Doing More

Early in our pilot we realized that there were many people in the villages who would like to take advantage of the Burro battery offering, if only they had the battery operated devices necessary to do so. Many people did not even have a simple flashlight (AKA torch) – despite the fact that these devices are plentiful in every market throughout the country. Some people even resorted to building their own flashlights and lamps using a bit of wire, an LED bulb, and some local materials like bamboo.

We thought at first this situation was because these people just rarely left the villages and since the devices were not for sale in the village, they just didn’t have access. So, we set about sourcing some decent table top lights and small combo light/radio devices to take to our clients. In Accra, the light/radio could be had for about GH¢1.80 (at that time, this was about $1.30) and we sold it for GH¢3.00 including the reseller’s commission. A table top LED lamp with about 20 small LED bulbs we purchased for around GH¢3.00, selling for GH¢5.00. Unfortunately, we ended up refunding almost everyone’s money after about a month. The cheap LED bulbs in the lamp began burning out after about a week and after just a few weeks were about ½ gone. The radio lasted a bit longer, but in most cases the retractable antenna and the carry handle broke off after a few weeks.

Both Whit and I know from our Cranium experiences that it is possible to produce very high-quality products in China, because we did it. We also know that it requires careful management, monitoring, and testing to ensure the design and component quality specifications are being followed. Lacking these controls and fearing no consumer protection or warranty penalties, manufacturers will rarely make quality products based on principle alone. In fact, one China manufacturer, upon receiving our feedback about some of the quality issues with a product replied, “This item price is very cheap. Most customers are using this for promotion. I think it's suitable for African market.” They do have their facts correct – suitable for the African market means people will buy it and take what they get. In Ghana, nothing comes with a warranty, including the 4WD pick-up truck Whit bought brand new when we first began, and certainly not small consumer electronics like radios or lamps. People know that once they buy it the risk is all on them. So, many learn not to buy at all when they know it will essentially be money down the drain.

These lessons told us that to really help empower people to do more, we would have to not only provide the batteries, but also high-quality battery-operated devices optimized to work with our batteries and rugged enough to last in village conditions. Our first such device has arrived and is selling fast. It is a battery operated phone charger – to re-charge the battery inside a cell phone. Most of our clients who have no electricity have to travel to a town with electricity (paying for a taxi or Trotro, unless it is close enough to walk) then pay someone (typically at a shop) to charge their phone. Our charger lets them charge their phones at home, several times, using one set of 4 Burro batteries. People love the convenience.

Whit designed the charger, taking a generic battery holder with generic black and red wires that could be attached to most anything, and had it manufactured with a female pigtail end to which any one of many, many phone attachment pins. For instance I can use one pin to charge my cheap Nokia phone that I use here in Ghana, a USB pin to charge my US phone, and another pin to charge my iPod, all with the same charger.

It would be ideal for villagers if someone were actually making a phone suited to their needs – for instance running on two AA batteries – but in the meantime, they are thrilled with the Burro charger solution!

Next to arrive, in November, will be a versatile lamp with 4 brightness settings to put the customer in charge of how much energy they use and therefore, how much they spend on lighting. The lowest setting, about like a nightlight, will run for 250 hours on 3 Burro batteries. The brightest, which will light a whole room, for a meeting or party, runs only 5 hours. We think the sweet spot is the second setting which gives as much light as the dirty, smelly, yellow-light kerosene lamp currently being used in most village households. Our lamp will run 80 hours on that setting, saving about 60-80% and reducing respiratory illness.

Since the World Bank estimates that breathing kerosene fumes is the equivalent of smoking 2 packs of cigarettes a day, this is huge!
XO

Don't Mind Your Wife

No body is free - might as well drink!

This is a fairly typical "drinking spot" in Ghana. "Spot" is the word used for bar/tavern/pub. Some names you might see are:

All Is Well Spot,

Be Bold Drinking Spot,

Strawberry Spot,

and my personal favorite, Don't Mind Your Wife Drinking Spot, where "mind" is used in the British sense - meaning Don't Pay Any Heed to Your Wife.

