Hello friends,

Last time, I talked at length about the two economic trees in the north - dawadawa and sheanuts trees. Here are some pictures of the two respectively. I am not sure how this works; I have already uploaded pictures of the Dawadawa tree but don’t see them.  Will continue with the Sheanut trees with fingers crossed.

Sorry, it did not work.

We had the first rain of 2008 here last night. It was nothing to write home about; it was just a sprinkle but lasted the whole night! After such a long dry period, not even a small puddle formed. However, it did settle the Harmatan dust that had been hanging around and cooled down the temperature. We are at the beginning of the hottest season of the year here in the north.

PAMBE Ghana continuous to forge forward with its pilot project in a remote and underserved area in the East Mamprusi District. The site selected is one where need and potential for success is greatest. Not surprising, there are a few disagreements among the three villages within which the project (the Children’s House Learning Centre) will serve. But they are negotiating and close to reaching a consensus on how best to work together on this community project.

We are developing a working relationship with the local Ghana Education Service (GES). I made a presentation to the staff at their usual Monday meeting here in Gambaga. While I had had discussions with the District Director and most members individually, this was the first time I met the whole staff. We’re in the process of clarifying what partnership between PAMBE Ghana and GES will involve and how. For example, I offered to help GES with transportation to monitor and assess five schools in the district, including the community school in our site, for recognition by GES. Such recognition will provide more opportunities for partnership with GES and District Assembly (local council).

We had the first Advisory Committee meeting of the year last Saturday (the last one was on Nov. 24). Main points included reports and updates, and JD and recruitment process for a project Coordinator and two teachers. After reaching consensus, a 5-member recruitment panel was given the responsibility to proceed with the process. Advertisement for both positions is posted in official and public places in the 2 Mamprusi districts; the deadline is 03/31. Committee members may apply. A 3-member committee has just drawn a draft 6-month action that will be reviewed and approved by the Advisory Committee on April 12 at an emergency meeting (to be called). In addition to approving the action plan, the Committee will also deliberate on staff policy guidelines, plan for a durbar at the project site as well as specify concrete tasks for language committee members.

I hope we will have enough information about A+ schools and Montessori educators’ program and travel plans by the time we meet.

There is progress made at the community mobilisation level as well. A delegation representing the three villages at the project site has been here twice to invite PAMBE Ghana back to the community. Two individuals from the project area (now functionaries in Tamale and Accra) are also working underground to strengthen unity and collective commitment among the communities. We have a community meeting on 03/18.

Learning Centre facilities:
This is a delicate and challenging issue. It is obvious that we would have to make do with a temporary structure this year, with community labour. The existing (uncompleted) three-classroom building apparently houses grades1-5 community supported school (school not yet recognised by GES). I anticipate that where to site the pre-school facility will be hotly debated in the community. We shall see.

I will be in Tamale on 03/30 – 04/01; Laura Church and Graem (WN Canada) will spend two days with us. They will visit with key Committee members and collaborators in both districts as well as Community members. The main objective, as I see it, is to give them an idea of the people and the context in which the PAMBE Ghana initiative operates. It will be quite informal. They leave for Ouaga early on 04/04.

That is all for now. See you next month.

Alice Azumi Iddi-Gubbels
Executive Director,
PAMBE Ghana
P.O. Box 47, Gambaga,
N. Region, Ghana
Tel. +233 71 22248; +233 24 509-5457

My dear friends,

It has been a long time since I posted anything on my blog. Things got rolling in Ghana and time just flew by and I neglected my blog for the longest time. My sincere apologies. Will try to do better from now on.

I made it here last night on British Airways. I had just a little tense moment in London Heathrow on how to get my two pieces of hand luggage on a wheelchair to the security check and beyond. My friend Caroline, was getting upset that the guy refused to push me and my luggage. (I do not blame him because…try to imagine my hand luggage!). The proposed solution was either I left one piece behind and go on the flight or go the following day when I will be able to check one hand luggage through. In the end, I just took my luggage and limped along his empty wheelchair through security and to the gate. The rest was a piece of cake. The flight was delayed one full hour anyway.

The flight was a pleasant one. There was a wheelchair waiting for me when we desembarqued that took me from the tarmac through police, baggage claim, and out. In fact, no customs check at all! The guy back in and brought all my luggage and waited with me until my friend arrived to pick me. He helped put all the luggage in the car! Just incredible! I thanked him with ten Ghana cedis (about $10), too generous by Ghanaian standards but……

I am just taking it easy today at my friend’s - Yacine’s today. Yacine is a Burkinabe who I got to know in Canada. Yacine works at the Canadian High Commission in Accra. I will be here till the weekend. I am exhausted but happy to have seen my friends and to be back in Ghana.

