Chapter 32...The 'Quiet' weekend (until Sunday afternoon)

Now firstly some of you bright sparks who follow my blog religiously will have noticed that I have missed a chapter here on Tengzug festival that I promised would be coming next! Well I have a good reason for this and when I feel the time is right I shall share this reason with you and even ask your advice...but until that moment you are left reading about my 'quiet' reflective weekend...

As most of you know I have done a fair bit of travelling over recent years and my desire for this whole VSO experience was to spend a year of my life doing something different to just 'bumming around' the World and having a fun time! Well this weekend I spent Saturday thinking about that - my past travel experiences, what I have learnt and how much I feel I am getting out of this latest adventure! Before I came away I told a friend that I wanted this year of my life to change me, for it to impact on me in ways I could never imagine and for me to come back home a year later older, wiser and ready for the next chapters that life throws at me! Well I can't say obviously whether any of that is happening yet, but I can definitely feel my patience being tested, my desires for my future being re-confirmed everyday and my view of myself and the World changing! I have always been a 'you never know what's around the corner' kinda girl and 'life is too short' is one of my favourite sayings, and out here in Ghana that feels truer than ever! However I am also learning that 'whatever will be, will be' is a good one to add to the list too and no amount of planning (Hannah-the-planner), pushing, fighting or forcing will change certain things! I have spent most of my 20's so far (I am soon to be no longer mid 20's, which may have caused the reflective Saturday mood) looking into the future - when I meet 'the one', when I get back on the career ladder, when I have children etc etc - and I hope Ghana teaches me (or rather I teach myself) to start living more in the present because I cannot control my future, no matter what I do! Happiness in the here and now is key and if I can distance myself from the Western ways of always questioning happiness, whether I am happy enough, what makes me happy etc then I will be able to live my life day-by-day hopefully very happily!  

So after that 'brief' insight into my Saturday thinking came Sunday (as it usually does) when a group of us decided to head to Vea Dam for the afternoon! Once again as I was ridden down to the water I was squealing with excitement at the view ahead...

Straight away the boys headed into the water and the girls sat gossiping...

After we'd had enough of paddling the boat, pebble throwing and 'catching' fish...

We headed to a local spot for a drink before coming back to 'Feel at Home' our local spot for a Sunday evening session of guinea fowl, Shandy and Star! Some of us were good and got an early night before work this morning, others however (mentioning no names Vic and Lewis) stumbled in at who-knows-what-time with no recollection of getting home at all!!!

So on this Monday evening as I reflect on my weekend of curry, Shandy, cleaning, jogging (yes I am slowly managing to bring jogging back into my daily routine), spaghetti bolognese, Star, Vea, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset...I can most definitely say that in my own little ways I am settling into Ghanaian life pretty well, all be it with a very different placement experience to the one I thought I would be having!

Chapter 31...The festival of three tribes!

Yesterday Alice who is on placement here for one year as MSO (Management Support Officer) and I headed to another festival and by far my most favourite so far! As we rode the bike into the village our eyes were treated to a feast of bright colours absolutely everywhere and our ears were beating with the sound of stamping feet and chains! As we got off the bike I was unsure as to what reception we would receive, but immediately people were greeting us, shaking our hands and welcoming us to their festival! We were walked right up to the dancing and given a front row view of it all, which meant me being me I took the opportunity to snap away...

  

Throughout the afternoon we found an ever-growing group of very friendly children attaching themselves to us and wanting to hold our hands, which was just lovely!

We found ourselves dragged into photos with pito-ed up (drunk) locals who were definitely getting into the swing of things!

And I even found myself being asked to take my clothes off as it is tradition for women to wear towels or cloth to the festivals, definitely not long trousers as I was!

I was also asked by a local man if I have a husband, which is a very regular thing here for men to ask! They have no concept of girlfriends and boyfriends in Ghana so when a man and a woman start a relationship they just refer to each other as husband and wife! Now I learnt early on (the hard way) not to give my number out to anyone, even on a professional level and to most definitely lie and say I have a husband otherwise men will just pester all the time phoning to greet and ask you to meet up with them!! Obviously this is all just with a view to you becoming their Western wife, bringing them money and status!  Furthermore the concept of monogomy is not one practised by Ghanaian men so even if a man has a wife he will still try to find himself more women to have relationships with! Women however, as is so often the case in these situations, are most definitely not allowed to be with other men and must stay faithful to only their husband regardless of his behaviours! Now I wonder which bright spark came up with that rule eh?!

So before I enter fury again...with yet another festival under my belt, I am gearing up for Tengzug festival tomorrow, which will no doubt be fabulous simply for it's rocky setting and famous shrines...an update will follow as soon as poss...!

