Information : Power

We had the most interesting meeting on Wednesday with Salif from the People's Dialogue in Accra. This is an organization which was set up as a response to the homelessness and forced eviction situation in Accra. He led us to one of the many community meetings set up around Old Fadama, and we had the opportunity to interact with the community directly.

Our dialogue focused on flooding, epidemics, and fires. However, we also asked about the people's culture and ideas about the future. We ended the meeting by Shilesh chanting the words "Information," to which the entire audience responded with "Power." We informed the people that we would be residing in Old Fadama for a week in the beginning of May, and they have welcomed us warmly.

I will share with you the details of this discussions as soon as I finish a formal write up.

After the meeting we took a short walk to another area in the neighborhood, which had experienced a fire that same night. Upon arrival we noted that a couple of houses were already beginning construction. Children were gathering nails and burnt corrogated sheets were sorted and being bagged for scrap metal recycling. There were over 500 rooms burnt. The first woman I meet was an elderly lady. She was one of the eldest, a queen mother, who cooked Kinke for the community. She lost her entire livelihood in 4 hours. Another man sat on what used to be the foundations of his house. He is an herbal medicine dealer for the community. We traced the border of the fire with our GPS unit, noticing that the only kind of buildings left at the edges were of concrete block. They stopped the fire from spreading. There were also a couple of piles of wood planks, houses which had been rapidly dismantled to avoid catching on fire.



We have requested a couple of our friends to document the reconstruction, day by day. We will also develop the personality sketches and explore their connections to disaster recovery.