Christmas newsletter, a little late......

Hello!

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I realise that any Christmas letter going on for longer than 2 pages is a bit socially unacceptable, but please excuse my Ghana-brain for this 5 page wonder…

I’ve been back in Ghana for about 10 weeks and it has completely flown by! I’ve been feeling much more settled and at home in Bolga, mainly due to being incredibly busy at work and enjoying spending time with friends, both other volunteers and local friends, thinking of new and exciting ways to cook tomatoes and generally sitting putting the world to rights into the wee small hours.

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Workwise, I’ve been mostly busy though things have slowed down somewhat in the last few weeks. My aim this term was to finish watching the 90 or so P4-6 teachers in my 18 schools teach English, and organise 4 workshops for them in interactive reading activities… I very nearly fulfilled my first objective, seeing teachers in all but one school, but organising workshops didn’t prove to be so easy. This week, which would have been ideal, is exam week, and last week was revision week, so the teachers are very busy and not free to come away for two hours during the school day which unfortunately is the only time they can come. Classes are left for hours at a time, but it’s the only way to organise things here. I am now hoping to do one workshop next Monday, hopefully with the help of one of the teachers at my best school – though again, we’re running on African time so who knows if that will happen or not.

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My observations have been very useful though; I’ve seen some teachers who would handle a class in Scotland just fine and others who struggle with speaking good, accurate English themselves. I’ve had a couple of wee goes at taking a few classes myself, mainly for “model lessons” to help show teachers different ideas. I’ve got quite used to standing in front of a group of teachers or children and have a goat or chicken wander past! After a recent model lesson, there is now a P2 class in Yorogo Primary who will chant the words “verbs” and “nouns” forevermore in a Scottish accent!

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The hardest part of the VSO job by far is the “capacity building” side of it. People need to want to have their “capacity” built in the first place, and it takes so long to build trusting relationships with colleagues – particularly when you’re about 20 years younger than most of them! I’m hoping to have some Circuit Supervisors (like QIOs – Quality Improvement Officers) at my workshops over the next few months, then see if I can train them up a bit on what I’m doing.

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Other than working I’ve also been busy at weekends attending other “programmes” (got to love the Ghanaian way of saying these things!). I’ve been to a wedding blessing of a teacher from one of my schools – the longest wedding service I’ve ever seen, and I was standing… outside… for the whole 4 hour service! Another Saturday, my friend and colleague Joana’s father died, so I went to the first part of his funeral (the burial) with literally hundreds of other mourners. I’ve also been to an Anglican Bishop’s consecration – Jacob, a former pupil of Sisters Patricia and Dorothy Stella, two of the Sisters I know from my time in Swaziland but who taught in Bolga in the 70s and 80s. I also had a lovely week in the Upper West Region, at an education sector meeting then travelling to see some friends. There have also been various other Cultatanga gigs (local band that one of the volunteers plays in) and volunteer parties to celebrate everything from Diwali to Christmas! Hannah and I have also been doing a little work with the children at Mama Laadi’s Foster Home once a week – reading and simple phonics activities – fun but tiring!

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I’m still really enjoying having my motorbike, and am even going along to help with the new volunteers’ training one day next week – if you’d told me 18 months ago I’d be riding a motorbike, let alone helping to teach others how to ride, I’d never have believed it in a million years! Despite a few setbacks, including a rather scary journey where I got almost completely stuck in the clay, had it not been thanks to a very kind passerby, I’ve become quite confident (and hopefully competent!) at taking passengers, as my summer guests Sonia, Emma and Hayley discovered! I’ve been taking a new volunteer, Hannah, in to work most days and have had to check a few times that she’s still there… I don’t know if that’s a good sign that I’m feeling more at ease with someone on the back…or a bad sign that I’m not paying enough attention!

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I’m now one of two regional reps for the Upper East Region and we have 23 volunteers and 4 accompanying partners in our region, the biggest contingent in Ghana by far at the moment. The regional rep job involves picking up new volunteers when they arrive in Accra, helping people with problems if they can’t get them solved through the Ghana VSO office, and administering Distress Fund claims every time someone loses a camera or phone. It’s interesting seeing how things are run at VSO and a good excuse to have the odd weekend away in Accra at a nice hotel when the newbies arrive!

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Living in Ghana continues to have its ups and downs. The weather has improved to a very pleasant 24ish at night and cope-able 35ish during the day (lowest temp been 22.9 and highest 37.4 I think since my return…). The Harmattan has not long started, which means very dry winds, chapped lips and dry skin – but my favourite season by far as it is actually necessary to use a sheet to sleep at night! We have a very large family (village?! 200+) of bats living in our roof, whose favourite pastime is to start squeaking incessantly at around 3am every morning. We’ve also a couple of dead lizards in our house, accidentally squashed when resting under cushions on the sofa!

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We’ve only had one other minor disaster lately. I was awakened by shouts of “Madam Rita, Madam Rita[1], the water is flowing!” one night around 2am. When I went outside, I saw that our water pipe had burst and was spraying wildly all over our back garden. Mercifully the breakage was before the meter, meaning it wasn’t being charged – but not much of a comfort at 3am! After an hour of trying to fix it using an insane selection of useless materials (how on earth did I think a Smartie tube would help!), phoning the emergency VSO number and being told to “phone the regional rep, Rachel Campbell!” and waking up several other people whose names and numbers I had for such disasters (Water man??!), our watchman and his friend finally switched it off from the mains outside our house and we were able to dry off and get a few hours’ rest!

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I’ve remained pretty healthy since my return – I must be getting a stronger Ghana stomach finally – and other than a small, minor, unconfirmed case of malaria, (much better than the first one!) I’ve been pretty fit!

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I’d better stop my ramblings now… I hope you are all well, enjoying the snow and feeling nice and Christmassy at home (something I do definitely miss here in Ghana!) Have a lovely festive period and Happy New Year when it comes.

Lots of love,

Rachel xx

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[1] Rita, Richard, Reechee, Richie, Rahel, Raquel, Rackel, Rake-hel… Ghanaians generally CAN’T say Rachel!