Our lives in Tumu, Ghana

Blog for Christmas & New Year

Well, happy new year to you all from Tumu. Where has time gone eh? We’ve been here well over three months now! We trust you had a pleasant Christmas, and have recovered from the piles of rich food and drink that no doubt you all consumed.

Before I mention Christmas, Di celebrated her (47th) birthday the weekend before, and she had a wonderful day! A surprise present and a meal out! I got her a locally made chair and table. After a huge palaver which involved the chair falling off the back of the moto, I managed to get someone to sit on the back of the moto and carry the chair and then the table to our house – and avoid being stopped by the local constabulary (see last blog!) although Mrs Jolly’s dog did try to bite the fellow’s leg as we rode past. I kept them covered up until the actual day, so they were a genuine surprise. In the afternoon some of the other volunteers called round with some gifts, including a bottle of white wine! Then, in the evening we ‘dined’ out at the Peace and Love restaurant - see picture. Rice balls and goat stew / soup, very…. interesting.

Christmas in Tumu was different in many ways from the UK. The first thing that was most noticeable was the lack of commercialism. Not being bombarded with the media and all the stereotypical images of the festive period was a refreshing change. No shops had decorations and the like, in fact there was very little to buy in the way of gifts. As we’ve said before, Tumu is very much a working town. From a food perspective Di had paid into the ‘Daisy’ fund at her work, which was to purchase a cow for Christmas, and the cow would be shared among the group, but it looked less likely that this would materialise as Christmas got closer, so we’d somewhat resigned ourselves to either corned beef or tuna for our Christmas dinner, but we would have yam – mashed or roasted – with some turkey gravy to spice it up. Then low and behold, two children arrived on a moto with a bag (more like sack) full of beef! We’re talking the best parts of the cow here, good quality beef (sorry to all our vegetarian readers). We sorted it into nice bundles and froze most of it for the coming weeks. When we thanked the man who’d sent it, he was overwhelmed with our generosity in letting him have our share of what he called the best bits – offal, skin, bones and ears - so everyone was happy. So spread throughout the festive period we had different dishes: beef in beef and ale sauce, cottage pie, spaghetti bolognaise, and steak and yam chips. (packet sauces sent from home are brilliant). We also had our Christmas puddings with custard and a glass of white wine, very nice too – the Christmas puddings that is.

We went to the Catholic Church again on Christmas Eve, the morning service. It starts at 7.30am as opposed to 7.00am now because it’s colder in the mornings. We were outside this time, and unfortunately couldn’t hear the service because it was competing with a football match on the local pitch. But despite all the roars from the game, I didn’t start watching the football! The disappointing part of the service was the absence of carols. We really missed them. In the afternoon we visited the Danes (Health Volunteers). They celebrate Christmas on the 24th evidently. They gave us some warm mulled wine - just like on the ski slopes – just what you want when it was 35C in the shade! They also had some chocolates that had been brought over by their relatives – very tasty.

On Christmas morning we opened our pressies; Diane got a thermos flask from me, and I got a pair of flip flops and a bottle of tomato ketchup (Heinz) off Di, whilst listening to Christmas music played on the MP3 player. We were visited by lots of very smartly dressed children wishing us Merry Christmas, and we in turn gave them some sweets and much to their delight took their photos. We had a stroll into town in the afternoon and wished our bread boy all the best – he was delighted with the little pack of goodies we gave him even if he is a muslim! In the evening we nipped for a quick drink at Jolly Friends with a colleague of Di’s. So a very pleasant, but very quiet day was had, in the relatively mild temperature of 34C.

On Boxing Day, just when we were contemplating our new diet of corned beef, tuna and now real beef, we were given another surprise – vegetarians look away again – a gift arrived at the front door from my line manager. A guinea fowl… live! So for an evening we had this bird, if you’ll pardon the expression, sitting (its legs were tied) looking at us. Well we didn’t get too attached to it, refusing to give it a name, and fortunately a colleague of Di’s said they’d ‘prepare it’ for us, so we took it to him, and the rest as they say, is in our stomachs!

Boxing Day also saw us run out of water! The taps eventually went dry, and our barrels were very, very low. So we decided that the next day we would go and see if the Fire Brigade would fill up our PolyTank – the Danes say they do it all the time! The Fire Brigade came round the next morning (6.00am) and replenished our PolyTank and barrels, for a fee of course, 200,000 cedis to be precise (around £12). A luxury maybe, but we were desperate. For all those Economics students out there, the opportunity cost of having water is a few nights on the beer, so take note! On the water front, there is still no sign that the towns water system will be up and running soon, despite all the right things being said.

Between Christmas and New Year we did a bit of exploring. I’d got the time off, so we decided to travel on the motos for a bit. We went up to the Burkina Faso border – about 19km from our house. That was really a good ride. There’s only one village between Tumu and BF, and just beyond that is some type of nature reserve. A low lying field appears to have been dammed and there was some really good bird life. So we’ll probably make a few more visits up there. It’s funny, as soon a you reach the border, the dirt road stops and a tarred road begins, and the road signs are clear and easy to follow, and this is supposed to be the second poorest country in the world! With a bit of luck we’ll get our passports back within the next couple of weeks and then we may get to venture further into BF.

We also visited a small town (Large village) called Gwollu about 35km from Tumu. This is famous for a ‘Defence Wall’ that was used to protect the Africans from the slave raiders, although there isn’t much of it left now. We had a couple of relaxing stops in the Ghanaian countryside, and even had a picnic. We felt like we were on holiday for a short time. When you travel out of Tumu, you really do see how remote this part of Ghana is. The terrain is quite undulating, and despite the harshness of the weather, is still quite green.

We decided to spend New Year’s Eve at the bar in TUTCO. We fancied getting away from the constant noise of Jolly Friends, where over the holiday period they have continued to play indefinable tracks so loud, that we can’t even hear the regular sounds of the Imam at the mosque on his tannoy or the preaching’s from the evangelical Fountain Gate Mission. Anyway, sods law, we go to TUTCO, and Jollies is having a rest, no music, no sign of life! It turns out Tanni’s was the venue for the party. We had a couple of beers at TUTCO and strolled back home by midnight, the streets were deserted, as was TUTCO’s bar by 11.00pm! So we were tucked up in bed by 12.15am after sending a few texts across the world… it was just like when we celebrated New Year in England.

So here’s 2007, and who knows what this year will bring. We’ll update you on how it starts at the end of January, but for now… Happy New Year to you all.