Village "Number One"
Published by Trevor Whitney on Wednesday, August 22, 2007 at 12:55 PM.
In my first week in Ghana I’ve gone from a city of over 2 million people, to a farming village of a couple hundred… When I arrived in Tamale I spent the first few days with some other EWB volunteers. It was a great chance to bombard them with questions and hear about some of their experiences. I also spent some time wandering around the market, trying Ghanaian food, and attempting to learn some Dagbani (the most common local language in these parts).
After a couple days in Tamale it was time to head to Damongo where I would be spending some time in a small farming village. I woke up super early and headed to the trotro station. For those of you who don’t know what a trotro is it’s a small bus but with just as many people and luggage as a full size bus. They also don’t run on much of a schedule, they just leave once there are enough people. I arrived at the station just after 6:00am only to find out the first trotro had already filled up and left. I ended up having to wait around for about four hours until the next one finally t.
After a couple of hours on a pothole ridden dirt road I arrived in Damongo. I met up with the lovely Sarah, an EWB volunteer who has been there for a couple months. I stayed with her and her host family for the night. They were really kind and I spent most of the night playing some kind of board game with the children who kept beating me!!
The next morning I got up and traveled 15 minutes on the back of a motorcycle to SORI Number One. Despite the boring name, the village is pretty unique. It’s a settlement village where families from different areas have come to live because of the fertile farming lands. As a result there are a number of different tribes all living together in a single community.
The thing that struck me most about the village was how spread out it was. I had expected all of the families to live in a particular area with the farming fields a short distance away; however the households were scattered amongst large fields of maize. As with most parts of Africa maize is the favorite crop both to grow and eat. They keep their main fields by their house so that they can easily tend to it and protect it. The farmers in the community also hold other fields about an hour walk up the road where they grow secondary crops such as groundnuts, cassava, and cowpeas.
For the two nights I was in the village I stayed with Matthew and his family. Matthew, 21, lives with his mother, two younger sisters, and two younger brothers. They are originally from East Mamprusi (another district to the east), but when the man of the household passed away they moved to more fertile farming lands.
Matthew had just finished Secondary School and had rushed back home to plant the fields before it was too late. From what I could gather this was the norm for him and most other boys in the village: no time for “summer vacation.” Go to school October to June, and spend the break working in the fields to feed your family and hopefully make enough money to pay school fees for the following year.
Left – Matthew, Right – Tarica
I spent a lot of my time talking with Matthew and his two close friends, “Papaya” and “Super.” Papaya’s real name is Tarica, but he got the nickname because in his homeland they call papaya Carica-Papaya. They couldn’t really provide me with an explanation for Super’s nickname, but you have to admit it’s pretty sweet. I told them my nickname amongst my close friends is Fletcher. From then on whenever I saw Tarica he’d yell “Fletchah, wuzzup!!” which always made me laugh.
I also got my first taste of real farm work while I was there. You know that feeling when you go to the gym, and everyone is super buff and in-shape, and you feel like a pathetic lazy bastard. Well the same thing applies to farming. Despite my overwhelming feeling of inadequacy everyone seemed to be incredibly excited that I wanted to do some work on their farm. After about an hour of weeding I was exhausted, my hands were starting to get blisters, and my lower back was starting to throb.
The following day it was time for some real farming work. No more or this casual weeding business, it was time to till a field and get it ready to plant cowpea. The community had hired a tractor to plow the maize fields, but the rest of the fields were left to be done by hand. To get the work done efficiently every other day all the farmers come together to work on one farmer’s field. Without this farmers would never be able to prepare their fields in time for the planting of specific crops. Today the village was working on Matthews’s cowpea field. It was a brand new field that had just been cleared. I have to say it was a pretty impressive sight watching all the farmers working side by side in unison. I tried to help them a couple times but it more for entertainment value. I was way to slow to keep up and wasn’t doing a good enough job.
