Let’s start at the very beginning….a very good place to start… My students and I were a little late getting out to the road to wait for a vehicle so we missed the early morning lorry. I got pretty worried that we weren’t going to find means to get out of the village especially after we’d been waiting for a couple of hours. Thankfully using my skin I was able to beg a ride for us from water distributors but they could only take us to the next village. I then called a contact I have from that village who works for MOFA (Ministry of Forestry and Agriculture) and he was able to come pick us and even took us all the way to Navrongo. From there we were able to catch a free ride with my friend Vince’s high school bus which was awesome. Funny story...while we were waiting in Navrongo I bought us some chop (rice for lunch) and then we sat at a spot where the students had minerals as a treat. At the spot some Ghanaian music was playing at first but then it switched to American and Beyonce’s ‘All the Single Ladies’ came on. When I asked my students if they could understand what was being said they told me they had no idea and even thought it wasn’t in English. So I explained the song to them and they laughed- especially to the part ‘if you like it then you better put a ring on it.’
On the bus ride to Sirigu it was 3 volunteers and 6 students so each of us had our own seat. My girl student Linda moved to sit next to another girl named Vanessa (nicknamed Happy- a tiny form 1 student) and soon declared to me that they were friends. It was super cute and made me excited to see her quickly getting into the camp spirit. We arrived super early so played games with the students including volleyball with a beach ball, American football, Frisbee, and badminton. Another volunteer and I also helped Sonia, who did most of the organizing of the camp, with some last minute preparations at the school. It was a little crazy because the school’s new and Sonia had been telling me that she was worried about where the students would bathe. In typical Ghanaian fashion, her counterpart waited until the day camp started to help convert what basically was a construction zone to separate boy/girl bathing areas. Definitely not ideal but we made it work and students didn’t seem to mind. The women who cooked for us arrived late the so dinner was a couple hours late but the rest of the time it was better. And the food was delicious! The first night was just for eating dinner and setting basic ground rules then the volunteers except the two who were chaperoning for the night headed to the guesthouse we were staying at. Sirigu Women’s Organization for Pottery and Arts (SWOPA) has a traditional arts center where women make and sell pottery, baskets, and canvas paintings. They also run a guesthouse and do architecture tours of traditional painted houses. It’s a cool place and it was nice staying there.
On the first day of camp we did an official welcome and went over a few more camp rules. Then we played a couple of name games to get to know each other and also an icebreaker before we started the sessions. The first session was on Food Security- whether people have enough nutritious food year round to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Sonia had a brilliant idea to break the students into groups of three based on the pillars of food security: availability, access and utilization to use for discussion groups the first day and then work and later presentation groups the remaining days. In the morning there was also a session on different activities clubs can do which we then expanded up in the rest of the camp. In the afternoon, we had sessions on 4-H clubs in America and Ghana (they do have a few clubs here) and then talked about the elements that make a successful meeting. I did the basics of nutrition using a toolkit we have available here and the students already knew much of the information from school. Here’s they use body building instead of protein, energy instead of carbs, and protection instead of fruits & veggies as the food group names. Then I gave a presentation I found on the nutritional benefits of moringa, a drought resistant ‘miracle’ tree that produces leaves year round that contain an amazing amount of nutrients. Our lesson session of the first day was an introduction to school gardens since the next morning we helped plant one. Then we built in time for sports- mostly football- so the students could blow off some steam after a classroom heavy day. The first day went amazingly smoothly especially considering it was 1. at the beginning and 2. the least hands on day. After dinner, we showed the students the Shallow Seas episode of the BBC’s Planet Earth before it was bedtime.
The second day was our gardening and animals day. First thing after breakfast we headed to the JHS where Sonia’s been doing a science club. Students from the science club came for the morning to first tell us about the incinerator project they did and then to also plant the school garden. We learned about waste management and they demonstrated the incinerator (oil drum for burning rubbish) and we talked about the benefits over the normal pit of burning trash. Next the students worked on various tasks for the garden broken into their three groups: ground prep and planting, fencing, and seedlings. An experienced gardening volunteer Jen came from the Northern region to help with this part of the camp and she did an awesome job especially since it was a bit chaotic with more students. It was funny during these hands on sessions there were a bunch of us volunteers and we spent a lot of time shunning the sun by standing under trees. I helped some with showing the kids how to plant vegetable seeds in a water sachet to nurse them. We had green pepper, cabbage and cauliflower seeds which was fun because we taught the students what cauliflower is. The garden looks great and we snapped the big group photo shot at the end.
After lunch and a debrief about the school gardens, the animal portion of the camp began. Another volunteer Dawn set up two Ghanaian resource people to come which worked out really well. A woman named Lucy came from MOFA to talk about animal diseases and the students were asking her tons of questions. The students were really engaged the whole time and it was impressive how interactive they were. A lot of times I would be up and down, in and out during sessions to see how I could help out, check on stuff, or just to take pictures but I tried my best to sit throughout the next session on beekeeping. It was really interesting and I think the kids were amazed because usually folks here just kill the bees to get the local honey. Before dinner my neighbor Alex and our health volunteer Liv did a neem cream (local mosquito repellent) and malaria education session. Our fun night activity was a team trivia game with questions coming from the first two days of camp. Students are super competitive here so got really into it. One team even did a tight huddle while discussing the answers. Whew this was a long post and I’m only halfway through camp so I’ll break here and finish another day. Part II coming soon wrapping up Day 3 and 4 of camp!
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