Our Neighbourhood
on VSO in Ghana (Ghana), 14/Feb/2010 13:22, 34 days ago
The headteacher workshops continue. We are delighted with the response we are getting from participants. Their eagerness to learn is so satisfying for us. They actively participate throughout and are full of questions.We always seek feedback in order to improve what we are delivering. We ask at the end for participants to share key learning with the group and to indicate what actions they will take as a result of the workshop. Work on leadership styles has been an amazing eye opener to most, and headteachers have all sorts of creative ideas about how they will use their learning with their staff.Sometimes the feedback we get leaves us speechless. One male head said that an action he would take following the workshop was,“to review his relationship with his wife...” We did not know what to say or expect as he continued, “....seeing you two working together, I realise the woman can take a lead and it makes me think that I should treat my wife differently”. What on earth could we say in response to that!! Thiscould actually be our greatest success in Ghana, as he said this in front of 13 other, predominantly male, headteachers.We have lived in Wa for nearly 5 months and it is about time we shared some pictures of our house and local neighbourhood:This is the house in which we live.Ayisha comes every weekend to help us with the cleaning and washing. She is the carer for three younger siblings all in local colleges at the moment. She had to suspend her own education to see the others through theirs, after her mother died.At the moment we share the house only with the wildlife. We have four or five of these friendly chaps who eat many irritating insects. Just occasionally a lizard will eat a spider ...etc. etc!A lovely family lives behind our house. Farook (below) is the man in the family. One of the delights of living here is listening to the girls sitting behind our garden wall in front of Farook’s house singing each evening. Another regular sound is that of the children playing football. All the local children seem to play happily 90% of the time. Their laughter will be something we will miss when we return to the UK.This delightful family lives to one side of us. Osman is Headteacher of the Dodyiiri village school, featured in a previous blog entry. Osman attended one of our headteacher workshops and is very pleased with the insights it gave him. His school is really challenging. He has one teacher working with him to teach 4 classes.On the other side of us is Fatima, a local teacher. She is a real gem, always warm and friendly, and full of questions about the UK. She is feeding her granddaughter in the picture. She is going to teach us how to make tofu from soya beans before we leave.We all live along the road pictured below. Fatimas house is on the left, behind the blue container which houses a welder's business. If you need a gate or railing, this is the place to come.Below is our“corner shop” run by Memuna. Every time we pass we get a very warm hello and wave, and every time we buy something, a delightful smile.Just a few metres further on is our local“supermarket”.Once the shopping is done, a few more metres brings us to the Countryside Spot. This is our local“pub” at which we spend some lovely early evenings absorbing the sights and sounds of the local life: bulbul birds with their fabulously cheerful chirpy song, the laughing doves, the scurrying lizards and of course the local goats.Most local people are Muslims and the mosque is only about 200 metres from our house. The call to prayer at 04.00 is very gentle indeed and another sound we shall take home in our memories.Last but not least, we have the local bike repair shop. These lads have helped us out on a number of occasions. For the equivalent of 20p we can have a puncture repaired and not even get our hands dirty.On the opposite side of the road to us is a beautiful forest in which we walk occasionally, taking binoculars to look at the birdlife. In the recent dry spell a fire tore through the undergrowth. The tree pictured below fell two weeks later. It had clearly been smouldering from the inside until the trunk was weakened and it fell.The sunsets and starlit skys are fabulous. This scene is outside our house virtually every evening.Next weekend we have a new VSO volunteer coming to join us in our house. We are looking forward to meeting Joanne and being the experts on Wa. It will feel good to explain how we cope with the water supply and get gas for the cooker and electricity for the meter. It all seems so straightforward now. Joanne will be a teacher support officer, and we look forward to working with her for 4 weeks before we leave.