Busy Days

Hi

Sorry I haven’t got round to blogging for a while, the last few weeks have provided me with quite a rollercoaster of emotions and I haven’t really felt like sitting down and capturing many of these moments.

I have however been quite busy over the last few weeks. I was involved in the planning and delivery of a phonics workshop involving 125 Head teachers from the district I’m working in. This was a true introduction into how things are done here in Ghana. We arrived at 8.45am for a 9am start, the cleaners were just starting their morning clean, a few teachers had also started to arrive and sit down, the main speaker arrived and started his presentation at 9.45am and the rest of the teachers joined bit by bit. It soon became clear that there were not going to be enough chairs for everyone to sit down. A rally to the district office to borrow the ‘funeral’ chairs and everyone was finally seated by 10.50am. The morning session overran and a 15min lunch break followed before it was our slot to deliver our presentation, during this time the teachers were given what they had really come for, their  T’n’T (Time and Travel) a sum of money given at each workshop, which unfortunately is for some the only reason they attend trainings. Not sure how much of our presentation on teamwork actually went in ! !

I was invited to join in on the ‘International day for persons with disabilities’ in the regional capital, Wa. This started at 8am with a lively band and lots of dancing outside the School for the Blind. The turnout was very humbling, children and adults with a various array of differing disabilities joined in the celebration.  We were tasked with filling out a number of questionnaires to raise the awareness of the number of persons with disabilities living in Ghana. We began a VERY long walk (about 8km) through Wa with lots of banners and plaques stating lots of interesting facts about how people with disabilities are perceived. Lots of music and dancing lined the streets resulting in a very enjoyable time. We finally reached our destination and were entertained with a traditional dance by students from the School for the Deaf.

Being isolated from the television, newspapers, magazines, decorations, shop windows, the cold weather, it hasn’t really felt like the usual run up to Christmas that I’m used to. I did manage to get myself invited to help out at one of the local schools, teaching them some Christmas carols. We’ve sang our hearts out to O’come all ye faithful and the little drummer boy as well as a song in Dagaare which of course I had to dip out of. A few schools came together in the local church at the beginning of December and put on a carol concert. I was also given a Ghanaian Christmas card too.

Last week saw a trip to Bolga for a ‘Christmas Party’ and a VSO conference. Only this trip to Bolga was not in the VSO pickup like my first trip here after moto training. The 7hour journey on the Bolga bus is an experience never to be repeated. The road between Wa and Bolga is all dirt road with the most uneven surface and full of potholes, you are flung about in your seat for the entire journey.  We waited in Wa from 4am just to buy our ticket, the bus finally leaves at around 6am. The bus itself leaves a lot to be desired, you sit in rows of 5 with a seat the width of a 30cm ruler, therefore you spend the journey with someone more or less sat on your knee, with their smelly armpits and elbows in your face. We hadn’t been on the road for more than 2 hours and we broke down in a small village in the middle of nowhere at about 8.15am. But don’t worry folks we’ll have it fixed in 10 mins when the mechanic arrives. Yeah you guessed it he had to come the 2 hour journey from Wa. So we sat and we sat and we sat. No water, food, no toilet, an old man for entertainment and blazing sun. A fairly ingenious young guy managed to find / dig groundnuts. He even managed to roast them under some dry hay, they were delicious and very well received. We were finally back on the road by about 1.30pm. (5 hours later) When we finally arrived in Tumu, just over half way of our journey, I unfortunately had to experience my very first ladies urinal, not a pleasant one. We eventually arrived in Bolga about 6.30pm and then boarded a tro to Zebilla for the party to begin. Another potholed road, tarred this time though ! !  A great party and a good chance to meet up with volunteers who arrived in country at the same time, as well as a chance to meet some of the old timers.

We also had a meeting of all those volunteers that do the same job as me throughout Ghana. This was a good learning experience, finding out what others have been doing in their placements so far, sharing successes and difficulties within their jobs and motivating each other to try new things.

The return journey from Bolga on Wednesday thankfully went without any hiccups.

