Ghanaian blog post week three
Another week, another blog post from Tamale in northern Ghana. This week was a week of phone calls and fixing our best laid plans and achieving goals from our project target list.
As always, Monday is the logical place to start, although I will admit that it was also the time for me to finish by finally posting the blog for week two. I spent the morning uploading the post with the help of my expert gramma checker and photo selector Helene [pronounced LN because she is half French, injecting a frisson of je ne sais quoi in to the team].
While we were telling the world about last week, a number of volunteers were hard at work writing up the accessible games we have created so far as well as creating more. Our aim is to have a booklet of accessible games that we can leave with the schools when we do the school visits later in the project. The booklets will contain both written instructions and pictures of the team playing each game to help teachers to run activities that all pupils can take part in.
Lunch appeared to be following a Monday tradition, as team leader Chris brought water melon in and shared it around. I chose to eat mine outside as I suspected the water melon may have been as messy as the pineapple from last Monday. I was wrong, it was far messier! Only now do I truly understand the name, that fruit was more water than melon and the fact that I didn’t stain my shirt is testament to the skills Nikita taught me last week, blind luck and the fact that I really need a shave.
The afternoon was split in to two parts, one where we continuously rehearsed our scripts for the radio interviews booked for Tuesday, the other was all about testing the instructions in the games booklet.
For the latter part of the afternoon Ross and Jill were our guinea pigs, reading the instructions for Ring of Sound and attempting to organise an obedient class of school children [played by us… with glee]. The game was a success, although Ross and Jill may have found it easier if they had read the instructions all the way through before starting. [Always read the label and always read the instructions kids. Important life lesson to be learned.]
Tuesday was radio day, not only did we have 2 radio appearances booked in but Sasha had organised a meeting with a third radio station’s manager. Unfortunately, the manager meeting was at 8 o’clock in the morning meaning that Mahe and I went alone on our way in to work. The meeting went well, despite some scheduling complications, and we were able to add a third radio booking for 8:15 the following morning.
Once we had arrived at the office, the radio team began rehearsing again, aiming to keep the interview down below 15 minutes. Unfortunately, our first interview with Zaa Radio was postponed until Wednesday, a fact we discovered on arriving at the studio, however our 3 o’clock interview at Angel FM radio was a tremendous success. The presenter gave us half an hour, double what we were expecting. The interview was in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere that even allowed for me to make a few comments at the beginning and end which was an unscripted treat.
There were five of us on the radio team, making for a quiet day at the office while we were out. The office was further emptied by the trip that team leader Pricilla, Hamza and Nikita took to visit the chief of Tolon. For the full account I will let Nikita take up the story.
It was an early start, we were leaving the office over an hour before anyone else even arrived. We travelled to Tolon (Hamza, team leader Priscilla and I) as well as Mr. Tom and our own driver Safian. We arrived and waited at the chief’s brother’s house. We passed the time by staring at the TV, although I honestly can’t remember if it was even in English. [I blame nerves about meeting the chief].
After a short while we were taken over the road to the chief’s palace. We removed our shoes, climbed the stairs and sat outside the palace on chairs that had been arranged for us, honestly it was like I imagine having tea with the queen must be.
Team leader Priscilla was called forward and presented the chief with a gift of cola nut, he then returned some to her and she had to chew it. This shows mutual trust and respect, he respected us enough to give us a gift and we trust him by chewing it. You wouldn’t know it by taste but cola nuts were the original flavouring for Coca-Cola, [how’s that for solid quiz knowledge Richard].
After introducing ourselves and stating that we’d like to work within Tolon for our project, we told him about our aims. The chief was very accommodating and offered us land in the future to build a resource centre, although more short-term, he arranged for us to visit the Tolon Senior High school with his brother.
We visited the school and met the headmistress, she was one of the loveliest people I have met here. She kept saying that we were welcome, offered us water and as she initially thought I was American, she quickly shared stories about her Grandson who was born and raised in America. She was also very quick to offer us space to carry out a goalball training session.
She offered us Tuesday 1st or Saturday 5th. We quickly chose the Saturday as we believed attendance would be greater here. We looked around at the large outdoor classrooms and she stated that she would put us in contact with the PE teacher to arrange any equipment we could borrow from the school.
After exchanging contact details, we returned to drop off the chief’s brother. I also nearly got left behind on the instruction of our driver Safian, who suggested that I should become a wife of a chief, but it’s been agreed I’ll be left behind at the school visit instead and get married, [Dylan is heartbroken, sorry Dylan but it could never work].
Back to Richard to continue
Wednesday was a radio rodeo, starting with about 20 minutes on radio
Justice at 8:15 and followed by a 12 o’clock appearance on Zaa radio. Both went fantastically, especially as team leader Chris promised me a goat if I gave his teddy bear, tough ted, a special thank you shout out. He now owes me one goat. I have told him I would settle for a fried piece of goat however Chris has told me he will find a live goat and train it as a guide goat.
