An Irishman in Ghana

Battling malaria in Burkina Faso

2009-07-31T08:03:00.000-07:00

The female anopheles mosquito

Plasmodium Falciparum - the most common and deadly malarial parasite

The French philosopher Marcel Proust wisely said, "To kindness and to knowledge we make promises only. Pain we obey". And so it is when malaria comes knocking on your body's entrance gates. You bow to its every command. From the onset of fever, breaking out in cold sweats not knowing whether you are in Iceland or the Sahara, to the nausea and wrenching of vomit from the deepest caverns within. You take out your thermometer and place in your armpit - 37....38.....39....... 39.4 degrees celsius. Well, you may not be in the Sahara, but are definitely in the Sahel region. An icy shower brings 5 minutes of relief. You pop a few paracetemol to bring the temperature down, but you've got a little more sweating to do before they'll kick into action.

The aches of your joints and muscles bring back memories of a day after a brutal session of physical exercise after being idle for years. Sometimes it feels like a professional rugby player has just used you as a prop for scrum practice. Other times like Oscar De La Hoya has used you as punchbag. Either way, this tiny protozoan has completely and utterly knocked you out.

Unable to move a limb without trojan effort, the fact that you have just lifted a spoon of yoghurt to your mouth successfully seems like no mean feat. Your throat is stale, dry and sore from your futile and silly attempts to make yourself puke.
Despite knowing that your appetite is as dead as the dodo and having not consumed a morsel of food in 24 hours that has not already being jettisoned down the toilet bowl, you just can't get your head around the fact that it feels like something needs to come out.

Is it the malaria parasite that is making you feel this crap, or is it the medication? Well, it's both and there ain't anything you can do about it but sit on your butt and wait it out.

You visit the toilet so often you consider whether you should bother ever leaving to go back to your bedroom. Sorry for elaborating here, but your ass, inevitably, begins to get very sore indeed and you begin to make all sorts of promises to Gods you don't even believe in, all in the hope that they may provide a remedy for your ailment. But alas, it's to no avail. Patience is called for in the endurance of any difficulty and the good news is that anti-malarial treatment is widely available and successful if the instructions are adhered to.

When the first feelings of normality begin to trickle back in to your wasted corporal self, sighs of relief the size of cumulonimbus clouds float aloft as you had begun to consider the possibility of having someone renovate the toilet so it can become you permament home. You had, afterall, spent most of your previous 4 days in there.

The boredom of being able to do nothing is set aside as you finally find energy to read and write again, to walk for that matter. Previously, you had been crawling quite a bit. You also see a noticeable difference in your loved one's appearance. They no longer frantically worried. You wonder whether they are going to dump you for being an incessant whine of late, but of course they don't. They're just happy to see you well again.

You have been in Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso for the past 4/5 days. But because you have been so sick and weak neither city nor nation-state matters little
to you. All you have seen is your self swigging down litre after litre of water filled with rehydration salts and lying amazed at how seconds seem like hours, and hours days.

But now that you are better, you take your vengeance out on all anopheles mosquitoes that whizz by. They are many but not very fast so you register an impressive amount of kills in the first few hours. After some time though you begin to realise that you are most definitely going to be bitten again and all you can do is hope you escape lucky.

No amount of creams, nets, socks nor long trousers can deter some of these ambitious bloodsuckers that cause 1 million deaths a year, about 80% of the toll in Africa.

From Niger to Burkina Faso

2009-07-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

Our 3 days in Niamey were really great and everybody we met, apart from one asshole guide, were extremely helpful and friendly.

We took the bus journey from Niamey with SNTV/STMB company to Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. A 10 hour trip in a relatively comfortable bus with no blaring music, Nigerian movies, nor blasting air conditioning that usually makes me sick when coupled with the heat outside. We had absolutely no problems getting out of Niamey nor getting into Burkina Faso with La Visa Touristique Entente. It has been great value and has saved us an awful lot of hardship on the borders and in visa extension offices, etc.

If you are coming to any of the countries in Franc-Afrique you really ought to have some basic French or you will find it very hard to get accurate information and will end up paying a lot more for everything - gifts, food, transport, etc. Compared to Ghanaians ability in English, we have found that most traders and ordinary folks speak good French, so it's really great to be able to communicate with them when you don't have much time to learn their own native language.

From Ouga we headed direct to Dori in the North-east so we could get to the highly recommended Gorom Gorom market 60kms from Dori. The trip takes about 5 hours to Dori where you can stay cheapest in the basic but sufficiently equipped Auberge Populaire. To get to the Thursday market in Gorm Grom you need to get to the Gare Routiere before 6am as usually only 1 leaves. We didn't believe the guy who cale to our room in the morning as we thought he was just another 'Sand Dune guide seller', but it ended up true information. A better alternative is to get onto the Gorom Gorom road outside Dori and hitchike. Toyota pickups charge only 500 CFA and you'll get their twice as fast, not to me,ntion for 25% of the taxi-brousse price. Be prepared for Gorm Gorm. It is brutally hot and there is little cover, hardly any pure water. Generally I was really disappointed with the market. It seemed far more Chinese than Sahelian.

To be continued........

Niger - safe to visit?

2009-07-20T06:29:00.000-07:00

La Grande Mosque, Niamey

It doesn't inspire confidence to visit a country where you've just read that a foreign tourist has been executed. Edwin Dyer, a British citizen, was supposedly captured by Tuareg rebels in January this year near the border with Mali then sold to Algerian members of Al Qaeda in Mali. According to the BBC the group responsible said "it would kill Mr Dyer if the British government refused to release radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada from a UK prison." So if you are British, from the U.S. or another 'coalition' country you may want to think hard before coming. While we were in Benin we weighed up the pros and cons, trying to filter through all the obvious fears one may initially have on hearing such information.

Niger has not been mentioned much in western media recently other than the kidnappings and the upcoming referendum in August which has heated passions against the current president who wants to prolong his stay in power by changing the constitution. Apart from these issues and times when the Tuareg rebels flare up against the government or when the UN releases its Human Development Index (Niger is bottom of the pile out of 177 countries), Niger appears to only be thought of as a spelling mistake ("Aren't you talking about Nigeria, what and where is Niger?") and not a country in and of itself.

After being reassured of the general safety of Niger in our guide book we visited the Niger embassy in Cotonou, Benin, and were told that it is fine to visit at the moment. With the knowledge that a wide variety of aid and voluntary groups are operational in large parts of the country we decided to visit. So after a mammoth journey with various levels of dodgy and crammed vehicles ranging from semidodgy to fairly dodgy, we crossed the border at Malanville/Gaya in the north of Benin. Our Visa (La Visa Touristique Entente) worked a treat and we breezed through the frontier without any problems.

Unfortunately, the journey from Gaya to Niamey has very bad potholes as far as Dosso (best go direct from Cotonou/Bohicon or Parakou in Benin with a coach like SNTV as it costs the same, about 18000 CFA, but is a thousand times less hardship) though the road from Dosso to Niamey is excellent.

Our first impressions of Niamey have been very positive. The people are very friendly and willing to help, though one has to endure the usual hassle around the artisan stalls. The richness and quality of their jewellery and crafts are amazing, the streets are alive and kicking with normal commercial activity but it appears a lot calmer than Accra, Lome or Cotonou. Local food and transport appears generally cheaper than the neighbouring countries.

We are staying in Auberge Dragon (formerly Chez Tatayi, which unlike our 2008 Rough Guide states is no longer to be found near Wadata market)near the Grand Hotel roundabout. Budget accom. seems very hard to find here, but we managed to haggle and reduce the fan room price from 14,000 CFA to 10,000CFA. It's possible to stay in the dorm beds for 6000 per person. It has a great location near the Petit Marche, this internet cafe I am writing from and the museum. It is very clean and the staff are helpful, so if you are coming to Niger I can highly recommend it.

Earlier we met some Japanese volunteers/professionals who are sponsored by their government to work for 2 years in rural communities. JICA have their 25th anniversary at the moment and have a series of events and an excellent exhibition running this week in the French-Niger Cultural Centre. Their work spans from teaching karate and judo, to more sustainable agricultural practices and fighting against contraction of guinea worm by best water hygiene practices.

We will be only staying in Niamey whilst in Niger as we have to move onto Gorom Gorom in Burkina Faso on Wednesday. It certainly seems unsafe and unwise to travel to the Agadez region in north east Niger as does the Niger-Mali border areas, but Niamey gets my thumbs up so far as a friendly, beautiful and safe place to visit in West Africa.

Quelle heure est-il?

2009-07-13T01:26:00.000-07:00

Indeed, what time is it? We certainly didn't have a clue about the answer to that question when we arrived to find our bus had already departed from Parakou to Cotonou. Unfortunately, we were not aware of the time change when we entered Benin. I had received no sms alert about it, there are no clocks in any place we visited, and we were too dumb to figure out that it may be a possibility. So this morning we have an extra few hours in the commercial center and transport hub of central Benin, Parakou, before heading off at 1pm.

We will go by Intercity bus to Cotonou, de facto capital, a - hour trip costing 6,000CFA or about 9 Euro. For fellow Benin travellers, it is a far better option than being squashed inside a rusty taxi-brousse and similar in price now that the bus services recently reduced their prices. Most English guides advertise Confort buses, but from the black smoke we have seen pumping out of their exhausts and info. we heard from locals, they are unreliable and less comfortable.

Yesterday I spent my 29th birthday squashed in the back seat of a Peugeot 505 station wagon. There are seats for 8 people, but somehow 12 adults and 3 kids were squeezed inside. There are no other options when you come from Togo to Benin at the Ketao crossing near Kara. The border cops gave us no hassle. They seemed more interested in returning to the comatose state we found them in rather than questioning our Visa Touristique Entente. The journey from Kara to Ketao is just 26kms (300 CFA) but you need to get a zemidjan (motorbike taxi - they want about about 1000CFA so haggle) to complete the 5 km trip to the border. You may have to wait an hour to get to the border by taxi-brousse.

Some interesting things that have occured in the past 24 hours.

- I saw a cow tied up in the boot of a Peugot 505, although it looked more comfortable than the passengers inside the car.

- An innovative bootleg petrol seller in Parakou is advertising his small commercial unit as 'Hell' rather than Shell. Same thing really, given Shell's atrocious human rights record.

