Random sequence of events

Travel

My visit to region 4 as part of the needs assessment saw yet another interesting tro journey. I was told it would take roughly 1 hour to reach my destination. In reality this turned into around 3 hours. The main reason for this, other than traffic, was because the tro was pulled over by the police - turns out the driver didn't have a license. After around 30 minutes of questioning, lots of 'input' from passengers and a 50 cedi bribe, we were back on our way. The meeting was very good; the journey back not so much. After sitting in the tro station for over an hour waiting for the vehicle to fill up - our 'entertainment' included preaching by a group of children and a man selling various pills in plastic bags - we were finally ready to leave only to discover that the tro wouldn't start. It did start after a push down a hill, and we were on our way. Traffic was extremely heavy and so at one point the driver decided to take a short cut through a very narrow path. We came to a point where there was a broken metal 'bridge' that we had to cross. The cars in front all slowed down to a crawl to take this carefully. Our tro driver decided just to go for it at top speed! There were cries of 'Jesus, Jesus, Jesus' in the back of the tro - and then loud applause when we actually made it over. Back in Accra I had yet another tro to sit in to get to Circle, again traffic was murder. As I finally stepped off that Tro, I was followed by a small boy asking for money. I should point out that at this stage I had been awake for around 36 hours (due to an all night church service the previous night - which only got louder as the generators kicked in when the electricity went off!) and it had taken almost 5 hours to get home (a trip that should have taken 1 hour!!) I was in no mood to entertain small boys asking for money...... he's lucky I kept so calm!

That was the last work trip for a while. I was due to visit 4 other regions but, for various reasons, this is now not happening and so the needs assessment will need to be finished via email/questionnaire..... should be interesting!

Fire in Adabraka

I was woken up one night by a series of noises outside. Adabraka is generally very noisy, but these sounds were persistent and different than normal. I finally dragged myself out of bed at 10.30pm to go investigate. I went through to my spare room to see a lot of people standing about outside, but no obvious reason as to why. I then saw the lights on in the landing so went to speak to my neighbours, only to be taken through to Rose's bedroom to see the cause of the noise: the house diagonal to ours was completely alight!! I've never seen anything like it! We ended up packing bags (passport, money, clothes, etc) in case we were evacuated for the night - there was lots of panic as fire spreads so quickly due to most of the buildings being made of wood, and the electricity cables being far too close to everything.

We head outside to find that the building housed a number of families, all of whom managed to get out safely thankfully, and that the fire had been caused by a mosquito coil. We also heard that Adabraka has such a bad reputation for prank calls that the fire service initially refused to turn up. It took my neighbour Peggy phoning for them to take us seriously. What was also interesting was the fact that most people did not know the number for the emergency services, but that's another story.

We sat outside for over 3 hours watching the fire service do their job. What an interesting, and often cringing, sight that was. I don't want to criticise the service because they did their best with the resources that they had, but let's just say it was a very different service to the one we expect at home.... The most surprising thing has to have been the crowd of people who were allowed to stand right up at the house taking pictures - surely that can't have been safe.... Anyway, the fire was finally extinguished after 1am and we were allowed back inside for a reatively sleepless night (noisy street that night and no electricity). I did however manage to make it to work the next morning - I was the only one!!!!

Easter

We headed to the beach again at Easter for 3 nights. It is so relaxing and cool at the beach, the sea breeze is lovely and such a change from the humidity of Accra. Sitting by the sea all day reading books, and enjoying a nice meal and good company at night - fab. We even had champagne one night to celebrate one of the volunteers' birthday - very nice! Random highlight of the trip has to have been catching a thief on the way back home. I caught someone trying to get into another volunteer's bag - I shouted at him to stop and he disappeared into the crowd. Turns out if we had shouted 'thief' he would have been physically beaten by everybody around us.....!!!

Random highlight of the month

Motorbikes in Ghana are basically a law unto themselves. They can jump traffic lights, ride the wrong way up one-way streets, ride on pavements - even wheel their bikes through restaurants! But this one shocked me. There is a large cross roads outside my work compound and as I was walking home on afternoon, I saw a drama taking place with a car, a motorbike and a policeman. The policeman was directing traffic (as the lights were out again). The motorbike had decided to just go for it, and had caused a car to swerve that was passing in front of him. The policeman tried to get the motorbike to stop but when he saw it wasn't going to, he leaped on to the rider's back to try to slow him down. This in fact did nothing to slow the rider down, and the policeman ended up being dragged down the street at full speed!! I didn't see what happened next but it didn't look like it was going to end well...

