Tourists for the Day - Navrongo Catholic Mud Cathedral

On Sunday 10^th February Team Sandema took a day trip to Navrongo, the capital of the Kassena-Nankana District to explore the famous Catholic Mud Cathedral. We travelled to our desired destination in our favourite mode of transport, the tro tro*. Known for being overcrowded and uncomfortable, the tro tro journey was surprisingly smooth. Despite Will having half of his derrière hanging out of the window and a few bumped heads due to the never ending pot holes, we arrived in Navrongo in one piece… just about.

Getting cosy on the tro tro

Upon arrival our tro tro was mobbed by a group of eager passengers. As soon as the rusty door was pulled open, men, women, children and babies dove onto the tro tro to claim their seats. Fighting, pushing, screaming and shouting, Team Sandema were helplessly stuck in the back, whilst a grown man scrambled through the back window and a woman threw her baby onto a seat. Bemused and a little frightened (lets be honest), we managed to push our way through the boarding passengers and alight the bus. Will and I managed to escape, whilst Poppy and Tracy were still trapped in tro tro hell.

Noticing a little white hand reach out from the mass of bodies, Will grabbed it and out emerged Poppy, followed by Tracy who angrily voiced her views to the passengers. “These people seriously need to learn how to form a queue!” Once we calmed down from our traumatic travel experience, we walked to a roadside food stall and relaxed with a well-deserved egg sandwich. A bloody big one too, as Poppy’s order of ‘three egg with bread’ resulted in a three-egged sandwich, each. Filled with egg until next week, we then ventured into the town centre and met our rock, Mr. Festus.

Festus has a close friend from Navrongo, Martin, who also joined us and acted as our tour guide for the day. We asked him to take us the Mud Cathedral, which he was happy to do. “Of course!” he said. “It’s not that far, we can walk there”. Note to self; never listen to a Ghanaian when they say ‘it’s not that far’. After an hour or so walking in the sweltering Ghanaian sun, desperately seeking shade and a toilet that wasn’t a hole behind a mud wall, we finally reached the Mud Cathedral. It was an enjoyable walk*, but it reminded me of when I was younger when my family and I would travel to Cornwall in the car, and I could be constantly asking my dad, “Are we theeeeeere yet?”

Taking the scenic route

As we entered the cathedral grounds we were welcomed by angelic choir singing coming from one of the rooms, which was a suitable backing track as we turned the corner and clapped eyes on the beautiful Mud Cathedral towering above us, looking like a perfect sand castle. Feeling very much like tourists we paced the building taking lots of photos and posing for the camera in front of the bell tower.

Tourist photo - me outside the Mud Cathedral

The Mud Cathedral was organised by three missionaries, the ‘White Fathers’, who travelled from Burkina Faso to Navrongo in 1906. The White Fathers, who were French-Canadian, initially desired to settle in Paga, but were moved onto Navrongo as they were thought to be slave traders and were not trusted. They were eventually permitted land in the forest by the people of Navrongo, but were only allowed to stay if they established peace with the animals.

Once this was evident they began their ‘catholic mission’ and built a small chapel in 1907, followed by a slightly larger chapel in 1910. The striking Mud Cathedral was later built and completed in 1920 and is still used for worship today. The interior of the cathedral is very impressive with the walls decorated with catholic symbolisms and animal engravings to represent the animals the three Father’s lived amongst.

Poppy and Will get holy

The long journey to the mud cathedral was worth it in the end and Team Sandema and I had a lovely day. We braced ourselves for the long trek back to Navrongo town centre, only for Martin to take us on a short cut that brought us into town in less than half an hour. Cheers for telling us about that shortcut, Martin. Much appreciated.

*Massive lie

- Jenna 

Coming and Going in Sandema

Sandema is the capital of the Builsa District, in the Upper East Region of Ghana and is our home town until the end of March. When we were on our way to Sandema for the first time we were all very nervous; the road is full of potholes and you can look into the distance for miles and not see any sign of human life. However, when we arrived in Sandema it looked beautiful with the trees lining the high street.

Sandema is a very friendly place and we all feel safe here with a large number of local friends who always greet us in town whenever they see us.  I’m so glad that we were placed in Sandema everyone you walk past says good morning or “Salut-a”. The public transport links to Bolgatanga are good with the metromass running throughout the day and tro tro’s always available. The metro mass leaves Sandema supposedly every 2 hours starting from 6am, it starts off this way but after around 10am it is all luck as to whether you catch a metro mass, or when it might appear. These state owned buses are very similar to UK buses but due to the bad roads and the number of people who use them each day they are now a poor standard.  Seats are often missing, windows are smashed or just missing, and the doors don’t close properly, but as it is such a large bus the journey is still reasonably comfortable.

