Arriving in Ghana, January 2007...

I am here in Ghana, I arrived on January 7th after a 3 hour delay in Nigeria (for no apparent reason - the man sitting next to me said "welcome to Africa"!!). How appropriate. I got off the plane at midnight and was greeted by the immense humidity! It was about 25 degrees and I felt like I was swimming through the air walking from the plane to the (antiquated) airport. I was gripped by fear most of the journey thinking that I would not be collected by the aid agency - I needn't have worried as standing at the exit was a woman with a sign to collect me! The relief was immense! We slept for about three hours before having to catch a 5am bus to Kumasi (in the typical Africa style the bus was late and we left at 7.30am!). The bus ride was amazing - here was the Africa I had been waiting for - as we drove out of Accra I had my face pressed to the window - what a visual feast!! Women carrying all manner of things on their heads to sell through the windows of the bus - goats and chickens running everywhere and red dust as far as the eye could see!! Accra is more like a collection of little villages all stuck together and the poverty was so apparent. People just live in shacks with corrugated iron pieces as the roof (if they are lucky, some had wood and others had no roof at all) - everywhere people sit on the side of the roads to sell things - anything - to make a living. I was the only white person (obroni) on the bus and I don't think I have ever experienced that before - truly the ethnic minority and how refreshing!! I could feel everyone looking at me (especially the children who just stare half fascinated and half horrified at this person whose colour has been drained from their skin!!). We arrived in Kumasi by 1pm and meet with some other people from the aid organisation. It was unclear which project I would be going to as there had been some confusion with the arrival date and I had arrived three days later than the other volunteers. This must have been fate as it turns out to be completely in my favour and after speaking with a Canadian woman (Amanda) who is friends with the manager of Child Aid, I decided to go to a village about 45 minutes from Kumasi called Besease. Amanda has been in Ghana for a year as part of her education in social welfare / development studies - she has been working at an orphanage which desperately needs help and until now there has not been regular volunteers or regular funding. It sounded perfect for me! So by 4pm we were on a tro tro (a taxi van that services regular routes between villages and towns - usually a very old Toyota that has the doors tied on with rope and regularly breaks down but costs the equivalent of US$0.38 for an hour long journey!) to Besease. Unlike the other volunteers with Child Aid I would not be staying with a host family but instead living at the orphanage. Besease is a very small and very poor village without really the facilities for a host family set up. We arrived in Besease and began the walk up the dry red dust road to the orphanage which sits at the back of the village - as soon as we entered the village we were surrounded by packs of small children yelling "obroni, obroni, how are you?" "obroni, obroni, what is your name?" - being white here attracts attention everywhere you go (for better or worse - there are a a lot of people who think that if you are white you are automatically rich and can give them money). By the time we got to the orphanage night was falling and I was exhausted, I greeted the children who all wanted to touch me and Ma, the woman who runs the orphanage and does all the cooking, before falling asleep in my room amongst the noise of the children who run up and down the halls until they are tired... this was such an appropriate introduction to life in the home. Noisy. Ghana is a sensory feast - there is always noise - children screaming, crying, laughing, shouting, the noise of the animals (which are everywhere - goats and chickens and dogs - the roosters start crowing at about 3am), there is always smells - the spicey food cooking, the street vendors, the smells of the open sewers and drains and toilets... the sights are incredible - such colour everywhere! The red dry dust that you are always covered in, the bright clothing of the women, the green of the trees and the bush and the rubbish everywhere! There is no refuse system here - rubbish is just thrown in the street and the black plastic bags which everyone sells things in are everywhere!... and always, the feeling of heat and sweat and dirt... Ghana feels very alive. I commented on the array of smells to Amanda once who said that when she left Ghana for the first time and flew to Amsterdam the first thing she noticed was the lack of smell - sterile she said! And perhaps she is right. Life is so obvious here, so vivid, so real and also so hard.


There is no running water in the village - we must take buckets to the local well and manually pump the water and then carry the buckets back to the house (the children carry the buckets on their heads but I have to lug it by hand - much harder and much more is spilt!). We shower using buckets and always with cold water - and the electricity (thank god it is there at all) is quite unreliable. About once every fews day the electricity goes off and we use candles and torches. There is no kitchen at the orphanage - food is cooked in big black pots on fires at the back of the building - and is quite repetitive. I am treated like an honoured guest when it comes to meals and Ma always gives me the best of what she has, I receive an orange every day and milk in a little can - apart from that we eat a lot of rice (white) with spicy sauces or plantain and yam with sauces. I am given oats in the morning or bread but the children eat sourghum (which looks like glue). There is very little variation and almost no fresh vegetables. When Ma has cabbage and tomatoes she will make me a salad but this is very special and the children never get fresh vegetables.



My usual day consists of getting up around 6.15am and helping the children get washed and dressed for school - they have jobs which I help with like fetching water, lighting the fires and sweeping the dirt compound (with small bristle brushes tied together with string) - school starts for the older children at 6.45am and the younger children start at 8am. I eat my breakfast and wash when they have left and then I attend the community school (where they go) from 10am to 3pm - I am in a class of 10 - 13 year olds (the equivalent of NZ standard four) and I help the teacher and work with the children who need extra help. After school I play with the children and tutor those who need help (especially with english) and we eat dinner at about 4.30 or 5pm because it is usually dark by 6.30. I go to bed by about 9pm and the children run around until they are tired and they put themselves to bed - there is very little structure for them but apparently this is the African way... when I arrived the children did not have any mattresses - they slept on the wooden slats of the bunk beds or on the concrete floor. Since I have arrived Amanda has raised money and bought mattresses for them - the joy it brought them was huge and they sleep through the night now whereas before they wake several times from discomfort.

