Daily Routine

We have now been in Wa for one week and we have managed to sort out a daily routine in the house, as well as gain much understanding of the education system. We have interviewed a number of senior members of the education service and visited our most local school, “Our Home”, which is next door to us. The proprietor, Khalid, built this school himself. He is a professional driver and decided to start the school in 1992, using the porch of his house. He has personally built the school bit by bit, so that it is now a school of over 500 children. He has recently built a new section, which will become the secondary school next year. His own house is on the school premises and we feel he will be a great neighbour. He is a well respected member of the community and is full of helpful information and advice.

Our routine this week has gone something like this:

· Get up about 5.30 a.m. We are usually woken before the alarm by a range of noises like cockerels crowing and children chattering. Go to the tap in the garden and transfer buckets of water into the storage barrels in the house. Ensure all the water filters are filled. Get breakfast, which has been bread, banana and fruit juice this week. Take a bucket shower. Apply sunscreen and insect repellent.

· At about 7.15 a.m., walk to the education offices. This takes about 35 minutes. It is a really pleasant walk in the mornings, as it isn’t too hot and the walk is interesting. There are goats, chickens and pigs all along our route. No idea how anyone knows which animals they own. There are also really colourful birds and butterflies. We pass people walking to market with all sorts of bundles on their heads, people walking, cycling, motorcycling to work or taking their children to school. Greeting people is a very important part of Ghanaian culture and there is a standard set of responses used by everyone, including us now. The translation from Waali goes: good morning; good morning and how are you and did you sleep well? I’m fine; how are you? We repeat these exchanges with virtually everyone we meet. The local people clearly find our Waali very amusing, but they show appreciation for our attempts.

· Spend the morning in the education offices, having gone through the greetings procedures with everyone we meet. At lunchtime, we buy some food from local shops or street sellers, but we eat very little, as it is so hot. We might have a banana or some fried plantain, but the priority at this time is continually drinking water.

· In the afternoon, visit Barclay’s bank. This has been the same routine all week, as there is a very long, bureaucratic process in setting up a bank account. This is all very tedious, but at least the bank has air conditioning. This is the only place we have found so far, that does have air conditioning. We now have an account and should be receiving a chequebook and ATM card soon. This part of the routine may change next week!!

· Visit the market and shops to buy food for the day and various bits and pieces for the house. Our real treat last Friday was to find the only toaster in Wa. We then spent a (comparatively) huge amount of money on a jar of strawberry jam.

· Finish various activities at the education offices and then start the walk home. This walk is during the hottest part of the day, so we have to drink bottled water the whole way. We always pass children at the local bore hole, pumping water into huge containers. Very young children spend large amounts of time collecting and carrying water.

· At home, we sit under the fan, drink more water and make notes and plans related to our work. Just before 6.00 p.m., it starts to go dark, and this is the worst time for mosquitoes. We bucket shower, put on clothing to cover us as much as possible and apply insect repellent. We also light mosquito coils in various parts of the house. It’s now time for checking all the water filters, boiling water to store in the fridge for drinking, and preparing the meal. Although there is a limited range of food available, we are managing to eat a fairly balanced diet. If there is time, we read, play music and use the Internet.

· We try to get to bed before 10.00 p.m., but haven’t yet managed it. It’s important to get as much rest as possible in this climate. We have a fan in the bedroom and we keep it on for most of the night. We go to sleep to a whole cacophony of different sounds, especially crickets.

Overall, we have had both ups and downs. The local people are wonderful and really welcoming. We are deliberately not bringing out our cameras for some time, as we need to be seen as members of the local community, rather than tourists. The poverty and hardship in the area is beyond what we imagined. It is going to be really hard to work out the most useful contribution we can make. There is very little infrastructure to aid development. People’s lives revolve around getting clean water and it is no wonder that education is not seen as a priority by many. It really brings home the preciousness of water, and we will never think of water in the same way again.

It is now Saturday and we have employed a local woman to do our washing and cleaning. She works 7 days a week to try and put her children through school. The other VSO volunteers employ her as well. We are spending time relaxing, reflecting and reading, and we hope that we will be able to buy bicycles soon. Planning variety in our meals is challenging, but our toaster offers a new range of possibilities. We’re even getting excited about the idea of poached egg and beans on toast!