Crazy Journey Into the Unknown North

Well I just decided I needed to get out of Accra for a few days, a long weekend was in order, Katherine was in Bolgatanga for two and a half weeks and it would be good to travel while she was up there.

So got to the bus station on Thursday evening (20 minutes before they close) to see if I could get a bus to Bolgatanga - no buses direct to Bolgatanga the next day, but could get an overnight bus to Tamale - I'll take it I said to the nice lady behind the counter, who informed me that the bus will reach Tamale at about 3am and I can sleep at the Bus Station until the Tro Tro station opens at 6am, and I can get a Tro to continue my journey. A bit scary but also a crazy adventure.

Well did half a day at work got to the Bus Station at 2pm, as instructed to check in for a 3pm departure, the bus ended up not leaving till after 4.30pm. Oh well I suppose less of a wait in Tamale, before continuing my journey

The journey itself was OK, only in that it took me 21 hours to reach my first destination - Langbensi a little village that welcomed me with a red carpet (notice the red dusty road) every item of clothing turned a beautiful rust colour - now I know why people just don't wear white

Stayed with another volunteer Sam in his five lovely round huts - his room, the chicken house, the guest room, bathroom and kitchen all surrounding a middle court yard. Ahh this is the life, I could stay here forever, only the temperature is 44-45 degrees during the day and cools down to around 38 during the night you can actually feel the heat burning on your skin even in the shade.

We got invited by a local family to dinner and there I learnt to pound Foufou - Foufou tastes wonderful especially with groundnut soup, but traditionally takes hours of laborious work to prepare. The plantain or yam and cassava is boiled first. Then you pound and pound and pound (these Ghanaian women are strong!), until the mix is soft enough to swallow without first needing to chew it. Apparantly I was just carressing the foufou with my attempt to pound it. I even found it difficult lift the pestle back out again.

The next day we went to the Nakpanduri escarpment in Gambaga, they told me I would be able to swim in the river at the bottom, decided not to once arrived, but still had a wonderful time and the picnic we had was the best; Goats Cheese and Tomato sandwiches - the Ghanaians can laugh as much as they want about goats milk, but they're the ones missing out.

In sweet little Langbensi I managed to find a shoe shop and it beats Jimmy Choos any day. These little numbers are handmade from recycled car tyres and yes they are all the rage in the red dusty streets of Langbensi. They had just my size and I was even able to have to them slightly altered as I waited, beat that for customer service.

While in Langbensi to go with the red dusty roads the only vegetable available were lovely red tomatoes and red onions. But there was enough of them even for me

Independance Weekend

6th of March marks Ghana's Independance day, meaning that it is a long weekend and Monday a Bank holiday. In true British Style we decided to head to the coast for some fun.

Seven of us arranged to go to the Volta Regoin (East of Accra) to a place called "Meet Me There" cool name - we thought so.

We stayed in lovely chalets and had a wonderful time swimming in the lagoon and walking along the beach where I spotted VAC. They seem to be everywhere!

The place was idylic and a real change from Accra, there were no tourist and people trying to sell you anything and the staff were fantastic.

Meeting at Three/ Meeting Three

Wehay meeting members of the network, get to go out the office.

Nii my programme manager said he had set up a meeting for me to meet all the network members - seeing as I haven't been able to get a definite answer to how many members there are, and the number varies from 10 -30 depending on the time of day I was a bit excited.

The meeting was arranged at the office of one of the members so that I could have a trip out.

Here in Ghana if you have an official work related meeting you get driven there by your own personal driver in a huge car - maybe VAC could consider a similar scheme?

Now the person whose office we went to was obviously there for the meeting, and it was productive, but without the other network members the amount we could discuss was limited.

I finally left after about an hour, only to meet one of the network members arriving for the meeting now over an hour late. It was decided that he would accompany me back to my office and we would meet there. Went well and once finished I showed him up to Nii's office, where I was told that Mr.... was on his way. It was now 4.50pm and office hours are 8-4pm. Anyway as it is only my second week i figured I better wait. Finally finished at 6pm.

When I was told meeting at three, little had I Known that it would be three separate meetings at three different times. No-one apologised for being late, people are just so laid back.

When someone says "I'm on my way" that could mean I will be with you some time today/ this week. This is going to take some getting used to

Well I have now been in work for just over a week. I share an office with Katherine, who I met on my first day in Ghana, in fact we were sharing a hotel room during the In Country Training. We both started here on the same day. Katherine is from Canada and we are both here on short term placements and luckily we really get on well.

Our office is small but we like it.



I am here to work with The Coalition Of Volunteering Organisations as their Organisational Development Advisor. Isn't that a fancy title.

They have asked me to advice them on their:

• Structure
• Policies and procedures
• Focus of Organisation
• Communication Channels

They would also like me to produce a members directory and do some capacity building of individual organisations.

To top it all I have a two day retreat to plan and facilitate at, in three weeks time. So I may be just a little busy for the next few weeks.

Am still loving it here, and am really getting used to the heat, food and people.