Reflections on Ghana

Our final partner meeting in Accra took place at the headquarters of West Africa Trade Hub. Their mission is to build market linkages, bringing buyers and producers together. The team at West Africa Trade Hub met us with great enthusiasm for their own mission and for a potential partnership with the Kelley MBA Global Business and Social Enterprise (GLOBASE) team. West Africa Trade Hub works with people to improve transport, access to finance, business environment and ICT to make West African businesses more competitive. Currently, they're working with six sectors: apparel, cashews, fish & seafood, home decor & accessories, shea, and specialty foods. As they shared during our site visit, Trade Hub recently engaged in a gap analysis analyzing the challenges of implementation of ECOWAS protocols on the free movement of people, goods and transport in West Africa and included a few insights from that study in a recent newsletter.

As I reflect on my March and June visits to Ghana, I consider myself extremely lucky. It's been a privilege to travel and learn alongside Kelley School of Business faculty scholars, staff and students, to push my personal limits, and challenge what I know, or thought I knew, about the global economy.

The March trip to Accra with the Kelley School of Business Undergraduate Emerging Economies class proved to be an excellent introduction to the business and cultural nuances of a developing country and its economy. Meetings with The Ghana Cocoa Board, Cummins-Ghana, SEND-Ghana (an NGO that focuses on poverty-related research), and others, provided first-hand exposure to food, culture, climate, and diverse viewpoints regarding the advantages and complexities of living and conducting business in West Africa.

The June trip was a full-immersion experience. Although I find the diversity of thought and energy of a big group stimulating, there is real benefit to traveling with a small troop. Numbering just three, the agility of the Globase Ghana Leadership Team allowed us to be flexible with our schedule and take full advantage of the introductions and gracious hospitality provided while in-country. In essence, our ability to build meaningful relationships with potential partners was greatly enhanced. And isn't that really the foundation of global business?

Thank you to all those who hosted us during our travels. We're so glad to have met you and look forward to working with you in the future!

There's no place like the marketplace in Accra . . .

Thanks to our new friends at Kingsbridge, we were able to spend several hours at a local marketplace speaking with entrepreneurs who are clients of Kingsbridge. What a fantastic learning opportunity!

Walking through a local marketplace in Accra is an experience that overwhelms all of your senses. The chatter of the exchanges taking place to sounds from the live animals being sold to the hustle and bustle of product movement causes your hearing to be the first sense overloaded. All of the buzz creates an energy as soon as you step into the market, and of course the sights of the marketplace are equally energizing. As you look at the brightly colored garments, freshly picked vegetables and fruits, and yes - even snails crawling out of their bin - your eyes struggle to take it all in. And let's not forget the smells - some more pleasant than others thanks to the heat. I do have to say that the meat market was especially unforgettable and to understand how unforgettable, you really have to experience it in person.

Understanding what is bought and sold in the local markets, and how it is sold was critical for our Globase team. We were able to spend time with a shoe cobbler, a dressmaker, a chicken farmer, a restaurant & bar owner, and a phone & laptop salesman. Each entrepreneur was engaging, open, and faced varying challenges and opportunities in order to grow their business. It was very exciting to engage with each of them and understand how our MBA students could impact the growth and prosperity of their business.

There's no place like a marketplace in Accra, and I'm so thankful to Manasseh and his team for sharing such a rich learning experience with us . . . I can't wait to go back in March!

IU connections in Ghana

During our last few days in Ghana we were able to spend time with the families of two Ghanaians who are studying at Indiana University. Nana is a PHd student at IU's Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department and has been back with her husband and two kids at the University of Ghana this summer. Also living with them are a few teenagers that they have taken into their home. Nana invited us to her home on the campus. In typical Ghanaian fashion, she had fixed enough food to feed an army. She presented us with two popular Ghanaian dishes. Red Red and peanut butter soup. Red Red is a bean dish with fried plantains that quickly became a favorite for all of us on the trip. Nana was able to shed light on many of the questions we had regarding women's roles in Ghana and the challenges that face them.

After a great visit with Nana we spent the next day with the family and coworker of another IU student, Ebenezer Ayesu. Ebenezer is in the African History department at IU. His friend, named Ebenezer as well, co-owns and manages some small businesses with Ebenezer about 25 miles outside of Accra in a town called Nsawam. "Eben 2 farms" as they have called their business works in everything from poultry to dress making. Ebenezer took us on a tour of their operations around Nsawam. We visited a few small dress making shops where the ladies running the stores were trained by Ebenezer. Ebenezer's dress makers are mostly made up of students rather than employed workers. When their skills are competent they graduate from the program and move on to develop their own small businesses or go to work for other employers. Over the last twenty years, Ebenezer has trained over 220 dressmakers.

