First Week in Navio

After spending the entire Easter weekend in the village, my universe had indeed shrunken quite significantly and it was interesting to observe that when I went to Paga and to Navrongo that Monday afternoon, it felt like I was entering civilization again.   The difference between the town of Navrongo and small village of Navio is so stark that it really hit me quite strongly.   I reflected that when I first came to Paga with an implicit comparison to Tamale in mind, I was surprised at how small Paga was.  Coming from Navio, I felt like my short trip to Paga and Navrongo was quite extraordinary and I was even a bit overwhelmed by the bustling activity of the market and the traffic on the streets.

The next day, I took an even bigger leap as I drove to Bolgatanga, the Regional Capital to take part in a meeting of the Regional Director and the District Directors. Again, this same difference hit me and even going to the EWB office there were there was air conditioning, a fan, and even a refrigerator was another moment of surprise.  Overall, the day was quite informative and after soaking up lots of information at the meeting, I returned to Navio that evening. 

Later that week, I was fortunate to attend a meeting of farmer group leaders in a town called Sirigu that is about 24 km away from Paga and at the very eastern end of the district.  My very attentive readers may note a slight discrepancy here as I am working in Paga at the Kassena Nankana West District Office but I was visiting a community who is part of this district but is at the very eastern end of the district.  This difference is still a bit confusing to me but so far I have not completely understood the reason for this oddity.  The meeting was very informative though.  The AEA I was visiting had assembled about 20 farmer groups together and they held a meeting to review quarterly goals for the last quarter and to set quarterly goals for the next quarter.   They asked me several challenging questions and especially because the previous volunteer from EWB, who had been working in Paga, had been focussing on a different area than I would be.   

At the time, I did not realize the truly exceptional aspect of this meeting.  I thought that this process may be common with other AEAs as well.  However, I later learnt that actually this type of meeting is a completely new phenomenon even to more senior volunteers who have been working with communities.  Part of the challenge now is to find out more about this practice, to see how well it is working and whether it may be a procedure that may be applicable to other groups as well.