North To Bolgatanga

Early Tuesday morning I travelled two hours north to Bolgatanga with Mike Wyse, one of the Project Management Team members visiting from Canada, and our T-Poly driver, Ziblim. The DREP project is a partnership between 3 polytechnics in the north and NSAC, so I was excited to meet the team members in Bolga and get some things moving up there.

Luckily the Bolga Road is one of the better highways in the north, so it was a pretty smooth ride. We started the morning off with a breakfast meeting with Dr. Batchia, one of the PMT members from Bolgatanga Polytechnic. He was an incredibly interesting man and helped us immensely over the next couple of days. He completed his masters in the UK and lived in the US for 7 years before returning home to Ghana.

Next, we had planned to do a classroom visit to one of the B-Poly classes and were anticipating approx. 50 students. But when we arrived, we were greeted with an auditorium of 200 first years. Mike and I quickly revised our game plan and got some activities started. The DREP teaching model is competency based and differs from most models here in that it is very participative. Students are sometimes shocked to find they can be loud and move around while they’re learning.

After our classroom visit Dr. Batchia took us to one of his favourite local restaurants where I gave fufu another try. Fufu is a big lump of pounded yam served with either okra soup (slimy and green) groundnut soup (think peanut soup) or light soup poured over it. The groundnut soup was delicious! (On a quick sidebar, I have to describe my favourite Ghanaian dish so far. It’s called Red-Red and it is a plate of spicy beans in tomato sauce served with chicken and fried plantains. The sweet taste of the plantains is a delightful combination with the spicy beans!)

Our next stop was a visit with one of DREP’s pilot program graduates, nicknamed “Professor”. Professor did the training in November 2005 and developed a business plan to raise guinea fowl and sell them commercially. We had an opportunity to visit his small farm and try some smoked guinea fowl. I was brave enough to try the meat even though the bird is smoked with the head, beak and talons all still attached. Grandpa would be proud!

Professor’s farm was about 30 minutes out of Bolgatanga so we had an opportunity to observe the damages that the September floods caused in this region of Ghana. Parts of the road were completely washed out with crevices up to my knees in some parts. The more devastating site was to see how dry it has become already. The land is parched and brown, the soil is cracked and baked dry from the sun and most of the baobab trees no longer have any leaves. We saw a wide stream completely dried up with nothing to indicate it had ever held water except for the curved markings in the sand. It is only the beginning of the dry season and I can’t imagine what things will look like come December. The rain will not come until April, and this is one of the areas where the food security NGO’s try to bring in food and water to prevent people from starving.

Despite the hardships that Professor’s family is facing, they were extremely lively and kind when we came to visit. I had a great time taking pictures of everyone and showing them the image on the screen. Some of the older women had probably never seen themselves in a picture. We could not understand each other but smiles, laughs, and handshakes went a long way. Professor showed us the homemade incubator he’s made by stacking small rocks all together where the sun can keep the eggs warm. He showed us the little mud huts the birds are kept in and the small mango trees he’s planted to provide shade and food for the farm. He rides his bike all the way from his mother’s house in town to the farm and carries the eggs back in a crate and transports the guinea fowl he will smoke in town with a contraption that looks like a big lobster cage.

We returned on Wednesday night in time for a quick shower (mine was a bucket shower…the water was off again) and then proceeded to the High Commissioner’s reception at the Mariam Hotel. It was a really nice, relaxed event with many of the same guests who were at the Thanksgiving celebration. The HC (Darren) and his wife, Heather were really interested in hearing about our internships and they had many stories to share themselves- they have previously lived in Malawi, Egypt, and Central America to name a few and they have just begun their three years here in Ghana. They have also just adopted a child from Haiti so she will soon be joining them in Accra.

I’m very thankful we have such a nice expat group here. Though we are all from various places in Canada we share a common bond to “home” and a common goal to try to make a difference.

