Monday 6th July
An early start - earlier than it needed to be really, but that's mothers for you - and a drive down to T5 at Heathrow to meet up with the seven other volunteers that I\m travelling with to Ghana.
Feeling slightly nervous - it suddenly feels like a hell of a big adventure, and I really don't know much about what I'll be doing and what is in store for me over the next three months, but then that's part of the reason for going I guess. I was also feeling a bit self conscious about being the granddad of the group at 30, while everyone else seems to be college or uni age. But the thing is we're all in the same boat and in theory at least I should be a little bit more worldly wise than most of the others...
A pretty uneventful flight, except to say that In The Loop is a fucking funny film (swear word obligatory here), and we touch down in Accra for my first taste of Ghana, and indeed Africa. It's quite late, about 10.30 but the weather is still very warm and close. We\re met by a couple of representatives from SYTO who are to spend the first week introducing us to Ghana, preparing us for our time here. , plus about 15 other assorted people intent on helping us with our bags. It's a bit confusing whether they are officials or chancers and being tired and disorientated I make the schoolboy error of offering one of them a US dollar for helping... cue a swarm of others looking for their own piece of the action as I try to escape to the sanctuary of the waiting bus.
My first impressions of Ghana at night; it's chaotic, even though it's late there are cars, vans and taxis everywhere in various states of disreppair - and seemingly all using their horns as replacement indicators. And if there is any rule to the road it's the old "he who dares, wins" SAS motto. After a short ride we arrive at the hostel that will house us for the week and take a late dinner of spicy chicken and rice.
The hostel is pretty basic as you might expect, but it's conmfortable. I'm in a room with Duncan, an Oxford student from Reading who was part of our party, and a German volunteer Michael.
Tuesday 7th July
Wake up for the first time in Ghana after a decent night's sleep, a cold shower and down for breakfast where I was delighted to find quality - if instant - coffee is available.
The bus was due to leave at 8.00 so we boarded with the rest of the Bunac volunteers and watched in suprise as the bus firstly filled up, and then overfilled a bit like a Marx Brothers film as more people kept pouring into the bus and seats were produced flipping down from all angles.
In all 30 plus volunteers set off for the office. If it wasn't for the amazing scenes to take in it would have been an uncomfortable ride, but we were all preoccupied with the scenes. The first chance to see something of Accra in the daylight, there was much to take in; the first thing I noticed was the red earth that makes up all but the main roads, and all of the surrounding areas, secondly it's sheer number of people, and the energy of the place. People are everywhere, lining the streets, and weaving in and out of the slow moving traffic, many of them selling products to the passengers, moring papers, sweets, yams, plantain, even tummy tuckers are traded often from large bowls balanced on their heads.
The other thing we soon pick up on is the excitement of a forthcoming visit from President Obama. He's arriving this Friday for his first official visit anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, and wouldn't you know it. There are Akwaaba "welcome" posters on every available surface. It's going to be huge.
On to our induction. In the morning, Tina from SYTO takes us through what it will be like with our host families, and gives us general advice on local culture, customs and health. Tina's a perfect Ghanaian mother for all of us, large, loud and very friendly, and with a charming turn of phrase from quite a basic vocabulary, but using it to great effect. There doesn't seem to be much to worry about, as long as we use common sense, and decent manners everything should be good. The only other thing to try and remember is to only use the right hand wherever possible... the left being reserved for certain, dirtier uses.
Let loose for a couple of hours at lunch we have our first experience of the street hawkers, who although decending on us like a flock of birds are friendly and not at all threatening, just very. very persistent. Lunch is played safe in an air conditioned restaurant, not quite an authentic taste of Ghana, but it does the job.
The in the afternoon a bit of fun. We're given a lesson in African drumming by Stephen who teaches us two very basic rythms, and I reckon i pretty much get the hang of it ok, which is more than can be said for the traditional dance lesson that follows, where the old Smith two left feet get an outing. i spend the hour lesson sweating profusely as 18 of us dance is a small, poorly ventillated hut, and roughly two steps behind the rest of the group at all times.
