“Before enlightenment, chop wood, fetch water. After enlightenment, chop wood, fetch water.” When I first came across this quotation that is attributed to Buddhist philosophy, I wondered why anyone in their right senses would chop wood and fetch water after becoming civilized. But in the matter of our national behavioural change interventions, we seem to be chopping wood and fetching water with reckless abandon.
How? By operating a development model that is characterized by making two steps forward, but three steps backwards. This is tantamount to “Moving forward in the right direction” then reversing backwards in the wrong direction but yet, pretend to be heading towards “A better Ghana”. The result is that we’ve become stuck at the funny intersection of underdevelopment. An examination of two grand behavioural change efforts speaks volumes.
Collectively as a country, we have spent hefty sums of money on public education campaigns to promote the use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), and to wash hands with soap. But we’ve turned round to destroy the successes made by several national acts of omission and commission.
Lighting your fire:
Ghana’s forest – wake up, for we’re waging an attack on you, fast and furious. We’re lighting up the forest to cook food, just like our forebears did long ago. Why? The rampant gas shortages are pushing many to resort to the old ways – using charcoal and firewood although it offends rationality.
The LPG campaign succeeded – big time. Homes both rural and urban, rich and poor – adopted the LPG. Even chop bars adopted LPG. It was a text book case of adoption success, and Everett Rogers, the international guru of behavioural change communication campaigns would have smiled for Ghana. But now, he must be weeping in his grave for the shortage of LPG.
Who would have thought that when in the late 1980s or thereabouts this country embarked on a national campaign to discourage the use of firewood and charcoal and instead, promote the use of LPG to save our forests, over two decades later, we would turn round to hack away all the gains made by creating the perfect condition that will force us to revert to the use of firewood and charcoal? Something is happening that is beyond ridiculous.
In the past year or so, gas shortages appear to have come to stay. Let’s face it, gas cylinders are not easy and pretty things to shovel around. They’re bulky and they’re clumsy and they’re hard. Those who don’t own vehicles carry cylinders around town, clumsily positioned on their shoulders in search of gas. Some stay in queues at odd times, praying and pushing cylinders, waiting for their turn to fill up.
Getting people to change their attitudes and behaviours is one of the toughest things to accomplish. As a country, we have a multitude of areas that call for change. That is why it is more than sad to, by default, force the citizenry to revert to old practices which are detrimental to our environment, our very wellbeing and survival as a people. It is said that when the last tree dies, the people die. So, wither are we drifting as a nation on the firewood/charcoal front?
I’m currently in a confused state of – “How do I cook”? I switch over to a kerosene stove only to realize that buying kerosene, a bio-product of petroleum, is no walk in the park. So should I roll over to buy a coal pot and charcoal, and/or firewood – and by that, fetch wood in my 21st century civilization? Indeed, Buddhist monks must be having the last laugh.
Whoever is to blamed for the shortage of LPG should be charged for causing financial loss to the state. Specifically, the financial losses are threefold. (1). The cost of the successful campaign to effect behavioural change from charcoal and firewood to adopting LPG. (2). The loss of man/woman hours spent throughout Ghana in desperate search for LPG should be computed and added to the first loss. (3). We should also project the future money to be spent in another behavioural change campaign to get people to change again from charcoal and firewood back to LPG.
Hand-washing blues:
A second initiative to change behaviours on the national level is hand-washing campaigns. As far back as 2003, Ghana organized the first hand-washing with soap campaign with the slogan, “For truly clean hands, wash with soap.” It was touted as a successful intervention to teach and encourage people to wash their hands with soap and to make hand-washing second nature to Ghanaians – adult and children alike. The campaign won several awards. Since then, other mini campaigns have been organized on the national level as well as in specific regions or schools.
Just like the successful campaign to save our forests by promoting the use of LPG, we spent unknown but obscenely large amounts of money on hand-washing campaigns. Then, as usual, we slip into the nine-day wonder mode and park at dirty curbs. Meanwhile, hand-washing with soap is said to be the most effective vaccine against childhood infections. Not washing hands at all, or washing them improperly pose a health hazard; and it is uncivilized. But how do we wash our hands with soap without water?
The jury is out. Ours is a predominantly hand-shaking culture. We shake hands when we are happy, we shake hands when we are sad, we shake hands to welcome others, and we shake hands for no apparent reason at all. Refusing to shake hands with someone could bring down the wrath of the culture over the head of even the most innocent offenders. Enters the hands!
Caution! Whenever you see a hand coming towards you for a hand-shake, be kind to yourself by taking a moment to pause and wonder where that hand has been, what it has touched, what has touched it, what has blown over it, and where/what it has dug into. There are a thousand and one yucky possibilities.
Here are just a few innocent but disgusting watery sticky possibilities of entanglements prior to your most recent hand-shaking episodes. Pee (urine), poo (toilet), puke (vomit), wedgie-picking in between booty-crack (dross region), nose-picking/nose-digging, teeth-picking, eye-picking and ear-picking, body sores, as well as deep-scalp hair scratching with dandruff and stuff.
These are the hands you and I shake gleefully regularly without thinking a hoot about. Now what! After shaking the offensive hands, we move on to shake other hands to freely transfer unknown germs. Yet, hand-washing campaigns continue in the absence of water. By that, we learn and unlearn hand-washing behaviours all at once because of the lack of water, the main ingredient needed.
The water situation in the public space is worrying. Some public offices of government, corporations, banks, schools and churches might have ‘places of convenience’ which are nothing but places of inconvenience and horror where diseases are offered for free because of the lack of water. If you believe in prayer, send high your pleas that when you’re in public, nature does not call you.
Another Buddhist saying is: “The first thing to mind is your mind. The last thing to mind is your mind.” Where is your mind on hand-washing and LPG?
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