Evergreen donates tractor to Ghana

OTHELLO — Kwesi Osei-Bonsu doesn’t want his people to become dependent on handouts or largesse from others.

“We want to be self-sufficient,” he told members of the Othello Rotary on Thursday. “We want to be proud of ourselves as Africans.”

Which is why Osei-Bonsu is keeping his appeals for help limited to things that will assist his people with providing for themselves — farm tools, equipment, a simple pump to irrigate their fields during southern Ghana’s dry season, and the solar panels to power that pump.

And the knowledge to both keep that equipment going as well as farm the 10 acres Osei-Bonsu and his people have carved out of the forest. Because, while many Ghanaians have little or no formal schooling, Osei-Bonsu said, they are smart, hardworking, and able to learn.

“We Africans, guess what, you see an African who has never been to school, he is a mechanic,” he said. “He sat down and studied the engines.”

But what Osei-Bonsu is going to get for the people of his village Asaasefofoom is a used tractor from Evergreen Implement and a new spader to turn over the soil the village’s residents have, up until now, been cultivating by hand.

Roger Thieme, the head and founder of Evergreen, told gathered Rotarians that he’d found a suitable used tractor — one that can be easily maintained — in Missoula and a new spader on the East Coast. Everything would be brought to Othello and put in containers, and a series of training videos made to show people in Ghana how to use, maintain and repair the equipment.

“Evergreen is pleased and happy to be in a position to help,” he said.

Osei-Bonsu has been a regular visitor to Othello for the last 25 years, and helped build a sister-city relationship between Othello and the Ghanaian town of Wulensi in the north. However, political instability in northern Ghana has made it difficult to maintain that relationship, so Osei-Bonsu has asked Othello to help his village in the south, so that when stability and security returns to the north, his people can extend that help up north.

As chief in his region, Osei-Bonsu said he has a responsibility to his people. He told the Rotary Club that Chinese assayers found gold in his region, and made him a very generous offer — an offer Osei-Bonsu rejected because it would have left his people impoverished. And it would have destroyed the land.

“You would see me driving in my Ferrari,” he said. “But only me.”

While they are starting with only five acres of yams and five acres of corn, Osei-Bonsu said he has great dreams for the farming project — a project the farmers and businessmen of Othello can help with.

“Come and pass on to us your knowledge of farming,” he said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com