27 April, 2006

Sorry for the wait...



Week 14

So… I never managed to finish writing about Charlotte's induction into our cosy part of Ghana last time… As the boys who managed ours (Charles and Joe) had gone back to Accra, and the induction is now only for one person, we decided to enjoy the fun ourselves. (All the challenging things like Fante and Culture lessons we would leave to the experts at CEJOCEP!)

Charlotte has now been to most of the tourist things we did all those months ago. We spent a morning at Elmina Castle and the afternoon in the town, and then lapped up the luxury of the pool at Coconut Grove once more! Charlotte also managed to brave the walkway at Kakum and spotted Crocs at Hans Cottage Botel.

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As custom demands, when there is a new arrival to the village, the Chief must be informed. All the rest of us had our glorious meetings with the Chief and Elders of both Kakumdo and Bawdia during our induction, so it was only right that Charlotte's time had come… Armed with the usual bottle of Schnapps (a gift to pour libation to the ancestors) we dressed up as smart as we could and proceeded up the hill to the Chiefs Palace.

Kakumdo is 'between Chiefs' at the moment. Their old Chief popped it just beforf the wonderful work that had been going on at the centre. They were all pleased we had come to help in their village and should other (nothing like ours) will address all these qualities in the prospective Chief.
When they have selected the lucky person, they will make some arrangements for that person to come back to the village and send for him.

Then on the right day, the chosen Chief would be grabbed from his house and brought back to a closed room for 6 days of preparation. (In the closed room, he will be taught the entire history of the village and also any other information he might need while he serves as Chief. He will also use this time to decide on a new name for his Stool!)
On the 6th day they will 'Enstool him' as Chief of the village in a 2 day ceremony and party.

There are about 10 Elders in Kakumdo and one Queen Mother and they are all Elders of different clans. Each Clan has its own symbol and cloth, but once in the Chiefs Palace it is the Linguist who rules over all. He speaks on behalf of all the Elders and more importantly, keeps hold of the bottles of gin, schnapps and various other spirits, that have been presented as gifts!

Although I have been practicing Fante as a language for three months now, I am not fluent enough to understand what is being said much of the time, which is a little frustrating, but the ceremony went according to plan, and we all introduced ourselves and explained why we were there as expected.

The Linguist in turn welcomed us all and said he had heard of the wonderful work that had been going on at the centre. All the Elders were pleased we had come to help their village and we should begin to pour libation to the ancestors. This custom is a dangerous one (especially if you haven't eaten first.) The Elders and guests all get offered a generous sized shot of the spirits. You can drink it all or choose to pour it on the sacred ground of the Palace for the ancestors to drink.

Most of the Elders had huge shots poured, and the most potent drink was a local one, which was a type of gin that left your mouth glowing. Needless to say, once the ceremony was over we all piled out grinning and merry, Elders and guests alike!! I even bagged an Elder as a Husband as he quite charmingly said I had a small face, but plenty nose and he liked it! ;)

Unfortunately for Charlotte, she got ill the same night. If it was the strong alcohol or the usual Western adjustments to climate we will never know, but a dodgy tummy kind of fits into the induction course as something we all had been through – sorry to say it was like a final initiation. :(

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Things for Charlotte did not go according to plan in the beginning. It was hard to place any blame as the circumstances are just unfortunate, but, Sally Honny, the amazing Pharmacist in Cape Coast, who supplies ATN volunteers with health lectures on arrival, was not there at Charlotte's arrival. We were told she has traveled to the UK! And this proved to be even more harsh because Charlotte is studying Medicine and was hoping for contacts in the hospitals around Cape Coast.

Although new to things, there was ATN business to be getting on with too, and Charlotte along with Charles, Joseph, Caroline and I all made our way to Saana Lodge. This Hotel has been hosting Gym equipment for Africatrust Networks and had started charging customers to use it, but never given any of the money promised to Africatrust's Partners. The Hotel said they had not had many customers in the last few months and was even changing owners in the near future, so to bring it up with them. The new owners would be able to shed some light on whether to keep the equipment there at a loss or find it a new home.

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The week before Easter, with the children off school, I assumed we would be getting dirty and doing loads of work (digging - my favourite!) But instead it was suggested that we rest a bit before traveling North on our tour of Ghana. (Boring!) So the others rested and I opted for the only work available…

Monday and Friday, I got the chance to be a brickie! (Or at least a Mason's helper.) I loved it so much I may have found my new vocation! There is so much to be said for standing on the roof of a structure and using a trowel and mortar board! I used a spirit level too and the Mason didn't have to correct my work too much. Dead chuffed about that!

