Lots of Work, Some Play and Plenty Hot Weather!

Photo is on top of Ghana's Highest mountain but we were besieged by insects!

Lots of work, some play and very hot!
Busy with preparation and delivery of Phonics Workshops for Primary Teachers over the last 2 months so not much time to write. Plenty of thought and discussion involved in planning the workshops to include our G.E.S. colleagues in the facilitation of sessions – all very VSO and skill sharing. They would be proud.
After 8 one day workshops we thought we deserved a break and so planned a 10 day trip round the eastern regions of Ghana. Tamale (2 nights and a very bad haircut!) – Yendi – Bimbila – Nkwanta – Hohoe . We stayed in Hohoe for 2 nights and visited the lovely village of Laiti Wote at the foot of Mt Afadjato. Naturally being the highest mountain in Ghana we had to climb up it. Not very high 3,000ft but a great deal of sweat and effort was endured to reach the top. At the top we were plagued by some huge flies so had a quick picture taken amid grimaces and avoiding action (hence very bad photograph!!) Once back down – it only took 2 hrs up and down – we trekked through fairly dense forest (another 45 mins) to reach the Tagbo waterfall almost on the border with Togo. We had a local guide with us who was pretty knowledgeable about the place and the forest so it was very interesting finding edible fruits where the red nuts are coated in a sugary jelly and are used in sweet making, seeing the palm wine juice being collected (bit like rubber tapping) finding cocoa pods and the huge Kapok trees.
This part of Ghana has a much higher rainfall than the Upper West and is so lush and green with lots of flowering trees and shrubs, plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables. We were most envious.
We motored on down through Ho but decided not to stay and carried on to the coast for a look at Keta ( (1 night) not as impressed as we hoped we would be) and Adafoah (1 night) (where the Volta joins the sea and is lovely )– stayed at the Manet Paradise Hotel which will definitely be getting a second visit from us when our friends Dave and Jan arrive in July. A bit of business in Accra (food shopping ) then we headed back up to the Akosombo Dam and found a gem of a place just on the river bank with chalets overlooking the Volta River and a small pontoon for evening drinks and chilling out, and it was very reasonably priced! (2 nights).

Last overnight stop was to be Kumasi for stocking up on fresh fruit and veg.
En route I managed to persuade Nigel to stop at the Cedi Bead Factory which was really interesting learning about the bead making process and, naturally ,buying just a few beads to send to Pippa!
The journey up to the North never gets any shorter and the roads don’t seem to improve much. Gradually we left the lush green south behind, the trees getting smaller, the grass shorter and the ground dustier. Welcome to the Upper West. No decent rain since November. The Sahara is definitely moving South!

Back to work and as schools have now closed for the holidays it’s particularly quiet, which is a blessing as pressure of work has been pretty heavy over the last 4 months.

This last weekend we took a trip to the Weichau Hippo Community Project near Wa, which was great. We had an evening trip out in a canoe on the river and spotted 8 hippos. Sleeping quarters were (by choice) on a platform 15 ft off the ground under a huge Kapok tree, on mattresses, under nets, under the stars. It was cool, in all senses of the word. Great stars, lovely breeze and a decent night’s sleep. The only drawback was a 15ft climb down a very steep ladder if you needed a wee in the night! Our supper of chicken curry and rice was prepared on a charcoal ‘coal pot’ and washed down with a couple of beers it was a great way to unwind. Another trip to find the hippos in the morning rounded off our short stay in good style. The Project has around 2000 visitors a year and any money made is put back into the community’s 17 villages by way of solar power lighting for houses, boreholes for water and materials for schools. The first decent project for tourists/local development that we have seen in the Upper West .

Catch up with Images of our Experiences and Projects

Tiny amount of time left at the Internet Cafe: Briefly we are fine - follow these links to catch up.

Our latest experiences and travels can be witnessed on our Images of Ghana and Burkina Faso web photo album.

Progress on our various projects which colleagues and friends are sponsoring can be followed on our Update on Lawra Projects web pages

Musings from Lawra- nine months in to our placement: It’s a Paradox!

