Having somewhat neglected church going activities since arriving in Bolga for various reasons, I thought I should make up for it this weekend.
My first stop, on Saturday, was the funeral of the Catholic Archbishop of Bolgatanga and Navrongo who died suddenly at the end of December. Olke and I decided to pop have a look to see what was happening. We found our way to what I think of as the Catholic area of town – it boasts the Catholic Social Centre, a fully built Catholic church, a half built Catholic church and several St Charles Primary schools – which I have finally established is just the one school spread through several buildings (finding the correct building when visiting the school, however, is another question entirely.)
I have got to say that the funeral was one of the most impressively organised events I have come across in Bolga. There were policemen around, a First Aid stand, food vendors and an array of archbishop memorabilia including programmes, stickers and rosaries.
We made our way through the crowds to get a position at the back of the service – which was being held in the large, half built church which seemed quite like a stadium. In the centre, was a white coffin with a gold cross on top and arrangements of flowers and ribbon. The Archbishop of Wa gave a speech (I think he was the Archbishop of Wa) and there were many prayers and bible readings. People were beautifully dressed – some in Catholic school uniforms, some in black and many in white and black outfits, which I believe is one of the traditional funeral colours. Also were many people in dresses or outfits with Catholic churches or popes on them. We also saw one man wearing a pink t-shirt boasting quite a lot of gold tinsel – and his sidekick wearing a baby-pink sash – a little unusual.
On Sunday, I went with a Ghanaian friend to her church service – not something I plan to repeat in the near future, but certainly an interesting experience. I was to meet my friend at 8.30 and we left around 9.15, arriving at the church at 9.30. We were a little late – the service had started at 8 – but that didn’t matter as they were still in the middle of their VERY LOUD singing, which lasted another 20mins after we arrived. The pastor then got up and performed his sermon lasting well over an hour. Finally, people came to the front for healing prayers, and there were two collections – one straight after the other, and you were expected to contribute to both.
The church is by far the biggest and most impressive building in the whole Upper East Region and would fit in well in any American city. The powerpoint would put many churches in the UK to shame, and the sound system worked far too well! I do wonder if the money spent on building this church would be better spent on things such desks or chairs for children in the very deprived primary schools just a stone’s throw away.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
A little look at what I’ve been doing this week…
Would you believe that I would actually quite like a cold day or two – just for a change! On Wednesday, I was at the VSO office with two friends, Anthony and Laura, a vet, had her thermometer with her. She measured 36 degrees, but we thought that was probably just because she had had the thermometer in the car. So we measured again later on and it was 37.3 degrees Celsius – that’s 99.14 degrees Fahrenheit – and we’re not even finding it particularly hot at the moment. You certainly learn to acclimatise and the heat in the north is much more pleasant than in the south – much drier so it isn’t too muggy.
Work has really picked up this week – I’ve been so busy!! On Monday, which I was imagining would be a slow day, I popped into the office to “greet” everyone (Ghanaians are very in to greeting people and are offended if you don’t!). I then went to the Link Community Development office. I have quite a tenuous link with Link – the ladies who set up the Let’s Read project first came to Ghana through Link, so they help me with things like laminating resources, and taking me to some of the further away schools. We made some vague plans for next week (everything here seems to be vague!)
I then went to the Afrikids office. Afrikids is a Ghanaian charity who work on various projects in and around Bolga. They are probably the biggest charity working in Bolga and I'm really pleased Let’s Read has got me involved with them. One of their projects is a school which I work in sometimes; another of their projects is Mama Laadi’s Foster Home. I have been working with Mama Laadi’s kindergarten teacher quite intensively for the last few weeks. I went to Afrikids to meet David who coordinates work at Mama Laadi’s and Grace International School. I waited for the best part of an hour before he appeared, but I'm glad I waited because I met, Alison who has come with her husband from the UK to work for Afrikids for 3 months. She is a teacher and is interested in working in some of my schools. After a long chat with her, we set up some plans for the following week! I popped back into the office, bumped into the Director of Education (who is very hard to find/get/pin down!) and managed to arrange a meeting with her for Wednesday.