We also spent one afternoon playing LUDO up at the centre. The game is played so fast here, and for every volunteer playing there was a Ghanaian helper shadowing, moving our pieces for us and yelling to speed the game up. Cheering, encouragement and jeers to the other players about their pieces having to go back to base made the game hilarious! I never thought LUDO could be so much fun!

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Tuesday, Caroline and I went to help Ben from the Culture Group paint his new shop. He has been working on it for the few months we have been here and now it has finally been erected and is in need of a fresh lick of Paint. Boga and Amponsah were also there to lend a hand. We painted the majority of it white and the lowest few layers of wood in dark green. Ben named it 'Clubino Collection' which we don't understand, but he likes the sound of it, so that's good enough for us!

It was such a fantastic day, as we are good friends with all of them and to be able to help in this small way just by giving up some time was really nice. We had a real giggle painting too! The shop sells very new designer men's clothes to the young men of Abura. T-shirts with 50cent on the front, some Tommy Hilfiger and Von Dutch, that sort of thing.

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Debbi and Matt have been experiencing things very differently in Bawdia and have come across some major problems. They are going to be leaving Bawdia and the project there in the hands of the retired headmaster Mr Okoe as they feel that it is not appropriate to be spending time and money on a Government School after they found out the plans to refurbish the School had already been made.

The School will be using money from the Government to work on the old Primary building and not to invest in a new structure as Debbi and Matt had been led to believe.

The whole team are upset about what has happened there, most of all Matt and Debbi as they have grown to love the School children and members of the community, as well as begin valuable computer lessons with the teachers and also extra reading lessons for the under achievers. All their hard work will not go to waste, but we all feel deeply saddened that this has had to happen. However, Africatrust wishes Bawdia to remain an outreach placement for future volunteers and has not lost all hope in the future working relationship there.


Good news for us though because Matt and Debbi arrived to stay with us in Cape Coast on Thursday, so the house was now very full but very happy. We caught up on all the news and heard about the situation in full. It seems the experiences can differ greatly due to a few factors, but it made us feel much more lucky to be working with CEJOCEP. In Bawdia there was no NGO to work for, with a common goal for improvement.

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We went to Mobil spot on Friday night for a bit of fun at Ladies night, and Caroline, Debbi and I enjoyed a good dance to the Hi-life and rap music. Then Sunday morning, Charlotte and I went to Abura to The Roman Catholic Church and met Ben and Joseph there. It was The Easter service, and as usual it was in Fante so we didn't understand much of the content, but there was lots of singing and very beautiful clothes to look at.

The Tour starts on Tuesday and I am going to let someone else write that one up as I have done so much writing now… It will be nice to have things from someone else's perspective.

(written by Lucie)

11 April, 2006

City lights and soap boxes...


Week 13

The children broke up from School this week and Caroline got all the fun! They had a party on the last day with fizzy pop and party games! They were all allowed to bring in a toy and also wear their own clothes, a sight I wish I had a chance to see! :)
Caroline has told me it was an incredibly noisy but happy morning and that she had not much more to do than supervise them playing and sing songs with them. Bliss!

(My last morning of term with the tresures, I sang my heart out to teach them a new song. The subject was inspired by none of them knowing their colours right in the exams last week.
The song was made up on the spot, and involved some dodgy rhyming and a stolen tune.
'Yellow is the colour of the Sun' .. 'Green is the colour of leaves' ..
'Blue is the colour of the deepest sea' .. 'And red is the colour of berries!'
I even drew a picture using coloured chalk! Nope, no good. It doesn't rhyme. nor was the tune any good. Nor could they sing it. Must have been a hippy moment. Back to the drawing board with me!! )

Its not rainy season here for another month yet, but when it comes I can assure you I will be losing my tan quickly and probably catching the cold I so very narrowly escaped before coming in January!

Last Sunday we spent the whole day in the house because of the rain... it would have been boring, but lucky for us, some of the guys from the Culture Group had come to visit. We must have watched 6 films in a row!! We had bought The Matrix on VCD for Jeffrey as a present, so we watched that one first, then some third rate 80's films that had been recorded from the back of a cinema! Next was amazing ones with Jet Li, and all the while the rain was getting heavier, the thunder and the lightening more intense. (All added to dramatic effect for the Jet Li ones though - Ace!)

