After a week in Accra, Ghana's capital to complete my In-country Training Course, I took the twelve hour bus trip up to Wa in the Upper West region of the country. The journey was an interesting and colourful one to say the least. Not more than a few seconds of empty fields zoomed by my window before something or someone caught your attention. You could identify the different regions and villages by the type of housing used, from wood,to mud, to tin and the temperature got higher and higher as the landscape changed from lush green banana fields to dry and dusty desert. Consequently, when I first arrived in Wa, I felt like I had to start acclimatising all over again.

Wa has 50,000 inhabitants and 56 schools which are split into districts and inspected in circuits. I will be based at the Municipal office of Ghana Education Service as a Teaching Support Officer. My job placement is at the moment open to suggestions, handover projects from my predecessor and above all, my individual plan of action based on the information I have started to gather. Because I will be here for 24 months, I have been advised to take two months to get acquainted with the whole network and systems of Education in Ghana and then align this with VSO's objectives in this area.

I am currently living with two of VSO's Headteacher Supervisors who work alongside each other as a married couple. This week I have had the privilege to observe their two day workshop for headteachers in neighbouring villages on Leadership and Management. The positive response and energy generated by these headteachers is palpable during the workshop. The first thing that becomes obvious is that they are not used to getting the chance to express their views and opinions . By the end of the workshop, you can see how VSO's facilitative approach to development ensures that these people leave feeling empowered enough to implement the ideas and visions that they themselves have generated during the session.

As I familiarise myself with Wa, I can see it is definitely the sort of place I was hoping to live in as opposed to a large city like Accra. At the moment, everything looks brown, dry and dusty but I have been told this will all be transformed to green during the rainy season. There are goats and open gutters everywhere and people use mainly bicycles or motorbikes . You constantly see one or two parents taking one child to school at the front of their bikes and sometimes another at the back!

 

Greetings are huge in Ghana and it is not uncommon for someone you have just met professionally to call you just to greet you. Introductions are particularly long and you will constantly hear the phrase 'you’re welcome' when being introduced. It is therefore no wonder that I have been made to feel very welcome in my still brief time in Ghana.