Blogs from Eastern, Ghana, Africa

December 26, 2014 I just experienced the craziest Christmas ever. Dream Africa went to Tinkong in the Eastern Region, which is one of the rural areas volunteers can go to. We made and served food for over 2,000 children. We left Accra on Christmas Eve afternoon and came back Christmas night around 8 P.M. Yesterday most of us woke up around 6 A.M. to start cutting vegetables and cooking rice. We cooked 200 kilograms of rice! I mostly helped with chopping the vegetables and fruits. I got covered in pineapple, watermelon, and pawpaw (papaya) juice. We all worked together fairly well. However, when the time came to serve the food that was when the mayhem began. Isaac, the coordinator of the Eastern Region’s projects, made the announcement to all of the surrounding villages and the number ... read more

Woke up few days ago and went outside and there were a few dead goats just lying there. Think they were newborns who had died. Pretty gross actually. Maybe the work of the spiders again? Not sure what to do with them, as they're kind of in my way. In England I used to work for St Helen's council just after high school and they had a dept called Bulky Rubbish (no Jon, that's not my nickname at footy) who would come out and pick up large items that couldn't go in the bin, but I don't think they have that over here. I told the other teachers at school and they just said leave them. So I just left them, and after 2 days they were gone. Not sure what happened to them actually. Avoiding ... read more

I went to a town called Nkoko on Saturday afternoon, its a bigger village about 45 min's from where I'm staying. The taxi's are frustrating round here though, I think they've played the computer game Crazy Taxi and think that's actually how taxi's are meant to work. They go as fast as they can, swerving round animals and people in the road at 80mph, and jumping over hills. They also collect loads of people on the way to destinations, so a 45 min taxi ride will take 2 hours as they pick up and drop off other people. There were 8 people in the car at one point today, and it should only fit 5 at best. There were 3 people in the front passenger seat ffs! It can be difficult to buy stuff in Nkoko ... read more

The spiders may have a more elaborate plan lined up. I got back in today and there was hundreds of small dead ants in a web near my bed. Looks like they are feasting, and could be ready to attack. I left bug spray near the web to scare them. School has been OK lately, but a little boring. I was teaching science the other day and we were talking about the difference between mammals, reptiles etc. I asked them to come to the board and each write down an animal that lives in the village. The answers were COCK, COCK, GOAT, COCK. I told them to call it chicken instead. We went on a field trip to find some animals, as it got them out the class and kept them interested for more than 5 ... read more

Food here is dry bread and coffee for breakfast, spaghetti and tomato sauce for lunch, and rice with tomato and sometimes salt fish for dinner. And bananas for snack. I don't really eat tomato, salt fish or bananas, and I don't drink coffee. Rice it is then! There's a shop that sells water and Obama biscuits, which I found a few days ago, so I will stock up on them for now. On Saturday I went with Christian to his parents cocoa farm. He said it was a 10 minute walk away so I just put on a pair of flip flops and headed out with him. It was nearly 2 hours each way. Thanks again Chris! Obviously the language barrier isn't ideal, but he doesn't help things! When he fist picked me up from the ... read more