Wedding, Ghana Style

I attended the wedding of a work colleague a couple of weeks ago. It was interesting to see the Ghanaian take on Western traditions. There are some things I can't discuss here as, shall I say, they were not necessarily appropriate for a wedding in my opinion! However there were some good and bad bits to the day.

The bride looked a million dollars. Honestly, the effort that goes into making up a bride for her big day is incredible - not that she needs it; Ghanaian women are known for their natural beauty. 

The turnout was great with a whole range of friends and colleagues around - I was surprised at how many people I knew actually. 

It was held in a Church - my first proper Ghanaian Church experience. For those of you who know my views on Church/religion, you'll understand why everyone thought it was hilarious that I went along. I did survive, but am not keen to repeat the experience. 

There were some points that the Pastor made during his sermon that made me equally laugh and cringe:

1. a marriage is between a man and a woman, not a man and a man or a woman and a woman;

2. if you do not invite god into your marriage, satan will destroy it; and 

3 there was a whole conversation about a woman's role in the marriage and how if she does not satisfy, the man will look elsewhere. Not a conversation I can repeat here.

What was most interesting to me is that the whole wedding was treated like a regular work programme, to the point there was even an MC (yes weddings have pastors, and MCs). I was less than impressed with this guy after he singled me out in front of everyone and lectured me about not understanding the language. I was mortified and furious! It was one of those moments where I was reading something and gradually realised that the place had fallen silent. I looked up to see everyone staring at me. I turned to my colleague and she was giggling away to herself. She said 'he's talking to you'. He asked if I was happy - then repeated it in Twi. When I said I didn't understand, he went nuts! There was a lot I felt like saying to him, but I just smiled and carried on reading. I felt embarrassed that my being there was taking attention away from the bride, but apparently having a white person at your wedding is a huge honour so they were thrilled.

I was double-teamed this time when it came to unwanted attention. One of the guys was the same one as last time. I was so glad when somebody called me away to get my picture taken! At least it wasn't the pastor this time though! 

All in all, an interesting experience that I'm glad I was invited to be part of. The bride has sadly left our office (she was on a temporary contract) but I really hope we keep in contact. She's an angel and had a huge amount of patience when it came to teaching me sign language. It's not the same at work without her!!

 The Beautiful Bride

The Bride and Groom with my work colleagues












Just thought I'd throw this one in - our new addition to the office!

30 Days, 30 Websites, 30 Empowered NGOs

I have recently become involved in a project with a friend who is trying to raise money for tuition fees. Rather than just asking for money, he has decided to offer out his web development services: for every £1000 raised towards tuition, he will develop a website for an NGO/non-profit organisation free of charge. The goal is to raise enough money in 30 days to allow him to develop 30 websites, and in turn empower 30 NGOs. 

Research has shown that many NGO websites are of low quality because organisations do not have the resources available to pay for professional development. This is true of the NGO I am currently working with - they have a website, but it was developed using a free template and is restricted to a small number of pages. My organisation would like to have a professionally developed site, but cannot afford it at this time. The result is that people become bored with it as they are unable to use the website in the way they would like to and as such, content becomes outdated very quickly.

In this day and age, websites can provide huge benefits to NGOs. They can help to promote the work they do to communities, policy makers, donors, volunteers and all other stakeholders. Websites are often the first point of call for people looking for information, and for interested donors when considering whether to partner with an organisation. They give NGOs a louder voice - to shout about the achievements they have made to date, and to highlight the challenges they are facing as well as the support they need to continue to achieve. As global internet usage grows, so does the importance of websites for organisations to stand a chance of being noticed.

30 days is not a long time to try to achieve the funding target, however it is hoped by keeping it short and sweet we can build momentum quickly.

I encourage you to visit the donation site for further information. Any support you can give would be much appreciated and would be going towards two very valuable causes (NGO empowerment and individual education).

