Sleepless in Sakalo

Tiffany, Penny, Bernhard, Louise and the kids in Sakalo

Alliteration AND pop culture reference in my title, off to a good start already. I thought I should let you know a little of what I’m actually doing in Tumu. My (hopefully) forthcoming prayer letter should tell you a little, but I won’t have a lot of room there, so I’ll write a bit about it here, with some more details on the interesting bits so far.

I’m here with the rather broad designation of “working with youth”. Pretty much every part of that is vague; there is no word for youth here, and they don’t really understand the concept, so it’s been left fairly open for me. A few clear opportunities have emerged that Penny and others have pointed me towards and which seem exciting. One is with the local Bible Church of Africa (SIM’s partner church). There are 3 young guys, the pastor’s son, nephew, and another guy, Jason, Sylvester and Sam. I’ve met with them a couple of times (they enjoy RISK too) and we’re meeting for a weekly bible study. Hopefully we’ll also do some game nights, and spend some time learning to use a computer. It’s taking some time to get to know each other and for them to become comfortable chatting with me, but for the most part they seem to enjoy our sessions.

Sylvester, Ephraim and Jason enjoy conquering the world. Ephraim still can't work out why Ghana isn't a country.

There’s also a Scripture Union (SU – it’s basically a CU) group that meets at the local high school, KanSec, where Min teaches. They have a meeting every single day from 6:45-7PM (it’s a boarding school), which is incredibly well attended given how busy the kids are and how little free time they get. I’ve been going along to many of those, and hope to get more involved, but it’s been a little difficult so far on several fronts. One issue has been the sheer awkwardness of a white guy turning up to their meetings; they deal with it very well, but it always feels slightly uncomfortable. We are always welcomed individually, and asked to say a “few words of encouragement.” The first couple of times this rather took us by surprise, and Min was put off coming, but you get used to saying something short and sweet and letting them get on with it. At one meeting they raised the possibility of my coming in to speak properly, to which I agreed, but with no date set. I went back three days later to another meeting, expecting a Bible study. Greeting the leader, I was asked if I was ready for my talk tonight. A short one, as normal? “No, long one tonight.” “How long?” “Oh, 15 minutes or so.” Despite my protestations that I was NOT prepared for that, we negotiated down to 10 minutes, and I was given the 10 minute Bible study prior to my slot to prepare. With a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, on whom I was speaking, I was able to give them something! But we’re going to try and avoid that kind of misunderstanding in the future.

The Bible study at SU

The third thing is having a youth meeting in Sakalo. Sakalo is a small village about 25km south of Tumu. Penny has already been working there for a while, doing fortnightly sessions with the women, but with the arrival of Tiffany and I things have been scaled up somewhat. We now go weekly, with Tiffany running a Good News Club for the children, and myself organising a Bible study with the youth. Our first visit though, before any of that got going, was probably the most interesting. We arrived pretty early in the afternoon, so that we could go round and greet the village. This is necessary anyway, but essential if there are new people, and it also lets Penny tell all the women to turn up that night. It takes quite a long time to go around and greet an entire village, but we still had plenty of time before dark to play some games with the kids. Now, “games” are a fairly new concept to most of these kids, at least organised games with specific rules. Plus we were working across a language barrier; it was never going to work smoothly… We started off with British Bulldog. Tiffany and I had already tried this in Accra and it worked great. We explained, and got Penny to translate a lot for us, and got the kids lined up at one edge. I was in the centre playing the “bulldog”. I shouted “British Bulldog!” and all the kids ran. Straight to me, with beaming faces. After we all stopped laughing, we retaught them the rules, with the help of a native Sisaali speaker, renaming the game “Lion”, an animal they can understand you’re supposed to run away from! After that they didn’t run towards me anymore. We also tried Red Light Green Light and Stuck in the Mud, which went fairly well, but the basic idea of a ‘tag’ game is very foreign to them, and they took a while to catch on. Penny has a parachute, one of the large multi-coloured

ones with handles, which she’s never used, so we decided to give that a try. It was fun and the kids loved it, but the parachute created a bit of a dust bowl on the dry, dusty ground!

