Welcome

Hello everyone from Ghana! ‘You are welcome’, as the Ghanaians would say. We arrived in Accra safe and sound after a smooth and luxurious British Airways flight with free drinks and good food. Jonny, myself and a girl we came over with who’s volunteering in a different area of Ghana, Hattie, excitedly rushed into the passport control and baggage reclaim where we had our first taste of the laid back life in Ghana. Hattie’s bag didn’t appear and we spent almost two hours trying to find out what had happened to it. No one seemed to know what was going on and one person sent you to another and another and so on. Hattie was getting pretty irate by the end of it, to say the least. We had to leave without the bag, conscious that we’d miss our lift. We met John, our host, in the arrivals lounge and apologised profusely for being late. We were soon to realise that a two hour wait is nothing unusual in Ghana....

We travelled for around 1 and ¾ hours to Sogakope and were pleased to find a very nice guest house awaiting our arrival. Our room is pretty luxurious with a nice double bed, a roof fan and real toilet (more on the varied toilet situation later!). We were zombies when we finally got here and just went straight to bed.

Friday morning allowed us to see where we were and what surrounded us. There are pretty ramshackle buildings and huts around us where a few families live. There is a church opposite us and a dusty track takes us up to a main road. Stoyan, a Bulgarian volunteer who also stays in the guest house, showed us around Sogakope. He has been here two months and has picked up an impressive amount of Ewe, the local tribal language. Jonny and I are trying hard to learn but Yonna has got it a lot quicker than me. I know that ‘How are you?’ is ‘Eh-fa’ to which you reply ‘Ehhh’, a bit like the Fonz!

Sogakope is pretty hectic with busy main roads and lots of hawkers selling their wares on the side of the road. The ladies and kids carry buckets, bowls and boxes of bread, dried fish, water sachets, tomatoes etc. piled high on their heads. I cannot understand how they manage this yet but I will try someday soon. As a white person, wherever you walk, people shout ‘Yevu’ at you. This means white person but is not a derogatory term. John tells us that when Portuguese settlers came to the Volta Region, where we are and which used to be in Togo, they always said yevu which was a word in Portuguese and so the locals used the term to refer to any white people. The fitting reply in Ewe is Ameyebou, black person, which the locals are always surprised that we know!

On Saturday we travelled to a nearby town called Ada where we had heard there was a tribal festival. The taxi driver contested our agreed price and we waited nearly an hour for him to sort a price out on the phone with the owner of the car. Some good Ghanaian style waiting there! We stayed at Dreamland hotel which was a collection of huts with a bamboo bunk beds and thankfully fitted with mosquito nets. Now for the toilets.....Mum you would not have been able to stomach the toilet situation there. They were long drops with a hole above basically. When you finished you had to throw a handful of sawdust down, ready for the next person. I just held my nose and closed my eyes each time! We ordered lunch at Dreamlands and waited the standard hour and a half for it to arrive, before we headed to the festival.

There were thousands of people and so many new sights I could barely take it all in when we arrived at the festival. From what I could gather it was a celebration of the traditional tribes of the local area. The event centred around a grass arena on the edge of which the tribal chiefs sat. They all carried staffs with a symbol of what their tribe is known for on top e.g. cocoa production. There were people firing what must have been blanks into the air from huge, old rifles. As Yevus we got ushered in to sit within the arena by the police and watched a parade of marching bands and a speech by the vice-president of Ghana. It was hard to follow everything as most of the commentating was in Ewe but the kids kept as amused as they were fascinated by us and our cameras.

The next day, we took a boat to Marinata beach which was a resort with a few more Yevus. It was nice to chill out there and watch a boat race take place. I ate fried plantain with ‘sauce’ which is like a spicy tomato sauce. I have figured out I really like plantain. The food has been interesting with some of it hard to get used to. Fou-Fou is a stodgy, dumpling consistency which I have had served with a spicy stew and Talipapa fish; it was so spicy my mouth hurt. Breakfast at the guest house tends to be omelette with pieces of onion and what looks like cabbage in it with fried bread or sometimes we have porridge. Banku is another dumpling made with corn and left to ferment which gives it a sour taste. I can’t really stomach it but it’s Ghana’s favourite dish apparently so I may need to train myself! We have had a lot of groundnut oil soup which usually comes with one chicken bone in it with a morsel of meat on. There are no puddings but the most amazing fresh mango, pineapple, coconuts and papayas! I will keep updating food experiences, especially for you Jane!

On Monday we went to Demonstration school in Akatsi, a nearby town. I assisted another volunteer to deliver his workshop on communication and public speaking to 80 or more children attending a one week summer school. The school itself, in term time, consists of 1000 students, 10 teachers and 3 or 4 large classroom huts, one of which has no roof. They are in pretty desperate need of help so that’s where our focus has been this week. On Tuesday, I took two reading classes with 40 kids in each ranging from 11-18 years and read the Hunchback of Notre Dame. We only had 10 books between them all and had to give out pencils and paper as they did not have any. The children were well behaved and eager to learn. They struggled a bit with my accent so I need to work on that a little bit but hopefully we can bring something new to their lessons and help them on a little. As seems to be the way here, John does not seem to be able to tell us too many days in advance exactly what we will be doing and with which children so it makes it quite hard to plan lessons but I keep trying to tie him down to some plans.....watch this space for progress!

All in all, it has been a good starting week. It will take some getting used to the laid back style and attitude of Ghana and the food, but I have never met immediately warmer people. Everyone has a ready smile and greets you when you walk past them. You really do feel very welcome here!