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/websites-for-ngos

If you have an interest in NGOs and know of an organisation that could benefit from having a professionally developed website, please visit the Facebook page for further information on how to apply.

http://www.facebook.com/WebsitesforNGOs

Thank you for your support.
Rachel

Tourist Round 2

Another friend of mine came to visit for 10 days, giving me another opportunity to be a tourist in Ghana. It was his first time travelling outside the UK in over 10 years and so there was pressure on me to make this trip a good’un. Apart from feeling the heat, as we all are at the moment as it’s crazy hot, he did really well and loved his time here. Key highlights:

Shai Hills Reserve

A great introduction into natural Africa. We took a day trip to the Reserve and were delighted to see baboons freely wandering about the entrance. After studying the board with details of the tours on offer, we decided to hire a taxi to take us to baboon rock and the ‘bat cave’. In 2 hours we saw baboons, ostrich, antelope and bats; rope climbed baboon rock; entered the ‘bat cave’; and enjoyed some of the most wonderful scenery available in Ghana. It was an incredibly hot day and, due to timing, we ended up doing this in the middle of the day when Ghana is at its hottest. But we did well and it was fabulous!

Pub Quiz

We picked the right night to do the pub quiz – 90s night!!! Scary to think questions about what seems like yesterday are now considered ‘historical’ in a pub quiz. However our knowledge rocked. Our team won 2 out of 3 prizes – bottle of vodka for the Macarena competition (I won that one, oh the shame); and 100 cedis off the bar/food bill for winning the whole quiz (we were miles ahead everybody else, result!!!). Good laugh and we didn’t spend a penny other than transport!

Pizza

My friend now agrees that Eddys pizza is good competition for the pizza joints back home – see, I wasn’t lying!!!

Kakum National Park

Ok, this is a mixed review in that my friend had a great time here whereas I hated every second! We decided to take the Kakum trip to another level and stay overnight in the Treehouse in a bid to experience jungle life and to take a night walk to try to spot some of the wildlife. Key points:

• We were the only ones in the park for almost 3 hours as we waited on our tour guide showing up.
  
• Our tour guide was called George. I kid you not. Cue lots of whistling to ‘George of the Jungle’.
  
• We had a night walk through the forest to find the Treehouse – imagine us carrying our luggage, bottles of water and pizzas(!)  through some pretty steep/rough tracks. The humidity was incredible and we were literally soaked through by the time we arrived (20-30 minutes later).
  
• The treehouse was impressive – up 4 flights of stairs to a treehouse wrapped around a massive tree. It slept up to 22 people – there were just the 3 of us so plenty of room.
  
• This is where things started to go a bit wrong…… I dropped my pizza, resulting in an increase in the number of bugs on the treehouse floor. My friend started looking around the centre tree only to discover a giant spider, millipede and snake. George kindly pointed out that the hair on the spider is poisonous. I at this point freak out – I have a serious fear of spiders and did not relish the idea of sleeping mere feet away from a poisonous one!!! Even if there was mosquito netting in between us. (My friend helped out by saying ah well, if it can get through 2 layers of mosquito netting then it’s earned a bite of us). ARG!
  
• There were bugs everywhere, even with a mozzie net covering the mattresses. I was eaten alive during the night by who knows what – I still have the bites one week later.
  
• Although there was a forest toilet, I wasn’t looking forward to using it so held on as long as I could. Eventually I had to go and dragged my friend with me, only to discover a giant spider on top of it which neither of us was touching. Cue much freaking out and eventually having to give in and go in the forest. We were surrounded by fire flies though which was pretty cool, I hadn’t seen them in reality before.
  
• Sleepless night followed due to plenty of bugs and the most unusual animal noises, some of which seemed really close!!! We decided not to do the night walk for various reasons, but we heard enough to keep us going.
  
• Up at 6.30am to find that the clothes we had hung on the line the previous night were still soaking! Also the spider, snake and millipede had disappeared and I wasn’t particularly surprised to find that the mozzie nets weren’t all that secure…
  
• We then had a hike to the canopy walk – we hadn’t realised quite how steep the walk was the night before, so try doing that first thing in the morning after no sleep and with crazy humidity (I’m definitely not a morning person).
  