XO

Mystery

I was sitting on the top step drinking my coffee, minding my own business and watching the neighbors head off to their daily pursuits. Below near the breezeway between our building and the bank next door I saw Precious’ mother, Mary, speaking animatedly and gesturing wildly. The woman to whom she spoke immediately began to speak loudly with an upset tone to her voice and I thought they were having a neighborhood squabble. When they finished, Mary saw me, waved and started my way.

She marched up the stairs like a woman with a mission and, again wrongly, I thought she was going to share with me the cause of the spat so that I could, of course, take her side and lament about “people these days”. Instead, she told me there were three dead girls in the church down the street. She was speaking rapidly and couldn’t get the news out fast enough so it was all I could do to gather that three girls from the same family had died and were laid in state nearby.

As always, my immediate questions were “How?” and “Why?” – to which, after two years I should learn, the answer was “No one knows.” Finally, frustrated that I kept asking questions she couldn’t answer, she said, “Let’s go.” I said, “Go where?” and she said, “Go see.” I protested that I wasn’t, in my standard Capri and sleeveless top uniform, dressed for a funeral. She reassured me that it was fine and that she had gone over in what she had on – a plaid skirt with a side zipper, unfastened at the top from a missing button, and a hangin’-around-the-house blouse.

So, feeling like Grandma Mazur in a Stephanie Plum mystery (I ♥ Janet Evanovich!), I went inside to change, at the very least, from my house flip flops to my going out sandals and away we went. Here is the “news” article describing the situation. I could link to it, but it’s short and I’ll attribute it to the Ghana Chronicle and put it in quotes and all that – so they shouldn’t mind.

“The Eastern regional capital, Koforidua, became a scene of great grief yesterday when the bodies of three sisters from Aburi, who died mysteriously three weeks after returning from a youth camp, were transported to the town for burial. The Apostolic Church of Ghana, where the three young ladies worshipped, was literally shaken to its foundation as the entire leadership of the church, which was overawed by the event, trooped to the Eastern regional assembly in Koforidua for the burial service.

The bodies of the three sisters, aged between 17 and 20, were brought to Koforidua for burial following a 40-day ban on drumming, noise-making and funeral at Aburi that normally precedes the Odwira festival in the town. The festival is expected to take place in the middle of next month.

The circumstances leading to the mysterious death of the sisters, including a set of twins, spread like a wildfire in the Koforidua municipality, drawing a huge crowd from all corners of the town to the premises of the church where they had all been laid in state for the burial service. Two of the sisters died on the same day while the other died five days earlier. Sympathisers including some pastors could not hold back their tears when they saw the three sisters lying in state. When the caskets containing their mortal remains were being carried to the cemetery, the roof of the church nearly came down, with spontaneous wailing from the church members.

The only living sister of the three deceased, who is about 14 years old, had to be heavily protected and comforted. It was however visible that she was very terrified and traumatized during the entire burial service of her sisters. Both parents of the deceased, who are in their late forties, are natives of Aburi, where they live with their children. The 17-year-old twins, Juliana Opoku Nsiah and Juliet Opoku Nsiah, attended SDA Senior High School at Ashanti Agona while their 20-year-old elder sister, Josephine Opoku Nsiah, was about to enter the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi after completing Adonten Senior High School at Aburi. The father, Oliver Kwame Nsiah, is a driver at the Accra office of KNUST while the mother sells second-hand clothing at Aburi.

The mysterious deaths sparked a series of speculations trying to explain the deaths which occurred in less than a week. Some alleged that it could be a spell on the family while others said the children were bewitched. Juliet Opoku Nsiah, the younger of the twins, was said to have complained about pains all over the body after 'something' allegedly struck her neck like somebody had hit her with a stick.

The sickness got serious and she was taken to the Tetteh Quarshie Memorial Hospital at Mampong-Akuapem, from where she was later referred to the regional hospital at Koforidua. She died on September 4, a few days after admission. Five days after Juliet's death, the elder sister, Josephine complained of a similar ailment and died on the same day when she was taken to Tetteh Quarshie Hospital. About two hours after the death of Josephine, Juliana was said to have collapsed but was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital on the same day.”

