One month down.
I have now been here for a little over a month; this was always going to be the hardest time, culture shock, isolation and having to learn a new job. That month is coming to an end; on Tuesday my wonderful boss Harriet returns from England. I am looking forward to this, partly because she can drive (a life in London means I never learnt to my detriment) so I won’t be dependent on Tro-Tros anymore (this is a God send) also I won’t be home alone. I have made a few friends (the delightful Henrietta Gremmel first among them) but for the most part conversation has been limited.
This week I went up to Gyakiti, our NGO is developing a fishing project up there which they hope will fund the school out here. Ghana is home to Lake Volta – the largest man made body of water in the world built in the 60s by the egomaniac Nkrumah (he liked big prestige projects a lot), the lake feeds into the Akosombo dam – which still provides a lot of Ghana’s energy.
Famous (our assistant at the School) and I went to Gyakiti to get the local chiefs, whose land it was, to sign a contract agreeing to sell it to us. The journey took 13 hours in total – a long, long day on many Tro Tros. The chiefs met us but the paramount chief wasn’t there – the other chiefs said we didn’t have to see him. This aroused our suspicions. After journeying 40 miles we found the chief and his ‘palace’ (more like a large one story house), he met us and explained that the other chiefs had cheated him; and had not paid him the expected stipend for selling land – I might add that Ghanaian land law is a mixture of the British system and older, tribal customs – it is complicated.
I guess I was naïve but I expected the chiefs of the Volta to be impressive men, I in my naïve way wanted to meet men who would look like they’d stepped straight out of central casting for a Ryder Haggard story. This is not the case, old men with bad teeth and dressed in modern clothes, one of them to my surprise had a jersey from the 1999 Rugby World Cup – he’d received it in an aid package, the high chief met me in a Hawaian shirt in his house made of concrete. Famous later told me that they only don the formal robes for state occasions much like our own monarch. The more I thought of this the more it made sense naturally.
I spent the weekend with some friends at the beach. I have met some interesting people out here, the ‘Foreign Legion’ of volunteers are fascinating; different motivations, different projects and different durations from 19 year olds out here to build a school (the single most harmful thing you can do as an Aid project after simply dumping free food in a place-as the one thing the developing world is not short of is unskilled labour) to tons of medical students out here to learn how the other half get hospital treatment.
Two friends of mine deserve singling out, Geff and Zane, an unlikely pair Zane is a South African mechanic and Geff a Canadian diver – they work on Lake Volta for the only underwater logging company in the world – their job is to remove the trees which are now buried (Lake Volta used to be forest) and then sell the wood which has special properties. They are great guys and good fun to have a beer with and set the world to rights.
Two friends of mine deserve singling out, Geff and Zane, an unlikely pair Zane is a South African mechanic and Geff a Canadian diver – they work on Lake Volta for the only underwater logging company in the world – their job is to remove the trees which are now buried (Lake Volta used to be forest) and then sell the wood which has special properties. They are great guys and good fun to have a beer with and set the world to rights.
So there you have it – one month done out here and 4 to go at least I am keeping calm and carrying on. To everyone who is taking the time to write to me I really appreciate it! It helps a great deal.
James.
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