African Drumming

I love this!!!!!! Turns out African dancing is fun, but not quite my thing. Drumming on the other hand is awesome! Hopefully I can take this up on a weekly basis and perhaps get to the stage where I can drum while the others dance :-)

Pics

Fire in Adabraka. It was relatively close to being put out at this stage, but you can see just how close the crowds are to the scene. Crazy.

Easter Champagne!

Easter Sunday - quite possibly the best meal in Ghana - BBQ at Ko-Sa.

I hope everybody had a great Easter!
Take Care
Rachel x

Travel Part 1

As part of the needs assessment my organisation has asked me to undertake, I have planned to travel to all 10 regions in Ghana to meet with leaders/members to understand their views of the organisation and the challenges they face. So far I have visited 3 regions:

Region 1 - not much to report other than it was a good meeting and I was invited to join their belated Christmas lunch. Unfortunately I could only stay for 15 minutes as had to travel back to Accra, but it was a kind offer.

Region 2 - long trip the day before to arrive at hotel. We left at 7am the next day to travel to the meeting venue, which I was told was roughly 30 minutes away. After waiting for a colleague at the tro station for an hour, we finally set off on what turned out to be a 2.5 hour journey. This was followed by a 5 hour meeting outdoors, with 99% of the meeting being spoken in Twi with little translation...At the end of the meeting I had to wait on colleagues to eat (I didn't want to risk the food with a long journey back ahead of me) and then flag down a tro. At this point a massive thunderstorm decided to hit, so we took shelter at the local barber store. The tro finally arrived after around 45 minutes and we all piled in. Finally ready to go after what had been a particularly trying day, I just had to give up and laugh when after 30 seconds on the road we went over a speed bump - and the exhaust fell off!!!! This being Ghana, the driver just put it back on and off we went!! The trip was interrupted by a long stop at the tro station to change passengers, and was slowed by the torrential rain. It was actually almost like being back home - lots of green, hilly roads and rain!! We made it back to the hotel around 7pm at which point I was very hungry and went straight to the restuarant i.e. table/chairs in the darkened courtyard. Eating by the light of my mobile phone, I was almost finished when colleagues decided to join me - and continue their conversation in Twi. By the end of the day I was just so desperate to speak to somebody in English!!!! I really need to make more of an effort to learn the language....

Region 3 - after an early start (up at 4.15am, ready to leave at 5.30am) I discovered I had been locked in the compound!!! Normally everybody is up and working/sweeping outside at 4am (it usually wakes me up) - but not the one time I need to be out!! I managed to find somebody to open the gate at 6.10am. Good start to the morning. This turned out to be a good day though, a nice trip with gorgeous scenery. The highlight has to have been when the tro had to stop to let a group of monkeys cross the road!! You can almost forget where you are (bits of Scotland; bits of American influence) until you see something like that! (Volunteer up north told me the other day that she had men with camels walking through her village, which just reminded how how close we are to the desert!) Very good meeting, lovely people, and a relatively trouble free trip back home - what more can I ask for!

I'm due to travel again this weekend, although plans are now up in the air so I don't know where I'm going or when.... However, it's my last one for 2 weeks - heading to the beach next week and I can't wait. Desperately need the break and some sleep!!!

Other work events include:
- frustration at being called into a meeting on my one day off, only to be told they couldn't tell me what time the meeting was or really why they needed me (we need you for your listening and note taking skills). The outcome: I didn't go...

- I've adopted the role of IT trainer. The first conversation went a little like this:
Rachel to Colleague: ..... want to start using the front desk computer for training
Colleague: ah, that computer doesn't work
Rachel: oh, ok, let's go look at it....... um, it's not plugged in.....

So once we established that the computer did actually work, I prepared myself to teach my first Microsoft Word lesson. I asked my colleague to open up internet explorer, to discover that she looked confused at the mouse. I asked her if she had used a computer before. Turns out she hadn't. We had to go right back to the beginning - how to turn it on, how to hold a mouse, how to double click. I found a good online training course for how to use a mouse, which my colleague completed today - 1 week later. She's over the moon and even got a certificate at the end of it.  It was so funny - day 2, she came into the office and announed 'Rachel, your student is here!'. I've seen her confidence grow already in that on day 1, she wouldn't move the mouse until I told her to. Now, she's speeding that mouse all over the desk (she hasn't quite figured out to lift the mouse when she runs out of desk space, but that'll come...) 'How to type' starts tomorrow.

As for other news, Accra has definitely entered the hot season. The humidity is incredible - we are all permanently soaking!! I'm so jealous to hear of the weather back home - what I would give to be sitting out on my decking with a cold beer and a BBQ sizzling away in the background. As it stands, it's often too hot to eat and I can't get enough water!!! I really hope my colleague was joking when she said this is us until around July/August...!