It’s almost a month since we last had access to the Internet and this is now being sent from Bobo Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, where we are enjoying a long weekend in a hotel escaping work, cooking, and the incredibly busy life we lead - above are some photos of a family we are helping to improve their family home: a paradox!
Jan 24th - It’s been a long day so far; I’m currently sitting (I was 3 weeks ago) on our veranda surveying the scene, witnessing the daily paradoxes of life here and reflecting over the last few days. I am just sitting down with a wonderful glass of Faustino 1 red wine; paradox no 1 (henceforth paradox pdx-2, pdx-3 etc!): donated by a visitor from Ireland; at which point our neighbour’s daughter walks past with one container on her head and another in her hand on her way to pump water from the borehole (pdx-2). My glass rests on a wonky ‘chop table’ -the item off which Ghanaians eat their food, held together with nails; neither screws, nor mortice and tenons, cross-halvings or dovetail joints have found their way into the construction vocabulary of Lawra yet. A huge cheer has just gone up from the far side of the campus, which now, in the dry season, is like a barren moonscape; the students are avidly watching the African cup of nations in their ‘entertainment hall’ – I think Ghana just scored; we do not have a TV (pdx-3)

A ‘Dogs Dinner’ has taken on a completely new meaning since we came to Lawra – in fact I have just seen one walk past, or is it really a pet? It’s very difficult to tell here; anything that has legs constitutes a potential meal, as was brought home to us most surprisingly when we visited Bolgatanga in the Upper East of Ghana last week; there we encountered our first genuine ‘Dog Market’ where what one thought were really quite healthy looking pets, that you would see roaming around, were actually cutely contained in well constructed wicker baskets, being nurtured for sale as potential candidates for ‘sweet and sour dog’ or ‘mongrel moussaka’ (pdx-4).
Yes I am still sitting on the veranda, an egret has just popped by to say hello, a few cows have just meandered by and the local Imam is just winding up with his regular call to prayer – it can be a bit of a pain – especially at 04.00 am! I do not quite see why the Muslim religion has to be quite so intrusive into the lives of everyone who lives within a couple of kilometres of a mosque! Lawra District is predominantly Christian, Animist and Muslim in that order, yet it is the few Muslims whose presence is most heard! (pdx-5). It is now dusk and the main reason that I am still sitting here on this glorious barmy evening is that it is the dry season and the mosquitoes have virtually disappeared; there is no chance of doing this from April through to October. We have even stopped taking our Larium (anti-malaria) tablets until the rains begin again in April-a calculated risk but maybe better than going ‘gaga’ from overdosing on tablets!

Jenny is rattling her cage inside and I am reminded that she has been busy beavering away for most of the day sewing with her new fangled sewing machine that Pippa sent out from Ruthin: a fantastic asset Pippa – I can now go all day without even having to communicate with Jenny, she’s so busy sewing. So what have we made today darling? Well, some gizmos in which to keep maps, books, water bottles etc when travelling in the car, a dozen bean-bags (we’ve loads of beans here! – so we might as well put them into bags!) - Even the odd ‘has been’, I think it’s time I packed up. OK time to tackle that spaghetti bolognaise that I cooked earlier.

Bon soir – I can’t see the key-board now, from dusk to blackness in about 10 minutes at 18.00.
Feb 6th – we have now been in Ghana for nine months!It’s hot, hot, hot – Harmattan (wind and dust season) seems to be have come to a sudden end – 100 deg F inside today

A NEW YEAR MISSIVE

A NEW YEAR MISSIVE: Warning - longish (for a blog), only for the really interested!

Refreshed and ready to ‘get stuck in’ again. We have just enjoyed a wonderful break in Capetown with our sons: David and Beth, Phil and Maike, Mike and Ali + Raif (grandson) and Safi (grand-daughter); we also had the added pleasure of the company of my senior brother Martin and Miriam and their son Kenneth, and my junior brother Pete – what a really great family gathering. Mike and family have since moved on to Malawi to take up residence in the capital city Lilongwe; Mike is to begin a new future as a partner in a small air charter company – Nyasa Air Taxi Ltd (or something similar!). What next, where and when will we meet, who will dare to visit us? - One would be guaranteed a truly memorable and enjoyable visit. We can cope with visitors around Easter, July/August, end of October and Xmas; our friends Dave and Jan from Northwich are planning a visit in July /August and we could probably cope with an additional couple.
Getting ‘into the swing of things again’ in Lawra in the Upper West of Ghana
It’s Sunday January 13th and we are enjoying a relaxing week-end at home after a pretty hectic first week back at work; Jenny’s busy sewing using the sewing machine sent out by Pippa (via Sam and Capetown) and we have just put the tops on the jars of ‘my’ lime and orange marmalade which I couldn’t resist making from local fruit, to go with Jenny’s superb home made bread. The bread nearly didn’t make it though; Jenny had put the yeast and flour out in the sun to accelerate fermentation but the sight of white nosed goats in our courtyard alerted us to their unwanted trespass, so the bread has a slight ‘goat spittle’ flavour to it!
This is a (temporarily) bountiful time of the year in the local market. We make good use of local produce; yesterday we bought pork (fresher than any you will get at home) and naturally reared, with some green peppers; so it’s sweet and sour pork tonight – even if it is a little disconcerting, one minute seeing the pig being transported to market on the back of a bike and then a few minutes later seeing it freshly slaughtered on the wooden bench in the market in front of you! We enjoyed ‘West African chicken’ with local groundnut paste, onions and tomatoes on Friday; we will put beans to soak overnight tonight, so it will be some sort of bean salad for lunch next week and probably a bean stew with plantain bananas one evening. We also bought yams which we use as a potato equivalent, so we’re likely to have yam chips and ‘fillet steak’ on another evening.
You’ll probably gather that we’re beginning to make ourselves at home by now, especially with ‘ipod’ podcasts downloaded from radio 4 that we obtained in Capetown –it’s so good to hear Kate Adie, Melvyn Bragg, the News Quiz, the Now Show, from our own Correspondent, Crossing Continents etc.

