After four months of volunteer work in Ghana, I?ve come to terms with myself. Development work is fulfilling but also depressing. You have to understand that you can?t change the world overnight

GHANA?The pay and benefits were fine but after eight years of doing routinary jobs, I realized something was missing. I needed to go out there and find it.

Accepted for Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in early 2007, I was asked where I wanted to go. ?Africa, anywhere in Africa,? I replied without hesitation. Soon enough, I was offered a placement in Ghana, a coastal country in West Africa. I resigned from my job and left my brother, my city and my country for a two-year stint as a volunteer.

After 17 hours on the plane across several time zones and two continents, I finally arrived at the Kotaka International Airport. In Accra, the capital of Ghana, my African experience commenced. Suddenly, I found myself surrounded by blacks, a strange situation I?ve never been in.

So far, I had only heard of Africa through the media, with their endless reports about war, famine and disease. I?d always wanted to get there, my dream destination, because as a writer, I believe that there?s always another side to a story.

I arrived in the middle of Harmattan, a dry and dusty West African trade wind that blows south from the Sahara into the Gulf of Guinea between the end of November and the middle of March. On its passage over the desert, the wind picks up very fine dust particles that it can sometimes carry all the way to North America. During this season, the air heats up to 500 Celsius or 1150 Fahrenheit.

In Accra, 13 of us volunteers from the VSO February Cycle got ready for our weeklong In-Country Training to get to know the country. The group was composed of two Dutch nationals, two Kenyans, eight British and myself.

At first glance, Ghana?s capital looks like a typical metropolis, until we got on our way to our respective placements in the northern part of the country. It was then that reality struck me: poverty seems everywhere.

I was assigned in the poorest region of Ghana, where 86 percent of the population is engaged in subsistence farming. Situated in the northwestern part of the country, the region shares boundaries with Burkina Faso.

The road network is good but deteriorates during the rainy season from June to September. Unfortunately, the region where I?ve been assigned has yet to be linked by an all-weather road to the rest of Ghana so getting there by private means is a gruelling 12- to 14-hour ride to and from the capital city. Or one can take the tro-tro (a van converted into a public taxi), where one shares space with goats.

Though the place has three radio stations (AM only), Internet connectivity (five shops now) and cellular phone signals, only 9 percent of the population has power supply.

I?ve been assigned as a Community Advocacy Support Officer in the regional capital of Wa. My main job is to advocate the need for education in rural communities where up to 80 percent of the population is illiterate. To do this, we work on capacity building among the School Management Committees and the Parent Teacher Associations, composed of influential folk in their communities.

Adjusting to life in Wa was initially difficult. In this age of remote control and technological marvels, tradition still rules in this area and women have no voice. Fortunately, my working partners are empowered women who are trying their best to show that they are as capable as the menfolk.

Caught between the dictates of tradition and the possibilities of aspiration, I tread a delicate balance. When I conduct workshops and training, I have to be confident enough for the men to listen to me, yet approachable enough to encourage the women participants to speak up. At the end of one of my workshops, an old lady came up to me and asked, in the local language, if it was possible for her to go to school at her age because she wanted to be like me. Deeply flattered, I replied, ?Yes, Mama, there is no age limit in going to school.?

On the other hand, dealing with the men in this patriarchal society can really be a challenge. You have to be tough enough to take the jokes in stride, without taking the marriage proposals seriously. And you must never get intimidated. When I was tapped by a headmaster to help out in his school, I saw the need to empower the female students and started a confidence-building class. I had quite a number of students because the vice-principal would chase them with a stick to attend the class. After a while, I made it clear that no one should be forced to attend the class and insisted that I would admit only the students who would come on their own free will. I got 14, and from there we started building each others? confidence.

I exposed them to the world beyond Ghana. Most of them did not even know about airplanes, elevators or escalators. I was shocked but happy about their innocence and naivete. At least their minds were untainted by consumer wants. I also taught them how to say ?No!? to boys and to assert themselves on issues that will affect their future.

But I was confronted by the fact that most girls throughout Africa stay out of school because of tradition. Here, girls are still seen mainly as wife and mother material, whose main role is to stay home and mind the kids. It?s part of the cultural mindset that?s difficult to change, but slowly, I?m trying to find ways to go around it.

Although ?woman? is synonymous to being a burden in these parts, I tell them how wonderful it is to be a woman, and how infinite the possibilities are for them. To inspire them and to build their confidence, I offer the example of our own country, which has had two women presidents. I challenge them to dream, to focus on the dream, and to finish their studies in order to achieve the dream.

Through my work in education, I was introduced to UNICEF?s Sara Communication Initiative (SCI), which uses an ?enter-education? strategy. This means harnessing popular entertainment to convey educational messages. Animated films, radio broadcasts, and printed materials have been developed around a character named Sara. The multimedia effort seeks to raise awareness on themes associated with the Rights of the Child, including the right to go to school. In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, girls have fewer educational opportunities and are often exploited in the labor force. In a culture that still believes that sex with a virgin is a good way of avoiding sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV/AIDS, young girls easily become victims of sexual abuse and end up as mere statistics in the AIDS pandemic. Many of them also drop out of school because of pregnancy, STI and forced marriages.

The conservative tradition here still holds strong. My Ghanaian friend, who has an influential job in an international NGO, still believes that it?s part of their culture for women to be submissive. Like most African women, she?d rather suffer in silence than confront her philandering husband. Polygamy remains a common practice in many parts of Africa, no matter what religion one practices. Women in Africa are still expected to take care of the household: carrying firewood on their heads, fetching water while carrying a baby on their back pounding food at the start of day and working in the farm till late at night. And the men? They sit around and chat. It?s a scene I hope to be able to change someday.

Coming to Ghana as a volunteer has taught me a lot about life. There are so many things in life that we take for granted like family, friends and ourselves. Back home, I keep myself busy, not caring about what?s happening around me. But here I come to terms with myself because most of the time I only have myself to talk to. I?ve learned to care about what?s going on and how it affects the world.

Development work is fulfilling, although depression can hit you at the end of the day because of so many challenges that come along the way. But you have to understand that you can?t change the world overnight.

It took me four months to adjust to a different culture, and yes, I still miss the comforts I?m used to. Everything here is different, but being a volunteer has made me realize that it is in sharing that life begins to have meaning and purpose. The time you touch the lives of others is the time you truly live. I miss home, but I still have a lot to do here. Women?s Feature Service