Next stop Cotonou, then the coastal cities/towns of Porto Novo, Ouidah, Abomey and Grand Popo. We hope to learn more about the old Dan-Homey kingdom and Benin's ties to the the notorious Atlantic slave trade. Being the origin of many Haitin ancestors, I'm also hoping to see if I can connect any dots between the people here and Haiti, their traditional practices in Vodoo, etc.

Any tips on Niger?

Togo - Photo Essay from West Africa

2009-07-11T12:20:00.000-07:00

Munching on a corn cob in a pirogue on the lake near the former colonial capital of Aneho, where the Virgin Mary supposedly appeared 24 years ago. In 1985 locals claimed to have seen the Vigin Mary. This inspired Pope John Paul II's visit a few years later. Even though Christianity has been in this area for centuries traditional religious beliefs and belief in fetishes (nothing sexual like adoring black leather boots but rather spiritual worship to give thanks for good harvest or appease the Gods and rid a child of illness, etc.).

Nachtigal, the German explorer-colonist, signed an agreement with Chief Mlapa of the tiny Togoville community in the mid-19th century, which the Germans then used to claim colonial rights over the whole of present day Togo, until they were defeated in World War I and the British and French got their dirty hands on usurped land.

Elias, a fetish priest, poses inside his shop after explaining to us about his natural viagra fetish (a twig from a tree); safe journey telephone fetish (tiny piece of wood with a hole in it and string wrapped around which. You wish yourself a safe journey prior to departure by speaking into the hole, then stick a piece of wood in to close it, put in your pocket and when you arrive sadely take the piece of wood out again - a handy piece of equipment in this part of the world where taxi drivers drive like lunatics); and a safety for your home, mini-statue fetish that blinds the thief who breaks into your house and robs fro, your cookie jar.
Despite my disbelief, the Fetish market in Lome where Elias operates is very famous throughout Africa and animism is widely practised throughout Togo.

Bones of crocodiles, monkeys, buffaloes; horses tails and dog jaws and lots more are available at Lome's fetish market

This unusual advert could be found on the Rue du Commerce in Lome, pasted beside a family supermarket. You may have to zoom a little to believe what it says (Not for kids). It's the only time I have seen such a poster since I arrived in West Africa last October.

Photo will be posted later

The people of Bassamba in Tamberma(meaning 'skilled builders') country, north-eastern Togo, have been building their fortress-style homes like this for centuries. UNESCO recognised the area as a world heritage site in 2004 but unfortunately guilt-tripped tourists seeing naked kids have bred a negative hand-out culture that has impacted on the local people's interactions with all tourists in a rather circus-like way. A little performance is quickly put on as soon as you arrive and you are really pressure to buy not so authentic tourist gimmicks befor you leave. Sustainable tourism education efforts are being made but unless the tourists themselves stop reinforcing this behaviour then it is much to the detriment o the locazl people's cultures. Amazingly, they used to live in the giant, hollow Baobab trees before they built the more siege-proof takienta houses.

La Visa Touristique Entente - Cheap Travel in West Africa

2009-07-07T12:43:00.000-07:00

La visa touristique entente - I've erased my passport number for security reasons

An ex-Peace corps volunteer just emailed an enquiry about the 5 country visa for Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire or La Visa Touristique Entente. So for those of you who havez come across this blog seeking upo to date info about travelling in West Africa, I've decided to post what I know so far from my travels.

Your best bet is to get it at any of the Togolese embassies when you get here (maybe to Ghana first). Don't bother wasting your time with enquiries in the US or European countries because it was really easy to do in the Togolese embassy in Accra and in D.C and presumably European capitals they will charge you huge sums for individual country visas. The Togo embassy office in Accra opens at 9am. You have to fill out two identical forms with all the basic info, provide 2 photos and pay 30,000 CFA (1USD is officially about 479 CFA but it seems to fluctuate a lot between 400 and 500 according to local sources. 1 Euro is 656 CFA, it doesn't change. You will be asked to collect the visa the same day at 2pm (you may have to wait an hour or so though).

The 5 country visa is valid for 60 days from the date of issue and you have 1 entry to each of the signed up countries, supposedly. My girlfriend and I have just started our travels and are currently in Togo. We crossed from Ghana at Aflao and there were no problems. It was a painless process.

We expect Benin and Burkina to be the same but Niger will probably be a problem from what I have read on the web. We expect to pay 10,000 CFA on the border. Nevertheless, it's worth getting the La Visa Touristique Entente as you will avoid having to extend a normal border visa (seems you only get 2 days at Burkina border if you arrive without a visa though it's free of charge to extend. Benin charge extra 12,000 CFA to extend from days according to the Rough Guide to West Africa) and the obvious potentially painful bureaucracy involved.

If your arrival point is Ghana you have to get a re-entry visa (10,000 CFA for 1 month or more) for Ghana at whatever country your last stop is at (e.g. Cote d'Ivoire).

You need CFA for all countries except Ghana where 1USD is about 1.43 GHc at the moment. There are no official forex's that I have seen yet in Togo, though plenty of them in Ghana. In the latter country change cash in a Forex, travellers cheques in banks. I have heard there are problems with Amex in most countries. Visa cards are your best bet. Although Mastercard works in Barclays bank in Ghana I've read and heard from others that it doesn't work so much in other countries.

Be conscious of the fact that Niger is not in the best of shape at the moment, the president recently having taken emergency powers to put down dissent over a referendum he wants to push through to allow him serve another term, etc. Furthermore, the north of Cote d'Ivoire is officially still a danger zone according to most western gvts.

I'll try keep you posted on whether we get through sucessfully to the remaining countries. Feel free to pass this info. on wherever you think it may be of help to others. I was also a bit dismayed at the lack of info on the web but it's worked out for us so far. I forgot to mention that when we asked at the Burkina embassy in Accra as to whether they issue the visa, they said no, but that they do respect it at the border. So that bodes well.

Best of luck on your travels.

Travelling in West Africa

2009-07-02T03:46:00.001-07:00

Our friends at Immigration never fail to amaze. After all the crap I had to endure getting my visas sorted over the past few months, now it's Dorota's turn to endure their incompetence.

On Tuesday, a worker from her host organisation spent 3 hours waiting for them to check whether her visa was ready. It was due to be stamped and ready for collection on June 20th. She waited, waited and waited but all to no avail. In the end she inquired from another officer, who informed her that the person she was waiting for had gone home and the documents she was waiting for were in a locked room of which nobody present had the key. Yesterday was Republic Day, the 49th anniversary since Ghana gained full independence from the UK, so nobody in State Institutions were working. Today, we hope but do not expect the issue to be resolved.

This all means that we are loitering around Accra waiting for her passport so we can get La Visa Touristique Entente (LVTE) for Togo, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire. It costs 30,000 CFA (90 Cedi or 45 Euro) and in theory at least grants one the right to cross each border of the above mentioned countries, cutting out at least 22,000 CFA and a lot of waiting at various embassies in the process. From what I have heard though, Niger border guards do no respect it, so looks like our net saving will be 12,000 CFA each. All in alkl, it seems well worth waiting for at ther Togolese embassy in Accra which will process the application in the same day if you drop it in at 9am (collect at 2pm). For fellow travellers reading, just bring a long the 30,000 CFA, 1 photo, your passport and fill out 2 forms in the embassy. Et voila!

We inquired at the Burkina Faso embassy whether it's possible to get LVTE there but they informed us that even though they recognise this 5 country visa, they do not issue them.

So we hope to head to the Ghana-Togo border town of Aflao (4 hours from Accra, about 6.50 Cedi by trotro) on Saturday morning and stay a couple of nights in the Togolese capital Lome. Our plan is to take things as they come and focus on visiting interesting social development projects in the regions we come across.

Unfortunately, one of our friends has the connection lead for our camera so I guess I'll be unable to upload photos as we travel. Anyhow, I'll try account for them in descriptive language so you can use your imagination. That is, if we ever get out of Accra.

Edwenase's student support fund

2009-06-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre has offically closed for 2 months and therefore Dorota and my work in Ghana has come to an end. We had a closing presentation on Friday with the materials purchased through the Student Support Fund we established. 4 of the shoemaking students each received a hi-speed finishing machine and accompanying stand, punching and lasting pliers, scissors and knife, folding and ball hammer, pincers and nail remover, stamp and full set of sole numbers. These items will be sufficient for them to not only carry out repairs during recess but also to produce sandals and slippers. They will just need to get the leather stitched and then they can begin selling their goods and start practising their business skills.

In addition to the shoemakers, one dressmaking graduate received an iron and Butterfly sewing machine. A tailoring student who has a disability with one hand received an electric pedal sewing machine and iron. 3 dressmaking students received frames, thread, needles and other basic materials to learn needlework, while 2 of the haridressing students received financial support to star their own business when they return home.

All in all the staff and volunteers worked together well to ensure the students were aware the materials were granted to them as a result of their hard work at school.

We hope the next volunteers will be able to continue the programme.

Bags not packed, not ready to go

2009-06-24T12:33:00.000-07:00

I hope John Denver isn't angry that I changed the lyrics of his classic song, but it pretty much sums up what stage I'm at here. 3 days of school left, well, actually there are only 2 full days remaining as we'll be having a party on Friday. It will be a nice send off for the students and ourselves, with rice, chicken, beverages and biscuits playing their role in boosting the students energy to dance to the surprise DJ visit after dinner.

In between these events we will be having the presentation of resources purchased from our Student Support Fund. 10 students are to benefit, receiving sets of tools and entrepeneurial support to aid them become more independent during vacation and beyond.

Today I received my long-awaited visa. So now I can head to Accra next Monday and get La Visa Touristique Entente (please forgive the accent omission Francophiles). I found out last week that the Togolese Embassy can process the application within a few hours for 30,000 CFA (about 45 Euro) though it remains to be seen whether 'officials' Togo, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast recognise it on their respective borders.

Out of the 5 volunteers at Edwenase who started in October, 2008 there are only 2 left, Dorota and myself. There are also 2 Dutch volunteers at the centre who came in the 2nd semester. Time has flown, lots has been achieved, and hopefully the next stock of volunteers will continue and emulate the work we have started.

Thanks to all of you have supported us over the past 8 months.

Ye de mo'asee.

Students who inspire

2009-06-08T08:22:00.000-07:00

Since I started working in Ghana, the greatest obstruction I have come across as a teacher of Literacy and Numeracy to trainees with 'disabilities' at Edwenase has been their inability to assimilate new material. Teaching people who have had little or no formal education, and what little formal education they have had has been in overcrowded classrooms with few learning facilities, has been the greatest impediment for my students progress. Despite the fact that many of the students have intellectual learning disabilities, the fact that the Education system and society at large has all but given up on them has been a far greater obstacle for the development in Literacy and Numeracy.