The Tro Tro’s are private mini buses which is a very popular form of transport in Ghana. They are often very cramped as they don’t leave the station until they are full with people.  These often break down; Poppy and I once saw one break down driving out of the station! Luckily so far one has not broken down with us in!

Fortunately, for Team Sandema, we have been quite lucky getting public transport and have always made it to our destination in one piece!  Let’s hope this luck continues as we try to get to Mole National park this weekend!

Life is wonderful!

Life is Sandema is hot, relaxing and rewarding. It is one of the friendliest places I’ve ever been; every other person says hello, shakes your hand or waves and every child shouts “smiley, smiley” as you walk past. Sandema is everything I hoped for out of my trip in Ghana, it is basic but has everything you need; water, electricity and Don Simon Sangria!

We live a bit of a way out of town which considering our lack of taxi/bike means we’re doing plenty of exercise; unfortunately this is wasted on the group that have found caramel and chocolate biscuits! Market day, as has been mentioned before, is every 3 days – I thought this would mean rationing out vegetables and sausages however, our collective cooking skills are pretty good and we’re making our food last pretty well with a little help of “tamman jarrah” = give me more for free.

Festus is very patiently teaching us Buli – we are learning mar mar (small small) but slowly getting there! We can now greet people and buy food – the important things. When we first arrived in Sandema we had a talk from Maxwell (our project co-ordinator, a wonderfully funny man) about the troubles with drinking in Sandema, they are pretty much the same as home – don’t get too drunk and sleep with an undesirable. Other than this early warning we have had no reason to worry or be frightened at all while here in Sandem, everyone is friendly and looks out for each other. Jenna and I got stranded in town one evening as our taxi driver was busy doing whatever he was doing but people were falling over themselves to find a way home for us. Our good friend Yaw stayed with us and looked after us until the legend that is Kwame came to save us. 

Kwame is our driver, at first we thought he was a sweet, quiet guy – him and Festus remind me a lot of the Chuckle Brothers.

Kwame getting involved during a meeting with Kadema Disabled People's Organisation

However, Kwame has absolutely no qualms in telling the Chiefs and his elders off for keeping us waiting and often gives Martin Luther Kingesque power speeches to anyone who will listen. Kwame has a dream!

















Kwame has also (very kindly) agreed to marry me before we go home so that we can experience what a Ghanaian wedding is like – what a gent!

Our time here is forever being improved by the wonderful people we meet – we have met two other “smalley smalleys” while being here and our now quite large foreigner group draws a lot of attention and excitement from the local children.

- Poppy

My Sandema Experience

I love Sandema, and I’m not just saying that because we’ve been posted here on our project. I’ll be honest, upon arrival back in January I was a little dubious as to where the hell we were going as the tarmac roads turned to dust. But, after living here for the past four weeks I’ve grown to admire the small Northern town more and more each day.

It’s a friendly, generally quiet place with a small bustling town centre. The two main roads leading to the town are lined with trees setting an idyllic scene. School children scamper the street in their orange and brown school uniform, as motorbikes and tro-tros whizz up and down. When entering the centre you pass a large pond, which is apparently home to a number of hungry crocodiles – we didn’t have to travel all the way to Paga after all! Despite their presence it doesn’t stop some of the locals from taking a dip.

We’ve also discovered a number of watering holes and restaurants in the area hidden in the back streets of Sandema and in the market. Conifeh’s is our favourite spot, as mentioned in a previous post, where you can eat a delicious dinner for £1.00 or chill out and watch the African Nations. Paloma’s, located in the market is a close second, but has recently gone down in our estimations after we waited ages for them to go shopping for our drinks order. Our in-country volunteer Festus introduced us to two more drinking spots; Corner Bar and Quality. We’re looking forward to visiting these soon.

The thing I like most about Sandema is its community feel. Being ‘the only whites in the village’ we’re easily recognised and people often approach us to welcome us to their hometown. Plus, thanks to our project manager, Maxwell, we now have many contacts in the area from the chiefs to members of the District Assembly who always say hello… or ‘salut’, ‘cantwain’, ‘junway’ [sic] depending on the time of day.

It’s been interesting learning about Sandema and its neighbouring villages in the Builsa area. Without the help of Festus educating us on the local food, drink, shops and language we’d be lost! His full name is Festus Azewie Apiung, ‘Apiung’ meaning rock, by name and nature. Sometimes we wonder what we’d do without him.

