In The Field Pt. !

So, about the last blog entry, the blank one, I was trying to post a couple photos, which people keep asking for, but they kept failing to upload, so I will try again later.
The next couple blogs will be adaptations of something I had to write for the program to put on the web, so if anything sounds redundant, that’s why.
After my first two weeks in the Catholic Relief Services office in Tamale, Ghana, I was re-energized with opportunity to go out into the field and visit some of the project sites. So far most of my time in the office had been spent reading reports about the current projects and their progress, re-writing and organizing pieces of writing to create newsletters and other publications, and letting the staff members use me for my slightly superior knowledge of Windows and Microsoft.
So, on Tuesday, January 27, I was leaving Tamale, the dusty, red, bustling capital of the Northern Region. With the level of poverty, dry landscape and a predominantly Muslim population, it is a world away from the southern half of Ghana, where I had spent my first two weeks in the country.
I left with Osei, the driver, and Ishaque, the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer, to head into the upper west region to visit rural communities taking part in the NGO’s Global Water Initiative, a multi-faceted project that includes the drilling of boreholes (for water-pumps), digging of latrines, and planting of trees, as well as education in sanitation. We would be gone for about 6 days.
Within minutes of departing we were out of Tamale. A few more minutes later and we had left the comfort of the pavement, and were barreling down a deep-red dirt road. At times it was washboard, at times it was deep and soft. The style of home changed from village to village. Round and square mud huts with thatched roofs at first, and the farther we moved north, the more they looked like angular adobe settlements like we frequently associate with the American southwest. Occasional concrete buildings were built for projects set up by NGO’s, or spreaders of the good word: the churches rectangular with sharply-sloped roofs, the Mosques with minarets adorned with a crescent and star. English on one, Arabic on the other.
After the four-hour drive, through which I was unable to read project reports due to the condition of the road as well as my fascination with what was going on outside, we arrived in Wa, the capital of the Upper West Region, which shares a border with Burkina Faso and Cote d’Ivoire.
We arrived later than expected, and were unable to meet with our partner NGO as planned. We checked into our guesthouse, a small building within a large compound of dorms and classrooms at the local school for the blind. For dinner we had some fufu, with groundnut, soup and guinea fowl.
The next morning we had that meeting with that NGO, ProNets, who oversees the drilling of the boreholes and training of those who build and maintain the pumps. Apparently there had been miscommunication, certain documents had not been looked over, and other things forced us to reschedule the meeting for a couple days later, when we would be passing through the town again.
Then we headed north and had another meeting in Nadowli. This time it was with the District Water and Sanitation Team (DWST), the government agency that we partner with to implement this program. Again, it seemed that we would need to meet on the way back to take care of more issues. It seemed as if a lack of communication (whether it was poor facilities, or a failure of the people to effectively communicate, I don’t know) was a significant obstacle that this project was facing.
Some more driving north and we arrived in Lawra, a tiny district very close to the northwesternmost corner of Ghana. We had a meeting with the DWST and proceeded to head out with them to two of the ten rural communities that this project is working with. Their mission was to conduct interviews with individuals in the community as well as have a group community discussion. I hoped that I could figure out a way to be of service. My scope of work here is to use my journalism skills to write human-interest stories and take photos for the NGO's publications. I knew this would be difficult as there was a very limited amount of time for me to work, as well as a lack of translators.
When we arrived in the first community, Pavuu Yegartenga, I followed one of the two men from the DWST to conduct an interview with a head of household, a hobbling middle-aged man with a cane in a relatively large mud complex. My “photo ops” were of his surviving mango saplings, contributed by the GWI project. I quickly fulfilled that requirement and asked about the condition of their water source. The drilling for the borehole had yielded almost no water, so the village was still getting all their water from a nearby “river”. I asked if I could see it, while they conducted their interviews, I followed the man’s son there. Now, it was not one of those dramatic 3-hour walks you hear of some people making in parts of Africa, but we went probably a kilometer before we arrived at the watering hole. I couldn’t imagine having to walk that far any time my water ran out, and return with about 5 gallons in a metal bowl atop my head. Worse yet was the condition of the water. It was not a flowing river, but a tiny, still pond that I assume becomes part of a river during the rainy season. What’s more, this was also the watering hole, and therefore defecation spot, for livestock and other animals. As I watched and took photos, women and children from both sides of the pond came down to get water, giggle at the pale guy, and helpfully point out the 5-foot crocodile hanging out on the edge of the water.
The next community that we visited, Koro Bagangu, was noticeably free of an crosses or crescents, which I confirmed later meant that it was of the 10% of Ghana that maintains traditional animist beliefs. This had little significance for the moment, though, as in the hour we spent there we were mostly concerned with the quality of water in the village. Luckily the borehole here was drilled and successfully found water, however the pump was yet to be in place (within the next two weeks I heard) and they were still using next village’s pump for drinking water, and the closer “dugout” for washing. I was taken for a look, this time by a small entourage of children and a couple adolescents. The dugout was a small ditch dug under a cluster of trees that holds water. It was predictable filthy, and was told that it would dry up within a month, making me, and I am sure the village more so, hope that the pump was in place in time.
Due to an extremely well-fortified language barrier, communication with community members, for me, was impossible. I would have liked to get one of the local translators to help me, but they were all helping with the interviews, which dealt with a fairly narrow view of their life: latrines and water sanitation, and we had a limited amount of time to work. I think I made some nice images, though, that could help to pretty-up some of the publications and compliment any stories dealing with water that I may write. After finishing up in the second village the sun was about to set and we had to get back to town.
Back in Lawra we had tea and bread for dinner, as food options in this little town were limited to non-existent. Afterward I noticed that due to the lack of power in the town, the stars were extremely bright, and, just like I always can back home, I noticed Orion the Hunter directly above us. I asked Ishaque and Osei if they knew about constellations. I then had to explain what they were, to which Ishaque replied sternly, “We do not have time for such things.” Good point. I laughed sheepishly and went on with my evening.