After that it was definitely time to bath. We stay the night in Sakalo, and it’s expected that we clean ourselves in the evening and again in the morning; Ghanaians are very conscious of cleanliness and being very presentable. They all wash twice a day, even the kids, who get a big scrub down. Our “bath” is an outdoor shower. There are four mud walls, with a small gap in one of them as an entrance, and inside you have a large bucket of lukewarm water, and a small margarine tub. You wash yourself as best you can, and try not to forget your towel (I did). Tiffany and Louise joke that I’m so white the shower lights up when I go in. Unfortunately this isn’t too far from the truth.

After the shower we eat. I guess time to tell you a little about the food here! There are broadly 5 or 6 main dishes. The primary staple here is T.Z. (Tue Zafu). Made from corn or millet flour, it has a consistency similar to very thick semolina, so thick that you tear off chunks from inside a pot (though they’re quite sticky, almost jelly-like chunks) and dip it into the soup provided. In Sakalo they don’t grind the flour as much, so it has a thicker, grittier texture, but in Tumu it is smoother, which I prefer. They often serve it with green leaf soup, which is just some kind of green leaf mashed up and boiled a lot, so it’s not that great. Groundnut soup is much nicer; imagine the peanut sauce you get with chicken satay made into a soup. Basically spicy peanut stew. Banku and kenkey are two variations upon T.Z. Banku has been left to ferment, and acquires a sour taste, but is still quite nice (especially if you like injera, those of you who’ve been to Ethiopia!), while kenkey has been left to ferment even more. I’ve only had kenkey once, but I absolutely loved it. It tastes very similar to injera, very strong, very fermented, but it has more taste than banku, which I like. Fufu is my favourite Ghanaian dish. It’s made from pounded yam. Yam is basically potato, but they grow much larger and in much funnier shapes, and the outside looks and feels like tree bark. The taste is slightly different to potato, and it is much thicker when mashed. This allows you to make fufu, where they boil and then pound the yam, and form it into large lumps of what is similar to mashed potato, but much heavier. Again you tear off pieces and dip it into an accompanying soup. Rice is also very common here. You can get fried and normal at street vendors, and also jollof rice, which I love. It’s like rice cooked in a tomato based sauce and fried, and it’s delicious. I’ve found you can buy packets of the seasoning, so we’ve started making it at home, and it’s almost as good. Min and I are thinking of opening a restaurant called “Jolly Foli Jollof”! (Foli means white man, and all westerners get called it wherever they go). Rice and beans, which locals call “wahchey”, is also very good. Abu has introduced me to a great chop bar that sells it behind the Rural Bank, and we get breakfast there often.

Eating kenkey (pronounced ken-kay) with beans, with the right hand of course. I'm slowly mastering that art.

Anyway, so after eating in Sakalo we split; I go off to do a Bible study with the youth, Penny does her women’s meeting. The first week I stayed with the women. They begin with a small number, but when Penny’s interpreter shows up he brings a drum (plastic bucket and stick) and starts to play, the women sing and clap, and slowly more trickle in. They do this for quite a while, and then Penny does a talk. I thought when she said she had an interpreter that it would be in English; no, she does it in Sisaali (Tumulung, the dialect we speak) and it gets translated into the local dialect! Bear in mind Sakalo is less than 20 miles from Tumu; the language variation here is huge. After she finished, the praise and worship started again. The women sing and dance and ululate; this is hard to describe, but it’s sort of a high pitched shriek that undulates up and down, made using their tongues. They were absolutely determined to get me to dance, but I was equally determined not to, but Louise and Tiffany were more willing, and Louise has learnt to ululate too, which they love. The singing and dancing just went on and on and on, for probably 1 ½ hours. For the entirety of which Penny and I were sitting and clapping, and poor Louise and Tiffany were dancing! Eventually just got up and told them she had to go to bed, and they finally eventually stopped. Wasn’t the end to my night though. We eventually found a place for me to sleep (my host had decided to go to Tumu and not return), but it wasn’t easy. Penny gave me a spare roll matt, and I’d brought a pillow, so it wasn’t too uncomfortable. Unfortunately my new host apparently enjoys a lot of noise and light while he sleeps (and we all sleep in the same room). He was listening simultaneously to the radio and some kind of Islamic history lesson on his phone, which a bright torch shining across the room. I did manage to sleep in the end, but it wasn’t easy! At least I did sleep; Penny and the girls had one night outside with a dog barking most of the time.

