Chapter 57...The weekend of new beginnings!

Before starting my two week vacation with the Abster I enjoyed a flying visit to Tama to spend a night in Jana and say goodbye to Brian, one of the EWB's who had reached the end of his stint in Ghana. The weekend was jam-packed full of excitement, mainly  consisting of several new beginnings that will impact heavily on the rest of my time here...!

Friday 15th July was full moon and as I sat marvelling at the difference that makes in a light-less Jana, my brother was half way across the World living it large at Koh Phangan's infamous full moon party! I thought to myself 'what a difference a year really does make,' as this time last year it was me covered head-to-toe in fluorescent paint (which subsequently burnt my skin and bought me out in a rash), wearing my bikini and partying hard in the sand! Now I find myself noticing the much greater, less superficial differences that the full moon can make to people's lives as it beams down providing an astonishing amount of light over Africa's buzzing but dark communities. This remarkable natural occurrence means life can continue manically that little bit further into the evening and paths through the bush are lit well into the night. A much more useful purpose I feel than to illuminate me and thousands of other ravers until the sun comes up!

The EWB decided that evening to treat Jana to guinea fowl for dinner and a film night, so after spending the afternoon greeting, dancing and being blown away by fifteen year old Al Has's ability to pluck, gut and prepare for cooking a guinea fowl...

...we found ourselves huddled on a large prayer mat alongside the residents of the compound with the EWB's laptop perched on a bench playing a 'fresh water' episode of 'Planet Earth.'  I was highly impressed with the knowledge of Hussain and Al Has on different marine life and countries in the World and if anything my naivety and ignorance were highlighted to me, as I was expecting to have to explain throughout the documentary what and where things are rather than learn a few new things myself. Instead of providing a running commentary I lay down on the mat with Champong asleep in front of me  noticing the artificial glow of the laptop illuminated by the natural glow of the moon and I pondered for a while the comparisons between a complex modern day technologically rich way of life compared to this simple compound life I have found myself living in once in a while! I later had a conversation with the Abster on this, analysing once again the constant search for happiness that is drummed into us in the Western World and the 'knowing-nothing-else,' uncomplicated happiness for a new day of life that I witness here. Having spent 26 years of life with 'the search' engrained in me, it is taking some serious hard work to absorb the non-complaining, just get-on-with-it nature of the people I now find myself living among. I am sure though that after some 'life changing decisions'  of my own and further frustrated moments I will find a level of peace and calm that I feel comfortable with.

So the next morning after being dragged away from the beautifully radiant smile of Nasara before I become too broody for the EWB's liking...

Something about this face just lifts my spirits completely and all my cares in the World are washed away! Watching her grow over the next year is most definitely going to be a highlight of my Ghana adventure!

...it was time for a few new beginnings of our own and one thing I am loving about this thing so far, is how the drama and excitement all come at once! On one standard Saturday in July we picked up the keys to a new home and over a fufu and jollof rice lunch the EWB accepted one of the two amazing job offers that had come his way recently! What a climatic end to a couple of months of uncertainty and unknowns, but it's now official that as of August 1st (tomorrow) we start another year of life in Ghana! Now as I have come to realise about life of late, and especially Ghana life, things can change in an instant so I'm fully prepared to write a blog post at some point telling you all that I'm moving to Russia to join the circus...oh what a joy this blog will be to look back on in fifty years time!

Following an afternoon planning things to buy for the house and the EWB's racing heart rate levelling out after the intensity of it all, we joined Brian and co for a night of smocks, raps, apple pie, pool, Captain Morgans, speeches and sending him on his way  in style (thanks to the fashionable designs of Mina) to his own new beginning...

Wayne, the EWB, me and Brian (eyes closed in a photo once again)!

Everyone looking so happy (naively) about what's to come!

Sheer disgust and beer chasers needed!

I somehow found myself smock dancing after shots and beers! How times have changed from the stage in a club with my Trolls!

