The Savelugu Host Home Experience

The year is 2017, and our cross-cultural team of both UK and Ghanaian volunteers will be working hard here in Savelugu, Northern Ghana, from January until the end of March. During this time we will be using our combined skills of cultural knowledge, determination and other various abilities to work as a fantastic team, and to help support and empower communities where most are living far below the poverty line.

An entire week now has gone by, so we have all of us had a full seven days to adjust and adapt to our individual host homes.Two of our amazing volunteers Shirley and Jake, from developed central Ghana and the UK respectively, have written the following to describe their experiences at their host homes so far.

Here is Shirley’s host home experience!

So from the Gillbt guest house and conference centre, our mini-bus took off towards Savelugu. My team leader informed myself and my counter-part volunteers, they had made contact with my host father and he was very ready to receive us. I was for rest of the journey quite anxious and uncertain of both our host home and its appearance. I was very sad about leaving home. Then came the moment I wasn’t sure of...

Team Savelugu arrived safely at the Savelugu Central Mosque, patiently waiting for our host father.Shortly after we arrived, our host father soon appeared with a car and his friend on his motorbike, and they packed my luggage, as well as my two other counterparts luggage into the car, and what wouldn’t fit was carried on the motorbike, and we all then traveled towards our new home.

The welcome we received from our host brothers and sisters was so overwhelming! There were so many welcoming us, that it felt so good. Our host father showed all three of us to our various rooms, of which I instantly realised were very different to the room I was used to back at home. This made me feel very sad and apprehensive. My host brothers and sister, were very young, and were all over us to the extent that we didn’t know what to do. This was another overwhelming experience.

Our host father invited us to see our bathhouse and toilet facilities, it wasn’t at all like the one at home, thus I felt even further concern. Later in the evening, we had some supper which I wasn’t able to eat properly despite feeling famished. Afterwards, he again called us and introduced himself, and his family and we also did the same by introducing ourselves. I and my two counter-parts have two host mothers, and they both dote on us always. Whenever it is time for supper, they allow us to help them cook on their respective days of cooking. WHO HAS THIS?!

 

Our host brothers and sisters are always ready to teach us ready to teach us some new words in Dagbani, the local language, and I always now love to go home and meet them. They are all so bubbly, warm and inviting.

My host home doesn’t have the most sophisticated and conventional of all basic & social amenities, but it surely is a go to home always. I’m looking forward to having a lovely stay at my host home.

Hello! I’m Jake and whilst Shirley is from the more developed central Ghana, I have traveled from rural Somerset, South West UK.

With a very different perspective, I will now share host home experience so far.

The first major difference that I noticed upon arriving at my host home is, although larger than most homes, it is all on one floor. In the centre is an open courtyard, of which everybody’s rooms surround. Each room has a locked wooden door, and a mesh window. Whereas back home in a much colder climate, I am used to double glazed windows/doors to retain heat and repel rain. 

The home doesn’t have a TV in each room, however in the living room, with the one TV that we all watch some evenings as a family. Off to one side is the two cleaning rooms, one with a toilet that sometimes flushes, sometimes you have to pour water down the toilet. In the other room is a basic shower head on the wall and a tap lower down to wash feet. 

All water that comes from the taps is unsafe to drink and comes from a small salty reservoir located just outside the home. All cooking is performed over an open fire, and washing of clothes and eating utensils, is done by hand in a large steel basin. 

As for the room myself and my counterpart share, there is a roof fan, light switch, three plugs, two beds shrouded each by a mosquito net, sometimes we even have to light a mosquito coil, similar in design to an incense stick, of which the faint smoke deters insects and more importantly malaria carrying mosquitoes.

Just that which we need.

There we have two experiences both from Shirley and Jake, and as you can see each of these two volunteers has had so far a varied view. However both are happy, and have everything that they require in which to live a basic but humble way of life.

A home that both volunteers enjoy being a part of, for the duration of their placements.

Thank you for reading, hopefully this has been enlightening for yourselves at home, wherever in the world your home may be.

Jake & Shirley