On Tuesday, I met up with Anthony, another VSO who was also to come to the meeting on Wednesday. We spent much of the day planning what we would speak to the Director about today. We also had a brief meeting with Alison, some Afrikids staff and all of the Assistant Directors at the GES offices. Everything is done so formally here – everyone shook everyone’s hand, then we went into the Director’s office and sat in the nice chairs. We then all introduced ourselves and talked about our jobs and experiences. David explained why Alison was here and what she wanted to do and we came up with some vague plans. At the end of the meeting, everyone shook hands again and wished each other a safe journey etc. It’s so nice the way things work here – the greetings and formalities are time consuming, but it keeps everyone on good terms with everyone else.
On Wednesday I went to Mama Laadi’s in the morning to do some simple games with the children. First, I wrote the letters s a t p i n on the board and the children had to tell me the letter name and the letter sound. We then thought of an action for each letter – like a snake going sss and an insect crawling up the arm going i i i i etc. I had written the letters s a t p i n on six sets of bottle tops and each child had to pick a set. One got Coke tops, another Sprite, another Shandy, etc. I then told them a word which uses some of those letters and the children had to make the word. It is amazing how many words can be formed from s a t p i n – I’ve found 49! Some of the children managed it ok, but we will need some more work on it. Finally, we used four sets of bottle tops to play “pairs” – just like the children’s game, but they had to find and remember where the pairs of letters were. Good fun! I now really need to spend some time watching the teacher teach as I’ve done a lot of modelling how to do it recently but I need to make sure she can do it on her own too.
Then in the afternoon we finally had our meeting with the director!! Part of what VSO is trying to do just now is to carry out an Organisational Development assessment on our partner organisation. This means we have to interview people/hold workshops to look at things like how effectively finances are used, how teachers are supervised and also external factors like how the national Ghana Education Service office effects what we do in our office. Anthony and I feel quite out of our depth with this but our Director is very supportive and experienced in this type of thing, so we are optimistic! It is useful for VSO too, so that they can see how they can effectively impact organisations long term.
I spent Thursday and Friday with Charlotte, Christina and Anthony in Walewale sharing our experiences – very useful and nice to get out of Bolga for a while!
Work has really picked up this week – I’ve been so busy!! On Monday, which I was imagining would be a slow day, I popped into the office to “greet” everyone (Ghanaians are very in to greeting people and are offended if you don’t!). I then went to the Link Community Development office. I have quite a tenuous link with Link – the ladies who set up the Let’s Read project first came to Ghana through Link, so they help me with things like laminating resources, and taking me to some of the further away schools. We made some vague plans for next week (everything here seems to be vague!)
I then went to the Afrikids office. Afrikids is a Ghanaian charity who work on various projects in and around Bolga. They are probably the biggest charity working in Bolga and I'm really pleased Let’s Read has got me involved with them. One of their projects is a school which I work in sometimes; another of their projects is Mama Laadi’s Foster Home. I have been working with Mama Laadi’s kindergarten teacher quite intensively for the last few weeks. I went to Afrikids to meet David who coordinates work at Mama Laadi’s and Grace International School. I waited for the best part of an hour before he appeared, but I'm glad I waited because I met, Alison who has come with her husband from the UK to work for Afrikids for 3 months. She is a teacher and is interested in working in some of my schools. After a long chat with her, we set up some plans for the following week! I popped back into the office, bumped into the Director of Education (who is very hard to find/get/pin down!) and managed to arrange a meeting with her for Wednesday.
On Tuesday, I met up with Anthony, another VSO who was also to come to the meeting on Wednesday. We spent much of the day planning what we would speak to the Director about today. We also had a brief meeting with Alison, some Afrikids staff and all of the Assistant Directors at the GES offices. Everything is done so formally here – everyone shook everyone’s hand, then we went into the Director’s office and sat in the nice chairs. We then all introduced ourselves and talked about our jobs and experiences. David explained why Alison was here and what she wanted to do and we came up with some vague plans. At the end of the meeting, everyone shook hands again and wished each other a safe journey etc. It’s so nice the way things work here – the greetings and formalities are time consuming, but it keeps everyone on good terms with everyone else.