At the end of the two days it was time to head back to Tamale to start my work at MoFA. I enjoyed my time in “Number One” and learned a lot from the people and experience. There’s also a lot I didn’t get a chance to discover during my short stay. It can be difficult and frustrating to try to overcome the barriers that exist: language, gender roles, culture, age. That said I’m still determined to learn more. I know an important part of being an effective development worker is understanding the lives of those you are trying to help. I still have a long ways to go, but at least I’ve started down the path.
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After a couple days in Tamale it was time to head to Damongo where I would be spending some time in a small farming village. I woke up super early and headed to the trotro station. For those of you who don’t know what a trotro is it’s a small bus but with just as many people and luggage as a full size bus. They also don’t run on much of a schedule, they just leave once there are enough people. I arrived at the station just after 6:00am only to find out the first trotro had already filled up and left. I ended up having to wait around for about four hours until the next one finally t.
After a couple of hours on a pothole ridden dirt road I arrived in Damongo. I met up with the lovely Sarah, an EWB volunteer who has been there for a couple months. I stayed with her and her host family for the night. They were really kind and I spent most of the night playing some kind of board game with the children who kept beating me!!
The next morning I got up and traveled 15 minutes on the back of a motorcycle to SORI Number One. Despite the boring name, the village is pretty unique. It’s a settlement village where families from different areas have come to live because of the fertile farming lands. As a result there are a number of different tribes all living together in a single community.
The thing that struck me most about the village was how spread out it was. I had expected all of the families to live in a particular area with the farming fields a short distance away; however the households were scattered amongst large fields of maize. As with most parts of Africa maize is the favorite crop both to grow and eat. They keep their main fields by their house so that they can easily tend to it and protect it. The farmers in the community also hold other fields about an hour walk up the road where they grow secondary crops such as groundnuts, cassava, and cowpeas.
For the two nights I was in the village I stayed with Matthew and his family. Matthew, 21, lives with his mother, two younger sisters, and two younger brothers. They are originally from East Mamprusi (another district to the east), but when the man of the household passed away they moved to more fertile farming lands.
Matthew had just finished Secondary School and had rushed back home to plant the fields before it was too late. From what I could gather this was the norm for him and most other boys in the village: no time for “summer vacation.” Go to school October to June, and spend the break working in the fields to feed your family and hopefully make enough money to pay school fees for the following year.
Left – Matthew, Right – TaricaI spent a lot of my time talking with Matthew and his two close friends, “Papaya” and “Super.” Papaya’s real name is Tarica, but he got the nickname because in his homeland they call papaya Carica-Papaya. They couldn’t really provide me with an explanation for Super’s nickname, but you have to admit it’s pretty sweet. I told them my nickname amongst my close friends is Fletcher. From then on whenever I saw Tarica he’d yell “Fletchah, wuzzup!!” which always made me laugh.
I also got my first taste of real farm work while I was there. You know that feeling when you go to the gym, and everyone is super buff and in-shape, and you feel like a pathetic lazy bastard. Well the same thing applies to farming. Despite my overwhelming feeling of inadequacy everyone seemed to be incredibly excited that I wanted to do some work on their farm. After about an hour of weeding I was exhausted, my hands were starting to get blisters, and my lower back was starting to throb.
The following day it was time for some real farming work. No more or this casual weeding business, it was time to till a field and get it ready to plant cowpea. The community had hired a tractor to plow the maize fields, but the rest of the fields were left to be done by hand. To get the work done efficiently every other day all the farmers come together to work on one farmer’s field. Without this farmers would never be able to prepare their fields in time for the planting of specific crops. Today the village was working on Matthews’s cowpea field. It was a brand new field that had just been cleared. I have to say it was a pretty impressive sight watching all the farmers working side by side in unison. I tried to help them a couple times but it more for entertainment value. I was way to slow to keep up and wasn’t doing a good enough job.
At the end of the two days it was time to head back to Tamale to start my work at MoFA. I enjoyed my time in “Number One” and learned a lot from the people and experience. There’s also a lot I didn’t get a chance to discover during my short stay. It can be difficult and frustrating to try to overcome the barriers that exist: language, gender roles, culture, age. That said I’m still determined to learn more. I know an important part of being an effective development worker is understanding the lives of those you are trying to help. I still have a long ways to go, but at least I’ve started down the path.
