Last Chance to Be…

WEDNESDAY 3RD JANUARY 2007

TRAFFIC

The traffic to this website has doubled since I left. A week or so ago it made the list of the fastest growing web sites hosted by wordpress.com. Amazing huh? I must have written something vaguely amusing. However, just like Homer Simpson, my brain has some kind of storage limit and as I now have some work to do, there is not too much room for amusing stuff.

While the going is good…….

PICTURE IN YOUR HEAD AN EMPTY CARDBOARD BOX…..

….then you know exactly what our spare parts department looks like.

To celebrate my own popularity I am making my first appeal. The success of this one will determine whether I bother having another one. It is time for all the nerds reading this to do something, which involves going OUTSIDE! What I want you to do is this. Look around your skanky computer desk or box of bits and really look in it. Take out anything which is not too bulky, which you considered throwing away, but that meant standing up, but actually works, put it in a jiffy bag and send it to me.

Jonathan Barratt
VSO Volunteer
St Theresa Centre for the Handicapped
PO BOX 37
ABOR
VOLTA REGION
GHANA

The computer room here is amazing by Ghanaian standards. We have eleven computers - six Pentium 3s and 5 Pentium 1s. However, we have absolutely no spare parts at all. If a stick of RAM dies, for example, that computer is out of action until we can get to Accra and pay outrageous prices for really poor quality replacements - if it can be found at all.

So things which would be useful are, network cards, sound cards, graphics cards, RAM (PC100, PC133, SODIMM only - DDR hasn’t really reached the developing world yet), patch cables, blank DVDS/CDs, small network switches, USB Flash Drives or anything else small enough to post in working order. A CD/RW (the disk not the writer) would also be really handy. Cheers. If it fits in a small jiffy bag it will probably escape the attentions of customs. Please make sure whatever you send works. I would hate to bribe a customs official to get hold of an old sock. Also, DRIVERS for any hardware is kinda essential, as there is no Inet (yet).

Something else, which would really help me to actually do my job, would be one of those inkjet refill kits. You know the ones you get in PC World for £5? They are impossible to get here. The classroom has a printer but access to supplies is limited so I figure one of those refill kits would really help.

Cheers!

PS I should add that the classroom is not networked at all. This is a major problem for me, as I have to teach networking among other things. Also I want to do a network install of an Encyclopaedia program so the kids can teach themselves when I am not there. I am working on a project to network the entire classroom separately to the ‘G Geek Appeal’. If you are a wealthy philanthropist and you want to help with this please contact me separately by text 00 233 24 911 5816.

Alternatively, if everybody reading this sent me a wireless PCI card I could network the classroom in an afternoon. You can’t imagine the difference a simple network makes to a classroom environment.

HARMATTAN

The Harmattan has arrived in hardcore fashion. Going outside is like a polar expedition. It’s an icy cold 28 degrees outside and very windy, with half of the Sahara desert in the air. Going out results in chapped lips, dry skin and sand in places I didn’t know existed until I found sand in them.

For me it’s quite pleasant, in some ways anyway. For your average Ghanaian it’s a freezing cold inconvenience. I have seen several people wandering around with winter hats and ear muffs on.

The other good news about the Harmattan is it makes it too risky to set your fields on fire. Setting your fields on fire is almost a leisure activity here.

I was under the impression that burning your fields assists the sun in breaking down the soil and turning it into sand? Here it is used as an alternative method of sweeping up leaves. It is also a way to trap fleeing wild animals, such as rats, which can then be eaten.

(Given the choice I have yet to decide if I would rather eat a barbecued rat kebab or grilled pussycat. Fortunately, this is unlikely to be a decision I will have to make any time soon, although I have been invited to eat both.)

So as soon as the poor fields get a break from all the burning, the Sahara blows a load of sand all over them. I told one of the students here about desertification and he laughed at me like I was crazy.

‘Sahara desert getting bigger? Burning is bad? - heh crazy man.’ Pfft.

SATURDAY JANUARY 6TH 2007

FOOD

Ok next week I start cooking for myself so here is the tantalising menu I have created so far.

