Practicing Patience and Dagbani

Our predicted 12, then 14, then 16 hour bus ride began with a freefall and thunk. “That’s not a good sign,” someone muttered frankly. With a quick glance out the window, Robert smiled while others frantically looked around to figure out why our bus from Accra to Tamale had stopped. The engine revved, then revved again, reversed, and revved once more. Our driver misjudged the width of a right turn and sunk his back axel into the affectionately called “obruni trap,” or open street gutter (obruni means white person in twi). According to Robert’s countless stories, this is a classic Ghana moment. When time slows down and people ask, “when are we gonna get there?” you respond, “that is what I am also asking”. After a quick seesawing motion, we got back on the road for a solid 16-hour drive, minus three additional mechanical stops along the way.

For me, this was the perfect introduction to Ghana. Although I half expected something to go wrong immediately, or at least to not go according to plan, it still took me by surprise. But as we waited for the bus to be repaired, I had a quiet moment to remind myself that patience would be key to our project’s success. There is a lot out of our control. In order to successfully construct and implement a solar charging business in a rural community of northern Ghana, a place that ½ of the team has never experienced before, we must accept the fact that our detailed plan must serve as an outline.

We’ve spent the past three days moving from Accra to Tamale, and getting ready to begin our solar project implementation. In the U.S. this might have been a speedy process. But in Ghana this has meant buying SIM cards, finding share taxis while dodging baby goats, and spending fifteen minutes haggling to save fifteen cents on mangos. They were delicious (and the savings made them all the sweeter).

More important than tropical fruits, we are thrilled to introduce you to our translator, Khadijah. Robert worked with Saha Global last year and became close with her brother, Wahab, and met Khadijah when she was newly hired and shadowing other Saha translators. While Khadijah presents herself as reserved and professional, her quick jokes with taxi drivers and ability to instill debilitating laughter in market women suggests otherwise. Khadijah gets it…and we do not. What is clear is that we’re excited to spend the next three weeks with her, utilizing Khadijah’s linguistic mastery of English, Dagbani, and Howsa as well as her cultural literacy in northern Ghana. We’d be lost without her.

Lauren, Khadijah, and Robert at the Tamale Stadium

Khadijah spent her morning practicing a little Dagbani and a lot of patience with me as she slowly pronounced “gohm-bien-nay” for the fifth time. Dagbani is a tonal language that has 7 letters that are not found in the English alphabet. Given that my Dagbani is going nowhere fast and the village that we will be working with speaks zero English, we are feeling exceptionally lucky to have Khadijah on our team. There will be more Dagbani and progress tomorrow. For tonight, anula!