10 Rules for a Meeting

1. Set a time and emphasise the time
2. Be late
3. Don't start until everyone is present, even if this means waiting 4 hours for 1 person
4. Once you start, make sure you answer your phone every time it rings - even if mid sentence when presenting
5. It is ok to pick your nose or ears when presenting to your important audience
6. Sleeping in a meeting is fine, be you a presenter or a participant
7. Women take the minutes
8. The moderator/chairman should never stop a conversation, even when discussing irrelevant, trivial matters for hours (eg. what temperature the other office's airconditioning should be set at)
9. Lunch (ie. 'motivation') is provided
10. Meetings should always run overtime

Captive audience - rare... but plenty of laptops to pretend you are listening/working

Babies very welcome - and are more fun when it starts to get boring

Be prepared with a good book, or some games to play with the kids that are bound to be at the meeting and you are fine. Never come empty handed...

What a Weak

Health Week/ Fitness Week / Budget Week

Sounds like fun right? Well we had to do it. Madeleine (fellow AYAD/housemate/friend) and I embarked on the challenge after money was flowing through our fingers daily, after weeks on end of burgers and pizza and zero exercise (eating/drinking not included in the exercise).

As usual health week was pretty dire and I think we made it until Tuesday, somehow managing to justify a pizza in there and also pancakes. But it is a good start, and helps to prevent the onset of the Tamale Tyre.

Fitness week was a bit easier. Up each morning egging each other on to keep up the push ups and the cardio, we went bike riding, did 15 minute work outs and chose to move not to sit. Good good but tiring!

So budget week was the real eye-opener (I think I pretty much knew I’d fail the other 2!). Living here must be incredibly hard for the locals. If you think about the income of the locals, a good wage (ie full-time at the Apple store in Accra) is GHc60 per week ie. AUD$30. So we thought we’d try to stick to that. Firstly we totaled up our rent, security guards, cleaner and gardener staff. Already we were well over the budget. So we thought we’d try to do budget week not including these expenses. Then we needed to pay electricity – GHc60. Oops. And Gas – GHc100. Dam.

·         Vegetables GHc20 per week (AUD$10)

·         Transport GHc10 per week (AUD$5)

·         Eating out GHc20 per week (AUD$10)

The all-important 1Cedi note

Basically the bills totaled up really quick before I even felt like I was spending! 

Shopping Option A: From the car window (a personal favourite)

Shopping Option B: From the ground/street

Then there was a long taxi ride to get us to the Eid festivities and also a roommate’s birthday which meant present/dinner/drinks too. So it was an eye-opener and a lesson to be a bit more careful.

The thing that created the biggest impact on me was the cost of vegetables and fruit. It’s not affordable at all to anyone that isn’t on a decent wage, and prices are set to rise higher when the harvest is over, and the dry season sets in (basically, soon). I read somewhere that Ghanaians used to have a diet with plenty of fruit and veg, but now the traditional food is basically just meat and starch. It’s rare to see a vegetable in a dinner dish, and fruit is imported, rare and expensive. I couldn’t even bring myself to imagine how you would apply basic nutritional public health messages to Ghana when the affordability is so ridiculous.

3 Capsicums = GHc2 (AUD$1)

4 Onions = GHc2 (AUD$1)

A day’s wage already for some people. What would you prefer, something filling or healthy?

Other options include Eggplants, Cabbage, Carrots, Tomatoes and Squash.

Individual items are cheap, but when you total them up for a family of 15 that you need to feed (as is the case with our guard Mohammed), you simply can’t afford it.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but it is just so lucky that there aren’t more nutritional problems in this country with the food supply as it is. I have planted some tomatoes, cabbages, lettuce, lemongrass, basil and spring onions, hoping to keep me happy for a while (and occupied). More on food to come of course, but this I guess is an introduction to why the food is the way it is!

The Technical Details

Work

So far this is still ‘orientation’ time, so there isn’t really much to tell, although to give you an idea of what I will be doing it is mostly liaison and forming appropriate relationships. Mostly with the government. I deal with the Health Service here, ensuring the funding that we have allocated is being used, and used appropriately. So my role is not hands on with individuals (I have no insurance for this), it is more technical and overseeing. It is interesting getting an insight into the UN, and also the government.

I have met the health directors of the regions we work in (Northern Region, Upper West Region and Upper East Region) and also some people from the District Assembly. We have talked about preparedness for the forthcoming floods, placement of donated toilets, water sanitation plants, and also attended the training funded by us to help provide best practice care on malnutrition treatment. There are plenty of projects going on, and we are always working towards improving child health. This can spill over into maternal health too, however it is not the primary target.

Ghana is considered a middle-income country now, and has discovered oil, floating more money into the economy (the oil money was quickly spent, I’m not sure where). So when you think of Ghana don’t think of the pictures you see of starving people in Somalia, or sponsor child pictures, it’s a thriving place with many rich people, and all the trappings you get at home (except cheese!), safe, friendly and the roads are amazing! It’s not fair to lump all of Africa in together as ‘poor’, in comparison to India it is a whole another world, yet of course there are pockets of poverty, inequality and poorly maintained infrastructure.

I work in an air-conditioned office, with Landcruiser transport everywhere and well educated staff who speak English and are very healthy. Most of the staff are Ghanaians, I have enjoyed the period of getting to know everyone, having a chat and finding out more about everyone. There is a mixture of Christians and Muslims here, representing the population I guess, it was interesting arriving during Ramadan and celebrating Eid with work colleagues (the breaking of the fast).

Work Colleagues - at the photography course

On our way to Eid at our colleagues's house

Work.... Yes, we are in a bar

Home

We have 2 security guards 24 hours at our place - night shift and day shift. Mohammed and Al-Hussan. They are super-friendly and help us with learning Dagbani (the local language). This is a UN requirement, but it has been nice to have such a close relationship with some local people, they are like family now. House is massive, biggest (apart form Sunhill Drive) that I’ve ever lived in. Bathrooms are just like home, and it has air-conditioning etc. Can’t complain really - much to my initial disappointment we have also 2 cleaners and a gardener - not really living a true Ghanaian lifestyle, however it is justified by employing local people and giving back to the economy.

Team Tamale with our friend Emelia who coordinated our orientation into Ghana

The Aussie house. Mohammed is our security guard

Mads and our neighbours - the walk to the main road everyday for work

So life is peachy here, growing some tomatoes, cabbages, lettuce, basil in the backyard and have created a recycling system for ourselves seeing as the rubbish (plastic and all included) is just burnt, we want to try to reduce our waste as much as possible. Will update with photos when we have done something creative!