It's Malou and Rachel's last day at Tiyah before they go travelling, so we have a final meeting on Saturday morning with Helen, Small Paul and Big Ahmed (not the Ahmed from my house). To be honest it's a pretty uncomfortable meeting - we get the distinct impression that Malou and Rachel haven't really endeared themselves to Tiyah, they get slightly critical of the set up saying that they felt the intro information was inaccurate and that there was too much sitting around, but it seems to me that this is the kind of programme where you get out what you put in.
They strike me as a little bit too immature to be proactive enough to make a real impact... Anyway a fair bit of tension and some uncomfortable silences have to be endured, on the bright side it gives us a little bit more leeway to impress!
After the meeting, we travel into Kumasi and visit the National Cultural Centre to see Lucas - a man who works with Tiyah and runs a dance & drumming troop. We're too late to see the performance, but spend a bit of time at the centre looking through the cultural stands - then a couple of beers in town with Small Paul and Lucas, where we also try the local spirit Abedashi - which is kind of like gin, but doesn't taste quite as strong. Maybe a few more nights on it to come.
Lucas is a really friendly guy, and his work with his dance group includes taking in street kids and orphans, unfortunately for Laura he gets a little tipsy after a couple of beers and declares his love for her. Which is unfortunate.
Sunday 12th July
I break a long held habit as Laura and I go with Small Paul to visit the local Roman Catholic Church in the spirit of giving everything a try. Unsurprisingly, it’s a bit different from your average RC service back in the UK…
As we go in we meet one of Achiase’s main chiefs, who’s delighted to see us at his church. We sit at the back of the half finished breeze block church to observe rather than participate, and although the service is in 90% Twi I get the gist of what is happening – even recognising some of the prayers by their rhythm. The locals get so involved in their worship it’s fun to watch, drumming, gospel music and dancing they throw everything into the service.
All Ghanaians that I’ve met so far are hugely religious – whatever denomination they choose, which is a bit of a strange comparison to the west, when you might have thought people here had so much less to be thankful to God for… perhaps they have more reason to hope?
Big Paul takes us around some of his friends in the afternoon – feel a bit like we’re being shown off like his latest car or TV set, but there’s a real spirit of generosity and friendship so it doesn’t matter.
Then in the evening we go to worship the other Ghanaian religion – football. Every Sunday men and boys from the village gather in the centre of Achiase for a makeshift game. With doubts about my skills and stamina in the heat I politely decline the invitation to play and instead watch as a committed group of guys play a decent standard game on a bumpy pitch with Big Paul even getting involved. Think I’ll have to play next time.
Monday 13th July
Our first day proper with Tiyah, and we have a morning meeting to run through the agenda for week – a combination of school presentations and community visits, and we also run through a background on Tiyah and some of the aims of the project to get a bigger picture.
Laura and I donate the posters, leaflets and DVDs that we brought with us which all go down a storm, and gets us off onto a good foot with the guys. Its news to both of us, but the role isn’t exclusively concentrated on HIV and AIDS, in fact tomorrow we are delivering a presentation on animal bites to the teachers at a local Junior High School. It feels odd to me to be lecturing to teachers rather than the other way round, but we head into Kumasi to hit the internet and planning on the subject… nothing like last minute cramming!
The evening is spent at the compound playing cards and messing around with the kids. I’m beginning to spot an unfortunate trend at dinner time as we have another tomato based sauce, much to my own surprise I’m giving it a bit of a go – albeit tentatively and mixed in with a LOT of plain spaghetti.
Tuesday 14th July
Up and out early, it’s the day of the first presentation for all three of us, and we head over to the village of Ntribouho to talk to the Junior High School teachers. It’s a nice looking concrete school with several large classrooms, but we set up on a large table under a tree in the playing fields which makes a nice spot for the lesson.
I’m pleased, but a little concerned how well the presentation goes – the teachers are very happy to see us and listen attentively, but I’m surprised that so much of the information we’re passing on which seems pretty basic to me is new to them. The importance of cleaning and covering a wound to avoid infection for one thing. Sometimes people seem much more developed and educated than I expected, when something like this just demonstrates completely the opposite.
The headmaster praises the talk, and invites us all back to the school to lecture to the pupils on any topic we like, which is flattering, is a slightly terrifying prospect.
After the presentation Paul spring a bit of a surprise on us – we head into Ntribouho town to pitch up at various hairdressers etc to talk about HIV & AIDS, it’s just the basics, but with the focus on animal bites we’re not really prepared for it. We run through our presentation with Paul translating, although in truth he ends up doing most of the speaking with us feeling slightly like a spare part… but it’s the first time out. Afterwards Paul explained that even though we didn’t say that much, even just having a white face sitting there nodding along meant the hairdressers were much more prepared to listen, which is a pretty sad state of affairs.
