Stephanie and I hanging out in Kwame's shop.
Stephon and I before I left Kokrobite.This weekend I went back to Kokrobite (for the fourth time) to relax after taking all of my finals. Kokrobite is not very far from Legon. It takes about 1.5-2 hours to get there depending on traffic and the availbility of trotros. I hung out with Stephon again, as always. Before I left, he gave me a drum and would not let me pay him for it. He said I need to learn how to play so when I come back we can play together, haha.
On one of my first weekend trip with ISEP, our program director made a comment that "Africa needs to help Africa." I saw that happen this weekend in Stephon's shop. He was sitting there carving salt and pepper shakers out of calabash when all of these children started pouring in. They stood there like they were waiting for something. He reached behind him and pulled out a bag full of bread and began feeding these children. I asked him if he always feeds them and he nodded and said that sometimes they wake him up in the morning because they are hungry and want some breakfast. These children are obviously very poor and he knows that they might not get a decent meal that day if he doesn't do his part. I think that if there were more people like Stephon on this continent, the African predicament could be greatly reduced and more easily developed.
On Sunday afternoon, I ran into some exchange students I know from Legon. We were walking down the beach to visit a monkey sanctuary in a nearby jungle when we saw some local village fishermen dragging something up the beach. Upon closer observation we found that this "something" was a giant sea turtle that they were going to cook for dinner. There was a rope tied around one of the turtle's legs and they were dragging it on its back. Stephanie, who is a mild vegetarian and definite hippie, ran up to them and started begging them to let it go. She kept on telling them it was an endangered species, a term I'm sure they could not understand. She then told them that she would pay them 10 cedis to let it go. The people were getting angry with her and some of them thought it was hilarious that this tiny little obruni girl was telling them to set their dinner free. One man began taunting the turtle and kicking it. Stephanie, as well as the rest of us, were very upset about all of this. One man told us that the turtle would feed them for a long time. It made me think...where do you draw the line between protecting endangered animals and feeding hungry people. I love animals, and I've always been that way. My mom always catered to my animal-loving desires and helped me nurse a lot of creatures back to health when I was a child. I hate the thought that these beautiful, 100-year-old sea turtles could no longer be around in the next decade. But I think there comes a time when you have to allow these things to happen for the sake of human existance. I don't know if this is the case in Kokrobite, but when I visited Butre I noticed a lot of lights from fishing boats at night. Yow and Keira (the owners of Ghana Spirit in Butre) told me that those lights were coming from Korean fihing boats. Apparently a Korean fishing company signed a contract (probably through bribary) with some Ghanaian governmental figure. This contract allows the Koreans to fish off the coast. The problem is that when the local village fishermen pull in their nets in the morning...they are empty. I don't know if this is a problem in Kokrobite, but it would make sense that they would need to eat this turtle.
Anyway, I will be going by the orphanage later to pay the tiler. If anyone is planning on sending in money to help out with the tiling costs (as I have run short of money), please send the checks to my mom's house as quickly as possible. I will be leaving Ghana in 9 days. : (
525 Timberline Drive
Lenoir City, TN 37772
2 comments:
Costa Rica has found ways to conserve endangered species AND feed hungry people; so many other places in the world should follow that example.
The largest source of income for Costa Rica is tourism; they've had a lot of campaigns to educate people and help them understand that saving wildlife and protecting the rainforest will bring in more revenue.
Yet, there are many Costa Ricans who still love to eat sea turtles -- green, loggerhead, you name it. So the government has set up "turtle farms" and breeds these turtles, raises them to a healthy size and then releases them. Then Costa Ricans can fish for however many turtles they want; it isn't illegal in CR, so there's no black market trade for tutle shells or skulls.
This way, everyone wins. The turtles get to be populated in substantial numbers, and hungry people get turtle soup.
I think this could work in most places, especially if Ghana geared up to have more eco-tourism; they can offer something different from Kenya or Tanzania.
That's really interesting. I've found that some resorts have been "eco-friendly" here, boasting of solar power and self-composting toilets. Some resorts have placed signs outside describing the slowly disappearing sea turtles' dilemna. They would do well to catch onto Costa Rica's educational lead.
Post a Comment