Back in Tamale, and finding it benign. Friends had suggested that my penguin (if you are on facebook you will know him) might be suffering from PTSD (Penguin Traumatic Stress Disorder) given what happened last time I was here, but he is showing no ill effects. It’s good to be getting back on track, research-wise. I am replacing the interviews I lost, and I now have friends here who seem worried that I will fall into a ditch or be beset by bandits, and are being very sweet. So I am here all week, waiting to meet Prince from Damongo, whose interview is now the property of two thieves. Then to the Upper East region at the weekend.
Today I went out to the University of Development Studies’ Dungu campus, where the school of public health is. Visits to UDS involve long hikes from building to building across what appears to be empty savannah, usually at midday (I get there early, but there is a lot of waiting to see people). I am going to the UDS campuses to find and copy theses to do with migration, for a Sussex project that isn’t part of my PhD.
Copying theses makes librarians here nervous – there is a sense that independent research should remain safely hidden in the library, in case people should read it and benefit from the information therein. These are development studies theses, offering information on why people go hungry, or get sick, and what might be done to mitigate it. So it makes sense not to let anyone see them…
In this case, I had to convince the librarian that he should let me copy one of these precious theses. This was tough – I had to go to the dean of the campus and present my credentials, which took a couple of hours’ wait. He was very nice, and sent me back down to the library with the assistant-to-the-assistant-registrar, who talked in hushed tones with the librarian, causing him to stomp around scowling and finally let me sign the thesis out for copying. Then the assistant-to-the-assistant-registrar took me to a corner and, again in hushed tones, explained that the librarian was affronted and felt this was all wrong and the rules were being bent. So I should provide him with ‘fanta money’ (as in, cash to buy fanta, i.e. a bribe), to mollify him.
I responded loudly that I would hate to worry the librarian, and all three of us should go straight back to the dean so that I could apologise for my request. I was bundled out of the library at high speed, and the thesis was photocopied for me. Phew.
As if to celebrate, Tamale provided me with two fabulous travel images coming back to town. A goat on a bike, and the best truck slogan yet: 
There has been a lot of stress up here about tribal politics lately. I asked Latif to explain what was going on, since the updates in the news here are only useful if you know the background, and I don’t want to walk into a tribal dispute by mistake. According to him, the poverty and isolation of many of the rural areas here make people vulnerable politically as well as in more visible ways. The chieftancy of the Dagombas, based in Yendi, alternates between two leading families so that each time a chief dies, the head of the other family takes over. However, the national ruling party in the 1990s got a little irresponsible in its search for votes, and promised to support the family-in-waiting in a bid to get the chieftancy early, resulting in a riot in which the sitting chief was killed. The ex-ruling party was due for a break – they also apparently started distributing the standard bags of rice to buy votes at last year’s election, except that they put guns in with the rice, like those superheroes you used to get in the cornflake packets.
So, the tribal rules say that if the chief doesn’t die naturally, the throne passes to his son (the worst outcome for the other family, as the son will live a long time and their access to power will be delayed even longer). So lots of violence has ensued, and the son is still regent after more than a decade. The new government has promised to resolve the case within its first 100 days, which are nearly up, so hopefully people will stop smacking each other around soon.
chiefly procession
I have also been starting to observe the small things that make life here function, or rather that stop it functioning if you don’t participate in them. For instance, when you take the bus between towns there are numerous police checkpoints, where a sleepy well-fed policeman drags himself up from his chair to accept a handshake from the bus attendant, then pockets something as he lifts the barrier. It’s 5 cedis for a bus at each checkpoint, meaning that a driver has to find 20c just to get from Tamale to Yendi, which presumably decimates his profit since he is only making 1.5c per person, and there are about 25 people on the bus. If the police weren’t asking for most of his profit, he’d make a living and even maybe be able to make his bus less of a deathtrap. So not great.
I also discovered why most people haven’t officially registered their small businesses. The benefit of registering is that you can get a bank account in the name of your business, and you can invoice people formally for the work you do. To register you have to travel to Accra (700 miles or more), stay for three days, and pay 150c, which is much more than a month’s wages for the average small businessperson. This is just to submit the forms – if you want someone to actually stamp them you need to slip the civil servant another 50c to go to the front of the queue, ahead of all the people who can’t afford the 50c. Fortunately, the local government double-taxes businesses even when they aren’t registered, so you can be treated unfairly promptly and locally.
Word for the day: takachi. It means doing it the hard way – like learning how to fix a computer by breaking one repeatedly. Or doing a census of small businesses by taking the bus from village to village. It takes longer but you learn more.
And finally, a random shot of some of Tamale’s small fashionistas, who matched each other perfectly:
matching children
Ok, I’m off now. The guy sitting next to me is spitting.
