The Village – a day in our life…
Apolgies for lack of pics - technical hitches...
Alarm clock for 6am – Maria dashes to the outside loo 5 minutes away with her usual complaints about spiders, cockroaches and mosquitoes (Tsyome is great but has more flying / biting things than anywhere we have been!)
6.10 – Dave jumps out of bed pretending to have been preparing things for the day, but usually just gets the mosquito net tangled up.
6.15 – Hot shower! Our host mother ‘davi’ (sister) Elizabeth prepares hot water for her baby each day and after a subtle question about this one day we now bathe in bucket heaven!
6.30 – The dash to hand wash our clothes before breakfast, washing is needed more often than you would expect. 3 big bowls of water, a lot of washing powder and a perfect system in place once you add us to the equation.
7.30 – Breakfast once the dishes from last night have been washed, today’s water boiled and the floor swept. We could have fruit and other good things but usually end up with bread and tea.
8 – Leave for the site and start work.
8 to 9 – The villagers come between these times. They have this 1 hour window because people are often busy with chores or may have visited the farm earlier and that’s how it is here! If anyone is late they get a 1,000 cedi fine – but I have never seen or heard of this happening.
Mr P. Dant (Mick, Alex?) – Thanks for the comment on the last post where I said "10 to 150 villagers helped us at the start of the project" – I meant 100 to 150! We can’t seem to find the erroneous posting now so please ignore this if you have no idea why I’m rambling on about my dodgy grasp of numbers.
We work with two alternating groups of about 30-40 villagers on most days when there is no market or other special event. The market is every 4 days in Ho and this is the only time when the local bus system operates in Tsyome. The market is important because most people in the village farm and the market is the how they sell their produce.
Tro tro taxi (10-30 people depending on vehicle size) – 8,000 cedis
Chartered taxi (like a normal taxi) – 80,000 to 150,000 cedis depending on luck and knowing the right driver.
9.45 – Debate with the lactating mum’s (babies attached) versus the men. The only one we’ve had translated so far was on God’s intention: Breasts: “For Babies or Men?”
Maria’s comment on this was ‘Men are babies anyway, so what’s the difference?’
10 – First aid break for stone splinters in the finger, Ghanaian and other!
11 – The first ‘I am tired’ complaint (as above). The sun is so hot here that if you spend a couple of hours banging away at stones (to use in the concrete for the building floor and columns) you tire fast, men and women, old and young, even in the shade.
The blokes here talk often of manpower with a mixture of pride at their strength, but they are also highly aware of the benefits that machinery brings.
It is amazing how much sweat I have been producing – Not a pretty sight or smell. Maria seems to be okay though, the main concern she wanted to tell all the ladies is that there is a lack of tanning opportunities, so be easy on her if she looks white in the photos!
12 – Close for the day with the roll call. Always brings a laugh when any of us says anything and this is no different. :-)
12.30 – We have a lovely lady, Sinorita, who comes to help us cook and show us the correct way to do everything associated with this. There is quite a lot of cabbage stew, but this is always a winner because it’s very spicy, salty and tomatoey.
Last night we had Maria’s favourite, fried yams with stew and fried fish. Maria has been eating some of the smaller fish whole. The giant field rats called grasscutters are also good, but I failed to eat the jaw (it still had a full set of teeth and tongue sticking out - Ming!)
1.30 ‘Chop’ time, ie lunch.
2 – wash up.
2.30 Shower. This one is colder but still warm after the water drum has spent a morning in the sun. Welcome after the morning’s work.
The Harmattan brings the dry season for about 4 or 5 months. There is water in the village for the start of this period thanks to a couple of deep bore holes. However, after these are used the groundwater dries out so that the village has to walk 2 miles to the next village where there is a deeper bore hole. Even this one dries out and the walk gets longer still. During the wet season the rain water is collected in the drums from the roof gutters.
We are learning about this as we are coming into the first month of the dry season, no doubt I have got some bits wrong and will correct later on.
3 – A sleep or read. Nice
3.30 – We have been helping at the junior school recently due to a teachers strike. Now the strike is over and we are working out how best to help and even if there is any use in us helping. We work when the children are in class and they are not so keen to come to an afternoon class after a day at school, and often have chores to do such as collecting water etc. We are looking at doing a couple of days a week of after school sports and / or English conversation classes. Watch this space, I think it may change.
5 – 6.30 time to cook and eat dinner. Often hot meals like lunch, always spicy and tasty!
7 – 8 Cards and maybe a bit of informal teaching. We sometimes have Tsiami and Tobaco (the elder responsible for security) over. This coincides with volunteers coming and going. We have become good friends with both these two and they bring us fruit and we buy them beers! I’ve never been much of one for spirits, but the Herbe Afrique Bitters that we often drink (with some sweets to take away the taste) turn into great nights and we have a dance and sing Danish drinking songs. My dancing in particular is very popular. ;-)
830-9 – Bed and peace from the kids.
A bit about the children… They are everywhere! They have no toys really and go around in hand-me-downs that are tattered and spend a lot of their time beating each other up in WWF or Kung Fu styles. They are a little crazy, and obviously loads of fun. We have our favourites and try to give everyone our time. It is odd being so much in demand. Back home the kids would sooner study than spend time with us!
