A Day in the Life

By popular request - well, Apeksha tells all the volunteers to write one of these, so here it is.  Warning - contains accountancy stuff.

I normally get up around 7.30-8.00.  Breakfast, like the other meals I get here is huge.  It usually consists of some scrambled eggs, several pieces of fried toast, 2-3 cups of tea and usually some kind of porridge or rice pudding or similar.  I wasn't entirely sure at first what the porridge things were made from.  One, I found out is rice water - basically boiled rice with a small amount of starchy liquid that gives it a gloopy, porridge like consistency - I've often accidentally cooked this for myself at home.  Another one tastes like semolina except it goes solid if you let it go cold.  It is, I am told, a Ghanaian dish called 'Egh Ogh Ugh' (I think I misspelled it although the pronunciation is close enough) - they laugh when I try and say the name. Once I asked what one of the other porridge concoctions was made of.   'Actually,' said Shantell, 'It's Quaker Oats.' That traditional African staple.

I normally start work round about 9 - 9.30.  On typical day, I'll go in to the office (just across the yard from the house) open up my emails and look at the plans etc that I prepared during the first week or so.  I've set myself some targets based around understanding / auditing the finances of the organisation, providing training in Excel reporting and setting up some clear guidelines on how I think the finance set up should be organised.

A lot of the time I'll be working on my own, as nearly all the YPWC volunteers (including George the finance man) have full time jobs.  While this means that my actual contact time with the team is often limited and progress is slower, it also means I can concentrate on the work I'm doing, and write some REALLY BIG training manuals.  So far, aside from writing out plans and submitting them to the others, I've audited the cash vouchers and receipts, completed a reporting template for the cash vouchers with a basic expenditure report linked in (George has filled it all in and brought the books up to date), got half way through some training manuals for Excel (with loads of screen shots and things) and have also been through a set of accounts that is due to be submitted to a donor.  The basic report was good, but needed a few corrections made to formulas and calculations.  I talked through with George as we did this, and was pleased that he then sent it back to Koomson explaining what we had changed and recommended for future reports.

Documenting the work you do is hugely important.  Even on a slightly longer placement like this (some of AfID's assignments are as short as two weeks) you need to be sure that you are building capacity rather than dependency - whatever you do, you have to be sure it can carry on when you've left.  'Sustainability' said Shantell when I told her this.  Though I didn't like to say at the time, that is a management buzzword, and like all management buzzwords, it can irritate to the point of distraction.  But, like most management buzzwords, it can also describe very accurately what you're trying to achieve.

So, I carry on like this through most of the day.  At some point I normally go out for a walk to see what's going on in the neighbourhood and say hello to all the local children (schoold here seem to be on constant breaktime).  I don't normally eat lunch - too hot and the rest of the meals aren't exactly small.  As you may have noticed, excursions like this also provide most of my bloggable material.

Later on the afternoon, some of the other volunteers will come to the office.  This gives us all a chance to catch up on what's been happening and is particularly important for me as I can use some of this time to take George through what work I've been doing.

In the evening, I'll usually eat around 7 pm (typically fried fish or chicken with sauce and some sort of rice, noodles or yam chips and salad, with papaya or pineapple after).  Then, I might go back to the office if there's people still there and things I can still do, or read, listen to my music or watch the news.  Bedtime is generally about 9.30 - 10.00.

Meeting and Greeting

It's disturbingly easy to make friends in Ghana.  Most days before I start work, I wander around the local area for a bit.  It gets me some exercise, lets me buy some water and seems to give the locals a bit of light entertainment too.  I tend to stick out a bit as I'm walking around - I try to be inconspicuous, but I have to accept that I just don't look Ghanaian.  Within my few streets that I know, I am acquiring semi celebrity status.  Most of the chat revolves around football, or just smiling a bit and saying 'how are you?'  Sometimes, particularly at weekends, I'm invited to sit down and have a longer chat about football - hopefully like this I can get a Premiership-based social life going.  This afternoon, I got chatting to 3 guys outside the front of the house - finding out names and football allegiance, repeating their names back to them and failing (brings the house down every time), and then shaking hands and leaving.  Bog standard conversation that I keep on having. This time however one of the guys, who hadn't said much till then, leaned forward, said something like 'I wan be fren' (I couldn't smell any alcohol), embraced me, nuzzled his head into my shoulder and planted a sloppy wet kiss on the side of my neck.  Hummmmm.  Cultural differences and all that I get, but I don't think that's normal...............anywhere.  And if anyone's interested, I'm sure he said he was a Chelsea fan.