While I was in Bolga my housemate returned to England for Christmas, I hear you have had a good dusting of snow, a huge contrast to the 30^oc heat we are experiencing here, although night times are starting to get chilly and I even had to get my blanket out last night ! !

This weekend has also been busy, I met up with a friend in Jirapa on Saturday for another Christmas party where we were in charge of the mulled wine. (A very new experience for the Ghanaians – ‘You drink this wine hot ?’) We partied into the late hours and arrived home around 9.30pm (a late night in Ghana) We were both up bright and early to attend the 8.30am Mass at the local church in Jirapa, this is the only Mass read in English. We were hoping to go and have a good sing along to all the Christmas carols so near to Christmas, not a carol in sight. Apparently they save the carols for the service on Christmas Eve. It was nice to see how church is done Ghanaian style and I’m sure I’ll probably make it to more services in the New Year.

Well this week sees the arrival of Tim to Ghana, it seems like I have been counting down the days forever. We’re going to be travelling up the Volta Region over Christmas and hope to visit a village on Christmas Day and see how a traditional Christmas is celebrated in Ghana. We have planned visits to see the traditional Kente cloth being made, a visit to the Wli waterfalls, a trip to the monkey sanctuary, an afternoon watching beads being made and finally a trip to Kakum National Park, where we will do a canopy walk through the trees. We will then spend a week along Cape Coast on the beach for New Year, lots of volunteers will be there to see the New Year in together.

I hope to report of all these adventures in my blog on my return in January.

It's my birthday

My birthday started early this year with friends round to celebrate on Saturday. I invited all the volunteers living in the Upper West round for lunch. Bringing with them lots of tasty biscuits as presents which will be appreciated with my morning coffee over the next few days.

We started first thing to make or shall I say I helped to make a very flavoursome tomato soup (Tomatoes are more or less our staple food and all that is available most days in Nadowli market) and Adrienne very kindly baked a delicious pineapple upside down cake sporting 3 and 4 candles to represent me turning my 34 years ! ! After blowing out my candles and making my wish, we tucked in and finished off the cake between us.

Today started with lots of texts and a wonderful video on Facebook from my family back home. (lots of tears shed) I opened the few cards that had arrived last week from family and a lovely present from my housemate, a new cloth bag, a beaded bracelet she had made and a bar of luxurious black honey soap. Thoroughly spoilt.

I took the day off and my friend arrived to pick me up around 9am and we rode our moto’s to Wa, (the largest town in the Upper West) We shopped til we dropped around the market and bought some treats in the point and shout. We then went for the most delicious meal at a hotel to celebrate. Chicken and real potato chips, it’s amazing how exciting chips have become since arriving in Ghana. Yam is a poor substitute I’m afraid.

So that I didn’t miss home too much on my birthday it even managed to rain for 10 mins during lunch, a true November birthday after all.

JIM

As part of my induction to working as a volunteer here in Ghana, VSO ‘arrange’ a tripartite meeting between themselves, the volunteer and the work placement. ‘Arrange’ I say in inverted commas, there was more arranging on my part. I had an email from VSO asking me to find a venue, invite the Director of Education, the Assistant Directors, the Circuit Supervisors, Head teachers etc. Photocopy resources, I was assured that they would provide a snack for those attending. Adrienne advised me to check on the latter, so I emailed to check if I needed to arrange this too about a week before, no reply. Presuming that it had been arranged I emailed again to check, the night before I received a reply advising me to arrange a packed lunch for 20 people. How do you arrange chicken and rice for 20 people with 24hours notice, easy, panic, then ask one of the ladies in the office ! !

Having written up on a flip chart the objectives provided in the initial placement overview I received before I came to Ghana, I was ready for the meeting to begin. The meeting was due to start at 9.30am, by 10am three people had arrived. The remainder rolled in as the morning went on. The Director arrived at 10.15am and spent most of her time on her mobile phone. (mobile phones in Ghana don’t have a silent button or off switch ! ! or so it would seem.)

The Honourable Chief then arrived to greet the Director, along with his police escort. The meeting was halted and we all stood to attention.

