First post

Tamale is a small city in Ghana’s Northern region. About 200 000 people live here, or in villages just outside of town. Space here is organized differently - I think as an indirect consequence of the lack of resources and infrastructure here. There’s no garbage pickup, so people burn their garbage themselves. A smell of car exhaust and burning trash covers most of the town. In the distance, a giant stadium hovers on the horizon. You can see it from almost anywhere. It looks like a model from Independence Day.

Create Change, which is the NGO that I’m working for, is a small organization which runs out of an office on the second story of the Ya-Musah Story Building. Construction on our building seems to have stopped about three-quarters of the way through, and nobody seems to know when it will start up again.

We focus on water and girls’ educational projects, though the main goal is to educate women and to free them from bare subsistence. We sponsor girls through JSS (Junior High) SS (High School) and have recently taken on a few post secondary students as well. School is expensive, since Ghana stopped providing free education as part of austerity measures forced by the World Bank in the late ‘80s.

Those Create Change helps educate are able to support their families and practice the skills they learn through education in their communities. Water projects are built to provide a long-term benefit and are sited to benefit women and children in particular.

I’ve been in the country for some time, so I think it’s time to get this blog up and running. I’m going to try to keep it interesting – I’m only going to write when I have something to write about, and that will rarely be me or the sandwich I had for lunch. I’m boring and Canadian and you can get enough of that at home.

That out of the way, there's a lot here. Some of the things I've seen are sad, but interesting too. Not here to change the culture, at least not directly.

I’ll do my best to keep you posted, and you do your best to keep reading.

Thanks, everyone.

Eric