Cath's attempt at a World Tour.

One of the things team leaders do at the beginning of cohorts is complete a team planning tool to outline the targets over the 10 weeks. The volunteers then use this to create a 10-week timetable allowing them to effectively manage their time while they are here. We are the 4 th  cohort (3 previous and a pilot cohort) to work with PAGSUNG and are going to be the last. The pilot cohort is the most difficult because you don’t have any contacts or previous data to work from which is what the REACT group are now (they are doing a great job though). Our project is split into the following areas: Needs assessments – volunteers design and deliver needs assessments with local schools, within our PAGSUNG centre and out in the communities to ensure the sessions they deliver are relevant to the people we work with. Any areas that are too ambitious for us, we compile in a report to be sent to local NGOs or International Service themselves. Raising Awareness sessions – we plan and deliv...

This week we visited the 3 communities we will be working with on this cohort – Pagazaa, Zobogu and Zakaliyili. Each of the communities has a group of PAGSUNG women who produce shea butter or shea soap to help generate income for their families. This is especially important in the dry season when there isn’t much farming to do. As you might be able to see from the below pictures, the land is quickly transforming into a greener and more viable farming landscape. The children are on spring break until Monday and then, those who can, will return to school while others will prepare the land with their communities, so they can harvest as much as they can in this ongoing yearly cycle. Working here requires you to be flexible and adaptable so there was a slight hiccup when we arrived in the first community as they weren’t aware of our arrival so hadn’t gathered. However, news quickly spread and as we drove the 2km to the next community to drop off the second group, they were already pl...

This weekend brings week 2 of 10 to a close! 2 months from now I will be back at home in the UK and Ghana will be another finished experience on my world tour. This week has been our first week back in the office which means more planning than doing as I’ve found once you have a plan of your objectives, it helps manage expectations and gets people in the right mindset. We found out this week that we are the last cohort for PAGSUNG and potentially the last cohort for ICS with International Service, but time and the government will tell. As a result, we have been told to focus on celebrating the achievements of the 5 previous teams and putting more measures in place, so the work is in the hands of the PAGSUNG women and local organisations to help sustain it. Most of my pictures this week are just of the office which you have already seen but next week we will be going out to new communities. We have this Tuesday off work as it’s May/Labour Day. I’ve never been one to argue with a n...

So the date has finally arrived after over 3 weeks of waiting, my second and final cohort landed this Wednesday and we start our first day in the office tomorrow. Their first taste of Tamale was being stuck in a hotel complex for several hours each day doing mandatory training. There was a spring break camp for small children there too who kindly woke us up one day by playing the drums at 6am. However, they seem to be a strong and motivated group so powered through and settled into their host homes on Saturday morning. We had our first trips to town while they adjust to the culture shock and massive spike in heat, average 38 degrees every day and drops to 27 in the evening. As you can see from the pictures below, the signs of the ever so slightly cooler rainy season are beginning to show. Although, sadly on this occasion to add to the heat, there was a fire at the power station last year and repairs were finally being completed so everyone’s electricity was off from morning to even...

For one reason or another, ICS Version 2 (the version I am currently on and is being stopped in summer) has a restricted travel policy which means volunteers must stay in the town they are working in for their placement apart from mid-term review and training. When I was in India, we were free to travel around the whole of Tamil Nadu in our free time, so I go to experience a lot more of their history. However, as we had such a large gap between cohorts we were given special permission to go to Mole National Park for the day, the biggest national park in Ghana and most famous for it’s elephants. The day started at 3am, there had been heavy rain all night and I woke up to no electricity as the electric company usually turn it off during this weather, I assume for safety reason. I got washed and ready by torchlight and navigated around the flooded areas in my neighbourhood to reach the roadside. My host mum (<3) walked me to the roundabout and waited with me. International serv...

Unfortunately, I haven’t got anything particularly exciting to update you on, so I thought I would go back and show you some of the different foods here. The only things worthy of note are my new counterpart team leader arrives soon, going to Mole National Park tomorrow to see some animals (squee!), spent some of the week with the new volunteers on the REACT project and been doing paperwork and training…... That’s all so here come the foods! Breakfast - bread brought from the bread seller who visits the house every morning, groundnut paste, jam, nescafe coffee with powdered milk and a doxycycline to prevent malaria.  Breakfast 2 - Omelette sandwich, always on white bread as hard and expensive to find anything different.  Dinner Option 1 - Plain rice, beans and fried plantain (commonly called red red and the beans are served in a tomato sauce) Dinner Option 2 - Guinea fowl, lettuce, fried rice, ketchup/mayo and shito (a pepper and spice mix) ...

1 week down and 2 and a bit to go until the second cohort arrive. Due to the no travel policy I have spent most of this week relaxing by watching sopranos, reading and listening to podcasts. During the week, 2 team leaders arrived from the UK who are starting a new 8-week project here called REACT. The teams are split between here and Sandema in the upper east and are a mixture of visually impaired (various levels) and fully sighted volunteers who will challenge how people “react” to disabilities such as blindness. I have not had much interaction with the disabled communities whilst here in Tamale as our project is focussed on female empowerment. However, what I have seen is people in wheelchairs getting over uneven terrain by using a hand crank version of a chair and having to beg for a living. The same applies to the blind who are led round by placing their hands-on a child’s shoulder, possibly their own children or grandchildren.   Now I don’t like the saying “don’t judge ...