Friday was as dry as dust. The sun never fully emerged from the hazy milky sky, and remained a pale white disc. The outline of the mountain was barely visible as a slightly greyer patch against the sky. There has not been a drop of rain since I returned from the Christmas rain. The washing I had put out to dry in the passageway on Thursday evening already felt bone dry to the touch and had taken on the reassuring texture of cardboard.

After cocoa and porridge I worked on my laptop for a little over an hour, finishing off summaries of the cocoa growing community interviews we carried out before Christmas. This had been hanging over me since my return and only a number of more pressing matters had prevented me from completing them sooner. There was a brief break in the power supply while I worked, but my battery had enough charge for this not to be a problem. I walked over to the Department of Agriculture offices in the Ministries complex with my pen drive, so that the notes could be printed and photocopied in advance of the next project team meeting. The director had travelled north for the week and I would need to find William to arrange the copying. The extension officers had gathered for their regular meeting and were sitting chatting in the conference room. There was no sign of the meeting started. Part out of concern for my health and part out of curiosity about the mysterious life of an ‘obruni’, they asked me if and what I had eaten this morning. My answer was satisfactory and they told me that William was at the department’s e-commerce centre further up Ministries Road.

I found William with a couple of the department’s national service personnel. They were having a reading day, William explained. The computer was being serviced and they reckoned it would be able to take my pen drive by noon. I left, saying I would return then. They said they would be reading until three.

I walked over to the bike workshop near the Shell filling station. Last spring David, from the U.S. organisation, Bikes not Bombs, arrived in town. With some support from the Emmanuel Foundation he set up a bike workshop with the aim of training some of the local persons with disabilities (PWDs) to maintain and build bicycles and eventually run their own business. Much of the funding comes from donated bicycles collected by Bikes not Bombs (http://www.bikesnotbombs.org/) in America. Containers full of bicycles are sent to Ghana. Part of each shipment is sold immediately to local bike dealers to provide capital to the run the workshop and the rest are worked on by the trainees.

I knew a new shipment was due from the port at Tema, but it had actually arrived at 1 am that morning. By the time I arrived, the lorry had been unloaded and the yard was full of hundreds of bikes – racers, mountain bikes, hybrids, children’s bikes and even a tandem. I offered to come back later and help move the remaining bikes into the workshop store. I bought a Daily Graphic – more news of President Mills’ cabinet selection and emerging details of the previous government’s controversial management of the economy – and returned to the house. I changed my clothes. I had been wearing a batik shirt for traditional dress Friday, but put on faded T shirt and shorts for handling the bikes.

I returned to the town centre and deposited the computer files on the Department of Agriculture machine. It turned out for some reason I could not entirely fathom, the copying would have to wait until the Director’s return on Monday. I bought yam chips and pepper sauce and ate them before returning to the workshop. Although only a couple of dealers had been told about the delivery, nearly every dealer in the district must have arrived by now. The bikes were being piled up around the site as sales were negotiated. David was pleased with the amount they would make and how little he had to get involved in the process. There were some lively debates between the dealers but it all ended amicably. The dealers began to remove their purchases. Some were wheeled away individually, others were stacked precariously on hand carts and dragged out, some ended up in the back of Astra estate taxis (maximum load of about 7 bikes) and the majority left in piles on flat bed trucks. I helped carry the remainder into the store. By 5 pm, the yard was empty again. When I arrived David had offered his wrist rather than his oily hand to shake. When I left, my hand was nearly as grubby as his so we shook.

We made arrangements for him to meet me at St Joseph’s Hospital the following morning. The previous week I had travelled to Accra in the hospital ambulance to collect ten wheelchairs being temporarily stored at the VSO office. Behi, a VSO volunteer in the Central Region, had met the donor and had marshalled requests for chairs from other volunteers in the south of Ghana. Unfortunately the chairs had had a somewhat protracted stay with the customs authorities at Tema, but they had finally been released. The chairs were essentially in flat pack form and David had agreed to help me assemble them. It looked like they would be relatively easy to put together, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

It was dusk by now. The sun had turned a pale orange, and the sky had taken on a rather thick yellowish tinge. I crossed Jackson Park and headed for home. I seem to live on the route to almost every school in town and groups of children in assorted primary coloured uniforms seem to spend the entire day milling around and drifting back and forth. Most are keen to politely greet me – “Good evening. How are you?”, “Good evening. I am fine. How are you?”, “We are fine” - and some want to embark on more in detailed conversions. Sometimes we exchange names (one member of the group is usually called ‘Richard’. He is pushed forward, he smiles and looks sheepish) and they ask my address. At this point I usually say I live here and point vaguely in the direction of my house. I have yet to receive a deputation of schoolchildren, but at some point my luck will run out.

