Photo's 3

And here are the final photographs. Don't have much time to talk but here's a summary of what I am doing:

- Writing lesson plans for numeracy and literacy

- Assisting lessons

- Rewritten the timetable so that teaching is in smaller groups and teachers have a set responsability to particular groups

- Still trying to find spare time to sew

So all in all pretty busy!!! A nice little photo taken by Sasha on her posh D20
Another one from Sasha (desktop wallpaper worthy?)
Me in the mango and pineapple forest
A maize field outside of the GDCP

Jo and Sasha outside a village


Hope everyone is well. Will blog again soon

Photo's 2

Everyone in the back of the "vehicle" on the way to GDCP
The mango and pineapple forest in the village
Dan with more than he can handle
Simli radio where we sang Od Yavo Shalom Aleinu
Me and a chief (the one in green, Pnina's face is behind the pillar (sorry!!!)

Dancing Photos

And so the prodigal son returns. To all my fans, I'm sorry about the lack of my blogliness over the last week and will try and maintain my blogability at a much more suitable pace. and now... MORE PHOTO'S!!

These are from the night of dancing!!! Enjoy

Faxes, love and development

Good morning from Ghana!

I'll begin with an funny, but slightly scary, story about a woman who has declared her undying love for me.
Since I had my bag stolen a month ago ive been trying to sort out the insurance in England and getting a new passport with the British embassy in Accra. The lack of sufficent technology i.e. scanners, adobe acrobat, reliable internet etc... has been so frustrating! To get all these forms filled out and sent ive been going to a fax office in the bus station in Tamale. Ive probably been about 5 times and spent less than an hour and a half there. However, last night I recieved a text from the woman who works there - Agnes (no she is not a Scottish man, rather a 40 year old 5ft tall Ghanaian). The text was a little disturbing with her proclaiming her love for me, and then this morning calling me at 6.20 three times! I'm a little scared but the main problem is i'm going to need to send more faxes and there is no way I can go back there!

Anyway enough about Agnes, i wanted to write something about my experiences and views of development.

It can be a pretty frustrating business to be involved in, take this case study as an example.
A German woman called Ricarda has been living and volunteering in Ghana for nearly a year and has spent the last month living in a rural village called Kadjeso attempting to assist them with their development. She has worked with my NGO (WUZDA) in the past so was in the office the other day where I got a chance to chat to her about it.

She went to the village with about 250 pounds to spend on helping them with a specific area of their economic activity. When she arrived she spoke to the people in the community attempting to find out what would be most beneficial to them. After a community discussion the general feeling was that a gari presser would assist them most. (Gari is a type of food product, which before it is sent to market must be squeezed to remove the water from it). To press it they had been placing, large, heavy stones on top of the bags of gari to squeeze out the moisture. The problem with this method is it takes around 4 days per bag. Using the presser would take around 5 hours per bag. So it was decided she would buy a gari presser for them.

However two issues arose; firstly with only one machine and around 30 women involved in gari processing it cannot benefit the majority of them. Secondly and most importantly came the issue of transport. The market is around 24km away from the village with a very poor network of roads. Noone in the village owns a car so the women carry their produce to market on their heads. Even if they are able to produce more gari, or whatever food, it is of little assistance as they cant physically get any more to market. The women know this and so have little incentive to produce more goods.

This demonstrates some of the frustrations one can face, with what actually being needed (new roads and a car) being far too expensive to even consider. As well as it being very difficult to know what steps to take first in the developent process.

DON'T read this and think that development cannot achieve anything! There are ways round this problem, such as purchasing more pressers and some donkeys to assist with the transport. That is the great thing about development, overcoming these challenges. (Don't you love a bit of cheese)

This afternoon i'm off to a town called Bimbilla about 2.5 hours away for 6 days. I'm going with my boss, Karim, and we'll be visiting a few communities in the area, meeting the district assembly, talking to the water & sanitation boards and meeting the women who live in a witch camp. I'll update you in the next blog about what we get up to and anything interesting that happens.

Thanks for reading! xx

"For only $10 a month you can save an African village...."

Dearest Darling Blog,

Firstly, a few announcements:
1) Joel is not in fact, dead. All those adoring fans that avidly read his DAILY blog entries must not worry....GIGDEV's internet is broken and Joel is actually doing some work now ;)

2) I was meant to be the one to post about the weekend but stupid Ghana decided to have a power cut JUST before i pressed PUBLISH POST....

3) Aaron just got a REALLY funny text from a 40 year old woman who works in a fax place telling him that he was the love of her life (he's sat here next to me).

Now on to the maishow:

How many Oxfam adverts do you see on TV? How often has the african child with a swollen belly and flies in his/her eyes flashed before your eyes? How many times have you thought 'Oh, that's sad' before the advert flicks to some annoying car insurance ad or personal injury lawyers and that african child and their entire life dissolves from your memory?

I have to say, i'm guilty as the rest of you! Having now visited that generic african village i can tell you that i intend to pay a lot more attention in the future. I genuinely cannot comprehend the depths of poverty that i'm seeing, it's painful at times.

Over theweekend all these men were asking what England's like, they were amazed that parents are forced to send their children to school and that they can go to prison for not doing so. Half ofese men can't afford to finish their education. For half of them, their parents force them to drop out so they can help out on the farm. Without an education you don't have a life. It makes me so angry when i think of truants in the UK. How dare they take for granted the amazing opportunity they have ot better themselves when there are millions of african who crave just a basic education.

On monday in school, the brother of a girl in Jo's class had died the night before. They'd buried him at 6.30am and she was inb school happy as larry at 8am. We thought this was really bizarre and we went to visit the girls parents when school had finished to send our condolences. These people live in mudhuts, that just about have running water never mind electricity. Essentially no access to the hospital. A consultation in the state hospital costs around 5 quid (10 ghana cedis) but the average wage of a ghanaian is just 1 ghana cedi every day (that's 50p/day). How is anybody meant to afford it?! I feel so lucky to be living in a country with an NHS. You can slag it off as much as you want but whoever you are, whether you're a citizen or not, illegal immigrant or not you will be treated for free. I think about this little boy (he was 2 and a half, btw) and how he probably had a condition that was SO EASY TO CURE but because his famnily couldn't afford healthcare he died. ANOTHER depressing example: The lady that built the school we're working in is trying to build another school in a village. This village were meant ot put on a cultural celebration for us last sunday. We got a call mid-morning telling us that a woman had died during childbirth and that unfortunately we had to cancel the celebrations. This is tragic, how easily could this be cured.

I know i'm ranting but its shocking. You see your african child on TV and it really doesn't affect you that much sat on your leather couch,. watching the advert on your LCD TV, wearing your expensive clothes with a glass of clean tap water or supermarket bought juice but here, it's a way of life.

