Ghanaian Efficiency Strikes Back

I would like to apologize for the recent decline in new updates. It's not because I have not been writing them. On the contrary, I have not had internet at my work for this past week to enable me to post them.

I wrote this entry before my office lost internet for the week, so the irony of this entry being about Ghanaian efficiency is certainly not lost on me...but it's still a good story.


I love efficiency of all kinds. Whether it’s small-scale (plotting out the errands you need to do on a Saturday morning in order to travel the shortest distance) or large-scale (re-orienting the divisions of your business to open internal lines of communication that did not previously exist), the economist in me (yes, it was one of my majors in college) really enjoys it. Now, I realize that my work experience thus far tallies more than a few non-profits, not exactly representing private sector, profit-driven efficiency at its best, but I have worked with several MBAs and PhD economists, and it doesn’t stop me from liking it!

A few of my previous posts have described how inefficient things can be here, or in any developing country, when compared to the “Western World.” So, I wanted to share a nice little anecdote regarding something that was MUCH easier and faster to do here than it would have been in the latter. And it all starts with me being an idiot.

As I mentioned when I got off the plane, Dennis drives a nice silver VW sedan that he takes good care of. The model is called a “Bora,” which hasn’t made it to the US, but it is very much like a Jetta or Passat. When I arrived, the rear, driver’s-side door had the child lock engaged, not enabling the passenger to open it from the inside. As that is the only back seat with a seatbelt, I usually sit there (with Dennis driving and Patricia sitting shotgun), and it has proved to be very annoying. After a while, I asked Dennis why it was engaged, and he said no reason. He didn’t even know how it had happened, but he would like it to be disengaged as well. Upon hearing that, I took matters into my own hands: a big mistake.

Dennis' VW Bora

Last Sunday, Patricia and I were waiting for Dennis in the parking lot after church, and I thought it was a perfect time to put my mechanical engineering skills to use. What mechanical engineering skills, you say? Well, that is a very appropriate question, because I have none. But that didn’t stop me from opening the door and playing around with the lock mechanism, trying to undo the child lock. I rotated the hinge on the inside of the door, and then tried to close it. The only problem was that now it wouldn’t close. I tried to undo what I had done, and the door was having none of it. I had completely broken the door’s lock. I told Dennis what I’d done, and he said we would take a look at it when we got home. We had to drive home with me holding the door as closed as it could get from the handle on the inside. Whenever we would go over a bump or make a sharp right turn, the door would open slightly, and I would close it quickly. It was ridiculous, and I felt terrible.

When we got home, I told Dennis I would pay for the repairs, as we examined the bad door and the other good ones. We saw why it wouldn’t close and what needed to be done, but the hinge would not rotate back into its original position. We played with the automatic keyless remote, the automatic lock inside the driver’s door, and the manual lock on the door itself. I even got a few screwdrivers and a wrench I brought with me to make our trials seem more official, but nothing was working. As Dennis looked at the other rear door (passenger’s-side), he began playing with it, and before I could stop him, he had done the exact same thing to that one. So now, both rear doors would not close. Luckily, it was Sunday, we weren’t going anywhere before work the next day, and Dennis said that his good car shop was on the way. Knowing all too well how much fixing a German car can cost, I fell asleep thinking the worst.

When Dennis and I drove to work in the morning, I had to be in the ridiculous position of the middle rear seat, with both arms extended holding each door closed from the inside. As we pulled up to the Dennis’ “good car guys,” the shop consisted of an air pump, dozens of tires stacked in piles of different heights, tools strewn about seemingly at random on the ground, and a few cars outside in various states of rundown. There was no building, but rather a covered dugout of sorts where 4 men in their late teens or early twenties sat chatting on a triangle of benches. As we pulled up, one of the men pivoted off of his bench and walked over to us, as Dennis got out to meet him. Needless to say, I did not think we would have any luck here.

The best shot I could get of the car "shop" from my passenger seat

Dennis and the man spoke is rapid Twi, as I remained in the rear middle seat looking over at them. The man opened the rear passenger-side door, examined the lock, and began playing with the door handle. After 10 seconds, he called over to one of his partner, who brought him a screwdriver, and in another 10 seconds, he had fixed the first door. He opened it and closed it to make sure, and then went around to the driver’s side and fixed the other one in no time. A feeling of combined relief, stupidity and awe came over me. The man walked away, as Dennis handed him 2 Cedis (less than $2) as a thank you.

The rest of the way to work, I couldn’t stop telling Dennis how cool that was. They had fixed both doors in under 30 seconds, and we payed less than $1 per door. In the US, I assured him, if you took a VW to the dealer to fix the same problem, they would tell you it would be ready in a few hours minimum and then charge you at least $50 for the labor alone. He just laughed.

PS: I am happy to say that when we were fidgeting with the two doors, trying to fix them, I figured out how to actually disengage the child lock. So, it all worked out in the end, and now I can ride with a seat belt and open the door for myself when we stop!