The reality of the situation here starts to really hit home when we meet a very nice, pretty young lady (I guess around 23) who is worried that she may be carrying HIV. The team at Tiyah have been talking to her for some time about going for a test, and will even travel to the other side of Kumasi with her to help ensure anonymity
Big Paul’s taken a bit of a shine to me which is great, but he’s also decided that I’m the fount of all knowledge and is calling upon my services to install a new mother board into his PC, I’ll have a look at give it a bash but I don’t know a mother board from an ironing board…
Back in the compound there’s a bit of tension tonight and there’s a big meeting all in Twi between both Pauls, Helen, Theresa (Big Paul’s wife) and Ahmed. Apparently there’s a bit of friction between Theresa and Bernice – it sounds like Theresa is a bit jealous of Bernice, who’s much younger, and speaks very good English so we all get on very well. Now I think Theresa wants to cook, clean for us instead… despite spending all day at the market, and not really speaking any English. Can’t see it happening.
Wednesday 15th July
…More trouble with Theresa as we’re woken up at 5.30 by her on a crazed cleaning spree, making us all feel a bit uncomfortable as we get ready for work. Apparently she was also very rude to Bernice & made her little daughter Judy cry this morning, which we’re very unimpressed with.
In the evening we decide it needs to be sorted out, as it’s making the compound a difficult place to live, so we go en-masse with Bernice to Helen’s house – about 30mins walk in growing dark, although we’re slowed down considerably by the kids who walk with us holding our hands every step of the way, and an over enthusiastic, and very possibly rabid dog Babylon. After a bit of a pow-wow with Helen she heads back to the house with us and it’s all had out again, we just pick up the odd heated voice in Twi from Paul’s apartment – I hope everything’s sorted, but remain to be convinced.
Laura and I have an enlightening conversation with Fresh G (Small Ahmed’s ‘gansta’ name, despite being a friendly Jehovah Witness) and Big Paul. Now both guys are intelligent and well educated, but they’re utterly convinced about some of the most fanciful stories about the occult and demons; from dwarf child snatches, to gold rings which turn into serpents overnight and back again, vomiting out vast sums of money in the process. They’re such strongly held beliefs that I was reluctant to question them too strongly. The people here continue to surprise me.
During the day we took a short tro ride to the nearby village of Barekese where we arranged three presentations to schools for next week – to a combination of both teachers and students. Again I’m struck by how much every teacher is pleased to see us and welcome us to their schools, even though we’re just entering the exams season. Although I’m getting used to the attention here it hit a new level at one school, where an entire classroom of about 50 pupils chanted in unison at us; “Obroni, how are you? Obroni, how are you?...” until we were out of sight.
Whilst in Barekese we also took the opportunity to pop in for a few informal chats at local hairdressers, and I’m starting to feel much more at home running through the HIV information, and am starting to get a bit more interaction going.
It’s the hottest day so far in Ghana and the old factor 30 got a bit of a work out on the way home when we stopped by the Barekese Dam, where there is a man-made lake that services water for the whole of Kumasi, set in some beautiful green countryside it’s an impressive sight, although we get stopped and challenged by an official who wants to charge us 10 Cedi per person to view the lake (I’m guessing special Obroni rates), so we shot off sharpish.
Later in the afternoon we popped into the school in Achiase where Bernice teachers for the after school ‘Abstinence Club’, I can’t imagine it would have gone down too well at West Bridgford Comp, but I’m surprised to see the club’s very well attended…
Thursday 16th July
Theresa was still on her cleaning blitz this morning, it’s looking a bit OCD now, and made for another awkward breakfast.
I’ve discovered a makeshift barbell round the side of the house – an iron rod with concrete blocks at either end, I’d guess it weights about 20-25kgs, so Fresh and I have a bit of a workout, my first exercise for a while.
We headed into another local village called Asoufua for some more community work, and we made a real breakthrough with one woman in particular, she recently had a baby, but doesn’t think the hospital tested her at all for HIV – although they are legally required to. So she was very grateful to us for explaining HIV for the first time, and is very keen for us to come back and speak to her church group in more detail. A younger girl in the same house is also pregnant and hadn’t had the test either so went off immediately to demand the clinic gave her the correct tests. Feels good to know we can make a difference.
After that Small Paul and I talked to a group of lorry drivers about HIV, which actually turned out to be a lot of fun with some quality banter going on – they really love it here if you even speak a few words of Twi so were loving me introducing myself in the local lingo. There was one tricky moment when I was asked whether HIV could be transmitted spiritually – this idea is deeply ingrained for the locals, so it’s pretty hard to deride, had to find a balance of saying “well obviously I’m a guest in your country, so respect your beliefs”, and “well that’s just bullshit pal”.
This evening we were sitting outside chatting when I spotted a smallish snake moving across the courtyard behind Big Paul. He shot about three feet in the air when I alerted him – I kind of forgot how dangerous snakes can be here. Fresh beat the snake to death with the end of a broom handle & dispensed of it in the bush.
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