Sometime in the beginning of August

Adjei Emmanuel, called Adjen, physically challenged young man, unemployed radio and tv repairer, bike shop trainee, and invincible urban cyclist. Adjen had been coming to the shop to help set-up and fix bikes during the past few weeks. I remember the first time we met – I was totally turned off by him – after a Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled (GSPD) meeting, he antagonistically asked me for transport money – I said no and left him. The next few times we met, we gave eachother a chance, and sure enough, we’re now brothers (I go over his house and his mom pounds fufu for us both). Adjen has become the most involved of all the trainees, although all have been continuously becoming more and more involved. Adjen is probably around 23 years old, and has such an enthusiasm, vigour, and seriousness about bicycle mechanics – but he doesn’t like rules, he scoffs at them, he won’t be pinned down, I like him. We are still getting to know eachother, but our dynamic is righteous. We enjoy eachothers jokes, positive and negative qualities etc. Adjen had polio and both his legs have minimal muscle with his right leg twisted 90 degrees, but he can walk carrying heavy loads, and can ride a bicycle. I learned this about 10 days ago, when he borrowed a bike to get food in town. He was gone longer than expected, we wondered where he was, he came back sweating and triumphant with the black plastic bag full of beans and rice, he rode 3 towns down the rode before stopping to buy food – I know the hills on that route. Since transport money is always an issue, and since Adjen is a great help in setting up the shop, I thought it fair to let him borrow a bike for transport, so we set him up with an old Huffy – green fade to purple. He grabbed a top-bar pad off a bmx, duct taped it to the top bar, and rode his physically challenged friend home on the bike – the pad for the friend. Adjen has become an excellent friend and a positive highlight in my life recently – I ride with him around town and I can’t help but laugh, because he is hilarious – dinking his dull bell at cars when they get in his way – often riding as if the cars aren’t even there, then looking back at me with a twinkle is his eye, challenging me to be free.

My relationships with all the physically challenged trainees have deepened, and I’m beginning to see more complicated details in the seemingly homogenous “community” of the disabled people in Koforidua. Each trainee has different relationships to eachother and to the group, has different aspirations, and different histories with development projects that consistently “let them down” – training programs that offered no practical means of stable employment, that dissolved when international interests changed. But why don’t they just organize themselves better, muster up the will, work together and do something for themselves without relying/depending on international support? – I think they are, in a way, organizing, mustering the will, etc, but there is more to it – there are family relationships, obligations, responsibilities, church affiliations, and then informal work and economic opportunities (farming, domestic food processing, small-scale selling). The trainees are networked into so many interdependent relationships – they are not just looking after themselves. I think they’ve got the energy and the will, but they are also not careless about choosing how to invest it. I see the wheelchair basketball as an amazing statement of freedom, of never giving up, of claiming dignity and glory, and the commitment to this is extremely high. We are now at a point where the trainees are assessing the viability of the project and the extent with which to invest themselves. The viability of the project is also my main concern.

I am trying to assert the potential and responsibility laden in my role to develop a project that will stand on its own without reinforcing disempowering hierarchical relationships. I’m stirring things up to expose and publicly criticize existing dynamics of power, and to enter into dialogue on how power relations for this independent business should look. I think that I’ve effectively stimulated a shift in the power dynamic that will lead to a more equitable distribution of project power, but the negotiations are currently on. Everything is a negotiation of power here – power is not always clearly defined, so people on all sides assert their power, and negotiate the space in between. I’m trying to represent the interests of the trainees as best as possible, but I also realize that there are complicated power dynamics among the trainees and also a calculated interaction they enact with me to further their individual interests. In the end, we are people, and people are animals, and animals have instincts, so I’m following my instincts and I trust that I can mediate these power relationships, and end up developing a viable project that has the potential for self-reliance and sustainability with equitable distribution of power. My plan is to work with EEFSA to develop a system of project administration early on in which BNB and EEFSA have an equal but majority portion of voting power, the trainees initially having the minority. Within this system, there will be an exit strategy that will gradually but inevitable concede power to the trainees (employees) once the business pays back the contribution made by EEFSA, and once the trainees (employees) prove themselves competent to take control and be independent. This will be such a critical point in the project. A question to myself right now is what will the criteria be that will judge when the employees are competent to take over, and how can we document this in writing now to provide some sense of security and leverage to the trainees that this day will indeed come and will not be a perpetually indefinite period of time decided by those in power (BNB and EEFSA)? A bit abstract and projected, but relevant. I’m gonna work with Martin and EEFSA to sort through the power this week.

Thanks y’all for hanging with me during this recent lack of communication. Need to get a cheap laptop to shrink my picture files so you can see more! Then I’ll put them all online- I’ve got more to type (already written, but if I don’t post this now, it’ll be a few more days – got more descriptions coming – I’ll work on getting a computer this week-).

A bit more… Last I wrote, we were about to have a bulk sale to local bicycle repairers – we sold 122 bikes (unfixed) averaging about $30 per bike (including kids bikes, mountain bikes, road bikes) generating $3,700 for our bank account. Some of this will go to the landlord to pay toward our enormous debt, some will physically develop the workshop/stores, and the rest will fund the training stipend. It’s probable that we will conduct another bulk sale within the next month to raise more cash for the landlord and open up some space for the next shipment of bikes to arrive in November. We haven’t officially started the training because there are a lot of details that must be figured out in this early phase, but we expect to formally start the training the week of August 18^th and open for business in the end of October.

Thanks Paul Martin for the excellent workbenches! They are completely awesome and functional – the right size for the trainees – only two will be in wheelchairs, but most will need to sit as they work on bikes. Last minute, you rocked out some beautiful pieces of carpentry. They will serve as a good model for when we build subsequent benches.

Lately, we’ve been given the task to support a bicycle race for physically challenged people in Accra organized by Emmanuel – with 40 mountain bikes – to be returned to the shop after the race. So we are on a bicycle repair marathon – we got 10 bikes running last Thursday, yesterday and today yielded another 13. Theres a lot of other things that need to be done, but I see these bikes as a crucial support to Emmanuel while setting a precedent for a good collaborative relationship between the shop and EEFSA in the future. The trainees and some other mechanics are part of the repair marathon, characterized by loud reggae music.

The workshop space is coming along, but still needs a lot of work – we’ve got two benches set-up, a nice table for the truing stand built, we’re in the middle of building a 3^rd bike stand with an old jaw, pipe, iron rods, tire etc. We’re gonna give the landlord some cash this week (so he doesn’t think we have mad loot we’re not giving him) and then lay the concrete patio and build the roof over it – critical to be done before the training begins, so that we have more space to be…

The project is a work in progress. We recently had a critical meeting that helped bring out a lot of history, powerful emotions and complicated relationships – it was not an easy meeting, but now after it everyone seems a bit lighter. I met with Martin as well, and we are in full agreement about the proposed plan for project administration and the distribution of power. More to come soon – got to tell you more about the trainees – awesome people.