The meeting finally got started at about 10.45am. After introductions, my objectives were reviewed, people split into groups and action plans constructed for the work I am to do over the next 10mths.(Although I think they think I’m here for the next 10 years) The meeting finished by 1pm and lunch arrived promptly and was enjoyed by everyone involved.

 A very productive morning by anyone’s standards.

Lie in ? ? ?

What does a girl have to do to get a lie in ?

Since arriving in Ghana a lie in has never been on the cards. For those of you who know me well, you’ll know how important sleep is to me ! !

I wake every morning to a dawn chorus of cockerels, pigs, goats and sheep all calling out for their babies. Either that or they have been told I’m in town. From 5 am onwards it’s a fight to stay asleep, the cockerel seems to have taken up permanent residence outside my bedroom window. I decided that this weekend I was going to try hard to ignore their morning calls and finally try for a lie in.

Amazingly I wasn’t woken at 5am by the usual dawn chorus, but instead I was woken by the booming voice of our landlord’s son and his friend at 6.15am coming to start work on the drainage channels around our house. (During the wet season water has been eroding the walls and making them damp.) They then proceeded to talk at full volume for the next 3 hours.(Ghanaians don’t seem to know what the word whisper means) Along with their shouting from one end of the house to the other, came the hammering,  banging, clattering and an argument in Dagaare. The only solution was to get up and that was the end to my chances of a lie in. By the time I was up and dressed they had left for the day.

I’ll try again next weekend ! !

I'm being used ! !

I’m finally beginning to be used for my skills.

Schools here in the village are very under resources by any standards, most schools have only a room for each class, most have small desks with a bench attached which is used for upto 3 children to sit at. The bench being about 1m in length. No electricity, text books etc. Therefore they only have a chalkboard which the teacher uses to teach the lessons, drawing pictures to demonstrate. To teach ICT the teacher has to draw the computer on the board and occasionally they also have 1 textbook with coloured pictures to show the children what a computer actually looks like. No physical computer being present. This is where my skills came in.

A local Head has just been given a laptop by her brother and didn’t know anything about computers, so asked if I could go down and show her how to use it. I introduced her to the basic skills and uploaded a simple program that has been designed to be used by children in Ghanaian schools. From this she has now decided that she would like me to go into her school to help take groups out with her to teach ICT using an actual computer. I await her call ! !

To thank us for going down and helping her with some new skills, she invited us to the local spot (bar) for drinks. It was really nice to be able get to know a Head and begin to build both professional and social relationships here in the village.

Kids Kids Kids

There has been a huge goat waddling around over the last few weeks, so obviously ready to give birth. She’s been hanging out around our house for the last week or so, presumably looking for a suitable place to have her babies. I think she wanted us to make her a bed in our veranda. What a lot of noise a pregnant goat can make ! !

Well she finally gave in and has had what we think is 2 kids, although there were 5 kids all together for the first day. She seems to be feeding two and the other three have disappeared off with someone else. Maybe there was a bit of babysitting going on.

The family, including Dad on occasions, have now decided to move in and shelter under the porch in front of the garage. They as so cute, but very noisy. Mum is extremely protective and will let you know when you are getting too close for comfort. When she leaves them to look for food or to take a short walk the little ones cry until she returns.

Maybe it’s adopt a kid week ! !

I made it into School

I’ve been trying to get into schools for a week or so but it isn’t as easy as it would seem. I had already introduced myself to all the town Heads at a Heads meeting earlier this month. I explained that I am here to come and help their teachers to improve their skills and to help out where I can. Teachers here are very wary of your motives. I made it clear that I am here to help and not to judge.

I started by visiting the local schools near to my office to speak to the Heads to ask if I could maybe come and sit in on some lessons. Some seemed very enthusiastic and welcoming. I went to one school to speak with the Head and she was asleep on the desk in the P1 classroom. I’m not sure I could have got away with that at St. Bart’s ! !

The next school the Head was very enthusiastic and said I could stay as long as I wanted, which classes did I want to see.