There are rules of etiquette when you're out and about.  After not kissing strangers on the neck, the most important of these is to greet people enthusiastically, especially if they greet you.  This might cause me problems, as I am learning that a high proportion of the background chatter in the street comes from people yelling specifically at me.  If I hear 'Hey Obruni!' [white man] - well as Little Britain might say, I'm the only Obruni in the village, so they must be talking to me.  When I can't tell what's being said, it gets more tricky.  I know from local gossip that's found its way back to me that one neighbour who called out to me one day got no reply. In Africa especially this is the height of rudeness.  My solution - every time I'm out and about, if I hear a noise, I assume it's directed at me.  Rightly or wrongly I wave at the noisemaker with a "GOOD MORNING!!!" 

If they weren't greeting me before, they are now - they all love it, and I get a big smile and a wave back.  Works every time.

Have we had an audit?

A fairly simple question as a rule.  If an auditor has visited you, sifted through your stuff, written a report to say you're either ok or a bit fishy, sent you an excessively large bill - chances are, you have been audited.

Right?

Well, so I used to think.   The last volunteer to work here left a report which, amongst other things, clearly said "No auditor is appointed.  Needs to be resolved urgently".  So, naturally, I picked this up when I arrived and asked innocently "do you have an auditor yet?" The answer, I understood, is yes.  We had an audit and it was fine. We found a new auditor who gave a special rate.

Now, dear reader, an auditor is not a ghost that passes fleetingly in the night.  It is a big, clunky, cumbersome beast that leaves a mighty trail in its wake (the most telltale footprint is usually the aforementioned bill).  It doesnt normally take great jungle lore to spot when theyve paid a visit.

Except, I genuinely have no idea.  I cant find an auditors report, nor have I found any audit fees in the receipts I've trawled through.  I can't find any accounts, I can't find a letter from an auditor, and no one knows where these things might be.  Like the falling down tree that noone hears - if noone saw the audit, did that audit take place?

Spooky.

Work in Progress

Well, it's now the end of my first week and I'm pleased to say I have done some work.  It's at this point I get a bit nervous because I'm about to start writing about accountancy, and desperately want to be entertaining - I have only a modest readership as it is.  This blog should be about adventure, intrigue and discovery, and should inspire others with my dedicated mission to do great good in the world.  Instead I'm about to fill half a page with statements like 'and then I reconciled the control account.  The resulting discrepancy was below materiality so I corrected it via a manual journal'.  I'm sure you see the problem.

After spending a day or two recovering physically and emotionally from my overnight bus ordeal, I met some of the key members of the team on Thursday.  I had spent the earlier part of the week looking over a very helpful report left by the previous volunteer, so had some idea what to expect.  We discussed budgets, auditors, excel reporting and, at some length though without resolution, how to get to (and from) town.  The mutual conclusion (such as it was) was that I'm going to find it dificult, going on impossible without an escort.  This last point, I'm afraid, may come to dominate my future dealings with Kumasi.

Following the meeting, and various inputs from George, I spent part of the next day or so putting together an outline plan for what I intend to do.  Feeling myself already adjusting to a laid back, unhurried pace of life, I hope that my ideas won't prove too ambitious.  I'm also vaguely aware of a potential culture clash of cosmic proportions.  Life here seems so relaxed that I fear emailing a vast spreadsheet with statements like '1.1 - scope of this report' and '2.2 - objectives with target completion date' will prove to be a bit out of place, like going to work in a wetsuit, or playing the bagpipes at 2am.

But, all in all I am happy with my first week.  I'm semi-acclimatised and am slowly getting to know the area where I'll be living.   I am being housed, fed and watered like a king.  Annoying things like getting my mobile sorted are in the pipeline.  And now, at least, there are some beans for me to count.

The Road to Kumasi

So, a promised, the updated list of missing and forgotten items:

The Sirius Mystery - Robert Temple (looked boring anyway, didn't want to read it. Really)
Insect repellent (remedied at Amsterdam while waiting for delayed flight)
Hand sanitiser (not a great thing to forget)
Camera memory cards (rather more serious)

My flight landed a few hours late, due to some connection problem.  Coming through immigration, there was a huge and lengthy queue (Accra airport seems to have a number of international flights, all of which arrive within a few minutes of each other).  The stoic Brits in the queue waited patiently, muttering quietly about inefficiency or 'charming African character' depending on their disposition.  A few of the Ghanains, however, were more vocal in their disapproval - one chap stood for several minutes shouting from the back of the queue at the officials before pushing to the front, shouting, vaulting over the barrier, shouting, banging the desk, and shouting a bit more  A few more in the crowd began to shout as well, whether in support or not I couldn't tell.  It seemed to me a tad unwise though to be openly supporting the guy, whether you sympathised (I did) or not.  A 'crowd scene' looked to be potentially developing.

