Our lives in Tumu, Ghana

Our lives in Tumu, Ghana
Blog Update 3

19th November 2006

Hello again, time for an update on life in Tumu. We’ve held back deliberately on this entry to our blog because we knew we had a trip (beyond Tumu) planned, and we thought there’d be some extra bits and bobs we could tell you about, anyhow we arrived back from our trip today, so here goes…

Firstly, life in Tumu continues at a pace reminiscent of me playing five-a-side football! That’s slow, in case anyone thought I might be a bit on the quick side. We, and I include Diane in this (to a degree!) have begun to master the African walk. We are able to walk so slowly so as not to break sweat, and given the temperatures that’s no mean feat. Having said that, the locals reckon it’s getting cooler, some are wearing cagoules on their motos! The Harmattan winds have begun! They are winds that come down from the Sahara, and basically deposit sand and dust everywhere. The air quality is noticeably changing, and mornings look quite misty, but its just dust. We’ve finally had some louver windows put into the front of the house to help keep the dust and sand out…well to some extent. Our Carpenter – ‘Say No to No Nails’ did quite a neat job one Monday morning, even if he did nail the screws in. Unfortunately, all the banging – they hammer everything – has seen the wall at the front of the house start to lean outwards. We half expect the whole front to be flat on the floor when we wake up in the mornings! We bought a lock for the front door the other week, and when we asked for screws, the lad looked at us like we were from another planet let alone another country. Still we persisted, bought our 8 screws, and managed to screw them all over half way into the door and then fix our new lock – very proud we are as well.

We have been getting a bit more adventurous in the food department; we now have a bit of ‘chop’ off the street sellers before we go for our Friday night beer. It’s usually Yam Chips with groundnut flavouring, very nice. The local school children also bring a selection around the office of a lunch time, and the Khose (savoury cakes) and the Tuna bread are delicious. So our diet of Corned Beef, Tuna, Pasta and Rice is broadening out a little. Whilst on food, we’ve just got back from Bolgatanga (nearest big town to us which is just known as Bolga), and while there we stocked up on all the essentials that you can’t get in Tumu – tins of vegetables (sweet corn and mushrooms in particular), tins of tuna in water, tins of mackerel, blackcurrant jam and Pringles (only a little tube). You have to take every opportunity to acquire delicacies such as these! Whilst in Bolga we ate really well at the hotel we were stopping at, and made sure we got a full intake of eggs and different meats, to balance up our Tumu diet.

The reason for going to Bolga was twofold. The first part of the week was for our ‘call back’ meeting, where we met up with all the other volunteers we arrived with two months ago. The second part of the week was allocated to our VSO motor bike training. It was brilliant to meet up with the other volunteers again, and compare notes and experiences. Everyone was fine, although a couple had developed malaria and two had typhoid, but they were in good spirits. Many of the volunteers are quite close to Bolga which meant they could give us plenty of advice on where to get different things. Bolga in comparison to Tumu is like Liverpool in relation to Maghull in terms of size and facilities. It was a bit of a shock at first, there are lots cars and lorries to contend with, and so many people, but what was quite good was that you never got hassled at all, it turns out there are lots of NGOs in Bolga, and consequently volunteers and white faces in particular are not a novelty. The motor (moto) bike training was really useful. We were riding Yamaha 125s, twin stroke not four stroke, so they are supposedly more effective on the off road terrain – that sounds like we know what we’re talking about doesn’t it? The riding went very well, even if we did have a few little mishaps. The main one was when going up the only steep tarred road in the area, I stalled (too high a gear!), and promptly fell off. At which point everyone behind me did the same, and yes Diane was one of them! Fortunately there were no serious injuries, and the trainers did hill starts on all the bikes, and we carried on our way. We’ve posted pictures of us on our bikes with this blog. When riding on the dirt roads, the coat is essential, otherwise you look like the Tango man.

Being on the bikes for three days allowed us to do some exploration, and we visited a couple sites where slave camps existed during earlier colonial times. They were really interesting and rather atmospheric. We were shown a Baobab tree that was hollowed out to keep up to 15 slaves in overnight, and invited to squeeze inside through a rather small hole. We declined, so the guide showed us how it was done – absolutely terrifying. I suppose there’s a touch of irony in the fact that one of the most extensive museums on slavery in the world is in Liverpool, and we’re now in Ghana witnessing the sites of the initial stages of the trading.

We also got to the Burkina Faso border at a place called Paga. The small town is more famous however for its sacred crocodiles, which are fed live chickens by the visitors before you are invited to sit on the crocodile’s back – we gave it a miss and had a coke sitting by the border crossing instead.

We haven’t actually been given our bikes yet, that should happen shortly, as they were being used by a second group who came for their training after us. Hopefully we’ll get the bikes within the week…but a week in Ghana is a long time! However they will really make a difference to our daily routines, so they will be very welcome when they arrive.

Going to Bolga also gave us our first experience of travelling across country on a ‘Tro Tro’. The official definition of a ‘Tro’ is: bigger than a taxi but smaller than a bus. They are actually like a small transit van. They are the least road worthy vehicles in the world, all windscreens are shattered, seats are falling to bits and the vehicle is constructed out of several other vehicles of similar size and colour – when sitting inside you can see and count the welds. They sit between 16 and 20 people including the driver. The loader, the man who loads people and possessions into, or rather onto the bus, will either sit inside or on top depending how full it is. Indeed our loader on the way back from Bolga started in the vehicle but when the door kept sliding open, he could only make sure it actually closed from the outside, so he then sat on top of the ‘Tro’ for the rest of the journey. The trip from Tumu to Bolga should average about 3 hours, and although it sounds bad, it’s an experience not to be missed. When we were going, we sat on the back row so all you could see were backs of 18 or so black haired heads. We dozed off for a short while as we got too the dirt road and when we woke up all we could see was the backs of 18 ginger haired people! When we got back on to the tarred road again, the communal rag was passed round, and hair colouring returned to normal. The really bad thing about taking a ‘Tro’ over such a distance however, is that they go at the crack of dawn, and from Tumu there’s only one a day, and that only leaves when it’s full. So although it should go early, it might not actually leave till a couple of hours later if it’s not full, but you’ve got to be early in case it’s busy! So going meant arriving at the ‘Tro’ station at 4.45am although it didn’t leave until 7.20am. Oh and you have to pay for the privilege as well!

I mentioned earlier that we continued to settle into the Tumu way of life, well just how pleasant we’re finding the place was reinforced when we arrived back this morning. We were greeted by a selection of locals with big smiles as we emerged back into Tumu life, all keen to know if we had a good time on our travels. It really did feel like we’d come back home. The house was still standing safe and sound on our return including the menagerie of animals.

Well, it’s back to work tomorrow – hopefully our week away will lead to more dynamic happenings in the world of education, word has it that the strike is over and the teachers have gone back. We’ll fill you in on this next time, but for now we’re off to bed and our well worn foam mattress. So until next time…