I've been nicknamed 'Director of Communications' recently because of my constant attempts to get people to socialise! Many volunteers, myself included, have gone through a bit of a low patch recently - perhaps due to reaching the 6 month mark and realising the excitement is over and real life kicks in. Whatever it is, I'm making a conscious effort to pull us out of it! We had planned to go to the circus last week until we discovered it involved performing animals. Rhinos, crocodiles..... drew the line at that. Instead a group of us went out for dinner which was really nice. Some of us have also joined an informal dance class which is fantastic - a really good workout without realising you're exercising. Hopefully this will become a weekly event.

No pics to share this time I'm afraid. Hopefully next time!

R x

African Bates Motel

Just back after a 4 night stay in Africa's very own Bates motel. What a laugh.... We arrived late on Wednesday afternoon after driving through the worst rain/thunder storm I've encountered yet. (Driving in rain is not advisable here - driving is mental at the best of times, but add in rain, window wipers that don't work well, no lights, no cover for the back of the pick-up, windows down and the driver constantly having to wipe the inside of the windscreen as it was steaming up due to heat. Only seriously crazy drivers stay on the road so we were pretty safe...!) We arrived at our destination to find the grounds flooded and power out. Heading towards reception, it struck me what the place looked like - Bates Motel!! No chance of a shower scene though - a dribble of water that seriously smelled like eggs wasn't going to cut it....

The workshop consisted of a very hot room, good food, and frequent power shortages (even with the generator running). Air conditioning lasted for 2 nights; night 3 saw us all without power (sleepless night due to heat and mozzies - some people resorted to sleeping on the floor to try to cool down, without much success); night 4 saw the fans working so we had a bit of relief).

Random highlight of the trip - being presented with a certificate for attending the workshop (even though I tuned out for most of it as it was in Twi, which I can't speak yet). The President of the organisation gave a lovely speech about the work I have done so far, and 2 of the guys escorted me up to collect the certificate in their role as my bodyguards. So funny..... Didn't feel I'd earned it, but it was lovely to hear the kind words.

Girly moment of the trip - asking one of my colleagues to squish a spider for me.... I discovered a big one in my room. They look different to the ones back home, and since I learned that most of them can jump, I'm even more reluctant to go anywhere near them. Anyway I asked my colleague to come catch it for me, which he kindly did; only for my other colleague to comment "I thought you said it was a big one??" I told him not to ruin my perspective, that I really don't want to think about the size they could be...

I definitely know that life has changed when the highlight of coming home from such a trip is the promise of a good shower with water that doesn't smell of eggs. Felt clean for all of 2 minutes before the sweat started, but it was so worth it.... :-D

Welcome 2012

Hi All

Sincere apologies for the length of time it has taken to post an update; it's been a crazy couple of months. I cannot believe it will be March this week - where has the time gone?? :-)

Lots to update you on; will try not to waffle too much! In no particular order:

(For the record, I have absolutely no idea what's happened with the alignment of the pictures on here, so I apologise - I've given up trying to fix it. It took 4 days to upload them - I now don't care how they appear!!)

Electricity
We had a drama during January whereby our electricity meter stopped working, even though we had just topped up for the month. After a falling out with the electricity company and complaints to VSO, our lovely electrician turned up the next day (I should state our electrician does not work for the electricity company). NB: it's pretty interesting trying to get ready for a night out in darkness while trying to put on make up with only the light of a head torch to support you! Anyway, our lovely electrician picked up responsibility for dealing with the electricity company (I gave up on that when it became clear they had no intention of helping out the 'obruni'). A week and a half later, it was all sorted.... I should point out that during this time we had no electricity at work either....!!! I'm just thankful the water went off at a separate time! Can handle one or other being off, but not both together!! :-D

Scottish Dancing
We discovered there's a Caledonian Society here in Ghana which runs Scottish Dancing classes once a week. So a crowd of us (mixed nationalities) decide to head along one week. After an hour and a half long drama with a taxi (don't ask) we all finally arrive. What a laugh. For those of us who have actually done Scottish dancing in the past, we were shocked to realise we only knew one dance!! No clue what the other ones were but so funny trying to do them - our African friends were looking to us for guidance, and we were just as clueless! ("chase your partner" anyone??) So when our Ghanaian friends started entertaining themselves in the quiet moments by inventing Scottish Azonto (more on Azonto later) we couldn't control ourselves, especially because the instructors had no sense of humour... Successful night out! Not sure if we'll be welcome back mind.... :-D

