My mom is a pure Ewe, from Anloga in Ghana’s Volta region. You’d think I would be able to speak the language… fat chance. I speak English, Twi, pidgin, beginner French, and a lot of programming languages (I know, I know, I don’t speak them, but let me tell my story, will you?). As for Ewe, I have tried and failed, multiple times. I’m still trying though. One day, in the near future (or maybe in my imagination — fingers crossed), I’ll write a story in Ewe.

Anyway, the point is that this post has nothing to do with Ewe, and all to do with Python. It just happens that the events took place in Eweland, in a town called Hohoe, at the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS).

Django Girls

There’s an international volunteer movement known as Django Girls. Django is a framework — pre-structured code and instructions — used with the Python programming language to create applications for the web. So what “Django Girls” does is to introduce women to programming using Python and the Django framework. I hope this makes sense. We’re basically teaching girls to code, and it’s pretty awesome.

My prior coaching experience was at the last Django Girls Accra event:

So over the past weekend, there was a Django Girls event at UHAS in Hohoe, and I got to take part with two of my fellow ‘MESTers’ from Kenya, Jacky ‘Keem’ Kimani and James ‘Kwabena’ Muriuki.

It was a chance to see a side of Ghana that’s very different from the Accra they have come to know.

The Road Trip

Armed with backpacks, water bottles, Google Maps, and a power bank, we set off from Accra to Hohoe in a Sprinter trotro that we boarded at Madina.

If you’re my height or taller (6-foot-3 upwards), NEVER agree to take a 6-hour road trip sitting in the second row of a Sprinter trotro! Never! Your legs will not forgive you. James was fine, Jacky couldn’t have been happier (she’s barely a five-footer), but me… chale, in the words of lawyer Nti Katakyie Bombay Isaiah, “It was not a good distin”.

Even worse was the bumpiness of the road. Look, the road was as rough as a crocodile’s back. It was so rough that one car developed a puncture in one of its tires, and the driver did not know for a full 5 minutes, because the drive was just as bumpy with or without a pumped tire. True story.

And then there were the rain storms… and at certain points clouds of dust.

But it wasn’t all bad. There were a few breath-taking views, and then there was the Adomi Bridge, under which former president J.J. Rawlings once flew a fighter jet.

The Adomi Bridge

View from the bridge

Taken by Jacky (I was asleep, lol)

So after 6 hours, 5 naps, 3 rainstorms and crossing the Adomi Bridge, we finally arrived in Hohoe after 8pm. It was time for me to use my one line of Ewe on anyone who approached us, “Mɛdɛkuku, nyɛmɛsɛ gbɛvɛ”, which means, “Please, I don’t understand Ewe”. 😂😂😂😂 But we got around fine.

Meet The (Other) Coaches

So these are the awesome coaches/mentors we met, led by a brother called Noah Alorwu:

We can actually spell Django, we were just not in the mood.

I could try to name everyone, even those not in the picture, but Django Girls already did that for me. So here they are! All volunteers, and all Python programmers.

So What Exactly Did We Do? (We didn’t just take selfies)

Every coach had two or three mentees, all newbie programmers. And we took them through the basics of Python, through the Django framework, and then helped them to start building their own blogs.

Of course, no one becomes a kickass developer in a day… that’s insane, but at least, now there are 50 more ladies with some interest in programming, who can recognize Python code when they see it. There are 50 more ladies who now have an idea of where to start if they want to begin a career in software development.

But if ever I doubted the potency of what we traveled six hours to do, I only need to look at the lady mentors to know that we did not waste our time. Save Jacky, who has been in Ghana for only two months, all the other female coaches are products of previous Django Girl boot camps. I know right?! So shout outs to the ladies who have proved that it is possible: Sefakor, Mimi, Lala, Rosie, and Abby. You guys rock! 😍

And So What?

That is the big question, isn’t it? “You mentored girls to code, so what?”

Well, for starters, this put a smile on my face:

Isn’t that the cutest caption you ever saw?

This was what I found on the Whatsapp status of one of my mentees the next day. So it mattered to the people who experienced it, and that alone is worth celebrating.

I’ll be the first to admit, this is just a small step in the direction of encouraging women to enter technology, but it is a step nonetheless. And until we have the capacity to take giant strides, we will continue to take our little steps… we will do what we can.

I’m not asking anyone to become a Python coach. I’m sharing this to inspire you to make an impact where you are. Brighten your “one corner”.

Shout outs to my mentees. Emmanuella, Haggai and Jennifer, you were the best! Keep practicing, and make me proud.

Like, comment, share, subscribe ✌😎KayO

PS.

An honourable mention for Anthony Eklenam Mensah Addae, my former networking teaching assistant and friend who pulled me into the Django Girls movement. #HoldSomething (it’s an inside joke)

Now get out of here and go make some impact.

Originally published at KayO’s Blog.