Day One
Our travelling time was 8 hours long. When we landed it was extremely humid even at 10.30 pm! It was so hot a couple of us felt quite sick. Mr Parker managed to provide a plastic bag for Flo which wasn’t very helpful as it had a hole in the bottom!
After strict passport checks we collected or bags and headed to the conveyor. We were swarmed by Ghanaians who wanted to carry our bags. We had to decline and start our journey.
The journey was bumpy and the truck was nothing like we had seen before. We finally arrived in Kokomlemle Guest House tired and hungry. Luckily there were some snacks on offer to lift our spirits. We tried some sweet Ghanaian bread and all of us loved it (maybe we were all too hungry!!) The guest house was basic but clean and had plugs, air conditioning and a bathroom. Probably the last proper bathroom we would see for a while! We were up and ready to leave at 7.00 am for our journey to Dominase.
We passed through Accra, which was crazy busy with so much traffic! At 10.00 am we stopped mid-journey for breakfast, which was fried bread, sausage, eggs and beans. Yes a British fry up Ghanaian style!!
We continued our journey along the coast, picking up Augustina, our cook, along with food supplies, on the way.
We arrived at Dominase welcomed by a large row of KG children who ran towards the vehicle. We met Anthony our link teacher and Florence the Assistant Head. We emptied the vehicle and set up camp in Anthony’s compound. Camp was a small camp bed with a mosquito net under a large tent.
After lunch we had a community welcome and were lead through the village by a brass band, the whole village came out to great us. The feeling was amazing and the community was very welcoming with many songs, prayers and dances. We also met the Chief at his palace!
We arrived back to camp for our first Ghanaian meal of spaghetti, vegetables and pineapple. It was amazing meeting the buddies the and the locals.
Day Two
On day two we were put into teams; a cooking, cleaning and community team. The cooking team were awake at 6.00 am to prepare toast and scrambled eggs for the rest of the team. Breakfast was brilliant and would prepare us for a full day at school.
At 8.00am we arrived at school with our buddies. The school children wore white shirts and green shirts and khaki trousers – they looked very smart. The school put on a welcome ceremony where we met the teachers and students. Our buddies sang and danced and the teachers gave memorable speeches. We closed with the ceremony with a prayer.
We gave our buddies the presents we had brought for them from the UK. We then got a tour around the KG nursery and Junior School and met all the children. We even got to help keep an eye on the children during their end of term exams!
At 1.00 pm we headed back to our camp for lunch of sandwiches and later that afternoon we had a culture swap with our buddies. The buddies braided the girls’ hair whilst the boys played ball games in the yard. Some of us learnt how to play Oware, a local boardgame, too. Some of us then walked into the village with our buddies to collect water and we got to carry the water containers on our heads and experience Ghanaian life.
After eating lovely rice, salad and water-melon we prepared for a community bonfire at 6.30 pm. The bonfire was amazing and the teachers told Ghanaian stories. We got to dance around the fire and learn dance moves form our buddies. However, the activities came to a sudden close due to unexpected rainfall! So we exited to our camp to shelter and sleep ready for our project work tomorrow.