The Great Environment of Savelugu

Hello everyone! We’ve been in Savelugu for over three weeks now. Here we all (UKVs and ICVs) experience a very different environment to where we’ve come from and what we’re used to.  We’ve had the great pleasure of adapting to many new sights, sounds, smells, and sensations. Through this experience, we’ve learnt many new things. Here, Rahama and Beth share their thoughts on the environment of Savelugu.

The main Savelugu mosque

Rahama

What I can see here is different from what I have been seeing back at my place. In Tamale, where I am from, people normally use motorbikes, cars and Yellow-Yellows for travels. That makes it look quite different from Savelugu. Walking of children to school is less common in my town because parents send their children to school by motorbikes, some with cars and others put them in Yellow-Yellows to school. Some women in Tamale sometimes carry their children on their backs to school.

Here in Savelugu, I can see children mostly walking to school, people using a Motorking for travelling and that looks differently from my home town. I can also see people always on donkeys, sometimes with water, and women always carrying water on their heads to their places. It has been a good sight for me.

Trees around Savelugu

What I can also feel about the environment of Savelugu is that the weather there looks a little bit different from where I am from. The weather here is good for me being able to sleep well in the night as compared to my home. In the night here, the weather is somehow cool as compared to Tamale and it has given me more and suitable rest in the night, even though it is somehow hot in the afternoon.

Here I can also feel that people are fluent in speaking Dagbani. It is good for me because that is my language. To my UKV friends it has been a difficult task for them, not understanding it, but they always try to speak the greetings. It is just a few things that they cannot understand yet, but I am sure by the end of the three months they will be able to do something.

The sound of Savelugu too is strange. I can hear mostly children calling my friends from the UK ‘Silminga’, asking them for toffee. It is now becoming fun for them but at first, we were all confused about their comments.

Beth

What I see: Having lived in a city all my life, it is odd for me to see animals everywhere: goats, chickens, guinea fowl, donkeys and so on… Unlike in the UK, when these animals would usually only live in farms, here they roam around the town. I quite enjoy living in a place where a pregnant goat regularly tries to wander into our office and where no one blinks an eye at having chickens outside the washroom!

Rahama and Beth

What I feel: Adjusting to the hot and dusty weather was quite difficult for me at first. When I said ‘Goodbye’ to the UK, I needed a thick winter coat, but here I am very grateful for the fan in my room and in the office! I now find it very strange to think that back in Sheffield (where I am from), it is cold, wet and cloudy, with temperatures around 5°C. Here the heat is consistently in the mid-30s degree Celsius and it has only rained once since I arrived in Ghana!

What I hear: The sounds of Savelugu are very different to back in the UK. Even just sitting in my shared room in my host home, rather than just traffic, appliances and televisions, I can usually hear goats braying, roosters crowing, music playing nearby, the call to prayer from the local mosque, my many host siblings playing, shouting or singing…

In the UK, it isn’t very common for strangers to say good morning or good afternoon each other, but here we exchange a greeting with almost everyone we pass. I like to think I’ve mastered the Dagbani greetings (Dasiba/Antire/Aniwula = Good morning/afternoon/evening), even if I don’t understand other things people say to me. When in doubt, I just smile and say ‘Naa’.

Whenever we cycle through town, the local children call out to us:“Silminga, Good morning!”. Some of the kids near my host home have even learnt some of our names, so they try to shout Beth (they can’t quite say my name though, so it sounds more like Bac). When I go back to the UK, I will definitely miss being greeted everywhere I go!

The dusty paths of Savelugu are very different to the cities we both come from