The Best I've Ever Seen

The first week of construction is done, and what an eventful week it was. The village gave Kwame and me a rousing welcome on Monday. They were elated and excited about the project, and I got a much better idea of what they want out of it. And by the end of the week I fully understood why this enthusiasm among the people in the village was necessary for this project to be successful. The project is heavily reliant on communal laborers.

The men and women of the village provide communal labor for the construction process. The women carry blocks and water to the school site on their heads in the morning, and the men mix and cement, sand, and water and carry it to the foundation. We are paying locals to make blocks and to cut the lumber. As they work most of the day, we feed the men lunch as compensation.

This project, even though it involves no actual education, has reminded me just how many social problems are involved in education, not just in Naama but everywhere. I can't name all of them off the top of my head, among them are hunger, cynicism, and alcoholism (ranging from moderate to extreme) among the workers, widespread illiteracy, poverty, tension between the contract workers and the villagers, injuries, and in a few cases undiagnosed mental disorders. I am left with the uncanny feeling, not for the first time in Ghana, that I am closer to my hometown than the thousands of miles suggest.

I also have come to understand the malnutrition among workers and children in the village much better this time around. These farmers work with the simplest of tools, with ground that is very hard, for very little money. The work is so difficult, they must eat a greater portion of food than their children (though their wives get a raw deal, since they work the farms too) just to have the energy to work. They need to eat more bread to win more bread. I have done my share of manual and menial labor, but my body remains unable to do their labor for longer than short bursts. It is very difficult to accept (especially for the well-fed Western mind), but the children can't eat as much as they should for legitimate reasons.

When I watch the communal laborers working and playing, I am reminded of a scene in my favorite war movie, Platoon. The main character describes his fellow soldiers as "grunts,"
hailing from small towns you've never heard of, doing the work the rich refuse to do. That's how these workers are. Some have fathered and mothered more children than they have the means to provide for, some are raging alcoholics, but almost all are hard workers just trying to provide their children with a better opportunity than they had. They are, as Charlie Sheen's character says in the film, the best I've ever seen.

We've gotten support from the local government, who said they will give us whatever support we need. This means we'll be able to give the village a water well and the school electricity. We've also made it a goal to devote one of the new classrooms to a computer lab, which the villagers are more enthusiastic about than anything else. We live in the age of information technology, and they want access as much as anyone.

We've organized a committee with two men and one women. The two men are in charge of procuring lumber and organizing labor, respectively, and the woman is in charge of keeping us informed on the women's issues in the project. We've also been getting local media involved, and I'm sure we'll have some reports coming out in newspapers or on radio soon. Indeed, the eagerness of Ghanains to support local development has been one of the most pleasant surprises. As of now the foundation is complete. Next week we build the walls and start on the roof, before moving to the floor. So far, so good.

I'll conclude this post by reminding the reader that we still need all the help we can get, because the support of the local government can only go so far. Anyone willing to give a tax-exempt donation should email peace.of.mind.projects@gmail.com, or send a check made out to Peace of Mind Projects to

P.O. Box 1484
New York, NY
10027