And that was the end of my short but sweet visit to Tama, but the start of the rest of my time here in Ghana! Over the next few days I am planning to write up the adventures of the American and I after our two week voodoo vacation in Togo and Benin. Expect beaches, brothels, dogs heads, motos, Baileys, baguette, red wine and a lot lot more...! In return I expect my inbox to be flooded with endless emails from all of you updating me on everything I've missed in the past two weeks...deal!?!

Chapter 56...The five month Ghanaversary!

A picture (where possible) dictionary of all things Ghanaian that I have no doubt used in my blog or emails over the past five months, but not explained very well...

"Aba" or "Oh why":  
 "Aba" in every context I have heard it means why. It is nearly always said with it's very own special hand clap in which the person claps their hands together then flings them open so their palms are facing upwards. The intensity of the hand clap and the intensity of the look on the face can really suggest someone has done something very wrong indeed.

Alefu:
Similar to spinach, this is a green leaf that is good to chuck in dishes to bulk them up. I've used it in tomato ristotto, pizza and quiche. It has a very bitter taste, which goes when the leaf is boiled for a long time.

 Alvaro: 

 A malt based non-alcoholic mineral (soft drink) that comes in three flavours - pear (my favourite), pineapple and passionfruit.

Cedis: 

 The currency of Ghana. The exchange rate is currently 2.4 Cedis to the £.

Chop/Chopping/Chomped:

To chop: To eat, To be chopping: To be eating, To have chomped: To have scoffed/devoured.

 Chop bar: 

These often look similar to spots (see below), but serve food instead of alcohol, so a restaurant really. My favourite chop bar in Bolga is 'Good Taste' where they serve all sorts of Ghanaian dishes from banku, fufu and kenkey to red red and groundnut soup!

  
Compound:

 We refer to the grounds that our VSO house is in as a compound, so basically the walls surrounding our house and anything within that. Similarly with more traditional housing, found in the rural areas of Ghana, the word compound refers to the whole area in which several mud huts are joined together by an outer mud wall.

Egg 'n' bread:

 

 Egg 'n' bread is at its best when purchased on the street from a street stall. It is essentially an omelette in bread, but there is something about the way it is made here that makes it exceptionally good, that thing may well be the amount of oil that is used to fry the egg/s and then also the bread! Yummy! 

 Freeing oneself (urinals and toilets):

Urinals for women, urinals for men, toilets (majority of the time a long drop) for women, toilets for men. You do one thing in one and the other thing in the other. Simple!

 GMT (Ghana Maybe Time):
This is the timescale that Ghanaians work to, it is on average one to two hours after regular time! This means if you want a Ghanaian to meet you at 11am you should tell them to meet you at 10am and they will still be late! 

"Go and Come":
 "I will go and come" is a frequently used term to say to somebody that you will return. 

Meat house:

  Meat houses can be found all over Ghana, they are basically a wooden or tin shack like this one where someone grills up meat on a kebab stick. Usually they are found near a spot (clever thinking eh?! Beer and kebab, just like at home, although it's usually cocktails and 'Wok-in-a-box')!

MTN (Phone and Internet Dongle):

When I arrived in Ghana five months ago I purchased a phone and internet dongle from one of West Africa's biggest providers - MTN. I have to top-up both with units (credit), which can be purchased as scratch cards in 2, 5 and occassionally 10 Cedis. I usually use around 10 Cedis per week on my phone and 20 Cedis per month on internet if I purchase an internet bundle.

Pito:

 Pito is a locally brewed beer that I still haven't got used to the taste of yet! It is served warm in a calabash (see photo) and usually costs around 20 pesewas (0.08 pence) from a pito bar, which are dotted around all over the place!

Pure water: 

Pure water is basically filtered water packaged in a plastic sachet (the 't' is often pronounced strongly here). A sachet is 5 pesewas, which is around 0.02 pence in pound sterling! The sachets always come in 500ml and can be found EVERYWHERE in Ghana, mainly being sold in cool boxes on the street or on childrens heads!    

