Day 5, Friday 23 October
It’s 5 am in the Partner Ghana house and all is quiet through the house not a soul is stirring. However, Kate is not asleep.
Today’s list of strange noises in the middle of the night (keeping Kate and a long list of others awake):
1. Cockerels, as always!
2. The clattering of pots and pans
3. The rhythmic morning drum beat summoning us to today’s exciting activities
4. The electric earache of the t-annoy!
Omelette-stuffed, we waded our way through small children back to the school to continue our work. Having nearly completed the painting on the outside of ‘Lord Wandsworth Classroom’ we divided into smaller groups to work on some extra tasks that we had devised. I (Helena) worked on ‘William’s project’, the linked teacher whose smile lit up LWC when he visited. His commendable Project to grow a lawn in front of the Headmaster’s office, inspired by the pristine ranks of grass in front of reception back home in England, now has had Jamie, Jenny, Lotte, Alex and my sweat poured into it.
I (Kate) spent half the morning chasing chickens in search of the perfect photograph to turn into a silhouette for the new classroom. Along with Emily, Katie and Max, I began to start planning out the designs for the new classroom. It was decided that the decoration needed to be both interesting and educational so a labelled rainforest wall, times table square and animals with names in Fanti and English was deemed suitable. Odd shrubs and misshapen animals were sketched lightly onto the wall to hopefully be painted on Monday.
The rest of the team spent time painting a layer of brown oil paint before retiring for an early lunch provided by William, after breathing in the ominous fumes. We had a Jamie Oliver style masterclass from William about how to make ‘Banku’, cooked fermented maize, and we had a swig of the local ‘mulled wine ‘ miracle drink, a mixture of pineapple, leaves, ginger and water, that apparently solves a lot of illnesses, surprisingly my(H) sore throat is feeling a lot better now!
In the afternoon I think most of us were taken out of our comfort zone, if we haven’t been enough already, as we were involved in a traditional dance and drumming workshop. We learnt a traditional welcome dance and found out that I (H) have no rhythm when drumming but we all had a laugh doing it with our buddies, who, in most cases, especially mine (H), Ruth, were much better than us.
This evening I(H) had my first experience of walking into the village and buying ,what we have come to call ‘Donuts’ .However, on our way back Miss Asbury, Max, Jenny and I(H) decided it was time to learn Ultimate Frisbee from the Pro, Jenny, attracting quite a few little fans and guest players!
I(H) think that one of my favorite moments of the trip so far was just meandering back from the game along the red dust road hand in hand with two little kids just enjoying the beautiful place we were in.
Helena and Kate
P.S Parents, we’re still alive!