After waking up at 6 (Ghanaians start early. You have to when it’s almost impossible to walk around outside by 10) the girl bath again (I escape by pleading I will at home), and we have a breakfast of tea (green leaf) and crackers, and head off. It does mean we’re back home nice and early! Going to Sakalo is an interesting experience then, and one that has its ups and downs. My sessions with the youth have been mixed so far, but are hopefully on the up. We’ve had weeks with good numbers, and weeks with a small few who knew it all already.

The last time we went to Tumu I took my bike along and cycled home afterwards. I wanted to see how long it took. I have a plan to start a group at the church with the youth on Sunday mornings, as they don’t currently go, but I hope they would if there were a group for them to go to. This would only really be possible if I had a way to get myself there and back; hence the trial cycle ride. It’s 25k, and I did it in just under 1 hour 20, but I think I can manage a little quicker. Unfortunately right at the start I discovered my tyre was nearly flat; thankfully Bernhard found a pump, or the title of this blog might have been Stranded in Sakalo; Penny had already left!

I think I will go now and eat some homemade rice and beans. I’ve mastered the art of homemade baked beans here; perfect for Sunday evenings!

Our House

Our house is not in the middle of our street. Well, it sort of is, but it’s hardly a street. Min and I are staying at the guesthouse in the SILDEP compound. SILDEP stands for SIsaali Literacy and DEvelopment Programme. I’m not still not 100% sure what they do, but broadly they translate materials into Sisaali. There are a huge number of motorbikes in the compound that go in and out every day, I think back and forth to the villages. There’s a Sisaali New Testament, and the Old is nearly done. I have a copy which I take to church with me, but not having much success.

There are four buildings inside the compound; the main guest housebuilding on the left in the picture, our building on the right, the translation office behind that, and another house under construction behind that, where Margaret and Justin, the couple who run things, live. The rest of the space is taken up with a lovely garden, where Margaret grows lettuces (rare to buy here, so great we can just get them from the garden), runner beans (also very rare), papaya, guava, aloe vera, moringa (you use it in soap, good for skin infections apparently) and a host of other things.
The place where we stay is just a bungalow, with three rooms and a large entrance area with a kitchen off that. As we walked in and looked around, Min and I were both thinking and saying exactly the same thing; “WOW!” It is far nicer than we had ever dared hope for. We have our own rooms, which are en suite, and even have their own fans and AC (though I don’t use mine). Min got a bigger room, but I got a queen size bed and a huge bathroom. The kitchen has two rings, a fridge freezer, a water filter and was fairly well equipped with kitchenware. Penny might also give us her spare oven. Possibly the most unexpected thing was the TV! Our hopes were raised by a note describing how to put it onto “BBC, CNN, Joy Sports…” and further by Penny mentioning they showed Premier League football games on terrestrial TV here. It turns out we get two channels, if we’re lucky; GhanaTV, and whatever they’re watching in the main block! Thankfully that seems to be football often enough (though African Cup of Nations, not Premier League). Anyway, we are managing to cook for ourselves well enough, though I’ll probably do another post soon enough about shopping and sourcing ingredients, which is interesting in itself.