As with Patrick, my small boy who died in late August, there was no follow-up about the causes of death. No autopsy results. No reassurances to parents who may worry about a contagious epidemic. Nothing to refute the wild speculations of witchcraft. And finally, no closure for the family – no explanation of an unfathomable parental nightmare.

The church was like a parade with a steady stream of people, including small children, walking up the center aisle to where the three bodies lay side by side on three identical platforms, in three identical white dresses. All were instructed to circle round the bodies to the right and then proceed back up the center aisle and out the doors in the back of the church. A three piece ensemble played music as family members and friends sat in the church pews (actually rows of chairs) throughout the day.

We saw many of the neighbors there, all out of curiosity alone. No one in our neighborhood, nor in most of Koforidua, knew this family, but everyone turned up to gaze at the bodies. Those who didn't go inside were crowded 5 deep around every window in the church building. It was perhaps the single greatest moment of cultural divide I have experienced in these two years. And the front page full color newspaper photo of the girls laid out at the church was the second.
XO

Akos and Kwabena

Two of the children in the neighborhood are brother and sister. The girl, Akos, is 12 and the boy, Kwabena, is 10. He is a little slow and probably a lot ADD. He doesn’t go to school because I am sure there is no path for him there. I’m told he did go at one time, but they “sent him home”. The children always call Kwabena a “dirty boy” because they hardly ever bathe him and he wears the same clothes for days in a row until the dirt is so ground in that it doesn’t come out. In a country where people bathe twice a day, even the 4-year olds begin to look with disdain on anyone who has not bathed. Further, because of his wild nature and the general opinion about his cleanliness, he had become the whipping boy of the neighborhood. Anytime something happened all the other children needed to do was point at Kwabena and he would be slapped, beaten, or caned, no questions asked.

Akos is very active and bright, but skinny and always dressed in what I would call rags. Despite being bright, when I first arrived two years ago she was 10 and in Grade 2. She was then held back to Grade 2 for another year because she could not read. I assumed her family was just very poor and barely getting by and I began giving these two a few more things than the others. On this last return I brought them both clothes which I gave them a little at a time.

Recently, on the top step over my morning coffee, the children were teasing Kwabena about not having a bath that morning. I asked why he hadn’t bathed and one of the children translated for me. He said they had no water. In the compound, when the cistern in the courtyard is dry people have to go across the street and buy water by the bucket. I assumed they couldn’t afford it. So, I put out my hand and Kwabena came inside with me. I put him in the shower and gave him a soapy bath sponge. He was amazed that I could make the water warm just by turning a knob. He scrubbed himself all over with vigor and excitement, beaming like a halogen light. Afterward, I put him in a new set of clothes and put the filthy ones in a bag. When he came back outside, the other children cheered as he continued to beam.

Imagine my surprise when a man came to the door, speaking perfect English, introduced himself as these children’s father and asked for a job. His story was that he had had a job in Accra but now he needed another one and needed to be home to care for his family. I asked what job he had in Accra and he said he worked for Metro Mass. Metro Mass is the large city-to-city bus company – and I think no one working there would leave voluntarily in a country with such high unemployment. I did ask why he left and he said it was because he didn’t have a place to stay in Accra. Are you kidding me? Anybody can find a place to stay. If you really want to take care of your family, you don’t quit a good job. And if he had a good steady job, why were his children dressed in rags – and why were they so poorly educated and his daughter barely reading, when his English was nearly perfect. I assume that if he actually did work for Metro Mass, he lost that job and was telling me a tale. I told him we didn’t have any openings, which was true.

Then a few days ago, I realized I hadn’t seen Akos for a few days, so I asked about her. Her mother had come to visit and Akos had essentially run away with her. It was Sunday and she was wearing the new dress I got her – brown with white polka dots, and a ribbon that tied in the back. When she returned from church, she sneaked in the house to get a bag of her rag clothes that she had quietly packed away. But her evil stepmother had discovered her plot and locked the bag of clothes in another room. Akos and her mother begged the stepmother to give her the bag and finally Akos said, “I’ll just go with what I have on,” and they left.