What about our VSO work you might say?
We have had such a busy week, Jenny: getting rid of a Harmattan*(see end) dust layer in the Teachers’ Resource Centre (TRC), working out how the newly purchased ‘play equipment’ can be brought into use and planning the next term’s work with colleagues; besides coping with a constant flow of requests for photocopying, typing etc. Me: getting a new Education Management Information System (EMIS) up and running, helping inexperienced (in I.T.) colleagues prepare the Ghana Education Service (GES) annual report for Lawra District, and next, preparing to support the Director and key assistant Directors of Education with the budget preparations and Strategic Plan for 2008-9. This probably all seems a bit far-removed from the images of poverty that you see in the media back home but our work is all to do with building the capacity of: local teachers to teach better, and of managers of the Education Service to manage better, which all has a longer-term benefit for children and the community as a whole – or does it?
However the toughness of life in this rural outpost is brought home to you on a daily basis: work colleagues report having spent Xmas and New Year attending funerals; people dying of typhoid, TB, and pneumonia, largely preventable diseases and a product of the poor diets, lack of water and sanitation and the absolute drudgery of life for most of the largely illiterate population in this area. An early morning visit to town at 6.00 am reveals a column of women and children carrying huge loads of timber on their heads ready for cooking the day’s meals, in between which are regular visits to the nearest borehole to pump water, the toil of carrying it back to the homestead, and then do all of the washing, cleaning, shopping etc!
An illustration of events conspiring against the poor is the fact that the re-opening of schools in this area has been postponed by a week as the government has yet to provide funds for the food that schools have to purchase to feed their students – not a problem in the big towns and cities.
We also find ourselves approached occasionally by children and adults asking for money, of which they are obviously in need, but we hold a firm line on not giving in to such requests, which are also made of local Ghanaians who seem to hold a similar line in not giving.

So life is really tough for locals here, employed or otherwise; most of what we take for granted is completely unattainable, even for our work colleagues – it is with sensitivity, care, some trepidation but enthusiasm that we re-commence our work and hope that our service will be valued by those whose lives we are hoping to improve in the longer-term.
Happy New Year to all of our friends, acquaintances and readers (r?)

Nigel and Jenny

*Harmattan is a strong dust-laden wind from the Sahara which blows for several weeks between November and February leaving heavy layers of dust in its wake, as well as creating a whole range of unpleasant dust associated ailments for those living here.

Stop Press - Just collected new Kindergarten Play Equipment

Today we collected some fantastic 'Ghana made' play equipment for the Kindergarten Project that we are supporting at Brutu in the Lawra District. See for your self - we are so pleased and excited. The next step will be to train kindergarten staff in its use and then sort out storage facilities so that it can be used by the children as soon as possible...more later! We are off, from Accra, back up to Lawra at 5.00am tomorrow, Monday 7th January so must go now!

Capetown for Christmas

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE
Just returned from a real family get together with our three sons, their partners and offspring and two of Nigel's brothers. Needless to say we had a brilliant time and managed to see Phil windsurfing for the first time in a long while.

We have just spent a couple of days in Accra purchasing equipment and materials for the Kindergarten project and are now refreshed, ready to start a new year in Lawra.

We will keep you posted on project developments as and when they happen - meanwhile progress can be viewed at :

http://www.horrocksfamily.net/Lawraprojects.htm

Lawra Project Funding Update

Follow This link which displays a page we are using to try and explain what is happening to funds raised by our friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

