NGOs and marriage

Today started really early! I woke up at 7 a.m. for my 8 a.m. internship seminar, which was actually really, really interesting. We had read a reading that discussed what an NGO is and what its functions are and how it is run. In one part of the reading, it defined the two types of NGOs, and how they are rarely mutually exclusive, but tend to overlap in their functions. Essentially, there are two types of NGOs: advocacy and operational.
Advocacy NGOs support other organizations with similar causes to have a voice. They raise awareness on an issue (e.g. - human rights, AIDS prevention, rights of homosexuals, etc.) and promote rights. The results of these programs are relatively intangible, as the programs’ main goals is education and spreading the message about the message or cause. Operational NGOs meet the needs of the community affected. Many will provide tangible means for their target groups (for instance, Habitat for Humanity is an operational NGO, because they provide tangible houses for their target group to use). These types of NGOs have programs, give out needles or beds, and have clinics of facilities. As I said, though, most NGOs do both operational and advocacy work, and there are very few that only focus on one. WAAF does both operational and advocacy work. Their advocacy programs are much like what Leigh and I will be doing—going into schools and educating the youth, aka, spreading the message for the cause. The operational work WAAF does includes the services and funding they provide to the 15 Orphans and Vulnerable Children we sponsor, as well as having facilities for people to get tested, passing out condoms, etc. I was really glad to know the difference, and am glad I can look at WAAF and the work its doing in the larger context of what an NGO is and does.

In my Society, Culture and Modernization class, we learned about marriage in the Ghanaian culture. It was a really interesting class and we had a really good dialogue with our professor about the differences between Western ideas of marriage and the Ghanaian ideas. Some of the things that stuck out to me most about the discussion were:
*Marriage is constitutionally defined as between a man and a woman, and same sex relations (even without marriage) is illegal in Ghana
*While most inter-familial marriages are discouraged, one type, the Cross-Cousin Marriage type, is actually encouraged. Essentially, in the Ghanaian culture, it is not considered a good thing to marry your first cousin (mother’s brother’s son, or whatever). This is strange to even Ghanaians, because family is so important, and most cousins are raised together like brothers and sisters, and then some eventually marry each other.
*Bouncing off of this idea, most marriages are not arranged, per se, but they are definitely discussed by both families, and most parents encourage their children to marry within certain groups.
*Marriage is also what our professor calls a union between two families, and the marriage is less about the two people getting married than it is about the two families coming together.

The part I found most interesting and disturbing all at the same time was the roles and expectations of the husband and wife.
*The wife is supposed to refer to her husband never by his first name. She may refer to him by his last name, as her children’s father, or, most commonly, by “my lord”. Our professor asked the only guy in our class if he’d like it if his wife called him “my lord,” and the boy replied probably not, that’d it’d be a little weird. The professor seemed taken aback that a man wouldn’t want his wife to call him that. We explained that in the states, husbands and wives call each other by their first names, and he just didn’t understand that.
*The husband is responsible for paying off the wife’s debt, taking care of her and providing for her, while the wife is responsible for bearing children and maintaining the household.
*Men typically do not want to marry a woman who is of equal or higher intelligence than he, because they feel they are superior to the wife in opinion, knowledge and thought. I guess a smart wife intimidates them too much, so they almost always marry down (in smartness). **The girls in the class, myself included, were NOT okay with this
*In the 1960s, the rate of polygamy used to be about 50%, and now it is down to 15-20%. For those husbands that practice polygamy, their first wives oftentimes help select the second wife, as she selects someone who will be of great use to her around the house and with the kids
*The main keyword in a marriage here is “respect,” but it is not usually a mutual respect. The term is most commonly used when referring to a wife’s submission to the husband, as in the case of intelligence, or using the term my lord.

Ultimately, many of us found this whole concept of marriage particularly disturbing. I’m no feminist, but I do believe in gender equality, and this just doesn’t sound like that to me. I think that’s the way it is though, and our professor didn’t sound apologetic about this being the case. It was interesting to get to talk with him about the differences between marriage here and marriage in the United States. I think both sides learned a lot from each other.

After that class, Gillian and I went to the Togo embassy and got our visas! They put a really big stamp in our passport, which we were both excited about. The visa lasts for a month, and we plan on taking a trip to Togo the weekend after Valentine’s Day weekend.

I got to take a two hour nap today, which was a godsend, and had a great dinner at Sunshine Salads. Some of us watched “The Nanny Diaries” tonight, which was a good reminder of New York.

I don’t have much to do tomorrow except visit the school that we are proposing to work with. That’s at 1:30, though, so I’ll get to sleep in. Hope all is well. Keep me posted!

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