• Lots of monkeys were spotted on the canopy walk though so that seemed to make up for things.

It was an adventure, I’ll say that. But not for the faint hearted and not one I will be repeating!! However, my friend turned into an 8 year old kid again and had a fantastic time so I can’t complain as I’m glad he enjoyed it.

Other trips included Cape Coast Castle (as fascinating as ever), the beach and a couple of nights out for various things. All in all, a good 10 day introduction to Africa.

Engagement

I went back to work the day after my friend left to find out my work colleague was having an engagement the next day. To explain, an ‘engagement’ is the Ghanaian version of a wedding. However Ghanaians have also adopted the typical ‘western’ wedding as well, which follows a matter of days/weeks/months after the engagement and is done in the eyes of God.

It was an interesting experience as it is completely different to the way things are done back home. I travelled with some work colleagues and we were seated outside in the parents’ compound. A representative from both the bride and groom’s families stood up to lead ‘negotiations’. This involved the groom’s representatives providing a series of gifts to the bride’s family. This included money, fabric and other gifts which were given to various relatives to show that the groom was serious about marrying the daughter. Once these were handed over, the groom was brought in to answer whether he is serious about marrying the daughter. Once he said yes, the bride was brought in and the ‘engagement’ began. My work colleague looked a million dollars, honestly she was so beautiful it brought a tear to my eye (and others actually did cry). After the blessing, pictures were taken (and I was called upon as the only white person there to be in a special one with the family). Snacks, drinks and presents were then given out to all the guests and the music began. Conversations after the service were quite funny as some people took an interest in what I thought. We talked about how it compares to back home – I had to laugh at the complete confusion when I joked that my dad would pay somebody to take me, as opposed to expecting gifts for me! It then got a bit weird when the Pastor asked me how old I am as he wants me to marry his son before I leave; and then another guy got annoyed when I wouldn’t give him my number! Ah well, nothing like being up front!!

I look forward to attending the wedding in a couple of weeks and will hopefully get some pictures this time. 

Birthday Treats

I celebrated the big 3-0 this week - not as scary as everybody leads you to think it is.... although I definitely do not feel like a grown up!

I had a great week. A friend from home came over for a week and I got to spend some time as a tourist which was nice. He must have brought some Scottish spirit with him because we managed a whole week with electricity (apart from the odd 'light off' but never at night) and full water supply! (touch wood it continues...)

I clearly forgot how draining the heat can be when people first arrive in Ghana as well as the effect it can have on appetite. I may have been slightly over-ambitious in my plans for my friend, but he coped well (and certainly slept well haha).

My birthday week consisted of a people-watching trip to the beach, complete with terrible rasta singers/drummers (cue hysterical laughter at one point as I watched a couple trying to eat their dinner with  this dreadful rasta man singing to them - the poor guy kept catching my eye and laughing. He coped well - for a whole 15 minutes or so!!!); this was followed by an infamous Adabraka party (although it was more of a talking session than a party, man we're getting old) - however my friend did bring over the cheesiest collection of 90s music so that sort of set the tone... We then travelled to Central Region for a few days where we visited both Elmina and Cape Coast Castles as well as Kakum National Park. There are not many people who can say they spent their 30th birthday suspended 40 metres over an African Rainforest. A bit scary but seriously impressive.

We also visited my office at one point where they presented my friend with a Ghana shirt as a thank you to him for donating a laptop. Very very kind of them.

It was really nice to welcome someone from home, and I look forward to doing it again in another 3 weeks or so. It's nice to be able to give people an insight into life here and to know that they will understand my stories, frustrations and pleasures - something that people cannot really do unless they experience Ghana for themselves.

I look forward to seeing what round 2 brings!!

Rachel x

Birthday cakes!!!

Kakum National Park
(Dad, you've traumatised me for life by jumping on the wooden bridges we used to go on when we were kids! The Guide had to take my camera as there was no way I was taking pictures, all my concentration was on walking across these bridges in one piece!)

Beach resort in Central Region