Charlotte, our new recruit to the Cape Coast team was arriving this week, and Caroline and I had our last night just the two of us on Monday, wondering what Charlotte would be like, and what she would make of us, and the project. Now we have been here for three months we both feel so at ease with some things. Remembering back to the first few weeks we were here, there is so much to take in and adjust to, we could tell how nervous Charlotte would be feeling.

I left on Tuesday by STC coach to Accra, which is the Capital of Ghana, similar to London in many ways. On the journey it seemed to me that so much of Ghana is currently Under Construction. Moulded blocks lying everywhere in neat stacks. New buildings sprouting up all over the place, half finished ones and some left altogether in a state of abandon.
Many of them are indistinguishable, guesthouse, house or spot, so alike in their curvy architechture and different brightly coloured walls.
The closer we got the more the buildings took on the characteristics of places for business, not residence. Then more Adverts started springing up.

The advertisments in the small towns here are mostly painted on the walls of the houses on the roadside. Key Soap or Nestle or Cadbury's, for all the passers by to look at and start thinking of. In Accra, the modernity sets in and the painted ads are replaced by only huge billboards and posters with the latest mobiles or perfume or watches...

Soap box moment...

In comparison to Cape Coast, Accra is free of rubbish at least. I have been used to a town where my usual incessant recycling is lost because no rubbish gets collected. The floor is the nearerst bin. It is a criticism of the Government that I observed and found out about when I first got here, because people somewhere get paid for the removal of the rubbish, and yet it remains, builds up, scatters everywhere into the landscape, spoiling that lush view. Then it occasionally gets raked into a pile and burned, which unsurprisingly stinks. Our local rubbish tip is right next to a whole group of houses and where the local children play football.

Also I have found that Boycotting Brands is impossible - the biggest 'no-no' brands like Nestle and Nike are everywhere, and nobody would understand why they are seen as 'bad'. My ramblings in the UK about multi-national corporations are only brought to life even more when I see the hold they have over developing countries.

Almost all coffee is imported from America, and the menu will even state 'Nescafe' instead of 'Coffee'. This seems stupid considering that Ghana grows its own coffee beans. The most widely available soft drink for children is 'Coca Cola' or one of it's other formats such as Sprite or Fanta . Yuck. There are also three different types of evapourated milk (all with different names but all made by Nestle). Double yuck.

So leaving them all behind I have been scoffing the traditional Ghanaian dishes much more and I am mildly annoyed for growing a bit of a tummy since being here! Being a Vegetarian I thought I would lose weight but it all tastes so nice, I keep having seconds!

Anyway...

Accra smells. It has the same horrible smell of any city its size. And the same amount of traffic jams! The air literally stops when you are in a traffic jam here.
Luckily I had Charles picking me up at the STC station to take me across the city.

Once we had Charlotte safely bundled inside a Taxi I got to find out how things were for her. After an interesting flight sat next to a drunk lady, she was beginning to see her first glimpses of Ghana, albeit at night so slightly strange for a first view. The heat had gotten to her instantly, so when we arrived at the Golden Spoon in Tesanao she was pleased to find the bed and the fan to cool her down!

Next day we went to the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park. It was the second time for me and made a lot more sense than the first time!! I think it helps to have had lots of converstaions about him too, as he is such an influential figure in the history of Ghana, and yet was so controversial in some of his ideals.

On to Cape Coast and time for millions of Introductions. I am sure Charlotte faced the same thing we did when first arriving - not knowing who anyone is , if you have met them already, or if you will ever meet them again!! Saying that she has been doing a stirling job of trying to remember names and faces.

My time is up in the cafe now so more next time...

(written by Lucie)

Sun, Moon and Lightening!

Week 12

The Technical men came to finish the concrete roof/floor of the toilet block at the Centre on Monday, so Lawrence and Sly worked all weekend to complete the grid of iron rods that would hold the conctrete in place.

Early on Sunday morning we were summoned to look and take photos, and we know they were still hard at work late Sunday night. CEJOCEP have won so much respect in my eyes by doing a lot of the work themselves and therefore saving money at every step . For example – hiring someone to bend the iron rods, would have cost 2 million cedis. The hole that us volunteers and Culture group members are digging would have cost 5 million cedis in labour! This money can then be spent on what is really needed like bags of cement, trips of sand etc.