Gambaga, 20 Feb 2008

Greetings from Gambaga. First day in the office after a long drawn trip! I finally arrived in my village last Sunday, and got caught up with family and personal matters until now. My immediate (a bit extended family) is well. But I lost an uncle (mother’s cousin) who was in his mid-30s.

It is Harmattan season here. From Nov to Feb/Mar. During winter in the Northern hemisphere, dry winds blow from the north down south, bringing with it a lot of dust/fine sand from the Sahara desert. The dust is so thick it looks like a thick fog outside right now, covering the sun and every thing else. For example, if you are outside for 3-4 hours the fine dust settles on your eyelids, nostrils, any hair, etc and all turn visibly brown. Dusting furniture and other things is a useless exercise at this time.

In West Africa (not sure of the rest of Africa) we call this season the Harmattan Season. Coming from the north, the Harmattan is more severe in northern areas (countries, regions and districts) than in the South e.g. it is severer in Burkina than in Ghana and in northern than in southern Ghana.

The Harmattan season is the coolest time of the year. The temperature may go down to 15 degrees Celsius (in Farenheit?) in the evenings and mornings. That is very cold for us here! It is time for building and repairing houses. Last year’s floods caused many mud houses to fall. Building and roofing is men’s responsibility in our area. Women may help with water but their responsibility is plastering walls and damming the floors.

It is also the season for final funeral rites celebrations, especially for the elderly who passed during the past year or before. It is a good time because food from last year’s harvest is still available to feed family and relatives from far and near who gather for such celebrations. It is a time for family reunions and renewal/fostering of extended family ties.

The Dawadawa (locus bean?) and sheanut trees, the two main economic trees in the north here, bloom at this time. The bean of the former is processed into one of the main ingredients for soups and sauces while sheabutter is extracted from the nuts of the latter and used for cooking and body cream. Indeed, sheabutter is used extensively in body creams, chocolates and for medicinal purposes. The Japanese are investing in sheabutter production/processing in the north for exporting. These two trees are perhaps the most important income source for rural women in our area. They roam in the bush and farms to harvest the locust beans and sheanuts, then sell unprocessed or processed. Judging from the blooms, the harvest looks promising this year. However, conventional wisdom has it that the excessive hamattan winds this year may damage them.

The Harmattan is followed by the hottest time of the year i.e. Mar-April –May when temperatures may climb above 40 degrees Celsius here, just like hot summer days in Oklahoma! Enough about seasons and local goings on. Check in later for news about PAMBE Ghana. See you.

Accra, 02/13/08

It has been a long time since I posted anything on my blog. Things got rolling in Ghana and time just flew by and I neglected my blog for the longest time. My sincere apologies. Will try to do better from now on.

My dear friends, I made it here last night on British Airways. I had just a little tense moment in London Heathrow on how to get my two pieces of hand luggage on a wheelchair to the security check and beyond. My friend Caroline, was getting upset that the guy refused to push me and my luggage. (I do not blame him because…try to imagine my hand luggage!). The proposed solution was either I left one piece behind and go on the flight or go the following day when I will be able to check one hand luggage through. In the end, I just took my luggage and limped along his empty wheelchair through security and to the gate. The rest was a piece of cake. The flight was delayed one full hour anyway.

The flight was a pleasant one. There was a wheelchair waiting for me when we desembarqued that took me from the tarmac through police, baggage claim, and out. In fact, no customs check at all! The guy back in and brought all my luggage and waited with me until my friend arrived to pick me. He helped put all the luggage in the car! Just incredible! I thanked him with ten Ghana cedis (about $10), too generous by Ghanaian standards but……

I am just taking it easy today at my friend’s - Yacine’s today. Yacine is a Burkinabe who I got to know in Canada. Yacine works at the Canadian High Commission in Accra. I will be here till the weekend. I am exhausted but happy to have seen my friends and to be back in Ghana.

Bye for now.

Close Collaborators

My closest allies and collaborators are Lamisi (who some of you met in OKC last June) and Collins Braimah (a school teacher in Gambaga, and a native of Bongbini). They have been invaluable in identifying and introducing me to people and places in the district. Mme Lamisi, as she is known around here, is administratively at the assistant director in the district GES office. She has a degree in Dagbani, the language of the majority ethnic group in the N. region, and very closely related to Mampruli. In fact, the two are dialects of the same language. Lamisi is currently in charge of the implementation and follow up of the district school health program, in collaboration with the Catholic Relief Services (USAID food and nutrition program). Because of this program, she has been to and knows most rural communities in the district. Although Lamisi has never really taught Dagbani (or Mampruli) in the classroom. However, she is a staunch advocate for mother tongue education and knows a handful of other staunch supporters and advocates for Mampruli language instruction in the classroom. She is hence, a strong candidate to lead PAMBE Ghana’s language development component.