Many of them have the capacity to learn a lot, and they have, I am happy to say, learned well the material they have been exposed to. When someone has not been able to write their name or numbers properly in October and they can make a great effort by June, I'd call that something they should be very proud of.

Their enthusiasm would put many of us to shame. As someone who was got in their fair share of trouble at primary and secondary school, sometimes having to be dragged out of bed to face Irish language lesson on Tuesday morning, at Edwenase Rehabilitation Cente, motivation to learn is not an issue. In fact, I almost have to drag them away from the table so they can continue their vocational skills training.

Whether I'm going to or coming back from the toilet; heading for a bite to eat or returning from lunch; at 6am or 6pm, I have countless encounters with students whose first gesture is to show me they want to write, look at a book or use some of the other educational resources we have built up since starting last Autumn. They want to bring their copybooks and take up where we left off. If you show them for a split second that you are not up to your eyeballs in muck and dirt from farming, or ink from writing reports, or chalk from conducting lessons, they will try to nab you and await a nod of the head - the all pleasing reply from a teacher signalling, "Yes, I can check your homework now, even though I only gave it to you 3 hours ago and its 3 days early".

But there remain many obstacles to some students ability to progress, to becoming a good tailor, dressmaker, shoemaker, trader. Ghana wiped four 0's of it's currency, the cedi, 2 years ago. Almost every body still says 2000 ( old cedi) for three oranges rather than 20 (pesewas), one hundred of which make a new 1 Ghana cedi. So teaching students to convert from old to new, and add/subtract mentally and in written form in both has been a difficult task. The fact that few of them have their own money to spend or opportunities to leave the school and buy something hinders their chance to assimilate the knowledge they are attaining in class.

However, all in all, the students I have had over the past 8 months have been really inspiring. Maybe I'll pick up my Polish books again and apply myself with similar discipline. Maybe I won't always have to be medicore on the guitar. Witnessing others make great steps despite all the odds is a great way for one to kick their own education into action.

Literacy and Numeracy at Edwenase – Part I

2009-05-31T12:54:00.000-07:00

Indicators that Literacy and Numeracy education continues to need improvement throughout Ghana can be observed from many angles, apart from the hard statistics of a UN Human Development Index or World Bank report. While captions on Metro TV Evening News often have mistakes, e.g. „Government Cooporation(sic) with NGO”, adverts also frequently misspell words. The quality of journalism is generally poor, aside from the more mainstream newspapers like the Daily Graphic and Ghanaian Times, which nevertheles remain guilty of poor proofreading (sometimes my rushed writing could do with being brushed up I admit).

Almost everyday when I do a transaction on the street for food the trader has difficulty in adding up the total amount or giving back the right change (sometimes too much, more often too little). The introduction of a newly denominated cedi (minus four 0000's) has done much to confuse the masses. I recall similar confusion (and inflation by retailers) for ages when Ireland converted to the Euro. And unless you shop in a big supermarker here you'll have to both haggle for better prices and double check your change.

The traders or ordinary student can not be faulted here. This is the long-term result of systematic failures of the education system to provide them with basic numeracy and literacy education before they leave school, which the majority of people have few opportunities to continue beyond primary level due to poverty at home. Hawking goods has quicker even though meagre financial returns compared to sitting in a classroom of 50 students learning to add properly.

The Daily Graphic published a story recently stating new research that 40% of primary school teachers are unqualified. Official statistics from UNICEF claim that 65% of adults in Ghana are literate, a figure I am quite surprised by from short experience here.

Reading Cameron Duodu's New African magazine tales of his sadistic educational experiences from school teachers in Ghana helps shed light on the type of education many have been subjected to here (and from anecdotal evidence in Ireland it was not much different some years ago). So who could blame a kid or teen from trying to cheat in class or while doing their homework (a major problem here stifling students natural learning process) when the consequence of making a mistake is usually being caned or made feel as small as snake shit.

Teachers themselves, stressed to the hilt with massive numbers of students who have a wide range of abilities and difficulties, either give in and lose motivation to teach with enthusiasm and care for the educational development of their class, or else lash out and vent their frustrations on the students themselves.

Accumulated, all of these and other factors multiplied tenfold have resulted in the type of student a school like Edwenase has. Shy; afraid to make mistakes; little or no belief in their own ability to progress; no access to the basic tools for numeracy and literacy education, including motivated and patient teachers. As sure as 1+1 is equal to 2, the above factors added together ends up equal to a student and adult poor at Literacy and Numeracy. And without spelling out how, this certainly has the potential to trap you in absolute or relative poverty thus making you more dependent on others help.

Going by the sub-caption of this blog, „Tales of a volunteer teacher”, you may have expected to read more about my teaching experiences at the rehabilitation centre. So I'll try give a summary in my next few postings of how things have transpired since October last.

Literacy and Numeracy at Edwenase – Part II

2009-05-31T12:51:00.000-07:00

As the only professional teacher (which could mean good or brutal) amongst the volunteers at Edwenase I felt like I would be able to offer a lot from my previous roles in the classroom. 3 of the volunteers had just finished high school so the transition from student to teacher was a challenge to step up to. Dorota, on the other hand, had a lot of experience speaking to classes and conducting workshops for teachers in her previous job in Warsaw with the Polish Humanitarian Organisation's Education department. I had 4 ½ years experience tormenting students and catching them at their various misdeeds, many of which I had engaged in myself whilst in school. It helps when you are a teacher who has been in a lot of trouble at school, cause you tend to have developed an instinct or student misbehaviour.

After observing a local teacher conducting Literacy and Numeracy classes we put together our own timetable and set up new groups after assessing the students abilities and disabilities.

It may be a cliche at this stage, but the lessons I observed from the local teacher were a case study in bad teaching, that is from the perspective of the professional training I had received in Ireland and Poland.

Students were grouped inappropriately; teacher not knowing students names nor being aware of the extent of their learning limitations; little or no positive affirmation; students made to feel they were to stupid to grasp the subject through comments like: „How can you not know this, it's easy?”

One thing which was obvious though was the enthusiasm of the students to try and expand their knowledge in writing, speaking English, adding, subtracting and getting used to new currency terms, etc. So we allocated part of the project money we raised through selling plaintain leaf Christmas cards (made by students and volunteers) adorned with traditional adinkra or Christmas symbols to purchase a school kit for each student (copybook, sharpener, eraser, pen, pencil).

Alongside the primarily local educational resources we purchased for the school library we know had a good starting point to capture the students enthusiasm and translate it into something more systematically more educational.

Each student was placed in groups of 2-6 student as opposed to the previous system of 12-15 per group. Each student would receive at least one period of English and Maths per week, as well as remedial and informal lessons when time allowed. Now that they had their own copybooks and pen/pencil they were constantly coming to us with their work or asking for guidance. It had become a perfect learner-led situation, one which you will rarely witness amongst those who have plenty of access to copybooks, learning resources.

Thankfully, the novelty has not worn off and the students become even more enthusiastic each day. The more they learn in English grammar, in writing letters and their names better, in adding and subtracting using real money, the greater their appetite to learn even more.

Hyperactive, but clever as a fox

2009-05-23T04:53:00.001-07:00

K. is a 12 year old boy who has just joined the school at Edwenase as no other school would keep or accept him. He is a hyperactive boy. Mannerly, bright, well-groomed with a supportive family background and a private tutor, he is a day student at the rehabilitation centre.

He has not been assigned to learn a trade though, as he needs almost full-time attention from the time he arrives at 7am, till the time his relative collects him at 2pm. 7 hours constant attention. No wonder the schools his parents brought him to were unable to deal with his needs.

Of course it's easy to blame the schools as being discriminatory, but if there is no special needs assistant to help K. keep focussed and not run around the place, the education of 30 or 40 others is negatively affected.

So K. has been pretty much landed into a school where those who do not fit into the 'normal' education system must go. There are a 6 volunteers at our centre. But die to the programme of work we have devised in Maths and English for the other 55 students, the time we have to spend in preparing worksheets, recording our work, giving remedial lessons, etc. it is really hard to give K. the full attention he needs.

So what provisions are being made to cater for people like K? Well, given that little or no funds have been granted by the Dept. of Social Welfare to aid the school I work at, in addition to the current staff not having been paid for the past 4 months, K. will continue to be much neglected by the Ghanaian education system until such time as provisions are made for him to have a full time needs assistant.

How many more K.'s are there throughout Ghana, abandoned by schools who cannot manage their special needs? Maybe one thing to be thankful for is the fact that he has not being drugged to slow him down or institutionalised in a prayer camp to expel his 'demons', as some of our students have unfortunately experienced in the past, all because they have 'spiritual disability'.

And now that he has come with just 5 weeks left in this semester it looks unlikely that our efforts will have any lasting effect. With a long-term programme of care and education I have no doubt that K. would be able to learn a trade and have meaningful employment in the future that would allow him to become at least semi-independent. But there is little hope that kids like K. will ever benefit from Ghana's oil profits or World Bank loans.

The case of the missing 8 GB usb

2009-05-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

3 1/2 weeks ago I left my 8 GB usb at my local internet cafe in Kwadaso district. I had been rushing around trying to get documents printed off for the idiots at Kumasi immigration office who had seized my passport. Why would they do such a thing? Well, to put pressure on me to pay a 100 Ghana cedi bribe (55 Euros). I refused to pay so they wanted an official letter for the withdrawal of my visa extension request. So my excuse for leaving the usb behind was that I was stressed out and trying to meet a deadline. Thankfully, the staff at Kwadaso know me well as I have been frequenting there for months.

One of the staff members removed it from the staff machine, put it in her purse, and brought it home with her. That is, she was safekeeping it for me to collect whenever I came again when she was on shift. But then I came to collect it, and after the 8th time without success, I became a little unnerved whether I would ever see it or her again. 3 days ago I went to the cafe and met her. She laughed when I asked her whether she had a surprise for me. "Oh, I lost it, it's missing, she said."

"Huh? I replied"

"Yes, I gave it to a client to use and then I forgot about it. I remembered the next day when I came to work but the usb was gone."

Imagine it - she's about 25 years old, pretty, and as she tells the story she is smirking all the time, with no hint of an apology coming to her lips.