Setting a great example, these time consuming, sometimes tedious tasks have all been done by the very directors of the NGO itself. Lawrence is often the one sweating the most, but he gets a kick out of learning how it all works, having a go and then mastering every step of the building project. Sly puts in countless hours going around sourcing the cheapest (and best) raw materials and Theresa works tirelessly to feed everyone, collect water and oversee that the men as well as us are looked after in every way.

They work so well as friends and they work so hard for the benefit for the project. It's an honour to be part of it all.

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A different sort of busy, but Caroline and I had been working over the weekend too – on the exam papers that Sly wanted us to give the children. As this week was EXAM WEEK!! With no real knowledge of what to do, we bluffed our way through a few questions and tried as much as possible to make the papers easy!

We got grossly overcharged for the photocopying, but the colouring-in was good fun and Ben came over to help with that.


Monday was the Oral exam, so one of us taught while the other tested students one by one. They were asked to recite the alphabet as well as count and various other tasks. We has to see how their singing was too, and Christopher made me chuckle with 'Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star' as he didn't seem to know when to stop and sang it four times in a row!

We both made up the marking scheme ourselves and were probably a little bit generous with the scores, but they all did really well in this exam.

Tuesday was written exams - much more difficult to guess how they would do...
To put things in perspective a bit – most of the younger children have never had an exam before and some of the older ones will have only tried a few tests in learning books that their parents have bought them.

The baffled looks on their faces was so cute. (They had the luxury of tables to sit at.) You could tell they weren’t sure what was going on! One of my younger students –Theo spent the whole time looking anywhere except the paper and found the whole thing very curious. Top of the class was Kofi with 94%, but at 7 years old, and having attended a different school before this one, he has a clear advantage over the others.

Exams have always stressed me out and being the teacher this time was no different. I was biting my nails on behalf of all the children and just hoping they understood what we were trying to ask them.

The Government Schools have been holding their exams too, and the situation up in Bawdie has been a stressful one. The School Governers had spent some of the exam budget on sports day instead and so couldn’t afford everything their students needed. Debbi has quite rightly been getting upset about this and has tried to speak to the (paid) Teachers and sort things out on the children's behalf. Her group are at a much more crucial satge of learning when it comes to exams and the mountain of work she has had to mark at the end of this week is now ridiculous!

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The highlight of this week was the Total Eclipse which I have been talking about since before I came away to Ghana! I was even more excited because the path the eclipse takes goes directly over the area we are living in!! So with Wednesday off school (after much umming and ahhing about whether to keep school open or not) we headed down the beach with Sly Esther and the kids.

Irene bought us some Eclipse glasses to look through, which were totally black unless you look directly at the sun. We sipped on coffee and waiting for the event to happen. Once it started we were all in complete awe of the whole process and especially the speed at which it all takes place!

The moon covered the sun from the top right corner like it was biting a chunk out of it! We all took turns looking through the glasses to see where it had gotten too, and then this nervous energy started up when the sky began getting dark. There were so many people on the beach by then (mostly ‘Obrunis!’) and everyone let out a gasp as the moon completely covered the sun.

It was really dark and this pure glowing halo of light in the sky was immense! I was so impressed by how it looked and we figured out it wasn’t damaging to look at without glasses when it was total so we all took as many sneeky peeks as we could!! When the light came back it seemed so intensely bright all over again and the beach was full of people swapping photos and talking excitedly. I feel so lucky to have been among them and we didn’t stop talking about it for the rest of the day either!!

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Another interesting day was Friday, when we were invited to the School where Lawrence teaches. His class are about 12-15 year olds and the day we were invited was also the day of Football match between teachers and some older students.

We had to get up stupidly early and travel quite far to get there. It was now we realised how easy it had always been for us to get to the Centre where we teach, from the house we stay at. Also just how far Lawrence has to travel every day before coming to the centre after School!

Once we had arrived at Biriwa (the village before) we had to wait half an hour for a cargo van to come along and give us a lift. We piled in with about 10 other people all bringing maize or other products to sell.