We were walking with loads of children on the saturday, i had one on my shoulders and 1 on either hand. so did the rest of us. I thought it was great! cute kids and good scenery. I was told when we got back to camp that these kids can't afford to go to school. and that's a cost of less than1 quid (note: there is no 'pound' symbol on this keyboard) a month. I felt like running up to their parents and handing out the money, but of course what does that achieve? THESE few kids get to go to school because the foreigner handed them money. What about the other millions? What's the solution? Should i have given these kids money to go to school? Whats 30 quid to me?

I hope that's given you some food for thought.

P.S. Parents, relative, friends: I'm not a hippy! [Although i am wearing african tribal outfit in this internet cafe, as is Aron. The locals (who happen to be wearing jeans and t-shirts are giving us weird looks)].....

i'm on my way

hi all, i hope this works - i think i have just figured out how to write on the blog. i have managed to read it though - sounds great there and like you have been doing some interesting stuff! can't wait to join you! am arriving in Accra on the 31st but it looks like unfortunately i might have to stay in Accra a few days sorting out my medical registration documents, but i'll keep you posted nearer the time. any last minute things you want me to bring ?. also what size/type mosquito net should i bring? will i be able to hang it somewhere or do i need the pop up one? really looking forward to seeing you all soon. olivia

Since last time

Well, some interesting stuff has happened since my last post. I actually did go to Karaga on Wednesday, but I forgot to protect myself adequately against the sun, so got badly sunburned and also felt rather ill that evening. My neck is now peeling - lovely. The heavy rain that prevented us from going to Karaga on Monday was even worse there, and their dam burst. This dam is their drinking water supply, so unless they can rebuild it before the dry season, they will have problems.

We went to Dalon on Friday, and made Shabbat in front of a lot of people at the Ghanaian Danish Community Project there. We also had an audience with the chief, went on the project's radio station, and had a very bumpy ride back in a pickup truck.

Well, that's about all for now. When something else happens I'll let you know.

The most surreal shabbat ever

This weekend we went to the nearby village of Dalun. Joel has written an entry about our whole trip so I don't want to bore you with repeating what he has said. Instead I will just write what my impressions and feeling where from our visit. (So for the details please read Joel's blog before mine!)

I have, by now, become accustomed to being one of the only eight Jews in Ghana (that we know about anyway!) and I have become used to explaining what Judaism is to people who have never heard of a Jew before. But only this weekend it hit me what that really meant - and how I was one of only two Jews in the whole of Ghana (and possibly even West Africa) strictly keeping all of the laws of Shabbat. But this weekend it also hit me that, despite all the hardships this may bring about, how important it was that I am here in Africa. It was the most surreal thing ever this Friday night as we sang Kabbalat shabbat and made kiddush with about 30 Ghanaians before explaining to them what Judaism was all about. They all seemed to think our religion was great and wanted to know how to convert! It was great to tell people about our religion, and obviously not for any missionary purposes because Judaism discourages converts, but just so that these people know something else about the world. And of course, it was highly amusing to have Ghanaian Muslims wishing us 'Shabbat Shalom' (or rather variations of it that they could remember) throughout Shabbat.

The trip was so interesting as my first proper visit to an African village. We had a tour around the village, met many of the villagers and paid a visit to the local Chief in his palace. They were so welcoming and friendly to us, as all other Ghanaians we have come across have been. I certainly learnt a lot from this weekend as I saw the huge differences between rural life and the towns. Whatever I thought about the problems of urban Ghana, the villages have it so much worse. Many of the children we met don't go to school, either because of lack of money or because their parents want them to help at home or in the farm, and the young adults we met have mostly finished school yet have no funds to continue their education but at the same time are unable to find jobs. It just seems like an endless cycle of poverty. But we found the villagers happy because it rained heavily over the weekend which means a good harvest.

And I cannot finish without mentioning our cultural entertainment on Friday night were the local danced for us - and of course we joined it much to their amusement! I don't quite think we heard the rhythm as well as them... but at least we tried!

And something else I have just seen that Joel has forgotten to mention. The NGO we stayed at had its own radio station for the local area. On Saturday morning we had a tour of the centre which ended in the radio station - where they then told us to go speak live on air, which resulted in Sam sounding very British and Aron giving a shout out to the chief (I'm still not sure how acceptable that was!) and us singing the song 'Od yavo shalom aleinu, Saalam....'. We were convinced no one would have heard, but later on in the day I met a guy who asked me what the song had meant! So we sung a Jewish song about peace on Ghanaian radio station - something else that added to the surreal nature of our weekend!

Chiefs, Palaces and Mango forests

This weekend has been incredibly interesting!!

Friday morning:we were whisked away to Dalun (or Dalon as people seem to call it). Once we had settled at the NGO where we were going to be sleeping we went along to a lesson for adults about conflict management in a Village half an hour away. The men seemed to contribute a lot more than the women who for the most part were very quiet but everybody seemed happy especially after Peter taught everybody a song about the importance of togetherness. A minutes drive later and we were in a Chiefs palace getting our photo taken with him. He seemed very happy to have us and after a quick talk to him (with the help of a translator) we went back to the NGO (Ghanain Danish Community Programme).

We then had a kabalat Shabbat around a table for about 16 of us and when we started singing more people joined us. This was very surreal and was followed by a question and answer session that seemed to go on for the rest of the trip away from Jisonayili. The singing seemed to attract more people and also made people more interested in what being Jewish actually was. Murderer Nina was very good at explaining most things and people went away happy.

And then the true highlight of the evening... African dancing and drumming. Yes, I had a go at playing the drums and Maisel took loads of photos of people dancing too. We also tried to teach some Israeli dancing but we were so interested in theirs that it didn't last very long.

Sleep...

In the morning after making a short visit to Simli radio (which P'nina is explaining more about) we went to see the Chief of the Village. He was very happy to accept our offering of Fanta and Coke (a crate load) and after sharing Kola nuts with each other (a symbol of friendship because when you break them in half they look like a heart). He told us about some of the problems and then we went off to visit the village, we went into a youth centre, saw fish being prepared, frogs mating, got accosted by kids (Dan seemed a bit too eager to put them on his shoulders trying to get me to do the same), and also saw a pineapple and mango forest which I though was very cool.

In the afternoon we met some of the people to talk more about Jewish and English culture and discuss the differences and then we went back home with some us on the back of a pickup truck (I don't know why Sam and Sasha seemed so comfortable in the back, I was sure I was going to fall out at times). When we left people wished us Shaba Shalo or Shalom Shab or just plain Shaaa. We knew what they meant...

Todays activity has been cancelled because there has been a death in the community but we are all still extremely happy with our experience.

P.S. sorry Dan

Photos from Pnina's Collection

This is the second half of my photo extravaganza: Pnina's photos so without further ado:
Here we have:

- lots of school kids from Teacher Nina's school
- Teacher Nina teaching
- Braided Nina cutting a birthday cake (Braided Nina sold seperately)
- More of teacher Nina's school children
- Everyone together bar T-Nina (Captions for Peter are urgently needed for this photo!)