Like Two Cars Trying to Cross a One-Lane Bridge

Every day I learn more and more about the cultural dynamics at play in Ghanaian society. Some of them I almost expected, like the fact that women are expected to do all of the cooking and cleaning and domestic work, while the men are expected to have the paying job. Others have caught me completely off guard. For example, I just learned that going out to eat has a negative connotation here. Since groceries can be very expensive, eating out is often a more affordable option; however, as Dennis explained to me this morning, it is often seen as the option of last resort when the woman of the household is not capable of cooking the requisite meal for her family. “Pat would never allow it!” he said. I told him that in the U.S. it is almost exactly the opposite: cooking is generally cheaper and eating out is often considered a treat.

Another thing that I expected to see was the large adoption of Western technologies. It is quite ignorant to think that Africans want to be just like us, and that the goal of international development should be to make it so. However, cell phones and the internet are examples of transformative technologies that have completely changed the way we live and work, making it possible to communicate and interact in ways unforeseen only a generation ago. Most Africans feel the same way, and, seeing the greater efficiency and enhanced connectivity made possible in their personal and professional lives with many Western technologies, they have welcomed them with open arms. Without a doubt, the most advertised item in Accra is the cell phone, and I saw an Apple store on my first day. This is all the more reason why I was completely dumbfounded to witness the vast inefficiencies in the workplace stemming from the lack of use of these technologies.



It happened during another eventful day of driving around Accra with Charles. This time we were accompanied by Dennis, who had to go to some government ministries to personally enquire about the status of approved funding (which was now owed to us), as well as knock on a few other doors to get certain things moving. He wanted me to come to better understand the “politics of Ghana” and the organizations, associations and ministries with whom I would be working.

We arrived at the first government ministry office, where Dennis was following up on some emails and phone messages he had previously sent, from which he had not heard back. When we opened the door to the office, four desks piled high with files sat in a very cramped room full of about a dozen people – one person behind each desk and the other eight or so mulling about doing nothing in particular. Dennis found the person he was looking for and spoke to him for about 2 minutes. There was a lot of nodding, and then Dennis turned to leave, motioning for Charles and me to follow. I asked if everything was ok, and he said, “Yes, we will get our money now.” We then went to two or three other offices where the same thing happened. Even though it had taken us hours to get everywhere in the traffic, we never stayed at one place for more than 5-10 minutes.



As we left the third stop where this same scenario has unfolded, I said “I don’t get it. Why did we need to come all this way, when a phone call or an email would have sufficed?” Dennis and Charles just laughed. They said that the previous phone calls and emails served mainly to broach the subject, and many times they are not returned, let alone in a timely manner. More often than not, in order for things to actually get done, an in-person visit is required. During this visit, the emails and phone messages that have been sent to the person are discussed, where the individual will confirm their receipt and that they intend to follow through on whatever it is. If these messages are not sent before the in-person visit, the person will just say that they have no idea what you are talking about.

“But that’s so inefficient, especially when it takes us so long to drive here.”

They laugh even harder. “That’s Ghana” they say, which reminds me of “It is what it is,” a favorite phrase of my best friend, Jeremy, who stole it from his father. It’s a phrase which is simultaneously both profound and inane and can be said of anything under the sun. “You’re right, it is very frustrating. It was not this way in Germany” says Dennis, who got his masters degree in Berlin and has also studied in Norway.

In DC, the government is the butt of many jokes and the cause of much frustration regarding bureaucracy, red tape and inefficiencies. I’m not sure if this phenomenon is exclusive to the government here, but as of right now, my diagnosis is that this need for a face-to-face interaction may be cultural (More investigation to be done, so stay tuned). I was prepared, as many told me before leaving, for life to move at a slower pace here, but this lack of use of readily-available technologies is certainly surprising. An economist would term this "higher transaction costs" - the cost of making a transaction - and higher costs are always a bad thing in economics.

This conflict between “Westernization” (for lack of a better term) and the preservation of native cultural norms reminds me of something else that happened last week that may be serve as a nice metaphor. Perhaps it is not an appropriate metaphor at all, but I thinks it’s a good story in it’s own right, so here goes:

As Dennis, Pat and I were headed to Church last week for Pat’s women’s bible study (Dennis and I would run some errands during it), we came to a stop in front of a one-lane wooden bridge over a little brook. A steady stream of cars were coming over it from the opposite direction, and we were first in line to go over as soon as it let up. The only problem was it wasn’t letting up. I asked Dennis if there was a traffic cop* on the other end who would stop the cars at some point, and he just laughed. After 5 minutes, and prompted by honks from the line that had formed behind us, Dennis decided to take matters into his own hands. At an opportune moment, he turned into the traffic and began to cross the bridge. Inevitably, about a quarter of the way across, we found ourselves nose to nose with a car from the other side. A standoff ensued for a good 30 seconds before the other car put it into reverse to let our side have its turn to cross.

*Say what you will about traffic cops (I will readily admit to despising them, as they invariably prove themselves to be utterly worthless 96% of the time), but in this instance, we could have used one in Tema, Ghana.