Adventures, Achievements and Frustrations

When the family left on Dec 28th I felt bereft and in need of distraction, so Fati (our wonderful house help) and I headed to Accra for a few days. We shared a room in a pretty basic hotel and “did the sights” during the day.

In the Kwame Nkrumah memorial garden.

On January 1st we went to Labadi Beach to join in a New Year beach party which was quite an experience.

Fati and her brother Amin early in the day before the beach crush!

As the tide came in the bodies became more and more densely packed and I was propelled firmly through the seething mass of people and horses (yes, on the crowded beach) by Fati’s brother to dance on the sand in my bathing suit! (fortunately for you, my camera battery had just died so there is no photographic evidence)
We tried to get an overnight bus back up north but few were running due to the public holidays so we ended up leaving on Saturday at 11am (2 hours late) and arriving at 1.30am the next morning. The bus broke down at one point and all the men were told to get out and push. Amazingly, the 42 seater was jump started and we trundled on.
I had been invited to a three day funeral in a nearby village, so it was a shame we hadn’t managed to get the overnight bus as this meant I missed the night of traditional dancing (but was spared having to sleep on the floor of a barn).

Waiting for them to read out the list of animals to be slaughtered at the funeral in Sayoo village.

However, I got to join in with the slaughtering (goats, sheep, fowl and 2 cows) and cooking in the ensuing days which was a fascinating insight into Ghanaian Muslim culture and village life here.

Inside a mud hut in the village.


Preparing to take the food to the surrounding villages to share.

I was honoured to be asked to wear “the common cloth” worn by the children of the deceased –in other words to be treated as one of the family. The funeral was for a married couple, grandparents, where the husband had died 3 years ago and the wife had died 6 months ago - since then the family had been saving for the funeral.
Ramatu's family, the descendants were easy to pick out; the "children" in one cloth and the grandchildren in another agreed "uniform".

Later in the week I was invited to witness a wedding, with the bride leaving from Fati’s compound house, occupied by about 50 people. I sat with the bride while she was being “processed” and became known as the second bride.
Helping to prepare the TZ (Tuo Zafi, a bit like semolina) to be shared aong the nearby neaighbours.

I had my feet henna’d and talcum powder poured over my head until I paid them to stop.

The biride didn't look terribly happy.



The henna lasted for several weeks.

I watched the bride being washed (enthusiastically with a pan scourer) by the husband’s family and I joined in the dancing on the final day. My moves proved so entertaining that they threw money at me and the video of my efforts has been shared widely across Walewale. Judging from the uproarious laughter from Fati and Mashood when they watched it, I am not sure they really rate my dancing skills, but I think I probably got full marks for effort!
The following week at work saw the conclusion of the Organizational Assessment which was quite an achievement (though I say it myself). As I write this, the draft report is being scrutinised by the OD Committee and we hope to circulate the finished report in a couple of weeks. This assessment stage has been very worthwhile and we can already see some improvements in the office. The Education Office has become more aware of its culture and is already beginning to address some of its issues. I gave them a wall clock for the main office to celebrate their achievement, the old one having been broken for as long as anyone could remember.
The District Director presents the clock to the office.

I love the comment at the end of the newly agreed Values for working at the office. It says “ If an Organisation Development process goes well, it never stops. It becomes a way of life.” Here’s hoping...
The other thing I have been working on is getting the next round of ICT Clubs off the ground. We decided to target the Form 3 students at Junior High School as they would be sitting their BECE exam in ICT in April. After visiting 8 of the JHS in and around Walewale and explaining what we were doing, we managed to get 297 students signed up (nearly a 10 fold increase on last term) with their parents agreeing to pay 50 pesewas (20p) a week to cover the cost of tuition. We thought this payment might make them value the training more and be more committed to the process.

The ICT Club students in the new ICT Suite at the Secondary school.


So, the clubs started and all was going well until the Government, in their wisdom, decided to announce that despite ICT being a compulsory core subject, the students would not be sitting the exam this year. They will be in 2011 and will need ICT skills in all Secondary Schools but I think you can imagine what that did to our attendance,! Many students are sadly only interested in short term goals. Very frustrating as this was such a good opportunity for the young people. I got the Director of Education to go and speak to the students in a couple of schools about how short sighted they were being, so we will see what happens next week.
(update 16th Feb...the attendance remained very poor and after three weeks we sadly decided to pull the plug on those Clubs. However, bloodied but unbowed, we are about to launch another round of clubs for the Form 1 and 2 students and are looking at how we might train teachers too)