Till next time...

Photos from Dans collection

Murderer Pnina, I can't believe you had a mistake in your last blog! Im never talking to you again!

Anyway, today is photo extravaganza day starting off with some from Dans collection.

So let me explain: The first is me saying no. The second is Maisel about to round house kick the children (or maybe she was playing a game with them. I don't know). There is Dan with Gigdev kids and another shot is of kids Dan is normally with. Last but not least is the infamous Wachi (or rice & beans) that the great Ruki & Faki make for me and Dan almost every weekday lunch (this is the meat edition).

OK sorry about the spelling mistake that I am sure you have all noticed... You should know the keyboards here are really stiff and difficult to use so please don't judge us all for our mistakes... ;)

Week 3 in Ghana...

Hello everyone! I seem to be very unlucky with blog writing - I always manage to delete what I have written and have to start again, meaning I normally give up, but today I am determined yo publish a blog as it has been a while since I last wrote.

Since I last wrote I have just been working, settling in and trying to define my role and plan what I hope to do out here. I seem to have developed relationships with the children in my school and in my after school classes - although its very limited due to the language barrier. I wish I could communicate with them better, but we manage. In fact, I have fallen in love with many of the kids, it's just so hard not to as they are so adorable! (But don't worry, I have been talked out of my plans to sneak some back home with me ;) ) I have been trying to assist the teachers in classes to raise the level of their learning, which is quite basic as they are only nursery school kids. It means I have been teaching a lot of nursery rhymes (and learning a lot of Ghanain equivalents!) and going over the alphabet and basic counting and addition. At times over the last week the depth of the poverty out here has hit me - for example when I remember how most of the children come to school with no shoes, with hand-me-down clothes that do not fit them, often the clothes dirty and torn. Or when I focus on the lack of basic furniture - such as tables and chairs. The school where I teach in the village every day only has benches, when the children write they must kneel on the floor and lean on the benches. And then there are the children who often miss school when they have to look after their father's sheep for the day.

But there are so many good things also. Today I watched the smile on some of the children's faces I helped them to write out the alphabet properly. Or their enjoyment the other day when I took them pictures to colour in with coloured pencils. The work out here is challenging and the effect is slow to come about, but I just try to give the children love and attention on a simple level.

I am enjoying every moment and experience out here. Even Tuesday when in rained crazy amounts until 1.30pm so none of us could go to work, which was so frustrating at the time, turned out to be not so bad. I managed to survive the four days over the weekend when I hardly left the house - althought just barely! And I am now officially sick of Perudo, the game we all constantly play in the house. Cludeo has been an exciting addition - although I did not enjoy being the murderer (yes Joel, I read your blog, why was it obvious I was the murderer?!?!?!)

I just got my hair braided today - so now I feel very African! Will try to put pictures up of it soon.

That's all for now, I hope I have given you a good update. But just to re-emphasise for those who might have misunderstood me in the past - I am having an amazing time out here!

And thanks to everyone for your birthday wishes!

It rained really heavily this morning. I went to Mr Sulley's house for 7 am - we were going to go to Karaga, about 70 miles away - but he said because of the rain we weren't going and would reschedule. So I got up early and got soaked to no avail. Oh well. Here's a photo of the rain we had just after our arrival. Also a photo of the path outside our house, a photo of a little bird I saw, and a photo of the motorbike.

Clearing up a few things

First of all, there are only 8 of us in Ghana at the moment and one more is coming in a couple of weeks time.

Second: In my sections I will write what I want!

Third: I am lucky enough to have internet where I am placed which is one of the many reasons why I enter more on the blog (normally during lunch and breaks) and have time to put pictures on.The times it claims I posted at are of course wrong!

Today it has rained like never before. Pelting it down preventing people from going to work. If it wasn't the rain preventing people from going to work it was diarhea so we had a peaceful morning instead watching hotel Rwanda and reading or just trying to complete solitaire (its so flipping hard). I also thought I would clean the kitchen!

When the weather did clear up I went to Gigdev and got down and dirty with the sewing again. Pockets are hard and I still seem to struggle with some of the basic things with it. Tomorrow is a wednesday and so I will be teaching English to the 20-22 year old girls in the morning (as is done on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings) and in the afternoon will either do more sewing or make some beads for people. Yesterday made a neckless with a cowrie on it and Ghana colours around it.

We also played the homemade cluedo as made primarily by Jo and Sasha, it was good fun and of course Pnina was the murderer.

In other news I have proposed a teaching plan for maths for the girls as some of the people do not seem to do much when certain girls aren't here and so could be instead teaching maths. esp. currency and measuring which is very important for selling and sewing.

APPARENTLY ANYBODY CAN COMMENT ON THE BLOGS JUST CLICK ON THE COMMENT BUTTON AND ASK QUESTIONS AND COMMENT! SPEAK TO YOU ALL SOON

Monday Morning

Its monday morning again
Don't really want to do anything this morning and am feeling very lathargic. I'm just thanking god I have not got Kidicare today
On a good note, had a very chilled weekend but didn't really get up to so much.

The good, the bad and Jo Grainger

Hello my devoted readers, another literary masterpiece is coming your way from Ghana.

This week was a big one for my NGO (WUZDA), as we had a delagation of other dvelopment workers come to see how we conduct community based research, using a method called "Community Score Card". Its used to ascertain the needs of the rural communities that we work with. There were 5 people, 2 from Uganda, 2 from Malawi and 1 from the UK (although she was a yank).

On Monday Alhassan, Mohammed (field officer) and me went to a village outside of Tamale called Zuo to arrange a visit to their health care centre, as well as the usual office work.

On tuesday the delegation came, we had meetings all morning with public service providers and in the afternoon we all went to Zuo, saw the centre and met the community where a discussion was had (mostly in Dabani, which im not quiote fluent in yet).

The next day we all went up to Bimbilla where the diustrict office is to meet the district assembly and some more of the communities we work with. The journey takes about 2 and a half hours, the problem being that the second half of the road is not tarmaced, leading to a rather bumpy ride and a tad of car sickness. It was great to actually see what WUZDA does in reality and how it has improved the lives of so many. My favourite bit of the day was whilst having a meeting with a community called Juanaylli a dog came and sat in the middle of the circle and proceeded to lick its bollocks for a good few minutes, tasty!

Thursday morning was a last evaluation meeting to discuss what had been learnt and the rest of the day was spent in the office.

On Friday we all ate dinner together, thank you to those who cooked it! Im starting to feel a little guilty as I still havent cooked a meal yet. Im putting it down to the lack of sainsburys ravioli. Today was also one of the happiest so far, my direct supervisor Alhassan (who i spend about half of my day with and have grown very close to) just had his first child, a baby boy! Im very excited to meet him and they told me they were going to name him Aron Junior, but im pretty sure they were joking!

