When fieldwork meets pandemic in northern Ghana
„Rahim, how are you? Pretty bad with the virus, isn’t it?,” I said to my tuk tuk driver when he came to pick me up at the house one morning at the end of March 2020. It was the beginning of the rainy season, but the days were still hot and dusty in northern Ghana. „Yes, it’s bad, oh,” said Rahim, his face sullen. His hands were clad in gloves and there was a bottle of expensive hand disinfectant standing in his cockpit. „I really hope it will not spread to the north,” I said. Rahim shook his head leading the tuk tuk out of the dirt road. „If it does, we’re all gonna die,” he said ominously. I had no answer to that.
Early in February, I came to Ghana for the third time in three years to finish the process of data collection for my PhD thesis. I’m interested in the evolution of taste preferences and contemporary culinary praxis in northern Ghana. At the time, the worldwide spread of Covid-19 was merely a distant threat and my plan was to stay further 4 months in the field.
But the pandemic caught up with Ghana soon enough. Already, on March 12 the first two cases were identified in Accra, both brought by incoming travelers.
The national response
The initial Ghanaian response to the virus was quick and very reassuring. The government assigned 100 million dollars to buy tests and protective equipment for hospitals. Schools, universities and prayer places were shut down, borders closed; even funerals, one of the most important rituals in the Ghanaian society, were banned until further notice. Furthermore, at the end of March, a lockdown was imposed on Accra and Kumasi, two of the biggest cities in Ghana.
It was said that if the virus was to reach the poorest northern regions, the country could face a national disaster. As a result, the government made great efforts to educate the nation. Ads encouraging to wash hands started popping up everywhere. Even in regions where drinkable water was scarce and basic sanitary facilities were lacking, like in Upper West, so-called „Veronica buckets” with water and soap were installed in public places. I saw shopping baskets in the supermarket being disinfected. Following national order, many markets, including one in Wa, were closed for one day and fumigated. Tuk tuk drivers demanded us to use sanitizer before entering the vehicle and the number of people allowed on board was cut in half — resulting in doubling of the fares.
The educational effort was so pervasive that even my next-door neighbors, 4-year-old twins, felt prompted to give me a comprehensive lesson in basic hygiene and preventive measures.
Goodbye research?
Unfortunately, preventive measures against the virus also put a stop to the ways I used to do my qualitative research for much of it tends to be connected to participating in social activities and various gatherings: I would attend meetings of church groups’, Sunday services, follow locals to funerals, weddings and naming ceremonies to observe food practices. None of it was possible anymore. The schools were closed and I could no longer cook along at practicals or chat away with teachers and matrons. But what hit me most was that due to restrictions I was no longer allowed to visit the regional hospital kitchen. It was there that I had spent long hours chopping vegetables, playing with children, meeting patients and nurses and talking all things food with women, who over time had become my close friends.
God is there
Hearing that Covid-19 made its way to Ghana didn’t make me scared for my own health. First and foremost I was worried about my research partners and friends. Soon I started questioning the ethics of my practice — after all it was all about meeting people and spending time with them. Should I follow government orders and stay home or continue the interviews and try to honor the general rules? Finding a middle ground was extremely difficult as in northern Ghana social distancing practically did not exist. Poverty and hand-to-mouth existence forces people to search income outside and daily social contacts are inevitable part of it.
“We cannot do it like you, white people,” told me Rahim, driving me from a market one day. “We cannot stay home and expect for the money to come to us.” “But aren’t you scared?,” I asked him. “No,” he said. “God is there. But if I die, I die.”
Encountering Covid-19 pandemic in the country of so-called Global South was enlightening in ways I could not have imagined. The state of health emergency, not unknown to Ghanaian Health Services, triggered a national response tailored to the local needs and conditions. What I saw on a daily basis contradicted sharply the information global media fed the Western public with. Ghana was not helpless. It was vulnerable, under-equipped and struggling to provide aid to the poorest, which eventually led to lifting the lockdown. But it was also resourceful, vigilant and reactive. I’m deeply convinced that global media urgently need to shift their focus — and start showing that in fact countries like Ghana know what they’re doing.
And I can’t wait to come back.
You can read more about my previous experiences in Ghana in this article.
Follow me on instagram @martaonthemove, where I blog about Ghana, social activism, traveling and plants.
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