Breakfast

Coffee or tea

and

- Porridge followed by an orange -

Or

- Sugar Bread and Honey followed by an orange -

Lunch

- Sweet Potato and Mackerel -
- Sweet Potato and Egg -
- Pasta and Mackerel -
- Spicy Pasta (Pasta and Powdered Red Pepper)
- Rice and Mackerel -
- Spicy Rice and Beans -

That’s about all I can think of - if you have an exciting recipe for me please text 00 233 24 911 5816

The available food items are

Tinned Mackerel (swap with tuna or sardines with or without tomato sauce ad nauseum)
Rice
Sweet Potato
Powdered Red Pepper
Beans (white things with a black mark, about the size of a Birds Eye pea)
Garlic
Onions

The ARE other things I can buy here, I just have no clue what to do with them. Such as,

Okra
Peanuts
Flour
Mono Sodium Glutamate in fun sized packets
Corned Beef
Tomatoes
Really Skanky Looking fly ridden dried fish
Peanut Oil
Plantains
Yams
Cassava

SUNDAY 7th January 2007

THE THINGS I MISS

If I recall, way back when I made this site I made a list of things I would miss. There are three which I think about most of the time; the Internet; TV and Chocolate.
I have very slow unreliable access to the Internet about half an hour away. There is slightly better access about 90 mins away.

Ghanaian TV in the Volta region is one state run channel which isn’t very good. Also, I don’t have a TV or a six foot pole on which to put an aerial.

Ghanaian chocolate is grim. I was told it was ok before I got it. Trust me, it’s not.

What is odd however, is that I realised I have missed the BBC World Service. The last time I listened to it was in 1994 when I lived abroad for a year. In geek speak, the BBC World Service ‘owns’.

It is also better than it was back then too. Saturday afternoon is a special treat when they join Radio 5 Live for football coverage. Cheers beeb. Mind you, I would still love to watch Match of the Day instead.

What’s interesting about the Internet, TV and Chocolate thing, is that if I had the Internet, I would be able to download TV but the food ads would be torture.

School finally starts tomorrow. I think I am prepared. We will see.

TUESDAY 9TH JANUARY 2006

In true Ghanaian style, school is going to start three days later than planned. Tomorrow I will mainly be sending text messages, along with looking for a TV, aerial and a six foot pole.

WIMAX

In searching for ways to get Internet access at the school I have come across various possibilities, most of which require a landline. The nearest available copper wire telephone line is 10km away, too far to be useful.

There is potential for GPRS through a company called Areeba, but they are an administrative nightmare to deal with. It transpires I need to make a six hour round trip to activate the service on my phone, not that I have a signal. I suppose I could climb up a tree with my laptop and see what happens.

Satellite is out of the question as it is too expensive and there is no Wireless service around here that I am aware of. I did recall reading about Wimax, a non ‘line-of-sight’ wireless technology but again, life without Google is a poor excuse for an existence! Wowzer, Tough City, Hardlifessville. If anybody knows anything about Wimax please get in touch. Thanks.

I discussed the possibility of selling local handicrafts via the Net with one of the staff today and he thought it was an amazing idea. Help! I need to be connected!

On a more positive note, I found out I can send emails via Text Message on my mobile phone. Unfortunately, I can’t receive replies and am limited to 160 characters. Still, it’s a step in the right direction.

I FOUND POTATOES….

Kind of. I am on a promise, a Ghanaian promise, that a lady at the market is going to have some Irish Potatoes on Sunday. Winner. If I had an oven I would roast them. As it is I think I will deep fry them! Cholestoraltastic!

FRIDAY 12TH JANUARY 2006

Well I finally did some work after all this time, two and a half days of it to be precise. I forgot just how tiring teaching is. Last time I stood in a classroom and taught was 1993. My students are hard work in some ways and easy in others. My lesson planning needs work, that’s for sure.

Having had the last five weeks doing pretty much bugger all I am now finding it harder to write these entries. I guess that’s because everything was difficult when I arrived. Living was hard and writing my thoughts down was a great way to take my mind off them.