A brief confusion followed, during which several passengers walked through the customs check without stopping or handing over their customs declaration - not sure if that's allowed, but as I slipped through with themI saw a young English girl in tears.  Her mother had her arm comfortingly round her shoulder saying 'don't look, just keep walking, keep walking.'  Bless.  And, er, welcome to Ghana.

Shortly afterwards I went on my first overnight bus trip in Africa.  www.ypwc.org (more about them later) sent their Accra rep to the airport, who duly took me to a bus station full of coaches named 'Hallelujah' and 'Amazing Grace'. I boarded 'The Lord is my Shepherd', and a gentleman climbed in with a plastic bag full of DVDs.  He began what I initially assumed was a sales pitch, but as I looked at the titles (the Passion, St Paul, Samson and Delilah) I was less sure whether  he was evangelising or selling.  Some the titles confused me a bit ('The Arse of the Apostles' - I think I might have misheard 'Acts'), but eventually he left, my wallet no lighter and my soul resolutely not saved.

The following morning, I arrived at Kumasi bus station or rather, was turfed out by the side of the road.  A characteristically African melee of stalls, traders, hawkers and passers by greeted me as I retrieved my rucksack and looked vaguely around for ideas about what to do next.  Culture shocked and unslept for over 24 hours, I was possibly now vulnerable to touts, so was wary when a 'helpful' taxidriver asked me where I was going.  Bleary eyed, I handed over my welcome letter from YPWC, before realising that he had no idea where the address was (to be fair it was a PO Box number).  He eventually managed to get through to George, before taking me a short distance from the bus to wait.  While waiting, I had the first of a number of conversations about Chelsea FC (my opinion - they're losing - good), and gradually began to regret classifying my new buddy Mike as a 'tout'.  I've been told many times that Ghana is one of the friendliest, unhassliest countries in Africa, and finding only help - in the middle of the night, in a city, from a stranger, in my hour of need?  Surely a good sign.

Yes, I think I'm going to like it here. .

Packing

A travel writing 'tip' I once saw said something along the lines of 'start in the middle of the action, not in the departure lounge'.  I feel therefore that I ought to open this blog with a swashbuckling account of an elephant stampede, the roaring of a pride of hungry lions, or an inspiring narrative of how I singlehandedly transformed the fortunes of an entire continent but........I'm in Essex, I can't sleep and it's drizzling a bit so instead, dear reader, I'll tell the tale of me doing my packing. Are you sitting comfortably?

My rucksack is two thirds full, mostly it seems with paperbacks.  For the most part I'm keeping to an African / travel writing theme:

Cameroon with Egbert - Dervla Murphy (struggling to get into this at the moment, though I highly recommend 'Full Tilt - Ireland to India with a Bicycle' by the same author).
The Sirius Mystery - Robert Temple (apparently very controversial, but follows on from a trip to Mali a year ago)
The Masque of Africa - VS Naipaul (no idea what this is about, never read anything by Naipaul either, so should be interesting)
Hidden Bhutan - Martin Uitz (wrong continent I know, but I had a brilliant trip there a few months ago)
The Year of the Flood - Margaret Atwood
The Motorcycle Diaries - Che Guevara
And an autobiography by Stephen Fry, also (with a view to a bit of travel after the assignment) Bradt guides to Cameroon and Ghana and the Lonely Planet on West Africa. Oh, and various papers / books provided by http://www.afid.org.uk/

I always try to travel light, my view is that whatever I take I'll have to carry round with me, so don't take anything I don't need.  I always take the same rucksack my parents bought for me when I was 12 - so it's not a full size rucksack, but it forces me to keep everything to a minimum.  I could, and probably should, have brought a grown up rucksack by now but......well it's been my main travel buddy for nearly a quarter of a century (help, I'm getting old!) and, to be honest, I can't help being a bit sentimental about it.

Apart from the books, it seems to be mostly filled with Malarone - about 1500 boxes of the sodding things.  I'm also taking a few clothes and a toothbrush.

Things that I know I've forgotten* include:

First Aid Kit
Insect Repellent

*List to be extended on arrival in Accra.

And that, as the saying goes, is that.  If anyone is still reading, stay with me. If anyone's not, that's good too - no shame in chuntering away to yourself in cyberspace............the next one will be more eventful, I promise.  Maybe.