On Saturday Imuru (our landlord's brother & friend) came and took me to the local football pitch where I trained with the local under-16 team. They were bloody good, even with half of them playing without shoes. They play great possesion football and are ridicuously fit, unlike me. After 10 minutes under the African sun I was ready to collapse and give myself to the vultures. We played for about an hour in 2 teams with no goals and the aim of the game purely to keep possesion of the ball, encouraging good passing, movemnt into space and fitness.

Today ive chilled most of the day nad just been to my bosses for dinner. Time at the cafe is running out so got to go.

Will write soon xx

Just a few Thoughts

I'm gonna try out using colour this time (since Joel discovered it). Hope everybody in blogland is doing well. As usual i've left blogging to the last 5 minutes of internet time and so must be brief.

I finally realised why teachers of young children institute a 'nap time' in class. Anybody who tells you its for the development of the child is bullshitting you - Its so teachers can catch 40 winks too! I never realised how difficult and tiring primary school teaching is. I always used to laugh when people said teaching was hard: The hours are good, you get cr*p loads of holidays etc etc. Well i've changed my mind. I have a new found respect for teachers, its tiring, you have to prepare, if you didn't have holidays you'd go insane.

Now i'm making it sound as though i don't enjoy teaching....well that's NOT true. I love it. My class are wicked (and actually slightly intelligent, unlike Sasha, Jo and P'nina's children). They're funny little 8 year olds. I'm teaching class P3 (primary school goes from classes 1-6). The kids are aged between 8 and 10 as classes here are based on ability not age, hence why Jo (who teaches P2) has a 14 year old (with one leg) in her class. I teach in Morning Star International (?!) School and its lots of fun. (I don't know why i changed the colour there, i just felt like it).

Right g2g (as they say) because i have like 45 seconds left on the net now. Hope england and any other country you're reading this from is good!

much Love
DAN

finally my first post...

So this is my first blog, which is pretty pathetic since I've been here coming up to three weeks now. No excuses really, except that I'm really getting into the Ghanaian chilled out way of life - which is basically do very little very slowly!
I'm on two placements - one with the Northern Ghana Network of NGOs which up until this week had been extremely boring (although it had given me plenty of time to perfect my solitaire skills). This week however my NGO joined up with Aron's to take some delegates from Uganda Malawi and the UK to see some villages about 140km away near a town called Bimbola. We spent the day discussing something Aron's NGO had been working on called Community Score cards. It was really interesting and great to get out of the office and into the field. I also went to a seminar on the Millenium Development Goals, which actually turned into a very uncomfortable white-bashing session (the best phrase of which came from some UN guy - 'The city of London is built on the bones of our slaves and the blood of innocent Africans') - as the only white person in a room of about 70 I just sank deeply into my seat at this point. Nonetheless, very interesting!

My second placement is with Jo and Dan at Morning Star school. Its great fun there and such a contrast to half the week's office work. I teach with a young Ghanaian who despite his use of the cane is actually a really good teacher. Its really frustrating work, especially when they don't listen to me (because i refuse to cane them), and I've spent about an hour a day trying very hard (to mostly no avail) to teach them how to tell the time! Still, when one of them eventually gets the right answer its SO satisfying! I'm also learning loads of christian hymns which I can't get out of my head - they are very catchy!

Not much news other than that but all in all, everythings going very well!

Sasha x

More pics!

Im doing this whilst marking girls homework because it takes so long to load(I asked them to write about why they came to Gigdev in the first place) .

Okay. So on top is me and Dan braiding (or pretending to) Jo's hair. The gigdev girls took 2 hours to do it, it does look awesome!

Second is our little outdoor area. The gates outside lead to a side road and then it is a seven minute walk to my placement.

Third is me reading Dr. Seuss to kids from kidicare (something I do twice a week at least). I think it was entertaining me more than them!!

Hope you all have a good weekend in England. Shabbat shallom etc. We are having Jalof rice and beans for dinner. Selena (the person in charge of me) came to the house last night to teach us.

Pictures!

Finally I have some pictures that I can show you all


The top is inside our lounge! Then the kids in kidicare. Followed by me talking to people in the Dungu villiage and last is Jo and Dan outside Gigdev. More to post, it only allows me four at a time and its slow loading...

Thursday 17th July, 9 am

Well, quite a lot of things have happened since my last post, but since the vast majority of them are boring and mundane I will mostly just give my general impressions. Stuff might also be out of order because my memory is bad like that.

We had (as some of the others have mentioned) a night out on which we drank some very disgusting vodka. It is actually impossible to get alcoholic drinks here that don't taste horrible. There is no good beer, only one type of whiskey (8pm Indian Whiskey - don't bother trying it), and a couple of varieties of vodka, all rather nasty. There is wine, but it's not much good either. I'm therefore sticking to soft drinks almost exclusively. Anyway, on this night out we got a bit tipsy, and then went dancing (there are hilarious photos, which apparently are never going to see the light of day - I think that's a shame). We also found out far more about each other than we had expected to, or really wanted to.

I am now really quite proficient on the motorbike. I must, however, remember not to go to work before 8:15, as the traffic is terrible. I have done some long rides out into the field with Mr Mohammed.

As for activity at Nfasimdi Development Association, I feel as if I'm being useful. According to Mr Mohammed, simply turning up at a village and asking them about the local economy is liable to stimulate development. We have been doing quite a lot of that, not just to make them feel important but also to find out what we might usefully do to help. The answer to this seems to be either that they need capital or they need some specific piece of infrastructure - usually a mill or a borehole. As for the capital, we have designed a micro-credit scheme to stimulate shea trading. The basic idea is that they should get a loan in May, just before the shea harvest, with repayments due monthly from November to April. The loan should allow them to buy up shea when the price is low, and the lack of repayments until November should allow them to wait until the price is highest before selling the shea, thus maximising their profit. According to their own estimate, they can realise a 200% profit this way. Now what we need to do is find someone to fund such a scheme. I did some internet research yesterday and found that the big cheeses of the micro-finance world are a Washington, DC-based organisation called FINCA, so I think we're going to write to them and see if they can help. Regarding boreholes, I found a UK-based charity called the Ghana Borehole Fund. I have reservations about this charity (looking up their HQ on Google Maps showed that it's a house in Bishop's Stortford) but I'm going to contact them anyway.

I have discovered that it is incredibly cheap and easy to get clothes made here. Cotton fabrics in a wide variety of patterns cost $3/yard, and silk is $3.50/yard. Tailoring is $3 per item. Accordingly, I have got a shirt and am getting a dressing gown.

We found a really nice place to eat in Tamale. It's called Swad Fast Food (all the food here seems to be fast). The menu is about 100 times more varied than anywhere else, they do Indian dishes as well as local ones and some others, and it's really tasty. We are trying to learn to cook - one of the NGO people has said she would teach us - but we're not much good at Ghanaian food yet. It's difficult to cook stuff we're more familiar with because quite a few of the ingredients are either unavailable or much more expensive than more common foods. Cheese, for example, is difficult to get.