These two visits were unique in that we were able to personally connect with people who have a direct relationship with Indiana University. To see and be a part of their world drew us closer to the Ghanaian people and their lives. As we had seen in many situations before, most people supplemented their incomes by having numerous different jobs or small businesses. It gave us much to think about and consider as we move forward in planning a program that will create a sustainable impact for the clients the MBA students will be engaged with. The culture and the practice of the people as well as the daily challenges they face in carrying out business will affect the way we move forward.

The grasshopper and the elephant

Last weekend we completed a trip to Northern Ghana, a predominantly Muslim region of the country. A 10 hour journey by car, often over drastically uneven dirt roads, proved to be a challenge both mentally and physically. It provided much time to get to know my teammates and absorb the colorful culture that blared, hollered, clucked, baa'd, screeched, and laughed all along the roadside and adjacent villages as we barrelled toward Mole National Park.

On the way to the park, we stopped in the town of Kumasi, Ghana's second largest city after its capital, Accra. Near Kumasi, we visited Kintampo Water Falls and a nearby monkey sanctuary, where I spotted a small speckled grasshopper amongst the giant, monkey-filled trees.

Mole National Park personified the easygoing, friendly temperament of Ghanaians and its visitors reminded me of a menagerie lifted from a euro-hostel guest list. Although Mole Motel provided only the most basic accommodations, the view proved to be spectacular, overlooking a large lush basin partially flooded by the recent rains. Post-check in, our reception host escorted us to our respective rooms, leaving us just enough time to settle in before assembling in the "restaurant" for that evening's football match: USA vs. Ghana's Black Stars. What a night to be in Ghana!

As we waited for our dinners (the Mole Motel restaurant is not known for its quick service), we watched the US soccer team play Ghana with the entirety of the Park's visitors and staff. The excitement was contagious and by the end of the match, nearly everyone was cheering for Ghana.

The following morning we embarked upon our walking safari at 6:30 am. Our guide led us down a dirt road and through the surrounding bush. However, we did not venture far from the motel grounds. Baboons, warthogs, and kob (similar to deer) made their presence known. We also saw many signs of elephants: footprints, torn branches from grazing, and giant elephant dung but no elephants. Post-morning safari, our guide suggested that it was unlikely that we would see any elephants due to the recent rains. Apparently, as they cover nearly 50 km per day, the elephants are much more likely to leave the depths of the forest when water is scarce.

We figured the best way to increase the odds of seeing an elephant would be to cover more ground; for our evening safari, we decided to drive. Three hours into it, still no elephants. A bit dejected, we reminded ourselves how exciting it was to be in Africa, trekking through beautiful landscape. Trying to convince ourselves that it was not meant to be, we returned to the starting post of our safari.

Upon our return, we heard that another group had seen two elephants on their driving safari. Although the sun had already begun to set, we asked our guide if he would be able to track the elephants in hope that we could steal a glimpse (and a few photos). Back in the truck...we were off to track elephants! We parked at the bottom of the basin, a sizable distance from the Mole Motel and headed into the forest. Our guide, armed with a rifle, led us through the bush; every few minutes he would stop, look around, pick up a fallen branch and signal for us to move ahead. Finally, as the sun was setting, our guide halted abruptly, listened and began to run, pumping his fist in the air. We ran too! And there we stood in awe of elephants.

Moral of the story: come to Ghana, leave with patience (or at least with good practice).

***given the sporadic nature of elephant sitings and difficulty of travel between Accra and Mole, a second trip to Mole may not be in the Globase Ghana team's future. However, we do anticipate many adventures ahead of us, especially those that include the animals of Africa in their natural habitats!

Quit Monkeying around!

This post is a little out of order, It should have come right after the trip from Accra to Kumasi! On the second day of our trip to Mole we were able to make a couple of great stops. As we drove north, the topography continued to change almost hourly. Our first stop was at the Tafi Monkey sanctuary. In this small village the monkeys are considered sacred and therefore have a central role to play in village life. Everywhere you looked there were monkeys. They were on the roofs of the houses, climbing on cars and coming up to you as you walked the streets. One of the most fascinating parts of this visit was the monkey cemetery where they bury the monkeys that have died in the village.




Our next stop as we headed north was at the site of a beautiful three stage waterfall. After a short walk past one of the biggest termite hills I had ever seen and descending a couple hundred stairs, we reached the falls. There must have been at least 50 students swimming in the large pool under the falls and sliding down the slick rocks. Looked like fun, but we chose to pass this time around.