African Cup of Nations
Football is huge in Ghana. The main favourite teams appear to be Chelsea, Man U and Arsenal (sorry to anyone I've offended by missing out their team!). So there was no escaping the African Cup of Nations which saw many African teams competing. Ghana was one of the favourites to win, so the atmosphere was filled with excitement and tension. We watched most of the games, but the most memorable one has to be the football night we organised in Adabraka. I had agreed to attempt to make chapatis by myself for the first time for myself and 2 housemates. Somehow this turned into catering for 8 people who came over to watch the game!! The two Scottish girls took over the kitchen, under the supervision of our East African cook. Around 3 hours later, food was almost ready, just in time for the game starting. 10 minutes in, and there's an adabraka wide power cut! The shouts of 'NOOOOO' from inside and outside were hilarious. So one of the volunteers has power in her laptop and quickly hooks up to a website doing live text reporting from the game. She starts reading this out while one of the guys starts acting out what she's saying. Only 5 minutes later we realise she's reading the wrong game!!! Being part of the resourceful breed that is volunteers, she then decides to skype an ex-volunteer living in Holland, who puts her laptop/webcam up to the TV to let us watch the game! Chapatis and football in darkness whilst watching TV via Holland makes for a completely random evening!!

(Picture wise we have: Scottish girls taking over the kitchen; a creative use of an empty wine bottle; the wine coming out; head torch time; football via skype; and ice cream to finish it all off (although nto quite sure why it's in cups!))

 

Random

I managed to break my one and only pair of prescription sunglasses. Gutted!! It's almost impossible to step outside here during the day without sunglasses on. Not quite sure how they broke, the leg pretty much just fell off - I'm blaming the Deet even though I can't quite figure out how...! The leg couldn't be repaired (I thought I was being so clever with my little tube of glue, kirby grip plus a clothes peg, but it wasn't to be) so I had my first encounter with a Ghanaian optician. After trying to sell me the most expensive pair of frames in the shop, we came to a good compromise with a solid frame that would be worth around £20 at home plus the lenses from my original glasses, cut to size free of charge. Result! Very impressed with the service, but a reminder that I need to take better care of my glasses since stupidly I only brought one pair of each (sunglasses and regular). Oh how I miss contact lenses....

Dancing seems to have featured quite a bit during January. A few of us went along to a traditional African Dance class one Sunday. Despite the long journey, it was really good fun! The moves are so difficult to keep up with though - our bodies don't move in quite the same way as Africans - we are way too tense/stiff!! The class was really good right up until the teacher had us singing while we danced...ARG! Something different and we hope to go back again some time soon.

I also had an informal lesson in Azonto, the main Ghanaian dance trend. Near impossible for us obrunis to do, but fascinating to watch! Check out these videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-vUsU5auA4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTUIlOudlHI

Oh, and last week I managed to get a marriage proposal from a policeman! I have plenty of attention but it's been a while since I had a marriage proposal. As I didn't have my phone with me and told him I didn't know my number, he gave me his and asked me to 'flash' (one-ring) him so that he got my number. I was a bit cheeky.... I got a mate of mine to flash him from his phone so that he could get rid of any unwanted attention. Within a matter of minutes he received 3 missed calls. He then forgot to save the number, so that when the policeman phoned the next day he answered! Just told him it was a wrong number.... just as well, don't want to get in trouble with the law!

Work
Ok, so it might seem like I don't do any work out here but trust me, I'm swamped at the moment! My boss has returned from his UK placement so I've had to relearn the dynamics in the office. Very interesting to see the difference... Anyway, he is lovely and full of great ideas, ones that he has naturally anyway but also some interesting ones he's come back with from UK (including introducing a health and safety policy!!! - see picture for why I think this is hilarious).

 I've been travelling quite a lot with work recently too. Key highlights:

• Staff Retreat - this was rescheduled from December and I facilitated the full 2 days. Draining but very positive. We have a very good action plan, staff development plan and a couple of other key documents as a result. I've learned some lessons about how to run a workshop in Ghana, particularly one involving a mix of disabilities, English abilities and capacity. But everybody was smiling and it ended on a high, which made me think the stress was worthwhile. The feedback was funny - they want to see me in more Ghanaian outfits, there was far too much food, and I worked them too hard: they would have preferred a day out to socialise! I had warned them beforehand that we would be going by 'white woman rules' for the workshop - in terms of mobile phone use, we only had 3-4 interruptions during the 2 days (result!). Timekeeping was still an issue in my eyes, but actually the latest we started (consistently mind) was 15 minutes - actually quite a good result. The hotel we stayed in was gorgeous - huge bed, air con, fridge, TV and giant bathroom. The downside however was that I got serious food poisoning which resulted in 2 visits to the Dr and me being unable to eat for a week and a half... I think I managed to put on all the weight I lost in my first weekend of eating!!
• I was invited to attend the Board meeting in Kumasi to have a discussion about the work I propose to do over the coming months. 4 of us were due to leave the office on the Friday afternoon to travel the 5 hours up to Kumasi. However, due to problems with the car (i.e. it still being in the garage until 8pm) I had to postpone my trip as volunteers are not allowed to travel during the night for safety reasons. So I had to be at the bus station at 6am the next morning. Thankfully a very kind woman took me under her wing and kept me right at the bus station, as there was no apparent logic to the queuing system. We eventually boarded the bus at 7am and arrived in Kumasi at 1.30pm (the Board meeting started at 9am). I arrived at the meeting in time for lunch, before I led a 45 minute discussion on OD. Although a short session it was very helpful and positive. We then stayed overnight in Kumasi (again, big bed, TV, aircon - fab) - I managed to curl up with an African cup game followed by a good chick flick. TV is such a luxury now! The only downside to that room was that I had a rogue mosquito in with me and I couldn't get rid of it, even by spraying all the windows/doors with Deet (and gassing myself in the process). I woke up the next morning covered in bites :-( We travelled back on the Sunday, stopping by the organisation's training centre which was very interesting. The services offered by the centre, and the potential it has for development, were great - I hopefully sense a project coming on!!!
• I attended another workshop with my organisation recently. I can't go into details (very unimpressed with it though), however I was given an Executive Suite! I saw this as a fabulous birthday present, particularly since I was feeling miserable as I still couldn't eat. This room was amazing - living room, dining room, 2 double beds, dressing area and big bathroom. I actually convinced myself one morning that I was waking up at home - covered in thick blanket in a huge bed with a cold nose! The hotel was the same one we stayed in when we first arrived in country, and the workshop coincided with the arrival of the new volunteers - 5 months to the day since we arrived. I can't believe I'm now an "experienced" volunteer! One of the girls who arrived at the same time as me said of the new ones - "were we ever that excitable and puppy-like?" - that would be a yes!! :-D

Birthday
I celebrated my birthday last weekend (and no Dad, I'm not yet 30, thanks for that!). We held an Adabraka party for both my birthday and Ronald's leaving. Very good night, lots of people turned up, plenty of fabulous music. There was also a fantastic buffet which I couldn't eat - gutted!!! However, I did get an unexpected birthday present - 8 cans of irn bru, 6 regular and 2 fiery. Completely random! Once I could eat again I had a belated birthday breakfast of a fry up and irn bru, awesome!!! (Even bacon is a luxury item here).

(Picture wise we have: Showcasing the creative talents of one of our voluteers; mix of nationalities - Ghanaian, Scottish, Kenyan, America and Ugandan; and "the Bru!"")

   

As hinted, Ronald left us a couple of weeks ago to return home to Kenya. This is the hard part of volunteering, saying goodbye to good friends. The flat is not the same - very quiet and I now have to cook by myself most nights (although next door do help out with that from time to time). Watch this - I'll just get used to living by myself again and somebody new will move in....!

Airport run...(love the dedication to his ex-flatmate!)

What Next?
Work, work and work!!!!

I attended another leaving night on Saturday and will say 'see ya' to another good friend of mine this week. After that, it's work and travel. If I can get the funding I will be travelling to at least 8 out of the 10 regions over the space of a couple of months to meet with members as part of a needs assessment. Looks like I'm not going to get a weekend until some time in May...!!!

I'll try not to leave it so long next time to post an update. In the meantime, have a good one!

Rachel x

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody!! Let's hope 2012 is just as random and exciting!!

Christmas/New Year were certainly different this year. As mentioned, I spent 9 days at the beach - heaven! There's not much to tell to be honest - the time consisted of laying on the beach, reading, eating and sleeping (or trying to) - that's about it!! Although we did venture out to the nearby town of Elmina one day and paid a quick visit to the castle to hear about the slave trade. The week started with 3 of us and this increased to 14 by New Year's Eve. It was good to catch up with some of the northern volunteers whom we haven't seen since our arrival in September. I'm now back in Accra and it feels like I've never been away - athough despite the lack of sleep, I seem to have quite a bit of energy so the break obviously did some good :-)

I mentioned in my last post that I managed to convinced my office to go out for a Christmas lunch on the last working day. Hmm..... After a lot of faffing, the 7 of us piled into the truck (complete with santa hats) and headed to the restaurant. This took a while as Accra was literally jam packed with traffic - I've never seen anything like it! Anyway, we got to the restaurant and had a quick staff meeting before everybody ordered their lunch - in take out boxes!!! They then thanked me for organising lunch, and disappeared!!!! Think the point may have been missed a little.... However this gives me a baseline to start from to see if we can build up to a sit-down meal next Christmas!

