Questions

Question:  How many solomeas can you fit in a Ghanaian taxi?

Answer: …7…. 2 in the front seat 4 on the back seat and one lying across all 4… and don’t forget the driver.

Question: how many plastic chairs can two White West African arsed solomeas break to the point of not being able to use over the space of two days?

Answer:  3…(I broke 2…Note to self: must reduce carb intake)

MSO/TSO meeting

After sat watching my ankle swell for far too long and considering how it resembled at times the belly of a pregnant goat I got round to suggesting/offering to organise a TSO meeting for the Northern regions. TSO stands for the role of ‘Teacher Support Officer.  Officially it would seem I am an SSO (Science Support Officer) which is effectively a Science TSO.  A TSO meeting was due, in fact slightly over due and us newbee’s (from the September intake) were keen to share our thoughts and find out more about various ‘big issues’ related to our role. I didn't want to put out any of the established vols but it would seem that I had some time to spare where as other who were mobile didn't, so it was agreed I would organise the meeting. I turned into an OCD meeting organiser, determined to run a tight ship for the two day meeting and prove it was doable even in Ghana; even if only to myself. The meeting was budgeted for and agreed on by the programme office.  Dates were agreed after some hurried phone calls and the promise of  the long trip coinciding with a party for those travelling from afar (making the gruelling 7 hour trip much palatable especially when having to contend with a 5 hour break down..) made for a much more agreeable invitation compared to a simple 2 day TSO meeting.  Accommodation was found for those travelling; the invites were extended to MSO’s (management support officers).  Attendees were fed watered and snacked up enough to give appropriate, insightful, interesting and valid inputs.  The meeting was a success; it started on time, finished on time (give or take a few minutes as opposed to hours), agenda items were observed, minuted, actioned, responsibility shared and deadlines given. A ‘SMART’, sharp meeting took place and I realised how much I missed the ‘western approaches’ to all things professional.  I do hope however that I hadn't been missing it so much that the meeting went far more the other way and was, shall I say, too ‘mechanical’ with not enough ‘organic’ elements….maybe I should have surrendered to the opening and closing prayers by way of acknowledging our meeting was in Ghana…..hummm.  The feedback was positive, even the mopped floor and rearranged seating was appreciated.  It was obvious that we had a great bunch of proactive MSO/TSO’s.  Maybe there could be some progress in the development context in the northern regions in Ghana?  On the other hand, maybe that’s too much to ask for…

TSO's working hard?!

Z-Fest in Z-Town

‘Z-Fest’ or ‘Zebilla Festival’ was the long awaited ‘Parrrrrrtaaay’ which was originally due to happen on Bonfire night but got postponed for reasons I can’t actually remember.  ‘Z-Town’ refers to ‘Zebilla Town’ where 5 fellow vols, fondly known as Zebillians after the town they reside in, work.  Zebilla is an hour tro or moto ride away hence the party becoming a Festival as it would also involve an old fashioned ‘sleepover’ and lots of tunes.

It’s not the greatest road to Zebilla, I certainly won’t ever complain about a pothole in the UK again.  You haven’t SEEN a pothole until you have ‘done’ the Zebilla road.  A few of my fellow Bolgans (AKA vols from Bolga) chose to make the journey in a convoy by moto.  Great road trip and I can safely say that dodging pot holes is in fact quite a good game… although I am not so sure I would be feeling the same way had I have come off.

Z-Town is a small village really, quite remote and rural and full of traditional round mud huts with only a scattering of the more modern concrete block compounds myself and my fellow vols live in, in Bolga.  There is however still a difference between these more rural compounds and the Bolga ones.  I have another vol friend who lives in Bongo - another rural idyll…. These rural concrete block compounds have no walled garden area…. Just walk straight out into a public area, which means everyone can walk straight under your windows or by your front door and you can’t ‘hide’ as I admit I have sometimes found myself doing when not quite up to greeting for the 50 millionth time that day. The areas that allow access to the rooms are open or semi open which means moving from one room to the next involves no privacy whatsoever at all.  Bottom line; everyone knows when you go to the loo and you can never walk around your house naked.

We arrived in Z-Town intact and in good time, enough time to help with the last minute preparations, shower and put on our party dresses.  It was held at ‘Friends Garden’ a ‘Spot’ or bar, just a short walk from where we were staying.  The atmosphere was perfect which my 8 cedi Christmas lights clearly enhanced! (Brought from the back of a dusty ‘we sell anything and everything’ shop in Bolga – great find!) Ali had organised Madame Sophia, a friend of hers, to cook for us all and we had downloaded a whole load of Christmas and cheesy tunes just for the occasion; the tune download was not so successful but it didn’t dampen the atmosphere one bit. 