A Visit to Chrisantus’s family home

A Visit to Chrisantus’s family home and a night with a cockerel in our kitchen!
We are supporting an 18yr old Ghanaian boy, Chrisantus (red shirt in the photo)with his studies, by buying him books, clothes, paying medical fees etc; last weekend he invited us to visit his family home at Dondomoteng.
We first met his parents in Nandom town at the local Pito Bar (home brewed beer – some similarity to cider?); we then gave them, and half the village, a lift to Chris’s home where we met the 24 children of the extended family /community of 37 all of whom live in the mud constructed compound.
It was a visit with a difference: we sampled more peetou! and were shown around the amazingly designed compound of interlocking dwellings, grain-stores and kraals and were sharply reminded of the huge gulf in lifestyles between the rural poor and city rich citizens of Ghana, as well as the immense gap compared with our own lifestyle. After consulting Chris we took with us soap, salt and a large bag of oranges, as gifts for the family.
We were then humbled big-time when, as we were leaving, we were given quantities of soya beans, ground nuts, two pumpkins and to cap it all – a symbol of real respect for visitors - a live cockerel! All this from a family/community of 37 existing on subsistence farming. We posed for photos and vowed that we must do something, maybe you can help?, to assist them to improve the children’s life chances by finding ways of improving their: living conditions, clothing, access to electricity (solar panels + batteries) and enabling access to education.

Cocka doodle doo – I’m going to escape from you! – or nearly. So, it was home to Lawra with cockerel crowing, sensing its fate, in the back of Mitzi (our car). It’s 10.00pm so we can’t deal with it tonight – so we spend the night with a cockerel crowing away in the kitchen –he got his revenge by signalling dawn continuously until we finally surfaced to silence the blighter - but he was smart! Despite being hobbled he gave us, and our neighbour Madame Kubio, the run around for twenty minutes, escaping into the courtyard and then outside with us in hot pursuit; but we got him. Chrisanthus arrived, did the deed, it was plucked, cooked and eaten for supper as Chicken Casserole with locally produced ground nut sauce, onions and tomatoes – delicious. The real world is a bit uncomfortable for animal rights and vegetarian enthusiasts!

Visit to Burkina Faso: Bobo Dioulasso, Banfora and Sindou

Click here to view slides of our recent trip to Burkina

Cycling in the Clwydian hills will improve the lot of children at Brutu Kindergarten!

Some great news this week is that one of our friends at home , Dave Bullock, and his students at Frodsham High School has raised several hundred pounds to assist with our efforts to support the Kindergarten Schools in Lawra District. We are absolutely delighted and we shall certainly put it to good use – for toys, books, class-room improvements etc. Thanks for the sweat and toil on your bike around the hills of North Wales to raise this sum Dave; thanks go to you and all your friends who had their arms twisted to support you!! We will keep you posted, via the Blog, on the use of the funds - our next step will be to meet with the PTA and Rev Sr Justina, (who is the Assistant Director in charge of school supervision and who has a keen interest in this particular school) and work out their immediate priorities. They will be overjoyed.

Our VSO work with Lawra’s Education Service continues to evolve, with us both engaging in a range of sometimes quite unpredictable spheres of work; it is never boring! We keep the Teachers’ Resource Centre ticking over financially by doing photocopying, laminating and document binding with a constant stream of teachers wanting study leave forms, applying for study leave, going away and then not coming back to the Upper West - a constant ‘brain drain’. The Ghana Education Service, in the name of technological advancement has decreed that all 44 Junior High Schools should enter their examination students ‘ data online by December. The fact that none of the 44 schools in the Lawra District have electricity, computers or the Internet and only one teacher has his own computer wasn’t taken into consideration. So, over the next two weeks the TRC is helping the JHS Year 3 teachers to enter their pupils’ exam details onto a special database installed onto the four available computers at the TRC as well as going out to schools (with our own cameras) to take digital pictures of the students because schools don’t have cameras!!

Exploring at week-end helps to compensate for the limited scope for mid-week leisure activities. We have no hills, tennis courts, swimming pools, Operatic Society or the like, no TV, nowhere to go out for a meal, no cinema etc.. but there is an abundance of local bars if you want to drink yourself into a stupor at the end of the working day. We have decided that weekends are definitely to be used and enjoyed and so we are off to Burkina Faso again, this time to Bobo Dioulasso , to explore. We believe it is much greener and fertile than around the capital of Ouagadougu and that there are hills, waterfalls and escarpments to the South heading towards Banfora and Sindou. We get by reasonably well with Nigel’s French.

On the home front, the garden beats us and Harmattan season is upon us!I have completely given up with the garden. We will now have no rain until March at the earliest and I can’t be bothered to lug water to a garden where everything gets eaten by crickets, grasshoppers and caterpillars. Also I feel guilty using water which has to be brought to our house on the head of a woman who has 7 children of her own and works incredibly hard just to make ends meet. The weather is getting hotter during the day and colder at night, from now until December; this last week it has been around 35 – 40 deg day and down to about 15 -18 deg night time.

What a country of contrasts this is.

