Last Chance to Be…

I have been feeling pressure since I got back.

Pressure to finish this story, pressure to get a job and a place to live and pressure to report back to VSO. I haven’t wanted to do any of them.

After a long holiday I have now got a job and a new house (hooray) so just two things left to do before I can really get on with everything else.

VSO debriefs can wait………so here’s the rest of it. This is likely to be a very long post. There was no one reason why I quit, just one too many annoyances and frustrations with a very significant event creating a turning point after three months of my placement. Here we go then.

NOTE- I didn’t sign up to VSO to be a whistleblower, or to damn the Catholic Church and I don’t want to put people off volunteering either. The truth should be told however it should be remembered that this was MY experience. Yours will be different.

PART ONE - THE VSO SIDE OF THINGS

November 2006

Ok let’s take a short trip back in time, to November 2006. I arrive. VSO are disorganised but seem to care at least. Ghana is uncomfortable.

I arrive at my placement. It’s nothing like the description (expected but still frustrating) and I am told on day one that the placement is not sustainable. The reason? The teacher I am supposed to train in IT does not exist. Well he does exist but nobody bothered to ask him if he wanted to be a teacher. If they had they would have known the answer was ‘no.’

His name is Hagan by the way and we will hear more about him later! (a positive story for a change.)

Here is an extract from the VSO Website.

“The volunteers aim to pass on their expertise to local people so that when they return home their skills remain.”

The whole purpose of my being their ‘Sharing Skills and Changing Lives’ was simply not going to happen. Without a trainee, the project was simply not sustainable. It took me five minutes to find that out.

(I later learnt that my Programme Manager visited my placement prior to my arrival, took one five minute look around and then asked where to buy the famous St Theresa Centre Honey, before leaving. I was told this by the VSO Volunteer who accompanied her and he was shocked by this, particularly considering the distances and cost involved in the visit. )

At this point I should have contacted VSO Ghana and demanded another placement. I didn’t. I regret that.

Instead I decided to stick with it. My training with VSO in the UK had prepared me for all of this. I was even trained in conflict management. So in this conflict of interests, training versus expectation and inompetence, the training won.

ILLNESS

As soon as I arrived in my placement I was immediately ill. I had severe diahorrea. I later learnt that this was from the food I was eating in the priests house. (A friend of mine was later hospitalised when she came to visit and ate the very same food.)

Severe diahorea makes you dehydrated. Arriving in an equatorial country for the first time has the same affect. Looking back at that time, I was in a more serious condition than I thought. Nobody at my placement cared. I was miles from anywhere and any other VSOs. I was in a bad way and recally feeling feint many times.

It was under these circumstances that I was forced to walk to a chemist 3km away through the bush. At the time it was horrific.

The reason I had to do this was because the Oral Rehydration Sachets which should have been in my medical kit were in Accra. In fact so was my entire medical kit. I asked for it approximately 5 times before giving up. In the whole time it was there it never arrived. I blame VSO Ghana for putting me at serious medical risk. I came out of it ok in the end and I’m not going to cry about it now, it was just another thing.

LACK OF CONTACT FROM VSO

VSO hardly ever contacted me. They hardly ever returned my calls. They are administratively inept. When I did speak to them I got the feeling my use of their time was an inconvenience.

MALARIA

I got malaria. My mosquito net was not impregnated with promethrin. I did not get the promethrin treatment kit I was promised. I asked a few times and gave up.

MALARIA PROPHYLAXIS

My malaria medication is expensive. VSO Ghana took three months to send me mine. When they did send it they sent 2 months supply. In the end I just bought my own. I couldn’t even be bothered telling them or claiming the money back because of the ridiculous conversations which would have happened. Basically I paid one months wages on medication which should have been provided by VSO. I felt it was worth the cost not to have to go through the hassle of phoning every few days for a month.

The same applies for my kerosene lamp and various other things I should have been provided with. In the true style of ineptitude, I was of course, provided with things I didn’t need. Oh well it’s other people’s money. Who cares.

MY SALARY.

VSO Ghana did not arrange before my arrival with my employer how much I would be paid. This meant my first pay packet was delayed by about two months. I had to borrow money to buy food. This was followed by a series of so many errors with the amount, I gave up trying and never received my actual salary.

Neither did I receive any payslips, except for one, which was for the wrong amount. I did receive junk mail from VSO and a Christmas card sent my priority mail. Mmmm nice use of the British public’s money. Thanks.

Wow so far this looks like a solicitors letter. If VSO wasn’t a charity doing a lot of good things elsewhere, it would be.

It continues.

LACK OF CONTACT FROM OTHER VOLS

VSO Ghana keep a list of all the volunteers and their contact details, email addresses and phone numbers. This is sent out to all the Vols so we can keep in touch with each other. My details were wrong and, despite me asking, were never corrected. Thanks.