I have got used to some of the difficulties and am now very busy. Going to the shite café, however shite, used to be a pleasure. Now I have work and washing and cleaning to do, in between work, rather than in between organising my mp3 collection. Not going to the shite web café, seems like a good way to save time whereas before, my efforts went on wasting time.

Sooner or later I will take a picture of my students so you can see them. They are very cool but need a lot of teaching to get them up to a decent standard of IT literacy. Wish me luck.

I’ll be back in a few weeks to let you know how it is going.

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKK MALARIA UPDATE

So there I was lying in bed on the morning of Saturday 13th January 2007 planning my trip to the shite web café, when I felt a bit funny. I skipped breakfast (unusual) and set off.

I didn’t get too far when I felt a bit peaky. I came home and went back to bed. I stayed in bed for the next three days. I got up a few times during this time, but only to vomit or excrete something from the other end.

I felt cold, which was quite pleasant, but obviously wrong. Every time I stood up, the effort was enough to make me want to sit down again. So I just stayed there, snuggled up in bed, listening to audio books, quite enjoying myself really.

I did have a visit from all the staff and was given an injection in the arse, along with some drugs.

I had a fever, but not so bad. Every time I vomited, I instantly sweated about two litres of fluid, but then felt not so bad again.

Of course, Malaria is not always like this. It is really only due to the Larium, that my Malaria was such a cut down version. Even with Larium, most people have worse symptoms than me.

So yeah, I am hardcore, I had Malaria and recovered enough to write this on the third day (it is currently Monday 15th January). I only had one day off work. I haven’t eaten too much and my appetite hasn’t come back but I feel fine.

Malaria is known to recur and get worse and all sorts of other things, so I might need a blood test and such, but ultimately, I think this proves how incredibly mighty I am. The reality, of course, is that I am mighty enough to take Larium, most people chose a softer option.

My trip to the shite web café got delayed by a week. Maybe I will go next weekend, unless I am fighting off Ebola with a few aspirin, until which time…cya.

Sunday 24th December 2006

Before I start I should answer the question posed last time around. Why are oranges so called? They are not called oranges because they are orange. This is news to me. In fact it opens a wider question of which came first, orange the colour or orange the fruit. I have no idea. Anyway, oranges are called oranges because the FLESH is orange. Oranges, I have since found out, are in fact green.

So as you know by virtue of the fact I managed to update this site the last time around, I found a half decent Internet café. It’s in a place called Aflao, on the border with Togo.

Aflao is a chaotic place about an hour away. The border into Togo is right in the town itself. As a consequence the place is teeming with all sorts of illicit trade that border towns in Africa seem to have. Black market money changing seems to be the major industry. Most people in Aflao presumed I was a rich Javu and not a voluntary worker and so I got hassled,  a lot.

At one point I had about ten children following me, pointing at their mouths, asking for food or money for food. Every now and then a money trader would threaten them with a stick or a stone and they would run away. Unfortunately, they didn’t do this to save me from feeling awful, but so they could have exclusivity on the hassling stakes. At one point two men actually started arguing about who shouted Javu at me first, therefore giving them some right to hassle me to change up some dollars.

You live and learn and I learnt this. When you arrive in Aflao don’t go into the first shop you see and buy a cold Tango. The Tango may have cost 6000 Cedis, about 30p, but to a homeless Ghanaian this is a small fortune. As a comparison, Pure Water, the equivalent to a small carton of Volvic in the UK, costs 200 Cedis. I had spent about 30 times the going rate for a cold drink and then proceeded to tell the kids I had no money, yeah right.

Every day I am reminded of a very cruel irony caused by the originally good intentioned charity workers in Africa. A while ago Louis Theroux’s dad wrote a book about Africa. (I forget the name and being without Google makes life tough.) The book explains, or at least illustrates, one of the biggest problems facing development, the good intentions of the past.

By providing ‘free’ aid in various forms a lot of damage has been done in Africa’s past. Charity is everywhere here. Driving to Aflao for example, it seems like every other building is a mission or charity or object of some sort. In the village here alone there are at least four projects going on.