Travelling Ghanaian Style
Published by Trevor Whitney on Sunday, August 12, 2007 at 11:17 AM.
** I added two posts today so don't forget to read the one below first **
Written: August 5, 2007
It is early in the morning and the hot African sun is still in hiding. In the background I hear the morning prayers being played over loudspeakers at the nearby mosque. As I wake up in my small room at the House of Lords Hotel in Accra, I can’t help but think that if I were at home in Canada I would certainly still be sleeping at this hour on a Saturday. I however am not at home, and I have a bus to catch. Today I am traveling from the capital city of Accra in the south, to the city of Tamale in the Northern region of Ghana.
The bus does not leave until 8:00, but I have no clue what to expect so I arrive at the STC bus station at 6:45 to be safe. There are only a handful of people there this early. I speak with one of them who explains that I need to place my luggage in line to be weighed so I do so and then go to one of the food stands to get some breakfast and snacks for the trip.
It does not take long before the bus station is full of people. A while later the luggage weigher comes out and everything turns to chaos. There was really no point in me putting my bag in line as everyone picks up there belongings and rushes towards the scale. I eventually work my way towards the scale, and being an Obruni (white person), they quickly grab my bag and weigh it.
After paying and loading my luggage I board the bus and find my seat. As I sit down my knees bang the seat in front of me. Awesome!! The seats are so close together that I have to spread my legs and my knees are still wedged up against the seat in front of me. I eventually find a comfortable position just as the bus is pulling out of the station around 9:00am, only an hour late.
Living in Vancouver I thought that commuting over the Port Mann Bridge during rush hour was bad traffic, but I was wrong. Driving in Accra brings a whole new meaning to the word. We were crawling along single lane for almost two hours to get out of Accra. You know the traffic is bad when there are people walking alongside you with baskets of bread, oranges, and water for sale.
Once out of Accra the road to Tamale takes you through Kumasi, Tachiman and Kintampo. On the way to Kumasi the bus was having a tough time going up hills and started beeping. When we reached the bus stop in Kumasi the bus disappeared into the mechanic’s shed for about half an hour. By the time we got back on the bus and on the road again it was 6:00, already about 3 hours behind schedule.
About 45 minutes after leaving the bus station in Kumasi I am woken up out of my sleep by passengers hustling and bustling about. I realize the bus has pulled over to the side of the road and everyone is starting to get off the bus. Unsure what exactly is going on I follow them off the bus and crouch down alongside the rest of the passengers. I look under the bus to see some part of the front suspension hanging down to the ground.
Canadians are usually very timid in these types of situations. Ghanaians on the other hand have no problem voicing their opinion. I walk over towards the crowd of people that is forming and everyone is surrounding the bus driver. They are all yelling at him about how the bus is no good and that they should have given us a new “fresh” bus is Kumasi. The driver however insists that mechanics are on there way and they will have no problem fixing it quickly. This only further frustrates the passengers as they continue to argue in a variety on languages.
I look across to a girl I met on the bus from the Netherlands and we both break out laughing at them as they argue back and forth. Others soon join us in laughter and we break off to find a comfortable place to sit down and relax. Eventually things calm down and the driver walks across the street and into a small field to get away from the commotion.
As I wait on the side of the road I take the opportunity to seek out the few passengers who speak English. I chat with a couple teachers, one of whom has just gotten a job at the University of Ghana as a professor of business. He is traveling to Tamale to move his family down to the big city. I also make friends with three sisters who are traveling with their parents. They are very excited to be talking with an Obruni. I ask them about life in Ghana and they try to teach me some of the local greetings. The time passes relatively quickly, but as dusk slowly turns to night we are still left stranded on the side of the road.
Finally a new-looking bus pulls up and everyone is excited to get back on the road. The excitement is unfortunately cut short when the bus doors open and two mechanics get off the bus and grab their tools from the luggage compartment. The annoyed passengers start hounding the driver again refusing to take the old bus.