We also celebrated Ronald's 30th birthday just before Christmas by heading out for an Indian meal, complete with Santa hats!! Good times.

Not much else to report at the moment. I've been spending Christmas money (thanks to those who provided cash and presents). I may have overdone it slightly on the fabric side of things, but it's all good - once I can afford a tailor I'll have a nice wee selection of Ghanaian outfits! Next on the list is to figure out how to get to a ceilidh this month, and to organise our first proper Adabraka party to celebrate New Year, birthdays, people leaving....exciting!!

I hope everybody has had a relaxing break and the UK winds haven't done too much damage!!!

Take care
Rachel x

After many failed attempts, this is the best Office picture we could get!

 Heading out for Ronald's 30th

Ko-Sa Beach Resort - our home over Christmas/New Year

Elmina Castle - horrifying stories about the slave trade.

Christmas Dinner - Red Red (friend plantain and beans) followed by Apple Crumble

 I may have gone overboard with the fabric related purchases... new bag.. 

 ... from left to right, fabric will be turned into - sarong, long summer dress, shift dress and long skirt 

 And another new dress...

Christmas Week

Well this Christmas is certainly turning out to be a different one. It starts last Tuesday when I get a text message at 6.00am asking me to organise a 1 day OD training course the following Tuesday. Panic sets in, although I'm not sure why because 1 week's notice is unheard of in Ghana (I know of one volunteer who was told during the meeting that she had a slot on that day's agenda to deliver training!)

So I start working up an agenda for the 1 day, which turns in to me organising the entire staff retreat! A staff retreat is pretty much away days for staff at the end of the year to review performance and to plan ahead. I worked up a pretty good agenda, sat with people to discuss accommodation, travel etc (and had to leave the office at one point due to serious frustration at the disorganisation, and then remind myself that this is how things work here and it will all come together at the last minute – which it did).

I then received a text message at 5.15am on Monday morning, the day we were due to travel, to tell me the whole thing had been cancelled. Gutted!!! After working until after 11pm every night the previous week (no mean feat when you consider the heat) and preparing things like my santa talking stick, and arranging santa hats/chocolates for everybody, I was seriously disappointed that I wouldn't get to use it.

However, after some thought, it probably works out for the best – I'm hoping we can reschedule in January when everybody is feeling a bit more refreshed, and when the boss is back from London.

In the meantime, I have managed to convince my office (with great difficulty) that we should go out for a team lunch tomorrow. So the hats/chocolates hopefully won't be wasted! Although whether they understand the humour I'm not sure – they're not fully understanding the Christmas decorations that I've put up in the office, or the Christmas earrings I'm wearing this week. I can sympathise with this though – it is far too hot to be thinking about Christmas!!!

On a separate note, thank you to everybody who has sent me presents – it is very generous of you, and there's something so exciting about receiving a parcel from home! Quote of the week has to go to Mari though: “you might not want to take it somewhere its overly hot like out in the sun cos a couple of things are kind of meltable” (Sorry Mari, just had to share!!!) Mum also included a wee present for Ronald which went down very well! We're trying to get into the Christmas spirit here in Accra – we have decorations up as well as an advent calendar! That explanation, along with the Santa one, made for an interesting discussion... :-D

As for the rest of the week, one of my neighbours is dog-sitting at an ex-pat house. As my Mum said, my life is clearly changing when I'm over-excited about using a washing machine/tumble dryer, as well as chips, sausages and scrambled egg for dinner. For one night only, I had fluffy sheets – awesome!

I then experienced tro crash number 2 the other night, when a tro ran into the back of ours. Thankfully not serious but it did give me a little fright and reminded me that I need to pick my seats a bit more carefully. Sorted by Filipino corn (garlic flavour), beer and Bad Santa!

I also attended a leaving do for a couple of volunteers at the weekend, one of whom works in my organisation's compound and who I'm really going to miss – she's been a great support to me in my first few months and has offered a very good ear when the frustration of work threatens to take over. She supports an organisation that works with street kids (http://jayniistreetwise.weebly.com/index.html), so we all went there for a while before heading out for food/dancing on a rooftop bar (love the breeze!).

