Tales from Ghana 2010: The Village Part 2

By Maire Tejani, Founder and  CEO of Yaarah Schools

Alex the local councillor  introduced us as customs demand, as the new people in villege to the senior chief and his elders in the first week.

This senior chief governs more than 30 villages in the local area including Aziedukope.  At the project site, work started with the foundations of the 3 new classrooms.  We also learnt that whenever there was a funeral in a village, the villagers and the neighbouring villages are very reluctant to do work.

This is the culture in this part of the country. Everything except the preparation for the funeral will be at stand still for at least a week.  Unfortunately for us within the 2 weeks that we were there, there were 4 funerals!  We actually managed to do some work by bringing additional workers from other villages and Accra to help withthe project work. This helped accelerate the progress of the work and the additional hands were wonderful.

Before I left for London on the 7th of September,  the 3 new classrooms were at the roofing stage, the doors, windows , tables and chairs for the already completed classrooms were being done on site.

To wrap up everything so nicely and cheer us up, we had a phone call to come and collect our registration certificate as an NGO in Ghana, hurray!!!!

Therefore we are now registered as Yaarah Foundation in Ghana.

• Read Maire Tejani’s Tales from Ghana 2010: The Village Part 1