A Monday

Today I got off to a slow start. I didn't get out of my flat until after 10 am. I skipped the tro tro because I found a taxi willing to take me to campus for 15 GH. Once I got to campus I went and got a haircut and beard trim. My barber operates out of a section of converted shipping container behind the Legon campus in a small bazaar called "Bush Canteen." After getting my hair and beard shorn from the Karl Marx look to the Vladimir Lenin look I went and got some passport photos taken. You can never have too many of these photos since all kinds of official forms require them.

For a change we had electricity at work today so I was able to get some work done even though I got off to a late start. After checking my e-mail I went across the street and had a big plate of jollof. Then I came back to the office and graded all of the mid-term exams for my class on the Cold War. In total there were 51 tests. Midway through grading them the food lady came by to sell me a bunch of coconut cookies and a meal of rice with chicken and tomato sauce and carrots. It didn't include any utensils so I had to eat it African style with my right hand.

One Sunday in my life

Well it seems my three readers think I should write more on everyday life here in Ghana. Although to be perfectly honest life in poor countries is not very exciting despite being romanticized in the US and Europe. You are limited in what you can do when you don't have electricity for instance.

But, it is something I can write about. Today I got up early and went to church. The English language service of the Presbyterian church I attend starts at 7:00 am. It is supposed to be finished by 8:30 am but almost always runs late, especially on days like today when we take Holy Communion. So I got up at 6:00 am and managed to get out the door by 6:30 am and walked to church. Ghanaians tend to get up very early in the morning. At 5:30 am there is a shoe repair man banging on his tool box in the courtyard of our apartment complex. So by 6:30 am on Sunday there are lots of people already wondering about. I got to church ten minutes early today.

The churches in Ghana are the one thing that seem to work well because Ghanaians actually do believe in them. Everybody outside the 20% Muslim minority from the north is a member of a church and all of them even mainstream denominations like the Presbyterians would be considered a fundamentalist and evangelical church by US standards. That of course doesn't stop the much larger Pentecostal denomination or the Jehovahs' Witnesses from trying to convert you. But, I do find it annoying to have to tell people almost daily that I already found Jesus and accepted him as my savior. Are there not heathens in Osu or Cantonments that need converting?

After church I had some ramen noodles. I buy Indomie which is an Indonesian brand that is popular here and fortified with some vitamins and other nutrients. They are manufactured for the West African market in a factory in Nigeria because Ghana produces almost nothing. I flavored them with hot sauce, soy sauce, and ketchup. All also imported. Then I did some reading.

On Sunday afternoons my cleaning lady comes. I pay her 200 GH ($50) a month and she comes once a week for about three to four hours to clean up my flat. On an hourly basis I pay her almost as much as I make which I think is fair. I obviously can't afford to pay much more. Usually, like today, I take a nap on the couch in the living room while she cleans.

After Eve finished cleaning my flat I went to the Mighty Jesus Supermarket around the corner and purchased a can of Coke, a can of Malta, and a bottle of sobolo. I then went to the phone credit vendor and purchased 50 GH of MTN credit. I got a bonus of 2 GH credit today. I then called my wife in Kyrgyzstan which used up about 15 GH. Then I walked home.

The rest of the day included another nap and finally finishing up the latest Jo Nesbo novel I have been reading. Sundays might be my most laid back day of the week since other than going to church I generally don't do much other than sleep and eat. I can also stay up late since I have no classes scheduled on Mondays this semester.

Annual Reader Survey

If I have any readers left now might be a good time for you to express your opinion of what I should do to bring this blog back to life. Or is it a hopeless cause?

First Steps

I am thinking about trying to revive this blog from its current nearly comatose condition. I am not exactly sure what I could do to attract any readers. But, obviously the first step in reanimating the blog is to start putting up some posts.

Random Economic Thoughts

Today I went to the new supermarket in Adenta, Shop and Save. Western style grocery stores are still a rarity in Ghana. Until the opening a couple weeks ago of the Shop and Save the nearest supermarket to me was in the Accra Mall half way between the university and the airport. It seems like it took forever to build the new supermarket. But, now that it is done there is another small piece of modernity in the Greater Accra area.