The result of all this, or the result of a lot of this, is that a high percentage of people say to me ‘Javu give me money’ or similar all the time. Everybody thinks I am rich. Most people think if they befriend me, they will be saved. In a shop the other day when I said I didn’t have the money to buy a TV the shop assistant looked at me as if to say ‘But you’re white you could buy this shop if you wanted to!’

Another time a few days ago the Police pulled over the Tro Tro I was in. Normally they do this to ask for a bribe from the driver but on this occasion it was to ask why there was a Javu in the vehicle. Javus, I am told, can all afford to buy their own cars, so the Police were curious. I had to explain that I live and work here on a Ghanaian wage so Tro Tro is the only way to travel for me. They huffed at this and let us on our way. After we pulled away the guy in the seat next to me asked me to explain the real reason I was on a Tro Tro. Harumph.

So back to the cruel irony thing. In order to change this perception of Javus, charities are now behaving differently. VSO themselves have been guilty of this in the past and I would like to think that most if not all NGOs and charities recognise this problem and have been addressing it for some time. VSO is now about ‘Sharing Skills, Changing Lives,’ and tries to make its work sustainable.

When the kids come up to me in Aflao putting their hands to their lips and I have enough to feed them all for a week as change in my pocket all I want to do is help them. Not giving them money is the cruellest but best way of doing it.

Just now, as I was watching a football match between the village and the campus, one of the boys walked off the pitch, came over to me and very aggressively insisted I buy them all drinks from an entrepreneur who had turned up with ice creams in a cool box. I told him I wasn’t in his country to buy things for him. My reply was cold and harsh. His reaction was angry but fortunately in Ewe so I couldn’t understand him.

I don’t want to justify why I am here to anybody, but for those reading this thinking what is it you are doing, then just to clarify…..I am here to provide opportunity through education, not ice cream.

So the cruel irony for me is that every day here people ask me for money and every day I say no.  For anybody that has read Mr Theroux’s book and question whether or not how prevalent this problem actually is, I would say it is a massive problem at least here in this part of Ghana. Twelve paragraphs to explain why I am a tight wad for the good of Africa is excessive. Sorry.

Oh yeah, you know those yellow banana things? Well they are green too. I need to check out a theory but I did notice that in fact all fruit is green in its native state. Let me think, Mangos, Water Melon, Limes, Apples, Coconuts, Paw Paw, Bananas, Custard Apples, Oranges - all green. Hmm I just remembered there is a mango here called a yellow mango because it’s yellow, must be an exception.

Mangos are a curiosity here for me as they come in so many different shapes and sizes. So far I must have eaten about 5 different varieties of mango. Just recently I have been treated to giant green mangos which taste absolutely incredible.

A NATIVE FOOD I LIKE

Yes I did it. I found a native food which is not a fruit that I actually like and doesn’t have a burnt taste like most things here. The item in question is a biscuit that you buy at lorry stations (lorry = tro tro = bus/coach). As they are not imported and made locally they are affordable and delicious. They cost about 10p for a massive pack of them. Although I still pine Hobnobs, they are a fine substitute.

I have found a few other local foods I like but I can’t always get them, the finest of which is plantain chips, which taste just like crisps but without all the crap that crisps have in them. They are fried in peanut oil. I have no idea what the nutritional value of peanut oil is, I guess the same as peanuts? (vegetable fat? Protein? Who knows)

THE MYSTERY TURDS

When I come back from dinner in the evening or wake up in the morning I go through the same routine. This involves checking all the nooks, crannies and behind the gas canister for frogs and snakes or worse, giant cockroaches. Most times I just see the hind legs of a fleeing gecko. Occasionally I find gecko poo. Both of these are fine by me.

For the last few days, however, the same routine has revealed some larger boulders of excrement. Sometimes it doesn’t require much finding at all as it sits proudly under my dining table. Today I promised myself I would have a thorough search and find the source.

As I have kept stuff off the floor and have few possessions it didn’t take long to find the frog who had moved into the space at the back of the fridge. I say frog, I think it might be some kind of giant toad. I say this due to the size of its faeces.