Teacher Braimah (Collins) is very involved in the decentralization process - district assemblies. He’s the assembly man for 4 villages including Bongbini. He is postsecondary trained and is aspiring to enter university next academic year. Both Lamisi and Collins are a bit free now as schools are in recess; classes resume next Tuesday, when the academic year starts.

Contacts

I had had a very fruitful visit with the director of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in East Mamprusi district in Gambaga last week. He was supportive of the PAMBE Ghana vision and approach, and pledged his full support and assistance. He lamented the dismal performance of junior high school students and cited several reasons; including lack of trained teachers, insufficient /poor teaching and learning materials, teacher supervision, and poor parental motivation / involvement. “Children see school as punishment,” he concluded.

We also visited the district chief executive (DCE) who also welcomed the vision.  We also made informal contacts with several heads of departments and EQUALL (education quality for all) at the district level.  Mr. Wundow, my middle school head teacher, now retired is the most fervent advocate for Mampruli education in the district. He is now retired. He was so excited not only to see his former middle school students (I don’t know the last time I saw him) but also the vision of PAMBE Ghana when we visited him in his native village.

Preliminary visit of possible sites

I have had to revise the criteria for selection of PAMBE School site to include communities with no functioning school.  This is because there has been a renewed effort on education and the Ghana govt has to build many schools in rural areas.  However, as the Director of Education said, there is an acute shortage of trained teachers. Most of the schools are run by high school students who have not been able to go further. They are employed by the youth employment program, unfortunately with very little training and support.  Some communities have only 1 or 2 community volunteer teachers. Most teachers of remote schools live outside the community, commuting when s/he can. (Most teachers are men). Although officially, every sizable community has a primary school (gov’t or community built), many are not functioning.

Based on this reality, we revised our criteria of need and opportunity to include communities with no functioning school, and established a list of 12 possible sites i.e. communities of 3-4 villages on that basis. We made preliminary visits to 4 of them and had opportunity to talk informally with a few people in each locality last week. One of them has real potential. Because of the unusually heavy rains in the North, the rest are not accessible now. It has rained practical everyday for the last month and half! We will resume visits in two week; hopefully the rains will subside soon.

I am on my way to Kumasi and on to Accra with Lamisi to register PAMBE Ghana and obtain protocol of understanding with Govt. I have learned that it is faster to start the process at the Registrar General and Social Welfare Offices in Accra, rather than from the district level as I was made to understand when I first arrived.  Many of my former colleagues in the non-profit community development field here in Tamale have been very supportive.  They have given me lots of advice, names and contacts in Accra who can guide and assist me in the apparently ‘maze-like’ process.  I asked and received permission from the District Director of Education for Lamisi to assist me in my feasibility study during the next two weeks - Sept 4-20.  Lamisi’s intention is to apply for a two-year secondment to PAMBE Ghana. We will find out in Accra what it entails in terms of her continuing status in GES e.g. promotions, salary and benefits, etc.

I am reestablishing contacts and building a network with and through former classmates and colleagues. We live tomorrow for Kumasi, after a visit to the internet café and bank. We will continue to Accra on Friday. In addition to registering PAMBE Ghana, we will visit Winneba College of Education, find out and obtain samples of reading materials used for pre-K – Grade 6, visit some key Mamprusi intellectuals as well as the Montessori school in Kumasi and Accra.

I negotiated a one-room office in a building in Gambaga for GHC100.00: about 120 USD per year. It is completely bare; we need to paint it and put basic furniture there, including a ceiling fan. I will purchase a filing cabinet, printer and basic office furniture and supplies in Accra and Kumasi.

Alice.

Friday, August 17 in Accra

Good morning, Friends.

The adventure has started well. I arrived safely, with all my luggage.  I had too much luggage so had pay quite a bit for it. Everything was checked through to Accra. Lucky that I was strongly advised in OKC to have ONLY ONE piece of hand luggage, including my computer, handbag, etc, so Peter ran back home and brought me a bag.  This is truly strictly adhered to in the London Heathrow airport.  Otherwise everything went smoothly. We arrived in Accra around 8:40 p.m. on Friday. I felt warmth in my heart walking from the plane to the departure hall! “Welcome to Ghana; Akwaaba!” I felt like I was walking into open arms, on to the bosom of Ghana, my Motherland!