After I came home I finished reading Mira Kamdar's Planet India. In the last thirty years India has made incredible strides in modernization. Indian manufactured goods like cars, trucks, and tractors are everywhere here in Ghana. I don't think I have ever seen one of the few cars or trucks actually built in Ghana. The skyrocket in Indian production of goods not only for their domestic use but export has been nothing short of amazing. If you told me in the 1980s that India would be a major exporter of cars and trucks I would not have believed you. I think one of the big differences between India and Ghana that allows the former to be much more economically successful is attitude. Indians believe in their products and they themselves buy them. Most Ghanaians seem to believe that imports are by definition better than local products and refuse to buy things made in Ghana. If not even Ghanaians will buy Ghanaian manufactured goods how can anybody expect foreigners to buy them? They will just say "not even Ghanaians think their products are any good." India doesn't have that mindset.

Russian Review Article Link

It appears that you can get an electronic copy of my article "The Persecution of Ethnic Germans in the USSR during World War II", The Russian Review, 75 (April 2016): 284-303 at this link provided by the publisher. I am not sure if everybody can get access to the Wiley site or not. It may only be available through institutional access. Let me know if it works or not for you in the comments. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I could access an electronic version of the publication at all this early. Feel free to leave any commentary, criticism, or questions about the article in the comments below.

Random Musings

I know that updates on this blog have been really infrequent this year. Other than announcing new publications I feel I am running out of things I can write in the blog format. I suppose I would have been more motivated to write more entries if I ever got any comments. But, those largely ceased about a decade ago. I feel I should probably write something about my brief trip to Jerusalem last month where I participated in an academic conference. However, I was there for such a short period of time I really did not get to see much other than the campus of Hebrew University. I need to go back so I can see some of the actual city.

New Article on Crimean Tatars

The latest issue of International Crimes and History, no. 16 is a special topic issue on the Crimean Tatars and has my article, "The Deportation of the Crimean Tatars in the Context of Settler Colonialism." 

Abstract of Conference Paper on Germans deported to Kazakhstan

On 8 March 2016 I presented a paper on the deportation of ethnic Germans in the USSR to Kazakhstan to a conference at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The title of the conference was Jews and their Neighbors in Soviet Central Asia during the Second World War: Realities of Life and Survival. My paper, "Wir hatten nichts": The Fate of Ethnic Germans Deported to Kazakhstan during World War II was part of the Round Table on Deported and Evacuated Populations in Central Asia: A Comparative Approach. The abstract of the paper is below.

Abstract

  "Wir hatten nichts": The Fate of ethnic Germans Deported to Kazakhstan During World War II

by

J. Otto Pohl

In the fall of 1941 the Soviet government forcibly deported some 800,000 ethnic Germans from west of the Urals to desolate areas of Siberia and Kazakhstan. Upon arrival in their new places of residence the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) classified them as special settlers, the same legal designation as deported kulaks, and placed them under severe restrictions. In particular they could not leave their newly assigned places of settlement without special written permission. These legal restrictions remained in place until the end of 1955. About half of these deportees ended up in Kazakhstan where the local authorities initially assigned almost all of them to agricultural labour. Settled into the already inhabited houses of Kazakh kolkhoz workers, abandoned buildings needing repair, and even earth huts the Germans suffered from a lack of proper housing. They also experienced severe shortages of food, medicine, and winter clothing. As a result large numbers of them perished from malnutrition, disease, and exposure. After 10 January 1942, the Soviet government began the forced mobilization of the deported Germans into labour columns known collectively as the labour army to work in lumber and construction camps run by the NKVD in the Urals as well as building railroads. They conscripted over 100,000 ethnic Germans from Kazakhstan to work in the labour army. The mass induction of women after 7 October 1942 meant that many of the Germans remaining in Kazakhstan were children without any adult relatives to look after them. Deaths exceeded births among the ethnic Germans in Kazakhstan and other regions of the USSR until 1948. Only after this date do material conditions for the exiled Germans begin to improve significantly.