Yes, I made the first mistake. I left my property behind and so it will be pot luck or thanks to the honesty of another that I retrieve it. But the fact that she took it home, that I couldn't get it back from her for 3 1/2 weeks, and now that she is causally telling me she lent it to a complete stranger and then forgot to get it back from him has really pissed me off.
Even if I detected an inkling of regret, I think I would have caved in and put it down to my initial error. But the attitude I detect is one of 'I really don't give a fuck where your usb is nor what I did with it, there is nothing you can do about it and you're white so why not just go to your usb tree and pluck another one from it', all drive me to ask the question - "where is your manager?"

After talking to both of us the manager states that she has made a serous error in not giving it back earlier and by lending it out to one of their clients. He asks what course of action I deem fair to resolve the issue. I say that I would like an 8GB usb, whether it is the same brand or not doesn't matter. Observing her clothes and mobile phone I feel it's safe to presume she's not on the breadline. He agrees, she agrees and 3 days later I collect an 8GB usb.

So why did she not even put on an act that she was somehow sorry. Is it because she did not feel anyway responsible for it going missing? Was she hoping that I might just understand? Why do I feel somewhat guilty now for pursuing a replacement? Was I justified in seeking a replacement?

A little on Ghanaian signs and African literature

2009-05-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

Recently I saw a classic sign on a trotro, the best since I arrived to Ghana. Even in Haiti the slogans were far more subtle. Plastered in yellow on the back windscreen of a white van was the following: 'Naked I came'. Is it possible that these 3 words are written somewhere in the bible but the owner of the vehicle mistakenly took them out of context? For example, a slogan like 'Naked I came into this world and naked I shall depart' would appear to have important connotations towards not putting too much weight on the material in life.

And isn't 'One good turn deserves another fashion store', in Cape Coast, a bit of a long-winded name for a small roadside business? Yet it certainly carries a clearer moral message than 'Naked I came'. The bizarreness behind many of the slogans on shops and vehicles here never fail to amaze.

****************

The latter brings me to African writers who wouldn't write such odd slogans in their works of art. There are few of us who have the talent of Chinua Achebe, Ama Ata Aidoo and Ayei Kwei Armah.

There's a few books I've been reading recently and would like to mention in case anybody comes across this blog and is interested in doing some worthwhile reading of African literature. The Heinemann African Writer's Series is where you will get a good wide range of novelists from across the continent.

I am just finishing Chinua Achebe's 'Arrow of God', a detailed portrait of the trials and tribulations of Ezeulu, a fetish priest in Igboland in Nigeria'. Nigeria's most famous novelist paints the rituals surrounding the priest's daily life with his wives and children, community members – both friends and foes, white colonists, in language than can be quite difficult to follow without an accompanying glossary. Maybe if I was living in Igboland in south western Nigeria and had a reference person it would be easier to understand the terms he uses from the traditional language. Nevertheless, for anybody interested or engaged in African studies or thinking of travelling, volunteering, working in Nigeria, it's well worth a read and contains excellent local proverbial messages to chart the opinions of key characters. A laborious read from an otherwise excellent author.

Earlier in the month I completed Achebe's brilliant 'No Longer at Ease', which follows the dangerous path a young Nigerian man takes when he rejects the corrupt practices of a government minister who initally aids him socially climb his way to big Naira and lots of female friends. Becoming active in an opposition party whilst rejecting the corrupt minister, the main character's life and position in his own community becomes increasingly vunerable as he faces a politician-gangster whose party will stop at nothing to continue their dirty business practices.

The first Achebe book I read was a number of months ago, 'A man for all seasons'. It is a vivid portrayal of one educated Nigerian public officer's fall towards corruption to depict the arrival of a debilitating age of bribery, extortion and the ruination of public coffers in Nigeria.

Achebe's most famous novel 'Things fall apart' is sitting in a box in the attic of my girlfriend's parents' flat in Warsaw, so I'll have to wait a little while before I get tucked into it.

Ayei Kei Armah and Ama Atta Aidoo are two Ghanaian authors which one should read if they have an interest in Ghana. I've little time to write about their books here at the moment but will do shortly.

Kwei Armah's 'The Healers' is an excellent portrayal of the Ashanti region prior to its fall to the British, the divide and conquer policy which many local chiefs succumbed to in their collaboration with European colonists, and the strength of some uncorruptible characters who face their nemeses with the intent of saving their people from harm.

For people interested in female authors, then they don't come much better than Ama Ata Aidoo. Her insight into how Ghanaian society ticks and the minds of ordinary people is unsurpassed. Her fantastic book 'Anowa' charts the tragic downfall of a woman who rejects her family and runs off with a selfish character who treats his wife like he treats his slaves. Anowa gets her revenge by declaring his impotency, but it is not enough to redeem her from her own mistakes.

To be continued........

When a Ghanaian driver does a 'Hit and Run'

2009-04-25T10:13:00.001-07:00

Here's the situation I found myself in on the way back from Accra to Kumasi recently. It's pitch black outside. I'm in a 22 seater ramshackle van (nominally a Mercedes but in reality about 100 hundred machines have been tor n asunder and gelled together to make it semi road worthy). A truck is in our way. The stretch of road is quite good, but as always when night has descended, one can never tell what may appear out of the blue. Fog has descended in patches. But our driver nevertheless decides to give it a go, overtaking the truck, and getting home 1 minute earlier than if he waited for a safer opportunity. He moves into the oncoming hard shoulder to manouevre outside the truck. Then, all of a sudden a loud BANG. All the passengers scream.

I'm near the front of the vehicle and think I saw what appeared to be a bicycle light before the light disappeared alongside the left-wing mirror. The driver passes out the truck, and to my surprise keeps driving, not seeming to give a damn that he probably just hit somebody.

I shout at him, 'Stop driving, you just hit a cyclist.' The woman in the front seat ahead of me turns her head and agrees. But he just keeps driving. Nobody says anything. So I shout again 'Pull over, you may have killed an old man for all we know'. Silence. He slows down from 80kms per hour to about 40 kms p/h and moves into the hard shoulder to allow the truck he had just passed out to overtake us. About 3 of the passengers say something within 10 seconds, at last breaking their silence. But immediately after they talk, the driver, obviously reassured by his fellow passengers, moves back onto the main road and speeds on. I turn to the young, well dressed woman beside me, and offer my phone for her to ring emergency services. She turns her head the opposite direction. So I send an sms to Dorota to ring emergency services (at this stage I am a bit reluctant to do it given the passive nature of my fellow passengers and the fact that the driver and his mate (helper) may feel threatened by such a call).

I've noticed that we just passed the village of Yawkwei, about 100kms from Kumasi. After repeated attempts to call the police or ambulance to no avail, I arrive in Kumasi. I have our vehicle registration number in addition to the place where the accident occurred and the registration number of the truck we passed out, just in case the driver of that vehicle has witnessed something also. I call over a police officer and tell him what I saw. He calls a colleague and within 2 minutes there are 2 police officers in uniform and 2 plainclothes officers questioning the driver, his mate the more senior policeman turns to me and says „Please forgive him”.

At this stage I know it's a useless effort on my behalf. These cops are probably using the opportunity to extort money from the driver not to bring the case further. I travel back home as its late. Consulting fellow Ghanaian workers the following day, I am advised to drop the situation, that my concern will come to nothing. But as someone who has probably witnessed an accident where a cyclist was hurt, that just ain't something to leave one's head over night. So I make a 2nd attempt at the cops. I go to the main police station and am directed to the control centre. At last I meet two cops who take the issue seriously and call the local police stations and hospital admissions to give them feedback if anybody reported an accident in the area. I have had no contact from the cops, so either the cyclist survived unscathed, or else they just dropped the enquiries and the driver of vehicle GS 4900 Z continues to drive dangerously on the Accra-Kumasi road.

And what about the passengers silence. Well, it appears that the 3 who broke their silence may have encouraged the driver to keep going just in case it was a trick to stop him by robbers. I had just read of thieves who shot out the tyres of a bus in the Upper East region of Ghana, subsequently robbing all on board. But this did not appear such an attempt. Unless a thieving cyclist was willing to get killed in the process, that is.

Silence. It's amazing what fear can do to the most normal human being. We're all capable of keeping our mouths shut when we see something that we deem plain wrong, myself included. Having over 20 people willing to keep their mouths shut was something that I hadn't expected witnessing though.

Ghana Immigration's extortion racket

2009-04-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

Corruption is often declared a cancer in African States, one which bleeds the official State coffers of much needed funds and lines the pockets of a few nasty elites. That these few nasty elites behaviour then sanctions small fry officers to engage in such practices is something that affects the vast majority of people who have ever tried to get a service rendered in places like Nigeria or Ghana.

For example, I have just fallen to threats that I should buy my ticket and get out of the country as my visa will not be extended for another 2 months. This despite the fact that I have done everything by the book. My project manager received a phone call full of threats from a senior member of the immigration department in Kumasi shouting at him that I should get a flight and leave immediately. But any of us who have been in this game for a while knows what that means. Translated into plain language it could be versed as follows: You son of a bitch, who dare you go offical routes and deny me my bribe. So now I will resort to extortion and make you shit in your pants until you pay up."

Unfortunately the officer in question has met the wrong client. He didn't get a penny, I got my passport back, but I still only have until May 17th then I've gotta find a way to stay and finish my teaching, fundraising work for the students at Edwenase. That's what I came here for, and that is what I intend to do once I don't have to pay off some idiot in a dark green military uniform who bleeds Ghanaians and foreigners alike so he can feed his greed.

Life for those who have ever wanted something from an immigration office can be pretty frustrating at the best of times. In Europe and the US I've been lucky enough. The colour of my skin has prevented me from the harshest treatment. I've had my fair share of bad experiences with officials at borders or checkpoints though. Lots of hassle and violence from Israel border guards during non-violent conflict work in the West Bank, Palestine. More hassle entering and leaving the country. They wanted to know what Arabs I knew and why I was helping muslims! Deportation from the US in 2008 at Chicago airport by Homeland Security officers due to my legal (I was fully acquitted in 2006 by an Irish jury) assistance in disabling a US warplane at Shannon Airport, Ireland prior to the outbreak of the Iraq war. Witnessing heartless Irish immigration cops being bastards to foreign women and children at Dublin port. I'm sure you could add many more to this if you wanted.