Chapter 30...The Waaki festival (the start of festival week)

On Sunday (20th March) a group of us from Bolga decided to head to Waaki (very near to where I work in Tongo) for their festival! We arrived in the afternoon to find Vic and Lewis negotiating payment for us to be able to watch the festival and take photos! Now this was clearly a back-handed payment that one guy was demanding from us, but for the sake of 1 Cedi, 20 Pesewas each (48 pence) we were all prepared to pay and join in the fun!

After taking many a photo...

 

Christina and I headed to the room she rents in Tongo where we had decided to stay that evening to get a real-life view of a Ghanaian village! So after an egg and bread dinner we found ourselves lying outside on mattresses, covered from head to toe in mosquito repellant, listening to Celine Dion (booming from speakers somewhere in town) and enjoying the moonlight and stars up above! 

After tossing and turning all night long and constantly hearing mosquitoes flying around my head I woke around 6am to find two local children stood in front of us with a look of shock on their faces to find us there! We then sat and watched the World go by for the next few hours, which was absolutely fascinating as I saw for the first time just how hard children (mainly girls) work before they start their day at school! Girls as young as five/six were walking past us with buckets of water on their heads that they had collected from the bore hole then they would deliver that to their house and stroll past us again with another errand to run!

In that fifteen or so hours I spent 'living' in Tongo I witnessed first hand just how hard life can be here, especially for women and children who find themselves at the bottom of the hierarchy and who work extremely hard to keep family life going! Our fruit lady at work - Akwea...

...has three young children - Maxwell, Williams and Rosemary who she works hard all day long to send to school! They came to greet us on Monday morning looking clean and smart for their day ahead, which made me smile to think that there are some children here in Ghana who have some hope for their future because their parents can see the value of a good education! However as Lewis pointed out to me the other day, family sizes are large here because parents fear they will lose at least one child before they reach the age of five so try to have larger families! This means funding education as children get older will become more and more difficult causing many children to drop out of schooling when they hit JHS (Junior High School) because their families simply cannot afford to keep them in the education system.

Chapter 29...The first week at work!

Last week I had my first full week at work and what a week it was, full of frustrations, fury and fun! Firstly I still have no moto so am dependant on the GES car coming out to Kumbosgo to pick me up and drop me off everyday! The car can turn up anytime between 8am and 9am (frustration) so the mornings range from anything between a mad rush to shower, throw on some clothes and make a groundnut paste (pretty much peanut butter) sandwich for breakfast to eat in the car on the way to work, to a leisurely book reading, catch-up with housemates, internet checking amble of a morning!

However as we are discovering with this volunteer story and Ghana as a country, it would be too simple for that to be the only frustrating part...on Wednesday last week the GES car broke down so a long, hot afternoon was spent at the mechanics shop after work in an attempt to get it fixed, but to no avail! When I eventually got home that evening I had managed to calm down and tell myself that this is all part of the experience and that I wanted my time here to teach me new things, patience being one of them! This did not stop me from having a good old rant at my poor housemates at the end of last week though!

So my fury came as I spent more and more time in the office and found myself surrounded by some people working very hard and others who would sit around all day long reading newspaper and books! Obviously this is something that would never in a million years go on back home (unless someone really was wanting out of work, but was too gutless to resign choosing to be fired instead) but appears to very much be a part of normal GES working life in Ghana with no-one battering an eye-lid at such behaviour! I was amazed really that the minority of people working hard did not cause a stir about those who would come into the office and do nothing at all! I then experienced some of my first meetings and again found myself gob-smacked by some of the behaviours going on - people would take phone calls during the meeting, often not leaving the meeting so as to not disturb others, people would fall asleep and feel no shame about doing this and everyone at the end would expect T&T (time and travel) money for their effort to get to the meeting (in fact the T&T is often their only motivation for attending the meeting at all because the rate is ridiculously high)!

Luckily after the fury came the fun otherwise I may well have found myself on a plane home! Firstly I decided to embrace the challenges I was facing and to attempt to take them in my stride! Obviously this will not come overnight so there is a long way to go, but I think that if I can manage it over my time here in Ghana then I will have finally cracked the art of patience! Secondly I started to feel less shy in the office (I know can you believe it, me being shy) and found myself engaging more with the GES staff who are in fact all lovely lovely people, just some of them also very lazy! I have found out many more things about life in Ghana and I have shared many things about life back home and I have had fun while doing it! I even found myself on the top table at the District Assembly inaugeration of newly elected members, which was a lot of fun...

 

Thirdly I have created my action plan for my next nine months at work, which involves a lot of time out for Easter, summer and Christmas holidays but I am ready and raring to go...!

