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Published: March 13th 2011
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my view
The view from my window, a cockerel woke me up at 5am Well hello followers! I hope you haven’t been missing me to much, this is the first chance I’ve had to do a blog since we arrived so it may be a long one.
Okay so, I do seem to have remembered to bring everything (so far) We got our flight on time and we were off. It was a fairly long flight, made longer by the fact that we were delayed at Heathrow for an extra hour but then we were off (for 6 hours). It was a nice flight and I managed to watch the new Harry Potter film and Mega Mind. Mega Mind was a very good but I think the book version of Harry Potter is much better.
So finally we landed In Accra at about 11:30, very tired and very ready for a nice hotel bed. The airport In Accra is not what you might expect. Airports in Britain are large glass building that I think of as self contained cities, with more shops than Colchester High Street, The sort of thing we might live in on Mars one day? Anyway Accra airport was very small and totally different, there were none of the computers or shops
Parliment
This is the building where the Ghana parliment meet. It this strange shape because that is the shape of the thrown that the king used to sit so it represents power. you would usually see. We collected our luggage, change our pounds into Cedis and we were of to the hotel.
Well it has to be said the first thing you notice about Ghana is the heat, WOW it is hot. Like a wall it collides with your skin as soon as you step off the plane and the now very familiar perspiration starts to come. Anyway we were helped with our luggage by a very nice man and then we were on the road. Not much else to report about the rest of that evening apart from we arrived had a nice meal and went to sleep. (I slept very very well)
Saturday was a very busy day, we got up and had a nice breakfast of frankfurters(I don’t think they have sausages like we think of them but the frankfurters were very nice. The we set off on our very long journey. Altogether the journey from Accra to Kumasi was about 7 hours but it certainly wasn’t dull. The roads here are a little more hectic than ours and unfortunately they are often not completely finished. One stretch of road was just a dirt track that we drove down
Beds, in the road???
This is just one example of the types of things we have seen on the sides of the roads, someone was making beds and selling them. very slowly because of how bump it was.
It was on this journey that I first started to realize how incredible these people are. Many people here have very little in the way of money or possessions but they are so hard working. All along the roads are people working or selling their goods and they are so cheerful, even in the blistering heat. We went past several people who were making things and selling them on the road side, including beds which I have attached a picture. I had a good chat with the other teachers on the journey and it was lovely to get to know my new companions.
Several of us are primary school teachers from around Clacton and several others are high school teachers from the academy and other high school. There is also some people who are here to train Ghanian Head Teachers and one who works for Colchester Football club and is sorting out a sports type partnership with schools here. So it was very interesting talking about all those different things. Of course everyone is very friendly which is very nice. For the rest of the journey I looked out the window and listened to Doctor Who, which was nice.
Halfway into the journey we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. Several of the teachers ordered grass cutter which is a very common meal out here. Grasscutters look like huge hamsters but (according to one of my companions they are more closely related to elephants (perhaps you could check this up for me?) I will try this at some point in the week. In fact I have a whole list of foods to try before the week is out; these include Grasscutter, Snails (huge ones) and goat. I have already tried plantain (a huge banana like fruit) and yams all of which were very nice.
Today we visited a market in Kumasi which was incredible. There was so much there to buy and sell and so many colours and smells. The market is massive to put it mildly just absolutely massive. We saw Snails, chickens, dried fish, fresh fish, Grasscutter, clothes, cloths, tools everything you can imagine was somewhere in this market. It was really experience.
Well I’ve nearly finished now I need to get an early night as we are being picked up to go to Shalom at 8 tomorrow and need to be nice and awake. (I’m so excited) Miss Charlotte came to see us in the hotel today and she was just as friendly as I remember her, (lovely) she wanted to know how everyone at Cann Hall was and said again what a lovely time she had with us and how much she enjoyed staying with Miss Ross.
So I’m now, I’ll try and update after tomorrow when we’ve been to the school. I feel so lucky to be here, it really is a beautiful country full of vibrant colour and friendly people with big smiles. It is totally different to Britain in so many ways and although this isn’t the poorest country it still makes you realize just how lucky we are to have so much in the UK. What really strikes me are the smiles, we are very different countries with different cultures and foods and languages and yet we’re the same in all the ways that really matter, we laugh, smile, eat, dance, and love the people close to us. I look forward to experiencing as much of this culture as I can and I imagine learning a lot from these lovely people.
All the best to everyone at home and thank you to Miss Last and 4D for your comments they made me and Miss Nice smile.
See you soon
:-)
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4D
non-member comment
Wow Mr Dean and Miss Nice, We enjoyed reading your blog today. W