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So, this is my second post on my village stay, about my time in the small farming village of Timburyiri, about 2 km away from Bale. The village has about 100 people in it, so it was a very tight community and I was definitely the “town wonder” while I was there.

When I arrived in the town on Sunday afternoon, Kondep introduced me to the elders of the village (common practice in small towns). Then he introduced me to Jonas. Jonas is about 20, the second oldest child in his family, and he became my cultural informant/crutch during my time in Timburyiri. He studies in Grade 8 at the Junior High School in Bale, after he finishes JHS, he is hoping to continue on to Senior High School in Bole and, if possible, go to University to become a lawyer. He is trying to be realistic though, attending University can be very difficult, and expensive, in Ghana. So he has other plans, he hopes to leave the farm behind and use his education to get a job in a city somewhere. He is spending a lot of his time working with electrical components, doing some minor fixes on the small number of battery powered things in the village (mostly just flashlights). He’s been working on this cool mini project where he turns the flashlight into a stable, battery-powered light for your room. He is still working out the kinks, and learning a lot while he does, but he has a keen interest in it and seems to show some aptitude for it as well.

Jonas and a friend (Jonas in white)

The first night I spent getting introduced to the village, settling down etc. Many of the farmers had taken part of Sunday off for church and market day in Bale, so everyone was in a relaxing mood. And me, being the town wonder, became their entertainment for the night. It was cool when they would talk to me and ask me about stuff, but there was a point when there were like 20 kids staring at me while I was reading, and it was sort of creepy. I knew they were looking for me to do something interesting (you know, like when you go to the zoo and all the animals are sleeping), but it was getting dark and I couldn’t think of anything to show them. Eventually I got the idea to pull out my crank flashlight, one of those flashlights you can charge by cranking a handle, and showed it to the kids. They loved it. At first they were scared to touch it, but eventually they were all taking turns cranking it and being amazed at how bright it got if you cranked really fast. So, me being an engineer, I used this to teach them a bit about electricity, how it’s generated etc. I’m pretty sure I taught them some stuff wrong, and they probably didn’t understand half of what I said, but they seemed pretty interested. I think the person who was most interested was Jonas though. He took the thing and played with it for like an hour, cranking at different speeds, trying to figure out the mechanics behind it, it was cool to watch. I think I’ll give it to him when I’m about to leave Ghana, I probably won’t need it after that, and he would have tons of fun working with it, breaking it and fixing it etc.

The next morning was my first chance to get a real good look at the compound. Jonas’ father had built a mud hut initially, expanded it a couple times, then he saved up money for the concrete extension in the pic below. Honestly though, I was way more impressed with the mud hut. The way they used logs for braces, angled them out into forks to make joints. You can tell a lot of care went into the selection of the logs, making sure they were the right size and shape so they could properly serve their purpose. In general, you just had to admire them for the workmanship and their ability to use random materials around them to put together a pretty nice home.

Jonas' family compound

Monday is the farmer’s day off to relax, so again I spent the day at the compound and surrounding village. It was good though, I got to talk to the farmers a lot about what they do, where they feel they could use help, how they interact with the District Assembly etc. To be fair, most of this discussion happened with only one farmer named Daniel. He was Jonas’ uncle and his English was amazingly good. It turns out that he went all the way through high school, graduating in ’74, a huge feat for anybody at the time, let alone a farmer from the village. So he and his farming buddies would come around and talk (and drink, oh man can they drink). I’d share my pictures of Canada with them and tell them about my life, and they would share about theirs, I had some pretty solid discussion. The one farmer even went to get his bow and arrow to show me. I got to try it out, which was pretty cool, though, for all the hype I created (the town wonder was using the bow and arrow, it was like a village event), my first arrow just flopped to the ground less then a foot in front of me. There was laughter all around for that one. But the second one flew a good 10 feet before sliding harmlessly to a stop, still though, got a nice round of applause from the audience which was nice.

Me Shooting a Bow and Arrow

Finally, on Tuesday, I got to go out with the farmers to farm. By the time I woke up at 7, they had already gone out to the farm to scare away some pests (birds and monkeys mostly). So one of the village kids took me to Daniel’s farm. There, Daniel taught me as much about their local farming techniques as he could. Intercropping, Shifting fields, Rotating crops, using weeds as fertilizer, in general, there was a surprisingly high level of sophistication in the techniques these farmers used to maintain their fields. And in all my discussions with them, they never seemed worried about providing the basic necessities for their family. They farmed all the food they needed, and sold the excess to the market in the nearby towns and cities. They diversified their crop, and so even if a farmer was heavily reliant on yams, they would have yams that were ready to harvest in August, and some that were ready to harvest in December, so they weren’t completely reliant on one harvest for the year. But almost all the farmers diversified quite a bit. Daniel grew yams, cassava, beans, guinea corn and shea nuts. In fact, when I asked them what they needed most in the village, they said that they were petitioning for an improved road. Currently, the road to the town is basically a trail, making it hard for them to transport there goods to the market. They want a road that trucks and other vehicles can travel on so they can sell more.

A child playing a drum to scare the monkeys away

Daniel (black pants) and his Brother taking a break on their farm

So, that about does it for my posts from the village. I’ve been back in Bole for about a week now, work is getting pretty exciting and I know I’ve been slackin in telling you all about it, so I promise I’ll make my next post on that. Until then, keep the comments, emails, questions etc. coming!

Cheers,

Gajan

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