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.