Had my first day in a Ghanaian Primary School and it was an experience. I went into a P4 class where the teacher was teaching Maths. Greater than, Less than and Equal to. It was a good lesson and the children responded well. Although no differentiation so some get left behind. It was near to the end of the lesson and He realised he needed to do some photocopying so got on his bike and rode into town to photocopy a letter while the children got on with their work ! !

After break I went into another class P6. The children were learning ‘Speaking and Listening’ in English. The method was to have every child stand up individually and read a poem off the board in English. Some children struggled considerably but their teacher continued to have them recite the poem until they knew it, reading each line about 10 times. Some still struggled to recite each line after her, resulting in one boy taking about 30 minutes to complete the poem while his class just sat and laughed. I wanted to hug him when he’d finished.

Hope to spend some more time in schools soon and then maybe I can see where I’m needed most.

Disaster Disaster ! !

While the housemates away Gemma will ................make disaster strike ! !

Got up this morning and went into the bathroom, was just finished washing my hands when I stepped back out of the shower tray and .......... My foot went through the CONCRETE floor. Seriously, it made me jump, I’m heavy, but, surely not that heavy ? ? ? What do you do ?  Your housemate’s away for the week and you cause damage to the house, only 3 weeks into living there.

Luckily one of my friends had come to stay last night and was much more forward thinking. Kneeling down she realised that actually there is termite nest under my floor and they had eaten away all the ground underneath where I had been standing. There were hundreds of them. The whole concrete floor around the hole sounds hollow, not sure how far they have burrowed. Ellie found a plate and has covered the hole and gaffer taped it down. Let’s hope there are no escapee’s until I can ask in the office tomorrow for a solution.

I'm a local ! !

Today was my initiation to being accepted as a local

On my way to the market yesterday I was heckled by a few guys sat under a tree by a house in my ‘compound.’ So I went over to greet them and see what they were shouting about. I was invited to stop and join in with some Pito drinking. (Pito is a local brew made from Maize and then fermented over 3 days before it is drunk communally from calabashes.)It tastes a bit like cider. I managed to refuse politely as it isn’t really something I’ve fancied and didn’t really fancy sitting around in the blazing heat. I told them I would join them another time.

On my way back from the market today I walked past another house and the same few guys were once again sat drinking Pito. They shouted over and reminded me that I was still to engage in Pito. I couldn’t refuse, I sat under the tree, this time in the shade and was given a huge calabash full of this brown, murky liquid. Mmmm ! ! It wasn’t actually that bad, a vague cider like taste and drinkable. I chatted to who I later found out is actually my landlord and he explained all about how they make it and the alcohol content to match.

Not a bad stop on the way back from the market I was thinking until, I saw that they were roasting a duck, I was also invited to try some of the duck, oh dear, I was given a chunk of what could only be described as fat, gristle and bone. Apparently this is seen as the best bit and is always given to the guest of honour. I tried to chew away at it to be polite, but left most of it in the dish under the bench for later ! !

*Note to self, politely refuse when the meat is given out.

Moto Training

Well it has been quite a while since I was last able to blog, the internet here is rather sporadic.

I moved on from Tamale and reached Bolgatanga to complete a week of moto training. Having only ridden a scooter (twist and go) in the UK, I was very quickly introduced to a larger, geared motorbike ! ! The fun began with a trip on the back routes to Bongo, here we encountered a problem with a huge lake that had appeared on our route due to heavy rainfall. This wasn’t a challenge for the Ghanaian teenagers who appeared with a canoe to take us across to the other side.

The next day was a trip to the border with Burkina Faso. This was a testing day as not only did I come off the bike twice, going down potholes and through thick, slippery sand, I also nearly killed a cow in the process. Animals rule the roads in Ghana and you have to be fast to avoid anything from a goat to a chicken to as I found out a cow.

Next was a trip to the DVLA for a whole mornings wait to get our Ghanaian licences. A grilling about my UK licence, a few photos and an eye test, I am officially a Ghanaian licence holder and can drive both cars and motorbikes. That afternoon we took a trip to the Tengzug hills, a bit like the view in the Lake District. I saw a guy go up what is a very steep hill, in what was probably the wrong gear and he came flying off his bike half way up. That was enough for me and there was no way I was going up there. I stayed at the bottom and tried to chat to a group of children playing with an old tyre and a stick. They enjoyed having their picture taken and looking at themselves on screen.

