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.