Wednesday, June 4, 2008

4th Week in Ghana

Patrick and I did a World Food Programme walk the other day which was cool. It was to fundraise for feeding programs in schools in Tamale. But I have to wonder why a UN agency has to do outside fundraising. And in one of the poorest regions of the country. It was cool to see though. Apparently the WFP is cutting its funding to Ghana soon. There is a lot of talk of rising fuel and food priced so that’s sad to see. The regional minister made a speech about how the government will have to fill the void, so I hope that they can find funding.

We also had a super productive day today at work, which was exciting. We planned out an itinerary for our visits to the surrounding districts where WUSC has been working with girls clubs and community based organizations. There are 4 districts we will be visiting, Savelugu, Yendi, Zabzugu and Yendi. The last three have interns that we came with working there so that will be nice to see the towns they are in and to see a more rural lifestyle. We also read over a handbook that was distributed to teachers as part of their training and it was interesting to see some of the things that are written about the water and food shortages, and how that has negatively affected school attendance (which is what the WFP is all about). It’s interesting because the highschools were out for the past few weeks because there was no money to provide for food for them. So we would see so many high school kids sitting around and not really doing anything. But apparently they are starting school again tomorrow because the minister has released some money for the feeding programs. It will be interesting to see how that changes the demographic we see around the town.

This weekend we are going to Mole National Park and the Hotel is apparently really nice and it looks over the watering hole that most of the animals use in the dry seasons. It’s starting to t\get into the rainy season, but not too much. So I hope we’ll still see lots of animals. And there is a pool! Exciting! All 9 of the northern interns are going so that will be a lot of fun.

We are staying at the first guest house we were at now and I think we'll be there for a while. But the other 2 interns in Tamale just got a sweet house and there may be some room opening up. So we might be on the move again. But we'll see. For now we're at least enjoying cooking our own food. Take care everyone!

1 comment:

Janet Keeping said...

It's so good to get an update on the work you are doing. That connection between food and school is crucial, isn't it? I wish there was more appreciaiton of the relationship between the two in Canada.