There was even a bit of ‘dancin’’ (to be said in a northern accent) just for Ali.  The evening ended at the spot around 1pm with Ali dressing herself up as a Christmas tree (not sure how safe a combination electric lights and sparklers were, but she looked good!) and a spontaneous burst of Christmas carols sung in harmony no less!

We got back with some help due to some broken shoes...

and continued to chat, drink and snack and talked about all things Christmasy, just because it wasn’t.  In order to get us right into the Christmas spirit Helen read us all out loud ‘the night before Christmas’.  Not certain if that is normally what happens when a bunch of primary school teachers get together but it’s what happened in Z -Town… Probably shouldn’t have admitted to it – What happens in Z-Town stays in Z-Town and all that…. Anyway, finally fell asleep just after the muslin prayers started… and woke 4 hours later where Ali and I turned into one crack breakfast team and fed 10 or so before heading back to Bolga on the motos.  Fab weekend all round.

Zar’s leaving party

Zar leaving for her home was a bit of a blow.  She was my Philapino housemate; a whole lot of fun, a great cook and super thoughtful.  She had grand ideas for her leaving party of a chill out area ‘up on the roof’ after our time together as housemates had included a lot of roof top fun.  You know the kind of thing; candles, mats on the floor, cushions, a few drinks, some food and tunes…and it was lovely, fellow vols and Ghanaian colleagues were enjoying the ambiance we had created.   Unfortunately my enjoyment of this particular event was cut short with me literally flying down the spiral staircase which allows access to our roof top terrace.  I somehow managed to miss the customary stepping on the steps part of the journey completely, instead my right foot suddenly ended up somewhere against my arse.  This left the top part of my right foot and bottom of my shin to bounce down the steps aided by the well-padded White West African Arse (I didn’t know I was still able to do that move), and my left foot simply dangled uselessly in front of my bouncing body.  I stopped myself falling all the way down by hooking my arm awkwardly over the spiral bannister (amazingly still holding onto the Smirnoff Ice I was taking down to a friend).  Friction between the metal bannister and my arm being the winning combination for a motionless position and the start of much pain (despite the vodka consumed) and utter embarrassment.  The cause? I blame the grip-less flip-flops not the vodka. The frozen bottle of vodka did however help reduce the bruising on my arm (and a few ‘neat’ swigs of the dregs of the bottle helped stop me crying – as prescribed by Nurse Ali).  A cold pure water sachet helped reduce the swelling on the ankle.  Numerous bruises, a sprained ankle, a couple of packets of codeine with paracetamol, cold compresses and tubigrip bandages; a trip to the clinic after 5 days for an x ray, ibuprofen and a diuretic (I haven’t taken the diuretic- it’s fat not water retention) and 9 days off work later, the ankle was better – not perfect. I had to miss my next adventure to go to the Upper West Region for the weekend. Will have to find out what adventures are in store for me there another time… Further resting of ankle was in order which was most frustrating as everything else was perfectly well and functioning (that is apart from the Ghana Brain).  Thank goodness for good housemates and Nurse Ali from Zebilla -Town.

JIM

It stands for ‘Joint Introductory Meeting’ (everything has an acronym in Ghana) and 11 weeks in it was a bit late for the ‘introductory’ part.  The purpose of the meeting was to review and change the overarching objectives for my job role which had been written in the placement plan, to better suit what I needed to do.  It was just as the meeting was due to start when the Regional Director cornered me in his office and asked me to help him with his blackberry (no euphemism); he couldn't get it to connect to the internet.  I tried; failed and promised to take it to MTN to get it sorted.  It was then he asked me for lessons on the computer.  Priority: facebook and yahoo e mail!

19 people had been invited to the meeting.  13 showed up and were a mixture of JHS teachers, headmasters/mistresses, SHS teachers, Ghana Association of Science Teachers representatives, GES representatives like Mme Vero and Rose, some Assistant Directors at the Regional Office and the Regional Director himself.  Not a bad turn out actually. It didn’t start on time… that was a given.  The problem was I had already used the objectives to make a work plan (that had been sitting on the Regional Directors desk for maybe 8 weeks…). Although we didn’t exactly cover what we should have we reviewed the work plan I had already produced and it was a successful meeting, albeit far too long. There was of course the obligatory opening and closing prayer for the start and the end of the meeting (who needs to sign a contract saying you’ll do something when you’ve asked god to ‘make it so’). The Director was unable to make the beginning of the meeting so he assigned one of the Assistant Directors to do it who spoke of ‘opening a new page with this VSO volunteer’ (clearly couldn’t remember my name).  The Regional Director arrived and spoke fondly of his dealings with VSO and the good work that had occurred via the partnership within previous roles he had had in the Region.  All of this added up to high expectations and I hoped (and prayed) I could deliver…

Happy Clapping and Muslim Prayers

For 2 weeks around midnight and again at 5 am I had been woken by happy clapping and shouting for a significant amount of time – It was so maddening. I couldn't sleep once I’d been woken and it was so loud.  I couldn't explain it or attempt to recreate the warbling which was coming out of this… who knows what? Had a weird cult started up just a few doors down or something?