It was the other girls, Akos’s friends, who were telling me this story. They said the stepmother only wanted her to stay because she makes her do all the work. They said, “Auntie Jan, almost everything you give Akos, her stepmother takes and sends to her grandchildren.” It was a very sad story, but I had to quietly cheer for Akos. I hope she finds the love and care she deserves. And, Kwabena, when he’s not poking, pinching, or prodding, likes to just sit quietly and lean against me.
XO

Where is the outrage?

Upon my return from Europe, I was rapidly informed that one of “my kids” was dead. He was three years old. I couldn’t wrap my head around it and the questions “why?” and “how?” had no answers.

The details are still sketchy and the mother still has not returned (as of 27 Sept) from the Volta Region where the boy died and was buried. The grapevine version says that on the Monday after I left to Europe, the boy and his sister (12) traveled with their mother to the Volta Region to visit family. He was fine and had not been sick. On Thursday, he complained of feeling cold and they took him to the hospital. However, he died in the car on the way.

That’s it.

Having watched far too much Law & Order and experienced blessedly little pre-mature death, in a land striving for healthcare for all – I had a lot of questions. What did the doctor say once they reached the hospital? (Nothing – they had no idea why he died) Did they do an autopsy? (Unknown, but unlikely) Was there any sort of investigation? (Unknown, but unlikely) and so on… None was answered satisfactorily.

On Law & Order, they would first determine a cause of death – I don’t know of any disease, even in Ghana, where the only symptom is feeling cold and that results in death before any other symptoms manifest, so why not at least a hypothesis and some tests. Then, sad to say, the first place they would look (the L&O detectives) would be at the parents. In this family, the daughter, when I first arrived here, knew and talked far too much about sex, including describing a variety of acts of molestation she claimed one 8-year old boy was perpetrating on smaller children. I wondered and agonized later whether what she was describing were more likely personal experiences outwardly projected. The mother, who’s chest and arms show a pattern of what appear to be ritual burns, was beaten badly one night. The next morning, when Whit and Max pointed to the huge “Stop Domestic Violence” billboard on the corner and asked her why she didn’t report it, she laughed and said that billboard was just a way for the government to spend grants they had been given by NGOs. The police would do nothing.

So, I began to wonder, in a family where violence seems to be the norm – and the outward signs of child abuse, say, shaken baby syndrome, can be virtually non-existent – in a country where the police and justice system do little or nothing to protect everyday people from violence and crime – where death is commonplace and accepted with a “tragic-but-what-can-we-do” attitude and people do show up at the hospital dead of malaria and yellow fever and typhoid and meningitis and various other undiagnosed illnesses - it would be very easy to rush a dead child to the hospital, knowing there would be no real questions.

I’m not saying what it was or it wasn’t – only that I cannot get my head or my heart around this senseless loss of a child who had only recently made the transition that every mother of boys knows well – from baby to small boy, with a tiny swagger, and a mischievous smile. And I realize the only picture I have of him is a grainy, cropped-from-a-group photo a year and a half old. Is his existence already a memory as life in Ghana goes on? Where is the outrage?
XO

Out of Africa

On the 14th of August, I headed off for a two-week trip with Leslie and our friends from Rotterdam, Harman and Nelly, and two of their children, Harman Jr. and Kirsten. Unfortunately their third child, Mira, had a better offer helping run the annual rush camp for her sorority, so we missed her.

The first week, we stayed in a rented house in the countryside outside of Venice, Italy – venturing out to see various ruins and old city walls and architecture, and into Venice to see the “official” tourist sites. The second week we chartered a 44’ sailboat in Pula, Croatia and sailed from island to island just off the coast.

Here is a smattering of photos from that trip. There are many interesting, poignant, and funny stories from that trip, but for now, here are the highlights and the photos…

Italy

• Saw the opera, Aida, at a first century Roman arena in Verona (seats were cold hard stone and even the sound system could not project to such a large open space), but the experience was unique.


• Old architecture and city walls


• Breakfast outside every morning


• Trying to see all of Venice in a day


• Ping pong tournament by the pool with s'mores


• Gelati every day!

