tamale, I often share my lunch with the office monkey, George. It seems to me that when I share my food with George, my eating habits improve. There are two reasons for this. The first is simply related to quantity. I don't like to waste food, so normally I clean my plate even if I am no longer hungry. When George is around, I give him my leftovers when I get full. The second reason has to do with externalities. When I buy food for myself, I often get lazy and buy fried street food that is available nearby. If I share food like this with George, I feel bad for feeding him rubbish. I used to buy egg pies and give George the egg yolk, which I don't like anyway, before I decided that monkeys should probably watch their cholesterol too. As a result, if I know I will be sharing with George, I am more likely to travel farther to get healthy food I will feel good about sharing with the monkey. I don't know a lot about the field of behavioral economics, but it seems to me that humans, as social animals, may be psychologically wired to internalize externalities through the feelings of guilt and warmfuzzies/self-righteousness. Most surveys have a field at the end for comments where surveyors can record anything important about the survey not addressed elsewhere. My survey did—and I found that most of the time, surveyors record nothing important in the comments field. Typical entries include:
1. The obvious: “The survey was completed successfully” 2. The nice but not particularly important: “Respondent was very friendly” 3. Somewhat useful information about attitudes toward your survey: “The respondent complained it was too long” “The respondent hated the food security section” 4. The confusing: “No” 5. The amusingly mis-written: “Good Intercourse” (An actual comment from one of my friend Linda’s surveys) Occasionally, a surveyor will use the comments section to record very important information about seemingly contradictory information in the survey. For example, if no household head is recorded, the surveyor might note that the household head is working in another region and thus didn’t meet the residence requirement to be recorded as part of the household, even though that person has decision-making power for the household. Another example: if a respondent opts out of a question or section, this can be recorded so that the information is not thought missing. This is how the comments section should be used. Reducing comments to only include important information has the benefit of reducing time-consuming string field data entry, and reducing the number of comments that must be sorted through during analysis. How do you improve use of the comments section? Next time I do a training, I will include a section on using the comments field—giving examples of useful comments and unnecessary comments, and emphasizing that it’s okay to leave the section blank if there is no important information to record. This is also an area where electronic surveying has an advantage. Many electronic survey platforms allow surveyors to add comments on each question. This focuses the surveyor on recording information that is relevant to understanding survey responses. It also allows the surveyor to address an inconsistency as soon as it comes up, rather than waiting till the end of the survey, when the surveyor may have forgotten about the issue. The STC bus is superior to many forms of transportation in West Africa, including the Metro Mass bus, the tro-tro, the Benz Bus, the sept-place, and the one-speed bicycle. However, it is vastly inferior to Antrak Air, which, as my friends like to call and remind me while I am on the bus, takes 1 hour to go from Tamale to Accra and serves tuna fish sandwiches. My tips for a pleasant trip on the STC bus:
1. Plan for a 15 hour trip; expect the bus to leave 2-4 hours late. 2. Dress for the air con. During the day, the air conditioning will be sufficient from keeping the bus from getting unbearably warm. At night, the air conditioning will be sufficient to cause hypothermia in penguins. 3. Bring ear plugs or headphones. Or learn to love very loud Nigerian movies. 4. Plan what you eat and drink around rest stops. The bus will usually stop 3 times, each stop about 4 hours apart. The restrooms get progressively worse as you go north. 5. Lean back. Avoid sitting in front of a grumpy lady who hits you on the head every time you try to recline an inch, despite the fact that her chair is in the lap of the person behind her. 5. Make it a party. Your "friend" calls to tell you he's having a steak dinner with a glass of bourbon? I've got a 1.5L water bottle of gin and juice, and bag of popcorn, so there! In Ghana, large plastic bags, printed with plaid or otherdesigns, are prolific. The bags arecalled “Ghana Must Go” bags. I haveasked numerous Ghanaians why they are called this. They reply that Nigerians call them that, forunknown reasons. I finally learned thatthe name originates from Nigeria’s political turmoil in 1983, when manyGhanaians fled Nigeria. They hastilypacked their things in these bags.
Upon discovering these bags, I decided that they would be agood inexpensive option to carry our surveys, and dispatched the field managersto buy a couple for each of their offices. The tough field managers, who are a sophisticated combination of book-smartand street-smart, came back with bags printed with cartoon bears and cartoonpigs. Secretly amused, I asked themwhether they thought the print on the bags reflected the seriousness and professionalismof IPA. The next day a third bagappeared bearing cartoon Mickey Mouse. The bags held up during the course of the surveying,ferrying blank surveys to the field and completed surveys back to Tamale. StuffNigerianPeopleLike.com claims a GhanaMust Go can carry a child and his dog for miles. When I took our complete batch of surveys toAccra, the bags weighed in at 35 kilo per bag, which unfortunately, seems to bemore than a child-dog combo. My bags weredestroyed in one bus trip to Accra. To add injury to insult, plastic handles onthe bags chafed my palms, which have been peeling unattractively for weeksdespite copious amounts of shea butter. The surveys ultimately made it to the data team, whopolitely did not comment on the layers of dust the surveys had acquired duringtheir sojourn through the Northern Region. The lesson is that while I highly recommendGhana Must Gos for children, dogs, and objects with high volume-to-mass ratios,I do not recommend them for objects with density greater than or equal to adusty IPA survey. I am currently working with our data entry staff to start data entry for my baseline survey. Throughout the day, I keep finding new reasons to be appreciative of the staff, who do a difficult, tedious job while holding themselves to a high standard of accuracy. Here are just a few reasons data entry staff deserve the respect of the research teams they work with:
· They have to learn the logic of a survey in one day that took a week for surveyors to learn. · They have to work with surveys that have been battered by surveyors, up to three stages of editing, three stages of transportation, and storage in Tamale during dusty harmittan. · They have to try to decipher surveyor’s sometimes-awful handwriting. · They have to remember how to consistently enter responses that surveyors record inconsistently. · They don’t eat lunch till 1:30. I find this last particularly impressive, as I consider it to be a drastic sacrifice to wait to eat longer than 1. So, thank you to the data entry team!! |
About Liz
I have worked in economic policy and research in Washington, D.C. and Ghana. My husband and I recently moved to Guyana, where I am working for the Ministry of Finance. I like riding motorcycle, outdoor sports, foreign currencies, capybaras, and having opinions. Archives
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