There is no running water in the village - we must take buckets to the local well and manually pump the water and then carry the buckets back to the house (the children carry the buckets on their heads but I have to lug it by hand - much harder and much more is spilt!). We shower using buckets and always with cold water - and the electricity (thank god it is there at all) is quite unreliable. About once every fews day the electricity goes off and we use candles and torches. There is no kitchen at the orphanage - food is cooked in big black pots on fires at the back of the building - and is quite repetitive. I am treated like an honoured guest when it comes to meals and Ma always gives me the best of what she has, I receive an orange every day and milk in a little can - apart from that we eat a lot of rice (white) with spicy sauces or plantain and yam with sauces. I am given oats in the morning or bread but the children eat sourghum (which looks like glue). There is very little variation and almost no fresh vegetables. When Ma has cabbage and tomatoes she will make me a salad but this is very special and the children never get fresh vegetables. My usual day consists of getting up around 6.15am and helping the children get washed and dressed for school - they have jobs which I help with like fetching water, lighting the fires and sweeping the dirt compound (with small bristle brushes tied together with string) - school starts for the older children at 6.45am and the younger children start at 8am. I eat my breakfast and wash when they have left and then I attend the community school (where they go) from 10am to 3pm - I am in a class of 10 - 13 year olds (the equivalent of NZ standard four) and I help the teacher and work with the children who need extra help. After school I play with the children and tutor those who need help (especially with english) and we eat dinner at about 4.30 or 5pm because it is usually dark by 6.30. I go to bed by about 9pm and the children run around until they are tired and they put themselves to bed - there is very little structure for them but apparently this is the African way... when I arrived the children did not have any mattresses - they slept on the wooden slats of the bunk beds or on the concrete floor. Since I have arrived Amanda has raised money and bought mattresses for them - the joy it brought them was huge and they sleep through the night now whereas before they wake several times from discomfort.


Last weekend I took a trip to Northern Ghana and spent three days with the other Child Aid volunteers at Mole National Park - it was great to speak to the others about their projects and we visited several projects in Tamale - rural schools where the children are being taught under trees until they classrooms are built (funded by Child Aid). Apparently the volunteers are critical to ensuring the children attend school as many will walk for miles to go to school where they can see an obroni! Child Aid is also setting up feeding programs in schools as another incentive for children to attend school - it is also a reason for parents to send their children to school as some parents would rather their children stayed home and worked. Mole National Park was amazing - we went on several safari walks and saw herds of elephants, lima monkeys, antelope, bushbucks, baboons, warthogs and many amazing bird species. Apparently there are lions, cheetahs and hyenas there also but we didn't see any as they only come out at night. The baboons were not at all scared of people and even came into our rooms to steal things! On the way back from Mole we stopped at a village called Larabanga, home to the oldest mosque in Ghana and one of the oldest in west Africa (built in 1471) - we were allowed to go into some of the peoples homes (small one room buildings built from mud and sticks which are mainly used as store rooms and people sleep on the roofs). It was really amazing and the people were so welcoming!



So here I am, facing the next two months of work and life in Besease. The children are beginning to warm to me and are no longer afraid to tell me what they need and talk with me about their problems. It's so heartwarming to have begun to earn their trust. Next month Child Aid will send another volunteer to Besease to help me so I will (with Amanda) draft a manual to help them and begin the foundations for regular volunteers to work here. Amanda also works with social welfare in the neighbouring village, Ejisu, and has invited me to work with her there to gain an understanding of the government "social services" in Ghana. It's been such an amazing experience already and I have learnt an immense amount and met some wonderful people - we have been taken to a nearby village and taken into the family of a man Amanda works with who allowed us be part of a ceremony where the naturally produced palm wine is drunk and fufu is eaten (a strange dough like food made from yam, kassava and plantain that you eat with your hands and a sauce in a communal bowl).


I find attending the school a struggle as I have realised how difficult life is for the students here - they are taught from a government program that is largely religious propoganda and independent or analytical thinking is definitely not encouraged. The children are also beaten when they do not get the answers right - and they are quite severly beaten around the head and on the back - they are also caned for being late and caned for speaking twi (their indigenous language). It's very difficult for me to sit through this but there is little I can do as this is accepted practice here. Even little children of 4 or 5 are beaten. The school is filled with the sounds of crying children. I don't understand how children can really learn in such a climate of fear and they never ask questions for if they say they don't understand then they are also beaten and ridiculed in front of the class. It's very difficult. So I teach the children in my own method, trying to allow them to think critically and answer the question themselves rather than just being told all the time. Hopefully I can provide some relief for them and they can learn something from my being there. And physically I am doing well - I have been taking a cocktail of vitamins every morning and hopefully this eleviates the bland and starchy diet (the orphanage is vegetarian so is perfect for me!) and aside from one bout of diareoah I have been in good health!! Two of the other volunteers who also started in January have contracted malaria already and one who started in December caught typhoid fever!! I am pretty lucky considering...