As for Christmas, I will be heading to the beach at the end of this week for 9 days. I will be treating it as a summer holiday as it's the only way I'll get through this. It is far too weird to think about being away from home and missing out on, amongst many things, chipolatas and garlic bread!!! I never ever thought I would say this, especially after last year, but I'm missing the cold dark nights, rain and occasional snow flurries! I'm all about the heat, but at this time of year it's just wrong....

So on that note, I'd like to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year – I hope you all have a great time whatever you do, wherever you are.

Rachel x

Decorations!!

My Santa talking stick that I didn't get to use...

Surrounded by kids at the Jaynii Organisation

Kathryn will be sorely missed...

Kathryn and Aidan, the Daddy of the group.

Travelling

I was given the opportunity to go travelling with work which I jumped at – an excuse to get out of Accra? Yes please!

International Day of the Disabled events were being held in Wa (Upper West) on 6^th December. We travelled up on Sunday 4^th December. The day began at 2.30am when my alarm went off (!!!). Up at 3.30am, due to be picked up at 4am. Timing wasn't too bad actually – car arrived at 4.15am, although standing outside in the early hours of the morning with the guard dog woofing his head off, drawing attention to the Obruni lurking around in the dark isn't ideal.... I was so relieved when the car arrived! Headed to pick up a colleague who lived 10 minutes away. We didn't leave his house until 5.30am!!!! (He slept in apparently). This would have been fine if I wasn't completely on edge because I was a white person sitting in a dark street in a car with the doors open – sitting target perhaps? When my colleague finally arrived I thought I'd be able to get some sleep – I should be so lucky. He decided to start testing me on my knowledge of Twi at this point. I think he took the hint when I started grunting back as opposed to answering... :-)

The trip was a long one – we arrived in Wa around 5pm which was relatively good timing apparently. Some key highlights:

• Many of the roads are dreadful. Apparently there is a project supported by the Chinese to develop a lot of the roads. This means that many of them have been dug up and are now just random tracks of red mud – the potholes are crazy, the dust is crazy and the driving is crazy!!!
• I managed to dose for a large part of the journey which was fine. Although the scenery that I did see was gorgeous! It was quite like Scotland but on a really really hot day – lots of green/mountains. There were also lots of mud huts, people getting water from wells, drying clothes by the side of the road etc – the stereotypical Africa. This made me realise just how different Accra is to the rest of the country. Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of this as there's no way I could have taken a steady one on those roads!
• We picked up another passenger in Kumasi (after touring around completing various errands, including dropping in at a local boys' school to sign a form for the son of my colleague). At this point I got my food of the day – popcorn! And a small bar of Ghanaian chocolate – somehow I managed to melt this, which everybody seriously thought was impossible!
• Further on in the journey I had a girly moment... I spotted a spider in the car. This was a zebra spider, relatively small but fast. I kept my eye on it and was pretty calm – until it jumped!!! That's right, spiders can jump in Ghana!!! Here's me in the car with 3 Ghanaian men who have no idea what I'm freaking out about, but bless them, they let me have my moment and one of them even squished it for me and threw it out the window – and let the moment pass without saying a word! Hehe...
• This was around the time that somebody pointed at us to pull over. The driver got out, had a look at the front of the car and then reached out to pull a bird out of the grill. He looked at the bird, and then handed it to a small child – who then handed it to his older brother, who took it round the back of his house. Dinner!! Pure comedy genius. (Could have been worse, our colleagues' bus hit a goat...)

We arrived in Wa around 5pm and I was soooo hungry it was unreal! Finally got fed and curled up with a film on my huge double bed (luxury!!) I had the best night's sleep I've had since arriving in Ghana - heaven!

The next day I attended a meeting with the Regional House of Chiefs. I'm still a little unsure as to how this works, but each Region has a Chief and a Queen Mother who essentially control the community. If you want to make changes in the community, you approach them. Our meeting was about the acceptance of people with disabilities – very interesting discussion, followed by a dance by the Wa School of the Deaf. Long day however – did not get fed until 4pm. Big lunch, headed back to my room to chill – only to get a knock on my door 20 minutes later to tell me we're going for dinner!! Big dinner – and I felt obligated to eat it all after being told by somebody at my table about the eating culture in Ghana, how many people eat what is put in front of them because they don't know when their next meal will appear from. I felt so guilty when I couldn't finish my meal....

