Our lives in Tumu, Ghana

Ending the year in a blaze...of un glory!

The weather has certainly begun to change. We are now in hamattan season. The wild winds blowing from the Sahara desert, warm and very sandy!!! The early morning ride to college, across the dam, is rather a chilly experience for me. I’ve even had to wear a long sleeved shirt as it was getting to be quite cool on the bike. But it soon heats up during the day.

And talking of heat – Al very nearly had a diplomatic incident on his hands last weekend. As we have said before there are no refuse disposal agents, bin men to you and I, here in Tumu. You put any edible waste out for the animals, and glass bottles and tin cans are just flung in a pit, if you’re lucky to have one close by and the paper waste (bathroom etc) has to be burnt. We have done this on a weekly basis since the first weeks here in Tumu. At first we always had a bucket of water close at hand, but over the months this practise has been phased out as an unnecessary hassle… well until last weekend that is! Al, doing his boy-scout bit, lit the rubbish bag, in our little burning area to the side of the house, and started watching the world going by. Not a lot to see as not many people pass on a Saturday afternoon, then all of a sudden whoosh!!!! The dry grass close by caught alight, then the grass to the side of this and the flames just kept spreading and spreading. I offered water by the bucket loads, not that there is an awful lot of it in the house, Al managed to throw some at the now marauding flames, to no effect. The flames very quickly gathered momentum and in just a few moments we were looking at a forest fire. Well a large grass fire, that was spreading around the house and out towards the next building – the District Assembly Catering Guest House. The mango tree and several low bushes where totally engulfed. A small boy, aged 13 – 14 came to lend a hand, well to pull up a few bushes and start to beat the flames into submission. Again this had very little effect, the flames just caught hold further along the grassy paths. Thankfully the catering guest house has a sandy area all the way around it (a fire belt) so the flames burnt themselves out, so at this point and we were left to try and stop the fire spreading across the drainages ditches around our house and catching the wooded roof and window frames. Which thankfully we managed to do, more by good luck than anything we or this small boy had done! Within just 15 minutes we have a completely flattened blacken area surrounding the house, where there had been grasses and bushes. Thankfully the mango tree survived… Yes Tumu does have a fire engine, but they don’t have water!!!!! Didn’t we feel like total idiots? So from now on water will be available when Al does the burning, not that there is any chance of it happening again, as there is now no grass to catch alight….. Small boy was thanked from the bottom of our hearts but would not take any thing for his troubles, saying we are all here to help each other. Very noble of him, and our faith in human nature is just even more enhanced, then he added, “we all make mistakes!” smiled and left us with our charred surroundings. The smell lingered for days, the worst part was that I kept dreaming of rice pudding with a nice blackened skin on the top, why does everything remind me of food?

So we are sorry to the environmental folks and we do know that burning increasing the carbon emissions that the governments and everyone is trying to reduce, but it just couldn’t be helped.

So on that note may we wish you a Happy and Safe Christmas season. We are looking forward to 2008, VSO celebrates its 50th anniversary in Ghana and we are to complete the final eight months of our placements, time has certainly passed by.

Love and seasons greetings from Tumu.