THE PASSPORT SAGA

This one is so long I could write a book about it. Lucky for VSO Ghana, I have better things to do. Suffice to say they refused to give it to me. They cited various weak excuses and treated me like a child.

They didn’t want to give me my passport in case I decided to run away in the middle of the night. The strange irony here of course is that, I did and partly because of the way I was treated when I asked for it.

Why did I want my passport? I needed it to buy FOOD across the border. It took me about five months to get my passport in the end. FIVE MONTHS! Oh and how did I get it? I went to Accra and demanded it. Thanks again VSO for making me do that. By this time I was feeling hugely insulted by VSO Ghana.

SURPRISE VISITS

One morning my programme manager just ‘arrived’ in order to do my 5 month placement assessment. The fact that I had only been there three months at this time did not bother them. I had to leave my students without a teacher at late notice.

It transpired, however, that my programme manager was only interested in buying honey. I did take the opportunity to complain about the problems I was having with my placement and with VSO. Her response was to look at her watch, buy some honey and leave. Another six hour round trip on OUR money for a 15 minute chat.

The end result of my various points raised was a rare treat later that day in the shape of a phone call from VSO, wow. Amazingly I was told that my problems might seem less like problems if I changed my malaria medication. Nice - thanks. I give up my job and my life and they can’t even be arsed to listen to me.

SURPRISE VISIT NUMBER TWO

One afternoon after class I cycled into the village. I was amazed to see a VSO vehicle outside a bar there! Curious I went in. I found a member of the VSO Ghana staff there. Wow they have come to see me. How nice.

How wrong more like. No they had come to buy honey and couldn’t even be arsed to tell me they were coming and bring all those things I had asked for. If I hadn’t rumbled him I would never have known. I presume this happened more than once it was just this time I found out about it.

I should point out that my placement was a long way from everywhere, including other volunteers. To come all the way to my school and not even say hello was one of the biggest insults I have ever experienced. I’m guessing the British taxpayer paid for the petrol too.

MONEY WASTING

Spending other people’s money is easy. This one is a tough one. If I give you lots of examples of how charities in Africa waste what is given to them, you might consider giving less in future. We all know it happens. Let’s just say it happens more than you think and leave it there. For my part I will only be giving to one charity from this point forward.

VACCINATIONS

I needed two booster jabs while I was away. VSO should be able to offer these so I called them and they told me to come in. I made it all the way there only to be pointed to a local clinic. VSO had not even bothered to check with the clinic that they even had the jabs I needed. Needless to say, they didn’t.

That little waste of time and resources cost the British Taxpayer a night in a hotel for me. Sorry.

MANGO FLY

You may or may not know about the mango fly incident. Long story. Cut short I got a fly larvae in my arm from a bedsheet in a hotel on my first night.

I complained to VSO about the hotel and they stopped using it.

I found it strangely childish that when I went to get my jabs, I found out that I was staying alone in the same hotel and in the same room where I got the larvae. This was depite the fact that VSO no longer use this hotel. Proven by the fact I met various other VSOs who were all together in a hotel up the road.

If I really thought about it, I could go on.

The examples of their incompetence are numerous and laughable.

I made two attempts to complain about the lack of support and was treated like a child on both occsions.

THE FINALE

The final hilarity ended by VSO booking my flight to leave and not telling me about it. They simply booked the flight and thought I would find out myself. It was only a chance query by me which caused me to discover I had a week to pack my stuf and leave. they had even booked my flight two weeks too early, right in the middle of the end of term exams. What a complete farce.

I then spent the next four days trying to find out the time of my flight and which airport I was flying to. I wasn’t given this information until a few days before and only then when i sent a message to the EMERGENCY HOTLINE for volunteers in trouble. Jokes.
Try arranging transport from the African bush to the capital without knowing what time you want to go! VSO seemed upset when I said I didn’t have time to visit them before leaving. Work it out for yourselves.

The next point might get me sued for lible so you will have to work this one out for yourselves too.

Here is the transcript as far as memory allows from my final phone conversation with my programme manager at VSO on the day I left.

‘Hello Jonathan are you coming to visit us on your way to the airport.’

‘No, I don’t have time because I only just managed to arrange transport and it doesn’t allow enough time to catch my flight if I visit you.’

‘Oh, ok. Well it’s just that I don’t want you to think we have been anything other than helpful during your time here. I get the impression you think we have been obstructive and not supportive.’

‘You have been.’

‘Maybe if you come in we could talk about it. I was also thinking, although you are not entitled to it, if you come in I could arrange to pay you your in placement grant.’

‘No thanks.’

Ok now you make your own conclusion from that conversation. The in placement grant is £500 and I was certainly not entitled to claim it.

So despite all of this which happened with VSO Ghana it may surprise you to know that none of that made me leave. The complete lack of support and general incompetence didn’t help but the main reason was my employer. It’s a very long story which involves beatings, medical incompetence and outrageous selfishness.

I will write part two of this back story in a few weeks time.

Sorry if part one wasn’t funny.