Alarm clock for 6am – Maria dashes to the outside loo 5 minutes away with her usual complaints about spiders, cockroaches and mosquitoes (Tsyome is great but has more flying / biting things than anywhere we have been!)
6.10 – Dave jumps out of bed pretending to have been preparing things for the day, but usually just gets the mosquito net tangled up.
6.15 – Hot shower! Our host mother ‘davi’ (sister) Elizabeth prepares hot water for her baby each day and after a subtle question about this one day we now bathe in bucket heaven!
6.30 – The dash to hand wash our clothes before breakfast, washing is needed more often than you would expect. 3 big bowls of water, a lot of washing powder and a perfect system in place once you add us to the equation.
7.30 – Breakfast once the dishes from last night have been washed, today’s water boiled and the floor swept. We could have fruit and other good things but usually end up with bread and tea.
8 – Leave for the site and start work.
8 to 9 – The villagers come between these times. They have this 1 hour window because people are often busy with chores or may have visited the farm earlier and that’s how it is here! If anyone is late they get a 1,000 cedi fine – but I have never seen or heard of this happening.
Mr P. Dant (Mick, Alex?) – Thanks for the comment on the last post where I said "10 to 150 villagers helped us at the start of the project" – I meant 100 to 150! We can’t seem to find the erroneous posting now so please ignore this if you have no idea why I’m rambling on about my dodgy grasp of numbers.
We work with two alternating groups of about 30-40 villagers on most days when there is no market or other special event. The market is every 4 days in Ho and this is the only time when the local bus system operates in Tsyome. The market is important because most people in the village farm and the market is the how they sell their produce.
Tro tro taxi (10-30 people depending on vehicle size) – 8,000 cedis
Chartered taxi (like a normal taxi) – 80,000 to 150,000 cedis depending on luck and knowing the right driver.
9.45 – Debate with the lactating mum’s (babies attached) versus the men. The only one we’ve had translated so far was on God’s intention: Breasts: “For Babies or Men?”
Maria’s comment on this was ‘Men are babies anyway, so what’s the difference?’
10 – First aid break for stone splinters in the finger, Ghanaian and other!
11 – The first ‘I am tired’ complaint (as above). The sun is so hot here that if you spend a couple of hours banging away at stones (to use in the concrete for the building floor and columns) you tire fast, men and women, old and young, even in the shade.
The blokes here talk often of manpower with a mixture of pride at their strength, but they are also highly aware of the benefits that machinery brings.
It is amazing how much sweat I have been producing – Not a pretty sight or smell. Maria seems to be okay though, the main concern she wanted to tell all the ladies is that there is a lack of tanning opportunities, so be easy on her if she looks white in the photos!
12 – Close for the day with the roll call. Always brings a laugh when any of us says anything and this is no different. :-)
12.30 – We have a lovely lady, Sinorita, who comes to help us cook and show us the correct way to do everything associated with this. There is quite a lot of cabbage stew, but this is always a winner because it’s very spicy, salty and tomatoey.
Last night we had Maria’s favourite, fried yams with stew and fried fish. Maria has been eating some of the smaller fish whole. The giant field rats called grasscutters are also good, but I failed to eat the jaw (it still had a full set of teeth and tongue sticking out - Ming!)
1.30 ‘Chop’ time, ie lunch.
2 – wash up.
2.30 Shower. This one is colder but still warm after the water drum has spent a morning in the sun. Welcome after the morning’s work.
The Harmattan brings the dry season for about 4 or 5 months. There is water in the village for the start of this period thanks to a couple of deep bore holes. However, after these are used the groundwater dries out so that the village has to walk 2 miles to the next village where there is a deeper bore hole. Even this one dries out and the walk gets longer still. During the wet season the rain water is collected in the drums from the roof gutters.
We are learning about this as we are coming into the first month of the dry season, no doubt I have got some bits wrong and will correct later on.
3 – A sleep or read. Nice
3.30 – We have been helping at the junior school recently due to a teachers strike. Now the strike is over and we are working out how best to help and even if there is any use in us helping. We work when the children are in class and they are not so keen to come to an afternoon class after a day at school, and often have chores to do such as collecting water etc. We are looking at doing a couple of days a week of after school sports and / or English conversation classes. Watch this space, I think it may change.
5 – 6.30 time to cook and eat dinner. Often hot meals like lunch, always spicy and tasty!
7 – 8 Cards and maybe a bit of informal teaching. We sometimes have Tsiami and Tobaco (the elder responsible for security) over. This coincides with volunteers coming and going. We have become good friends with both these two and they bring us fruit and we buy them beers! I’ve never been much of one for spirits, but the Herbe Afrique Bitters that we often drink (with some sweets to take away the taste) turn into great nights and we have a dance and sing Danish drinking songs. My dancing in particular is very popular. ;-)
830-9 – Bed and peace from the kids.
A bit about the children… They are everywhere! They have no toys really and go around in hand-me-downs that are tattered and spend a lot of their time beating each other up in WWF or Kung Fu styles. They are a little crazy, and obviously loads of fun. We have our favourites and try to give everyone our time. It is odd being so much in demand. Back home the kids would sooner study than spend time with us!
posted by David & Maria at 7:54 AM
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