By day 4 I decided to ask Hananah if a church had started up in the area (a more polite way of asking if a weird cult had dropped into the neighbourhood). ‘No’ she said looking confused, and then ‘Aggghhh… your neighbours, they have a pastor visiting, they invited me but I cannot go because of the shop’… marvellous.

On Friday of the first week I was woken, and remained awake to listen to the disturbance from 1.30 - 3am.  It didn’t stop.  It was persistent, annoying and frustrating.  Not even sleeping with my deaf ear exposed drowned out the racket enough for me to fall asleep (I blame the thin vac packed John Lewis value pillows).  It was all I could do not to get up and tell them to piss off. With a busy weekend to follow it was the last thing I needed and hoped it wasn’t a permanent schedule change…

It carried on through the next week back to the original 12 and 5am schedule.  All sorts of things were going through my head and it reminded me of the ‘Pigeon Problem’ at my old house in the UK. I won’t bore you with the details - you’ve it heard many, many times; about how the pigeon population of Cambridge, their close cousins the doves of Cambridge and all the other stinky winged vermin of Cambridge congregated in and around my neighbour’s postcard patch of a garden encouraged by bucket loads of food.  Generally flapping all sorts of parasites, mites and other itch inducing ichy things as only winged vermin can; dropping shit from great heights in, on and around my back garden on my washing etc etc…. anyway I won’t repeat the story. The winged vermin were persistent, bothersome, infuriating even and I had only one solution possible to keep me mildly sane…. to move.  Whoops! Think I just bored you. This ‘happy clapping’ was the Ghana version of the Pigeon Problem… different cause, same outcome. Ironically I prayed to god that there would be an alternative solution, you see, I like my house.  And then… as suddenly as it started, it stopped.  Only to be superseded by a brand new sound system at the mosque. Bucking marvellous. It would seem that an assumption has been made that everyone in Bolga is Muslim and/or wishes to be woken by, what I can only describe as, the cry of a cat being strangled at 4am ev-er-y buck-ing morning through the biggest, loudest speaker ever… this one isn’t going to leave.  Solution: Stay up so late you are so tired you simply sleep through it…. Not fool proof but better than moving.

Up on the roof

We have a very large roof terrace which is accessible from the outside of the house via a spiral iron staircase.  It’s directly over our veranda and is therefore the same size; I’m guessing 10ft x 20ft. I took to cleaning it; dousing it with buckets of water and sweeping, removing the mud that had accumulated, cleaning the drainage holes, removing the grass which had taken root and generally making it a more pleasant place to sit with the intention of using it more.  Well, it is a huge space with a great view.  Friday night has become ‘Up on the roof’ time which starts sometime soon after 4pm.  Helen a VSO vol who lives just down the road from me is my constant partner in crime for this, what is now deemed, ‘tradition’.  Others have joined us, my housemates, vols visiting from other regions on VSO or other NGO business. Sometimes Ali comes from Zabilla to make the Friday night ‘up on the roof’ tradition.  So what do we do?  Chat, drink, and listen to music, sometimes we even eat up there. We people watch and wave to the neighbours while it’s still light and watch the sun set and the moon rise.  Invariably we will take it in turns in sharing our ‘having a moment’ moment, where we soak up and savour the atmosphere and remind ourselves how lucky we are to have the opportunity to be there, at that moment, on a roof top, in Bolga; about as far north in Ghana as you can get (and still able to have some small sense of something other than utter isolation), in Africa.  When the sun has gone down we star gaze, spot shooting stars and search for sputnicks and fireflies.  Inevitably we’ve made it so cosy and enjoyable that Friday ‘up on the roof’ tradition now extends to any day we can get up there just before it gets dark, for whoever fancies the jaunt up the spiral stairs.  The much talked about ‘sleep over on the rooftop’ will happen too.  We made it to midnight last weekend but even with blankets it was just a little too cold to stay later… well it is the harmattan season and a chilly 20-25 degrees at night.  Compared to the close to 40 degree daytime temperatures it does really feel cold.  We’ll probably wait for the hot season when no doubt sleeping naked will be the only option…

A view from the roof

A view from the front of our compound... you can see Hananah's compound and the shop just across the road behind the two children and behind the two story buildings are Zamstechs Girls dorms.  This was taken in the rainy season.  It is MUCH drier now!