Anyway, that's about all for now. Feel free to call me/email me if you want to know anything more about our trip.

Sam
sam.borin@cantab.net
00233247889323

Sowing SPECTACULAR

For those of you following my blog (i.e. mum and maybe dad) you might be interested to know that I have now got basic sowing skills (or is it sewing?). I have made one skirt, two pairs of shorts and am now learning how to sow pockets!

In other news I was going round the place I go sometimes in the evening where they dance and drum when I found a church like room with a piano in it. I began to play. Some guy with a bass joined me and then a drummer and finally some guy on the bongos. We just randomly started playing music together. 90 minutes later, it was getting dark so I left to get a taxi but I will meeting Gary and other dudes next wednesday for Jam: the sequel.

When I find a cable I will upload some pictures. Until then.. it's sowing time.
doo doo doo doo do do, do do, can't sow this, doo doo doo doo, do do, do do, can't sow this.

P.S.

The colours have no significance, i just didn't realise I could use them before!

'Special Gigdev Project'

I just got my hair braided!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Pictures.....Oooops

HI Blog,

I promised my mum that i'd put pictures up but i left the cable at the house and its too hot to run back and get it, so maybe tomorrow? SOORRRYYY.....

Work is really good, i'm teaching a Jo's school but she left early today because she had a GIGDEV 'special project'....hmmm.....

Not much more to say except im enjoying myself, as is everyone else!

Break Time

I've only been teaching for 2 hours this morning and I am exhausted! How am I going to cope when it is a full time job? I have given the kids a break. We are learning alphabeat and word construction, times table and addition and I also read a story. Maybe we will do songs next...

Going to some music event tonight! Not quite sure what it is though...

Oh sun! Why do you afflict us so?

Made some fatal errors today heres some advice for budding future volunteers
- make sure you teach in the shade
- make sure you teach in the shade
- make sure you teach in the shade
- make sure you sew in the shade
- make sure you sew in the shade
- make sure you sew in the shade

On a brighter note found a huge tree outside Gigdev, will use it to teach under in the future, am exhausted. Im now off to the fanta shack! (It looks like one of those huge metal freight boxes with a fridge inside). At 15p a bottle one can't complain!

Corrections

Coach not couch

Joel Barnett and The White Ambassador With The Drunken Night Out

Despa.

Its now monday morning, I have developed an English timetable that everyone has agreed to so that I can teach the older kids in what I think is a more effecient manner. Whether it is, well it remains to be seen. The first group I have got today are middle so it should be an easy start. Now lets step in my tardis to thursday...

On thursday afternoon I became a bit of a white ambassador for Gigdev and went to visit the Villiage of Dungu, where everybody told me and the guy I went with about their concerns and how development should be going for them. I spoke at the end telling them how important education is and then the 200 people clapped me. I then took photos (well, I'm still a bloody tourist after all).

Friday was my normal day of Kidicare, Dan was also in because he's not happy with his placement (I on the other hand in case you can't tell like mine a lot!) The kids seem to be more responsive to me today although Abdul still insists on hitting people every other five minutes. Whatever happens I've promised myself I won't cane them, we'll see how that goes...

And now we get to saturday night. Oh saturday night! Usually consisting of cinema, revels and a bottle of fanta. Well the bottle of fanta was still there, although a completely different context. Lets just say the 8ish shots of vodka would have been hard to down without it. We then proceded to go into a club full of 20 something year old males. Other memories include stagggering home and watching people push a broken down taxi. I slept on the coach that night.

Sunday: recovering day (followed by the incredibly inapropriate film of American History X).

Hope you enjoyed. If you didn't well thats okay too because your probably not my parents! Bye

First entry

Okay, I think it's about time I made my mark on this blog. I'm sitting in the internet cafe at the top of our road with Pnina on one side and Jo and Aron on the other, all of us typing away on our blog entries!

I am working for PROWACID, Programme for Women and Children in Development. It is a very small NGO which is only four years old. Funding is a big problem for the organisation so up till now I've been trying to help them with application forms, despite no experience in charity or development work!

They deal primarily with women's rights in the villages of Northern Ghana. Since joining PROWACID I've discovered exactly how difficult it is to be a woman in these small communities. The men feel that they have paid a substantial dowry for their wives so there's no need to treat them as equals. There is also the issue of HIV and STIs which are prevalent in the communities through lack of education or the stigma attached to them. So far I have just been studying their work from their office based in Tamale. Next weekend I am off to Bole with PROWACID! I am really eager now to see for myself what the NGO does and the villages themselves.

Olivia has taken me in as her daughter, Ghanaian style. She is one of the founders of PROWACID and looks after me, maybe a bit too much! (The other day she wouldn't let me walk home but insisted her driver took me! I just wanted the exercise!) However she did save my life when a truck was backing into me as we were saying goodbye to her huuuuuge family at the crowded bus station. In a few weekends we'll go to church together and her seamstress will make a Ghanaian outfit for the occasion! Not sure if i have the African figure for it but we'll see...

It is difficult to adapt to some aspects of life here, for example the emphasis on hospitality, if someone invites you round, you go! Eating out is almost impossible if you're a vegetarian, when you say you don't eat meat they give you meat stock instead so my Jalouf rice has been a bit suspicious. Yesterday we met Veida who Ali told us about. She knows how to cook western food so its pizza and apple crumble tomorrow! YUM!

Despite all this I feel at home here. Our house isn't exactly traditional with the electricity, toilets etc... There is also such a great atmosphere where every young child you pass says 'Hello!' to you! Though haven't been called a silly minger yet, not to my face anyway! Last night we all went out to eat and had drinks after. Was a pretty memorable night and hopefully the first of many!

I'm sure there is more to say but this is enough for now!

Abi

Madam Joanne

We've now completed our first week at our volunteer placements. I've been working at the Modern Star School as a teacher. My day begins with a 30 minute cycle UPHILL to work. As my bike has no gears and I am pretty terrible at riding I genrally arrive red and 'glowing' with children running up to me pointing and saying 'Good morning Madam' or from the younger children i might get 'hello silly minger!!'

The children cary my things to my classroom, clean the room, dust my chair and await for me to begin. Each day I have to teach
Maths
English
Science
Creative Arts
IT (there are no computers!!!)
Library (There are no books!!!)
Dagbanli (the local language of which I know 3 words!!).
It's very challenging and there are barely any resources. To add to this my class has children who are 7-14 and their abilities vary greatly.

I've realised how incredible this school is though and how much help it needs. Although it is a private school and some of the kids pay to go,: many of the children are orphans. One child in my class had to have his leg amputated after a snake bite and is being fostered in the community. Others are much older than the other kids as they never went to school but are now being sponsered to attend Morning Star. Often the children cannot afford lunch and after writing diaries with them in class I have seen a little bit into the problems in their lives. The school itself is also very poor. The building does not belong to the school, someone has just donated it to them. It has no floor, windows, a leaking roof, no toilets or water.