After a second Benny Hill moment involving me, a toad and a broom, I finally got the thing out of my house and came to the stark realisation that Snakebuster ™ had failed. Tragic. I will have to work on an improved version. At least it wasn’t snake turd.

EDIT: I think Snakebuster is working after all, but that this toad slipped in when I opened the door at some point.

After all the excitement I celebrated Christmas by having a party. This involved breaking the media rationing and watching a film and an episode of the Mighty Boosh. I am watching my films in alphabetical order and this was the first one I had allowed myself, 8 Mile. I remember thinking the last time I watched it that it was ‘good’, whatever that meant at the time I don’t know. Much later and 3000 miles away, it was awesome. Pure escapism and thoroughly enjoyable.

The Mighty Boosh was recommended to me and I am so glad I bought all sixteen episodes with me. The first one was class although incredibly trippy which is not what you want when you’re on Larium. I shall have to remember to watch them on Fridays as this is 6 days away from Larium Saturday.

OHAWU ROAD

After a month of being here I am doing quite well on the audio book rationing. I would be lost without them. I am currently about half way through Snow Crash by Neal Stevenson. The book takes place in America in the future, in a suburb called Oahu. The main road in the book, mentioned frequently, is Oahu Road. This is one crazy coincidence as I found out that the mud road does have a name after all, Ohawu Road. Nuts Huh?

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Happy Xmas etc. Feels great to be away from all the commercial crap in the UK. So much wasted money and resources on bits of useless plastic. In other ways it doesn’t feel so great. I am on my own pretty much most of the time while the school is on a break and I know my family are all together eating good food.

Do me a favour, next time you eat some good food, make sure you enjoy it. By good food I don’t mean Tesco Finest or Caviar. Good food by my new level of standards is what I would call normal food a few months ago.

Let’s imagine by some miracle, you could buy cheese and onion crisps here. If you could, the potato would be cheap and bruised. They would be stale. The flavouring would be non-existent or would not taste like cheese and onion. If you were really lucky, they would even be edible. So next time you tuck into your packet of Walkers, savour every bite.

This isn’t a slight on Ghanaians either, just the way it is here. Manufacturing is stifled by corruption and poverty. Imports suffer the same fate.

This morning I went for a walk to savour the Christmas spirit. As I walked past the mobile phone reception area I got a bunch of comedy text messages from a friend. Cheers. I was laughing away when some kid on a bicycle approached. It was the same kid from the day before at the football match who had spewed verbal abuse at me for not giving him money for ice cream. He was carrying a half dead chicken.

He told me his name was Pele and he wanted to be my friend. I mumbled ok at which point he said great and he would visit me later. Errrr no. I am really getting to be useless at this. I told him I was too busy for visitors and that he didn’t want to be my friend yesterday so why was today different. At this point I clearly deeply offended him and he cycled off, his chicken uttering its few last clucks as he did so. Happy Christmas to you too.

I wish I had taken up the offer to go to the beach with the other VSOs. Although, today one of the staff here has said he will take me off into the bush to go and see some real Africa instead. We will see what happens.

FLIPPIN ‘ECK

So this afternoon I met up with one of the students who is still here for Xmas as he lives down the road. He had promised to show me around the backstreets of Ohawu Road so we went off on our bicycles.

To say that cycling around with an empty stomach on Christmas Day in blazing heat, down a mud road in the middle of African felt odd would be underselling it.

What an incredible experience. We cycled around going to various villages. Most were celebrating Christmas by dancing around some drummers. None were expecting me to turn up.

When I did ‘bowl in’ on my cycle everything went nuts. Immediately, I was surrounded by children. All of them came running up to me and just stared and smiled at me. The parents were also surprised but refrained from running up to touch me. Mostly they just smiled and laughed at their kids.

Because of the school being run by an Italian Catholics, the kids were calling me ‘Father’ and ‘Ciao’ and seemingly thought I was going to heal them or save them or something. Tragically, I lacked the Ewe to tell them I was ‘just a guy.’