Eventually some people decide to commandeer the new bus, taking their belongings and loading the new bus. Soon more people start to follow and I too grab my carry-on and claim a new seat. The driver eventually gets the ok from his supervisor for us to take the new bus and we pull away a mere 3 hours later at around 9:30.
The rest of the voyage is relatively smooth, aside from the actual road itself. The new bus even has TVs so we can watch Nigerian movies. Ohhhh the Nigerian movies. I will have to save this for another post. As for the journey we end up making good time on the final leg of the trip and arrive in Tamale at 3:00am, 6 hours behind schedule.
As I gather my things and wait to get of the bus I am rather concerned. You see Robin (the Director of West Africa Program) was suppose to be there to pick me up; however, when our bus broke down I tried calling her several times but her phone was not in service range…
Luckily as I step down off the bus I am quickly greeted by Laura, a short term overseas volunteer with EWB. We have never met before but apparently she had no problem picking out the tall white man from the crowd. I ask her how long she has been waiting and she says she has been at the bus station since 8:00pm, 7 hours!! I apologize for making her wait but she understands as her bus to Tamale also broke down and did not arrive until the following morning.
I follow Laura through the crowd and out to the parking lot where we get a taxi and head back to the EWB house in Tamale. Gillian, another short term volunteer, is also staying at the house and is awake wondering where we have been. We stay up for an hour or so chatting about my trip and then try to get a bit of sleep before it gets light out. As I crawl into bed my day ends much as it started: with the sun waiting to creep up from the horizon and the sound of Muslims at the nearby mosque taking their morning prayers.
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Written: August 5, 2007
It is early in the morning and the hot African sun is still in hiding. In the background I hear the morning prayers being played over loudspeakers at the nearby mosque. As I wake up in my small room at the House of Lords Hotel in Accra, I can’t help but think that if I were at home in Canada I would certainly still be sleeping at this hour on a Saturday. I however am not at home, and I have a bus to catch. Today I am traveling from the capital city of Accra in the south, to the city of Tamale in the Northern region of Ghana.
The bus does not leave until 8:00, but I have no clue what to expect so I arrive at the STC bus station at 6:45 to be safe. There are only a handful of people there this early. I speak with one of them who explains that I need to place my luggage in line to be weighed so I do so and then go to one of the food stands to get some breakfast and snacks for the trip.
It does not take long before the bus station is full of people. A while later the luggage weigher comes out and everything turns to chaos. There was really no point in me putting my bag in line as everyone picks up there belongings and rushes towards the scale. I eventually work my way towards the scale, and being an Obruni (white person), they quickly grab my bag and weigh it.
After paying and loading my luggage I board the bus and find my seat. As I sit down my knees bang the seat in front of me. Awesome!! The seats are so close together that I have to spread my legs and my knees are still wedged up against the seat in front of me. I eventually find a comfortable position just as the bus is pulling out of the station around 9:00am, only an hour late.
Living in Vancouver I thought that commuting over the Port Mann Bridge during rush hour was bad traffic, but I was wrong. Driving in Accra brings a whole new meaning to the word. We were crawling along single lane for almost two hours to get out of Accra. You know the traffic is bad when there are people walking alongside you with baskets of bread, oranges, and water for sale.
Once out of Accra the road to Tamale takes you through Kumasi, Tachiman and Kintampo. On the way to Kumasi the bus was having a tough time going up hills and started beeping. When we reached the bus stop in Kumasi the bus disappeared into the mechanic’s shed for about half an hour. By the time we got back on the bus and on the road again it was 6:00, already about 3 hours behind schedule.
About 45 minutes after leaving the bus station in Kumasi I am woken up out of my sleep by passengers hustling and bustling about. I realize the bus has pulled over to the side of the road and everyone is starting to get off the bus. Unsure what exactly is going on I follow them off the bus and crouch down alongside the rest of the passengers. I look under the bus to see some part of the front suspension hanging down to the ground.