The village we visited is called Asofura and in complete contrast to Kakumdo it has no electricity and no running water. There are plyons being set up all along the main road to provide electricity sometime near in the future, although some of the older members of the village say it will be too expensive and not needed. The villagers are used to a small journey to the river that provides drinking water, a place to wash clothes and bodies too. But the town could really benefit from a bore hole or water pump.

The children seemed a lot poorer than those we has encountered before, and Lawrence has explained that there are severe problems in School due to some of the children skipping exams because they need to get the crops in for their family. It makes sense from a survival point of view, but hurts to hear when you know the child has already stayed back a year or so in school because of this and there is no alternative.

The football match was slightly difficult to follow as we had a crowd of children from age 3 to 16 all around us watching, giggling and daring each other to say someting to us. They went a bit more shy when the Teachers were around but were a good audience to my jokes and faces when they weren't.

Lawrence also introduced us to Palm Wine, which is abundantly tapped from the Palm trees in the area, and we got to sample some for ourselves the same day! Its smells rotten, but has a charming sweet taste as well as a kick, once it has had time to brew. We got given a bottle to take home and Caroline and I dispached it quickly in an evening! Nice!



(written by Lucie)

By the sea... (Lucie, Caroline, Matt, Debbi)

07 April, 2006

Animal strife...

Week 11

On Tuesday this week, during lessons in the morning, Sylvester interupted us to let us know that an Owl had been spotted behind someone's house, and would we like to look? We were both keen to see for ourselves so we followed him round. In the small pathway behind a house was the most beautiful and statue like owl. It was so still I thought it was dead until it winked very slowly...

Sly told us that it must be injured, because it would never usually be out in daylight. It was his second time ever of seeing an owl, but the masses of crows that were squawking and circling the roof just above it didn't bode well for the Owl. The only thing stopping them attacking it, was us being in the vicinity.

It was scary stuff. We decided to try and help, and me being animal lover extrordinaire wanted to have a go at saving it from a certain doom of pecking. Sly and I went round the other side of the alley and I crawled up behind it with a sheet. It didn't move at all as I covered it with the sheet and picked it up. Then after I walked two steps towards Caroline with a triumphunt 'I could be in the RSPCA' smile, it's magnificent wings opened up and it flew off in seconds.
I was gutted.

The crows and a hawk chased after it and I felt even more rubbish. I have since been comforted by Sly saying he heard an Owl in the night, but we never did find out the fate of that poor Owl. And to top it off, that night, Jeffrey's dog - Timmy decided to follow us all the way to the Centre, finding the shouts of 'shoo' to be a marvelous new game! Poor Caroline had to walk all the way back to the house with him and peg it at one point to leave him behind!

My teaching has taken a downer again as well. I can't seem to over-estimatimg them as if they were all 10 year olds with a wonderful grasp of English, rather than 4-7 year olds learning English as a second language. My lesson the other day (which involved trying to distinguish between what is alive and what is not) went badly to say the least! Maybe I was still worried about the owl? Blank looks and every answer wrong made it obvious that my tangent was lost on them. Back to 'C A T spells cat' it is!

Anyway, we are writing their exams now so I have been trying to find a happy medium for what they do and don't know. The topics will include the Alphabet, Numbers, Colours, Shapes and Grouping. Ben came over last night to help me colour in 20 exam papers with funny little boxes and pictures.

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The first half of the week we spent digging the big hole, and the second half of the week we were bending iron rods (Popeye rather than popidol!) And for one afternoon I got to be measurement lady and draw out a very accurate plan of the roof for the toilet block, and label all the measurements. My Dad has trained me well in this skill, (or I have seen a million of his drawings before at least) so I felt confident I was up to the task.

I think I may have overdone it with the pride in my picture as well, showing it to the mason, the carpenter and anoyne else who would look at it!! It's only become apparent this weekend when they laid the Iron rods to form a grid, that my numbers were not accurate every time. Oops!

Today was stress free as we went to Brenu Beach which is just down the coastline. It has a nicer feel and look to it than the beach at Oasis. We had help from Esther's Fiancee Charles, in a lift there and back (Taxi's can cost a fortune as they have to stay in the carpark til you are finished) and Esther's son Unkofi and Sly's children - Ruth, Pious and Afia came too.

They are all still getting used to the sea (although Afia refuses point blank to step anywhere near it!) so anytime a big wave comes in they all screech and giggle and run back in. I have been practicing cartwheels too (still laughable) as the sands nice and soft to land on!

(written by Lucie)