Despite the odd sachet of water during the day, the Harmattan left my mouth completely dry. I stopped at the bottled drink store. I asked for a cold Pepsi. A bottle from the chiller box was produced and opened. I was invited to sit in the one available chair. I sat and drank, put the bottle in the empties crate and paid the 40 Gp. As I turned the final corner for home and an evening meal, I waved at the tailor working at his sewing machine on the first floor balcony of his house. He waved back. Until recently he worked in a ramshackle, wooden construction beside the road, but just before Christmas it was demolished and now the foundations for a more substantial building have been laid. His twin daughters waved too, just tall enough to see over the balcony wall. They are always identically dressed and, having a tailor for a father, usually in something different. They are always excited to see me and jump up and down. Sometimes they are too excited to even shout, “obruni, obruni, obruni”. We waved and smiled and after a few moments they started to say “Bye. Bye”. I took this as my cue that the conversation had ended and it was time for me to move on.

Health

Is it possible for a volunteer to live a healthy lifestyle in a country where a bottle of gin (admittedly, local) costs slightly less than half the cost of 200 g of butter (admittedly French)? I pondered this is I walked home with a plastic bag containing both items and 20 pesewas worth of lemons. The answer is obviously ‘no’, if these items were to form the basis of my diet.

VSO take volunteer health very seriously - mainly in the form of preventing illness, but also diet and insurance coverage. At pre departure training we meet members of the VSO headquarters’ medical team and we receive a weighty health guide. (Don’t swim in water where you might catch bilharzias, be careful to iron clothes dried outside to kill any eggs laid by flies which if left could hatch and burrow it your skin.) VSO also regularly undertake exercises to see whether the allowance we receive is sufficient to buy the right food for a balanced diet. Fortunately VSO has recently increased our allowances; otherwise I might not have been buying either the gin or the butter. Incidentally alcohol is not included in VSO’s calculations.

VSO pays for the injections we need and anti-malarial drugs. Every morning I take a green capsule after breakfast which won’t actually prevent malaria but should mean that if I do get it, it should be in a milder form. Koforidua’s tropical location makes it ideal territory for mosquitoes. I am sure I read somewhere that the first British missionaries here were unable to stay because of the general air of pestilence about the place. Malaria is still rife, but if you can afford the drugs it is usually not as serious as you might think. Most volunteers here seem to get it at some time or other.

It is possible that the anti-malarial’s themselves are a greater threat than malaria itself. Some volunteers are prepared to take their chances with malaria rather than suffer some of the side effects of the preventative drugs. I take doxycycline which can increase susceptibility to sunburn (not good when you live virtually on the Equator), skin rashes, nausea, diarrhoea, severe headache and should not be taken if pregnant or if you suffer from liver problems. It is also an antibiotic, but on the positive side it has probably contributed to the fact that I have only suffered from two bouts of diarrhoea in 16 months. It is also used to treat acne!
I find it quite hard to eat enough. The hot conditions reduce my appetite. I definitely lost weight and I am now making a conscious effort to try and keep what I put on over Christmas – more bananas and yam chips with pepper sauce. Keeping hydrated is also a constant consideration. I always have a bottle of water to hand or know that I will be going somewhere where sachets of pure water will be available.

Exercise, like eating, needs effort and I don’t do much. I do walk around town rather than take taxis but I have to walk at a slower pace, otherwise I end up dripping with sweat. I have finally decided to buy a bicycle. When I get it, I will have to weigh up the benefits of the exercise with the risk of being knocked off it. I’m already looking for the quieter byways which the cars don’t often use.

I flew back to Ghana on 6th January. The Ghana International Airlines flight was about a third full and there was plenty of room to stretch out and move around. There were good views of the Sahara. It was dusk by the time we reached Accra and still 29 oC. This was a revision on the 32 oC threatened the crew en route, but still a big difference from the frosty -2 oC at Gatwick.

I was quickly through immigration and took a taxi to the Tema tro tro station. It was now the dying hours of the Kufuor presidency and the car radio was tuned to a programme discussing the news of presidential pardons. The run-off vote on 28 December produced the narrowest of victories for Professor John Evans Atta Mills and the NDC, with less than half a percentage point between him and the NPP. By midnight the NPP’s term would be over and the following afternoon Atta Mills would be sworn in as third President of the Fourth Republic in front of crowds in Independence Square.

I reached the tro station at 7 pm. There was one tro waiting and it was going to Koforidua. I boarded, bought an extra seat for my luggage and waited. The traders were packing up and the flickering lamps that illuminated their stalls were being extinguished. Nobody seemed interested in going to Koforidua. One man turned up with only half the fare and at eight a Ghanaian and his sister-in-law from overseas arrived. The couple paid for their seats and I paid for three more so that we could leave. It was so dark now it was hard to see the value of the notes in our hands.
I reached Koforidua at 10:15 and walked home. There was a noticeably subdued atmosphere about the place over the next couple of days. There was less music playing, less traffic and fewer people about. Eastern Region and Koforidua in particular strongly support the NPP. I talked to a number of people and they were all concerned that the NPP had not been returned for a third term, but they were trying to be positive. We will see what happens next.