Tro-tros, tennis and stuck in the mud

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Well i've made it to Ghana ok, the plane touched down at around 8-45pm on Saturday, 30 minutes late due to delays at Heathrow. I was told it was quite a good flight, although having never flown before i have nothing to compare it to. It had been raining quite a lot earlier in the day, so the humidity was very evident as soon as i stepped off the plane, i actually thought it was raining it was that bad. I was then met out side the airport by James, the Ghanaian who is organizing the program over here with his twin brother John (both of whom are not much older than my self and other fellow gap year students), and a couple of other guys who had joined the program a few weeks ago. We then took an old battered Mercedes mini bus back to the compound in Teshi, a town 30 minutes away, although not without having to push it down a slope in car park to get it running. Driving is very different out here and rear seatbelts are a rarity, which can be quite scary when your in the back of a taxi which is doing 90+mph down a bumpy road.


Sunday morning was meant to be spent chilling out before our induction in the afternoon, however this, along with sleeping was almost impossible due to the heat and humidity, so i got up at about 6am and started chatting to a few others who were already up, downstairs in the living room. We then had our induction which ran through our placements, what to expect, and other general advice on living in Ghana.
Later we headed to La Palm Beach Hotel Resort, a resort mainly filled by western tourists too afraid to venture out into real Ghana, where we used their out door swimming pool for a couple of hours before heading back to the compound. We then got ready to head out to a sports bar called Champs, where we watched Ghana beat Libya 3-0 in a World Cup qualifier.

On Monday morning we went to a town called Osu, where we cashed in some travelers checks in a Barclays bank before visiting a supermarket. Surprisingly the supermarket contained lots of western products such as Pringles, Toblerone and Walkers Crisps, as well as Lynx shower gel, although at $14 a tub it was a bit expensive! The afternoon was spent packing my rucksack and tennis bag, as Tom (a volunteer im coaching tennis with) and myself would be spending the week away at Begoro tennis academy, and would not return back to base until Friday evening. Once this was done i had my first Ghanaian meal (on Sunday I was still living off the food i packed for my flight). It was some sort of vegetarian curry with rice, which actually tasted quite nice. It was then off to bed to try and get some sleep before an early start tomorrow.

Tuesday was another 6am start, as we would be leaving with Obed (one of the organizers who is the same age as Tom and me)at 8am sharp in order to get to Begoro by midday. Begoro is a town 150km north of Accra, where we me and Tom should be coaching for the next few weeks, and normally takes no more than 3hrs from where we were staying. Our choice of transport was to be a Tro-tro to Acrra and then another one to Begoro. A tro-tro is basically a minibus filled with as many people as possible, and is the cheapest method to get around - the whole journey would cost just over 3 Ghanaian Cedis, which is the equivalent of about $3. The journey however turned out be be a bit of a nightmare. For a start we were sharing a 16 seater with around 20 other people, so it got very hot in there and there was minimal leg room (my shins are still bruised five days later). Then once we got to Accra we had to walk through narrow back streets and market stalls for almost an hour, carrying our heavy bags, so we could catch the connecting tro-tro. The second tro-tro was just as cramped as the first, but unfortunately (for Tom), had a hole in the roof, so when the monsoon rains came about an hour away from Begoro (and i have never seen rain like it), Tom got covered in water. We eventually made it to Begoro just before 2pm, 2 hours later than planned.
On arrival we were shown around the accommodation by a man called Vista. Although fairly clean it was very basic and had no running water. Vista is the coach at the Begoro accadamy, a very good player himself, he was once champion of West Africa, and represented Ghana befere they had a Davis Cup team! Unfortunately we wouldn't get to play with him during our first week there, as he would later travel to Accra to visit his parents and children and would not be back until Friday afternoon. At around 3pm the children arrived having just finished school, it was to wet to play due to the rain, but we had a talk to them and introduced our selfs. They then left and we had dinner which was rice with mackerel and tomato sauce. Exhausted from the journey we then went to bed.

Wednesday and Thursday were much the same. We got up at around 8am, had some breakfast, which consisted of bread and milo (milo is a hot chocolate drink), and then Tom and me played a few sets of tennis through out the morning, cheered on by some of the local school children during their morning and lunch break. The children would then arrive at 3pm (just the six of them for this week, but next week we can expect around 12, which could be a problem given that there is only one tennis court) and we would then run a coaching session for 3 hours. The sessions thought up by just the both of us were actually really well planned, and thus ran smoothly and the kids seemed to be really enjoying it which was nice to see, and also very satisfying. A couple of the kids, named Richard and Alan were actually really really good players, and were hitting their serves down at 90mph+, which was quite amazing considering they are no older than 13 years old, and were playing with old heavy rackets and flat tennis balls. Im sure in England they would be of county standard for their age group.
We then freshened up before having dinner and spend the rest of the evening talking to Obed and chilling out to some music. Begoro is basically in the middle of nowhere, so there is not much much else to do in the evenings, but Obed is always willing to tell some of his funny stories and answer any questions about Ghana, its surprising how much ive learnt about the country allready.


There was a Tropical storm Friday morning, but Barack Obama winning of the Democratic nominee overnight gave plenty to talk about. Every one seems to love Obama out here, and all the radio stations were discussing the election.
Vista then returned at around 1pm, and the children, who had finished school early, arrived at 2pm and spent half an hour sweeping the water from the court so we could play. The coaching session lasted just two hours this time as Obed, Tom and me needed to leave at 5pm in order to get back to the compound for about 8-9 pm, so we could all go out with the others, as Friday is normally a big night out, with karaoke at Champs, before heading to Tantra, the biggest night club near Teshi/Accra. Although much more expensive (70 cedis) we decided to get a taxi back due to the debacle with the tro-tros on the way up. All was going well despite the manic driving that you get on the Ghanain roads, until we hit a huge traffic jam on the way into Accra. By the time we got though this it had gone 9pm, so the taxi driver though he'd take a short cut to try and get us home earlier. For those of you unfamiliar, short cuts in Ghana are very bumpy and dusty dirt tracks, where you can rarely go faster than 10mph unless you want to break your suspension. This move would have been all well and good had there not been a monsoon earlier in the day, and as we went further and further down the track, it got muddier and muddier, until we got stuck trying to drive up a small bank. This meant one thing - we would all have to get out of the taxi and try and push it out. Both me and Obed were in sandals, and before we knew it we were ankle deep in mud. Despite our best efforts we could not get the taxi out, so while me and Tom were ruing our back luck, slumped up against the side of the taxi, the taxi driver franticly beeped his horn in the hope of attracting some locals to help us out. They did eventually come with a shovel and dug us out, after over an hour of being stuck in the mud. But by the time we got back to the compound it was 11-20pm and the water had run out, so not being able to have a shower we gave up on the idea of going out, and instead put our mosquito nets up and got something to eat before going to bed. Although disappointed at not being able to go out with the others, it did at least give us a good story to tell to the others the next morning, and made an exciting end to my first week in Ghana.

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