Cultural Challenges

Cultural Challenges

I spent one day at my original placement agency, the Catholic Action for Streetchildren. It is a drop in center for children who live on the streets. Because the street children are unaccustomed to schedules and being told what to do, it is very unstructured. All activities are totally voluntary. Therefore, a large part of the work is simply hanging out with the children, talking to them, and establishing a relationship in the hopes that they will open up to you or reach out for more services. The drop in center provides a safe place for the children during the day, but it closes at four. Children must demonstrate they are serious about learning a trade before the enter will sponsor their housing and education.

Although the work at the Catholic Action for Streetchildren is very important, the agency was a three-hour bus ride from my hostel, through a lot of bumpy dirt roads. Because of the car accidents I have experienced, my back can be sensitive. By the time I returned, My back was in a lot of pain, and I spent most of that night crying in my cot. I didn’t know how I could manage that drive every day for six weeks.

However, Dr. Sossou (our professor) needed to move a few other students anyways, so she offered to move me to the same location the girls were now going to attend. The Industrial Home for Children is only one hour away, so the bus ride was much easier on my back and I did not experience any serious pain.

Luckily, it seems that I can gain more social work-specific skills at the Children’s Industrial Home than at the Catholic Action for Streetchildren. so I really appreciate Dr. Sossou’s willingness to be flexible. I could not have asked for a more attentive and caring professor.

My new placement at the Industrial Home for Children actually consists of three separate agencies within one small compound. The compound as a whole is referred to as The Industrial Home for Children, and within the compound there is the Remand Home for Boys, the Home for Abused Children, and the Reform School for Girls. We will the rest of this week orienting ourselves to each agency. For the rest of our time here, we will be on a rotation, with one student tackling each agency on her own for one week. Therefore, I will spend one week at the Remand Home for Boys, one week at the Home for Abused Children, and one week at he Reform School for Girls.

Yesterday was our first day, and we were oriented to the Remand Home for Boys. This agency is meant as a temporary residence for boys who have been arrested, are facing charges, and awaiting their court date or sentencing. As in the United States, juveniles are not put in jail with adults, so while this is not technically called a “jail”, it is a “secure location” (complete with locks and bars), meant to ensure the boys do remain in custody while they follow through their legal issues.

When we arrived, the boys were in a classroom that was basically a screened in porch with a tin roof. The boys sat at beat up desks and shared ancient textbooks. When we (three young women) entered the classroom, all the boys stood up and announced, “Good morning!” in unison. Then, each boy was instructed to stand up and greet us, telling us a little bit about themselves as individuals. It was funny to me that instead of citing their interests, the boys announced the lengths of their limbs, their facial features, and the color of their skin (either “fair”, “chocolate”, or “dark”, all to describe different shades of African complexions).

After introductions, the boys did English exercises, which they gave to us to correct and grade. One boy slipped me a note, announcing his name and requesting my cell phone number and Facebook information-“so we can be friends”, he’d written beside an erased “I can be your boyfrend…”

I kept the note because it made me laugh, and also because I did not want to get him into trouble with his regular teachers. But I did tell the boy that it was inappropriate to ask a teacher for such information. He turned pink in the cheeks but still grinned at me shyly.

Next the boys did a reading lesson from their shared textbooks on “Animals of Ghana”. I was impressed by the teaching skills of their instructor, a short, older man named Mr. Abugadou. He spoke in a loud, clear voice in perfect English but with the thick Ghanaian accent native to this country. He called on the boys constantly, thus forcing them to stay attentive and involved. If a boy laid his head down or began laughing, he would cuff them lightly on the head or shoulders to gain their attention, clearly with no intention of hurting or punishing them. It reminded me of the way a father would good-naturedly swat at his mischievous son. The boys responded to him with attentive attitudes, participation, and respect.

It seemed ironic to me that the boys at the Remand Home, all of whom were facing criminal charges, were significantly better behaved as a class than most American high-school classrooms.