Canadians are usually very timid in these types of situations. Ghanaians on the other hand have no problem voicing their opinion. I walk over towards the crowd of people that is forming and everyone is surrounding the bus driver. They are all yelling at him about how the bus is no good and that they should have given us a new “fresh” bus is Kumasi. The driver however insists that mechanics are on there way and they will have no problem fixing it quickly. This only further frustrates the passengers as they continue to argue in a variety on languages.
I look across to a girl I met on the bus from the Netherlands and we both break out laughing at them as they argue back and forth. Others soon join us in laughter and we break off to find a comfortable place to sit down and relax. Eventually things calm down and the driver walks across the street and into a small field to get away from the commotion.
As I wait on the side of the road I take the opportunity to seek out the few passengers who speak English. I chat with a couple teachers, one of whom has just gotten a job at the University of Ghana as a professor of business. He is traveling to Tamale to move his family down to the big city. I also make friends with three sisters who are traveling with their parents. They are very excited to be talking with an Obruni. I ask them about life in Ghana and they try to teach me some of the local greetings. The time passes relatively quickly, but as dusk slowly turns to night we are still left stranded on the side of the road.
Finally a new-looking bus pulls up and everyone is excited to get back on the road. The excitement is unfortunately cut short when the bus doors open and two mechanics get off the bus and grab their tools from the luggage compartment. The annoyed passengers start hounding the driver again refusing to take the old bus.
Eventually some people decide to commandeer the new bus, taking their belongings and loading the new bus. Soon more people start to follow and I too grab my carry-on and claim a new seat. The driver eventually gets the ok from his supervisor for us to take the new bus and we pull away a mere 3 hours later at around 9:30.
The rest of the voyage is relatively smooth, aside from the actual road itself. The new bus even has TVs so we can watch Nigerian movies. Ohhhh the Nigerian movies. I will have to save this for another post. As for the journey we end up making good time on the final leg of the trip and arrive in Tamale at 3:00am, 6 hours behind schedule.
As I gather my things and wait to get of the bus I am rather concerned. You see Robin (the Director of West Africa Program) was suppose to be there to pick me up; however, when our bus broke down I tried calling her several times but her phone was not in service range…
Luckily as I step down off the bus I am quickly greeted by Laura, a short term overseas volunteer with EWB. We have never met before but apparently she had no problem picking out the tall white man from the crowd. I ask her how long she has been waiting and she says she has been at the bus station since 8:00pm, 7 hours!! I apologize for making her wait but she understands as her bus to Tamale also broke down and did not arrive until the following morning.
I follow Laura through the crowd and out to the parking lot where we get a taxi and head back to the EWB house in Tamale. Gillian, another short term volunteer, is also staying at the house and is awake wondering where we have been. We stay up for an hour or so chatting about my trip and then try to get a bit of sleep before it gets light out. As I crawl into bed my day ends much as it started: with the sun waiting to creep up from the horizon and the sound of Muslims at the nearby mosque taking their morning prayers.
Arriving in Ghana
Published by Trevor Whitney on at 11:13 AM.
Written: Aug 3, 2007
As I stepped off the last step of the staircase onto the airport tarmac it was hard to believe this day had finally come. I tried to take it all in: the warm breeze blowing across my face; the excitement of those around me happy to be home again; and the butterflies in my stomach as I stepped into something completely unknown.
On the bus ride from the apron to the terminal I ran in to Katie, a former EWB volunteer. What are the odds of that? She had picked me out of the crowed by my iron ring and white wrist band. She had been in Ghana 2 years ago and was now returning for a conference on education being held in the capital city of Accra. Once inside the terminal I quickly made my way through customs and grabbed my luggage.
After some initial confusion I finally met up with Charlie. Charlie works for KITE, an NGO in Ghana that EWB has done a lot of work with. He was so kind to have come pick me up at the airport, show me where the bus station was, and then drop me off at the hotel where I spent the night.
On the drive to the hotel, which we couldn’t find, I got my first in person look at what it’s like to live in poverty in a developing country. It left me with two feelings. First, the desire to understand what their life is like day in and day out. Second, completely overwhelmed. How can I help these people overcome the challenges they face everyday?