Despite all this these children are so happy!!! During the lessons that are impossible for me to teach we play games and sing songs. Also this school gets fantastic results due to its small class sizes which is what drwas fee paying students. The director of the school has bought some land for a new school to be built with decent facilities. She brought me and Sasha to see the site and its neighbouring villiage today. Seeing the villiage was very emotional. Families of 20 were living in tiny huts. The villiage had no running water except a small river and everyone there was illiterate, no one had been to school. If the new school is built, all the children from the villiage will be able to attend and a bording house will be constructed for all the orphans to live in. They just need help with the funding behind the project.

Really loving it here and so far its been a great experience.

Hi from 'Teacher Nina'!

I have finally decided to write a blog to let you all know about my work placement. But before I start with that I just want to say how much of an amazing time I am having. Ghana has a great culture with possibly the most friendly and welcoming people I have ever met. Everything I see here is a new experience and I am learning so much about Ghana, the world and myself. Despite having a tough first week I have no regrets about coming out here.

I have been placed with Maltiti Child Foundation (MCF) which is an organisation that works to improve the development of local children in Tamale and the nearby villages. They have a variety of projects, such as sponsoring local schools, running afterschool classes and providing support to needy children. Last week they presented (curtesy of Tzedek funding) 25 needy school children with school bags, uniform, exercise books and pencils. This could make all the difference to these children's education as they face stigma if they come to school without these bsic necessities. This is a prime example of MCF's good work.

I have been helping out at the afterschool classes everyday in the nursery class. There are 40 children in the class and they seem to love the extra attention I can give them. I have made some friends there, and a few of them even wait for me on the path to the school and fight over who gets to hold my hand as we walk together to the school! They also follow me back to the office after the class has finished! I have helped them learn to write numbers and the alphabet and we even made origami hats last week which they loved! I am slowly falling in love with all these kids - they are just so cute!

But my main work is helping out at a school in a nearby village called Jana. I have already mentioned this school, it was built by MCF a year ago to prevent the pupils walking long distances to school in the city where they were prone to danger. So far it has only two classes, which are called kindergarten here, but the ages of the pupils range from 4 to 8. The poverty of this school is so shocking - the classrooms are empty rooms with no paint or posters on the wall, just one blackboard, they have no chairs or desks (the children bring stools from home), most children come without books or pencils and the condition of the children's clothes is likewise appalling. To give you an idea of the poverty - it costs the equivalent of 50p a month to send a child to this school, but some of the families can't even afford this and some children have had to withdraw from the school. But the children are lovely and full of smiles, and have such respect for the teachers and all their elders. (It sometimes makes me wonder whether our attitudes to poverty in the developing world are correct as the people here seem so happy.)

The work MCF has given me is to try and raise the level of teaching in the school, as it is currently not so great. I was taken aback by this at first, as I have never had formal teacher training, but then I realised that with my small experience of teaching and even my own education is enough to give me the basic tools to contribute something to the school. My initial plans are to brighten up the school with posters and to introduce more toys and games to their learning. It is quite a challenge as the children don't understand me, they speak the local Dagbani dialect. But with the help of the current teachers, who are eager to learn knew ways as they have never had any teacher training, I hope to have an impact. It will be a challenge, but everything worthwhile in life is difficult and I aim to work as hard as I can in the next 7 weeks to give as much as I can to this organisation. The work is also emotional draining, as facing poverty that I never even dreamed could exist is difficult, but once again all of this is valuable experiences.

All I hope is that I can truly have an impact here, and that my trip won't have been a waste. There is so much to be given to help develop this special country and I hope I can do my bit.

By the way - to explain the post title - I have been given a Ghanain name by my boss at MCF, 'Nina' which is apparently a local name. So I am now called Teacher Nina at the school! When I'm not being called 'Madam' which all the children here call the teachers!

Silly minger cont...

Ive decided I cant be bothered to go throught a day by day update, so will tell u about my work and a couple of other things...
At WUZDA (the NGO i work at) ive been doing a few things this week. Ive had a basic orientation into what they do as an organisation and been presented with their problems, chiefly a lack of money. From what i can see now my main role in assisting them will be to fundraise for them so they can continue the good work they have been doing. Ive started getting in contact with possible donors and filling out funbdraising proposal forms, so we'll see if anything comes of it, though there's lots more to do.. Ive also built them a basic website, which u can see at www.wuzda.moonfruit.com which still needs a little tweaking and i need to teach the guys in the office how to keep it updated. In terms of future work plans there is a group of development workers from Malawi, Uganda and the UK coming to Tamale for three days next week, on tuesday my ngo has a meeting with them which should be interesting and on wednesday we're going out into the rural areas to show them the work we do. Its my first time seeing the projects as well, so pretty excited! One guy at work (Alhassan) wants to study development at a UK university so im going to try and look for a scholarship for him to study. Thats enough about work for now but will keep u updated.

In terms of transport I now have my own motorbike! For any parents reading don't get worried, I have a helmet and had an intense training course (on a disused runway).

I could write lots of other stuff but they're are three other people blogging at the moment and cant be bothered to repeat what they're gonna be writing!

Thanks for reading xxx

8:30 am, 4th July 2008

We arrived two days ago, in the evening. Coming out of the plane the heat immediately struck us. It wasn't actually that hot, but it was very close and muggy. The airport itself was a relatively clean, well-maintained building, with colourful paintings all over the inside walls. Coming through passport control, we all laughed at the sign informing us that sexual deviance is not tolerated in Ghana, and if we have come for that purpose, we would be well-advised to go elsewhere. Outside the airport, we were immediately approached by a Ghanaian man claiming to be our contact. I told him he was mistaken, but he was really quite persistent; eventually I just told him to go away. We eventually found two taxis who appeared to be reliable, and got them to take us to the Ampax hotel, which according to our guide book was both good and cheap. After I accidentally paid the wrong person (oops, fleeced already) and Sasha successfully paid the right person, we loaded up and drove off, with 'our contact' bemoaning the fact that we weren't taking the minibus he had prepared for us. Arriving at the hotel, we asked for rooms for the eight of us. They had two double rooms, in which we all slept. While not exactly luxurious, we managed to get sufficient sleep before waking up at 4am the next day to go to the bus station.

The hotel proprietor, who was awake, went and fetched two taxis, and we got to the bus station for about 6. We managed to buy tickets for the 8am bus to Tamale, and settled down to wait. While we were waiting, I tried to get some food (tasty but very spicy, and if you ask for 'rice' they give you chicken too), and Aron's bag got stolen. This was very bad, as it had in it his passport, his camera, and some money. Thankfully he still had his wallet, which had some money and his cards. A heavily-armed policeman was found, and told about the incident, but apart from a quick look around the bus station he didn't (and probably couldn't) do anything else to help. At about 7:30, everyone had their luggage weighed, including us as one big group (70kg between the eight of us). We then got it put on the coach and duly departed. As we went, the landscape changed from the corrugated-iron roofs and roadside stalls of Accra, to the lush forest (jungle?) of southern Ghana, to the red dusty soil of the North.

