Week 2 in Ghana

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Most of Saturday (June 7th) was taken up by a rugby match between the volunters and Ghana under 18's. I was very much looking forward to playing, as its been a couple of years since i last played, however without a gum shield, it wasn't really worth taking the risk, and having no studded boots would have also been a problem. I will have to go to sports store 'Game' on the way to Begoro this week so i can sort myself out with some gear, as there should be some more matches coming up in the next few weeks.
The match was to be played at the University of Accra, which is not far away from Teshie (15-25 miles), but a huge traffic jam on the way meant that it took almost three hours to get there. Given that its one of the bigger universities in the country (and we were playing a national side), we were expecting a reasonable pitch (by Ghanain standards) to play on, however to our amazement, the pitch more resembled a Kenyan shub land than an actual rugby pitch, with waist high grass in many places. There were no lines painted, and the posts were very wonky. The match got under way just after 5pm, two hours late (also known as standard Ghanain time), and by the time it finished it was getting quite dark. We drew 20-20 in the end, thanks to a last minute try by Ben, in what was possibly the worst game of rugby i have ever watched, although there were some amusing moments.
Once we got back to the compound we had a bite to eat and then took a few drinks up to the roof of the compound. The roof seems to be a favorite place for many of the volunters, as its nice and cool up there in the evening and theres normally a clear sky at night night so all the starts are out. Just after 11-30pm i headed into town with Tom, Simon (whos coching rugby), and Sophie (whos doing arts and crafts), to get some food. All the shops were shut, so we had to put our imune system to the test and settle for something from a street stall. Both Simon, Tom and myself took the safer option of just plain rice, while Sophie bravely tried some chicken which was stone cold and hacked off the bone with a dirty machete! We then returned to the roof of the compound before calling it a day at around 1am.


Sunday was spent chilling out at La Barde Beach Resort Hotel, with a few of the others, where we watched the final of the French Open in which Nadal comfortably beat Federer. We also saw a couple of the Euro 2008 football matches. I also used their internet cafe where i finished off last weeks blog entry. We got back to the compund at 9pm, and i then got in an early nights sleep, as tomorrow would be an early start, leaving to Begoro.

We left to Begoro just after 9am Monday morning, this time accompnied by Jason, who had previously been coaching tennis at the accadamy in Accra. It was a fairly smooth journy, and we were there by 1-30pm, which gave us enough time to play a few sets between us before the kids arrived. It was quite nice having an extra person with us, as there is really not much to do in Begoro at night, other than playing cards, listening to music and reading.

On Tuesday we went to Boti waterfalls, about a 40 minute drive from the accadamy. We spent an hour climbing up to the top of the falls; it was very hard work and in many parts was very steep and rockey, but it was well worth it, as the views from the top were amazing. After a bit of a rest we went back down to take a look at the plunge pool, which was just as impressive. I would add some photos but the internet is so slow out here that it can take over an hour just to upload one picture. We got some lunch at the waterfalls, and then got back to the accadamy just in time to run the afternoons coaching session, which lasted almost 3 hours, so by the end of the day we were all very tired.

Wednesday and Thursday were both very hot days, so the mornings were spend playing cards rather than tennis, and talking to Obed about what Ghana had to offer in the way of snakes. Apparantly pythons are very common throughout the whole of the country, and the woodland just opposite the accomodation would be full of them. He suggested we go out and have a look for some but we swiftly dismissed that idea. Ghana is also home to the puff adder, which apparantly is Africa's most deadly snake.
The kids then arrived at 3pm, and we coached them until 6pm, before the light started to fade. Thursday night was an early one as we would be leaving very early on Friday morning, at around 7am, and because we couldn't be bothered to pack our bags the night before, it meant setting our alarm clocks for 5-30am. We needed to be back at the compound by 2pm, as the weekend would be spent at Kokrobite beach resort.

We left on time on Friday morning, and a due to a good journy we were back by 11am, which gave us enough time to swap some travelers cheques and have a wonder into town to get some food as well as checking our emails and the news at the local internet cafe. We didn't leave the compound until 3-30pm, so by the time we got to the resort it had gone 5 and the light was starting to fade, although this did allow a nice walk along the beach at dusk. Friday was not a spectacular night as it had been a hot day, so many of us were tired from the journy to the resort, especialy Jason, Tom and myself, who had allready been on the road for four hours prior to leaving the compound. With this in mind most of us were in bed by 11, with the idea that we'd make Saturday night a good one. The resort was fairly low budget and was therefore filled with fellow young westerners who were either on gap years or travelling. It felt very much like the place where Leonardo Dicaprio was staying at the beggining of the film The Beach.

Most of us got up at around midday on Saturday, just in time to order some lunch, and then once we had eaten we walked down to the beach. Later on in the evening we all congratated under this raised canopy and had a few drinks together while we waited for dinner to be served, which was around 7-30pm. Shortly after we finnished dinner a reggae band turned up and started playing on a stage next to the bar, so we went down and watched them, they soon drew a big crowd. Thoughout the night they played various Bob Marley classics as well as some of there own songs, and it made for a really good atmosphere. Bizarely, while at the bar i bumped into the girl i sat next to on the flight out. Shes working in Ghana for a few weeks as an assistant lawer, although has apparantly been given a whole case to manage. We exchanged our experiances of our first two weeks in Ghana before heading back to our respective groups of friends, but not before i told the story of the taxi getting stuck in the mud, which went down very well .
We continued to party on until about 2-30am, when we then retired to bed, mindful that we were playing in a football match against some locals in less than 6 hours time!

We woke up a few hours later at 7am and i had breakfast with my two room mates. We were the first ones up, which was handy as i needed to buy a pair of long trousers to wear in goal, as the football pitches we play on in Ghana are made of very hard baked mud, with not a strand of grass in sight. For comical value i bought the most ridiculus looking pair of rasta trousers which were decorated with very bright colours and were only long enough to sit just above the ankles; after some hard bargaining i got the price down to 5 cedis. We then strolled over to the football pitch which was a five minute walk away. Most people were still in bed so there were only the 11 of us who were playing and one loyal supporter, although Simon joined us for the second half. We then all staggered on to the football pitch just after 8am, all of us hung over at the very least. Luckily we managed to get in a quick 15 minutes practice before kickoff, which i found very useful having not played in goal since year 8.
We kicked off at 8-15, in the backing heat, and immediatly they were all over us, the ball hardly left our half for the first 30 minutes. They easily had 10-15 chances in the 1st half and by half time were 3-0 up, every goal comming from a one on one when they managed to break away with terifying speed; i dont think we even had a shot on goal! A very biased referee did not help either. At half time we all agreed we needed to change the way we were playing so we decided to put an extra player in defence; it worked a treat and we ended up winning the second half 2-1. Given the circumstances we could have done a lot worse than 4-2, the main difference between us and them being that they were were able run all day in the heat where as our legs had gone after 20 minutes. Completly shattered we headed back to the bar to get some drinks, we then freshened up, had lunch and headed back to Teshie, where i am now sitting writting this blog.

I maybe off to travel northen Ghana this Friday (20th) with two or three others where we also hope to also visit Mole National park; so the next update may not come for a couple of weeks.

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