Ghanaian Palooza – Day Quatro (4)
On day 4, we woke up bright and early to eggy bread. After a slow start, we walked to the school. At the school we started on our project. With the help of the students, we cleaned out the library before splitting up into smaller, more focused groups. These groups consisted of sanding the library walls, designing the mural and beginning to prepare land for gardening. Everyone made significant progress despite the sweltering heat up until lunch.
As we continued into the afternoon, the children would often break into song and dance as well as teach us about their culture. Rich Lorde would play his recorder while Isaac would teach us the local dances. After we had concreted the sign; painted the library;started on crafts and planned the up and coming sports day, two locals from the village came to teach us drumming and the local dances. With our buddies we sat and learned some songs on the African drums while the children laughed at us attempting to do it.
When we later mastered the local ‘Elima Dance’ we performed it on the green in front of all the teachers and students. After a long day we trekked home, ate our tea;rested and then went to bed.
By Beth H and Katie
Favela Fiesta Day 5-
Today we had another early start, the seamstress came in to measure us for our tailor made dresses and Mr C’s bad dad shirt. Next we set of for another project day at the school starting with painting the roof of the library and the doing the last coat on the walls, next we painted the ‘welcome to Elmina methodist’ sign made out of Cement in the garden, and finally the art group (Sammy, Harry, Sophie, Maddie and Miss Dawn) started to paint the school mural.
Some students went on a walk to meet their buddies and their families whilst the local school children cooked local food for us to sample, the food was full of fish, which was amazing! (unless you didn’t like fish).
Finally we visited St Georges Elmina Castle, this is where the slaves were kept 300 years ago, it was an emotional day as we saw rooms such as ‘the room of no return’ and the room where the women got chosen by the English men. It was eye opening, as was the walk to the castle through the slums, there was a lot of poverty and mal-nutritioned children. After a long and emotional day we ended on a high note as we was all sat in the lounge, playing different games and sharing funny stories.
Later that night when we were all asleep in the girls room, we were woken by Katie Symonds sleep talking, for some reason she really wanted a tissue for the bag of food under her pillow, however there was no food there and when she woke up she was very embarrassed!
Everyone sends their love home, we are all having an amazing time and don’t want to come home!
By: Beth Shaw and Katie Symonds.
Day 6
Breakfast was yummy! We had bananas, chocolate spread and sugar pancakes!
After breakfast, we set off to the school to carry on with the projects. As we arrived at the school we could see the mural we started painting on the school. It looked amazing!
Before dinner we varnished the cupboards and designed some scratch art which will be put up to decorate the library when its finished.
When school finished at 14.30, we went with our buddies to visit some of their houses. It was a real culture shock for everyone and definitely opened our eyes to see where our buddies, who we have been getting to know so well over the past few days, really live. It was incredible to see how close the communities are in Ghana and how proud, happy and welcoming each and every buddy was when showing us their homes and introducing us to their families.
By Astra Heslop and Emily Hodgson
