Tamale

Sorry for the delay in posting here, it's been a rough couple days. I had food poisoning yesterday and have been generally unwell since arriving. Doing better today though.

To recap what's been happening:

Our plane landed in Accra on Thursday night. I think most of us were a little freaked out, it was dark, we couldn't see much and people were pretty obnoxious. Mary (a long term EWB volunteer) picked us up and took us to a guest house (which is basically a motel) where we stayed the night. The next morning we took the 13 hour bus ride to Tamale (13 hours is really a best case scenario). What struck me most at this point was the contrast between apparent wealth and poverty. Most of the buildings are made from some combination of corrugated metal, brick, mud and concrete and are mostly one or two stories only. At the same time there are occasional western style buildings that could just as easy be found in Canada. I say apparent wealth because I really have no idea how poor people are. For example, many women sell fruit and water in traffic, but some seem fairly well dressed. And the houses may seem poor by western standards, but the climate here is obviously different.




Pictures from the bus ride to Tamale.

Once arriving in Tamale we had two more days of training, one of which involved a scavenger hunt adventure into the market place. I met a little kid (young boys are called "small boys") named Ernest and he took me around for a little while before disappearing. I bought some fabric to have a shirt made later, and even managed to haggle the price down a little bit (I imagine I still got ripped off). Later I met a young man named Sinbad who teaches dance at the cultural centre. I wanted him to show me some dance moves, but he said the centre wasn't open on Saturdays. Instead he took me to his friends art shop and attempted to give me a drumming lesson, although my sense of rhythm doesn't seem to have magically improved since coming to Ghana as I had hoped it would. Some of the art was amazing though, I would like to come back before I leave. Although I know the prices he was quoting me were really really high, I'm sure if I make a Ghanaian friend he/she could probably get stuff for a third of the price.

During the second day of training we had lunch with several Ghanaian friends of some of the long term volunteers. Most of them are involved in development work themselves and it was interesting to contrast our interactions in the market the previous day with this more educated conversation. I talked with a man named Peter about education. He says that Ghanaians learn all about America, Canada and Europe, but very little about their own country. I guess it is a product of colonialism, but it's rather ridiculous that Ghanaian children learn about dairy farming in Denmark or corn production in the states and yet know very little about different parts of Ghana or about Ghanaian history. Yet even despite this massive distortion, Ghanaians are incredibly patriotic and are proud to be such a peaceful nation.

On Monday morning everyone departed for their respective placements throughout Ghana. I am going to be living in Tolon, which is about a 45 minute drive outside of Tamale (most people are much further than this). My boss, Madam Hawa picked me up Monday morning but I got sick soon after arriving at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture office in Tolon. I spent the rest of the day in the bathroom and sleeping on the couch and decided to return to Tamale for the night. Henry also returned to the guest house and it was good to see a familiar face. I'd like to think all this getting sick now means I wont later, but I doubt that's how it works.


Shyam and I Monday morning before going our separate ways.


Motor bikes parked outside the Regional Ministry of Food and Agriculture office in Tamale.