In the evening we get the chance to show off what we learnt when Vincent and Paul from SYTO take us to a local club for the evening. They picked a pretty safe venue, with many westerners, and familiar music, but it's still fun. The locals that are here all want to meet us, shake our hands and ask where we're from... all very good natured.
By far the coolest person I met was Roxy, an Accra based DJ, who's going to be playing the Edinburgh festival this year. Roxy has some serious moves on the dancefloor, so I keep mine safely in the locker for another time.
Wednesday 8th July
Rain in the morning - not really what I signed up for - means that our planned city tour for the AM was shifted to the afternoon, so we spend the morning running through some basic language lessons, and a useful rundown of some of the best tourist attractions in Ghana - there's so much to do I reckon it's going to be tricky to find the time & money to fit everything in.
In the afternoon we head into Accra, amongst a bus tour of the main sights, the undoubted highlight for me was a walk through the traditional marketplace. Noisy, with cramped walkways and a cacophony of smells and sights greet us as we make our conspicuos way through the market. Stall with smoking fish, with live crabs, nuts, vegetables and curios compete with more mundane household goods and wares... it's the ASDA of Accra, and the electricity is amazing.
As a group of whites we attract a fair bit of attention ourselves with everyone wanting to shout hello, and welcome to Ghana 'akwaaba'. I think the excitement levels are turned up even further with the Obama visit looming and even though I'd have put them closer to Obama than us we still get often greeted as 'Obama's Children'.
The tour finished with a traditional Ghanian lunch of FuFu & goat, a large ball of soft dough served in a bowl with a spicy gots soup, which you eat with your fingers. Messy, delicious and very, filling. After that we got the chance to learn a little more about the birth of Ghana at the memorial to Kwame Nkrumah Ghana's liberator and first president, and a visit to the cultural market where the pressure to buy it intense, but I'm happy to spend 15 Ghana Cedi on an African painting.
Thursday 9th July
Cooking in the morning, when we learn some traditional Ghanaian dishes, Red Red (beans and plantain), Ampefi (fish and spinach) and a spicy chicken, all served with large bowls of rice. The food tastes good, especially the Red Red, but I don't really feel like I contributed that much, other than fanning the oven and stirring the pot we don't get the chance to get that involved.
Still at the office, I place an order for a drum with Stephen, who makes them to specification with our chosen words and symbols for only 50 cedi - about 20 quid. We then kills a couple of hours around 'Oxford Street', where we have a bit of banter with the lads selling wristbands and souveniers on the street, including various declarations of friendship, brotherhood and proposals of marriage (for the girls only), I managed to escape only buying an 'Obama in Ghana 09' wristband.
Chatting to people on the street, and looking around at the shirts everyone here seems to either support Chelsea (Michael Essien) or Man Utd, although there are a few intermitted Arsenal shirts. I ask them if they'll stop supporting Chelsea when Essien leaves, but they don't really follow. I can drum up a bit of Kudos for my Nottingham roots with Junior Agogo having played for Forest though.
Friday 10th July
Another early start for the five of us Bunacs based in Kumasi as we leave for a scheduled bus departure of 4.30am, so Laura (who is going to be living and working at the same project as me), Duncan, Stacey and Becky leave Accra frustratingly just hours before Obama arrives. Not before slight drama when Laura puts her foot through some rotten wood and falls into a drain, but luckily enough she hasn't hurt her foot too much.
The bus journey to Kumasi takes around five hours and was relatively comfortable once we got out of Accra - the road out was blighted by enough holes to put Blackburn, Lancashire to shame, with the red clay surface made much worse by the recent rain. The only other blight on the journey was the incessant kitsch American god music played at high volume all the way - not ideally conducive for catching up on missing sleep.
At Kumasi we are met by William, Diana and Helen from SYTO, and run through a short outline of each of our projects followed by a stroll around town. On first impressions Kumasi seems slightly less chaotic, and a little less in your face than Accra, but still with a real feeling of hustle and bustle.
