The journey north

Once we had completed our in-country training it was time for our long journey north to our placements. On Saturday morning we left our hotel in Accra at 6.30. Our driver Issa had travelled down from Bolga the day before in a four wheel drive which had an open boot for our luggage. As well as our luggage (and water filters etc) there was Mike’s too, and some deliveries to go north, along with some VSO bits and pieces. We only just managed to get our luggage and some of Mike’s in once the VSO bits were in, so Mike couldn’t come with us and went up on the bus instead.

The journey to Bolga was long – 14 hours – but strangely it didn’t feel like that. I think when you know it’s going to be such a long journey you don’t really think about the time, and also it was interesting to look at the changing scenery along the way.

The land changed gradually from fairly hilly, tropical and green to flat, dry and brown, and also became far less populated.


We passed over two rivers – the Black Volta and the White Volta, so known because of its chalky appearance, before finally arriving in Tamale. This is the most populated area of the north and we stopped for a quick, late lunch, having broken the back of the journey. It was just an hour and a half before we arrived at Janet’s house in Walewale, and met Mike’s wife, Charlotte. The house was basic but fairly large and well cared for, and I could see that Charlotte was keen to make Janet welcome. She had invited several local people round to meet her already, and had organised her room. It was noticeably hot in the house, but cooler outside where there was an evening breeze.

Walewale is in the Northern Region of Ghana (capital Tamale) which is so called because it used to be the most northern part of the country. However, some time ago the borders were moved further north, creating two areas called the Upper East and the Upper West. Michelle is staying in Bolgatanga which is the capital of the Upper East region and is about an hour’s journey north of Walewale. I am staying in Jirapa which is far to the west of the Upper West region, where Wa is the capital. The road between Bolga and Jirapa is said to be the worst in Ghana, and as even the ‘good’ roads are full of potholes and difficult to drive anyway I was concerned about this leg of the journey!

Aware of the time and the fast approaching dark (sunset is almost instantaneous and takes place at 6.30pm every day regardless of the time of year) we said our goodbyes and Michelle & I continued our northward journey to Bolgatanga. This is a fairly large town, and Michelle’s house is near the centre in quite a lively place. The house has a wall around it for security. She is living with Christina who is Irish, and again the house was basic but attractive. Having made arrangements to meet Michelle and Christina the next day I left with the driver for a lovely, quiet and family-run hotel in Bolga called Siralodge. Although it was on the same road as Michelle’s house it was quite some distance from it so I knew I would need to get a taxi to see her the next day.


The owner of the Siralodge helped me hail a taxi after lunch on the Sunday and I went over to Michelle’s. We went for a short walk so Michelle could buy some food supplies from a tiny shop. This was far from a supermarket, or even a corner shop as we know it, and we began to realise that shopping would be a complex business. She managed to buy some rice and a couple of tins and some wafers and water, as well as toilet roll and a pair of flipflops for the shower.

Next Christina took us to a restaurant where I sampled groundnut soup with chicken and a rice ball. The soup was spicy and delicious and the rice ball was cooked rice squeezed together so it was quite stodgy. The Ghanaians dip bits of rice ball into the soup and this proved to be tasty too, although I couldn’t eat all the rice. They eat with their fingers and only use their right hand (using the left is rude), but we stuck to knives and forks!

Next a variety of VSO volunteers joined us to watch Ghana in the quarter final of the Africa Cup of Nations tournament. They were playing Angola, the host nation, and won the match 1-0! We cheered loudly along with the Ghanaians in the restaurant! Ghanaians seem surprised their country has come this far in the tournament because they didn’t really rate the team.

Soon it was time to get a good night’s sleep at the hotel so I bid farewell to Michelle and Christina, and on Monday Issa arrived at 9am to drive me to Jirapa. They weren’t kidding about the road! It was awful. There was no tarmac and it was full of craters and potholes, and I learned why there are so many handles to hold onto in four wheel drive vehicles!

This picture shows a good part of the road!

There were very few settlements along the way, apart from the occasional farming community. Also there were hardly any other cars on the road, and we passed just a handful of people on motorbikes.


Halfway along the road we came to a small town and a sign marking the border between Upper East and Upper West and gradually the road began to improve a little.


Then Issa uttered the immortal words, ‘That road has improved so much since I last drove it that I think we will arrive early in Jirapa’! I can’t imagine what it was like before, and I also can’t imagine what it must be like going along it in a tro-tro! We passed some dried up rivers as it is the dry season and finally arrived in Jirapa about 2pm. At the house we were met by Aaron and his partner Noriko who are two of my housemates.

Issa and Aaron unloaded my desk and chair from the truck, along with my luggage, and before long Issa had left and we were sitting down to lunch and chatting. For lunch we had toast and peanut butter, and coleslaw. I was relieved to find tea was on offer too!

Aaron went back to work after lunch, while I unpacked and settled in and Noriko worked on some Japanese translation work. Around 5.30 my other housemate, Cath, returned from work. Cath is lovely and we had a good chat about her work in the schools, and about life in Ghana in general. We found to our amazement that we both did our teacher training at Goldsmiths in South London, and are the same age bar a few days. We worked out that Cath was in the year above me because I had my year out before I went to college, but then she took a year out in her third year, so she would have been in my year for our final two years. We didn’t meet though because we were doing different specialisms, and spent a lot of time out on teaching practices.

Noriko cooked dinner. It was ‘red red’ which is a Ghanaian dish of bean stew, leaves of some kind (nobody could name them but they were like spinach) and fried plantain. After the football – the quarter final between Zambia and Nigeria which Nigeria won on penalties – I fell into bed exhausted having made plans to visit the Education Office with Aaron in the morning. Ghana will play Nigeria in the semi-finals on Thursday!