It is getting late, and I need to get some sleep as I only slept in bits and pieces during my flights to Ghana. Tomorrow morning I will wake up early to catch the bus to Tamale where I will be living. I’m sure the 12-14 hour bus ride will be an experience in itself.
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As I stepped off the last step of the staircase onto the airport tarmac it was hard to believe this day had finally come. I tried to take it all in: the warm breeze blowing across my face; the excitement of those around me happy to be home again; and the butterflies in my stomach as I stepped into something completely unknown.
On the bus ride from the apron to the terminal I ran in to Katie, a former EWB volunteer. What are the odds of that? She had picked me out of the crowed by my iron ring and white wrist band. She had been in Ghana 2 years ago and was now returning for a conference on education being held in the capital city of Accra. Once inside the terminal I quickly made my way through customs and grabbed my luggage.
After some initial confusion I finally met up with Charlie. Charlie works for KITE, an NGO in Ghana that EWB has done a lot of work with. He was so kind to have come pick me up at the airport, show me where the bus station was, and then drop me off at the hotel where I spent the night.
On the drive to the hotel, which we couldn’t find, I got my first in person look at what it’s like to live in poverty in a developing country. It left me with two feelings. First, the desire to understand what their life is like day in and day out. Second, completely overwhelmed. How can I help these people overcome the challenges they face everyday?
It is getting late, and I need to get some sleep as I only slept in bits and pieces during my flights to Ghana. Tomorrow morning I will wake up early to catch the bus to Tamale where I will be living. I’m sure the 12-14 hour bus ride will be an experience in itself.
A Pre-Departure Wrap-up
Published by Trevor Whitney on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 5:46 AM.
So my month of training has finally come to an end. It’s been an intense month crammed full of frameworks, case studies and diagnostic tools; however, don’t let the intensity and picture below fool you into thinking we’ve been sitting in a classroom learning a la university lecturing style. Over the past month Levi has had us doing all kinds of interactive learning, even sending us all over Toronto to interview people on the street.
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Most days start off at 9am EWB time at the U of T, by which I mean we show up around 9:10 and start around 9:20. Then we dive into sessions about rural livelihoods, technology diffusion, power and privilege, or one of many other topics. Most of the time we’ll start off with some open discussion and then break into smaller group for some sort of activity and then bring it back together to present or just share some key thoughts. We’ve also had some guests such as past overseas volunteers and some of the national office staff come in and run sessions.
A couple weeks ago were sent out on to the streets of downtown Toronto with the mission of figuring out whether short term money lending services such as Money Mart payday loans and pawn shops were a step into poverty, or a step out of poverty. The main objective was to practice information gathering skills by conducting semi-structured interviews with people on the street. We were all definitely “out of our comfort zone and into our learning zone.” You start off with this idea about how you’re going to go through a logical series of non-leading questions to figure it all out. Then halfway through saying, “Hi there do you have a moment to answer a few questions?” your brain gets the equivalent of “the blue screen of death” and when all is said and done you have no clue how these services are related to poverty.
We also got some more interviewing practice while wandering around a Zambian village (St. George street) and talking to local farmers (national office staff who sometime had difficulty recalling the persona they were suppose to be taking on). This time the activity was based around the sorghum project being undertaken by CARE Zambia. The infamous sorghum is a cereal crop that is much more drought resistant than maize, which is almost exclusively grown in Zambia. All the characters were based off of actual farmers who were interviewed by a past overseas volunteer.
Last but certainly not least, there are Parker’s sessions… Direct quote from Parker when asked to describe his pre-dep sessions: “I spew a bunch of information at them, ask them really hard questions, and then give them a tough assignment that they don’t have enough time to do.” I can’t really argue, but they always acted as a good reminder about how much there is for me to still learn, and pushed me to take it upon myself to learn as much as I could.
It’s been a really great learning environment. With such a wide variety of backgrounds everyone brings something new to the table. Boris just finished his PhD on something related to fuel cells; Alanna is an elementary school teacher with a degree in fine arts; Nina has been working in Fort MacMurray for the past four years; Heather has spent a few months in Uganda and has been working for Stantec in Ottawa for several years; Thulasy was co-president of the EWB Calgary Professional chapter this past year; Sarah is a past overseas volunteer with EWB who has been working in Hamilton for a bit; and Kim and Simon, like me, have just graduated from University.