We’ve got to know some of the people who work here quite well. Joseph is a sort of general handyman, who has shown us how to slaughter chicken (and use every single part inside…), chop down popo, carry off pink shirts on a motorcycle, and much more. There are several watchman, who work on shifts watching the entrance, and doing other jobs too, and we try to greet them often. The night one sleeps (yes, the “watchmen” sleep, I know) literally right outside my window on the benches there. This can be quite disconcerting; my bed is next to the window also, so I am often about to fall asleep when I hear a rustle and a snort or a cough about a foot away! It’s like sharing your bed. One of the watchman has a son called Hadi who we’ve got to know really well. He’s 12, and we take him to the school with us to play football or Frisbee and things. We’ve introduced him to a lot of western things that he loves; Gummy Bears, RISK, chocolate, the occasional computer game, and The Beatles. He reciprocates, and tells us a lot of stuff about life here we don’t know, and helps me with my Sisaali. He brought us a pet tortoise the other day! I am trying to find a container to put it in, so he has it for the moment.

The cutest resident of the compound is Puppy. When we arrived, he was three weeks old, minute, and adorable. He’s grown a bit since, and is a little less sweet now that his hair is wiry and his teeth are sharp, but we still show him a lot of attention. His proper Sisaali name is (here you go Chris!) Zileh Kgeng Chieh (approximately), which translates to Kindness Has Tomorrow. The older watch dog, who tolerates the little one manfully, is called Ngar Worung Ng Siee; Do Well and See What Happens.

We share our house with a politician called Patrick, who is in Tumu campaigning for the elections in November. He’s running in the neighbouring constituency, Sisaala West. He has many, many visitors coming through at odd hours of night, which can be a little irritating, but sometimes they stop and chat. One man who was waiting explained Ghanaian politics to me, which was very interesting. Patrick lived for most of his life in the UK, and is an ardent Arsenal fan.

Travel to Tumu

(Written 27.01.12)

The day after I posted my last entry, we travelled to Tumu. Not that we got there in a day, of course. Tumu is right up in the north of the country, and while it’s not quite like going from Land’s End to John O’Groats, it’s at least Scotland from southern England. We arrived at the bus station for the 7AM bus. It left at 8:30AM. This be Ghana. I quite enjoy long coach journeys, so I had quite a nice time reading, listening to music and seeing a bit of Ghanaian scenery. Accra was just built up, so it was good to see some of the countryside, which is very green and fertile down south. We also got to watch Nigerian movies! They have big TV screens at the front and middle of the coach, and believe me, there is nothing like a Nigerian movie. Imagine the worst possible overacting, simple storylines that somehow become incredibly convoluted without anything really happening, marvellously overblown characters, and an ending that comes out of nowhere. We watched Christ in Me, and it just stopped what felt like midway through, mid-scene even! This is because they stop making the film when they run out of money. And then continue when they get more; they promptly put on Christ in Me 2. I think there may have been a third, but I fell asleep. The basic plot was that a jealous woman makes her best friend’s husband fall in love with her, and then takes her to a witchdoctor who sends her mad. It was like Euripides meets East Enders.

Eventually we arrived in Tamale, Ghana’s third city, at 9:30PM; 13 hour bus ride! Penny, a Brit missionary in Tumu, and Louise, a German associate, met us there, took us to a restaurant. We then stayed overnight, and travelled to Tumu the next day after a bit of shopping in Tamale and Bolga to buy some essentials you can’t get in Tumu. G

hana were playing their first African Cup of Nations game (big football tournament for African countries), so we listened to them defeat Botswana 1-0, and unfortunately have captain John Mensah sent off. We finally arrived in Tumu at about 9:30PM again, another 24 hours on top of the coach trip.

Vehicles here often have some random slogan on the back. Saw some rather alarming ones on taxis in Accra, such as"Don't stop", that were mostly obeyed by surrounding drivers.

