Week One: 25th– 31st January 2010
on Michelle Currie (Ghana), 09/Feb/2010 23:27, 34 days ago
The first week of my placement was spent in meetings, getting to know the different roles of colleagues in the GES (Ghana Education Service) office and learning yet more acronyms! Everyone made me feel extremely welcome and they were very patient in answering my many questions.I will be based at the Talensi-Nabdam District GES offices in Tongo. A building and location far removed from the workplace I left in January.The offices are in what were once three classrooms belonging to the Junior High School (JHS) that shares the site along with a primary school. The 167 JHS students are now taught in three classrooms rather than the six they used to have. That makes an average of 56 students per room. The classrooms are about the same size as an average room at Walton High.The photographs below show the scene around the GES office.The site is very close to the Tongo Hills and although it is a harsh environment for people and animals, especially in the dry season, the landscape has its own beauty.The Senior Team meeting I attended on Monday had some interesting differences to those at Walton High. Our meetings do not start with a prayer and usually begin at the scheduled time (once people have got their tea and coffee that is) and I have yet to notice anyone resting their eyes during one of my meetings! Also, it would be extremely unusual for a meeting at Walton High to be interrupted by a mobile phone going off and someone then answering it. In GES meetings this is quite common. Indeed, one big difference I have noticed generally is the priority people give to answering their mobile phone over virtually anything else they might be doing at the time.The weekly Monday meeting is used as an opportunity for all the GES officers to report back on their activities the previous week and to inform others of the things they plan to do in the coming week– especially if this had implications for other people’s responsibilities. An example of this is the SHEP (School Health Education Programme) officer notifying the meeting that there had been an outbreak of anthrax in some of the villages in the District and asked anyone visiting schools to lookout for children with possible symptoms to ensure they received any health care they need as soon as possible.The lack of ICT also leads to different ways of working. Whereas we would usually use Outlook to organise meetings and share information, the GES staff write events and other information of common interest on the blackboard at the front of the room because very few officers have access to PCs or laptops and those that are available are not networked and do not have internet access. As people are often visiting school, mobile phones are an essential part of people’s working life.The Director of Talensi-Nabdam, Mr Francis Ayaaba often puts up a“Thought for the day”. On my first Monday it was: “There are two things to aim for in life, first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it; only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second.”Getting to the Talensi-Nabdam District from where I am living in Bolga is already proving a challenge. At the moment I have decided the easiest way round this is to get a taxi. The return trip costs 20GHc a day (c.£8.60) which is quite a lot considering my daily allowance is 10GHc. The journey takes about 25 minutes and much of it is over some pretty rough roads.Most of the people who live in the area are subsistence farmers and live in traditionally built homes.Below are some of the scenes I pass on the way.African Cup of NationsThis week was full of football talk.  In true footballer supporter style, Ghanians had forgotten their highly critical comments of their team's performance against the Ivory Coast and were now hoping for success againast their arch rivals, Nigeria.The Black Star's very close 1-0 win was greeted by great jubilation in the streets as Bolga as people took to the streets to celebrate - anyone would have thought they had won the competition!I watched the final in a place that had two TVs - the one on the left was showing the Ghana v Egypt final, whereas the TV on the right was showing the Arsenal v Man Utd game. The venue was small and packed with about 150 young and exclusively male Ghanians - most of whom were wearing Man Utd shirts!  It was a doubly bad afternoon for me as both my teams lost!  As it was a Muslim establishment, I couldn't even console myself with a beer!Ghanaians were gracious in defeat, despite being somewhat unlucky. Every Ghanaian I spoke to was pleased with their team's performance - which is more than I could say for Arsenal's!