Baking with Betty

Recently I noticed a rack of pastries in one of the general provisions stores. There were small cakes, mini doughnuts, and homemade crisps which I have never seen before in Tamale. All the products were packed and labeled with a small tag “Mansa Betty Pasteries” listing the price, contact information and product name. I was really impressed to see that this entrepreneur had identified the importance of labeling a product and equally impressed to find that these products were available at a number of the grocery stores and gas stations-she had an established distribution system.
As part of the public awareness campaign, I have been asked to highlight successful entrepreneurs in the northern region to provide others with a source of encouragement and motivation. So I used the label to set up an appointment to visit Betty and we got together on Friday. She told me all about the small pastry business that she runs out of her 3 room house on Lamashedu. She learned the trade in Accra and slowly built up her business by purchasing an egg beater, large bowls, an electric stove, and a doughnut maker (which makes 5 at a time and looks like a George Foreman Grill). She begins making her products on Saturday and then works through the night on Sunday so that she can deliver the products fresh on Monday. She personally visits each store to check their inventory, then drops off the new products and removes the old ones.
I wanted to profile Betty in some of my promotional work, so we made a deal: I would teach her how to make banana bread and next week, Grandma Joy’s shortbread, and in return I get to watch her whole process and interview her. So on Saturday morning I returned to Betty’s and we got to work. I had to make a few improvisations, but the banana bread turned out really well and we had a blast working together and getting to know one another as we asked each other questions and swapped information.
After we were done the banana bread, Betty toured me around her neighbourhood and took me to her friend’s baby naming ceremony. The baby naming ceremony was like a Ghanaian version of a baby shower. All the women in the neighbourhood came over to view the baby and produce a small gift. The baby was officially given its name and they shaved her head, which is a traditional practice. I took some pictures and the women loved seeing themselves on the digital camera.
I will visit Betty next week to share Grandma Joy’s shortbread recipe with her- who knew our favourite Christmas shortbread would travel all the way to Africa!!!

If You Build It, They Will Come

(Photos: T-Poly classroom, entering T-Poly, the DREP Sign, my office, the HND Block where my office is located, the crafts and diploma side of the campus, one of the smaller classrooms, the T-Poly radio station, my project coordinator Razak, the toilet I reallyhate)

After some delay, things at Tamale Polytechnic have swung into full gear. Students have returned to register for classes and lectures are set to begin next week. The increased traffic around campus has been really motivating and already there are 40 students signed up for the Entrepreneurship Club. We are anticipating a group of approx. 60! I have really enjoyed meeting all of the students who have come by to register; their enthusiasm to get involved is very inspiring. I’m hoping to get the E-Club involved in implementing some of the public awareness campaign as well so we will be very busy planning events, visiting the secondary schools, and spreading the spirit of entrepreneurship.

Hopefully the pictures I’ve posted can help you visualize the T-Poly campus. T-Poly is located on Education Ridge, a large area near the stadium where a number of training colleges and post secondary schools are located. The school offers tertiary (marketing, accounting, general management etc.) and non-tertiary courses (welding, fashion design, carpentry, etc.). As you enter the campus, on the right side of the road, is the HND (Higher National Diploma) Block where the tertiary courses are delivered. My office is located on the second floor of the block. The other side of the road features all of the craft and diploma (non-tertiary) buildings, the digital tech centre, the library, the central administration block, and all of the outdoor b-ball and v-ball courts.

An interesting thing that evolved from the advertisements for the E-Club has been a number of members of the community, particularly past T-Poly students, who have expressed interest in becoming involved. I had a hairdresser from the market near T-Poly come visit me on behalf of the micro-enterprise owners in the market to find out if they could join the club. I also had a local teacher from a nearby village come to me to see if I had some resources to share with him for the entrepreneurship training he conducts in his village. I am excited to see that there is a general interest within the community to learn more about entrepreneurship.

In one week the Canadian High Commissioner is due to visit Tamale and he will be dropping by T-Poly to see the school and learn more about the DRE Project. The timing is perfect because one of the PMT members from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Mike Wyse, will also be here for the visit. Mike and I will then be travelling north to visit Bolgatanga Polytechnic and begin some promotional work there.