Blogs from Ahotokurom, Central, Ghana, Africa

Term 3 began two weeks ago and I started properly in my new school in Simiw. I had arrived before the end of the last term but time was taken up with revision and exams. With JHS3 no longer in school, (they sit their final exams after the second term) I’ve been left with Form 1 and 2 for their final term. I’ll be able to see out the best part of the term as we’re flying home two days before term ends. As it happens we recently got an email stating that our flight times have changed and we’ve now got longer stop-overs tacking about three hours onto our flight. Fantastic. Being the first Ahoto volunteer in Simiw - and the first white teacher in the school - there is a great buzz around the ... read more

There are many things I feel you haven’t really experienced until you’ve experienced them in Ghana. Top of that list would have to be mass. Ghana is still a very religious country and to be fair, they do it far better than we do. Our welcoming mass in the small church in Ahoto was our first expierence of what we would call a relatively short service. Presided over by Fr. Philip (our Fanti teacher) the mass, including our welcoming ceremony, was a mere two hours or so. A number of things extend the length of mass here; when shaking hands to show peace everybody walks around the church shaking hands with anyone they recognise and even stopping for a quick chat, secondly there is the fact that certain parts are translated into English as well as ... read more

"Why not Ghana?" Alan asked me. The following five minutes of that conversation, at the back of an English lecture, were all it took for him to convince me that I wanted to spend my six months of work placement in Africa volunteering in a school. I had no idea where in Africa Ghana actually was, didn't know what work we would be doing and was only positive of one thing.... I would burn quite badly in the searing African sun. But Alan’s enthusiasm and passion about the opportunity were all it took to convince me. (Alan was in Zambia a few years ago so his first hand experience of the continent was helpful…. Plus I think he used some form of hypnotism on me - I walked into a lecture thinking of going to Argentina, ... read more

Well, it's been a long time since our last blog entry! We've tried a few times, but internet access has been so difficult in Ghana we've waited till we got to Dubai to add this. Either the internet has been so slow as to be useless, or the keyboard has had most of the letters rubbed off, or the symbols written on the keys bear no relation to the symbol that appears on the screen, or the best explanation we've heard for the non-availability of service has been the weather. The internet in Ghana apparently doesn't like it too hot!! Luckily the web in Dubai is obviously made of sterner stuff, and is prepared to brave the 37C and 50% humidity, for probably longer than we are, in the non-airconditioned internet cafe just round from our ... read more

We have been in Ghana for a week now and still feel as if we have entered a different world. A bit of history about the place we are staying: A few miles away there is a hospital which used to be specifically for leprosy patients. Just after WW2, some of the patients on long term treatment started squatting in the nearby disused army camp, (Ankaful camp) partly to save the journey to and from their villages as they came from all over west Africa, and partly because the stigma of leprosy meant that they were not welcome back in their homes and villages. The abandoned army camp provided little more than basic shelter and therefore the people lived in very poor conditions. This prompted a visiting American monk, Brother Vincent, to try to build a ... read more