Sakande

May 29th, Monday 1:37pm

Today was turning out to be an average day with nothing major to report, I was just going to write a clarification of where I am and the places I am refering to for a reference. But then something so wonderful happened that I had to tell someone about this. Today I am in Bolgatanga, a small city about 80km South of Bawku (I say small city instead of town because there is so much going on taxis, tro tros, people coming and going and town to me refers to the sleepy rural life). I arrived in Bolgatanga the night before yesterday on the 27th of May with the coordinator of my NGO (ZOVFA) to use the bank and perhaps print some pictures I took as a gift for a girl I live with (neither of which I was able to do). So today I was trying to figure out if I could withdraw money or print pictures - which involved a lot of walking around in the sun - so you could image that I was hot and sweaty although not desperately hot like before...I must be ajusting :) This boy came around the corner with a water sachet bag in his mouth but it was orange so I started asking around but to no avail. Everywhere in Ghana there are micro-enterprises set up that sell filtered water in sealed 500ml bags called "Pure water". Girls walk around town carrying them on their heads to sell (in baskets of course) and local kiosks have coolers and deep freezers where they are kept cold. Anyway...so I was trying to get a taxi to go back to Philip's office (I'll explain later) and I saw a girl with the orange drink bags on her head!!!! They were 1000cedis!!! (whereas pure water sells for 500cedis a bag and little juice boxes are about 3000 or 4000cedis or 500ml bottle are 8000cedis) and completely frozen....Jublilation!!! I quickly bought one, ripped off the end and bit in....ahhhh ice cold orange flavoured goodness!! When the universe aligns in that one single moment of goodness - it was that good. The name on the package said Sakande and it tasted like an orange popsicle but the best orange popsicle that you've ever tasted. I really hadn't eaten anything frozen yet, they sell yogurt bars and things like this but, for one they are pricy and nobody here eats them here so you would stick scream "western tourist" if you were walking down the street with a frozen treat in hand. An image that I am trying actively to dispell or at least not to encourage whenever I can. It was comparable to the hot days where we were tree planting and Larry suddenly produced freezies after supper and then any day suddenly turned into the greatest day ever because of that.

Danny, my wonderful coach through EWB, mentioned something in an email that was really interesting. He said that treeplanting is the only thing in Canada that compares with farming in Ghana...I think he is right although all the logistical responsibilities as planters are taken care off whereas farmers have to also take care of all those concerns, like transporting the seeds, manure to the field, and the yields to market. The actual physical work though is similar, waking with the sun, working long hours, bending over to hoe the field (here the women bend at the lower back to do most of their work) and the commraderie between people working hard together. I can't really describe it any better than this, all I can say is that any farmer in Ghana would put a treeplanter to shame most days.

This is another side story but after arriving in Bolgatanga on the 27th at night I heard that there was not a bank here that had an ATM so I would have to go to Tamale. So yesterday morning (the 28th) I grabbed a trotro to Tamale last minute, about 160km south of Bolgatanga, to visit the bank and maybe say Hi to Luke, the long term OV(overseas) volunteer based there. I also was hoping to see some of the people from the JF (Junior fellow) group that came when I did although that was a long shot as I did not have their contact information. So I went down to the station and was trying to find a trotro (Ghanaian bus) and I just so happened on a group of people who were heading down to a wedding in Tamale and they had rented a bus and had a few seats to fill...perfect! I met some great people on the way, Betty who was helping me get a seat on the bus, Charity who works with the Red Cross in Bongo and Thomas the driver became my fast friends. We arrived in Tamale no problem where I successfully went to the bank, bought some material to make some pants and a top, and then went to see Luke. I also ran into Sabrina and Ian two of my fellow parteners working in Tamale with Mapronet. On the way back to the station around 2:30pm I met the same driver so I agreed to return with him, he just had to go pick up the wedding people from a house nearby, so I came along. When we got their the people had already left and were at the station relaxing at a restaurant inside. So I thought we were going to leave but we ended up sitting down with the people in the restaurant for awhile. Even when we made it to the bus we were still missing a few people but they filled the bus anyways with extra passengers (a bus never leaves the station without being completely full) and we were on our way....Two people from the wedding party came running beside the tro tro, one man carrying a chicken wing in his hand waving us down. Then all hell broke loose as the people who stopped us were saying that they had the right to come along and the extra passengers were saying that they had the right to stay. We ended up taking everybody along and squishing more people into the row. We left at about 5:30 (instead of 3:00) and I only got back to the hotel where I am staying at 8:30 because we had to drop everyone off (it was another piece of luck that I found this tro tro because I got dropped at the place I am staying and not at the station where they which would normally happen). Afterwards I visited with the driver and Betty for awhile so all in all, it was a good day.

I also wanted to talk about the different places that I am staying and a little more about how ZOVFA works. Before coming here I was also very confused as to how things were organized but now it's a little more clear. The NGO I work with ZOVFA (Zuuri Organic Vegetable Farming Association) is located in Zuuri. The community of Zuuri is beside the village of Binduri (a village by definition here - I think - is somewhere that has a market a few times a week). You can find Binduri on the map, it is about 15km Southwest of Bawku. Bawku is the nearest small city and the central city in the area where ZOVFA does its banking etc. Most of the staff that work at ZOVFA live in surrounding communities such as Bazua, or Garu (usually places where they can rent a room because they do not live in the easily accessible area or places with electricity). Peter, one of the staff memembers, lives in the same family compound that I do with his children and wives. Zuuri and Binduri are small communities without electricity so the staff usually elect not to live there, especially since they all have motorbikes courtesy of ZOVFA so they can commute to and from work easily. They need to motor bikes to access the communities in which they work quickly, although most people in the communities use bikes or walk to get around (it is usually a 5-7km trip to the ZOVFA office for most communities).

Philip Ayamba is the founder of ZOVFA in 1997 and the unofficial coordinator. ZOVFA does not currently have the budget to pay the salary of a coordinator or overall director so he does it concurrently with his job. Philip manages an NGO based in Bolgatanga called "Trade Aid" which is why he and his family live in Bolga and not Bawku. ZOVFA therefore only officially employs program directors of the various projects they are working on, although most things go through Philip and he does a lot of the communication with places like the Oxfam central office in Ghana.

I am staying at Philip's family house - (where is family is from and where they live). Philip's father is the head of the household and Philip is the eldest son. Philips other brothers are in the South somewhere working I think. This is why there is confusion when I say I am living in the director's house. I hope that clears things up a little bit for everyone.