Tumu, Upper West Region, Ghana

On this past weekend, Susan and I made a motorcycle trip to Tumu in the Upper West Region. Susan had planned to go and thought about going by motorcycle but didn't want to make the trip alone. I remembered that my plan was to do a bit more travelling while in Ghana so that I wouldn't leave and wonder what I had seen. So, I decided to go along.

We left home about 6:00 on Saturday morning. I had been warned that the road was very bad, with potholes big enough to swallow a motorcycle. Susan had made the trip once before by tro-tro (mini-bus) and said that it took over three hours, assuming no breakdowns. Travelling on our own, we expected to make better time.

However, travelling on our own meant that we could stop when we wanted for as long as we wanted. About 70 km of the 140 km was dirt track. It wasn't as bad as I had been warned it would be, but we did have to slow down a bit to make the ride comfortable. We passed a couple of places that were filled with the flowers that you see above. They were just growing wild. We finally stopped at one field. The farmer came up and dug up a couple of the bulbs for us to take to Tumu to the volunteers there. It was good that we stopped here because it was the last field that we saw like this, and we didn't even notice the flowers when we returned on Monday.

If any of the horticulturists out there can tell what kind of flower this is from the picture, please let me know (david.perry.ghana@gmail.com). They were very pretty. We were able to pick up another bulb on the way home for our own house, so I hope that it survived the trip.

We stopped for a few pictures on the way home on Monday, even though we were more focused on getting back to Bolgatanga. This is a bridge over some small river before we reached the paved roads. It was really picturesque and the trip was enjoyable. The roads were not nearly as bad as I had been warned. I would not want to make the trip in the rain, though.

I would have posted a picture of Susan but did not feel right about putting someone else's photo on my blog. Susan followed me all the way, both going and coming. As a result, she got pretty dirty. From the picture you can't see much dirt on me, but my legs were looking pretty red from road dust by the time I got home. Susan's face was covered with dirt and her clothes were red from the dust she had picked up on the way. When we got back to the Bolga office, she had to take a picture of herself because she couldn't believe how much dirt was on her face.

So that was the weekend. As far as work is concerned, I am still waiting to get calls to work on the computers. I have spent too much time working on the three that I know are here. It has been a challenge because of their age, memory, speed, technical level, etc. One computer has now got a bad hard drive so is not of any use at all. It is hard to start training when I have to spend so much time just getting the computers to run. But, we are managing.

So, that is it for another week. I hope that everyone is enjoying summer, wherever they are.