Ghanaian News

This was the first weekend we watched Ghanaian news.  Apparently, that's supposed to happen every weekend, but last weekend the power went out, so we couldn't.  It was really interesting to see how Ghanaians presented their news, as well as the international news they mentioned.  First off, all their news is in English, since it is their national language.  (Which actually makes me a bit angry - but that's another story for another time).  But, it still felt like 'normal' news, in that it was mostly sad or discouraging news.  Apparently, that's the only type of news worth reporting.

Anyway! The first thing that threw me for a little loop was how pompous the officials on the news were.  The first story we saw was about the demolition of kiosks and houses along the roadways in Accra and suburbs. (Accra is the capital of Ghana).  So, this politician dude was saying how arrogant these people who built these structures were for placing them on the side of the road.  Actually, these people are poor traders who build on the side of the road because that's where the traffic is of people who will buy their goods.  They can't afford to get a permit for selling or building, and most of them don't know that they have to because they haven't been educated, and you don't put out information in a language they understand.  Instead, you insist on using English, even though most people in Ghana I met don't have a very good grasp of English at all.  ARGH! You make me just a wee bit angry politician dude.

Then, there was a story about schools being damaged and flooded from the recent storms/rain.  The interesting thing was that it was only the poorly built schools that were damaged, and only certain areas.  These areas were....GIRL'S DORMITORIES!  Of course it's the girls' school that's build improperly.  The girls were staying in the cafeterias or dining halls because they didn't have any place else big enough.  So, they'd have to clean up all their stuff every morning before breakfast and put it into a storage area so all the other kids could eat.  This made me mad because all of the schools with problems were all girls schools. None of the co-ed or all boys schools had these difficulties, even the ones in the same exact cities or towns as the damaged ones!

In Accra, there's a psychiatric hospital.  That's right, 'A' hospital.  There are over a hundred patients, but only 17 beds.  All the patients just cram into this small space, and the hospital 'takes care of them.'  When we talked about it afterward, none of the Ghanaian scholars seemed to have a problem with the situation.  The overcrowding was causing health problems and some stealing, but they didn't care.  For them, mental illness isn't something that you treat, not really. Instead, it's caused by doing drugs or being cursed.  Neither of which brings forth sympathy from the kids.  I stopped before I got too mad, but I really don't understand how they can think that people with mental illness aren't worth helping.  I almost felt like telling them about me, but then I decided that would be a supremely bad idea.  They didn't have to know.  (I did tell the program coordinators, for anyone who was worried about that).

So, that was Ghanaian news.  It made me mad, but also gave me a different way of looking at the things I saw happening around me every day.  So, I guess it was worth it.