Red Red: 
 
Beans, deep fried plantain (in lots of palm oil) and chicken - my favourite Ghanaian dish by far! 

Shandy:

Shandy is my favourite 'alcoholic' (2%) drink, mainly because it is the sweetest of the 'beers!'

"Sorry oh" or "oh sorry": 

One of my most used Ghanaian phrases in everyday speech, text and email. "Sorry oh" is usually said in a soft manner and is commonly used to express sympathy e.g. someone has lost their phone. "Oh sorry" is more of a shock way of saying sorry if someone has heard some big news or seen something shocking e.g. someone has had a moto accident.

Spot:  

 My local spot, which I guess is the equivalent to a pub or bar back home! This one is brilliant, because they let us buy and take drinks home then send the empty bottles back and they have their music at a decent level so people can actually talk! 

Star:

  Nope not the sparkling stars in the sky at night, but a Ghanaian beer that tastes best (in my opinion) when mixed with pear alvaro!

"This thing": 
A favourite of mine, which you will hear when a Ghanaian can't remember the word for something or is simply describing something that the person they are talking to is fully aware of what "this thing" is referring to. 

Tro tro: 

 Probably the main form of transport in Ghana. Minibuses and vans that fill with people and pile anything and everything onto the roof. I've seen bikes, motos, goats and sheep tied to the top of tros. They will not leave the tro park until absolutely full, which is often one drawback to tro-ing your way around Ghana! 

T-Z (served with okro stew and groundnut soup with chicken):

A maize based dish served after hours and hours of pounding to create a smooth, almost mash like, consistency. The idea when eating is to scoop some T-Z with your right hand, roll it into a ball then dip it into the soup before swallowing the whole lot without chewing.

"Uh huh":

This one is just brilliant and a great one to hear non-Ghanaians saying. It is a very deep or very high pitched, very drawn out "Uh huuuh." It is used when agreeing with someone or simply saying yes and the strength and length of the "uh huh" can mean you agree or strongly agree. This one I will definitely be bringing back with me.

 Wakye (pronounced wa-chee) / Rice 'n' beans:

 Similarly to egg 'n' bread, this is at its best when purchased from a stall on the street! Rice, beans, spaghetti and spicy spicy sauce!

So I hope you've enjoyed this picture dictionary post, I definitely had fun trying to figure out how to describe and explain a lot of the new words for things that I am using in my everyday speech here in Ghana! There are definitely plenty of things that I haven't included here - banku, fufu, koko, kosay, palm oil, yam etc - mainly because I had to draw the line somewhere or I'd have been writing this blog post for weeks and weeks! Also they are words that feature less often in my Ghana vocab!

Now I'm going to give all you lovely readers of my blog two weeks of  peace and quiet (is that a sigh of sadness or joy that I hear) while I go off 'avoiding reality' for a little bit in Togo and Benin. I promise to come back with stories of voodoo, beaches, trying to remember GCSE French and I'm sure a whole lot more! Until then...!

Chapter 55...The leaving of Mr An-Tony and Olke!

Following the fun of Friday came the leaving party of two VSO's - Anthony and Olke on Saturday! After the previous couple of weeks I was in desperate need of a drink or four so the prospect of a party was most welcome! We partied into the early hours of Sunday, we danced hard and we bowed down to the new Chief of TangaCulture...

TangaCulture doing their thing, until I put in a request for 'Ace of Base' and the I-pod came out!

Anthony (left) and Olke (right)

 

Mr An-Tony being presented with his smock and being named Chief of TangaCulture! We bow to the 'Chief, Chief, Chief, Chief!'

Chapter 54...The Ghana Girl Child!

My past two weeks at work were spent at Gbeogo JHS (Junior High School) working with the girl club there to plan and hold a music, dance and drama event at the school. 

Me busting out 'the moves' the girls and Madam Evelyn, the girl club facilitator who is an inspiration to all!