Bye all

Update from Ghana, Burkina Faso and Mali

Burkina Faso and Mali trip in October/November.
We have just had a great holiday with friends Berwyn and Julia who flew (from Nigeria) to Accra and then Kumasi. We spent a couple of nights here in Lawra and then headed for a couple of nights in Ouaga to try and sort out visas for both Burkina Faso and Mali. No visa forms available at Immigration in Ouaga, for B.F. so sort them out on your return from Mali, and get your Mali visa at the border! No problems. We crossed the Mali border with no problem but had strict instructions not to go further that the Bandiagara Escarpment – Dogon Country and definitely not to go as far as Mopti on the River Niger. We spent one very uncomfortable night in Bankass in a very run down ‘hotel’ with Nigel being violently sick. Fortunately he was better by morning. We acquired a very knowledgeable National Guide who spent the next three days guiding us round the escarpment villages, up to Mopti on the River Niger and then to Djenne, We took a short boat trip up the river at Mopti to an island fishing village – in all its working glory, if we’d had the time we could have carried on down-river for two days to Timbuktu – maybe next time! A fascinating visit marred only slightly by being besieged by small (and large) children all with their hands out asking for a ‘petite cadeau’ or an offer to have their picture taken for money. Thankfully our guide handled it well distributing the small change we had with us to very eager hands.
We visited Djenne home of the largest mud mosque in West Africa. Fascinating history, lovely buildings but pretty unpleasant environment (dirt and rubbish) although our accommodation was excellent. We then spent the last two nights in Ouaga prior to B & J flying home from Ouaga. It is worth going to Ouaga (5 hours away) just for the food and the Marina supermarket!
Bye for now.

Kobine Festival and helping with our Projects

The Kobine Festival is a huge annual Festival in Lawra District. Kobine Festival Photos can be seen via this link.

See how Lawra District Kindergartens are in need of assistance by seeing these photograohs

Help with Projects and Ghana Photos

Visit our Ghana Help pages at http://www.horrocksfamily.net/Ghanahelp.htm.
Visit our Ghana Photos pages at http://www.horrocksfamily.net/N&J%202006.htm

Flooding in Lawra

Lawra Flooding –September 2007
Northern Ghana has been hit by severe flooding in the last few weeks; Lawra has suffered badly in those areas that are close to the Black Volta River, which flows just two kilometres west of Lawra town; by good fortune we are not affected. The photos taken in June show the normal bank to bank river width, whereas in the September photo the far bank is beyond view. The major impact here is that several farms and homes close to the river have been completely destroyed, in some cases along with the livestock whose kraals were hit during the night; fortunately there is no loss of human life but there are many homeless people, including one of our work colleagues Augustina. The impact in the Upper East Region is huge, with significant loss of life and the destruction of a number of key bridges rendering the already difficult transport routes nigh impossible. As often seems to be the case the poorest Regions continue to have suffering piled upon poverty, exacerbated by natural disasters. The District Assembly here in Lawra is trying to assist the homeless families but they have very limited resources; without external help the suffering is destined to continue for some considerable time.

A few Photos of our First 4 months

We have posted a few photos on our Family Web site - follow this link to view:
http://www.horrocksfamily.net/index1.htm

Update on almost four months that have passed in a flash

Update on almost four months that have passed in a flash
Fellow VSOs I have just been re-reading some of the messages our fellow VSOs have been sending from all over the world. Onome, certainly seems to be getting to grips with things in Beijing, making her mark and probably fluent in Mandarin by now, and Dorothy no doubt has Thai and Burmese tripping off her tongue. Ali, Clare, Carol and Kate – Is it Chichewa or does everyone speak English in the hospital in Malawi? It’s quite a challenge learning (or trying to learn) a new language. Nigel and I have been here three months and our Daagare is still very limited. Fortunately schools and daily business is conducted in English so we are slightly let off the hook. However, we frequently wish we knew more of the language so that we could communicate with the children from the local village who don’t go to school but look after the cattle and goats on the land around our house. (Even if it is occasionally just to ask them to disappear and stop peering through the windows at us as if we have two heads!!) We are gradually coming to a sort of understanding with them.