On Wednesday I went to Mama Laadi’s in the morning to do some simple games with the children. First, I wrote the letters s a t p i n on the board and the children had to tell me the letter name and the letter sound. We then thought of an action for each letter – like a snake going sss and an insect crawling up the arm going i i i i etc. I had written the letters s a t p i n on six sets of bottle tops and each child had to pick a set. One got Coke tops, another Sprite, another Shandy, etc. I then told them a word which uses some of those letters and the children had to make the word. It is amazing how many words can be formed from s a t p i n – I’ve found 49! Some of the children managed it ok, but we will need some more work on it. Finally, we used four sets of bottle tops to play “pairs” – just like the children’s game, but they had to find and remember where the pairs of letters were. Good fun! I now really need to spend some time watching the teacher teach as I’ve done a lot of modelling how to do it recently but I need to make sure she can do it on her own too.
Then in the afternoon we finally had our meeting with the director!! Part of what VSO is trying to do just now is to carry out an Organisational Development assessment on our partner organisation. This means we have to interview people/hold workshops to look at things like how effectively finances are used, how teachers are supervised and also external factors like how the national Ghana Education Service office effects what we do in our office. Anthony and I feel quite out of our depth with this but our Director is very supportive and experienced in this type of thing, so we are optimistic! It is useful for VSO too, so that they can see how they can effectively impact organisations long term.
I spent Thursday and Friday with Charlotte, Christina and Anthony in Walewale sharing our experiences – very useful and nice to get out of Bolga for a while!
Let's Read!
I have just realised that I have not really explained what my job is here in Ghana. Now that I know what I'm meant to be doing, I thought I would also share it with you...
VSO works through partnerships with local organisations. The local organisation has to request the volunteer - vols are rarely placed without this request. I am working for the Bolga Municipal Education Service in a project started by 4 English head/depute head teachers. The project is called Let's Read!
LR have produced laminated cards with words, letters and pictures, which teachers are given and are then trained in how to use them. I am working in 16 schools in all - 6 in Bolga district, 5 in Talensi Nabdam (south and east of Bolga) and 5 in Kassena Nankana (north of Bolga). I am observing teachers and advising them on their lessons, team teaching (my favourite way of training), organising workshops, trying to find lead teachers (good teachers to train others), work with Circuit Supervisors (like Quality Improvement Officers), make alphabet friezes on the wall, assess children and most importantly, not get lost on the motorbike! So far I've been focussing my efforts in Bolga but am trying to expand to the other districts just now. Lots and lots to keep me busy!
The pictures - an alphabet freize in one school, and children using LR cards in another.
:-)
Rachael came to visit (in November!)
My first guest - and the first guest of any VSO in Bolga and possibly Ghana - was Rachael!! Here we are in 2 photos - outside my house and in a restaurant. I had a great week with her! The first few days were in Bolga - unfortunately I had to work but Rach seemed to spend most of the time sleeping, and joined my friend Jason for a tour of the market and also came to a VSO lunch. We had a trip to Paga, to visit the slave camp which was really interesting, though we walked the longest 2km I've ever come across to get there and then 2km back again. We then went to Tamale and spent 3 days there, swimming, eating nice food, wandering in the markets and going to a random concert that lasted a few minutes!
Sorry it's taken me so long to post this Rach - must do better!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Happy new year!
A quick update - my new year's resolution - or one of many - is to do my blog little and often rather than stupid long emails once a month!
The photo is of my family, outside my house. I had a lovely time with them, in Mole then Bolga, and I think they also enjoyed themselves. It is strange to think it'll be months til I see them again but I'm not going to dwell on these things at the moment!
Back to work tomorrow which will be fine - schools are off for another week so a slow start.
A quick update - my new year's resolution - or one of many - is to do my blog little and often rather than stupid long emails once a month!
The photo is of my family, outside my house. I had a lovely time with them, in Mole then Bolga, and I think they also enjoyed themselves. It is strange to think it'll be months til I see them again but I'm not going to dwell on these things at the moment!
Back to work tomorrow which will be fine - schools are off for another week so a slow start.
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