Last Friday was the big day and what a huge success it was! Our invited guests - Chief, Elders, PTA execs etc all came, the band - TangaCulture managed to entertain the socks off everyone and the girls drama performances had their parents in stitches! I even found myself having a boogie and beaming with pride at how well they had all done! 

TangaCulture

Unfortunately the need for Girl Child Education in Ghana is far less fun, exciting and happy! A girl child's education is often hindered by her parents, her teachers and her male peers. The girl child is more often the one in the home who is given household chores to do before and after school. She will be sent to fetch water, she will be expected to work at the market on market days, she will be made to cook and clean and alongside all this she is trying to educate herself to free herself from a future life of marriage, motherhood and more of the same! The girl child also faces inequality in her access to education compared to boys because of early marriage. Her family feel she is not worth educating as she will be married off at an early age and all that education and subsequent wealth would go to her new family. Instead the short term gain of cows and sheep as a dowry is considered greater, as most Ghanaians live life day-by-day with the belief that tomorrow may never come! She also has to deal with teen pregnancy, teacher and peer abuse, boyfriends, physical punishment at school and much much more.

It is no wonder really that volunteers such as me have been sent out here to work with the girl child and those who are interested in building her strength, because the future without this work would be looking even more dire! If I can build the confidence in just one girl and make her feel interested and excited about her own education and future then I will leave Ghana happy! Small small is the way to go in Ghana, but I now feel more sure that I will get there someday...!

Chapter 53...The Kumasi Weekender!

Following my short but sweet trip to Tamale I arranged to meet the American aka Abbie for a long weekend in Kumasi, 'Ghana's second city,' over the Republic Day holiday on Friday 1st July. 

On Thursday morning I arrived at the Tamale Metro Mass bus station around 08:30 to take one of their bright orange buses to Kumasi. Having lived in Ghana for five months you would have thought I'd have known better than to actually think I would be on a bus by 10am, but in my naive mind this is really what I thought would happen. Instead at 10am I found myself in a typically unordered, chaotic bundle of a queue as tickets for the next Kumasi bus went on sale...about 10 minutes later I found myself ticket-less and wondering if I would actually get to Kumasi today at all! In front of me in the queue was Moses, a young Ghanaian man with a friendly smile. We started talking and he assured me I would be on the next bus, I didn't hold my breath! But Moses was true to his word and when the next set of tickets went on sale he was at the front of the queue buying both his and mine as I sat chopping egg 'n' bread. After waiting four hours at the Tamale Metro Mass  station I was finally sat in the dreaded middle seat of three on my way to Kumasi...

I slept the whole six hour bus journey, much to the amusement of the Ghanaians sat around me who kept saying each time I stirred from my slumber 'you sleep lots' to which I simply replied 'yes' and fell back asleep. We arrived in the evening to a hectic, rainy city with traffic jams on every street (streets that actually had street names)! At one point the driver said something that I did not understand and Moses told me to get off the bus and we would walk to where I was meeting Abbie, which turned out to be miles away from where we alighted the bus, but gave me a good chance to see Kumasi by night with the safety of a Ghanaian! We walked past the Central Market and past several streets that I was told by Moses not to walk down at night and eventually after lots of map reading and asking for directions I met the Abster outside Guestline Lodge where she had been waiting (worried) in the rain for me!

After a yummy fried rice, salad and chicken dinner we woke early on Republic Day with big plans ahead to visit Lake Bosumtwi, enjoy the views, read a book, listen to music and simply absorb our peaceful surroundings! Now you can imagine our surprise when we arrived at the lake to find ourselves at a hardcore Ghanaian festival/party/rave to celebrate the holiday, quite possibly the complete opposite of what we were expecting from our day, but a very pleasant surprise indeed! Once we had worked our way through the endless armed guard check points on the road down to the waterfront we were in the presence of many Ghanaians all out for a good time! Most of them were in the water or dancing to the live band that's music was blasting around the lake! There were food stalls selling anything from dried fish to spring rolls and burgers, there were many local alcoholic drinks on offer, including Alomo Bitters and what looked like a watered down pito and there were women selling all sorts such as sandals, jewellry, swimwear and rubber rings! We found a spot to park ourselves at for the afternoon and settled down with a Club and a Star... 