Helen is also the Director of Laura and mine's placement - Tiyah Development Centre - and we also meet Paul who we're to be working with, a friendly, quitely spoken young man with good English and the obligatory Ghanaian love of football. We travel to our town of Achiase by tro-tro. Tro-tros are passenger cars similar in look and size to a very old transit van crossed with a bus. We take our tro from the main station in Kumasi - right next to the largest market in West Africa and I've never seen such bedlam. The tros wait to be filled before they leave, so we're jammed in alongside market traders taking their wares home after the day. There are hundreds of tros, and they all try to edge out into the same space at the same time.
Once finally clear of the station we leave the town behind and the road becomes much clearer - it takes around half an hour to reach Achiase, ending in a much more rural area than the town. Once landed with a keen mixture of anticipation, excitment and nervousness we look on our new home, and meet our new family for the next few months.
As we pull in, our landlord Big Paul (we've learnt Tiyah Paul is 'Small Paul') is leaning on his balcony watching the world go by. Naked form the waist up, and a big man my first impression is of a friendly, but slightly stern man.
The set up isn't quite what I expected, through the back of Paul's large two storey home is a large open concrete courtyard with our compound the other side. We're sharing with Bridie, another volunteer from Australia, Malou and Rachel (Dutch and New York) are also here, but due to leave tomorrow. So for tonight only I sleep with the 'host family' in the house attached to ours - taking Malou and Rachel's room from tomorrow. Our area is not quite as basic as I feared and a decent size, we have running water, a flushing toilet and a camping type stove - relative luxury to what might have been. It seems most of the life here will take place outside in the concrete and trees of the courtyard.
Bernice from the host family cooks for us as she will every night - spicy chicken and rice - and we set about settling in and getting to know each other. I'm not quite sure who belongs to who, but we meet Bernice, Ahmed from our host family, plus kids, Enoch, Priscilla and Judy who all have an abundance affection and an obession of taking photographs with our digital cameras.
Today is a big day for all of Ghana with Obama arriving, and a proud Big Paul invites us up into his house to watch the US president arrive. Big Paul is very welcoming, speaks excellent English and has a very real curiosity about our lives back home. After a long day, we take the opportunity for an early night.
An early start - earlier than it needed to be really, but that's mothers for you - and a drive down to T5 at Heathrow to meet up with the seven other volunteers that I\m travelling with to Ghana.
Feeling slightly nervous - it suddenly feels like a hell of a big adventure, and I really don't know much about what I'll be doing and what is in store for me over the next three months, but then that's part of the reason for going I guess. I was also feeling a bit self conscious about being the granddad of the group at 30, while everyone else seems to be college or uni age. But the thing is we're all in the same boat and in theory at least I should be a little bit more worldly wise than most of the others...
A pretty uneventful flight, except to say that In The Loop is a fucking funny film (swear word obligatory here), and we touch down in Accra for my first taste of Ghana, and indeed Africa. It's quite late, about 10.30 but the weather is still very warm and close. We\re met by a couple of representatives from SYTO who are to spend the first week introducing us to Ghana, preparing us for our time here. , plus about 15 other assorted people intent on helping us with our bags. It's a bit confusing whether they are officials or chancers and being tired and disorientated I make the schoolboy error of offering one of them a US dollar for helping... cue a swarm of others looking for their own piece of the action as I try to escape to the sanctuary of the waiting bus.
My first impressions of Ghana at night; it's chaotic, even though it's late there are cars, vans and taxis everywhere in various states of disreppair - and seemingly all using their horns as replacement indicators. And if there is any rule to the road it's the old "he who dares, wins" SAS motto. After a short ride we arrive at the hostel that will house us for the week and take a late dinner of spicy chicken and rice.
The hostel is pretty basic as you might expect, but it's conmfortable. I'm in a room with Duncan, an Oxford student from Reading who was part of our party, and a German volunteer Michael.
Tuesday 7th July
Wake up for the first time in Ghana after a decent night's sleep, a cold shower and down for breakfast where I was delighted to find quality - if instant - coffee is available.
The bus was due to leave at 8.00 so we boarded with the rest of the Bunac volunteers and watched in suprise as the bus firstly filled up, and then overfilled a bit like a Marx Brothers film as more people kept pouring into the bus and seats were produced flipping down from all angles.
