25 December 2009

Last Christmas was something of a novelty. Hot, sunny, new environment, new friends – local and VSOs.

This time round it was very different. Not in a bad way, just different. I still see the volunteers who I’ve hung around with since arriving in February 2008 – with the exception of those who have now finished their placement and gone back home (most) or moved on to new and permanent development roles in other countries (Karin from the Netherlands who joined at the same time as me has now moved into a development role with an NGO in Mali).

In Zebilla Iona is still here – she came to Bolga last Christmas, Andrea, and two new volunteers, Pat and Stephen. But they’ve all gone travelling to other parts of Ghana and beyond.

So why have I stayed? I’m just back from three weeks holiday in the UK and can’t afford to take more time off work – too much to do (sounds remarkably like back home eh?).

So it was just me and Sophia on Christmas Day. Having not finished until late on Christmas Eve, Sophia did not arrive in Zebilla until 9.30 in the evening so we crashed out early, me having said that during the next three days she was to rest and was not to do any cooking or cleaning.

Christmas morning started early and very biblically at 5.00am when the donkey that lives behind my bedroom decided to get itself aroused early (I wish I could have said the same for me but read on….). Then at 6.30am one of my neighbours and work colleagues called round to bring gifts of guinea fowl and chicken (live).

A few weeks ago my bed collapsed and since then I’ve been balancing precariously on the edge to stop the central slats from slipping and the mattress ending up on the floor.

After trying to get the carpenter to come and fix the bed for the last few weeks I was then informed that he would come on Christmas Day.

So with the little donkey, the visitor bearing gifts and the carpenter coming to fix the bed (or is it manger), I had a truly biblical Christmas.

The rest of the day passed in peace and I managed to prepare a traditional English Christmas dinner using guinea fowl instead of turkey. Starter was tomatoes, basil and mozzarella drizzled with olive oil. Christmas pudding and custard and a very nice bottle of Argentinean Condor Peak 2008 Vintage Shiraz completed the festivities.

25 September 2009

Cast your mind back to Thursday 30 July and my blog ‘AND THE WINNER IS……’ when Sophia won the regional heat in the Cosmocorp Beauty Africa Event 2009.

On September 25, Sophia went down to Accra to take part in the national finals in Accra’s National Conference Centre. I was also down there renewing ATPF’s NGO registration and was able to join her on the evening of the finals.

As judging got underway the tension in then air was, well, it would have powered the whole of Ghana if there’s been a power outage.

23 August 2009

Okay, so I’d had Sophia, Iona, Vicky and Andrea over for Sunday lunch (actually, Sophia was the one who prepared the lunch of red red – my favourite Ghanaian dish), and the Star beer always helps you to relax and see things differently.

One of the three dogs owned by Johnson’s family had recently given birth to nine puppies, and on the day of our Sunday lunch gathering there was only one puppy left for sale. Star beer, okay, any beer, if you take a little too much, makes you say and do things that wouldn't be said or done if you'd just taken a glass of water or a soft drink, and I decided that the last puppy would be mine.

He was six weeks old at the time (birthday estimate is 15 July) and cute. So I paid the family five Ghana Cedis (£2.20p) and I am now the proud owner of Nyota, a dog of very mixed parentage but still very cute.

Nyota is Swahili for Star. Now you may not believe this but I didn’t intentionally name him after my favourite brand of African beer. I was browsing the internet for ‘African names for dogs – male' and Nyota was one of the names that came up and I liked it. It was only after one of my Ghanaian work colleagues said to me, “Ah, you named him after your favourite African beer”, that I realised the coincidence.

Nyota’s great company and it’s good that he’s staying in the family compound with his mum (aawwww), so that any time I’m away I don’t have to worry about him, or find someone to look after him.

I’m just awaiting the arrival of my new pick-up truck and then he can come to Bolga with me and to the office – once he has stopped wrestling with the new collar I bought him in Accra the other day when I was down there for my work but spent more time checking out dog collars and leads in the shopping mall.

1. Conversation with young woman on bus:

Young woman: “I want to marry you and move to America”

Me: “Sorry love, I’m from Hull, England, try asking an American”

2. Fallen into a drain (eighteen inches deep and dry) having mistaken it for the shadow of a tree (it was late and no, I’d not been drinking)

3. Conversation with another young woman on another bus:

Young woman: “I want to marry you and live in London”

Me: “Have you seen the property prices; Hull’s much cheaper!”

4. Fallen into a six feet deep pit filled with five feet of water, urine and whatever else happened to be dropped into it

5. Canoed down the Black Volta river

6. Had my groin groped in a gyrating manner by a girl in a disco

7. Got excited when I found a box of Coco Pops in a local provisions store (and then started singing out loud “Milk goes better with ..Coco.. Pops’ while on the motor bike)

8. Had malaria

9. Conversation with a yet another young woman at a drinking spot:

Young woman: “Would you like to sex me?”

Me: “Well unless I’ve suddenly developed cataracts, I’d say you were female”

10. Sat on a (live) crocodile

11. Slept in a tree-house

12. Conversation with a female work colleague after being invited to her house for a coffee:

Female work colleague: “Shall I get a condom?”

Me: “No thanks, I’ll just have sugar”

Thursday 30 July 2009

The tension in the air was electric (and had been for three hours – there’s GMT = Greenwich Mean Time, and GMT = Ghana Maybe Time).