By the afternoon Abbie and I were ready to leave having had a fair bit of the usual drunken hassle from Ghanaian men! Once back in Kumasi we found ourselves trawling the supermarkets and getting highly excited by how cheap Western items in Kumasi are compared to in Accra! We spent the evening plotting out what to buy with the small budget we were working to and playing 'Blink' - the card game that manages to get me wound up everytime we play!

Saturday was to be our 'no public transport day' so we set off by foot down the streets of Kumasi on our journey of exploration... Now I am not sure whether it is because I am becoming more used to Ghana or whether my head is in a better place for it now, but I didn't seem to mind the mess, dirt and sheer chaos of Kumasi at all! I have been to many cities like it before and never had a problem with it, but for some reason on my first ventures out of Bolga, which is a very clean, very spacious town, I felt my whole body tighten at the clutter, claustrophobia and filth of some of the larger cities! Within five minutes walk of our hostel we came across areas like this...

...and this...

My mind was already starting to think of Kumasi as a city of contrasts and I was excited to get to the National Cultural Centre to see what that had to offer... The cultural centre was basically a larger version of Bolga craft village with many many stalls selling things from bracelets and beads to drums and paintings. As is always the case when Abbie and I get together, we spent hours and hours admiring the goodies on offer and almost treating ourselves to things, but ended up with even more 1 Cedi bracelets instead (then we can't figure out later why we have no money to buy that piece of cloth we really like, but we still encourage each other to spend money we don't have on it anyway, even it means not being able to eat dinner that evening)!

This shop had a variety of paintings by the artist Bernard Mensah that Abbie and I both totally loved! I am going to start saving my pesewas now (and buying fewer bracelets) to be able to treat myself to a piece of art for my house...!

A little spot of park land in the Cultural Centre where we sat and took some water.

Something new for our taste buds! Not sure what the name is or what the ingredients are, but I liked it (not that you can tell from the odd expression on my face)!

We then decided to brave Kejetia Central Market which words cannot even describe! According to my guide book it is 'reputedly the largest open market in West Africa' and you really could believe that when you find yourself inside the labyrinth of stalls where '10,000 traders operate within the 12ha market!' We started at one of the official entrances and soon found ourselves just falling into line of the flow of pedestrains all making their way through the market. There were even unmarked walking lanes we noticed where everyone walking in one direction would stick to one side of the narrow path in order to minimise the number of collisions! In the small section we attempted to look around we came across hundreds of stalls all selling the same things - cloth, jewellry, toiletries, fruit and veg, sandals and second hand clothes. As we ventured further into the market and felt braver about where to go we thought to ourselves 'this isn't so bad, what's all the fuss about this place being unsafe and just crazy chaotic!' We then managed to find ourselves in some 'underground' part of the market that stunk of urine and was set up on a dis-used railway track. We walked through filthy water at quite a pace trying to find a way out of there and were so thankful when eventually there were steps leading up to ground level again and  more importantly fresh air! I hadn't realised until I took a deep breath in that I had been holding my breath most of the time I'd been down there! Needless to say we didn't venture below ground level again, instead we went in search of fruit and veg and a way out of the market...

After strolling back to the hostel we grabbed an early fried rice, salad and chicken dinner before having to set our alarms for 03:30 the next morning in order to start our journey's back home! Mine was relatively painless given travel in Ghana is never easy and I managed to leave on a Bawku bus (the first Bolga bus was full and apparently there were no others going that day) just before 7am getting me back to Bolga just before 4pm. Kumasi can now be ticked off the never ending travel list, but also placed on the 'must visit again' list as I feel the city has much more to offer, as well as return trips to the Cultural Centre and market...!