In all 30 plus volunteers set off for the office. If it wasn't for the amazing scenes to take in it would have been an uncomfortable ride, but we were all preoccupied with the scenes. The first chance to see something of Accra in the daylight, there was much to take in; the first thing I noticed was the red earth that makes up all but the main roads, and all of the surrounding areas, secondly it's sheer number of people, and the energy of the place. People are everywhere, lining the streets, and weaving in and out of the slow moving traffic, many of them selling products to the passengers, moring papers, sweets, yams, plantain, even tummy tuckers are traded often from large bowls balanced on their heads.
The other thing we soon pick up on is the excitement of a forthcoming visit from President Obama. He's arriving this Friday for his first official visit anywhere in Sub-Saharan Africa, and wouldn't you know it. There are Akwaaba "welcome" posters on every available surface. It's going to be huge.
On to our induction. In the morning, Tina from SYTO takes us through what it will be like with our host families, and gives us general advice on local culture, customs and health. Tina's a perfect Ghanaian mother for all of us, large, loud and very friendly, and with a charming turn of phrase from quite a basic vocabulary, but using it to great effect. There doesn't seem to be much to worry about, as long as we use common sense, and decent manners everything should be good. The only other thing to try and remember is to only use the right hand wherever possible... the left being reserved for certain, dirtier uses.
Let loose for a couple of hours at lunch we have our first experience of the street hawkers, who although decending on us like a flock of birds are friendly and not at all threatening, just very. very persistent. Lunch is played safe in an air conditioned restaurant, not quite an authentic taste of Ghana, but it does the job.
The in the afternoon a bit of fun. We're given a lesson in African drumming by Stephen who teaches us two very basic rythms, and I reckon i pretty much get the hang of it ok, which is more than can be said for the traditional dance lesson that follows, where the old Smith two left feet get an outing. i spend the hour lesson sweating profusely as 18 of us dance is a small, poorly ventillated hut, and roughly two steps behind the rest of the group at all times.
In the evening we get the chance to show off what we learnt when Vincent and Paul from SYTO take us to a local club for the evening. They picked a pretty safe venue, with many westerners, and familiar music, but it's still fun. The locals that are here all want to meet us, shake our hands and ask where we're from... all very good natured.
By far the coolest person I met was Roxy, an Accra based DJ, who's going to be playing the Edinburgh festival this year. Roxy has some serious moves on the dancefloor, so I keep mine safely in the locker for another time.
Wednesday 8th July
Rain in the morning - not really what I signed up for - means that our planned city tour for the AM was shifted to the afternoon, so we spend the morning running through some basic language lessons, and a useful rundown of some of the best tourist attractions in Ghana - there's so much to do I reckon it's going to be tricky to find the time & money to fit everything in.
In the afternoon we head into Accra, amongst a bus tour of the main sights, the undoubted highlight for me was a walk through the traditional marketplace. Noisy, with cramped walkways and a cacophony of smells and sights greet us as we make our conspicuos way through the market. Stall with smoking fish, with live crabs, nuts, vegetables and curios compete with more mundane household goods and wares... it's the ASDA of Accra, and the electricity is amazing.
As a group of whites we attract a fair bit of attention ourselves with everyone wanting to shout hello, and welcome to Ghana 'akwaaba'. I think the excitement levels are turned up even further with the Obama visit looming and even though I'd have put them closer to Obama than us we still get often greeted as 'Obama's Children'.
The tour finished with a traditional Ghanian lunch of FuFu & goat, a large ball of soft dough served in a bowl with a spicy gots soup, which you eat with your fingers. Messy, delicious and very, filling. After that we got the chance to learn a little more about the birth of Ghana at the memorial to Kwame Nkrumah Ghana's liberator and first president, and a visit to the cultural market where the pressure to buy it intense, but I'm happy to spend 15 Ghana Cedi on an African painting.
Thursday 9th July
Cooking in the morning, when we learn some traditional Ghanaian dishes, Red Red (beans and plantain), Ampefi (fish and spinach) and a spicy chicken, all served with large bowls of rice. The food tastes good, especially the Red Red, but I don't really feel like I contributed that much, other than fanning the oven and stirring the pot we don't get the chance to get that involved.