2:30 pm, 5th July 2008

When we arrived in Tamale on Thursday night, we ate dinner at the bus station, while waiting for Peter (Tzedek's coordinator in Ghana) to meet us. We tried to phone him, but couldn't get through. We eventually got taxis to take us to the house, but they got lost until they came across Peter who showed them the way. The house is very nice, with plenty of space and all the necessary facilities - running water, with tanks in case of cutoff, and electricity. Gas comes in bottles for the cooker. All the rooms have fans in, which we usually use during the day.

On Friday, all the NGOs came for a meeting in the morning, and then we did a tour of all of them in the afternoon. This involved a lot of singing and dancing by Ghanaian children, and finding out who our bosses were going to be. My boss turned out to be a chief called Sule, with ritual scars on his cheeks and a shaved head. The tour finished with the NGOs taking us out for a meal at a local eatery. After the tour of the NGOs, we went to buy supplies for the house. We went to a sort of supermarket, which worked like Argos - you write down the item number of anything you see displayed, take the numbers to the till, pay, and then collect your goods. We then went to the market to get rice, yams, mangoes, pineapples and vegetable oil. Back at the house, kabbalat shabbat was sung with varying levels of enthusiasm and tunefulness by Jo, Pnina, Joel, Aron and myself. For dinner we made yam chips. Not having any wine, we made kiddush over some bagels, then ate and sat up talking, drinking, and playing mafia.

Saturday morning was very lazy - I got up at 10:15, and when Peter came at about noon, we went to the same eatery we had been to with the NGOs.

9:15 am, 6th July 2008

We had the loudest thunder I'd ever heard during the night, and it rained all night as well. Aron and I are going to sort out our transport for getting to the NGO we both work at today. It's relatively far from the house, and we may end up going to nearby villages. For the sake of my parents' nerves I'm not going to relate the solution that Peter suggested. The traffic here is not that dense, so the roads are safe enough in the light, but I wouldn't want to drive or ride on them in the dark. Apart from that, I have to get a Ghanaian SIM card today. I'll probably get an MTN one; that's the network Peter's on, and most of the others who have got SIMs so far have got MTN, so it will be cheaper to communicate if we're all on the same network.

1:10 pm, 6th July 2008

I have a SIM card now! My number, for anyone who wants to call me, is 0247889323. When calling from outside Ghana, begin with the dialling code for Ghana, 00233, and omit the first 0 from my telephone number. We also went to buy food in the market and just got back.

7:00 pm, 7th July 2008

Had a really strange day at the NGO today. After difficulty getting there (Sule thought I knew the way, so when I phoned him to say I didn't he sent Abdallah to pick me up), Sule was in a meeting in a nearby village. We passed the morning doing not very much - the other people at the NGO kept pressing me to play a computer version of strip draughts. When Sule came back we had a sort of lunch/board meeting to welcome me, in which absolutely nothing about what I was doing became clear. I then taught one of them to use PowerPoint for about 15 minutes, until they wanted to use the computer to do something with a budget, which apparently was a group exercise all by itself. According to Sule, we will start proper work tomorrow. I hope there's actually something for me to do. Talking to the others, they have had varying, but universally low, degrees of utility. Jo has been teaching a class while their regular teacher just sits around doing nothing because he's now unnecessary. They later (jokingly, I hope) suggested that they should 'give me' their secretary, Amina (a young woman of about 25). Furthermore, they seem to be completely devoid of creative thought. When teaching Abdallah to use PowerPoint, he was incapable of making up a title for his presentation. The mind boggles. It's also really difficult to communicate with them through the thick accents and impenetrable grammar. I had to explain to them today why "advocating women full participation in governance" was not a proper phrase - it was part of the title of one of their official documents.

10:20 pm, 8th July 2008

This morning, I went into the field with Abdallah, and saw two of the micro-credit projects run by Nfasimdi (my NGO). After asking lots of questions, and taking part in a 'cultural dance' (highly embarassing, it involved wearing a smock and prancing about, thus demonstrating that white guys really have no rhythm), I discovered that they needed a particular structure to their loans for the money to be most useful. Because their main business is trading in shea butter and rice, they need a load of cash in May or June, just before the shea harvest, and another load in August, just before the rice harvest. That way they can buy the crops when they're cheapest and sell them six months later when the price is high. I'm going to write an advocacy pack to send to banks to persuade them to provide such loans. I rode a motorbike home from Nfasimdi today. We'd spent the afternoon getting it road-ready, and finding me a helmet, and then practicing in the cement-maker's yard outside Nfasimdi's office. Sule Mohammed sat on the back and directed me, and everything went very smoothly. We went out for dinner, and on the way back we saw a sheep get run over by a car! The car didn't stop either, just carried on.

An update

SO, About 10 minutes after i last posted i went and knocked on somebodies door and asked if they needed me to do anything. She said 'no', there is nothing for you to do. GREAT. The director told me i should come back next week....so off i trot home for a boring, hot (no fans because we forgot to top up the electricity card) day at home.

Last night we had a meeting with Peter about how we felt the placements went - I think i was pretty vocal in explaining exactly how i found mine....hopefully things will change.

So this morning i'm in GIGDEV with Joel (its at the top of our road) teaching REALLY, REALLY cute children (that i would happilly smuggle home), i have plenty of pictures. That's all i have to say for now....

Adios

Silly minger

Hello! Just at the internet cafe and thoght i'd write a little message to u all whilst im sweating like a horse, its schvitzing!

Here's a day by day account since Monday:
Monday -
First day at work, my "direct supervisor" Alhassan taked me through everything the NGO does. Its called Wuni Zaligu Development Association (WUZDA), it focuses on tackling poverty and improving development with community based research and advocacy training.
Later in the day went to the police station to get a police report for my stolen bag. Ive never seen anything like it! I went with two work colleagues and Peter we found the superintendent who directed up towards the Tamale commander's office, we went in to see this hge man sitting behind a massive desk looking like he owned the world. After 2 mins of explaining my siuation to him he rudely dismissed us from his room by ignoring us, looking out the window and doing up his boots. We left and went back to the superintendent to ask if he could help, he arranged with 2 other police officers to write a police report for a fee of 10 Ghanain Cedis (about 5 pounds). Whilst waiting for it to written the men from the cells were staring at me from behind bars and started shouting at me "how are you?!" ignoring them i tryed to explain to the ghanain police officer what tefillin were, whilst another officer shouted at the inmates to be quiet. Whilst waiting the police had a change of shift and the new ones came to pick up their weapons from the store room. The door to the room looked as flimsy as a bit of soggy paper, not inspiring much confidence about the security of rows of AK47s and buckets of bullets.

Tuesday -
Birthday! Jo and Pnina brought out cards and presents from my family and had a little sing-song of "happy birthday".

