Church and the Country Club

On Saturday my friend Lise and I decided to head over to the outdoor pool that the power company here in Tamale recently built for its employees. At 10am it was already smokin’ hot, but I decided not to get too excited about the prospects of a dip in the pool until I actually saw the facility. Lise and I were the first to arrive at the pool that morning and we couldn’t believe our luck. The pool was quite nice with grass along the deck and a number of tables with umbrellas to sit under. The change rooms were clean and there were real toilets WITH toilet paper (oh the things we take for granted at home ; ) haha. It was wonderful to lay out in the sun and cool off in the pool and we were soon accompanied by a number of other expats who seemed to have the same idea. It seemed quite surreal that after a 10 minute taxi ride beyond clusters of goats, stands selling fruits and yams and people driving in all directions, we found ourselves at a this “country club” complete with an outdoor pool, 2 paved tennis courts and a clubhouse. Clearly this discovery will become a staple of my weekends in Tamale! : )

During the evening two new Canadian expats came over to the Jungle Bar to meet Lise and I. They are also CIDA interns but they will be here for 9 months living in some of the village compounds. I give them a lot of credit because it’s quite remote in some of those villages & suddenly my situation seemed pretty cushy, even without hot water. We were later joined by many of the regular expats that we spend our evenings with and a couple of the Ghanaian guys who also come by to visit and check out the rugby games. Our South African friend has got us all on the Rugby World Cup bandwagon so we often huddle up around the tv in the Jungle Bar and cheer on SA.

On Sunday I had arranged to go to church with a Ghanaian family that lives nearby. We all squished in their Nissan and bounced along to some lively Ghanaian music on our way to Saki-Saki, an area of town that’s just behind Post Office Road. My experience in church was probably the greatest level of culture shock I’ve experience to date…both in Ghana and in my lifetime. The majority of the service was conducted in Ewe, a local language spoken mostly in the eastern part of Ghana. A large gospel choir sung their way up to the front, accompanied by a band consisting of a drummer, an electric keyboard, a trumpet, and some ladies with tambourines. Everyone sang and danced, some people even left the pews to dance up to the front while others used their handkerchiefs as streamers, shaking them around in the air. I was the only foreigner (ie. the only Caucasian) in the room and felt stiff as a board trying to muster some courage to at least clap along and look less like the white girl who can’t dance. haha The whole service was more vibrant than anything I’ve ever witnessed in a church and if I had to compare it to something in Saskatchewan it would resemble a big, old school wedding in Starsbourg hall with people givin’ er on the dance floor doing the polka. A family friend around my age named Pearl was assigned to look after me and help me out throughout the service. She was very kind and nonchalantly cued me in on when to stand and sit down. But her friend on the other side of me embraced my attendance as a great source of entertainment. She made me join some of the other women on a dancing trip up to the alter and giggled as I tried to shimmy like they did when they danced up to the front again to drop their offering in a big basket. This will definitely go down in the books as an experience I’ll never forget! The 9am service finally came to an end around 1:30pm with everyone covered in sweat and merrily heading out to the patio for another half hour of chatting and munching on some Ghanaian treats that remind me of Tim Bits. I returned from church exhausted and collapsed on my bed for a solid 2 hour nap.

THE TOILET ISSUE

I almost hate providing this detail, but if I’m to be portraying what life is like for me here, then I must mention the toilet issue at Tamale Polytechnic. The pipe running out to the school is broken (I’m not sure how long this has been the case) and therefore there is no running water on campus. This means that the few real toilets that do exist cannot be used, leaving two alternatives:
1) Head to the bush- my fear here is that I’ll run into a snake or that my blinding white bum will be spotted by one of the little kids who always yell “Slaminga” at me anytime they see me.
2) Use the “outdoor toilet”- This is a concrete box with no roof, separated into two sides- one for females and one for males. When you go in you are to pee on the concrete floor which has a pipe at the end of it draining to the grass outside the concrete box. Since the floor is flat, and not angled down, I think most can imagine the number of problems that can happen.
For now I actually cycle back to TICCs at lunch to use my toilet and end my work day when I can’t hold it anymore. I’ve seen some construction on the side of the road near the school and I’m hoping that they’re fixing the pipe for when school starts in October ; )