Can we have homes fit for Ghana? - Elizabeth Ohene writes

We all know that if you are going to get sick with malaria, it is better to do so in Ghana than go down with malaria in London or San Francisco or Munich. 

Never mind that these cities all have top-class medical facilities, you better take your chances with the young doctor at the clinic in Dambai, if the problem you have is malaria.

For all their fancy equipment and sophisticated training, it is quite likely the doctors in these three cities I have cited have never treated, nor maybe even ever come across anyone with malaria.

They have doubtless read about it in books and medical magazines but it is not the same as the doctor in Dambai who, on average, probably deals with about twenty malaria cases a day.

I would not be surprised that we would have doctors here who would go through a lifetime of practice and never deal with a case of frostbite.

In much the same way that my Dambai doctor would be completely at ease with malaria cases and at a loss when faced with frostbite, a doctor in a hospital in Siberia would be completely at ease with frostbite and at a loss when faced with a malaria case.

I am hoping that a medical doctor, no matter where she is trained, or practises, has the same basic skills that are required to deal with whatever problem would afflict you, and she would then adapt to the environment and concentrate on malaria or frostbite.   

Architects

I have not set out to write an article about medicine and medical doctors.

I am only trying to understand how our architects are trained and how they practise, and I thought I would use the medical profession to help me get to the point.

Like medicine and all the other professions, the training of the first Ghanaians and subsequent ones started in foreign lands and from manuals that are alien to our culture.

Normally, once we get the basics, we move to domesticate the practice.

But not architecture, and I wonder why.

The designs and styles of the houses in the countries that brought the architecture profession to Ghana reflect their temperature, weather, lifestyle and culture. 

I can understand that the ABC, or would it be the 123, of an architectural drawing of a family home would reflect how European families live and would be the type of buildings that our architects would learn to design as a standard house.

I can understand that when the European colonialists and traders came to our shores, they built on our land what they knew and what would suit their purposes, exemplified in the castles and the early bungalows they left.

How come that so many many decades after we started producing our own architects, nothing has changed in the basic design of the houses being designed and built for us?                
I am a great believer and advocate for the standardisation of building materials and building regulations.

The only distinctive feature of Ghanaian architecture, for a long time, seemed to be the esoteric styles of individual architects, nothing that shows it is Ghanaian. 

Code

Now that we finally have a building code, we might move from the absurdity of every single one of the eleven doors in my house being a different size and each one, therefore, needing to be custom-made and pushing the cost of building construction to be far more expensive than it need be.

One would hope that an earthquake-prone place would have different building designs from a hurricane-prone place, as earthquakes and hurricanes pose different challenges.

And so, one would have hoped that the houses that are designed and built for us would take into consideration the fact that we live in the tropics, we never have to heat our rooms; our rainfall is different from what passes for rain in the temperate zone.

And yet, every time there is something new that is introduced in the architectural space in Ghana, it is something that is being tried in Europe.

I remember very well the time of the concrete roofs when people were led to believe that an upmarket house in Ghana must have a concrete roof. 

The concrete roofs probably work in Italy where I am told that particular fad started.

However, in our humid heat and our type of rain, it was a cruel experiment. 

Dismayed

If I have been baffled by the look of our buildings, I have been dismayed by the composition of the structures even more. 

How were we all lured into believing that a bathroom in Ghana must have a bathtub?

 It is not difficult to see how bathtubs would be important elements in the house when it is freezing, and you are desperate to get your body warm before you get into bed.

But when you need a bath to wash away the sweat and cool yourself down before you get into bed, why would you want to stay in water with your sweat?

The concept of washing the body and having a bath is understood differently in the tropics and cold regions.  

Because the temperate and cold climate people have this bathtub, we have also been made to believe that it should be part of a bathroom fixture.

Having spent a lot of money to fix a bathtub, we then stand in it and put a bucket of water in it to wash the body.

Or, if you are lucky to have a shower, you stand in the bathtub and use the shower. 

Most people in this country who have bathtubs in their bathrooms have never had that famous soaking of the body in a bubble bath.

And yet some don’t stop at a regular bathtub but spend good money on an expensive jacuzzi, which then stays unused in the bathroom and gathers dust.

Interestingly, many people are now removing their bathtubs from their bathrooms to have unencumbered shower spaces.

It appears, however, that you need courage to decide not to have a bathtub or jacuzzi installed in the first place.

I am certain that our architects could, if they wanted, design houses for us that would reflect our culture and our environment and make home construction generally cheaper.

Unfortunately, it appears they do not see it as being in their interest to design houses that would not need air-conditioning, bathrooms with bathtubs that are never used or kitchens that acknowledge that we cook palm soup, kobi and momoni.

If our architects start doing that, it will be like our lawyers abandoning their gowns and wigs.

They won’t feel special and that won’t do.