Working for the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Lawra District OfficeWork is progressing well and we are beginning to settle into the relaxed way of things, just as VSO staff predicted. Work starts officially at 8.00am and most of the time we make it in for then. The local people are extremely friendly and very appreciative of any effort you make to speak their language. It is the custom to greet and so the journey to work in the mornings, often by bicycle is really cheery and a good way to start the day. The first thing we do in the morning is to go round the offices and ‘greet’ people. ‘Ansoma’ ‘Fo ga be sung’ meaning ‘Good Morning, How was your night’? Then you ask about the children and the wife and the farm and was there enough rain and how many funerals did you have to attend at the weekend? (that’s if it is Monday morning).You might sit a while under the Mango Tree which provides a wonderfully large shady canopy with a couple of benches placed beneath. Then you beg your leave of the people still sitting there and amble off to the office to see what the first task is. This was how our first two months of placement was conducted. It was very hot in May and June and so the relaxed way was essential. Easing our way in gently and ascertaining how we can be of most use and value to our colleaguesWe were encouraged to put our house in order first – not too much wrong with it at all, find our way round the local market and equally as important, get to know the local drinking spots – no problem. We got to know the office staff bit by bit and began to find small things that we could do to help. Nobody really said do this, or do that, we just asked around and did a bit here and there. Gradually we both, in our respective positions began to see how we could help and how our roles were evolving. I am working as a Teacher Support Officer in the local Teacher Resource Centre alongside another British VSO, Helen, also a TSO , building up the resources available. In September we are going out to a few of the local Primary Schools to introduce the teaching of reading through Phonics to Primary 1 and Primary 2 classes and have spent the last couple of weeks making lots of lovely flash cards and teaching aids from bits of card and local materials. Nigel is busy setting up computer systems and training some of the staff in IT skills. We are working with highly intelligent and well read staff whose knowledge of English grammar is exceptional and who are also great fun to be with. We couldn’t ask for a better working environment. Well, all except for the lack of access to the Internet, but we believe it is coming by the end of the year.
Our working environment is good, which is more than can be said for the majority of primary and Junior Secondary Schools. There is a great lack of resources, books, paper, pencils etc (as is the case in most developing countries) and very few of the schools has electricity, although there is a great push within the Education Service to encourage computer /IT literacy amongst its teachers. We have 6 computers in the TRC and organise drop-in sessions and computer lessons for those wanting them.
The paradox of the rainy season - Power on again – but the Rhythm of Life changes
Having previously been experiencing extensive power cuts due to the lack of water in the Akosombo Dam and thus the hydro electric power station being on limited output, Now, with the rains, we have less frequent power cuts but are in danger of crops rotting if we don’t get some more sunshine!
At present we are at the height of the rainy season and whereas we could once see our neighbour’s house and the school buildings, now we have a lush green wall of maize, tomatoes, okra, melons, chilli peppers and yam plants. At this time of the year the goats are all tethered in clusters so as not to eat the planted crops and they are supervised and shifted periodically by young children to chew the grass that grows in the patches of land that cannot be planted; the children consequently miss out on school – a real dilemma. We can get oranges, very occasionally bananas and if we travel 80 kms, the odd pineapple. We also miss the variety of fresh vegetables we have been used to - tomatoes, onions, okra and yams being the ones most readily available, with carrots and green beans a real luxury.The weather really affects the way of life and patterns of work: the heavy rains prevent many people from getting to and from work, there is no public transport and roads become impassable; also the day after the rains, if the sun shines, the office is half empty as people are working on their farms tending crops etc – wages are so low that people are absolutely dependent on what they grow for themselves.

These wheels (Mitzy’s) are made for rolling, and that’s just what they’ll do!
I hope many of you have been following our explorations of Ghana and Burkina Faso on earlier blogs, but for those who haven’t , we made a foray into BF with a couple of other volunteers and visited Ouagadougu for a long weekend. We have to say that this was only made possible by the fact that we were so fed up with the time wasted and the discomfort of journeys by tro-tro (local minibus) that we went out and bought a car. Nigel spent 2 weeks in Accra going through a very tedious and time consuming process of re-registering an ex Corps Diplomatic vehicle, a process he would not willingly go through again. He is a very patient man but this tried his patience to the limit,. However we have been rewarded with a super Mitsubishi Pajero 4 x 4 that has only done 28,000 km in 7 years, pottering about Accra from Embassy to home and back. We have had Mitzy for about 6 weeks and in that time have taken on her on a few minor adventures around the region, the first being up to Ouaga.

Getting out and about: Ougagdougu – Accra – Gbele - Mole
Thank goodness Nigel speaks a passable level of French otherwise we would have been really struggling to get across the border into Burkina Faso with all the forms and visas that had to be filled in. We had a Ghanaian with us and he didn’t speak any French at all. He was surprised at how isolated he felt as not a word of English seems to be spoken there. It is a country not unlike the Upper West and is only a different country by virtue of colonial imposed artificial boundaries. Road signs were good and there was even a peage on the main road into the capital. It is big and busy but better laid out than Accra and the traffic lights work so although there is heavy traffic it continues to flow.
Next after our flying visit to Ouaga was a trip to Accra for a VSO call back meeting. We managed to sneak two days at Cape Coast, by the sea before going off to the Capital on a work related shopping expedition for books and computers before our VSO meeting. Accra is a long way (14 hrs) from the Upper West whichever way you look at it but for Nigel it was a darn site better than his journey down by various tro –tro and bus to Accra to collect the vehicle and a much better way to see the countryside on the way up.
Last weekend we had a brief one day foray into the Gbele Resource Reserve about 2 hours East of Lawra. It was a very memorable trip for some of the wrong reasons. Nigel, with his adventurous spirit decided that just before we reached the entrance to the Reserve he would take a little detour following a sign that directed us to a luxury tented campsite. Check it out for future visits maybe, we thought and headed off down this dirt track. 200 yards further on we were stuck with 2 wheels axle deep in the mud. Not a pleasurable experience when you have to dig the mud out so that you can jack the car up and put logs underneath the wheels at the same time fending off an army of sweat bees and the tiniest mosquitoes with the biggest of bites. From the knees down we were covered in itchy bites that lasted for days. We even resorted to antihistamine tablets from the local chemist to combat the swelling and the itching. Thankfully they have almost gone. We eventually got the car out with the help of the Park Rangers and managed a short guided game walk in the reserve. Worth going back but definitely in the dry season only!!
Our next trip planned is to Mole National Park where there are elephants and a hotel with a swimming pool. What more can you want!