Still at the office, I place an order for a drum with Stephen, who makes them to specification with our chosen words and symbols for only 50 cedi - about 20 quid. We then kills a couple of hours around 'Oxford Street', where we have a bit of banter with the lads selling wristbands and souveniers on the street, including various declarations of friendship, brotherhood and proposals of marriage (for the girls only), I managed to escape only buying an 'Obama in Ghana 09' wristband.
Chatting to people on the street, and looking around at the shirts everyone here seems to either support Chelsea (Michael Essien) or Man Utd, although there are a few intermitted Arsenal shirts. I ask them if they'll stop supporting Chelsea when Essien leaves, but they don't really follow. I can drum up a bit of Kudos for my Nottingham roots with Junior Agogo having played for Forest though.
Friday 10th July
Another early start for the five of us Bunacs based in Kumasi as we leave for a scheduled bus departure of 4.30am, so Laura (who is going to be living and working at the same project as me), Duncan, Stacey and Becky leave Accra frustratingly just hours before Obama arrives. Not before slight drama when Laura puts her foot through some rotten wood and falls into a drain, but luckily enough she hasn't hurt her foot too much.
The bus journey to Kumasi takes around five hours and was relatively comfortable once we got out of Accra - the road out was blighted by enough holes to put Blackburn, Lancashire to shame, with the red clay surface made much worse by the recent rain. The only other blight on the journey was the incessant kitsch American god music played at high volume all the way - not ideally conducive for catching up on missing sleep.
At Kumasi we are met by William, Diana and Helen from SYTO, and run through a short outline of each of our projects followed by a stroll around town. On first impressions Kumasi seems slightly less chaotic, and a little less in your face than Accra, but still with a real feeling of hustle and bustle.
Helen is also the Director of Laura and mine's placement - Tiyah Development Centre - and we also meet Paul who we're to be working with, a friendly, quitely spoken young man with good English and the obligatory Ghanaian love of football. We travel to our town of Achiase by tro-tro. Tro-tros are passenger cars similar in look and size to a very old transit van crossed with a bus. We take our tro from the main station in Kumasi - right next to the largest market in West Africa and I've never seen such bedlam. The tros wait to be filled before they leave, so we're jammed in alongside market traders taking their wares home after the day. There are hundreds of tros, and they all try to edge out into the same space at the same time.
Once finally clear of the station we leave the town behind and the road becomes much clearer - it takes around half an hour to reach Achiase, ending in a much more rural area than the town. Once landed with a keen mixture of anticipation, excitment and nervousness we look on our new home, and meet our new family for the next few months.
As we pull in, our landlord Big Paul (we've learnt Tiyah Paul is 'Small Paul') is leaning on his balcony watching the world go by. Naked form the waist up, and a big man my first impression is of a friendly, but slightly stern man.
The set up isn't quite what I expected, through the back of Paul's large two storey home is a large open concrete courtyard with our compound the other side. We're sharing with Bridie, another volunteer from Australia, Malou and Rachel (Dutch and New York) are also here, but due to leave tomorrow. So for tonight only I sleep with the 'host family' in the house attached to ours - taking Malou and Rachel's room from tomorrow. Our area is not quite as basic as I feared and a decent size, we have running water, a flushing toilet and a camping type stove - relative luxury to what might have been. It seems most of the life here will take place outside in the concrete and trees of the courtyard.
Bernice from the host family cooks for us as she will every night - spicy chicken and rice - and we set about settling in and getting to know each other. I'm not quite sure who belongs to who, but we meet Bernice, Ahmed from our host family, plus kids, Enoch, Priscilla and Judy who all have an abundance affection and an obession of taking photographs with our digital cameras.
Today is a big day for all of Ghana with Obama arriving, and a proud Big Paul invites us up into his house to watch the US president arrive. Big Paul is very welcoming, speaks excellent English and has a very real curiosity about our lives back home. After a long day, we take the opportunity for an early night.
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