The Hot Tamale

I hate getting up at 4am...what kind of silly selfish airline has a flight that you have to check in at 4am...I'll tell you which one... The kind of airline that has the following safety notice sticky-taped to the back of their tray tables!!

So Tara and I began our next adventure to Ghana's northern "major" city known as Tamale, home of the mud hut, crazy jumping lizard and the highly edible Guinea Fowl!!... they know it...poor plump little birds. This trip was Tara's chance to shine her colours as a young training WASH specialist (Water, sanitation and hygiene)... or as I prefer to call them the soap police. Her job is to make sure rural communities are taking on the responsibility of washing their hands regularly and pooping in the right place.

Typical local village

Local Chief showing us how it's done

What you overcharged Australians might not know is that your ever so popular Shea Butter is actually made here and used for soap...even to wash the locals dishes... GASP!! Go ahead and check the back of your Body Shop Shea body creme...where is it made? yeh, that's right! You can make your own Shea Butter Soap using my user friendly step by step instructionaire below

Collect the Shea Fruit

 Sun the Shea Nut

SOAP!

I hope you found my tutorial helpful. 

I am also aware that many of you have been hanging out to see some pictures of the local pit latrines. The pit latrines vary greatly in quality and privacy but more or less range from exposed family pit latrine to sheltered family pit latrine to shared communal pit latrines. Many of the locals do not like the public pit latrines because they are charged the equivalent of 2 Australian cents to use the public latrines to meet upkeep costs. Many believe that they will contract AIDS or HIV by doing their business over a hole in the ground which is used by the rest of the community. Many locals would much rather go in the bush next to the latrine...I hope you can now understand why Tara feels there is a need for sanitation education.  

Exposed family pit latrine

Enclosed family pit latrine

Communal pit latrine

Of course Tara isn't the one who gets to have all the fun. I can never resist educating the locals a little more about their existing local geology and potential aquifers. 

Local Well

Warning: Never view while wearing glasses

The responses we received in villages varied. Most of the villages we visited were very appreciative of our visits and often gave us gifts of Guinea fowl eggs or some of their local seeds. Some of them liked to Sing and dance or play a local instrument for us as well as demonstrated by the Ghanaian butt dance below and the old fella on the...Guitar?

Ghanaian Butt Dance

 

On the strings

We had a great time in Tamale and learnt heaps from the locals about how to survive on less than $200 a year for the whole family. They rely heavily on the land and are trying their best to find local solutions to their water, health and sanitation problems. We saw just a handful of the better communities which had earned the title of ODF (Open deification free). But many are still a very long way from achieving even that.