Sailing, Croatia

• A different island every night


• Navigation! (I've found a new passion!)


• Excellent seafood


• Swimming, swimming, swimming


• First century Roman coliseum in Pula, with access to the underground area from whence the gladiators would emerge


• Gelati every day!

XO

Accounting 101

I’ve been heavy into Accounting 101 since I arrived in June. At that time, Debi Nordstrom and her son, David, were in their last week here as volunteer consultants to help us sort out our books and begin doing accounting transactions in a grown-up way. She was here for a month and the last few days included the better part of some nights as well. She was looking exhausted and bleary-eyed, but pulled out all the stops to get us to close May before she left. Then it was up to me to hire someone and figure out how to do it for June and all the months to follow.

Our business is not entirely straightforward because it has both rental and retail components, so some of the COGS (cost of goods sold) take the form of asset depreciation and some are normal retail inventory cost. In addition, the charging and delivery costs are part of the rental COGS. We also have the added element of the battery deposit (like the old deposit we used to have to pay for a glass Coke bottle) that doesn’t count as revenue but has to be tucked away in the event the customer wants to turn in his or her batteries and get the deposit back.

Along with sorting out the checklist for everything that needs to be buttoned down before we can close each fiscal month, I was writing detailed procedures for all the accounting related transactions and processes we do. Since I’m not an accountant and have never taken an accounting class, my baseline was a 3-day seminar I took on Financial Management when I was in consulting. Frankly, I’ve decided that’s where all accounting classes should start. Understanding how to read Profit and Loss statements and Balance Sheets really helped me understand the accounting transactions I was learning (from Debi and QuickBooks). I still can’t talk in debits and credits very well, but I can get the numbers to increase or decrease when they are supposed to. In fact, I figure I could set up QuickBooks for a small company. I’m pretty tickled with that.
XO

Fufu phooey!

We have two new employees, an accountant and a management trainee. Modupe, our new accountant is Nigerian, but is married to a Ghanaian minister and lives in Accra. Since she took the job here, she has rented a room where she stays during the week, then heads off to Accra on the weekends. Nii, our new management trainee, is another graduate of Ashesi University, which I think I described when Rose joined us last year. He is a city boy all the way, but is eager to learn, has lots of energy and is discovering the bush one pothole at a time.

Shortly after they joined us, we decided to go out for a group lunch. Rose was jonesing for a bit of fufu and they swore there was only one good fufu joint in town. In my opinion, the term “in town” was a bit of a stretch. We drove about 5 kilometers for a GHC 1.00 – 2.00 lunch (between 70 cents and $1.40). They were right about one thing, though, the place was all about fufu and the various soups with which it is served. In a pretty efficient assembly line, we placed our orders, the fufu came out in bowls, we selected our soup, and made our way to a table where a separate vendor (specialty retailer?) provided our soft drinks.

My fufu experience is limited, but this was not the best I’ve ever had. However, the group seemed to rave over it, so maybe my taster is not properly Ghananianized.
XO

Go and Come another day

Rainy season – what does that mean exactly? I’ve been hearing about the rainy season since my first visit here, but still can’t really figure out when it is. The best I can figure is based on a bit of trivia I heard one time: that Chicago and Seattle get approximately the same annual rainfall. Seattle would definitely be described as “rain-y” while Chicago would not. This has to be because Chicago receives most of its annual rainfall in big thunderous downpours that, while delivering a lot of water, are relatively short. In contrast, Seattle’s rain comes day in and day out for most all of the winter months (November to June!). Perhaps light, but indistinguishable and continuous.

In Ghana, December, January, February are decidedly dry and dusty. That was easy to sort out. However, it seems to rain with a fair frequency during the other months of the year, with perhaps an exception for August. So how does one define rain-y versus just rain-ing? Well, I’ve decided that April, May, June, and July seem to be the months in which it may rain all day for more than one day in a row, and thus, must be the rainy season. At other times of the year, the rains are more Chicago-esque in their power and brevity.

