My last weeks in Ghana

2 months in Ghana and only 3 days left. I start to feel sad, as it was a very exciting time here. I can impossibly write down everything I experienced, but I will describe the highlights:

CAS Catholic Action for Streetchildren

Unfortunately, the project I actually work in, was one month postponed. We still could prepare the workshops, make promotions, seek sponsorship and so on. But I was not completely satisfied with this, since everything moved quite slowly. Normally you cannot have more than 1 meeting a day, because you cannot control the traffic, you have to find the place (there are hardly any signs with street names), you probably have to wait for the person, the meeting last normally longer then you would expect. People are also often not reliable. For instance, we invited 6 guest speakers for our workshops, 3 of them didnt show up, even though they confirmed a day before. One even switched off his phone and we couldn't reach him the whole next week.

Luckily I got a contact of CAS (Catholic Action for Streetchildren), which is a school for street children in Accra. Most of them don't have parents anymore or were left alone by their parents. They sell water or anything else on the streets and some of them are prostitutes to survive. The school is completely funded by private investors and provides a program for the children and a chance for them to leave the streets. The children can come and go whenever they want, no-one is forced to do anything. Otherwise they would probably quit. Children who stay long enough to develop themselves and show commitment have the chance to get sponsorship and learn to repair cars, fridges, to do computer work, arts or anything else to earn money.

In this school I work 3 days every week and I love it!

This is the class room. The children (they are 8 to 18 years old) learn here English (most of them speak the local language Ga or Twi) or Maths. Additionally, there is a special topic each week like tolerance, trust or creativity. Sometimes, these guys were quite tired and it took quite an effort to wake them up again. But the teachers (Stephen on the pictures) are really really patient with them and never get really angry. However, they are highly respected by the kids.

After class, the chrildren have the chance to participate in different activities like making bags, wallets etc. out of the empty water suchets which you can see always on Ghana's streets. I helped mainly in the computer workshops rooms, where the chrildren play educational Games to learn typing, maths, geography etc. Most of these games were over 10 years old, so I installed more modern and useful games and introduced them to the children. I really have the feeling that I could help a little in this way.

Church visit


Most Ghaneans visit church every Sunday, some even every day. The lady at our street who sells pancakes invited us to join her to church. It was quite different from churches in Germany, just watch the video!

YES Project

In the last weeks we finally started with our workshop that we planned and prepared so long.

YES project opening ceremony. We had three guest speakers talking about women and entrepreneurship, the economic situation for small businesses in Ghana and a concept to promote entrepreneurship. It was very interesting! Later we split the students into groups and they started to create their own business plans.

10 days travelling through Ghana

This was a huge adventure. In the Easter weekend we visited together with 8 or so other interns the Volta region, which is in the East of Ghana.

On a Church in Ho Hoi, the capital of the region. From this town we started two day trips, to the largest waterfalls in Ghana and to a mountain where we had a view to Togo. Actually I expected not too much, since Ghana was in terms of sightseeing rather disappointing, but this trips were simply awesome!

They sell not only water in these sachets...

arrrrgh!

2 hours climbing to the waterfalls. It was extremely hot on this day and the way was steep as hell, so 3 of our group had to give up and go back after half an hour.

But the waterfalls (called Vli) were very rewarding and we even could swim in this lake and use the waterfall as a shower! 100% refreshment!

Next to the waterfall live a big crowd of bats...

...that were hunted by the locals. By the way, I also ate a bat accidentally, because I thought it was a chicken. It looked and tasted similar, but was a little skinnier. Other strange things I tried here were goat, cow skin and crocodile.

Tatjana, Jaqueline and Ana on the top of the mountain. Where are they from?

With Ruben (Netherlands). Behind us is Togo!

On a strange tree.

Beautiful rain forest.

After this weekend we said goodbye to our group and I continued the journey with the two Dutch guys Ruben and Metthew. We crossed the whole Volta lake (the largest artificial lake in Ghana) by a ferry in 30 hours! We actually wanted to sleep on the deck, but 5 minutes after departure it started to rain and thunder like hell! It was quite scaring and in the night it got even quite cold, so we went into the sleeping room where we could sleep on benches. We also met a couple of Germans there who joined us in the next days.

View off the ferry.

The ferry stopped around five time to load in cargo.

Crossing the lake on a quite crowded boat.

Playing a local card game (which is really funny) at the national park Mole. The guy on the right introduced himself with a complicated name and added "But you can call me Prince!". During the games he made really funny sounds and became excited. He was one of the funniest persons I met in Ghana :)

On our tour in Mole we so plenty of antelopes....

....and one African elephant!

In the north of Ghana we spent one night in a little little village (around 10 houses), where one family lived. They produced almost everything they needed to live themselves. They grew up goats, pigs and chicken as well as different kinds of corn. No-one of them could speak English, but our guide Adams (on the left) explained everything really well.

The village.

Our last spot was the second largest city in Ghana, Kumasi. I love this city, since it is busier then Accra and has a beautiful market and a great chief and king's palace. On the picture I buy amazingly cheap and cool boxershorts. (1 Euro each)

On the market.

The largest market in Ghana. You can watch the people producing food, shoes, belts, decoration, simply everything..

