Our lives in Tumu, Ghana

Blog Update 2

Hello again. Well we’ve now well and truly moved to the Upper West Region, and are acclimatising for the second time, but this time to life in Tumu. The town, whilst small, is spread over quite a large area and it has three main roads coming in and out. One to Wa, one to Bolgatanga, and the other to Burkina Faso. Although it has roads, there is a distinct lack of cars. Vehicles in the main are: donkey and cart; ordinary push bikes; motor cycles; and tro tros (ranging from smallish vans to huge lorries that people just sit on top of). By the way, a tro tro is a sort of taxi come bus, used in Tumu only for long distance travel. After our time in Accra, the total absence of taxis as everyone knows them, means that all our time has been spent walking around the place.

At the time of writing, we are about to start our second week in Tumu, the first being a mixture of trying to get the house sorted and finding out what work will entail. The house was a shock, it had supposedly been cleaned, but this left a lot to be desired, and many of the basics were missing, most significantly a water filter and something to cook on. Anyway, the upshot of it all was that we have stayed with another VSO volunteer (Lucy), whilst things are sorted. We did have an interesting cleaning day during the week however, when we were joined by over 40 local school children. All the girls busied themselves in the house with brushes etc, whilst all the lads, armed with machetes attacked the undergrowth outside. Given our background in teaching, and the litigation fear if you were to do anything wrong to a child, it was bizarre and refreshing to see lads hacking away at the grass with these razor sharp gadgets, all in close proximity of each other. They took great delight in tossing them up in the air and catching them as if they were batons. Meanwhile the girls thought nothing of getting their hands stuck into bleach filled bowls. The whirlwind of activity lasted for around an hour before their teacher took them back to school – a good idea for PHSE back in our schools eh?

In work, things have been moving very slowly. I am now Mr Alan (was David in Accra but is now being called Alan again). I was mastering the art of doing nothing at the Ghana Education Service (GES). Lots of greeting in the mornings, lots of chat throughout the day, but not a lot of work to do. Now I know that I can be quite fond of sitting around doing nothing, but this by Thursday was pretty soul destroying. Anyway, to cut to the chase I discretely had a word and have actually got something to work on – so I can have my little chats and then stroll back to my desk (yes, I have a desk, and a big one at that) and do a little bit of work without feeling guilty. With any luck this should develop further into really constructive work over the coming weeks and months. Diane on the other hand only starts this Monday (9th), but she is now going to be training teachers in Chemistry – not English. That’s the nature of what we’re involved in, you don’t really know what’s going to happen. She’s a bit wary of this, but she seems ok. The next blog update will clarify that.

The people of Tumu have been most welcoming. We obviously stick out like a sore thumb, and everybody greets us with a smile and a ‘fine’ or ‘how are you’. The local children all shout ‘folie’ (white person) at us, and when you wave at them they wave back, and let you go on your way. There are plenty of cultural issues, particularly the avoidance of the use of the left hand, but we’re managing to adjust. In my job, I’m coming across quite a few chiefs, and they are greeted in a different manner, so I’m still having a problem identifying them.

The other thing worth a comment here, and to be honest I don’t think that many things happen in Tumu, is the ‘wildlife’. There are hundreds of hens, pigs, goats, sheep, donkeys (if we have managed to put a photo on the blog, it is of the view from the front of our house!), and cattle roaming all over the place. We’ve got pigs that love to have a swill in the overflowing drainage channels outside our house, and they have piglets that take refuge in the alcove under our polytank (water tank). The other visitor we get to the water is a vulture – there are lots of them in the air, but this one has taken a fancy to the overflow. From an African wildlife perspective, we’ve seen a few impressive birds, and the river at the end of the town has a hippopotamus in it (allegedly, we’ve not seen it yet) as well as crocodiles!? (also allegedly) The noise of the insects is amazing; as I’m writing this the volume is unbelievable of things outside.

Finally, I’ll mention the weather; well we’re still British aren’t we? It’s hot! It is the rainy season however and that means it cools down a little after it rains. Temperatures are generally in the low to mid 30C’s. It doesn’t actually bother you until you have a walk, then you feel like you’ve just come out of the shower. We’ve also noticed how easily you can burn, although we only caught a little bit of sun burn, we had only just nipped to the shops, so we’re covering up.

We’ll try to get into a regular pattern of completing the blog in the future, now that we are a little more settled. In the meantime, love to you all.