Chapter 28...The Ghanaversary countdown!

Number of...

• Days at work: 4
• Tro-tros ridden: 5
• Women I’ve seen carrying babies on their backs and anything and everything on their heads: too many to count
• Pancakes eaten: 3.5
• Days spent in cool a/c at Ex-Tee hotel: 2.5
• Bus rides taken: 3
• Broken down buses: 2 (you don’t have to be a statistician to see that this is not a good percentage)!
• Goats/cows/sheep/chicken in the road: too many to count
• Comme Ci, Comme Ca dinners: 3
• Paid (by me) Comme Ci, Comme Ca dinners: 1 (the statistics here are looking good)!
• Star beers drunk: too many to count
• Days of ‘lights-out’ (no electricity): 2.5
• Times I’ve moaned about the heat: too many to count
• Thunderstorms: 1
• Books read: 1
• DVD’s watched: 0.5
• Squares of (precious) Cadburys chocolate eaten: 12
• Blog posts written: too many to count I hear you all cry!

Chapter 27...The one month Ghanaversary!

This weekend was my one month Ghanaversary (how time flies) and to celebrate I decided to have a jam-packed weekend full of new and exciting Ghanaian things!

Saturday consisted of... 

• A morning trip to the three day market where I stocked up on food and drink , as well as some Ghanaian material so I can get some pretty things made!
• An afternoon with Hannah (1) spent at Kumbosgo festival, where we attempted to steal the show from the big man himself by being the only non-Ghanaians there!

Wanna be in my gang, my gang, my gang...the festival cloth!

• A late night leaving party at J&J’s (Jillian and Jason) house before they depart from Bolga this coming weekend! 

Sunday was less busy, but just as good with...

• A chilled morning at the house eating porridge to recover from the late night before! 
• A heavenly afternoon trip to Vea Dam where there was a gorgeous breeze, endless water, beautiful views and sunset at a spot with a Star beer! 

I was asked by a friend on my one month Ghanaversary when I was in my sentimental/reflective ‘I’ve been away for one month’ mood whether I am happy, and after a few seconds thought, I realised that yes I am very happy with my life here in Ghana and the decision I made 14 months ago to apply to VSO! Obviously it has been a turbulent first month with lots of highs and a few lows, but I can honestly say that those lows (even though I wish they hadn’t happened) are only working to make me stronger and more determined to do the things in life that make me happy, because after all in the grand scheme of it, it is so short!

I am in such a fortunate (mainly in thanks to my loving and supportive parents who let me live at home rent free for the past few years) and undeserved position to be able to leave my life at home and fly out to Ghana to help others who will probably never have the opportunity to leave their village or town, let alone country! I have found myself asking the same question over and over again for the past year and a half since I left to go travelling...what exactly did I do/have I done to deserve the amazing happiness and life I have been dealt?! And I realise every time that the answer is ‘absolutely nothing’ because to me it is just pure luck! I could have been dealt any number of cards, which meant I was one of the people here in Ghana who I have been sent here by VSO to help, but for whatever reasons I wasn’t!

So now I need to remember that although everything is relative, I need to moan less about the small, insignificant things in my life and man-up enough to focus on all the positives! Now I know this sounds like I have been sat here depressed for the past month, but rest-assured this is definitely not the case, all I mean is that when we have ‘lights-out’ (no electricity) from 6am to 6pm three days in a row I need to realise that this is a year of my life that I have this for, and for others this is their life!

And on that happy note I shall leave you with some food for thought I hope, until next time my loyal readers...!   

Chapter 26...The Big-Wigs are in town!

This week the top men have been in town conducting review meetings and setting strategies and budgets for the following year! John Stops is Regional Director for West Africa and Ibrihim is acting Country Director so best behaviour was had by all! On Wednesday night they took all the Bolga vols out for dinner to Comme Ci, Comme Ca...

Then on Thursday night they took us TENI (Tackling Education Needs Inclusively) vols out for a working dinner, again to Comme Ci, Comme Ca!

Can’t complain with food this week (oh yes we’re back onto food) what with pancakes on Tuesday then two meals out in a row! Once again, not much to moan about (yet) with life in Bolgatanga :-)

Chapter 25...The Pancake Party!

Not wanting to miss out on all the goings-on back home we decided to hold a small pancake party at our house on shrove Tuesday! Rachel did a brilliant job of making the pancakes and the rest of us did a brilliant job of eating them all! We had the traditional lemon and sugar pancakes, as well as caramel and banana, groundnut paste and jam and chocolate spread! Definitely no starving volunteers in Bolga on Tuesday night!