Our time since has mostly been taken up with orientation around Tumu, learning where the best shops are and where you buy certain goods, and getting to know people. Greetings here are incredibly important. We learnt a bit of the language, Sisaali, in Accra, and the first thing we learnt was how to say hello. Except you don’t say hello; you give a specific greeting depending on what time of the day it is, and who you are addressing (the one for the morning literally translates as “you got up well?”. Alternatively, at this time of year, people might say “has the cold left you? – despite the fact it was unlikely to be below high 20s even at night!). The greeting is then followed by a set of questions, which can range from asking about how your family is to how your work is going. All these are answered in the affirmative, no matter how things are, and the question is repeated back. It’s quite hard! So far we’ve just tended to greet, answer back “yes, it is well” (ohh-zoh-monet, transliterated) and run. Today (Friday) I met Muta, my language helper, who I will be meeting with three times a week from Monday for three weeks, to work on my Sisaali. We will meet in the mornings, I will ask him how to say certain things, and then go out and practice on people in the afternoon.

In terms of ministry then, things will be fairly limited for the first few weeks, as I settle in to the language and culture, and build relationships, while Penny, Tiffany, Louise and I work out how Tiffany and I can fit in. That said, there was a showing of an evangelical film in the town last night, which had a great response, and we got a number of names and numbers of young people, especially young men. Penny seems to think this was genuine interest, and that we could have a couple of new youth groups formed right there, so we will probably spend time quite soon following up those names. I hope to send out a prayer letter soon, but if I haven’t already (I write this without internet, so the letter may be written by the time this is posted) then key prayer points would be a strong relationship with Muta, which is key to the whole language process, and for those young people who showed interest after the film, that something might grow from that. I’m now going to go into town and try and fix my internet, which has been frustratingly complicated so far.

So three days after I wrote that I finally got my internet fixed at the shop, where it 100% worked. I took it home and it didn’t work again. Oh the joys of African technology. And customer service; Abu, the man helping me at the Vodafone shop (who admittedly I’ve come to know quite well), took advantage of the time taken to install a programme to have a look at the documents on my computer, including my photos! Thankfully it now seems to be up and running, though still not in the way that it should be.

Arrival in Accra

So, this is my first post! I literally made this blog the night before I flew to Ghana, and didn’t feel I had a lot to write then. We arrived in Accra, the capital, on Thursday 12^th January, and will be there until Monday 23^rd. I say we; I flew in on the same flight as Min, a Korean American who I will be living with in Tumu, and Tiffany, a Canadian who is also coming up to Tumu with us. She’s going to be doing youth work as well, and Min will be teaching biology in the high school there.

It sounds obvious to say it, but the first thing you notice about Africa is the heat. We arrived at about 9PM, but we were still soaked in sweat by the time we got our bags to the car. We were driven to the SIM guesthouse, where we’ve been staying. We’ve been doing on-field orientation in Accra, mostly with a lovely American called Sherri, who is in charge of the SIM associates (short termers) here. The first thing may be the heat, but the second thing you notice is most definitely the smell. It wasn’t so pronounced at night when we arrived, but walking through the streets the next day it most definitely was. I would like to tell you about the exotic and wonderful smells of spices and fruits emanating from the markets, but it’s not like that, at least not where we are. There are open gutters running alongside all the roads, and when I say gutters I basically mean a combination of sewers and general rubbish bin. It would turn your stomach if I described the contents in detail, but suffice to say it’s very black and very smelly. You get used to it quite quickly.

