I am unexpectedly writing my final blog from Leeds, UK after a drama and an emergency flight home, arriving yesterday morning. As I tried to keep my blog focussed on the positive experiences Jonny and I were having and the work we were doing, I did not include as much as I could have about the charity we were working with in Ghana.
It did not take long for us to figure out that the projects the Ghanaian charity claimed to have in the marketing material, upon which we’d both based our volunteer applications, did not in fact exist in reality. When we arrived in Ghana another one of the volunteers explained his frustrations to us about the lack of real work he had to do. He ended up leaving 2 months before he was due to because he had nothing to do and did not want to support the charity. Jonny’s own proactive approach established his football coaching project pretty much from week one and my pushing meant that the charity had to find me a teaching position. However, this left a lot of the claimed projects, including the ones we’d applied directly for, non-existent and left us with a lot of questions.
We put these questions to the workers at the charity and at first, they were met with vague answers about what had happened once in the past, what they intended for the future and how there were cultural differences we needed to consider. As time went on, our continuing questions were met with angry meetings and increasingly aggressive charity workers! We realised this was nothing really to do with cultural differences.
Jonny and I decided that we wanted to make the most of the experience and so to ignore the charity and carry on with our projects, the teaching, coaching and the local orphanage, none of which had anything at all to do with the charity really. The charity was meant to pay all our expenses for the projects as they are sent a hefty amount of funding from the European Commission for us to stay there and volunteer. However, when we asked for transport costs etc we were met with more aggression. We then started to have people approach us in the community to say that they had not been paid for their various services to the charity- a perplexing situation knowing just how much money the charity were receiving on our behalf alone and in addition to private funders’ donations. The most personally upsetting situation for Jonny and I was that the lady who was cooking for us had not been paid for 6 months. She was a very poor lady, who was not managing to live without the money and who had also been intimidated and bullied by the director to not tell us anything. However, she could not carry on with no money and explained to us what was happening. We encouraged her to say something to the management and she was then told to leave her job without any of the pay.
Partly due to feeling uncomfortable in an increasingly hostile situation and certainly to do with not wanting to support such a charity morally and financially, Jonny and I moved out of the guesthouse and in to a local hostel about 2 weeks ago. We carried on with our separate projects quite happily from there and intended to do so until the end of November.
When we were moving out of the guesthouse, Jonny bumped into a new volunteer arriving from the States. We met with the cook, Millie and she told us this lady had come to the charity 6 years in a row and had some sway within the organisation. We asked to meet with her and explained how Millie had not been paid and asked whether she could put any pressure on the management to make sure she got her money. The American lady started asking us lots of questions about our experiences with the charity as it turned out she was a main financier of the organisation. She was less than impressed with what we had to report and the charity workers obviously caught wind of this as one of them stormed into the meeting and tried to take the lady away.
The next day Jonny and I received two emails- one from the director and another from one of the charity employees. They both threatened court action in Ghana for defamation but the one from the director threatened our lives, stating that if we did not stop talking we would be ‘running for our lives through the streets of Sogakope’. Now I am home, I can laugh about the ridiculousness of it but at the time I was pretty distressed.
We had to tell the English organisation what had been threatened and they immediately offered to fly us home for our safety. It was a very difficult decision. Both Jonny and I had so much more we wanted to do and had planned to do in our last two weeks. Jonny had a school football gala to coach, I had an exam to set and prizes to award for my best pupils. We did not want a bully to be able to intimidate us and harm the very community he professes to care about and work with. But in the interests of our safety in a country and culture that was not our own, we decided it was best to take the flight.
Angry and upset that our trip was cut short, Jonny did his last coaching session with his team, we took the orphanage on a big trip to a nearby swimming pool (which they loved but being responsible for 30 kids ranging from 2.5- 12 years old, none of whom can swim, was a lot to cope with!) and I presented my awards early to my pupils. We left Sogakope on Monday afternoon sad but also relieved we were safe and happy to be coming home.
Our time in Ghana was incredible; not easy at all but a real learning experience on many levels. The only negative we had was with the few people within the charity we were affiliated to. We have met some very special and inspirational people, many of whom we now call friends, and will continue to stay in touch with them. And for now, I am very much enjoying cold weather, hot water and the sofa!! Thanks to everyone for reading my blogs and supporting us in Ghana. I hope to see you all very soon x.
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