Next day saw the International Day of the Disabled celebrations. This started with a range of people with disabilities, friends, relatives and some other VSO volunteers coming together at the Wa School of the Blind. The 'float' followed – this turned out to be a 3 hour walk around the town armed with a band and placards. If I'd known it would be 3 hours I'd have left the rucksack complete with laptop in the hotel.... It was really good though – the temperature was perfect to the point that we didn't even sweat! (Again, luxury!!) The atmosphere was once again amazing – the band played continuously for 3 hours, people were dancing and singing, it was just great. The walk ended with a public forum where various key players in Ghana made speeches; there was also a donation of wheelchairs by an American company. (Apparently the company specialises in expensive wine and every time a bottle is sold, they donate a wheelchair to somewhere in the world).

We were pretty exhausted after all this excitement, but still up for fun. We headed back out for dinner and this time I got to try pito, the local wine. Very nice and very lethal! It was at this point that we discovered that we would be leaving at 3.30am the next morning to travel back to Accra. My fellow volunteer and I had a little panic because we're not allowed to travel during the night. After checking with VSO, it was agreed that we could travel as long as there was a police escort until dawn. Turns out the organisations were planning to arrange this anyway.

So 3.30am arrives, we're all bundled into our respective vehicles and we head to the police station to meet the escort. Naieve me thinks police escort/convoy means there will be the bus and 3 cars headed/followed by police cars with flashing lights. How wrong was I. Police escort means a police man with a huge machine gun joining us in the car! I still managed to sleep though... :-D

I was a bit disappointed to arrive back in Accra because I had had such good fun on the trip. However, I was excited by the fact that I only had one night back in Accra before travelling again on the Thursday to Takoradi with my organisation for 2 big meetings. However, that night turned out to be pretty poor – no water, broken fan followed by no electricity, and a loud church service resulting in no sleep. I was so glad to be heading to another hotel the next morning – the first hotel was fantastic, it was bound to be as good second time round right?

Wrong! The hotel was awful!!! It was a school and the only disability friendly accommodation in Takoradi apparently. I had to move rooms 3 times – the first 2 rooms had toilet paper stuck in the holes in the window mosquito nets.... One had a tap falling off, sewage problems and the dustiest bed I've ever seen. The third room was an internal room therefore mosquitoes weren't as much of a problem. I was sharing with a colleague and we had to share a toilet down the hall, but that was fine (even when the water went off and we had to lug buckets of water down the hall to flush it).

It got to the point where everybody thought the hotel was so bad that it just got funny! Thankfully the food was great, and we ended up having a really good time (despite the lack of sleep).

I'm limited in what I can say about my work meetings, but let's just say they were long, there was lots of energy/passion and so lots of shouting, lots of interruptions due to mobile phones, people, sleeping, snacks etc etc – typical Ghanaian meetings. But really productive and I'm quite proud to be working with this organisation. The people were all so welcoming and friendly and open to the idea of organisational development.

Some key points from this meeting:

• Quote of the week: “Rachel, you gave a very good presentation there. But you missed out some important information. You told us your name and where you are from, but you did not tell us your marital status” !!!
• Lots of politics surrounding the election of the Board, resulting in the police sitting outside. I can't go into detail about this – if you're interested, email me.
• There is a tradition in Ghana that after an election, the newly appointed leaders are covered in talcom powder...
• Fish heads! I keep getting laughed at because I cannot bring myself to eat a fish head. They have teeth and eyes and brains!! Apparently this is the best bit of a fish though, and people cannot understand why I won't eat it. There are actually market stalls specialising in fish heads....
• There were only 2 plug sockets in the whole place – that's a new one! The queue for the socket for charging mobile phones was pretty big... :-)
• Few drinks had at a local harbour bar, good fun. Usual night out with loads of people trying their luck, including colleagues (awkward!) But nice to get out after a hard week's work. Headed back to hotel to discover that T&T (time and travel) had not been paid to attendees therefore I worked with a colleague until 2.30am trying to figure this out, waking people up to pay them, etc, etc. This is something we'll be looking at....!
• Had to laugh at one point when I was sitting in the main foyer and one of the guys who works in the hotel comes up to me and asks if I'd been on TV. Turns out I've been on TV quite a lot now, and that's me being recognised in neighbouring regions – respect! Between being recognised for being on telly, waving to kids from car windows and being mobbed from the moment I step out the door, I'm starting to feel like a minor celebrity!
• I get up at 7am on the last morning and start to pack. At that point my colleague comes running in to the room: Rachel, Rachel, hurry, hurry, the car is leaving – pack pack pack. Oh wait, no it isn't – it doesn't leave until after 10am!! Grr...

Back to Accra, tired but happy :-)

Rachel x

IDD Events

Our newly elected Board (covered in talc):

Fish Head!!!