Three and a Half Day Program

[aggienaut]

Wednesday, June 7th, Day 34 - "Do you think you can finish by today?"
"I thought we were going to finish tomorrow?"
"We'll just have the closing ceremonies tomorrow"
"Okay I'll hurry through it then I guess."



   It's funny when Courage is here we seem to go from around 9am to 6pm Monday through Thursday and then finish at noon on Friday, long marathon sessions and usually I'm left stressing about how I'm even going to fill all the time. Without Courage here first it was proposed that because it took less time than usual to organize everyone on Monday we could wrap up Thursday. So that made sense there's usually about a three hour delay of "they're not even here yet" on Mondays so we could eliminate the three hour session on Friday sure, but I was visualizing we'd go till five or six on Thursday. But now Thursday is just that three hour session, so this has only been a three day program.

   Well I was able to cover all the material, only finishing half an hour over target time Wednesday. And it would have been on time if I didn't do the business unit that I'd kind of only added because I felt like I had more than enough time and needed more material, but by now it feels like part of everything.



   Anyway I'm not really complaining, it was less stressful then being unsure how I'd fill all the time, and I think I was able to adequately impart all the necessary knowledge.
   Also as a result of this I guess we'll have a 3.5 day weekend. Which I kind of feel like maybe I OUGHT to do something really adventurous with it. Especially since for example that guy W T Lanier was really recommending I spend three days at Mole National Park which is not far from here. But I kind of feel like just going on a day trip so I can take my colleagues along. Spending three days and several hundred dollars to go there by myself just isn't feeling very appealing to me. I don't know, not to be like "shrug" about safari but I've been on safari before, I'm sure it's lovely but I'd rather go with friends than alone.
   So we'll see what ends up happening but I might just spend the time "relaxing" here in Tamale. Which often isn't terribly fun as there's often daytime power outages and hotels, especially this one as we've seen already, don't often feel motivated to run their generators during the day, assuming their guests are out doing something -- so if you're just here during the day you find yourself just sweltering with no AC and nothing to do but try to read a book.



   "Are we here to take pictures or are we here to do beekeeping o?"
   Anyway we did have a field visit this afternoon. It wasn't nearly as far at the day before. We took the big red bus to an outlying village not far out of Tamale. Parked the bus and we were all trudging along the trail to the outskirts of the village. And there's this native mint that grows naturally beside the trails and when a lot of us are walking it gets trod upon and makes a nice earthy minty smell.
   But as we were walking suddenly someone from the village was calling for us to stop. It turns out a representative from the village chief had interdicted us because no one had told the chief what was going on, so there was a few minutes delay while our leaders discussed with this representative, and then on the way out they went to see the chief.
   Village chiefs are obviously a big part of culture and tradition here, but I get the sense that a lot of more progressive Ghanaians are quietly a bit eyeroll about their place in society. Imagine the person who had lived in your subdivision the longest made everyone's business their business and you had to respectfully check in with them for whatever you wanted to do. Sometimes they conduct themselves with dignity and gravitas, but as with one chief we met with last year he seemed kind of barely there mentally.



   Dr Courage returned here last night so I'll be kind of curious if he tightens the gears on things immediately.

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