I’ve been in my new role in Zebilla with the African Turning Point Foundation over one month now, and I’m enjoying the new challenges.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, ATPF is presently involved in four projects, a medical centre run by Dr Celia Rodriguez from Cuba, a micro-finance programme that supports women traders in Zebilla, an internet café and business centre (printing, typing and photocopying), and a farm in Binaba, 20kms south east of Zebilla.

The medical centre is by far the biggest project and has been open just over one year now (the first anniversary was the day I fell in the pit). We are close to completing the final stages of building work around the medical centre and then we will be looking at possible future expansion.

My motorbike has now been returned to VSO and I’m about to move into my new accommodation in Zebilla. I’ve bought a mountain bike so that I can start keeping fit (I gave my Chinese bike to Sophia, I felt embarrassed by the large basket on the front). For mountain bike buffs, it’s an American Diamond Back built with ....Easton.... aluminium tubing with Ringle hubs, Manitou front shocks and Shimano XTR drive train, and I paid only £40 for it. I had to change the saddle because I still value (and would like to continue to use, when the opportunity arises) what I’ve still got left of my manly bits.

I’m sharing the pick-up with the doctor at present, but my new vehicle will be coming soon, I hope (it’s not easy for two people to share one vehicle; inevitably we both need it at the same time – hence the reason I’ve not moved yet, Pickford’s don’t operate in Ghana and it’s not easy transporting your furniture in a tro-tro!).

However, the important thing is that I’m enjoying the job and its challenges and I’ll update you as things happen.

Saturday 20 June 2009

I’d only gone to Zebilla to meet Dr Wink Weaver and Kathy O’Keeffe, two of the trustees from Kimoyo, the American NGO that funds the African Turning Point Foundation who I’m going to be working for.

On Saturday evening we had a small party to celebrate the first anniversary of the opening of the medical centre that they have funded. The fact it was a medical centre celebration seems somewhat ironic now.

Okay, to the point. In the UK, USA and many other parts of the world, if you dig a big hole as part of an extension or new-build, you cover it up. The consequences of not covering it up are obvious – accidents, lawyers, bankruptcy.

I’d only walked outside of the drinking spot to find the urinal and wham! I fell, feet first, into a six-foot deep pit which had been dug for a latrine! The pit was filled with over five feet of rain water and goodness knows what else (I’ll come to that in a minute), and I’m only 5 foot 7 and a half inches.

I was up to my neck in dirty water and I was unable to get anyone’s attention because I was down further than my height. The only thing I could do was to struggle and pull my way up a vertical pit.

Eventually I managed to get out wet, dirty and bleeding from both arms where I’d been pulling myself out of the pit.

I jumped on the motorcycle and went back to ..Iona..’s house where I was staying and gave myself a good rub down in the shower and managed to wash away the dirt and blood.

Shortly afterwards Iona came home and, after a small amount of sympathy, told me she’d urinated in the latrine just before I’d fallen in (plus I reckon most of the other punters in the drinking spot who didn’t want to walk the other two metres to the urinals!).

Iona assured me that her urine is of the highest quality and that it probably protected me from other infections.

The next morning, meeting with Dr Weaver, I noticed him limping. I asked him if he was okay and he said that the previous night he had fallen into a latrine behind the drinking spot. We exchanged horror stories (he fell in BEFORE Iona had urinated in it) and then went to the spot to bollock the owner and put plastic chairs around the hole before a child fell in!

Was I frightened? Too right I was. When we went the next day the previous night’s rain had brought the level almost to the top of the pit and who knows how either of us would have got out.

June was a month of birthdays. Well, three. Sophia was first, followed by two volunteers, Vic and Sam.

So, it was decided that on Friday 12 June, a visit to one of Bolga’s three night clubs was in order. Soul Train was the winner and it was presumed that it was Ladies Night, so free admittance for the girls.

As I rode home from Bongo the day before the festivities, I glanced at Soul Train’s signboard announcing that Friday’s theme was Hot Mini-skirt Night!

Now, not being averse to mini-skirts (on women), I was very happy to go along and enjoy the evening. The VSO girls decided NOT to wear mini-skirts, and Sophia, who a few weeks previous wore a very mini-skirt when we went to a club, causing significant watering of my eyes, had the new below-the-knee dress I’d bought for her birthday.

We met in New Lifeline, one of our favourite local drinking spots, and following an uncomfortable but short journey with a Guinness Book of Records attempt at ‘how many people can you get in a taxi’, we arrived at Hot Mini-Skirt Night.

It was my first time at Soul Train and once inside you could have been in a nightclub in the UK. Lots of very beautiful women dancing (and wearing hot mini-skirts), a dark corner next to the bar so you couldn’t see what change you’d been given for the beer, and a VIP area which was empty except for half a dozen ‘Pretentious? Moi’ types (see, just like the UK).

The only real difference to the UK was the music. Hip hop, hi-life and rap were on the evening’s music menu and it was a great night - I even managed to dance (in an English bloke sort of way).

For those of you who are concerned that I had to spend my evening with a group of young and beautiful women, rest assured I was ‘saved’ by Charles, one of Bolga’s few male volunteers who joined us later in the evening!

And just for the record, I was one of the last to leave at 3.00am.