In the first village I would guess there were maybe ten families so that’s about thirty or so kids, or, to make the maths easier, three holding onto each finger, shouting ‘father’ and ‘Ciao’ at me and smiling. Isaah, my guide, and I looked at each other and laughed loads at the sheer insanity of it. It’s not often a stranger walks into town round here, even less often a white one. When they do I gather the kids don’t get as much attention as I gave them, so chaos ensued.

As much as I tried to tell myself this was all an over reaction, I am just here to teach a few kids how to use computers, to the villagers this was a real event.

The same hilarity followed in the next few villages and I promised them all I would come back with my camera next week. I also said I would bring a present but I haven’t thought of what yet.

The further you go up Ohawu Road, the more beautiful Africa gets. You leave behind the piles of rubbish and the burning fields (I haven’t mentioned those yet have I) and see some amazing scenes. As I tend to go out and about between 4-6pm, you always get a stunning sunset of one sort or another too. On the way back I saw something else in the bush that you don’t see in the villages or towns in Ghana, a public toilet! Yes that’s right, they may piss everywhere in the towns, but the bush is civilised.

Saturday 30th December 2006

HAPPY NEW YEAR

It’s nearly 2007. Nothing much has happened in the last few days. I saw Pele in the village this morning and he waved. I waved back by just raising my palm an inch or so. A few seconds later Pele called over to me and waved again, this time he was tugging the shirt sleeves of his friends to make sure they were looking. I am starting to learn that some people want to be my friend not to ‘visit me’ but so they can somehow elevate their status by being seen with me. Status and respect are serious nouns round these parts.

I have been working on my lesson plans for the last few days. Being productive in extreme weather is tough. Most people seem impressed with how I cope with the weather. We will see how I cope when I have to stand up in front of a class and talk for several hours a day.

I loaned my portable hard drive to somebody the other day. Among other things, it has 41 films and the complete Alan Partridge collection on it. He managed to watch the whole lot in a matter of days. I am spacing them out over two years!

I received a parcel today, just a test from my mum, and nothing had been stolen from it (as far as I know) and I didn’t have to go to Aflao to bribe a customs officer to give it to me. Awesome.

NEW YEARS DAY

So tomorrow I plan to go to the local shite net café, which means you get to read my waffle but you miss out on the pictures I took today. I went off on another bush trip. This time the expedition was led by a crazy alcoholic who just plied me with drink the whole day. I tried to explain about dehydration and such but he was having none of it. So I cycled like 15k in blistering heat, ate nothing, sweated loads, consumed very little water and drunk too much alcohol. Joy. I had to draw a fine line between being insistent and being rude and eventually got some food and water. I got back three hours ago and am still recovering.

I took a few pics, nothing special but did get a really good one of a guy showing me how he distils palm wine. If the shite café lets me, I will upload it.

For my sins, I am starting to ignore the bad and enjoy the good. I am sure things will swing the other way soon but for now am quite happy here. Even small villages in the African bush throw up surprises now and then.

For example, the local spot (bar) doesn’t sell much but I did find out it has a stock of UHT milk. This is pure luxury to me. My only other source up until now had been a six-hour death-defying round trip to Accra and now it’s a 10 minute cycle ride away. Mint. Mixed with the Oats that I have now located I get to have porridge in the morning made with FULL FAT UHT milk - pure gold.

I haven’t visited it yet but I also found a new shop in the middle of the bush yesterday. Hidden between a few trees and mud huts there is, wait for it, a video shop! Insane or what, they rent out SVCDs at 10p a night. Crazy. I have yet to see what they have in stock. Allegedly they stock Nigerian Juju movies and American films - we will see.

Another thing I found is a barber’s shop, which somehow shows live premiership football. I have no idea how this is achieved round here ad there is only one TV station and it blows goats. The shop does not have a satellite dish either. I shall have to go for a haircut to investigate.

As a mental note to myself I must remember to tell you about the Celine Dion phenomena, but that’s for another time.

Ciao.

PS no time for spell checking, proof reading or comedy insertion. as usual.