A day in the office (and when to lie on a local broom!).

Today has been a good day in the world of Em in Ghana. Up early and fresh from a bucket bath, my walk to work was, as always, a fun affair. Firstly, I kept tripping over these bright pink little things that were scuttling about everywhere, and realised that it must be piglet-bearing season for the pigs! I also then realised that it was these little pink rascals that were competing with the children for "who can make the most noise outside the Nasara's bedroom window and wake her up at 5am" this morning! On my journey everybody said 'hello!' and 'nasara!', and 'fine morning!', the old lady asked me if I am married yet (answer = no, not since the last time you asked, which was only yesterday after all), and I was invited, again, to have my hair washed by the hairdresser on the corner (what, exactly, are they trying to say about my crazy blonde frizz-ball of a mop???!!!). Finally, I made it to the lovely air conditioned pretty little office (very lucky I know) where I was happy to find out that, for a change, I would be spending the day. Phew, as much as I love going out 'in the field', it's kind of nice to have an office day once in a while, especially when the heat has already reached 35 degrees and I am absolutely melting, and that's only at 8am!

So today I was helping out with the write-ups of 'Disaster Preparedness Plans' that have been taking place in two of the rural communities in this district. It's a really interesting piece of work, as the communities here face the real threat of disasters during each season of the year. For some, when the rainy season comes it can lead to major flooding, especially those who live and farm by the White Volta river. Many people may lose their homes, and even more importantly their crops that they have been tending to for months, and that they would be relying on for their livelihoods. During the dry season, there is risk of bush fires, and in the harmattan windstorms can blow the roofs off their houses, and again wreck crops. Mix this with the problem of potential epidemics, such as CSM (cerebral-spinal meningitis), the issue of Malaria, or the outbreak of Cholera for example, and you get an idea of the extent of the challenges they face.

The plans are thus put together by the communities, with the support of NGO's, the local government, and the Ghana Fire Service, the police and so on, in order to help them reduce the risk of disaster, and develop systems for early warning and prevention.

What really interests me is the way that the people there are really in tune with nature, and read the signs around them to interpret changes in the environment and potential problems that they may be about to face. Things like the fruiting of the Sinsibi, Dawadawa and Baobab trees, the arrival and crowing of particular birds, and the invasion of locust grasshoppers, can all indicate changes in the seasons, and help them identify otherwise unpredictable (without the lovely ITV weather girls anyway!) changes in the weather and climate. Even things like the position of the moon, or a snake in the house, are said to be signs of oncoming disease. Well, if there was a snake in my house it would be a sign of a sure panic attack and major bout of hysterical screaming at least!

The rest of the day I continued with my relationship building, chatting to anyone and everyone that I met. The offices are quite a hub of activity, and many people come in from the surrounding communities to see the different programme officers here. There is Education, Health, Water and Sanitation, and the Child Sponsorship Programme. In the Child Sponsorship Office there were letters from sponsored children going out to their sponsors in Korea (I always wondered whether those letters you receive from charities that you make donations to were really real!), hundreds of sponsored children's details being inputted into the database, bright red school bags being packed with notebooks and pencils ready for distribution, and at one point a truckload of desks arrived to be shipped out to some of the schools that the 1,500 sponsored children attend. In the Health Office, people were popping in and out with queries about their micro-finance loans, about health programmes being run in the schools, and about the CSM vaccines that are to be distributed soon. The Education Office was handling a 2-day workshop on Conflict Management, and the Water and Sanitation colleague was inputting his toilet-related stats into their reporting paperwork. It was really interesting to see the different work going on, the team here work at really high speeds to achieve huge targets and its really impressive the range of things that they do in one day!

Other highlights of the day:

Having a PIE for lunch (woweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee a PIE!). It randomly had an egg in it (boiled egg pie haha) but nevertheless it was a pie and it was yum.

Learning that if I get Cholera I can treat it by boiling and drinking Guava leaves. For Typhoid it's mango leaves. And for pneumonia I should lie on a local broom. Of course. And if I have rheumatism all I need to do is boil the bones of a donkey and bath in them. Sorted.

Relaxing on my couch at dusk listening to the Muezzin call for prayer and the general bustling of town after my busy day at work J.

xx