Considering cultural exchange is important on this trip, I thought that I’d teach Festus a few Yorkshire words and phrases commonly used at home that he’s quickly picking up on. He now knows the following;

Hiya love = Hello

T’ra = Goodbye

Tar = Thank you

Y’alright? = How are you

He needs to work on his Yorkshire accent but he’s doing better job than I am at learning Buli! He now greets me with, ‘Hiya love, y’alright’, which makes my day every time I hear it. The next lesson will be an episode of Emmerdale.

- Jenna

No photos?!?!

Quick update:

Unfortunately we have a very poor internet connection at the moment which means we cannot upload any photos just yet!  We have lots to add to the posts and hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Please keep reading our blog and feel free to make any comments.....we promise to upload some more photos as soon as we can!!

We will learn from you, and you will learn from us

This week we have been finishing our visits to the local Chiefs and Elders in the various communities in the Builsa district.  The visits have been very interesting, and we learn something different from each Chief.

One of the most interesting visits has been to see the Chief in Siniensi.  As usual we asked him about the history of the Feok, the traditions and the activities that were involved in celebrating the Feok festival and the responses were relatively similar to those from other communities.  However, in Siniensi the conversation turned to the conflict between the Traditional beliefs of the Builsa people, and the prevalence of Christianity.

Beginning in the 15^th Century, Ghana was occupied by European colonisers from Portugal, Holland, Britain and Denmark in order to capitalise on exports of gold and the slave trade, and with these colonisers came Christianity and missionaries, who were instrumental in developing an education system in Ghana in order to facilitate the spreading of the Gospel.  One of the issues we have discovered whilst talking to the many Chiefs is that young people in the Builsa district are disheartened and disinterested with the traditional culture and beliefs.  The Siniensi Chief made an interesting, and probably quite a valid point that the youth of Ghana consider that Western methods and way of life will lead to success rather than the more traditional Ghanaian livelihood methods.  As a result, they are less interested in participating and performing in the traditional Feok festival and, according to the Siniensi Chief, the cultural traditions of the Builsa are slowly dying out.  

The Siniensi Chief strongly linked education with Christianity, and this opinion has been reiterated in several conversations we have had here in Ghana.  It is understandable then, that the cultural traditions of offering sacrifices to the Gods for a good harvest, as is customary during the Feok festival, are not taught or proclaimed in many of the schools in Ghana, where there is reportedly a strong Christian bias.  How true this is, is yet to be confirmed, and hopefully our visits to schools in the coming weeks will confirm or challenge this opinion.  Interestingly, our partner organisation is strongly linked with the Presbyterian Church and our project co-ordinator is an avid Christian who does not practice the traditional beliefs of his people, and yet he is the main instigator behind our project which aims to assist the Builsa people to retain their cultural heritage.  

This conversation started me thinking about the influence of Western ideas on recipients of development and humanitarian aid, and the problem of leaving, or enforcing, a Western footprint in aid and development bugged me throughout my recent degree. I think it is important that, as aid and development workers, we respect the traditions and culture of the country in which we are working, despite whether our own scientific and perhaps secular education disapproves.  I don’t know where the line is that brings development to Ghana without Westernising the country, but throughout my time here I will carry with me a message that has been repeated many times from the Chiefs we have met:

“We will learn from you, and you will learn from us”.  I see development as a mutual investment in the country, and hopefully by helping the region to preserve their cultural history we will also be able to help them move forward in their disability awareness.

- Tracy

Pikworo Slave Camp

 While in Paga we took a slightly more sombre excursion and visited the once-was Pikworo Slave Camp. At 8 cedi’s entry per volunteer it is well worth visiting and learning about if you’re in the area.

Our guide, demonstrating Punishment Rock

During the early 19^th Century several hundred slaves were kept at Pikworo before travelling to Salaga market to be sold by infamous slave raiders Babatu and Samori. We were taken around the ruins of the camp; we saw the watch tower, the graveyard and the punishment rock – our guide demonstrated how each area would have been used. A captured slave on the punishment rock would have had their hands and feet tied and forced to face the sun with no water or food, often being whipped; they were often left there to die if they had argued against being sold. 

The "bowls" slaves were forced to eat from

While researching the Feok Festival for our project we have heard a lot of stories regarding Babatu’s reign and final defeat but seeing the real life slave camps made the stories and our interest a lot more real. We saw the holes in the ground that were dug by slaves as punishment and then they were forced to eat out of these, often 5 or 6 slaves per hole – they were never given quite enough food to make them strong enough to resist.  

On a lighter note, we also visited their “entertainment centre” where rock drumming, singing and dancing took place – our rendition of “the lion sleeps tonight” seemed to go down quite well with the local children who accompanied us on our tour although, the locals’ music played on these rocks was impressive – different size rocks beat against different sides of the rocks created different sounds.

- Poppy