School For The Deaf in Savelugu

Since Easter Monday was a holiday, classes were not in session at the School For The Deaf in Savelugu, but all 400 students (ages 5-18) who board there seemed glad for the diversion of our visit.
An hour's ride from Tamale in a fully packed tro-tro brought us to the sprawling compound of the school where we toured the classrooms, dormitories and large dining hall.
I especially enjoyed interacting with a group of teenage girls who definitely inspired me to re-explore my limited knowledge of sign language. They were eager to communicate, ask questions and share their thoughts.
One sobering fact we learned on our visit concerned the ineffective use of most of the hearing aids which had been donated and distributed to the students a couple of years ago. No one was wearing aids. Without a full-time person to oversee adjustments and repairs, the widespread fitting of aids here does not seem practical. For those particular students, however, who can be identified as having the potential to benefit from amplification, a well supervised program could be productive and rewarding.

Family Visit

Veronica and Blessing

The Visit

The other day, Veronica said that she would like for me to meet her family. I had understood Jim to say that she lived nearby with her mother, a short walk from our place. However, the "family visit" involved a good deal more. First, we walked to the house in which she stays during the week in order to be close to work. There, I met Mary, who Veronica calls her mother, but who may or may not be related. Another woman, Jacqueline, the person who Jim had believed to be Veronica's mother, lived in another house nearby, but who is in fact an auntie. Veronica proceeded to change from sweat pants to a pretty dress and then told me we first had to take a taxi into town where we would then get into another taxi to take us out to her family home. After quite a long ride - almost out to the airport - and directly across from the Army's Bahwah Barracks, we exited the taxi in front of her father's compound. Veronica's father, Jacob, is a retired policeman who lives with his two wives on a compound he built several years ago. With great pride, he gave me a tour of the premises. There, I also met Veronica's birth mother, Abalise, along with Jacob's senior wife, Larama, who Veronica refers to as her step-mother. Jacob informed me that he sired eight children with his senior wife (two of whom are deceased) and six with his second wife. Husband and wives happily posed together for a family photo.

Back to Life in Tamale

Getting re-organized always takes a bit of time, but everything went pretty smoothly considering that our now former housekeeper, Mona, decided to return to school full time. Veronica, a young 22 year-old mother spends a few hours each morning to help with cleaning and the laundry. She  arrives with two year-old Blessing who is happy to explore each room, sometimes even picking up a scrub brush to imitate her mother washing the floor. Makes me very aware of "baby-proofing" the house, especially when I've seen the many small objects that Jim has had to remove from children's throats.

Sunday lunch with friends continues in full swing. Always fun to figure out which items (for some reason often misspelled) listed on the extensive menu may actually be available. Recent winner was "Died Chicken Curry."

Finally, there seems to be a somewhat complicated system of figuring out when the next scheduled 12-hour power outage will occur - 6 AM to 6 PM or the reverse 6 PM to 6 AM. Complicated because it is random more often than not. Since this can also affect our water pump....

And in the market - plenty of favorites: mangoes, avocados, eggplant, etc.!

Close Connection

After an unexpected shortened stay in Ghana this past December, I once again boarded Delta's direct flight to Accra 20 March. Unfortunately, the spring snowfall in NYC caused us to remain on the tarmac for over three hours which resulted in giving me only minutes to dash from the international terminal in Accra over to the domestic one in order to catch the last African World flight of the day up to Tamale.

Miracles do happen and I was on my way north!