If any VSO is thinking of getting their own transport and is having doubts about the ethics (being a volunteer and all that), don’t think twice. It is definitely worth it and locals have little difficulty reconciling our relative wealth with their own circumstances; our colleagues have no difficulty appreciating, that after 40 yrs of working in the UK, we are able to afford, and should have our own wheels. It takes away all the frustration and you can enjoy and explore the country so much more. It even makes work seem better too.

I’m a Material Girl
Ghanaian women wear some very smart and colourful clothes. At every opportunity they encourage us to adopt the local dress so my wardrobe is gradually becoming more colourful and less western. It is so easy to buy the material from the market and have it made up to fit by one of the many local seamstresses – real made-to-measure stuff and it’s not very expensive either.
So all in all, we are enjoying our placement so far. There are times when I/we wonder what benefits we can bring, but every little helps and things seem to be improving all the time.
E mailing us
Because of Internet difficulties we can only use email centre.co.uk and have had to use the following as our email address.
nigel@horrocksfamily.net
If anyone has emailed us on nigelandjenny@horrocksfamily.net and we have not responded it is because at present we cannot access this address. Once Lawra gets Internet then we hope we can sort things out. So apologies but we haven’t forgotten you all.

Cape Coast and Accra

Cape Coast and Accra
We have just returned from a week long trip down to the Coast and despite having a successful part-work, part-holiday visit, it’s good to be back in the Upper West.
After being in our placements for 2/3 months, VSO like to call new VSOs together for a briefing and to check out that all is going OK. We felt it opportune to combine this visit with a shopping trip for stuff for the Teacher Resource Centre (TRC) and a very brief look along the Coast west of Accra for possible coastal stays with friends and relatives who just might consider coming to visit us.

The Anamabo Beach Resort near Cape Coast had been recommended to us and after a very long drive (800 km) from Lawra, setting off at 6am, and stopping off at Obuasi, Ghana’s gold mining capital, getting lost in the town and circumnavigating it a couple of times, we finally arrived at the coast at 7pm and managed to secure accommodation, a self-contained bungalow set right on the beach under the palm trees! It contained the biggest bed I have ever seen, which would have fit at least 4 people, with room to spare! The dining/restaurant area was in a building on stilts with a lovely veranda over-looking the sea, very tastefully done and highly recommendable. The cost (including drinks and meals) was around £35 for two of us per night so didn’t break the bank.

We rather warmed to Cape Coast and spent some time exploring, taking in the Castle with an eerie and poignant guided tour of the slave dungeons. We even managed to find “Global Mamas”, a women’s cooperative which makes women’s and children’s clothes from Ghanaian batik cloth and is beginning to export them- through their website. They won a contract with C & A to supply dresses!

The beaches at Cape Coast and Anamabo (just a few kilometres east of Cape Coast) were crowded with colourful ‘pirogues’ – fishing boats made from huge carved out tree trunks which looked very unstable and incredibly heavy. The Sunday we were there coincided with the end of a week-long “Panafest” – a building of links with the worldwide Ghanaian diaspora and their resident local relatives, there were many American accents. It was also fervently religious with all the church members dressing in their finest white and black patterned materials, looking like one huge Welsh choir off to a concert; there was singing in all the outdoor drinking spots with loudspeakers to make sure that everyone was heard!

The north – south divide (as in other countries) was evident on the coast, with more begging than in Lawra; so many more tourists and wealthy people in the south. Unfortunately there is little employment in the Upper West and East regions other than farming and unlike the fertile south regions which get two crops a year, the upper regions only have one season. This means that after harvest here, the young people leave their home towns and go South in search of more seasonal jobs, and like London, the bright lights of Accra beckon.
We enjoyed two and a half days of exploring before we had to leave Anamabo and Cape Coast. In the line of duty we visited Cape Coast University and were overwhelmed by the vastness of the lush green University campus. Not a bad place to study!! Although the university book shop was somewhat disappointing.

