The Damongo Tour

My first mistake was to plan out an agenda for my first week of work.

We arrived promptly at 8AM Monday, May 15th for our first day of work, and waited in the Conference Room for instructions. After one or two hours we assumed that they were still getting things together, but after 4 hours, we realized something was up. Mondays are planning days at OICT, so down the hall behind the closed oak door of the PM's office, the district managers were busily reviewing their operations for the last week, criticizing, learning, and growing, with the Program Manager. The meeting began shortly after 9am, at which point Marka and myself were to be driven to one of OIC's training centres nearby. However, in the isolation of the Conference Room, we sat ignorantly for hours on end, reading months of old newspapers from across the region. (Newspapers and the media will be discussed in a more indepth report in July).

It wasn't until we enquired about stepping out for lunch did the managers realize we had never actually left the building and since it was our first day, we did not want to interrupt such a critical planning meeting. So we went for lunch and came back to discover that there was no transportation available for the afternoon because all of the NGOSUVs were taken, and we began the long journey back home, thus concluding our first day of work with OIC.

The rest of the week would prove to be extraordinary.

On Tuesday morning we met with Osmund, the regional Micro-Enterprise Coordinator and my boss. We packed a few things and headed for Damongo in our NGOSUV. Damongo is where I will be based, but since we were just being given an overview of all OICT projects, I would return to Tamale the next day. The road to Damongo is in rough shape. The first half hour is paved, but the highway turns south to Kumasi, at which point we take a right turn and head down a rocky path that challenges some of Canada's best off road courses. The further along the road we went, the deeper the red of the earth; at times appearing almost as a path of lava that spewed up behind our heads as we sped down in the NGOSUV.


The Road to Damongo in the NGOSUV









Cows flee to avoid the NGOSUV









Suprisingly, in just over an hour, we arrived in Damongo, after hearing that the trek would take approximately four hours. We settled into our accomodations, and I immediately took a nap. We met at six again with Osmund, and went to find some dinner. After dinner, we started to visit some OIC projects in the area. Damongo is the destination for several OIC initiatives, such as cassava processing, bee keeping, and a few other various training centres.

We started by visiting a local cassava processing unit operated by a group of women. While only some member women were present, and the chief was nowhere to be found, we got a quick tour of the facility, but the shed in which the cassava grinder could be found was locked, so we would have to return the next day.

Osmund explained to us the new technologies that were used to process cassava, to create a dry ground final product called gari.

The OIC signboard which designates each OIC funded project in Northern Ghana. Here, the signboard introduces one of our cassava processing facilities. The 20' x 10' covered concrete slab houses a shed which contains a cassava shredder attached to a small diesel engine, and another area where the cassava is pressed, bagged, and sorted.



The cassava grinder housed in the shed can grate cassava at a much faster rate than using conventional methods. This allows faster processing and increased gari production.







Pictured right is the cassava press which compresses the
sacs of cassava to extract water. This press is the focus of our first Point of Analysis.







The gari processing is very intensive and labourious. When women used to process it entirely by hand, it would be ground using an unrolled tin with holes punctured through it with sticks. The women would grind the cassava against the can, which was nailed to two sticks at each end to keep it straight. They would then sac the ground cassava, and smash the sac between rocks to extract water. The dried final product is gari.

The new process, pictured above, uses a cassava grinder (the women must first peel the cassava), and then the ground cassava is placed in burlap sacs and pressed for several hours using the cassava press. The smell of the pressed cassava is quite foul, and the runoff water is so corrosive, that it eats through the concrete floor of the cassava processing centre. This is the focus of my new Analysis Point (please see post titled "Analysis Point"

The first women's group we visited has been succesfully operating their cassava processing unit for several years. Their press is on uneven ground however, and it would be ideal to prevent further bending of the materials before it happens.

Another cooperative we ventured to that evening was not as successful. The petrol generator was in poor condition, and had to be taken in for servicing. We discovered the group had often let the gas run dry before refuelling, allowing sediments from the fuel into the engine and damaging one of the pistons.

There were three different centres we visited in our two day stay in Damongo. Each will be reviewed and analysed more indepth at a later date when I begin working with these groups on a regular basis.

We returned to Tamale Wednesday night and I fell ill from the lunch we had eaten. It was a rough night, but I was lucky enough to have a semi-functioning toilet close at hand. I would have to recover quickly however, because on Thursday morning, Marka and myself would travel to the far Northeastern region of Ghana, to visit Gombaga, the area where she will be based.