After class, the boys went to have lunch and to take a nap in their dorm, which was a long bare room with a concrete floor and a bars. When we returned, we were assigned to take “interviews” with the boys, which would contain the basic information about the boys (name, age, etc.) and an account of what had caused them to be in their present situation.

This is where this blog (finally) gets interesting. I thought I had already experienced culture shock (from the poverty to the open sewage, many things had already been challenging on this trip), but I do not think I appreciated the meaning of that phrase until the interviews were being conducted.

I was SHOCKED by the things the boys had been charged with- not because their misdeeds were so deplorable, but because their misdeeds were so menial that in the United States I don’t think they would even warrant police intervention, much less arrest.

The boys’ offences included getting a girl pregnant. This was referred to as “defilement”, despite the fact that the girl admitted the sex was not forced but that the two had a relationship. Another boy was awaiting sentencing because he had stolen rice.

In the case of another, the boy was charged with threatening his father with a machete. That does sound bad, but the boy told us his father had beaten him so badly with the cane across his back that the cane broke. His father chose this punishment in response to the boy having a friend over to the house without permission. After the cane broke, the boy got a chance to run away and grabbed the machete in hopes of scaring his father so that he wouldn’t get another weapon and continue the beating.

Even more shocking than the boys’ menial offences were the attitudes of the instructors (the very same ones I had admired earlier in the morning). They called the boys liars directly to their faces, and berated the boy charged with defilement by asking him over and over again who he had fucked (direct quote). One of these instructors was the same elderly teacher who I had respected so much in the classroom for his firm but caring attitude towards the boys, his skilled teaching, and his energetic commitment to education.

Later that afternoon, this same instructor asked us (with some hesitation) if we spank our children in the U.S. We said yes, some people do. “But what do you do if the child calls the authorities?” he asked us.

I explained that CPS must be able to see a mark on a child or significant signs of neglect before the police would be involved.

“What if the marks are only on their palms?” he asked.

He explained that he had caned two boys on their open palm, and that somehow photographs of the marks got out. Many people were angry with him, and he didn’t understand why. Ghana is a very religious society, and he noted the quote from the Bible, “Spear the rod, spoil the child.” As much as I wanted to jump down this man’s throat for practicing violence against children, it seemed clear to me that this man truly believed he had been hitting the boys for their own good. He seemed confused and hurt by the reaction of the “mob” that had spoken out against him.

The last interview was with a boy who was charged with making marijuana cookies and getting kicked out of class by a teacher because he was visibly high. During the interview, the instructor told the boy that he had to quit using marijuana, because it would eventually cause him to go mad and want to kill his own loved ones. He told the boy he could end up living in a slum in Accra, reffered to as “Sodom and Gomorrah”, because “dat is weh all the homosexuals, crack smok-ahs, and usahs of marijuana belong”. I was horrified by the idea that these three types of people would be grouped together as untouchables and collectively kicked out of society. But in Ghana, it seems all three types of “offendahs” are considered to be of equally unforgivable depravity, and it is the cultural view that the "deviants" deserve to be isolated from the rest of society.

At the end of the day, I was left to reconcile my conflicting feelings about the Boys’ Remand Home and its staff. The attitudes of the staff did not seem indicative to me of hatefulness or violent tendencies. In fact, it seemed clear that the staff cared for the children very much and wanted the best for them. Their attitudes instead seemed to be a clear reflection of the cultural positions towards delinquent children, punishment, drug use, and homosexuality. There is desperate need for societal education on such topics. I spoke with my professor, and she reminded me that Ghana is still developing. Things are beginning to progress in some areas, but very slowly.

There are so many times I have been angry with how America addresses those same issues, but I can say this: Today has left me with a renewed sense of gratitude for all those Americans who came before me and worked so hard to overcome ingrained societal obstacles, all in order to move our country forward towards enduring humanitarian advancement.