Office Work in the Land of Ghana

Ghana, the land of… A small sized office, a medium sized enterprise, an NGO to be exact. Air conditioned and well lit. A large table along which ‘interns’ the term for short-term (generally foreign) ‘volunteers’ sit with an array of laptops in front of them. Ghana, the land of… Apple Macs, Netbooks, and Dells. The clickey clack of high heels along the shiny tile floor as the higher staff members, called ‘officers’ bustle around the office. This causes the pages ‘facebook’ and ‘farmville’ to instantly vanish from the abovementioned computer screens and pages of jargon text line the screens once again. Ghana the land of the 8hour work day, with the half hour break. The mango-lady who waits outside just next to the entrance where the ‘volunteers/ officers’ rush down to exchange a little cash for sliced mango in a plastic bag, penetrating the sterile office with the sweet scent. Ghana -the land of meetings and ‘assignments’ ‘projects’ and tasks. And of sitting, at the initially introduced desks, and waiting, and sighing, and forcing one’s eyes to stay open. There is a lot of down-time, in the land of Ghana.

I’ve spent the week working in the office of an incredibly functional NGO that advocates for Human Rights. The first day I wondered how I was going to keep it up for the rest of my time here, I could barely stay awake for a half-day. The second day was pulsing with productivity; I received 3 different interesting assignments- an LGBT project, research on ‘spouse-killings’, a case involving a refugee and an unfair drug-sentence and a mission to transcript research previously carried out by the organisation on gender based violence. Yes, it was fascinating and I could feel learn-and grow potential. However, the rest of the week continued with down-time, the transcription was exhausting and I had no other projects to do. It involved a lot of sitting, staring meaninglessly at my screen. However, here I am, in am amazing country in an incredible NGO. It amazes me how effective it is in doing what needs to be done, sooo well run and maintained. And I’m honoured to be a part of it, again underqualified and able to sneak in round the back, (by means of the original NGO I’m supposed to be doing Human Rights work for, which has somewhat bailed on us and has yet to start up. However, this mean that our Director got us into this organisation, which we would otherwise not have gotten into. So all has worked out well.)

In terms of the Director in question, I’ll take you back to the house. There I countinue to live with my roommate, 2 hosuemates, and now one new housemate. She came last week, is from New York and is into ‘SoicalJusticeAndHumanRights’.

I think that I am happy at our little house in Avocado Street. We all get along, and I am learning to love everyone for their differences and appreciate them fully as individuals. It is still strange being in such close contact/living space with so many people after being both alone and hobo-ing in other peoples lives spontaneously for short periods of time, for the last 3 months in Israel. And whilst I still miss being along, and able to walk around by myself, and mission without confirming first with anyone else, it is also quite a blessing to always have access to company, and people to walk with me at night, and people to bounce ideas off. We have countless arguments in the house, one night we redevised the UN and the purpose of a national governing system until 4 in the morning. Another we discussed the issue of Westerner type volunteers in rural Africa. Often it ends in a debate about  refugees, before we all agree to disagree, some of us more vehemently than others…