The Tournament

No more malaria on the team, last full week in the office completed and a few days of stormy rain to lower the ambient temperature to within tolerable levels. This week’s big event was our last visit to the communities to put on a tournament for our 3 villages: Nwagu, Gupanarigu and Limo. Earlier in the placement we had done a needs assessment to determine the biggest issues in their communities and the most common ones between all 3 were drug abuse (mainly tramadol, an opioid pain medication used to treat moderate to severe pain) and open defecation. We decided to focus on drug abuse as there isn’t realistically anything we can do to discourage open defecation if there are no alternatives such as drop toilets in the house or public toilets. These reports can be passed on to different organisations to make it a target in the future. Currently the focus of the government seems to be getting electricity supplied to them over pylons that are in the process of being built.
 
We hadn’t had a great deal of cultural exchange with the communities, so the tournament planned by the volunteers was a great chance to see some of the competitions they would have. The men played a game called “oware” which supposedly originates from the Ashanti region of Ghana where 2 people compete to get the most pieces.  Men VS Women is NOT a thing here, so the women competed in a Simba dance competition accompanied by a singer and a set of hand drums. They also stuck money on people using their exerted sweatiness like at weddings. Firstly, 3 women from each community had a dance off and then the best from each competed. The object of the Simba dance seems to be (from my UK cultural viewpoint so don’t take this as fact) to move your feet in small paces and have the wiggliest buttocks without moving your hips, imagine shaking a jelly with as little hand movement as possible and the person with the most visually gratifying jelly shaking is the winner. What added to my belief that this is the object of the dance is that no one seemed to be looking at or directing their videos at any of the competitor’s faces …….
 
On the way home, I ticked off something on my to do list and jumped off the bus and into the bush to snap a picture of a massive termite mound. Once back in Tamale, it was a trip into the market maze with UK volunteers to do some last-minute fabric shopping to take to the tailors with enough time to get it made and packed away for next weekend. We have a couple more things planned to do in the office next week but mainly winding down for the debrief event on Friday.
 
Thanks!
 
International Women's Day 2018 Mural at Sagnarigu PAGSUNG office. Anyone from the community could come and put their handprint on our Shea Nut tree to show they supported women empowerment projects such as this one.
 
The Oware Competition
 
The Final Simba Dance off.
 
PAGSUNG Team Cohort 10: (back left to right) Mohammed, Hafsah, Maya, Akosua, Sanyia, Hassan, Me, Becky, Ben (front left to right) Isi, Alhassan
 
Termite Mound!!!
 
Fabrics fabrics everywhere.

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