One morning, I am sent to the office of EPA. I don‘t know what I am doing there, but the director is shocked when he hears that since I arrived in Ghana, I haven‘t been out of Tamale. He instantly calls a staff member, Emmanuel, who gives me a helmet and tells me to take a seat on his motorbike. We soon leave the town behind us and drive through the landscape that I saw from above. EPA stands for Environmental Protection Agency. They work on a project called GEMP, Ghana Environmental Management Project. Emmanuel takes me to a village north of Tamale where they implemented the project. The community consists of a number of round huts with thatched roofs not far from a pond. I see one of the plant nurseries. A thousand seedlings, waiting in the sun to be planted in order to fight deforestation. I meet a desk officer who supervises the region and he tells me about the difficulties of his work and their progress. Then I visit a second community south of Tamale. We follow the road back, pass through the city and are back in nature again. It is now midday, prayer time. The village is quiet because everyone is in the mosque, so we wait. A woman sends her child to bring us some water. In this community the seedlings are yet to be started. Emmanuel chats with the man who takes care of this nursery for a while. The conversation consists of a lot of Mmmhs and pauses, I don‘t understand what they are saying as they are talking Dagbani. We visit the nursery, climb a little hill to see a pond and move on. The roads are bad. Sometimes I have to get down because the motorbike doesn‘t make it through all the sand. I imagine how the roads look in the rainy season.
One and a half weeks I stay with EPA. Every morning Abdul Manan brings me there either on foot or on motor bike. It is just a short walk. The agency didn‘t get any money yet so they can‘t go out to visit communities. Much time we spend in the office, talking about marriage, gossiping, Valentine‘s Day and the likes. Sometimes we go and visit schools to give presentations about environmental issues. The first I hear is about bush fires. People burn the bush for hunting or to kill snakes and thus destroy the soil. EPA tries to arise awareness of the importance of a healthy environment and encourages the students to form environmental clubs. There is a lot to do but the difficulties are obvious.
