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Family in Bawku
Here are some of the many family members I got to meet when we travelled up to Bawku to see the kids Grandmother.
Grandmother is in lilac coloured dress. Marraba! Welcome back
So, its been awhile since I updated this, I wrote most of this post on Sunday, but a bunch of circumstances beyond my control (rain storm, disk drive not working, website not working etc) have delayed the posting. Hehe and the longer I couldn't post, the more I had to say, so it's gotten a little long. Everything’s still going really well, here's what I have to share:
Last Tuesday, Navid and I went clothes shopping. My family’s friend is a seamstress so we went there. I ended up buying one dress and one other outfit (pants and a long shirt/dress/jumper kind of thing). I haven’t worn the dress yet, but my friend Jane from work has invited me to church this Sunday, so that’ll be a good opportunity. The other outfit I wore to visit family last Saturday (more about that later)
Last Wednesday was a holiday for “Africa Unity Day” and Jane, one of our co-workers invited Navid and I over to her place. We went shopping first in the market to get ingredients for Jolof rice (its spicy with tomato and beef - I’m an expert now so I can definitely cook
Building Bonds
This is a picture of the tractor being used to build the bonds in one of the rice fields. The people standing along each side are the farmer, his family and a bunch of the neighbours who came out to watch. it for you when we get home). The central market in Tamale is really a neat place. You can buy everything there from food to clothes to prayer matts to light bulbs. It’s a bit of a maze as well… when I go in, I’m never exactly sure where I’ll come out. But the more you explore, the more you find. This time when we were there with Jane I found green beans! Yum! Other foods that I have found there that I wasn’t really expecting are carrots and cucumbers and nutmeg and curry. I’m trying to think what a good Canadian dish to make for my family would be. Its difficult because dairy products (cheese, butter etc) are pretty scarce. Anyway after the market, we went back to Jane’s place and she taught us how to cook the rice. Then we went out and played with the neighbourhood kids - a game called ampe. You have to clap and jump… its pretty fun, and the whole neighbourhood got a laugh out of watching us learn.
Saturday was another big day. Myself and the three kids that are home from my family went to Bawku to visit their grandmother and family. We had a driver that took us, parents stayed home. The roads were actually surprisingly good! All paved, only had to stop about a zillion times for cattle, sheep and goats. J Bawku is in the far North-East corner of Ghana (Upper East Region), right near the border of Burkina Faso and Togo. It was about a 3 1/2 to 4 hour drive. In general in Ghana, the farther North you go, the hotter it gets and the less resources they have. Although I'm in the Northern region, the Upper East and Upper West Regions are actually farther North. It was definitely much more grey and brown as opposed to the red soil and green vegetation around here. Its funny tho, because to me (which, take into consideration, I spent only one day traveling and didn’t really get to know it that much) it didn’t seem as poor as Tamale. We were discussing this at dinner the other night with Robbie and Nomusa who are EWB volunteers in Wa (Upper West) and were down in Tamale for the night, who had noticed something similar. I think it's because there is more uneven distribution of wealth here - some with lots, some with nothing, as opposed to a generally lack of resources, farther North. They may not have as much, but it’s less pronounced because there is more equity. Does that make sense? I’m not sure… it's just a hypothesis for now.
Anyway it was neat meeting all the family up there; their grandmother, their grandfather, the other wives, the children/grandchildren/cousins/aunts etc. There was no way I could get them all straight in one day! Family and extended family is really important around here. My family had brought gifts (money) for their relatives and they also sent us home with gifts. Nassir, my brother asked me to hold a bag just before we were leaving while he went to say goodbye to some relatives, as I was standing there, one of the aunts came over to pack it in the truck… when she opened the bag to see what was in it, two dead guinea fowl looked back at me, feathers, feet and all!
At work, here’s some of the more interesting stuff I’ve been looking at, I’m really looking forward to getting out into the district offices in the next couple weeks, where hopefully I’ll be able to do some more hands on work!
I attended a half-day training for farmers on the production of Soya bean seed. This training was to educate farmers about the required growing conditions and methods for producing high yields of good quality seed. It was shown last year that seed growers who received this training and followed it, were many times more successful than those who did not. Therefore it is a very important activity for increasing the yields and the livelihoods of farmers. It was lead by Minsistry of Food and Agriculture staff at an Non -Governmental Organization (NGO) in Salaga, approximately 2 hours drive from Tamale for a group of 20 local farmers. (2 hrs drive - but not actually that far, because most of the road was not paved, so the driving was pretty slow and bumpy!) I did not participate in the delivery of the training because I was learning as much (or more) as the farmers. But I would be very interested in participating in such trainings in the future and becoming more involved. I’d love to go back to Salaga sometime to explore a bit more as well. It was the center of the slave trade in the northern region so there’s quite a bit of history. We saw the river where the slave baths/wells were - slaves entering Salaga would wash here for the last time potentially until they reached North America or Europe.
I got to go out to the field last week for the first real time (and got my first sunburn as well - it wasn’t much of a sunburn though, cleared up in a day or so) We were there to construct bonds to hold moisture in the field for rice production. Bonds are pretty much mounds of earth ploughed through the field with a tractor. First the land must be surveyed to determine the contours. Bonds must be constructed along contour lines. Besides surveying and constructing the bonds, we first had to visit with the chief, then visit with the owner of the land. This took a large part of the time, as the owner was not home and we had to wait for him. It was important to do this however, to receive his approval and build trust between the community and MoFA. We also had to explain to the farmers with adjoining plots so they would understand that our work would not be harming their land or crops. Always lots of factors to consider!
So I think I’m going to end it there for now, I’ll try and write a bit more often, so I don’t have so much to say 😊 pictures will be coming soon, hopefully!
Alyssa
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anonymous
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hey lyss, awwww...i like how you call nassir "my brother".... it sounds great! i'm praying for you chingoo!!! (chingoo's korean for friend :) how do you say friend in tamale?? - susan