IVE RUN OUT OF TIME ON THE COMPUTER BUT WILL TRY AND CONTINUE THE BLOG COS I HAVE SO MUCH TO TELL!

Another hour

Another hour has passed by and i'm still sat in the same computer. My arse has gone numb. I'm gona pluck up the courage to ask someone if i'm meant to be doing something or not?

The Motorcycle Diary

Hi Blog,

I've just 'started' my second placement at SIMLI AID. I've been here for an hour and done NOTHING. I shan't fill you all in on my first placement for another couple of days, some things just need to wait to be published. I get here at 9 o'clock, and am plonked in the internet cafe. I've checked facebook, i checked my emails (which was full of facebook request emails....), i checked BBC news (the world hasn't blown up) and then i remembered we had a blog. So here i am.

The title of my blog refers to our travelling escapades over the last few days. It started off with Pnina and Jo both being ridden home on the back of motorcycles on the first day (after having SWORN they would NEVER, EVER get on a motorbike....EVER!). A few hours later Aron arrives home telling us how his organisation was going to GIVE him his own motorbike. He was going to learn how to rive on the abandoned runway. Sam (who works next to Aron) also came home and said the same thing.

So its now thursday, and Aron and Sam both went to work on their motorbikes. I was ridden home yesterday on the back of one (without a helmet! - what a rebel). Abi gets chauffeur driven to work everday. Sasha and Jo now both ride bicycles.

So that's the travel news.

Now on to Aron's wonderful birthday. We (collectively, although Jo and myself went to buy it) bought Aron some western staple foods that we thought he couldn't live without: Ketchup, Tetley's tea, a kosher-for-pesach style chocolate cake, a can of red bull and something else equally as exciting. We then decided to go to a restaurant the guidebook recommended called Titi's. It sells pizzas and burgers and lebanese food....yummy....or it used to. When we got there we were told that they no longer serve food because they didn't make any money from it. So we went to a restaurant a little further up the road and had...Jollof Rice....again. I think we universally decided that there;s no point in going further than the nearest restaurant because all restaurants serve the same food. The menu goes something like this (im sure you can tell that i am truly bored):

-Jollof Rice
-Jollof Rice with Chicken
-Jollof Rice with meat
-Jollof Rice with Fish
-Frie Rice
-Frie Rice with chicken
-Frie Rice with meat
-Frie Rice with Fish
-Plain Rice
-FuFu
-Banku
-T.Z.

Oh and guiness is served everywhere. I've been converted. I used to hate it but its pretty good.

SO to sum up:
-Motorbikes
-Arons Birthday
-Ghanaian restaurants

P.S. Nobody has malaria....yet.

Wednesday afternoon Gigdev Blog

It's me again (Im here more because I am the only person with internet access at work so haha! to everyone else!)

The main points today
- Kidicare is scary
- I have sewn a skirt and am in the middle of sewing some shorts
- I have taught maths to 5 year olds
- Kidicare is scary

So I have been mostly working in kidicare looking after 5 year olds. They find it novel to touch my hair and skin because I am white am keep on saying hello when they want attention! I have told them off and now they call me teacher Joel instead. At lunch we have been eating nutritious beans and rice stew stuff.

I spend about 3 hours a day learning to sew. I am much laughed at when I am doing it.

Today I have also been to a naming child ceremony of one of the workers. At ten in the morning they sat me down with some rice, I ate it of course but seriously... ten in the morning?

Thats all for now.

First Day: Gigdev and Maltiti Child Foundation

Im just about to finish the first day in Gigdev and today... well not much has happened. My mentor was only really half here and the only thing I know about is that I will be completely incapable of helping with sewing and doing haircuts.

Tomorrow will be better though, in the morning I will be doing literacy, numeracy and computing (there is a place in town where we take the children). There is also a nursery here where some of the girls in Gigdev can keep their children whilst they learn how to sew etc. I also asked why there aren't many english lessons and was told that there are not enough teachers so I might help teach English in the afternoons when not much is happening.

Joel

Hello I'm on my break from working at Maltiti Child Foundation. It's a really great organisation that focuses on the development of children. I visited some of the schools they support as well as a school they built in a nearby village to stop the children having to walk one a half miles to school. The conditions of the schools I saw were shocking when I think of my school at home. Later I will be going to the afterschool activities they run for the children. I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing as I am first getting an idea of all the various projects MCF run. I really hope I can be of help here.

Pnina

"The blog that is better than dan's blog"

Hello! A message from Joel and Aron about how we're getting on..
(Dan apologises for the spelling mistakes in the past blog)

Friday morning was a busy morning all our NGO representatives came to meet us at the house all with bright smiles on their faces, wanting to know which one of us would become part of their minions. After some warm hugs handshakes and hugs we were then whisked away to our locvations to learn more about what we were going to be doing over the next eight weeks!!

We all saw each others but we all agree that Joels placemennt was clearluy the best (because Joel was there) followed miles after by Aron's. Placements ranged from woodwork to teaching, office work etc which was all very exciting. And it is fair to say that every1 is excited about what they will be doing. In the afternoon we went for a meal with all of the organisers to taste some real ghanain fare. It was delectable, delicious and generally mouthwatering (thanks for the words Aron).

We then went to the markets and Ghanas largest department store (it had fans in it!) it was like Aldi, house of frasier and dixons all combined into one little warehouse. Okay so maybe it wasn't the largest...

WE were also approached by several street kids and our mentor has taught us to be very wary of these people. The markets are quite fun with streams of sewage and women caryying four times their body weight on their heads (seriously these people should be in gladiator) Please note: no hyperbole will ever be used ever!. Everybody here is really super. fantabulously, jovially, casually, splendidly welcoming and friendly, we are constantly being called sillymingers (white person in Dubani).

We have also been to the local (last night) called Cloud 7 (do they mean cloud 9?) and Dan and Aron drank everyone else under the table and loose a game of articulate in an instance so spectacular it was an amazement to behold. PNINA STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO WRITE!!

I am not changing it to lost

Publishing now, ciao. bye, anula

T.I.A.

Well we've arrived. We flew into Accra airport on wednesday night to be greeted by a few things:
1) Friendly people
2) A large sign telling us that paedophiles were not welcome
3) Ourt helmet was stolen
Good start.

We find a very cheap hostel after much jewish huddling and deliberating and we sleep....for 4 hours. We decided that it was best to come straight up to Tamale the next morning so at 4am we head off to the coach station. Then disaster no. 1 strikes: Aron has his (small) bag stolen from the coach station. We must have had our backs turned when an opportunist (read: dirty thief) took it. Not only his bag but his passport, phone, camera and some money were in it.

We leave Accra soon after and have a full day travelling and arrive late in the evening. We take a taxi to our new house (which is very nice) and we settle in.

I Wish i could elaborate more but i have 1 minute before my internet connection closes so i will end by saying TIA: This is Africa.

Ciao for now!
Dan