Operation CIRCLE

Maybe you remember that I descriped last time the co-drivers of the Tro Tros (the busses here). When the Tro Tro goes to the Circle, the most famous roundabout in Accra that includes a huge station and a market, the co-driver shouts CIRC CIRC CIRCLE. We all found this funny and so we had on the 30 hours ferry trip the idea to start our own business. We designed simple t-shirts with the label CIRC CIRC CIRCLE. We were three: Matthew, Ruben and I invested each 47 CD to print in total 30 t-shirts. Unfortunetely the whole process took us almost 2 weeks, so Matthew and Ruben were already gone when it came to the actual sales.

Our marketing strategy was simple: I guess we were the first white poeple selling stuff on the streets to locals ever, so we expected a huge attention. Nick even wanted to arrange a local newspaper which failed in the last moment. Naturally, last Friday we started sales on the Circle itself. Within minutes, plenty of locals formed a circle around us, in this moment we were the main attraction at Circle ;) Unfortunately, no-one wanted to buy, because the price of 6 CD was simply to expensive for them. However, it was a funny experience to switch the sides and get to know how it is to bargain as a seller. Our initial price was 8 CD, last price was 6 CD, sometimes we reduced it even to 5. (we bought the shirts for 4,70)

Ana (Brazil), I and Nick (New Zealand) sell shirts at the Circle.

After a while we moved to Oxford Street which is in a richer area of Accra. Here sales went up like hell, we could sell more than 15 shirts, before we went exhausted to a near bar to celebrate a success with a couple of beer towers. There we agreed after tough discussions that we would have a CIRCLE party next day and sell the last shirts exclusively for the guests. And it was a great success of course. Just look at this picture:

Random pictures

Having a meal in our room.

Morning after a rooftop party.

Stall in Kaneshie market.

I try to teach children Thai. Later I noticed however that my spelling was completely wrong!

Homers, the restaurant we ate almost every day.

In the last years, the value of money was changed. Locals often still use 30.000 instead of 3 CD.


When it rains in Ghana, then it rains hard!

Random thoughts

Malaria

Malaria is more common in Ghana then I expected. Another intern who lives in Kumasi had recently Malaria and at the same time all (!) 4 of his roommates got sick. All of them had taken prophylaxis against Malaria. Luckily, there is a quite effective treatment against the disease, if you see a doctor immediately. Anyway, I'm a bit scared: Another intern died from Malaria a month after returning home, as he didnt realize fast enough that the fever he had was caused by Malaria. You can get Malaria even years after you got the actual infection..

Energy and water

One of the major issues holding the economy down is the unreliable water and energy system. In the last weeks they had problems in Accra to supply every house with energy, since they had to repair some spots. So they switched off the electricity in certain areas and continued after a couple of hours with the next area. That means, in our area (Russia) we had often no energy 6 - 12 pm or 6 - 12 am, sometimes in the afternoon. However, the sad thing is that they didnt publish a schedule for the switch-off-times, so the times were completely random and unpredictable. I still can't understand why they didnt..

Homosexuality

I had quite a few discussions with Ghanaians about this topic. Gay couples are still not tolerated by society in Ghana (and probably most other parts in Africa). The main part of Ghana's is very religious (Christian-Catholics). You cannot possibly show your homosexuality in public, if you don't wanna be blamed or at least less respected. However, there seem to be a positive development, as some of the young and highly educated people start to be more tolerant. So why can you often see two guys holding hands at the streets of Ghana? According to the locals, it is just a expression of good friendship!

Hospitality

I didn't even know it before I came here, but Ghana is one of the safest places in Westafrica. It was really bad luck that they try to rub me twice in my first days. Since then, nothing like that happened. The locals are VERY friendly and help you always if you ask kindly. When you walk through the streets you probably hear a couple of times people shouting "White man" or "Obrooni" which is the same in the local language Twi. That is not meant to be an offense, it is just an expression of excitement or hospitality.

Bargaining

You should have a passion for bargaining if you want to pay the right prices. The discussions can be very direct, in beginning it seemed to me even aggressive or rude. But even after the toughest discussions, the people are best friends again. One time we argued almost an hour about a payment and they shouted and were really hostile (it was quite scary), but 20 minutes later they helped us very friendly like nothing had happened. Everybody uses phrases like "I beg you", "small money", "don't do this to me!" or "don't make me suffer!" to make it very clear that the price is not good! We copied these phrases and use them now as well, we got a lot of funny talks in this way.

Volunteering in Ghana

I observed that there are plenty of volunteers in Ghana who all try to help the local society. Unfortunately there is often a lack of funds at the same time, because investors are rarer than NGOs or volunteers. Without these funds it is hard to use the available manpower in a efficient way. Ideas and willing to change are there, but the money is missing. Most of the volunteers in Ghana have to set down their expectations in the beginning realizing that development is very slow under these conditions.

Phrases

There are very funny phrases and strange words. To catch some-one's attention, you just make a noise like a snake: sssssssssttt or pretend to give a long and incredibly loud kiss. You hear this noises a thousand times a day. Other often used phrases are "Are you sure?", "You are invited!", "You are welcome!", "Ohhhh no no no no!", etc.

The End

In only 2 days I have to leave Ghana and start my new life in Thailand! I'm very sad to leave the life here and with it all my new friends. But I look forward to seeing Khwan and all my friends! :) As some of you might know, the political situation is currently quite unstable. If you are interested you can see the latest Bangkokpost-News on the right site of this page. I'm excited how the situation will look in reality.