In any case, when it rains for long, the drainage systems are stressed to the point of failure. After that, water begins to collect anywhere it can and flooding can be rapid and dramatic. Here is a photo of the courtyard in the compound behind our building during one long rain. It was only mildly flooded, but prompted Precious’ mother to tell me about a flood that occurred when Precious was about 18 months old. They had taken her to a neighbor’s house in the compound so they could attend to their own water issues. However, the neighbor’s house also began to flood and they all fled to the next safe haven – but they forgot to take Precious. So, then 77 year old Me’ena (literally, “my mother”, the honorific for an old woman), her grandmother, waded across the already deep and angry courtyard to rescue her and carry her to safety. These days, 82 year old Me’ena is nearly deaf and shuffles along without any of the new arthritis miracle drugs available elsewhere. But she loves to laugh and does my laundry every week. She charges three times what I could pay the woman who cleans our office, but every time Precious has new flip-flops, shorts, or t-shirts and says “grandma” when I comment on them, I figure it’s the best $6.00 a week I can spend.
XO

Round and Round We Go

What’s it like day-to-day here, from a business perspective. A lot of people ask me that. How do you startup a business in Ghana?

Well, I can't speak for all businesses, and our business is not like any other business that I’ve seen here. The level of service we provide, not only to our customers, but to our resellers is quite different from anything I’ve seen here. Sure, there are companies that deliver – Coke, Unilever, etc. – but they are huge multi-nationals with high volume turnover. Also, they’re selling wholesale to retailers who know how to sell things or, in smaller towns, to local wholesalers who can then sell to small mom & pop (mostly mom) shops in outlying villages. In any case, the retailers who take these everyday products usually have shops or bars or restaurants. They put the stuff on the shelves and people come and buy it. It’s pretty straightforward. We, on the other hand, have to train our resellers how to present and sell our product, because it requires a lot of explanation. They must also be trained to visit their clients regularly and collect the batteries when they lose their charge, replacing them with fresh ones. That makes it a business that never rests. Twice a week, for each of our routes (eventually six unique routes per branch), we drive a circuit delivering fresh batteries and other products.

Some resellers are actually in the towns where we stop, but most of them have to come to the road to meet us, often from several kilometers into the bush. They make this trip by foot, bicycle, or if they are lucky by taxi. We meet with them at shops or drinking spots or just under a tree depending on the location and the number of different retailers we meet in that location. The transaction during the stop is managed through the use of colored bags and simple paper forms.

Each reseller has five string-top bags. They have a large red bag for dead batteries, a large green bag for fresh batteries and a small blue bag for any batteries a client says didn’t work well. These we test extensively and re-condition, if necessary. They also have a small green bag and small red bag so they can carry around a few fresh batteries wherever they go in case they run into someone who needs to exchange. We learned that one the hard way. One of our resellers was carrying around a few fully charged batteries in his pocket, along with his spare change, and nearly set his pocket on fire when the spare change finished the connection of (+) to (-).

On the day a resellers are scheduled to meet us, they have two choices. They can come in person or they can send their locked bag to the drop point by way of a taxi, trotro, small boy or girl ("small" used this way can apply to anyone up to ages in the 20's) on the way to school, someone going to market, or any other method they can come up with. When they meet us or send their bag for the route, the reseller brings/sends: the large red bag of fallen batteries, the small blue bag of potentially faulty batteries if there have been any complaints, new customer forms if they have any, and whatever cash they’ve collected. We count their dead batteries (we actually use a scale to weight them to determine the number – counting is slower) and make sure the paperwork and batteries match the cash in the bag. Then we count/weigh the items they need in return (fresh batteries, additional devices – lamps, phone chargers, etc., blank forms, and so on) and place all that in their bag, write a receipts to document the transaction, and move on to the next bag or reseller. Each transaction should take about 5 minutes, but when there are issues or discrepancies, the time can drag out considerably.

We used to take turns doing the route, but now that we have two routes, it requires someone to go out four days a week, so we’ve hired a route administrator. Since one of the key requirements of this job is being able to drive, it narrowed our selection considerably. In the end, we hired a man who had been a driver for Guinness. Funny thing is, he doesn’t like beer but loves wine.
XO