The final day we took a trip up to Paga. This was a very long and tiring journey with only one stop for a cool coca cola. Paga is rural village which houses a huge crocodile pond with over 200 crocodiles. This is when I got the chance to not only stroke him but also crouch down and ‘sit’ on him. Very scary but the closest I will ever come to a croc again. (I hope)

Travelling

Hi,

Well the last few days have been spent mainly travelling from Accra to Tamale. We set off on Saturday for the first leg of our journey to Kumasi. We caught the VIP coach which was rather posh even by British standards, the seats were huge and comfortable as well as reclining slightly, with a foot rest to match ! ! We were on this bus for about 6 hours which gave us a chance to see the changes from city life through the small towns and sometime rural villages. Everyone chasing the bus trying to sell you anything from bread to screwdrivers, of course from a very heavy basket carried on their head. The roads are very interesting in Ghana as they range from tarmac roads to long distances of extremely pot holed sandy, dusty roads with 100m sections of tarmac interspersed.

We stayed the night in Kumasi and left very early the next morning on a minibus to Tamale in the Northern Region. The scenery was quite different as we left the city behind, a lot greener, drier, we saw more small community living, mud huts, farms, people going about the day chores. Sunday is a very church focussed day for most Ghanaians, church starts at 7am, you see people running in huge groups, keeping fit before church from around 5am, when we left at 6am there were huge groups of people already out shopping and buying and selling food. Tamale is a bustling town where you can get most things you could want. I’m staying here for a week with a lovely volunteer called Ellie, she’s also heading up to the Upper West but has a conference later this week in Tamale so it wasn’t worth the travel up to come back again. One of the current volunteers that brought us up, took us out for dinner and we meet up with some of her local friends for a drink.

We’ve had a lovely day being shown the sights around Tamale by another volunteer based here, we have even managed to negotiate a taxi in and out of the town by ourselves, we even shared a taxi with a Ghanaian family on the way back ! !

Tomorrow we hope to go out for lunch with a friend and maybe have a bit of a chill . . . .

I’m looking forward to getting to my house in early October and meeting my new housemate, Adrienne, before starting work.

Day at the Programme Office

Today we went for a trip out to the programme office in Accra for lunch and to meet the staff. It's been quite hot walking around the shops and looking for lots of exciting new things to take to my new place. A new ELECTRIC kettle and a small fan. I am assured that it's still very cool at the minute ! !

A few pictures taken from the bus enroute.



This is the street view in Accra.



Yesterday was my first introduction to the way Ghanaian men just love big women, I was complemented and had my arm stroked by a man who told me I was very beautiful, wanting to hug me and marry me ! ! Today was also very entertaining as men are constantly wanting to chat to you and ask you questions, I'm sure I'll learn some ways to give back some chat as my time goes on.

I'll leave you with a picture of our gang before we all go out to our different placement tomorrow.

Arrived ! !

Well here goes, my first post.

I arrived on Monday evening after a long day of travelling, delays in Manchester and then rushed across Heathrow by a very kind lady working for BA. A train ride later and we reached the gate just in time to get the plane to Accra. Arrived in Accra and was greeted by some volunteers already working in country. We're staying at a lovely hotel in Accra doing in country training til Saturday, when we will take the 14 hour journey up to the Upper West Region. Enjoying the swimming pool and eating lots of new foods, everything is quite spicy in Ghana but very tasty.

Had my first ride in a Tro Tro last night which was quite an experience, a driver and his "mate" shouting 'Accra, Accra, Accra' every 5 seconds. They fit on way more people than I'm sure the Tro Tro is built for and I'm told you often have to share your seat with livestock etc. Looking forward to one of those days ! !

It was also good to meet lots of volunteers and see a volunteer house in Accra although I am assured that my house is very different to those in the capital. Looking forward to going up north on Saturday and seeing where I'll be living for the next twelve months, meet my new housemate and see where I will be working.

I'll post some picture as soon as I can ! !