I had my first pleasant interaction with the security guard at the airport, charged to keep non travelers outside. With my 5 pieces of luggage of about 65 lb a piece, I had to have two loads. I went through customs with no problem, and when I came out my uncle (‘my sister Sala’s’ Dad - Jacob Tampuri) who was to meet me had not yet arrived. (Jacob is my age mate so I call him Jacob). The security man gave me his cell phone to call my uncle. He also offered to look after my luggage while I went back for the 2^nd load, giving me his badge as guarantee. When I came back out he and my uncle had connected.  He helped us our through the crowd and load the luggage in the pick up trucked, and advised us how we could get out safely. I was so impressed and thankful. Of course, I had no Ghana money and very few small $ bills. I gave him all I had - $8.00 and he was very happy and I was the happier. We spent the night at a relative’s house in Accra; Jacob knows them but I don’t.

The next day, Saturday we left at 5 a.m. and arrived in Kumasi at Jacob’s around 11 a.m.

I spent the afternoon with Jacob and others at a huge funeral celebration for the father of one of our ‘Mamprusi brothers’ here. He is a medical assistant (called doctor) who has been in the Kumasi area for over 25 years. [Yes, funerals for the elderly are really celebrations of the life of the deceased].  There were traditional Mamprusi dances as well as of other ethnic groups. It was wonderful. Of course, I forgot my camcorder. I did take some pictures.  I spent most of Sunday with my childhood friend who now lives here. I have just been taking in the sounds, smells, faces, indeed everything around me.

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Monday, August 20-21

I finalized the purchase of a Nissan pickup vehicle and took delivery of it yesterday.  I also applied for a Ghana driver’s license that took forever to process. I am glad that Jacob came with me; we got through the whole process and I now have a temporary GH license to use until November when the real one will be ready.  I have a few little things to finish with the vehicle today.

I leave tomorrow morning to Tamale, a 7-hour drive. Cell phones are ubiquitous here. Everyone, almost, has one; at offices, in the market, at home; It is incredible! There are three main cell phone companies: Tigo, MNT (formerly areeba) and OneTouch, the oldest in the countries. None of these however is completely reliable or has nationwide coverage. So many people have two chips to stay connected. I have joined the crowd.  I have two phone numbers: + 233 20 701 9683 (OneTouch);  + 233 24 509 5457 (MTN)

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Wednesday, August 22-23

I will find out more about internet connections in Tamale. There are possibilities here, but none extends beyond Tamale Metropolitan area.  I went to Oxfam UK, EQUALL (Education quality for All), School for life and ACDEP (Association of Church Devt Project) Secretariat to make contact. Unfortunately, all the lead people were out of town.  Will follow up next time I’m in Tamale.

———

Thursday, August 24

Arrived in Bongbini, native village. Surprised them because although they knew I was coming, they did not know the exact date.  The rain season has been exceptionally wet this year.  You have probably heard in the news about floods in parts of Africa.  Same in Ghana, especially in the North.  

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Friends, that is all for now. I hope I can send it from internet café in town.

Hugs

Alice

August 8, 2007

I am visiting family and friends in Canada now. Peter and I flew to Detroit and continued our journey by shuttle bus from there to London Ontario where my mother-in-law and most of the Gubbels live. My mother-in-law lives in a senior citizens’ apartment in the village of Delaware, about 15 minutes drive from London Ontario. We have been together a lot over the past 26 years and we get along exceptionally well. I am very lucky to have another Mama here.

We had a great get-together last Sunday. I got to see all five of my brothers-in-law, their spouses and many of my nephews and nieces all at once. It was also a PAMBE Ghana information sharing, my 50th birthday celebration and send-off party. The next day we visited one of the two sisters-in-law who could not make it to the get-together.

We are currently in Ottawa visiting my daughter, Jamila. She is organizing a small gathering in her apartment tomorrow to talk about PAMBE Ghana. We return to London Ontario on Friday and back to Oklahoma City next Sunday. Time is running out. I leave for Ghana on Thursday, August 16. I fly from OKC to Chicago Ohare on AA at 5:15 p.m.; and onward across the atlantic ocean from 9:50 p.m. arriving in London Heathrow the next morning at 11:30 a.m. I leave London at 2:15 p.m. and arrive in Accra that night at 6:10 p.m.

I plan to spend a couple of days in Accra catching my breath and making some contacts. I will then go up to Kumasi, perhaps spend 2-3 days there getting my pickup truck ready for the trip up north. Yes, Peter and I have bought a vehicle which I can use on a kilometer basis for PAMBE Ghana. I may also spend a few days in Tamale, our regional capital. Finally, I will get to my native village (Bongini) around August 30th. Brush up your geography of West Africa and especially of Ghana, and see if you can track me down. I plan to be back in the USA from mid- Dec 07 to mid January 08.

I understand there is a gathering of friends and supporters of PAMBE at Patti T-R’s residence on August 14th at 6p.m. I look forward to seeing you there. For those of you who cannot, we will be in touch in spirit and through my blog. That’s all for now.

Best wishes,

Alice