white man in ghana: 8. Rice Rice Baby / Part 2

the past couple of weeks have again been spent between the capital (accra) and the villages where our rice ladies live (akuse and asutuare). with the additional time spent out in the field with our clients, we are getting to know the businesses a little better.

this week i documented all the buyer and supplier transactions of the past 12 months in order to create a financial baseline for the business. of course this is easier said than done…some of the supplier farmers listed are ‘black man’ and ‘sammy the boy’… clearly very unique names and i am sure it would be easy to track down 'black man' in africa should we need him. aunty becky kind of knows everyone based on physically seeing them, but that doesn't really help creating the picture of an established business. to address all the normal issues of business (increased sales, reduced costs, quality control, accounts receivable, payable etc.) we need to know our stakeholders. as the rice is harvested and delivered to the farm, we are capturing names and locations of the farmers as well as developing an ongoing system to capture records for the business.

the next few weeks are based around figuring out what next. we’re looking at getting funds to put in a drying platform (which is a fancy name for cement floor when rice dries in the sun) and other packaging equipment that may be more attractive to consumers so they buy locally grown rice and not imports from asia.

other than that, when up in the village we live in a bit of a bubble between our hotel and the field. i like to think of it as ghanaian melrose place where we are in a small place, but a lot seems to happen...some random drama and anecdotes from this week

a police officer stopped our car this week for what i was sure was a bribe. he asked the driver to get out of the car and they spoke for 5 mins. turned out he was in possession of 2 tv sets and wondered if we wanted to buy one for 60 Cedis?!
for some reason nicola has become 'nicholas'. ghanaians are typically quite religious and have strong christian beliefs (this does not explain why the end of ramadan is a public holiday, but we'll take it anyway)... nicholas's lack of faith in jesus has now become a regular discussion topic.
mosquitoes love nicholas. deet is her new scent...
each day we get picked up in a taxi, drop nicholas in town at her rice aunty and then i 'pick a motorbike' to my rice auntie's farm. i thought my motorbike driver was a cousin of my rice autnie and i was doing them a favor by paying him for the ride daily, so i would wait for him even though he is often late. they told me yesterday he is a trouble maker and they sacked him from being their driver so if i don't like him i shouldn't use him. i responded with 'i thought i was helping him out, he showed me photos of his wife and family and he's been pretty nice'.... the response before i could even finish my sentence was 'are you the one who asked him to have a family?'
i was told that a fridge is being delivered to the farm because 'you whites only drink cold water'
i had a curb your enthusiasm moment this week when i was asked 'do you respect time' (do you respect wood?). as ghanaians do not respect time, my rice family wanted to know if i did. upon answering 'yes' they began shouting at everyone - taxi drivers, motorbike drivers and others around us that i respect time and they should know this.
we have not quite acquired a taste for fufu, banku or light soup and subsequently have eaten either chicken or tilapia with rice for every meal during the week. on a thursday i seem to get a special treat made for me in the field of cocoyam leave stew and dried fish bits with yam. hard to say no considering the effort that goes into it, but i'll take a burger or pasta and cheese over stew anyday.
we both share a great love for smothering our food in shit-o, which is a black pepper sauce. it feels odd asking the wait staff to cover my food in shit...
we visited the local bead factory (see photo below). they make beads.
there are a lot of signs for plumbers advertising their services to repair manhole leakages... gets me everytime