Samuel Stein

Ola, Still more or less the extent of my Spanish but I guess it doesn't matter anymore as I have now arrived in Rio for the final leg of my trip! First thing I think I will talk about this time is the setting of Santiago. It is absolutely stunning. There are mountains (both snow capped and not) surrounding the entire city and they are the first thing you really see when coming in to land at the airport. The great thing about them aswell is that because Santiago doesn´t have a huge amount of skyscrapers, they are more or less in sight no matter where you are in Santiago and there are 2 hills where you get an amazing view of them from. The hostel I stayed in in Santiago wasn´t as nice as the ... read more

Ola, That is the extent of my Spanish so far unfortunately - more than I spoke when I originally arrived but still not great is it? 5/6 Days in Buenos Aires certainly hasn't been enough, and definitely not enough time in Argentina! When I originally booked this trip I think I was incredibly unadventurous and the extent of which I am only just beginning to realise - but hey, at least that shows I'm enjoying myself! Firstly, for some unknown reason my flight was upgraded! Only from Economy to Economy Premium, but still! TVs are better, seats are wider with more leg room and just general service from the staff is nicer - I'm now hoping for Business on the way home (I'm allowed to dream). I actually ended up sitting next to a really friendly ... read more

Ok, so I think the first thing I should do is definitely apologise for quite how long it has been since I last put up an entry. It was always going to be a slightly late one due to my trip down to Accra, but unfortunately as soon as I got back the internet was down and then I got Malaria and then I got Dysentery (I'll talk about it all later) and so am actually only just well enough to go into Kumasi to write this. I think with this entry I will go chronologically which means that I will start with work. If I am correct (for some reason I can't read my last entry, the site won't let me) I last wrote when we were still doing the Commonwealth Foundation proposal. That was ... read more

So, I've now changed project and host family. I've moved south by about 10 miles to a small village called Dominase. The house is a 4 roomed house with no running water (the water has to be collected from a well) and the toilet is a hole in the ground outside. Very different from my old house! As for the family, 3 live in the house: Host mother Josephine, Host brother called Richard (3 years old) and Josephine's sister (I think) called Eva. The father is in Accra at the moment trying to get a qualification to allow him to go into the oil industry (he is currently a miner). The new project is also really different. It is far more admin based, as at the moment we are trying to raise funds to enable future ... read more

Hello all, Since my last entry, I don't think you could really say that I have done much to read about, so I will keep this short! On Friday I wandered down to Tom's school to help teach (and indeed to see how the kids there are taught). Personally, I would say that the education is a reason not to bring up a child in Ghana. The teacher didn't really seem to know much about what he was teaching, and didn't really explain anything properly to the students. For example, he was doing a multiplication exercise where he drew a load of boxes on the board (say he would draw 45 boxes, 9 rows and 5 columns) and then would get the child to write 9 x 5 = 45. However, he didn't explain what multiplication ... read more

This week I think I will start off by talking about work, as it was slightly different this week and I guess I am out here to work after all. So besides the usual giving talks to schools, we also visited 3 HIV patients (and gave them each some money that Louise's friend donated) and did a radio broadcast to the local village. Visiting the HIV patients was very interesting. On the Thursday we visited 2 who lived in the same village - both very poor and living out of 1 room only. One of the patients had had the virus for 8 years and the other 5 and both were struggling to live with it. Neither of them were able to hold down jobs and both relied on children for support. Neither could afford health ... read more

This weekend was supposed to be the weekend that Rus left, and so on Saturday I went down to Accra to see him off. However, Saturday morning he decided he really didn't want to go home, and so he extended his flights to this weekend instead! I don't think he was planning on telling me and was going to turn up to surprise me this weekend when we go to see Louise off, but I had to stay in Accra until Monday (when he was supposed to be leaving) so I could collect my passport. Ghana seems to have brought in a new law stating that all phone SIM cards must be registered, deadline July, or your phone gets cut off. The only issue being you need photographic ID to register it and since the loss ... read more

I think it is fair to say that I have had one of the weirdest, yet probably my favourite, weekend to date. This weekend, Me, Louise, Tom, Alice and Baptiste all traveled together, for the first time, down to Busua (a little coastal town,) and also to Nzulezo, a village on stilts above a lake a few hours from Busua. We all met in Kumasi to get a tro to Takoradi on the Friday, before going on to Beyin where we would stay the night and use as a springboard for Nzulezo the next day. However, the cost of 12 Cedi was considered a tad expensive for the tro and it was decided that we should get the Metro Mass instead. It wasn't worth it, not for 5 Cedi anyway. We waited from 7am until 12:30pm ... read more

Hello, This weekend marked Christa's last weekend in Ghana before she leaves (which incidentally is later today,) so naturally we all met up to say goodbye. The original plan was to meet up in Kumasi on Friday to watch the Congo vs Ghana Africa Cup of Nations qualifier and then go down to Accra for the weekend. So, Louise and I went to buy tickets for the game on Thursday - although when we got there we were told that none were sold in advance (which is typical of Ghana really,) so one could call it a bit of a wasted trip. However, as we arrived the Ghana football team were also arriving at the stadium for a press conference. Chaos ensued. As soon as the gates into the stadium opened everybody in the crowd suddenly ... read more

Sorry it has been a while again, but this weekend didn't involve much traveling so there isn't a huge amount to say. On Thursday, Zufa was sick so we couldn't go to the MHC, however, on Friday we went to both a school and a prison. The school talk was to about 200 kids and apparently they found my accent a tad tricky to understand. It's always really tricky to articulate properly when shouting really slowly to a group of kids who don't have a brilliant grasp of the language, but Zufa translated when necessary. The prison, however, was completely different. We went along to try and organise a time to come in and the warden just said 'Come back at 12pm and they will all be ready,' to our complete surprise. Before I talk about ... read more