As good as it’s been over the last month, it’s time to move on. I know there’s still a lot more I could learn about agricultural practices and farmer decision making, but I also feel like there’s only so much you can learn about Ghanaian farmers in a UofT classroom. I can’t wait to hit the ground, do some hands on learning, and see how my current thoughts on development and agriculture in Ghana play out in the real world.
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.jpg)
Most days start off at 9am EWB time at the U of T, by which I mean we show up around 9:10 and start around 9:20. Then we dive into sessions about rural livelihoods, technology diffusion, power and privilege, or one of many other topics. Most of the time we’ll start off with some open discussion and then break into smaller group for some sort of activity and then bring it back together to present or just share some key thoughts. We’ve also had some guests such as past overseas volunteers and some of the national office staff come in and run sessions.
A couple weeks ago were sent out on to the streets of downtown Toronto with the mission of figuring out whether short term money lending services such as Money Mart payday loans and pawn shops were a step into poverty, or a step out of poverty. The main objective was to practice information gathering skills by conducting semi-structured interviews with people on the street. We were all definitely “out of our comfort zone and into our learning zone.” You start off with this idea about how you’re going to go through a logical series of non-leading questions to figure it all out. Then halfway through saying, “Hi there do you have a moment to answer a few questions?” your brain gets the equivalent of “the blue screen of death” and when all is said and done you have no clue how these services are related to poverty.
We also got some more interviewing practice while wandering around a Zambian village (St. George street) and talking to local farmers (national office staff who sometime had difficulty recalling the persona they were suppose to be taking on). This time the activity was based around the sorghum project being undertaken by CARE Zambia. The infamous sorghum is a cereal crop that is much more drought resistant than maize, which is almost exclusively grown in Zambia. All the characters were based off of actual farmers who were interviewed by a past overseas volunteer.
Last but certainly not least, there are Parker’s sessions… Direct quote from Parker when asked to describe his pre-dep sessions: “I spew a bunch of information at them, ask them really hard questions, and then give them a tough assignment that they don’t have enough time to do.” I can’t really argue, but they always acted as a good reminder about how much there is for me to still learn, and pushed me to take it upon myself to learn as much as I could.
It’s been a really great learning environment. With such a wide variety of backgrounds everyone brings something new to the table. Boris just finished his PhD on something related to fuel cells; Alanna is an elementary school teacher with a degree in fine arts; Nina has been working in Fort MacMurray for the past four years; Heather has spent a few months in Uganda and has been working for Stantec in Ottawa for several years; Thulasy was co-president of the EWB Calgary Professional chapter this past year; Sarah is a past overseas volunteer with EWB who has been working in Hamilton for a bit; and Kim and Simon, like me, have just graduated from University.
As good as it’s been over the last month, it’s time to move on. I know there’s still a lot more I could learn about agricultural practices and farmer decision making, but I also feel like there’s only so much you can learn about Ghanaian farmers in a UofT classroom. I can’t wait to hit the ground, do some hands on learning, and see how my current thoughts on development and agriculture in Ghana play out in the real world.
Life in Toronto
Published by Trevor Whitney on at 5:28 AM.
The EWB House
I’ve had a lot of people ask me about what my living situation etc has been like over the past month in Toronto, so I figured I’d share it on here.
Throughout pre-departure I’ve been living with the rest of the volunteers at the EWB house (the grey one on the left). The house is quite the place! First off, there are 14 of us living there: 9 overseas volunteers, 4 summer interns, and one intern’s fiancé. Needless to say, it’s a full house. It’s located between Little Italy and the Portuguese Village, and a 10 minute walk from Chinatown. It’s also reasonably close to the downtown area. So long as you have good shoes or sandals you can walk just about anywhere.
