Reuniting with Yendi

20th of August 2008. I found myself in a bus in the one hour Tamale - Yendi journey.
Earlier in life, I had spent my first three years in Primary School in Yendi and it was there I made my first real friendships.

Memories
As the bus moved on and as I half slept, thoughts of those days kept coming up.
My first fight with one Osman which ended in a draw only because some bigger boys stopped us from going on. I remembered how I was about to get beaten.
I also remembered how we ran after the bush rats to catch them for a roast - how I was never fortunate (or skilled) to catch one.
I remembered fondly how we hunted birds and again I was never fortunate (or skilled) to kill one.
My mind drifted to those primary school days. I was one of the few in the school who could read basic words. One particular name kept coming to mind - Adjubi.
She was a Primary One class mate. I wont even remember how she looked like but I remember her as one of the brilliant kids of the school at the time. I hope she is making is somewhere today.
And I remember the shy me at the CYO meetings where I could not be given any acting role during Easter because I was too shy to act.
I also remembered how I was urged on to grow my little farm just by the house. And I was so proud that I could harvest a bowl or two of groundnuts and some roots of potatoes.

And I still remember how we packed our belongings into the waiting truck ready to make that transfer to Tamale. It was 12th Sept 1989 - I was just 9.

As the bus approached Yendi, I tried replaying all the paths and streets in my mind to see if I could be right.
Lo! I wasnt too wrong. I did not have time to move into the Junior Staff Quaters where I spent some growing years but when I return in two weeks, I will be visiting JSQ18 where I lived and grew.
I will be happy to meet a 6 to 9 year old boy in the house who will look shyly at me and remind me of me.

Purpose of visit
This time I found myself in Yendi not because my parents were on transfer but because I was an ICT trainer.
For 5/6 weekends I will be training staff at the district level some basic usage and applications of computers.

The icing on the cake during the period of training will be walking along the paths I walked through almost two decades ago as a kid. Back then, all problems could be solved by finding some little corner to cry. It's very different today.

It's a mixture of history and expectations

Northern Ghana Train the Trainer Workshop Aug 04 - Aug 6

Three days of the first ever Train the Trainer Meeting for us of the Northern Ghana IICD affiliated trainers was not just a very steep part of the learning curve, it was an exhilarating time.

I'm not going to forget how from the 4th to the 6th of August, 2008 we stuck to time and detail.
How we evaluated each others' presentations and how we encouraged each other.
How we had fun and yet staying focused on what brought us together.

On the 4th of August which was Day 1, there was an Overview of Training Activities and Methodologies used by IICD. This was an insightful presentation by Ousseni Zongo who was the lead facilitator and current Capacity Development Officer for IICD in charge of Burkina Faso and Mali.

I was excited at the time we took to make an inventory of the Important Documents (Checklist) and logistics for seminars and other capacity development activities. I'm surely going to keep my list till I cease being a trainer (and that is not going to be any time soon).
The group work on Developing a seminar was very interesting also. This was the first opportunity for participants who were all soon going to be trainers or already trainers to be evaluated by other trainers.

Day 2 - 5th Aug
The most exciting part of the day was actually a carry over from yesterday. We had hands on stuff on SkillSoft and TurboDemo.
We continued to work on General Training skills of trainers plus more group work.
I (and obviously most participants) were thrilled at the exploits of TurboDemo. I have never assumed I could ever make my own interactive tutorial (sound, graphics and all) with such ease. I'm certainly going to urge all trainers to lay hands on TurboDemo

Last Day
On the last day, my only regret was why I am not a member of the Black Stars of Ghana. After another interesting session of knowledge sharing which was dominated by participants evaluating each other's presentation skills, we went out to "face" each other in a football match - What would you expect anyway from a male dominated activity happening in Ghana? I was part of the winning team that conceded one controversial goal but scored six.

I'm looking forward to the activities of the group in building capacities of not only IICD affiliates but other individuals and organisations who seek to push forward the development agenda.

I wish today were August 4, so we could begin it all over again!