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Canadian Dinner
My Family (Mommy, Fauzia, Pamela and Nassir) eating my Canadian food and Ghanaian food (Kenke)Reporting in once again from good ol’ Tamale. Another update, before things are abt to change drastically. For the past 4 weeks I’ve been working here at the regional office. I’ve been through 4 different departments (last week I wrote abt 2, this week I’ll write abt the other 2 - post harvest and animal traction). But next week I’m heading out to the districts! Yay! First I will spend two weeks in Savelugu, which is just north of Tamale (maybe 15 min drive – I’ll be able to still live at home) and then after that we’ll play it by ear. Maybe I’ll rotate through some other districts, maybe if things are going well I’ll focus my work there and just do some visits to the other districts. My weeks at the regional office have been good weeks – I’ve learned a lot, but for various reasons its been hard to contribute a lot. Some of this has to do with funding, some with the seasonality of agriculture, and some with various cultural, educational and social barriers. In the districts it should be a lot more hands on and I’m hoping I’ll be able to find more
Ghanaian Clothes
Navid, our friend Jane and me all dressed up in our ghanaian clothes for church. ways to have some impact. Hehe but I’ll write more about that once its happened, for now, here’s what I’ve been up too for the past little bit.
So, for our second two weeks I started off in post harvest and Navid went to Animal traction, and then we switched – but actually we kinda both worked together wherever there was stuff going on. Post Harvest refers to anything from drying to milling to storage to processing and packaging of agricultural products. This stuff is incredibly important – because if done improperly farmers can lose significant amounts of their crops which isn’t good when they’re living off so little already. Also, if a farmer is able to store his or her crop and then sell it when there isn’t an influx of that product in the market, he will be able to get more money for it. Unfortunately as the rainy season is only beginning here in the northern region, everyone is planting – and post harvest activities are a bit slow to say the least. The main post harvest activity right now is the design of one study to determine the amount of corn that is lost (due
Animal Traction
Here a team of bullocks are pulling the landleveller designed by the Ministry of Food and agriculture. to damage, rotting etc.) during storage each year. Mr. Prince, the post harvest officer keeps incredibly busy with other administrative activities despite the lack of work in his area at the present time. A lot of nights hes there till 8 or 9 or even 10pm – Definitely a type A personality – reminds me a bit of my Dad for those of you who know him – always on the go! Hehe it’s a bit of a contrast to a lot of Ghanaians who are generally pretty laid back and take things as they come.
Animal traction is this week, and I’ve been enjoying it a lot. I was a little worried bc Navid didn’t have much going on there last week – most of this was due to budget constraints. Te new budget was released last Monday and animal traction was given 1.2 million cedis for the 3rd quarter – that’s just over $150 cdn to complete all of their activities in the whole Northern region for 3 months! On top of that, they announced that they could no longer cover vehicle repairs. The Animal traction officers truck was broken, as was the shared one for general MoFA staff. Its difficult to do your job when the funds and resources aren’t there. This week tho one of the trucks was fixed so we were set to roll. The main project right now is the construction and implementation of 3 ground levelers for rice fields. These are basically a simple palette made out of mahogany wood (very heavy) with metal plates on the leading faces to prevent wear and metal spikes. They are pulled by a team of bullock and used in rice fields. Rice fields are designed to retain water (using bonds - see my entry above) so it is important that they are level. Otherwise, there is an uneven distribution of water which leads to uneven maturation dates and prevents farmers from getting the highest possible yields. Today the first leveler was completed and we took it to the first farm (pilot site) in Kukuo, a village about 10km from Tamale. Unfortuneatly it rained a lot last night (very good sleeping weather, very poor land leveling weather ) so the fields were too muddy to try it out. We’re going to come back on Friday and try it out as long as it doesn’t rain before then.
Outside of work, life goes on as well. On Saturday I spent the afternoon fending my way through the central market getting ingredients to prepare a Canadian meal – it was lots of fun! I made chicken with a honey-garlic-soya sauce, garlic herb mashed potatoes and sauted beans and carrots. My friend Jane and Navid came for dinner as well as my family. The Canadians (Navid and I) enjoyed it a lot, the Ghanaians said they enjoyed it, but I wasn’t really convinced at all : ) most of them didn’t finish their plates. Hehe Fauzia’s friends comment was “Its good…. Its very…..plain!” I think what he meant was that it didn’t have any peppers in it. That’s ok, maybe I’ll try making chili next time 😊
Jane invited Navid and I to church on Sunday. She goes to the catholic cathedral in Tamale. I got to wear my new dress! Everyone liked it very much : ) The service was good, for the most part pretty much your typical Roman Catholic service, but definetly a few changes. A lot of music – which was great, a full percussion section, and some dancing by the choirs as well. Navid got a bit on video I think. At the end they had all guests/visitors come up to the front and introduce themselves, that was kinda fun.
Some people have been asking me what I do at night etc. so I thought I’d end with a typical day in the life of Alyssa in Tamale. Its probably going to change drastically next week when I go out to the districts (those farmers get up early!) so this is a good time to do it I guess
Typical day
6:30 – Wake up, wash, get dressed
7:00 – Breakfast (typically a fried egg sandwhich & tea)
7:20 – get ready for work
7:40 – leave for work
8:00 – 12:30 - work
12:30-1:30 – break. Although this can start as early as 12 and go as late as 2 depending on the day. normally we (Navid and I) go to lunch at Mme. Georgina’s – she has a little stand down the road that sells fried plaintain and beans (my favourite Ghanaian dish) or there’s several other little stands, or sometimes Jane brings us lunch.
1:30 – 5:00 – work
5:00 – Normally I’ll go to town and pick up some things, or use internet or explore a bit. Sometimes I just go home, or go for a walk or something.
6:30 – return home
7:00 - Dinner and watch Ghana TV news with my family
8:00 – talk with family, watch other random tv program, write in my journal, read, play cards with Nassir (this is the most common activity – if any one has suggestion of good simple games to play, they’d be much appreciated, if they’re just for 2 ppl that’s even better, sometimes we have trouble convincing other to join
9:00 – head to my room, get ready for bed, read,
10:00 – sleep – I don’t know the last time I went to bed regularly this early – but I’m so tired by the end of the day!
So that’s about all I’ve got for now, this weekend we’re heading to Mole National Park with some of the other EWB voluteers. It’s the Algonquin or Banff of Ghana, about a 3-8hr bus ride from Tamale (hehe depending on road conditions). Lots of lions and monkeys and elephants. So excited!!
Hope you’re all enjoying the Ghana like weather that I hear you’re getting back in Canada.
Bye for now,
Alyssa
Ps the title of this refers to all the different ways I’ve seen animals transported – its quite amazing. The chicken was on the back of a bike in a plastic bag with its head sticking out. The goat was also on the back of a bike, in a bike laying on its back, with its feet tied together and sticking out the top of the box, and the sheep was just standing there on the roof of the bus, the bus was pulled over on the side of the road, but it was about to leave and the sheep seemed perfectly happy as did the other too – I found this quite amusing.
**update 06/09/05 today i saw a whole flock of sheep on the roof of a bus!! and it was driving down the road!!
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Thanks for the info, it is so interesting. I certainly knew nothing about this part of the world until you started filling us in. - Aunt Gloria