Now when it comes to Ghana's immigration, well, Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe hits the nail on the head in his classic novel 'No Longer at Ease', charting the fall of one Nigerian State official to embody a new age of rampant corruption in Nigeria's State services. Ghana appears to be little different, although it would be hard to surpass Nigeria's brutal record of crookedness and bureaucratic multi-coloured tape. An envelope of cash brings an immediate response to an official and kickstarts them to work on your case. The absence of a 'dash' means you will wait, and wait, and fall into a lot of frustration as you are sent from this office to that office only to find that they won't give you what you are legally entitled to. They are a State mafia, extorting money from both professional ex-pats who come to work as either volunteers or business people to do work which, and here I quote one less corrupt junior immigration officer, „will do work for free that Ghanaians won't do even if you pay them”. That is a rough, generalised remark, that I have come to observe to be a half-truth.

To get my final 2 month extension I was expected to pay at least an 80 (50 Euro) cedi bribe, which I refused. Most other vounteers I know of are taken care of by their NGOs, whose representative must depart with a nominal sum depending on how many volunteers passports they want stamped. Due to the fact that I came here independently and am rendering professional services as an experienced teacher and social worker, they are trying to screw me similarly. Whether it is scholarships which have been gained due to academic brilliance, or deserved promotion due to hard graft, nothing will transpire in Ghana unless you pay some extra money to feed the greed of the lecturer, immigration official, administrator, etc.

Even when I lend an extra basin here at our centre from the kitchen staff, a basin which belongs to the centre, I am asked to bring them something in return. Handouts and back-scratching are the name of the game, but the true essence of mutual aid is one lap behind when it comes to some people's greed.

It's a frustrating process, one which drives most people to pay up and just get what they need and deserve. So when I go to Accra to try another avenue for my visa to be extended, I expect to asked for a 'dash' in a white envelope again. I already paid a futile 20 cedi sum to try and get a previous extension. It didn't work and I did it against my better judgement. In fact I did it as that is what my centre manager told me was the only option. We know know that they thought it was too little and even very big sums were rejected by them - so many volunteers have had to leave Ghana ansd re-enter through Togo to continue their projects.

If I am expected to give 'a little extra' yes, they can stick it up their holes. I'll leave the country and try and get back in by land rather than paying these corrupt wasters anything so they can sit on their arses and play all day with a hi-tech mobile phone purchased from the profits of their racketeering.

Is there any solution to this racket? I doubt it will change for a very long time, if it ever does.

Do you like immigration officers?

2009-04-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

Cause I certainly don't.

I'm off to Togo next Wednesday. Not for tourism reasons but to try and get an extension of my visa. I've been here 6 months in Ghana but Immigration at Kumasi are no longer giving the three 2 month extensions which they used to. Something got to do with too many fraudulent applications coming in. They want to tighten ship. Funny thing is, off the record, one corrupt immigration official informed me that if only I had not gone down the official route from the outset I would be getting the additional extension without any fuss.

I won't mince my words here. I really hate the vast majority of immigration officers and their abuse of power. I have found them lazy, incompetent luddites, whether it is in Ireland, the U.S., England, France, Poland, Germany, Lebanon, Syria, Serbia, Israel, etc. They seem cloned with a multitude of asshole genes. But they hold sway when it comes to travellers and their desire to get from A to B and back. So I will be a nice boy when I go travelling next week. I will have all my documents in order so there are no reasons for them to ask for a 'dash' (present, bribe).

Such is life when you give humans a uniform and permit them to act like idiots with a baton and a gun close at hand. If you are a nice immigration officer and have stumbled across this while you are bored at your job then I'd like to meet you, cause you are as a rare a breed as the dodo!

An abandoned Angel

2009-03-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday moning at 8am I was walking to the school centre from the nearby staff compound. It was a normal Sunday, hot and sparse of people, with church music increasing in noise as congregations flocked in to the multitude of churches under operation at Edwenase. But this was no ordinary Sunday morning. Just 2 1/2 hours earlier one of the housemasters arose to open up the gates of the Centre. After a rainy night you may find a puddle outside. Other than that you will just find broken asphalt caused by passing cars that use the school yard as a turning point, much to the disadvantage of those who are wheelchair bound and must travel on a rocky surface to and from their living quarters to the school workshops.

Sunday, March 29th, 2009, was extraordinary for a 8/9 year old girl called 'Angel'. Prior to the descent of dawn, her mother had travelled from some unknown point and decided to leave her daughter on Edwenase's doorstep. She was found by our housemaster lying on a blanket hlding a note in her hand. "Please don't think bad of me my little Angel. I'm leaving you where I think you can be best taken care of. For those who find my beautiful daughter, please take good care of her".

What drove a woman to abandon her kid on some stranger's doorstep. Well, the fact that her daughter suffers from sever cerebral palsy and is unable to walk or verbalise is a large part of the answer. Despite the fact that she was left on her own with just a piece of paper, hides the fact that she was actually well dressed and seemed to be well taken care of before she was found.

Did a desperate mother accede to the demands of a husband tired of fending for the child. Did an already abandoned wife/woman decide the child would be better of in the care of the State and that she could just not cope with the 'burden' of a disabled child any longer?

It appears to have been an act of desperation by a woman not thinking straight. She could have easily have waited for some hours, spoken to the Centre Manager, who would have arranged for the child to be sent to the Department of Social Welfare's children's home, also in Kumasi.

But now, she has obliged the school authorities to inform the police and try fill in the missing information on the child's medical and family background.

Angel will be taken care of by the State, but it is no replacement for even the occasional love of a family member. There is never a day without surprises at Edwenase, and this incident goes to prove that community based rehabilitation and much more family support for the parents and extended family of the disabled is urgently needed to avoid such abandonments in the future.

Photo-essay - Ghana from various angles

2009-03-22T08:51:00.000-07:00

The slave trade carried countless millions (estimates range from 13-16 million over 250-300 year period ending in the mid 1800's) to their deaths on perilous voyages across oceans and plantations. For those who survived initial capture, imprisonment in brutally inhumane conditions, even worse transportation without basic amenities for life, a life full of hard labour and maltreatment faced them. Recently I visited both Cape Coast and Elmina forts on Ghana's coast, former bastions of the Portugese, Dutch and British where they carried out their misdeeds. The tours were excellent and the museums very educational.

Dungeon passage at Cape Coast where the male slaves spent their days with little nourishment or water. Here, many last breaths were gasped in under the gaze of colonial soldiers.

A fetish priest pours libation in commemoration of the deceased who spent their last days at Cape Coast and for those whose suffering at the fort was coupled with more hardship once they left to be sold to help build America (North, Carribean and Brazil mainly).

'Door of No Return' at Cape Coast castle. An unsubtle reminder for those who passed through it during the slave trade era that there was no coming back once you saw this gate. To break this cursed door the bodies of two former slaves were taken back from the US and through these gates, so that it has now become a 'Door of Return'. Local fishermen can be found on the seaside part of the door, unravelling their nets and making a living for themselves. Their new nemeses are foreign trawlers that sweep up the best produce the sea provides through pair-trawling exercises using massive nets.

Many school tours like this one pour into Cap Coast fort every day to learn more about Ghana's history.

Wreaths left nearby the dungeons at Cape Coast by the descendants of 'slaves'

School children waiting to go to 'The Door of No Return', but to exercise their passage through it and back through the same 'Door of Return', helping break the terrible history that this door evokes. Cannons facing seaward warded off enemy combatants seeking to gain their foot in the door of the lucrative but wicked trade in human beings.

Elmina fort with a thriving fishing scene in the background. The guided tour at Elmina is excellent, as is the museum. The local historian gives a very insightful picture of how life was for the victims of Elmina's trade masters and soldiers. Similar to Oswiecim (or Auschwitz/Birkenau) in Poland, it is very difficult to imagine the horrors that have taken place at such sites. The preservation of Ghana's history seems to be in good hands both at Elmina and Cape Coast and thousands of school children, descendants of former slaves, foreign tourists converge to learn about how things really were (without the Hollywood dramatisation) and to be challenged to stand up for the downtrodden in today's society upon their departure.

Traditional clay fish ovens can be found all along the coast of Ghana. Here are some from Elmina.

Crocodile looking for prey around Hans Cottage Botel between Kakum and Cape Coast.

Don't worry, he's only breathing before he goes looking for his wife and kids

This Nigerian journalist we met on our travels got a bit of a shock (as we all did) when the crocodile decided to jump back into the water spilt seconds after this picture was taken.

Kwame Nkrumah was imprisoned at St. James fort under Governor Charles Arden Clarke before becoming Ghana's de facto leader upon release. He had to wait a few more years though before Ghana managed to kick the Brits out totally. This photo is taken from James fort looking towards Ussher's fort and a harbour full of fishermen's pirogues.

Kakum National Park and its famous canopy walk that gives you a great perspective of the surrounding environment

Diving into waves near Green Turtle Lodge. A well managed project has begun to conserve the green turtles from ending up on dinner plates to being a source of eco-tourism.

Ghana's coast has a litany of unspoilt beaches. Let's hope it remains that way.

The path from Busua to Butre is a beautiful 5 km walk through tropical forest and beaches as clean as a whistle.

The day before Ghana turned 52 - March 5th, 2009. I have no idea what the symbolism behind the construction is.

It certainly seems that this is the unknown soldier at Independence Square in Accra although there is no plaque or information around the monument.

Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Gardens in Accra - interesting museum, well worth a visit.

Ghana's Independence Leader, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, is buried alongside his Egyptian wife Fathia in Accra. One of their daughters is currently a Member of Parliament and the only MP of the former leader's Convention People's Party (CPP)
The Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Gardens in Accra with the burial monument in the background.

Fair Trade pineapples like this one can be found in a huge supermarket in Accra mall on the airport road. Fairtrade bananas are also on sell. They sell at a low price of 80 pesewas, about 20 pesewas cheaper than those sold by street traders. So what is fairer – increase the profit margin of a foreign owned supermarket (Shoprite) and its' bosses by buying an officially 'fairtrade' pineapple or purchase one from your local street trader outside the glamorous mall and help then eke out a living?

Ivan Illich and Vacationing Salesmen and women

2009-03-18T07:32:00.001-07:00

Was the Austrain social critic and former Catholic priest Ivan Illich correct when he called development policies, as practised by the Western banks and governments, 'planned poverty'?

Was he also correct to call those American university student-volunteers like those he met frequently in Mexico 'vacationing salesmen (women)' for US styled middle-class lifestyles?

