Three weeks in Ghana
on Working in Tumu (Ghana), 06/Mar/2011 17:59, 34 days ago
So Sunday arrives and it is Independence Day, big event lots of rehearsal taking place in schools over the last week but I need to take you back to last week first. Didn't get out to any schools on Friday so the total stays at 20, not bad we think. Our house mate went down with malaria on Thursday so Marion stayed at the house, in the rural estate off the Bolga road ( I will add a Google Earth link some time as you can plainly see our three mango trees!) I went down to the office first thing put together our thoughts on what we had seen across the schools. They were gratefully received and hopefully will form part of a further meeting, maybe with the circuit supervisors, who each have about a fifth of the district to look after. However I digress, sitting in the office when unexpectedly a man came in to speak to the Deputy Director, whose office we share, I shook his hand as he left and he introduced himself as the Business Manager of the local FM radio station - Radio Radford - I was naturally interested as Richard had set us the task of securing a link with the radio so started to talk with him but the noise level outside got louder and louder until I couldn't hear a thing. It turned out to be a teachers' delegation who had come to present a 5 point petition about their pay and conditions. The Ghana Government has created a Single Salary Spine and teachers are upset about the perceived loss of allowances, up to 15%. So I went outside following the radio reporter who was getting his mobile phone and recorder sorted and stood on the steps along with a few other representatives of GES as the teachers' leader read out the demands and these were ably responded to by the Director. The group of 80 or so listened and responded favourably to the Director but the issue of not supervising their schools at the Independence Day parade was very contentious. There was no resolution of this issue and they set off marshalled by two police officers for other sites. All this was broadcast live on Radio radford. GES had an emergency meeting and agreed to look after any school children who turned up without teachers at Sunday's Parade.The rest of Friday was uneventful, I secured a couple of ICT JHS books for the INSET we are involved in next week for three days. INSET for the Junior High School teachers with Form 3 so that the pupils do better in April's Terminal exam. A huge lorry had arrived with further textbook and paper supplies which are stored in a very large metal container alongside the office, airless and like an oven! We have been interested to see the syllabus which is not unlike a late 70s early 80s ICT UK syllabus so we will cope!Having already come home once at  'break' - lunch time (tinned fish on toast) I was ready for my Friday evening gin and tonic ( we should be so lucky) but certainly a cup of tea, when the water came on! As we were down to our last 20 litres having had no supplies since Monday or Tuesday we had to immediately set to filling the two 200 litre bins from the bucket! The next 60 minutes passed by with a lot of water but no tea!Saturday dawned as usual, notice I am not mentioning the heat, same as always if not hotter and we did a bit of tidying before leaving for town at 11.00, too late, too hot! We got some higher wattage bulbs which means that we can see in the kitchen!, a hose to attach to the tap so the bins will fill by themselves and everything else we wanted - pineapple, orange, mango (the limit of the fruit in Tumu), a fish called Salmon from the cold storage (nothing like salmon but still tasty), some bread, there are three types which look very similiar but one has more sugar in it and is called tea bread not sure about the third, an avocado, our first yam (which the lady asked if we going to make fufu but we disappointed her when we said just boiling it) and some guinea fowl eggs. We will list the limited range of foodstuffs later. Too hot to go straight back so we stopped for fried yam and coke at the Broadway, a local spot before getting back in the mid afternoon and got the local carpenter to price up a chest of drawers, desk and chair. We made it back to town in the cool to get a 12 bottle box of Voltic and the night was nearly over, eventful or what?Sunday saw the Independence Parade in the stadium, not an accurate descriptor of a football field but that's Tumu, surrounded by a fence and a high wall.  The festivities started at 8.30, a few short speeches and then the marching school groups. I will put the photos up later and write some more shortly as it is getting dark and the electricity has gone down. More to follow.