Greetings from Ghana

Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 6:41 AM

Subject: Greetings from Ghana

Greetings from Ghana!

The trip so far has been great. I stopped over in London to see Raymond and his family. His mum was visiting also so I was able to see her as well. His two children (Rama-3 years & Raya-1 month) are fine--Rama is getting to be a big girl, loves to be read to, so Grandma and she will read together with the books we brought. Mary Jo, the quilt and dolls were huge hits with Resi and the girls. Rama has attahed herself to the nurse doll and so the angel becomes the property of Raya. Resi is as beautiful as she is sensible--thank God Raymond found her!

I arrived in Accra at 7:45 local time on Thursday, 9 June with Israel and Reggie (Raymond's brother) waiting outside the terminal behind the fence. It was not so much of a zoo this time, or else I am getting used to it. Perhaps since I was one lonely obroni, I was not worth everyone else's attention.

I am staying at the KAD Hotel (pronounced cod, like the fish) which is very near where Israel lives. I have a car and driver arranged by Israel's senior brother Immanuel so I go where ever, when ever--it is easy to fall into this routine.

My first working day here was long and partially successful. I visited the Action Progressive School out in Legon, a northeastern section of Accra near the University of Ghana. It is a very impressive school! They draw students from Togo, Benin, all parts of Ghana and elsewhere with a total of 1,850 students. The school has two sections. The original is called the remedial section and is for students who do not pass their examinations the first time around. The second is new with construction starting there only 4 years ago. Two floors of a four story building are finished and a building for student assembly and testing is being built. The new computer lab is to go into the second floor of the clasroom building and they are requesting 150 computers from E-quip Africa. The remedial rooms are older and the existing computer lab is located there. The machines are older and slow, but they learn MS Word, Excel and Power Point on them. The student hostels are near the old section also and I was able to see Francis' Abaidoo's room. (Francis is the student Mary Lou Werner supports.) I took a lot of pictures for you Mary Lou and even found out some costs!

Just a little thought to the board members of E-quip Africa: Action Progressive School is a private school and is run as a business. From my visit I know that profit is not their reason for existence. All energy there is directed at education and it is a fine school. We need to think about our policies--do we support private as well as public schools? Fr. Francis' Bishop Essuah JSS would be considered public I think, because the teachers are paid by the government--at Action Progressive they are paid through tuition. I don't know if that matters or not, but the thought crossed my mind.

My next visit was to the Catholic Secretariat's Office and Fr. Andy Soley. I was told that under no circumstances would the Catholic Secretariat accept goods destined for any destination other than Catholic organizations! He explained at length about the precarious nature of their tax exempt, duty-free status and how he could not put that in jeopardy by receiving goods that went elsewhere. I understand and will need to find another way to import them to Ghana without paying the maximum tax. Everyone pays the ECOWAS (Economic Council of West African States) tax no matter what your orgainization's name is, but it is the Ghana Import tax we can avoid. If the other churches that support the schools we are visiting have the tax exempt status, then we can use that but it looks like their goods would have to be shipped via a different container. I will visit the shipping companies to see if one container can contain goods for multiple recipients--if so perhaps the various schools could just be present to pick up the goods right from the Tema harbor. Anyone have any thoughts? Ideas? Anyone want to do some research from home? We were also wondering if Rotary could be designated as the recipient and/or if they enjoy tax exempt status here in Ghana. My Rotary friends in Takoradi will have that answer. Possibly the Ministry of Education and Sports will need to be involved, however, I hear from Kjell Rye that THEY choose the schools which receive the goods, not the shipper. I would not like operating that way. It means that the schools in the south and the schools in the neighborhood of the officer of the Ministry of Ed would receive the equipment and not places like Larabanga and Yendi.

Our next visit was to the USAID office in Accra. Our car was immediately set upon by two burley guards who demanded we open the hood and trunk. You can guess why! After they knew we were not a threat, we were told to come back on Monday because everyone leaves at 1:00 p.m. on Fridays! Hmmm! Those soft government jobs! It was not a memorable welcome!

The last visit of the day was at Catholic Relief Services. I met with the programs director and explained our story. He was attentive and made special not of the short brief I had prepared explaining our purposes. How might we collaborate, he asked. I suggested CRS could begin by helping with transportation costs for the materials going to Yendi. It will take much more follow up but at least I have met some real people at the headquarters and E-quip Africa will not be unknown to them.

Bye

Doug Wilkowske

E-quip Africa