Why Not Ghana?

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"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, I walked out with my bags packed for Ghana)

Sadly Alan had to pull out of the trip but the remaining half-a-dozen strong group from all over Ireland have said their goodbyes to Irish weather for the next six months and are armoured with their anti-malaria tablets and more sun cream than most Irish people would see in a life time….. well I do anyway, its this fair skin… doesn’t like the sun. Despite this, I decided that a whole six months without hearing George Lee and every news reader in the country talking about the recession was worth the risk of third degree burns.

I’m sitting at home in Ireland writing this little introduction as I’m flying out in two days and don’t know when I’m going to get my hands on a computer next. An important message to all those people I gave this link to - If I’ve been gone for 3 months and this is still the only post then computer access must be worse than I thought.

The journey, 11 hours in total I think, is pretty daunting from my perspective (the farthest journey I‘ve ever undertaken being as far as Manchester for a weekend last year) but I’m excited about it. It’s made that bit easier knowing that we are going to be greeted by a familiar face when we arrive there. Mark Mantey, a Ghanaian native now living in Limerick, is an amazingly upbeat and positive character who treated us to a fantastic traditional meal before the Christmas holidays. I think we all left satisfied that we wouldn’t have any problems eating the local grub.

Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to update this as often as I’d like. I’ve no doubt that I’ll have plenty to write about especially with Mark showing us around so check it out whenever you can.

Chow, Shane

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