Day 8 by James and James
By popular demand the James and James writing team is back. Let us begin.
Just like the sun, we awoke hot and sweaty, beaming and yellow.
We beautifully but brilliantly bundled busily and bravely through our breakfast bread.
It was the day of our grand performance. And we were set to take centre stage for our teenage pregnancy awareness play. Having practised over and over, we did our vocal warm ups and the curtains opened.
It was going well. People were enjoying themselves whilst learning some important lessons. Afterwards, we discovered that the community were very pleased and it had its desired effect. Our play was based on a real theme, which the Ghanaians could all relate to. We then invited members of the community to take part in acting out the scenes, encouraging them to give their opinions and show how the situation could have been resolved differently.
Day 9 by Sal and Anisha
At 2am in the morning, many volunteers were awoken by the sound of torrential rain on our tin roof. Today was to be our last day of rest at the beach with a buffet meal. However, the sudden change in weather brought on a dismal outlook amongst the team in the hour-long walk to get there. Spirits could not be dampened for long though under Hannah’s radiant leadership and with Gifty’s breakfast. And so, like Homeric warriors, we navigated ourselves through a variation of terrains including tarmac, sand and untreated sewage.
The buffet was great and included fish, chips, chicken, rice and vegetables. We relaxed on the beach afterwards. Chris made an amazing sand-person whilst chatting with Jess and Hannah basking in the sun. Jacob and Ben demolished each other with the Frisbee and James and James flexed their guns doing the hammer throw with a coconut.
We returned home for a traditional meal of spag bol followed quickly by a wash and straight to bed. It was another amazing day in Ghana filled with lots of laughs. We’re all missing everyone but still loving everything here even when being woken by Miss Evans at 6am chasing chickens and sheep out of our sleeping quarters!
Day 10 by Sal
Another day with the Ghana team. We started early following team leader Hannah’s strict instructions to be ready by 7.15am. It was fair to say that only a small minority was ready to go early. Then at 8.0am we all headed off to our projects. Oli, Sal, Hannah and Ben teaming up to mix the whole floor of cement for the 2nd of 3 classrooms, which we are re-doing. After a few hours of back- breaking mixing we had a new floor laid. Meanwhile in the library, Jacob, Chris and Will were sanding and treating all the planks of wood for the bookcases then passing them on to the one-eyed carpenter to be transformed.
In the meantime, Luke and Anisha were exploring the daily market to get all the food needed for our evening meal. Also James and James finished off the walls in the second classroom and started to paint emulsion on the blackboards. All this was followed by a lunch of sandwiches in readiness for an afternoon of learning to drum and dance.
After about a minute of drumming, we could tell those who were musically gifted (James) and those who weren’t (everyone else!). The dancing also proved a lot of fun watching everyone trying to follow the instructor, most of us just free-styling with many embarrassing videos being taken. The day was topped off by another amazing meal from Gifty.
Day 11
The day started early with the breakfast team making the creative choice of having bread and fruit (again!).
Jess, Hannah and Anisha started by varnishing the shelves and bookcases for the library, whilst Luke was busy painting in JHS 3. Oli, Ben, James and James meanwhile tirelessly mixed cement for the mason – JHS 2 would have a flat floor at last.
As this was happening, 3 members of the library team set out for Cape Coast on a quest for a library’s worth of books, all on budget of 1400 cedis. The library team consisted of 3 team members: Chris, Jacob and Will, 3 Ghanaian teachers and Mr Mitchell for good measure.
We trekked through the market, a sea of people, chickens and cats, through stalls and open gutters, with a fresh blend of sun-dried fish making for an interesting smell… With the help of our Ghanaian friends, we soon tracked down a vast array of books, along with a log book to create a system for the new library.
Happy with the selection of books and especially the price, quality and sheer volume, they returned to school to find the library fully painted and furnished. Stocking and stacking began instantaneously. When the dust settled, it was truly a sight to see. Teachers were close to tears of joy with smiles as big as Cheshire cats to see the school’s library complete after all the hard work.
By the afternoon, everyone was tired and we had a well-earned rest, some washing their clothes (or more accurately being helped by their buddies to wash clothes!), reading and playing cards and Uno. Never have we felt a greater sense of achievement! Our great reward was bangers and mash, Ghana style!