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Published: November 28th 2008
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Hello People!
Apologies that it's been a while since I've updated this!Your probably wondering what fantastic adventures I've been getting up to that kept me away for so long? To be honest I just couldn't be bothered, it's alot of work this blog thing you know?
So!I'll give you the 411 on what I've been getting up to since the last time you read.
WE had our school trip to the harbour and it was pretty interesting (not the harbour but the bus journey there!). All the kids were rowdy as hell and then the second the bus left the school someone cracked out a horn, drums and cow-bell (which is one of the most popular instruments here, love it!) and the bus became a gig. We had Maxwell busting out a freestyle rap (in Fante which was pretty cool) and a whole troupe of backing singers, full band and even the teachers who were supposed to be in-charge were up dancing and taking photos (needless to say, there are no seatbelts in Ghana so everyone stands up and dances when this sort of thing happens....and it happens quite alot!). The trip was boring as hell so we
Me and my boy Justice
Check out my supa-fly glasses!mint! left early to go along to Cape Coast. Gutted that we did though as they took all the kids along to Essipong Stadium in Sekondi, bribed the guard and got a full tour of the stadium which looked amazing!
Just to let you know, bribes are really common here. Go through a police road block and it's pretty much mandatory that you pay them something. Also, just realised today that since i've been here I havn't been in 1 car/tro-tro that has an intact windscreen....yet it hasn't worried me in the slightest!
So we went back along to Cape Coast for the weekend to actually go and see a bit of the city this time. It does have a certain charm in a run-down sort of way (a bit like most Ghanian cities really) and you can tell that it used to be run by the British by the way the place looks. The only problem with it is the fact that you have to dodge hawkers all the time (guys trying to sell you paintings or anything like that), it gets quite annoying telling some guy for the 20th time that you don't want to buy a
Justice & Charles
Apparantly this photo has now been "Justified". hmm.... bracelet with GHANA in luminous letters for 10 Cedis (about 5 pounds). The clubs here got turned over though! Now as my friends will tell thee, I am not famous for my (good) dance moves but Africa does something to you. I actually taught a black guy some of my moves, and one guy thought I was so good he challenged me to a dance off (which i turned down, didn't want to embarass him infront of all his mates). James and I (my placement partner) even invented a new style of dancing which we are particularly proud of. Sadly there is no photographic evidence of this so you'll just have to take my word for it!
The castle was definetely a weird experience. Bit of background info for you: Cape Coast Castle was one of the main hubs of slave exportation to the western world, the place held a couple of thousand slaves at anyone time and it was British owned. The first thing that they took you to see was the dungeons where they kept all the slaves and it was pretty horrific really, a space no bigger than the average school classroom would hold up to
The spider's in our room
Just thought i'd stick this in here for good measure!look at the size of it! 200 slaves for a few months at a time (until they were shipped off). The whole experience was quite wrong really, i can appreciate why they have turned something like this into a tourist attraction so that people can try to understand what went on and learn about it but this just felt like another excuse for a photos opportunity for your typical package holiday-maker. But it was still something that had to be done i suppose.
Since then been back to Brenu Akyinim (the beach!!!!!!!!!) for five pound lobster and pounding atlantic waves.
And then Kumasi. Kumasi is the capital of the Central/Northern region of Ghana and the second most populated city. It should have taken us (me, James, Ruby, Katie and Liz) 4 hours to get there but, being Ghana, the bus ended up taking about 6 hours on the most ridiculously cold bus in the world (why would they turn up the air con to full when the bus is full of Ghanaians used to 30 degree temperatures?!). Got there and went to our hostel only to find out that it had no running water at all...gutted!Roughed it anyway, managed to get a bucket-shower on
What you lookin' at?!
Kids at the school in Kumasi the go though (one thing I'm looking forward to in the UK, constant running water). Met up with Ruby's friend Richard who runs a school on the outskirts of the city so we went along to visit that and were mobbed by about 40 5-7 year olds running around all trying to show us their toys. It was actually a really nice experience as it's the first school that we've been to where they refuse to use the cane. Some of the schools are really over-enthusiastic with it (by that I mean they use it to quite a disturbing extreme) but here they don't see the need in it and it actually seems like it works out better. We also went to visit the national culture centre (shite) and the Ashanti King's Palace (the Ashanti are the main tribe in the region and are pretty famous historically, look them up) which was really good. The place was done out really well and it didn't feel to touristy (it also helped that it was just the 5 of us and Richard so it was pretty cool) but it was quite funny how they skipped over entire pieces of the Ashanti nation's history. They were partly to blame for the growth in the slave trade as they sold a large number of rival tribe members to the UK in return for Guns and Whiskey, this was COMPLETELY skipped over and the guides were trying to sell the Ashanti as a completely peaceful nation.....aye right!Good either way though, pretty interesting.
The main thing we headed up to do though was to visit Kejetia market, which is the largest market in West Africa (covering 27 hectares with around 15,000 market stalls). To use the word mental would be an understatement. Actually only managed to see about 1/20th of the place but that was enough for me!You can walk 20 metres and pass someone selling cloth, someone hacking up pig's feet, jewellery stalls, you name it....they have it!Managed to get my haggle on and got some funky-ass material so getting shirts made up for myself and the lads back home (African themed night out aye!).
So that's pretty much my last 3 weeks of travelling. Apart from that it's been the usual school malarky and getting the pupils ready for the exams which start next week. Managed to get them almost ready so far, hopefully they can all pass and make me look good, that would be nice!
Must dash as this has taken me an hour to write and I'm bored. Going to my seamstress to get measured up.
Bye Bye
x
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