Illich passed away 6 years ago but his radical thoughts on developmentalism have continued to attract disciples. Debt crucifies the poor while Aid provides a smokescreen for western concern.

So should all volunteers pack their bags and get the hell out? Should Bono and Geldof stop representing the continent of Africa during the World Economic Forum and
G8 conferences? Tim and Holli, both ex-pat bloggers based in Ghana have addressed the issue of volunteers living and working in Ghana.

If you are an Obroni living and sweating in Ghana I'd like to hear your thoughts either by email or by comment. I tend towards Illich's perspective, but think there have to be distinctions between different types of volunteers. To be continued.

Photo report on Ghana

2009-03-16T04:08:00.000-07:00

The door of return - the Cape Coast (former slave) fort guide explains how Ghanaians have reversed the curse of the infamous 'Door of No Return' where thousands of human beings weere shipped off to the Americas in brutal conditions.

Former president Kufuor had his priorities in place. I read that at least US $40 million was spent on this new presidential palace. From my previous blog you would have learned that he also spent $40 million on Ghana's 50th anniversary Independence
celebrations. US$80 million fizzled away on stuff that has little or no lasting impact for the Ghanaian people's welfare. No wonder Ghana joined the Heavily Indebted Countries initiative of the WB/IMF in 2002. And with ever increasing trade liberalisation rules being forced upon the public Ghana's days of debt are going nowhere fast.

Visually appetising enough for you? I've never seen a cow looking so happy promotinh himself as Sunday lunch! And what's with the name of the butcher? Well, as the hairdressing teacher at our centre explained to me yesterday we are all covered with the blood of Jesus and this is what protects us from harm's way. Let me give you some advice, if you are strictly vegan then you may find it hard going here!

Kwame Nkrumah, lionised in the 50's, demonised in the 60's, is regaining his head as visionary leader of pan-africanism and a leading light in Gha's history. The left want to make his birthday in September a national holiday. The right would rather that a national holiday is announced to commemorate independence leaders from both sides of their political history. This statue of Nkrumah was decapitated in 1966 when he was overthrown by a military coup. It now stands in the Kwame Nkrumah memorial park in Accra.

Ghana became 52 on March 6th 2009. It was colourful affair but not one you would want to stand and observe for others without shade. There was an interesting mix of Ghanaian society there - citizens, traders, military, diplomats, skaters, child labourers, les noveaux-riches, development workers, volunteers, tourists, etc.

I don't appreciate displays of war-voyeurism so when military aircraft overhead spewed out the colours of Ghana's flag instead of weapons it all semmed a little like a sanitising effort to the true nature of such weapons of violence and a means of appeasing critics of Ghana's wasteful military expenditure.

However, the day passed off peacefully and we didn't faint from the heat so that was a plus.

"Ghana is Freedom" - Made in China!

2009-03-06T10:53:00.000-08:00

Just before I stepped into the internet cafe this evening a traffic warden shouts ecstatically at the passing white man: "Ghana is Freedom". It dawned on me that when I came to Accra 2 weeks ago the same traffic lights were also out of order. It also hit my tired brain that the traffic lights have the exact same colours of the Ghanaian flag.

Let's try link up all this trivia.

First independence leader, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, chose the name Ghana for sub-Saharan Africa's first post-colonial nation -state as an inspiration for the future. Meaning 'warrior king' it was to embody a great empire from centuries ago which existed in what is now Mauritania. The colours of Ghana's flag - green for the tropical vegetation; gold for the mineral-rich mines; red for the sacrifices made to achieve independence; and black for pan-Africanism - resemble somehow the current state of the defunct traffic lights outside this cafe.

A young man, proud of his heritage, shouting a grammatically incorrect statement 'Ghana is freedom' is not a laughing matter. It doesn't matter a shit that it's not Oxford English. What does matter however, is that 2 years ago President Kufuor spent $40 million to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Ghana's freedom from Britain. Yet, 2 years later to the day, traffic lights on Accra's main road don't function and a man in a barely visible vest is stopping cars from one direction to let others fly by from another.

So while millions can continue to be spent on the myth that Ghana is freedom (why does it depend on so much aid if it is) every March 6th, few resources are channeled into things that really matter, like providing this traffic warden with proper equipment for his own safety and to conduct his important task for traffic.

Ghana has been strangled for decades by the West and it's own corrupt elite. It's traffic lights, as many other prominent Ghanaians have been saying over the past few weeks, are just not functioning well. So lets take off the rose-tinted glasses and let's stop the crap talk. Ghana is not freedom!

Postscript - Due to lack of time I did not write anything above which would justify the second part of the blog title: 'Made in China'

Well, wandering around the celebrations at Independence Square on Friday last it was obvious that an abundance of the Ghanaian "hats, scarves and headbands" etc. were leftovers from two years ago when it celebrated its 50th anniversary. It appears the patriotic wear had been mass produced in factories throughout China. Surprise, surprise. Nothing like abandoning your own indigenous industries when it comes to proclaiming your independence from other nations.

While warplanes spewed out red, yellow and green smoke above the applauding masses, the irony that the city authorities still hadn't fixed Kojo Thompson's traffic lights crossed my mind. If they can't afford to be bothered to fix them, it would have been far more useful if they just used these smoke theatrics on the top of the traffic lights. Green smoke unloads, traffic moves towards Nkrumah circle; orange smoke bellows, traffic slows down; red smoke flows outward, traffic ceases. The patient line of traffic adjacent can then proceed onwards as their smokey system kicks into operation.

I await calls from entrepeneurs to patent my classy idea.

Not to appear too cynical though, of course it is great Ghana can and does celebrate they day it kicked the Brits out. But as Ghanaweb point out, when your economic purse and people are worse off now than they were at Independence, some serious questions need to be asked and answers need to come fast. Nkrumah may have inherited the title of a great visionary, but it doesn't change the fact that in 1957 his gvt. had US $1 billion in foreign reserves -then, by the time he was ousted in 1966, Ghana's foreign reserves were depleted and the country primed for disastrous governance and corruption for decades after.

Sweating in Tamale

2009-03-02T08:37:00.000-08:00

I stayed on the first floor of the Al hassan hotel last night. Never thought I would experience anything like a Finnish sauna in Ghana, but it was a close as you can get. It's 40 degrees celsius outside and I've taken cover cause I'm Irish and need extreme forms of skin hydration from a multitude of precipitation forms in order to function normally. That aside Tamale is a city of a thousand bicycles and a nice change from the southern areas of Ghana. I'll post some pics soon.

A little touring of Ghana

2009-02-28T12:06:00.000-08:00

My peepers have had a welcome break from the screen recently as I've been playing tourguide for my girlfriend's parents over the past week. We managed to visit the Kwame Nkrumah (Independence leader) Memorial park and museum; Cape Coast and Elmina castles, both of which were used by Ghana's former slave traders (Dutch and Brits mainly) with their sinister 'Doors of No Return' leading out to the Gulf Of Guinea whereupon countless millions over decades crossed perilous waters and conditions to become slaves in the Americas and beyond. We also managed to get to the fishing and tourism villages of Akwidaa, Butre and Busua where the local people's hospitality was great and the refreshing swim in the sea a welcome change to city life.

When I get a chance I will upload photos to give you a sense of how seeped in history Ghana is and hoe beautiful and diverse is the natural environment here. We spent a beautiful day in Kakum national park where I learned that one biologist discovered more species of ant living on one tree than can be found in the whole of Ireland and Britain. This has been my first chance to see Ghana in a bit more depth as for the first four months Dorota and I decided to base ourselves solely in Kumasi and concentrate on our work.

So it has been interesting exploring the coastline, meeting Ga, Ahante, Fante, Ewe peoples and trying to bend our Ashanti Twi dialect to encompass other Akan languages. I was surprised to find out that a lot of people understood our quests at communicating. I also learned a lot from Kobina Sekyi's parody 'The Blinkards' which is written in Fante and English. It is successful piss-pulling comedy play on the elite of Cape Coast attempting to become more English than the English themselves, at the turn of the 20th century.

So as Bug's Bunny would, that's all folks! We haead to the Northern region tomorrow to see Tamale and Larabanga. We were pleasantly surprised to see the staff had already started making to wheelchair ramps at our school from the Christmas project money. Before we left for Accra last week we bought a good range of Ghanaian educational books for the library we hope to start building in 2 weeks. The plumbing has also been fixed in the school from the xmas cards funds. Lots done and looking forward to seeing the students again next week.

Until then, nante yie (goodbye)!

3 important rules when living in Ghana

2009-02-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

Would you go to a place called 'Mama Farty Fast Food'? I think not. Well the locals of Kwadaso don't care about the ironic branding of one of their favourite joints. Mama Farty's business is near by our local internet cafe. When I first saw the name inscribed on her small roadside food cabin, I scratched my bald patch in awe as to what meaning there could be in Twi that I was missing. Unfortunately the mystery continues. I haven't yet plucked up the courage to ask for fear that I will be asked what I think it means. Maybe it's just her name, although it doesn't sound so native, does it?

Then again, neither did the surname of the honeymooning couple whom I first gave a boat driving demonstration to in banagher when I worked as a teen on the river Shannon. The newly wedded German woman seemed to have absolutely no problem becoming Mrs Wanker. I kid you not.

The other night I went to get bread from a lovely old woman who lives in the locality. En route I passed by the trader who I sometimes buy eggs from and opposite her an orange and banana seller. The latter had her baby girl strapped to her back, as is the way of life here for most young kids whose mums work for a living. The local creche ends up being observing your mum's interactions with scores of neighbours and buyers from the area. As a kid your every need is attended to by your mum who is as close to you as physically possible. There's no Barbie, Ken or any other Disney figure to brainwash you. just real people going about their daily business all the time. But there's gotta to be a catch, huh! Well there is, given the subject matter I am addressing is somewhat related to names, you'll never guess what the kid's name is? I won't even bother wasting your breath.

Me: „Oh, and this is your beautiful daughter. Efre no sen (What is her name)?”
Trader: „Lady.”
Me: „Sorry.”
Trader: „Her name is Lady, like Lady Diana.”
Me: „Oh, well, wo ho te sen (how are you) Lady?”

End of conversation as Lady can't speak yet.

Rule No. 1- Never judge a fast food joint nor a person by their cover. Mama Farty's serves good food, Mr and Mrs Wanker were a lovely couple and Lady was the cutest baby I've seen since I came here.

