First month in Tumu
on Working in Tumu (Ghana), 13/Mar/2011 11:43, 34 days ago
AD team putting up screen for digital projector at INSET venueFirst month in Ghana reached today and what an eventful fourth week it has been. The football match between LFC and MUFC crowned the end of the third week and the fourth started with a public holiday. We stayed at home Monday just pottering, amazing how much you can get up to around the home! Tuesday dawned and we made our mile and half trip to GES offices, waving and cheerily greeting everyone we pass,such a pleasant start to the day. Greeted office staff and signed in, the book for that sits in our shared office, so everyone comes in and greets us. The Deputy Director also has a desk and filing cabinet, along with the exam officer and a very useful set of cloths to clean your shoes! The DD is moving to the provincial capital this week so we will be eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new DD soon. All action as it was announced that the ICT INSET would be taken place for three days from Wednesday and it had been announced on the radio and there were 40+ signed up. We went off in the AD's A/C car ( dreams, so many dreams, - would someone drive our car over?) to a local primary school which has a computer room, courtesy of Alan and Diane, the last MSO VSO in Tumu. Only 5 out of the 12 computers were functioning but we managed to coax three into life so that gave us a working basis for the course. Afternoon came and we sketched out the outline of the course from what is a computer to internet use. So first INSERT awaits.Wednesday dawns, John has a sore throat, good start. Get down to the office and transfer to the primary school, breakfast is arriving but has been taken to a different location, participants also are scattered throughout Tumu but eventually assemble, we start without the official opening but go back to that at 10.00. After a skill ladder brainstorm, no electricity, no computers, no textbooks, John takes the group through the story of the PC and its part in modern society - his first and last input! excellent work group activity followed, John went to the hospital to sort out throat. Cuban doctor prescribed injection, and two sets of tablets after checking symptoms through an interpreter, Marion's "gracias" was met with grateful acknowledgement. John took to bed and Marion returned to help supervise the afternoon.Day 2 went extremely well with word processing filling the morning led by Marion and Cal, a really good morning of activities. Looming up was the internet to be lead by John, talk of electricity outage was started and it was confirmed that the electricity would be off in Tumu for three days! Lots of food at conference, particularly fine fish and egg pastie appeared. Cooked to order by someone in Tumu, will track them down. John wasn't recovering sufficiently quickly to be able to front Friday's session so it was dawning on Marion that she would have to deliver. Not a technophobe but certainly someone who sees much of IT as a challenge. Some scribbled notes from John formed the basis of a tour-de force under the acacia tree on Friday  morning. Only resource was a flipchart and pen - no electricity for the projector and computer.Generator arrived and digital projector was running so the third day was completed and the evaluation was good.Marion is now available as a world-wide consultant on ICT and will deliver anywhere that has A/C!Few shots of round the house to help those who like to empathize to understand our environment a little better.Tthe kitchen above, shelf is divided for three people, four burner brought from Wa not working, but two burner suffices. water filter sits on the blue table, 'tap' water (if only we had some! goes in the top, two candle style filters produces about 4 litres of water which then trickles out of a totally inefficient tap! We still boil that water to drink which is another process, but use it for cooking as filtered. Still buying Voltic but bit of a pain to transport it when you only have one push bike! This week is 'Defrost your fridge three days', Friday electricity went off at 6.30am back at 5.30pm, same on Saturday and Sunday, so our fridges our well defrosted!Donkeys are used to trim trees around our property as you can see they are just the right height to deal with leaves and unripe mangoes, problem is when the cattle come through on the way to pasture, they are a bit taller so the clipping gets higher up. Hopefully we will have some fruit left for the rains to swell.The main road to Bolga just outside our house, the last 200 metres of tarred road, big building to the left is Plan Ghana offices, who paid for the ICT INSET.  Quiet road but so is the rest of Tumu. It really is cut off from the rest of Ghana and its poor communications mean that travel needs to carefully thought through. We hope to get to Wa in a fortnight but will have to leave on Friday and stay over. Ordered a wardrobe from the carpenter today, 70 cedis for the ply and more for the drawer wood etc but will update when we get it. Polytank is still a distant reality, which is a pain as the water hasn't been on since last Monday, contacted VSOG north today who will chase it up with landlord, who lives next door but is never seen. Investigated A/C but they wanted£500 per room and that is a little to much invest in a building which is not yours. Second bike is proving elusive as we want one with gears but we keep trying. Motorcycle training hasn't yet been organised so no motor bike.All told an eventful week, Marion's stomach took a turn for the worst yesterday but she is improving. Sun shines and music  plays, work on Monday so all will be well.Comments welcomed think box is now working.