There’s 3 bedroom upstairs, all of which are packed full of bunk beds. The room I stayed in had 4, with 6 of us sleeping in there. The beds are definitely not designed for people who are 6’4”. The fact that they were bunk beds was ok, but they were pretty short and there was a bar at the head and foot of the bed. Not only was I too tall, but I couldn’t even hand my feet off the end of the bed. I know it sounds silly, but it really started to bug me after a while.
Speaking of bugs, there was also a bit of a bed bug outbreak. The house was fumigated right before we got there, but apparently they didn’t get them all because poor Alanna woke up with a bunch of bites one night. Lucky for me they didn’t spread to my side of the room. They also came back and sprayed again, and they seem to be gone. So if you’re heading to the house in the near future don’t worry, you should be safe!
The Office
Although most of our sessions were at the U of T sometimes we’d meet at the office, mainly when we had guest facilitators and such. Not too much else to say about the office… The other day is was packed full of 30’000 individual sachets of hot chocolate that were being given out as part of a massive outreach event targeted at promoting fair trade products.
Yonge Street
Last weekend we had a day off and I needed a break from studying monitoring and evaluation systems so I decided to wander over to Yonge Street. Yonge Street is kind of like Toronto’s version of Robson Street. It’s also home to the landmark Sam the Record Man store with the huge fluorescent spinning record sign. Unfortunately I’m sad to say that the iPod has killed the record man. Even the icon couldn’t weather the storm of online mp3s.
On the upside I came across “The Chalkmaster.” He was artist doing some amazing art on the sidewalk with chalk. By the messages he had written alongside the artwork I gathered that he has a daughter in Halifax that we wanted to go visit and he had just gotten enough money from passerbys to buy a bus ticket and go visit her. I will leave you on that uplifting note and hope to post again soon.
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I’ve had a lot of people ask me about what my living situation etc has been like over the past month in Toronto, so I figured I’d share it on here.
Throughout pre-departure I’ve been living with the rest of the volunteers at the EWB house (the grey one on the left). The house is quite the place! First off, there are 14 of us living there: 9 overseas volunteers, 4 summer interns, and one intern’s fiancé. Needless to say, it’s a full house. It’s located between Little Italy and the Portuguese Village, and a 10 minute walk from Chinatown. It’s also reasonably close to the downtown area. So long as you have good shoes or sandals you can walk just about anywhere.
There’s 3 bedroom upstairs, all of which are packed full of bunk beds. The room I stayed in had 4, with 6 of us sleeping in there. The beds are definitely not designed for people who are 6’4”. The fact that they were bunk beds was ok, but they were pretty short and there was a bar at the head and foot of the bed. Not only was I too tall, but I couldn’t even hand my feet off the end of the bed. I know it sounds silly, but it really started to bug me after a while.
Speaking of bugs, there was also a bit of a bed bug outbreak. The house was fumigated right before we got there, but apparently they didn’t get them all because poor Alanna woke up with a bunch of bites one night. Lucky for me they didn’t spread to my side of the room. They also came back and sprayed again, and they seem to be gone. So if you’re heading to the house in the near future don’t worry, you should be safe!
The Office
Although most of our sessions were at the U of T sometimes we’d meet at the office, mainly when we had guest facilitators and such. Not too much else to say about the office… The other day is was packed full of 30’000 individual sachets of hot chocolate that were being given out as part of a massive outreach event targeted at promoting fair trade products.
Yonge Street
Last weekend we had a day off and I needed a break from studying monitoring and evaluation systems so I decided to wander over to Yonge Street. Yonge Street is kind of like Toronto’s version of Robson Street. It’s also home to the landmark Sam the Record Man store with the huge fluorescent spinning record sign. Unfortunately I’m sad to say that the iPod has killed the record man. Even the icon couldn’t weather the storm of online mp3s.
On the upside I came across “The Chalkmaster.” He was artist doing some amazing art on the sidewalk with chalk. By the messages he had written alongside the artwork I gathered that he has a daughter in Halifax that we wanted to go visit and he had just gotten enough money from passerbys to buy a bus ticket and go visit her. I will leave you on that uplifting note and hope to post again soon.