Some of the highlights in Accra so far have been visiting a local market, going to church, playing games with kids, and using public transport. The market actually didn’t smell too great either, with a rather overwhelming aura of fresh meat in many places. Thankfully the fish is generally smoked here, so that smelt much better than many UK fishmongers. Sherri knows the butchers (and most of the market) very well, so we stopped and chatted to them and got some photos, which is really in the markets, as they usually get very angry and upset whenever a westerner pulls out a camera (not like the rest of Ghana!). The meat was covered in flies, with one poor boy armed with a large swat trying to get rid of them. We didn’t actually buy anything at the market, but it was a good experience. We stopped and talked to most people, using the little Twi (local language) that we knew, which consisted of thank you and “ay ah” (or some equivalent) meaning ‘it is fine’, which is what you say when they offer you goods, services, or their hand in marriage! Tiffany has had numerous proposals, Min about 3, but I still haven’t had any! We think it is my incredibly pasty white skin which absolutely refuses to bow to natural law and go any shade of brown.

Going to church was very, very different to what I, or probably any of you reading this, are used to. Sherri was leading the worship, so we were left on our own in the congregation. There was no real introduction, she just started singing, and deafened us pretty much on the spot. The volume level was tremendous. Min had to outside within minutes because, as he said later, “I thought my eardrums were going to burst.” We thought the songs were in Twi, and even though it turned out later some were in English it didn’t make any difference because the words were impossible to distinguish! Everyone claps and dances in the pews along with the singing, some up at the front, something us Westerners were a little reluctant to join in on… We didn’t have much choice when it came to the offering (giving money to support the church) later on though; everyone has to make their way up to the front in what were basically conga lines to put their money in a box at the front. Min came back in for the sermon, but I thought he might have to go out again; it was almost as loud! And twice as long, as it had to be translated into Twi by an equally loud and emphatic woman. We got to mess around with the kids after church and with Sherri on Monday night at her youth programme. They are just so much fun, huge amounts of energy and excitement.

I’m running out of time to write this on my last night of broadband access in the capital, but public transport comes in the form of tro-tros. These are similar to minivans, but much lower, stripped of anything apart from seats (with extras welded on!) and the essentials for automotive movement, which hurtle through the streets along set routes dropping people off and taking on new passengers along the way. A driver drives, and a “mate” sits on the side and takes money and shouts out the destination. They are very cheap and the best way of getting around, if you know the routes. We’ve had a few trips, thankfully none very eventful, but they have been very enjoyable. You are allowed as much extra luggage as you like, as long as you don’t take any extra seats, so people get quite squished with their massive cases. Children seem to count as extra luggage!

Some lowlights so far have been bike shopping and illness. I was really looking forward to getting a new bike for a new country, a nice mountain bike that I could take up north and ride from village to village (this is genuinely what I’ll be doing in part). I think I had slightly unrealistic dreams of discovering some dirty, dirt cheap piece of rubbish that I could tell was actually a great bike, but the guys here aren’t stupid, and they can recognise an aluminium frame and carbon components just as well as I can! Most bikes, even the nicer ones, were grossly overpriced (all were second hand) and everything had something wrong with it. We managed to get quite a good deal in the end though, and I’m now the proud owner of a Trek something that should do the job adequately.

Being ill rather dominated the week. We got the bike Wednesday morning, when I had woken up with a headache and feeling grotty (which didn’t help the shopping!)It didn’t go away and I spent Wednesday afternoon in bed. I developed a fever, and spent all of Thursday and some of Friday in bed as well, puking once, sweating like mad, and then getting diarrhoea. I didn’t eat for basically 4 days. It wasn’t nice. Thankfully the SIM nurse was wonderful and gave me lots of things that seemed to help.

Tomorrow (today now) we get a 12 hour bus to Tamale. We spend the night there and then get picked up by Penny, one of the SIM team in Tumu, and get driven another 5 hours by her. Hopefully won’t be too horrible a trip. Apparently the Nigerian films on the bus are amazing.

OK, I really better sleep now, but I hope to post photos at some point, and I will get some more posts done from Tumu shortly.

This is (me), Julia, Sherri, Tiffany, Min and Linda. Linda and Julia are two German gap yearers who have been in Accra for 5 months already. They are with the same mission organisation as Louise in Tumu.