Would you pray in a ramshackle chapel called 'Kingdom of Fire' above a bar with blaring music? I didn't think so. It may seem an odd place to go in order to get in touch with your Creator, but no divinity is beckoned in quietude here. Heaven is a long way away, so you oughtta scream out loud and get good amps if you want to be heard. Afterall, a lot of people are out there trying to get God's attention.

Maximise the noise till your ear drums have popped and your head is spinning with the rythmn of drumbeats, keyboards, trumpets and any other musical instrument lying around. For me, raised an Irish Catholic, the fact that people dance, wave handkerchiefs and voluntarily remain active participants in a religious service for 3+ hours is hard enough to fathom. And all of it is done, believe it or not, without the consumption of alcohol! Song, dance and a whole load of preaching is the protestant sect recipe of the day. Catholics do the same but with a lot more attention to sacramentalism. Just add candles, incense, altar servers, proclamation of faith through the creed, general confession and absolution, eucharist and you get your main differences.

A House of Rhema pastor comes down the steps while my friends and I are waiting for the Ghana Book Trust to open. He seems younger than me, but maybe that's just cause he shaves more regularly. „Hello friends, how are you all today?” Focussing his attention on me he stresses that it is God's plan that we met. He wants my phone number, to know where I live, what I am doing in Ghana, when will I visit his church. All within the first minute of our encounter. I was quite proud of the fact that I refused to give out my number, stating that I only pass on my details to people I know. I take his 'business card' to be respectful but as soon as he is gone I leave it on top of a shelf nearby. Why pretend a guy I met for 1 minute is a friend and God predestined us to meet when in actual fact he just happened to be coming down the stairs going somewhere while I was waiting to look as some books for our school library. That's it Pastor, there ain't nothing divine about it.

Fast forward two weeks – I am going towards the local porridge seller at 7.30am to get my daily fill. I meet my former neighbour (before he got kicked out for overstaying his welcome and here he had us conned that he was best friends with the director!) and local hairdresser. He makes another attempt at me to go to his church.

D: „I want you to come to my church, when are you going to come and worship with me?”
Note – He belongs to the protestant sect 'Assemblies of God' that are quite popular in this part of Ghana.
Me: „Well, we don't believe in the same thing so thanks but I'd rather not”
D: „Oh, why? Lots of white people come to my church. There is English translation on a screen for you to read if you don't understand the Twi.”
Me: „Ok, but it doesn't really matter what if white people go or not. You worship the way you want to and that's fine, but I come from a different background.”
D: „You are Christian, aren't you?”
Me: I was raised Catholic but......... (I don't need to fill in theg gaps here. Suffice to say I am a doubting Thomas).
D: „But you can still come and read the bible.”
Me: „Well, I don't believe the bible is the literal truth like your church does.”
D: You don't believe in the bible”
Me: ”I think it has interesting moral messages to teach us but I don;t believe it is literally all true. For example, take the two creation stories in Genesis.”
D: „But there is only one creaton story, God made everything in 7 days.”
Me: „Hmmm, I have my doubts. Isn't there the creation story of human's that Eve came from Adam's rib but also that man and woman were made simultaneously?”
D: „Where is that?”
Me: In Genesis, read the early chapters. If the bible is the literal truth how can you have two creation stories. One of them must be wrong. And if one is wrong, then the bible can't be the literal truth. Listen I should go got my porridge, I'll talk to you later.”

Rule No. 2 – Beware of constant church invitations. The fundamental reason is to get you to become a member of the church; the second so the inviter can look good bringing a white heathen to worship; the third, however, may just be out of common courtesy from a nice person who bids you no ill. Judge which invitation you have received carefully and don't be duped into saying yes cause you think it's bad manners to say no.

******
„My friend's tell me that Irish people are cute and short”. So says the cashier at the electrical goods store where I have just bought another voltage protector. She remembers me from a previous visit with Dorota and inquires where is the lady you were with last time. I sense a subtle marriage proposal coming! But then I'm a bit slow when it comes to flirting rituals.

Rule No. 3 – Go along with flirting from natives but if you are already tied to someone, draw the line so they can see it clearly. It can be good fun but you don’t want them stalking you over the phone, which men have a tendency to do if you give them your phone number.

Being ready to live as a volunteer in Ghana

2009-02-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

A sponge

The amount of dust one accumulates in their lungs, nose, ears, on their skin and pretty much everywhere is very hard to estimate. But by 3pm, if you rub a finger against the bare skin of your neck layers of dirt will start to show. If you have access to a shower, use it daily. If you have to use a bucket of water, then do so daily by washing yourself thoroughly. You will feel better, look cleaner and are less likely to get skin rashes, fungi, etc.

A radio

Note: Banana is just to give you an idea of the scale and is not a necessary accessory for tuning in to the airwaves.

It's important to keep tuned into local and national FM stations so you have a clue about matters that interest the general public, your neighbours, etc. and keep in touch with the news from bordering countries. Especially in Ghana, people like to and can openly speak about politics. In other countries you may want to keep a tighter lip – use your two ears and one mouth in that proportion. A lot of the radio stations, as with newpapers, are partisan and openly so. Listen and read from both or indeed all sides of the fence so you get a feel for the type of language they use to condemn each other.

Furthermore, with short wave you can keep a track on the BBC's Network Africa and Focus on Africa as well as general international news.

Sunday is reserved for God in Ghana and I suspect the same can be said for many countries in west Africa, so you can use the 7th day to recharge the batteries.

Toilet roll

When you are on a journey in the sweltering heat, your water bottle or sachet is empty, and your stomach is feeling queasy, toilet roll can come in very handy. Keep in mind there will be no stop offs at roadside garages that have electric flushes and scented roll from Kleenex. Plaintain, banana leaves are an alternative, as is your neighbour's newspaper (use the page with advertisements on it and he/she won't mind). In addition, the dust you accumulate in your ears and nose over one day of daily business here is equal to 2 weeks in the moderate climate of Europe. Unless you work in a dusty concrete factory. So blow and clean regularly. Try to get your hands on locally produced recycled paper. In Ghana it is called Rose and a pack of 10 cost between GHC2.50-2.70 or 1.50 euro.

An adaptor, intelligent voltage protector (and maybe a stabiliser)

To prevent your head being wrecked when your 2 pin round head plug does not fit the socket, make sure you come fully equipped or purchase the above once you get here. It may save you a lot of headaches and financial cost as the voltage fluctuates terribly at times and your chargers, equipment may be damaged in the process.

A brush

Not the one for your hair - guys, you are better off without any in this heat and dust. Girls, remember long, flowing (and especially blonde, fair) hair drives men crazy here. Tie it up, cut it off or let it become scraggy! Back to topic- I'm talking about a clothes brush. A scrubber to get all the dirt on your clothes is a must purchase. Then, as Tom Cruise famously said in a brutal Irish accent in the film Far and Away - "Plunge and scrub".

As regards hair brushes, I know little to the extent of their necessity as I have been in recession for quite some time. One thing is for certain though ladies, you will lose hair here due to the dryness and water quality. So get mammy to send you over some replenishing shampoo or shop till you drop in the local market – unfortunately, you may not find what you are looking for as hair materials tend to be mostly focussed on hair straightening. The majority of women in Ghana, at least, wear wigs and extensions. Afros are out sadly. The politics of African women europeanising their hair was recently covered by the Pan-Africanist publication New African in their December 2008 edition and is well worth a read.

A bucket

For washing your clothes in, splashing your face, flushing the toilet, to fill your kettle with water so you can sterilise and clean your utensils properly, to put on your head and pretend you are New Kelly, etc. etc. It's uses are endless. Turn it upside down and you have an extra seat. If you drink too much beer or get malaria you can puke in it. I think you get the idea. It really is a must as running tap water may not be in such a convenient place for you. You may be living some distance from running water if you are a volunteer on an under-resourced project or in a rural area, so be prepared. Barter hard and you'll get a gallon capacity bucket for GHC 3 or less than 2 euro.

A mosquito net

To avoid contracting malaria or more likely nasty, itchy bites that will keep you up all night. You can get them easily here and they don't cost much. Mend holes as soon as they appear and regularly spray with anti-mosq. permethrin or just ensure you have a Permanet.

Bowl, spoon, cup

A lot of food is eaten by the right hand (the left is reserved post-food digestion purposed) but every now and again your stomach will not be feeling the best so it's wise to have the basics in stock. You probably won't have access to a fridge so you gotta eat all you prepare and don't forget to be a disciplined washer or cockroaches and ants will become your best friend. You can also impress locals with your sponn playing musical talents.

Games

So you can interact with local kids. It's the best way to break ice with their family at large and also to learn the native language. A football costs little but you would be amazed at the emount of kids playing with flat balls as regular hand pumps are not so accessible nor cheap. On sale rather are the larger pumps which cost at least 5 euro, hence the flat balls will you find everywhere. Valves are also hard to get at times so buy one when you come across and mind it. Table tennis is also popular amongst both genders, as is pool, though this is somewhat more a male in the bar scene.

Brush (local reeds tied together) & dustpan (cardboard)

To brush your floor daily. The dust that builds on window shutters, floor, everywhere you can possibly imagine is surprising. So brush and dump regularly for your own health. You can get them for very cheap in the local market or else just make one for yourself from your natural surroundings. Brush your floor regularly to ward off creatures from thinking your territory is part of the wild. And when you come across cardboard remember it can be used to make all sorts of things apart from dustpans - think boxes, bedside locker, educational posters, twister, etc.

Pee bottles

Snakes in the bush should be enough to remind you that peeing under the cover of darkness in he wilderness is not always the bravest or brightest thing to do. Relieve yourself inside, putting it safely aside for disposal the next morning. It also means you're less likely to get mosquito bites as you won't need to venture out unnecessarily while it is their dinner time. If you do, put on lots of repellent or wear long clothing. One bite from that anepholes mosquito can cause a hell of a lot of pain.

Santa comes late to Ghana's ex-President Kufuor

2009-01-26T05:35:00.000-08:00

<Ex-president Kufuor has received a fairly generous retirement package from parliament.....

...despite the fact that government projects and schools for the disabled continue to rely upon foreign food imports and handouts to keep their heads just above water

"On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me, a partridge in a pear tree.” I'll guess that you have an idea about the rest of this famous Christmas song so I won't bother writing the rest of it. History lovers will remember that it was illegal to be a Catholic in England (and Ireland) from 1529 until the Catholic Emancipation Act in 1829. This song was thus written as a means to teach young Catholics their faith. 'True love' stands for God, 'me' the church and 'a partridge' represents Jesus Christ, the mother partridge acting as a decoy to save her helpless chicks (i.e. us).