We proceeded to Accra for a shopping spree and our VSO ‘call back’ meeting. Shopping sounds good but in fact it is a bit of a nightmare with the traffic; having a car is a mixed blessing, you can get about from shop to shop with your purchases but it takes you forever because the traffic is so congested. Still, in the end with a bit of give and take from everybody you eventually get where you want to go. With money donated by the Royal Netherlands Embassy we were able to buy 2 second hand computers (£100 each) a DVD player and lots of other ‘stuff’ for the TRC. We still need loads of help with funding small projects – Is there anyone out there reading this who is feeling philanthropic?

After a fairly positive VSO meeting we said goodbye to Accra early the following morning and broke our journey back up to the Upper West at Techiman, a pleasing little town which acts as the cross roads between the road to Bolgatanga on the Upper East Burkina Faso border and the road to Wa. Here we came across a quite reasonable hotel, ‘The Premier Palace’ and bedded down early for the night as we were to be off again at 6.30 the following morning. On our journey back we had a Ghanaian work colleague with us – Samuel, a very sociable and well educated chap who made the journey really interesting with his local knowledge, he even bargained for plantain bananas and picked out the best yams for us to buy so we didn’t pay “Nansala” prices!
All in all, a good trip but not to be done too often!!

Visit to Ouagadougu

Viva la France en Afrique – especialement dans Ouagadougu!
We have just returned from our first exploration beyond Ghana’s borders and we feel as though we have just returned from France! A foursome of VSO’s, ourselves, Pete, and Helen with her Ghanaian boy-friend Souf, ventured forth into Burkina Faso for a long weekend; once across the Ghanaian border and into Burkina, if you could not speak French you were in big trouble, nobody could, or would, speak a word of English in the part of Burkina that we explored.

So, it was French road signs, kilometre distances counting down to your destination on the Route National and to our disbelief a péage charging for the use of the roads; add to that supermarchés, boulangeries, croissants, pain au chocolat, baguettes, proper coffee and French wine – what more could you want? We very definitely felt as though we were in a foreign country and three of our compatriots, including our Ghanaian friend, felt totally excluded through not being able to communicate in French; the place at which three of us stayed (the other two stayed with the Ghanaian Ambassador!) even hosted the Tour de Burkina Faso cycle race! Mais oui, c’est vrai!

Mais tous la meme c’était un trés bon repos!
Ougadougu is the capital city of Burkina and is very well laid out and organised and much more appealing than Ghana’s capital Accra, it is more clean and tidy, the traffic lights all work, the banking system is user friendly – plenty of ATMs that work for getting cash, and you can pay by Visa in the hotels.

The colonial legacy – good or bad, that is the question?
Burkina Faso and its people have much in common with Ghana; it is the colonial powers that put in place the wholly artificial and inappropriate borders and imposed alien languages. All in all for we Obruni (Ghanaian for foreigner), it is a salutary experience to see both the good and the downsides of colonialism – we have to leave it to the Ghanaians and Burkinans, who are both exceptionally friendly and hospitable people, to be the judges of the pros and cons of its consequences.

Interesting people and places.
A fortunate consequence of my extended stay in Accra was an invitation to a party at the British High Commission; it was a really enjoyable evening and for a couple of hours I was able to share a dinner table and conversation with the British High Commissioner (BHC) and a couple of distinguished Ghanaians. The BHC was a really affable chap and we struck something of an accord as his parents came from Salford, my birth place, and he is also an avid Man Utd supporter. We talked about VSO and its role in Ghana + world affairs etc - as you do!
One of our co-diners was the West African representative on the Bill Gates Foundation's HIV/AIDS initiative for Africa. She (Juliette) is also developing a horticultural/environmental landscaping business and is desperately short of trained staff to enable expansion; I thought that the Welsh College of Horticulture + WDA/DEIN (Nick W + Julie M) might be able to help set up suitable training programmes, which do not exist here: any possibilities out there?
Interesting times, people and places

A crisis of conscience - but only briefly!

I guess we are VSOs with a difference:
We have worked for 40 years and now retired with skills to share but we are still adventurous and want to travel. Owning a vehicle might raise a few eyebrows amongst VSO and 'development' purists, but as far as we are concerned it will only help us perform the jobs we are here to do better if our life outside work is enjoyable; work life balance applies here as well!
Two on a 125cc motorbike is not feasible for the distances, heat and terrain involved out here, so 4 wheels it is and we will subsidise ourselves from our pension. We will still be using our pushbikes to get us around and about the village and to the office and back. So only a very brief crisis of conscience!