You may have noticed that, even with travel times, there were a few hours between our radio interviews. Well done, that’s very observant of you. This time was not wasted as it was the turn of Mahe and me to introduce a new or adapted game to the group.
A short test found that cane cricket as I had envisioned it would not work, so instead we created an adapted version of the children’s game of “duck duck goose”. The original version has a ring of children sat in a circle with one protagonist moving round and GENTLY tapping each person on the head and saying “duck” or “goose”. When a player is goosed they must chase the gooser round the circle. The gooser must get round to the now empty space and sit down before being caught by the goosed party. In the adapted version, we asked people to stand in a circle and wear blindfolds, allowing players to trail the circle along shoulder blades rather than heads. Even with this safety adaptation the ensuing chase sequences were more like a cross between blind bumper cars and a highlights reel of Big Daddy verses Giant Haystacks. We think maybe the game will work better with children weighing in at 30 or 40 Kg as opposed to 100 Kg muscular goalball coaches.
Those not attending the lunch time radio appearance were busy starting work on the two complete portable goalball courts that we hope to leave in Tolon and Walewale. This is a painstaking operation of measuring out lines, tying the lines to the correct rings then ironing black plastic bags to the knots to act as glue. Each team area is made separately, each team area needing 28 meters of rope with eight joints connecting them. The ropes can be carefully gathered up and wrapped around a piece of cardboard for storage. If done properly a goalball court can be laid out in short order, our current record is 19 minutes although team leader Chris is confident that we can get it down to 10 if we cut out the faffing.
Thursday was an ever necessary day of paperwork and planning, checking the accounts, discussing Friday’s sensitisation in Tolon and scribbling notes about the week so far for a blog… also being thoroughly distracted by an adorable toddler who wandered in to the office and wanted to hang out with his uncle Mahe. In an otherwise dull and uneventful day, the one-year-old using a folded up white cane distracted one volunteer so much during a meeting that I considered getting out the blindfolds.
After the main work day a group of us trooped over to the International Service office to look at what Ross has been doing. Surprisingly the iron was left on the shelf, instead we examined the beginning of a prototype cardboard Goalball court, using the same techniques to start building a cardboard draughts board. Ross also showed me the drain pipes that he thought could make a usable set of goals, this was an exciting development as I have really been struggling to orientate on court without a goal. [The clue is in the name, goalball, the goal is crucial].
Friday started early, a seven o’clock taxi from the office was booked to take a small group to Tolon, at least that was the plan. Scheduling complications are simply part of life in Ghana, so we only found out late on Thursday just how many people we would be taking to Tolon, meaning that two taxis full of volunteers left at 7:45 with surprised team members still wiping the sleep from their eyes as they had been drafted in late and rushed to the office.
The sensitisation was at a meeting at the chief’s palace and seemed to involve a great deal of drumming. As we arrived the drums were in full flow so I didn’t hear Hassana’s advice to remove my shoes, making me the only person in the packed pavilion to be wearing shoes as I was embarrassed to find out later. Eventually I did hear one comment from Hassana, “dance!” this is a request I rarely need to hear twice. I have not yet learned a utilitarian Ghanaian dance, so I used the Thai dance moves I know. [It was a choice between Thai dancing or big fish little fish cardboard box, it was the diplomatic option.]
The presentation went very smoothly, despite not having rehearsed anything. Amadu in particular impressed us all with surprising public speaking skills. After our 15 or 20 minutes of English with Mahe translating in to Dagbani, Mr. Tom gave an extra 15 minutes of Dagbani comedy gold. I don’t know what he said but he had the 150 or so audience members in stitches and even got some spontaneous “bodum bam” drumb beats to underline his punchlines.
In the afternoon we re-joined the rest of the team in working on the production of goalball kit. I am personally working to generate all the pads that the world will ever need out of plastic water sachets, but the main focus of the team is on eye shades and knee pads made of old camping mats. Our aim is to have at least two teams worth of equipment before Saturday the fifth of May when we are hoping to run a goalball training session in tolon and leave them with all the kit they need.
And so we draw our third week to a close, a week of publicity. A week with three radio interviews, two trips to the chief’s palace in Tolon and a teeny tiny toddler, [who I admit is unlikely to spread our message very far but was cute as a button]. Next week will contain a public holiday, our midterm review and the first ever performance of the REACT volunteers goalball team.
Until then it is good bye from Nikita and Richard
Good bye
Richard Wheatley and Nikita Slate are both visually impaired UK volunteers.
Richard has a degree in theoretical physics from Lancaster University while Nikita plans to study economics at Warwick University later this year.