First day in Tumu
on Working in Tumu (Ghana), 22/Feb/2011 16:24, 34 days ago
Arrived in Tumu yesterday at 1.00pm after a long dusty 85 mile journey (4 hours) from Wa. The journey to Wa had been somewhat delayed by an enforced 8 hour wait on the roadside when the STC bus broke down and the new coach took a long, long time to arrive so we ended up travelling through the night arriving in Wa at 7.30am, 24 hours after leaving Accra. STC sells itself as a government run company on the 2 armed policeman that travel on the coach for the whole journey but their coaches are not as reliable as other private companies it would appear, they of course don't have armed guards, and it was somewhat galling to watch the brand new VIP buses speed past on their way to Kumasi! However we had a pleasant enough time meeting the local villagers and buying up all their cold drinks which appeared to go up in price as white folk strolled up.We spent Sunday evening in a Catholic lodge house as others went on to the placements nearer to Wa and had a pleasant drink with our new Dutch VSO couple volunteers, Bas and Jeannine who are based in Wa, but their NEW house is not yet ready. We left for Tumu in the pickup with all our worldly possessions in the back as you can see from the photograph. The journey was on tarred road for the first ten miles but we were soon on the dirt road and experienced the dust and heat as it reached 40 degrees centigrade and we drunk 3 litres of water each. We arrived in Tumu, safely driven by Williams, our ex-bus driver and accompanied by Ruby, who has been our invaluable mentor for the last week and were met by Charles, the Uganda CASO in Tumu and drove onto our house were we met Cal, the Tumu TSO. Both were able to help us move the goods into the house which is quite spacious but very basic. There has been no water for a week and the nearest borehole is about half a mile away. We got a brief water spell this afternoon, but our appropriately sized bucket wasn't under the open tap! We hope a water bowser will be arriving this afternoon and are at home waiting for its arrival to fill up our 200 litre bins that we brought with us!The bedroom is equipped with bed and wardrobe, further photos on my Facebook page and we got the local carpenter to make us a frame for the net yesterday afternoon and he came late afternoon yesterday to hammer it into the frame so we were able to sleep under it last night. Sleep is an interesting concept as the fan was so noisy that I would be surprised if we both got more than 30 minutes sleep. The electrician has just taken the fan away to put a new bearing in it and will be back in an hour or so with new quiet fan! Joy!The rest of yesterday afternoon was taken up with food shopping in the small shops dotted around the town centre - a grand title for the intersection, eggs from the market along with tomatoes and onions. Oranges and pineapple form the roadside, buy early in the morning is our view as they were a little dry. Some further dry goods, coffee, dried milk, haven't had cow's milk since leaving UK and bread. So we were set up for the night, which wwe spent talking with Cal about northern Ghana which is so different from the south and setting the internet, EDGE only so a bit flaky and slow.Tuesday morning saw us up bright and early, fruit and bread and a cup of tea awaiting the arrival of the GES car at 9.00 - on the dot, down to the District Office a brief introduction to the team before we went around Tumu meeting police, firefighters, hospital, border guards (border with Burkina Faso one mile away), Teacher Training College principal, two senior high school heads, bank manager, civic educator, District Assembly, so we now know all the most important persons in Tumu, only took the morning as well! Finished off with half an hour at the District Education Office where we witnessed an interesting school budget discussion. We had lunch at the local guest house run by a Swiss/Ghana couple and are now in the living room awaiting the water!Henry Head of PR and John outside District Education OfficeMore to follow, but hope this gives a little flavour of Tumu, very isolated from the rest of Ghana, exceptionally hot but has a real friendly character. More to follow!