So what the hell has all this got to do with Ghana. Well, funnily enough, it was the first thing that came into my head when I recently heard about ex-Ghanaian president John A. Kufuor's retirement package. John must have been worried about what Santa Claus (I'm using metaphors here as I can safely guess the reader is acquainted with the tradition whereas the obese guy who needs a beard trimming is an alien to most Ghanaians) was going to leave under his fake pine tree. He was already missing out on the gold spray-painted US$37 million presidential palace constructed under his tenure. Twice his nemesis in the 2000 and 2004 elections, newly elected president John Evan Atta Mills will wine and dine the elite for the coming 4 years in this enormous waste of taxpayer's money.

The Chinery-Hesse commission was established to propose a relevant 'good luck and good night' gift-wrapped incentive for Ghanaian presidents to leave power peacefully and not dangerously meddle in political life after their tenure. This is what they decided on. If you are Ghanaian you may wish to rewrite the lyrics of the above mentioned song in commemoration of this fine bulk of presents John has received.

On the first day of Christmas the taxpayer gave to me:

 1 overseas holiday (with his wife, for a maximum of 65 days)
 2 fully furnished residences
 3 saloon cars
 4 hundred thousand dollars (US) (paid as a lump sum)
 5 cars in total (all to be maintained, insured, taxed, fuelled and chauffeur driven)

Ok, this is where the numerical symbolism of the song goes out of tune, so bear with me.

 1 million dollars (US) to establish a foundation
 A 24 hour security guard
 An annual budget for 'entertainment'
 A constant police cortege while travelling
3 personal assistants and additional security personnel while travelling
 An ex gratia bonus amounting to 18 months salary
 Free medical care

And well, that's pretty much it. Of course, it has also being offered to the only other surviving president, ex-military dictator JJ Rawlings. He's the only other survivng president, cause, you see, when he came to power in '79 and again in '82 by force he had 2 other ex-presidents executed. So in that sense, I guess you could say he saved the taxpayer quite a lot of money from the perspective of this generous retirement package. JJ, ever the populist, has denounced the lucrative deal, which has been passed by parliament, as "grandiose rubbish”. On Friday January 23rd, Daily Graphic's columnist George Sydney Abugri admitted he found himself struck for words, not only because of the extent of the package but also the debacle which ensued conflicting reports regarding parliament's alleged underhanded passing of the bill. Some MPs seemed unaware that it had been voted on and threatened legal action to seek redress.

So what's the bigger picture. Well, as the Daily Telegraph reported in Britain, it does seem a stretch generous given the fact that Ghana relies on 91 million pounds of aid annually to keep the population's head above water. In other words, such extravagant gifts for one individual and his wife were ludicrous in the context of the poverty faced by many Ghanaians. Even supporters of Kufuor's party, the NPP, were uncharacteristically critical of the ex-president's farewell rewards.

The Daily Graphic compared it to ex-president Bush's retirement package:
 $191,000 pension
 secret service protection
 paid travel expenses and 2 assistants
 private fund to establish a library
 free medical care

Laura and George get no house, car nor gratuity. If I was on the US retirement commission he would get a one-way flight to the Hague to stand before the International Criminal Court. But I'm not, so I guess you are safe George.

President Kufuor has not given any public statement regarding the controversy but he supposedly would rather just three vehicles. Yeah, that ought to be enough I would think.

So it remains to be seen whether the passing of legislation granting President Kufuor 20 wheels and 2 front door keys, amongst other benefits, survive court or parliamentary challenges. It looks likely though that it will not be reversed, and that Africa's great model for peaceful, democratic transition has been dealt with in an exemplary fashion by Chinery-Hesse. Who needs 12 drummers drumming, eleven pipers piping, ten lords a-leaping, nine ladies dancing, eight maids a-milking, seven swans a-swimming, six geese a-laying, five golden rings, four calling birds, three French hens and two turtle doves when your friends are partridges and have keys to the treasury.

Protect your electircal equipment in Ghana

2009-01-23T12:10:00.000-08:00

There will be nothing revelationary in today's blog, apart from a little tip regarding connecting electric appliances whilst in Ghana. This info. also applies for those of you who are visiting any country whose electricity supply is unstable.

You will save yourself a lot of hardship if you purchase an intelligent voltage protector as soon as you begin using your laptop, charging batteries, etc. Due to the erratic fluctuations in voltage you may find a lot of your hardware destroyed if you are unlucky to experience such events, which from anecdotal evidence occur quite frequently. In Ghana you can get an IVP for about 14 Cedi, 8 Euros or $11. If you go to Binatone's factory in Accra or Kumasi you will knock off 2 Cedi from your expenditure.

If you are using a TV, fridge, dvd player - in other words, a lot of equipment at once, then get a plugboard and stabiliser (range between 45-90 Cedi depending on voltage) to ensure that they don't all blow up when the currents jump or descend to the abyss.

How to live on 1 Cedi 60 pesewas a day (90 cents a day)

2009-01-15T10:07:00.000-08:00

Buy 20 pesewas worth of porridge before 8am as it's high in demand and the pot will be scraped clean at 8:01 leaving your belly grumbling. Slice one of the 3 bananas you got for 20 pesewas the night before (you share them with another person so in fact you only pay for and have a right to 1.5 bananas). Prepare a cup of real coffee, which costs about 2 pesewas when you add powdered milk and sugar (all 3 from west African States) that you purchased on Kejetia market.

Use your 30 pesewas piece of fresh bread or sugar bread to finish off the other half banana. You purchase all of these locally to cut out transportation costs and support local traders who in turn give you better deals once they see you are a loyal customer.

For dinner, between 3-5pm, given that you have not invested in pots or pans, charcoal or a grill , etc. you go to one of the many local roadside eating joints, which pretty much serve up home cooking. It's economically better sense for the majority of adults who are working to eat this way. For 40 pesewas you will get a good serving of rice, plaintains, yam or fufu - add some 30 pesewas of cabbage stew, cocoyam leaves with sauce, or salad and mayo - leave out your meat and fish which are an unessential additive, and hey presto you are full for the rest of the day.

You still have enough for a cold sachet of water, costing 5 pesewas, while you can buy for small, fresh oranges for 20 pesewas and spilt them with partner.

Then, to top it all off, you have 20 pesewas for bisuits, a chocolate chewy, more fruit or a cold juice.

That's how you live on a budget of 1 euro a day in Ghana if you are a volunteer! And it all tastes good, is healthy and substantial enough to keep you fighting off all them bugs.

Of course, you will need a supplementary fund for internet and whatever other enterprises you want to engage in. But living on 50 pesewas of food for a month is a good way to start saving for other areas. If you have your own tips, feel free to add.

A 'friend' I just can't shake off

2009-01-12T10:47:00.000-08:00

'A motivational speaker once told me that blah blah blah blah......'

Sorry, I can't finish Franklin's conversational piece because I didn't listen well enough and subsequently found it of no interest to the topic which was at hand when he offered his contribution. He was of course, uninvited, when Dorota and I were engaged in a conversation, discussing matters related to our project. He is a colleague of our project director and was just wandering around the centre while the Dec. 7th voting was taking place, albeit without any intention of exercising his franchise, Franklin has since come to be one of these folks who are hard to not meet on the streets.

His presence seems almost omniscient, Great Caesar's Ghost, appearing from the shadows, enthusiastically and incorrectly uttering 'Doroga', 'Daniel' – vying for the attention of his new found friends. Problem is, he is not our friend. We have no idea who he is. And herein lies the problem. People like Franklin, who are far and few between in Ghana, seem to have an Obroni radar implanted in their brains, either divinely installed or self-inserted. Once we step out onto public pathways they seem to hone in on their prey. Whether it's a European address, a white woman (or her sisters, friends) to possess or $$$$, one thing is for certain. They want something from you, the alien, other than to greet you and bid you a good day or night. It's not out of poverty that this annoying clinginess derives. I rather think it is part of the same cancer that a journalist recently wrote about in Ghana's well-respected national Daily Graphic – the 'get rich quick cancer'.

Mourning this increasing phenomenon in Ghanaian society, the writer was specifically addressing a recent tragedy that occured nearby Kumasi. A fuel tanker having overturned, a number of locals sporadically decided to prosper from the spoils, only to end up cremated when a sparks flew and an inferno commenced and death clenched it's unforgiving claws on those who acted before thinking. In fact, I've invoked a boycott against him due to the fact that he crossed a boundary he knows he shouldn't have. While I was recently talking to my brother on a pay phone he appeared, characteristically, out of nowhere. He paid little heed to the fact that I was having a private conversation on the phone but disturbingly continued his approach and attempted to engage us, so she took the initiative to move him away by moving some 5 metres away herself. He positioned herself on a bench beside her, and characteristically for Dorota, she respectfully did not prejudge nor brush him off. Later she told me that he had put his hand on her leg, and spoke about wanting a white woman, motivational speakers, blah, blah, blah......she quickly removed his hand and without verbally giving him the cold shoulder made him fully aware that his behaviour was out of order. Thus, he is ow the first person in almost 3 months here to make it onto our 'persona non grata' list.

Now, everywhere I and we turn, he is there, in the shadows (due to the dim street lighting and not the murkiness of his character). Not stalking nor acting in a sinister fashion, you know, just one of these people that you happen to run into an awful lot and pretends to have a history with you while acting like an asshole when he plucks up the courage to disrupt.

So to conclude, I think it's only fair to clarify, unless you go away with a negative stereotype about Ghanaian males as a result of the above vitriolic diatribe about Franklin. Such species are as rare as icecream in our local area. Every now and again they pop up, but by and large, one can go about their daily business unhindered apart from the cute, harmless and repetitive squeals of young kids shouting, 'Broni ba, broni ba' (The white man/woman is coming, the white man/woman is coming). And all they want back is a wave, smile or funny face - not an engagement ring or your bank details.

Butre - a hidden treasure on Ghana's coast

2009-01-10T05:32:00.000-08:00

The small, mainly fishing village of Butre outside Takoradi welcomed us warmly recently over the New Year. Apart from the begging habits of the kids, testimony not to their poverty but to their regular interactions with tourists who reinforce bad habits by giving handouts, the local people were very hospitable and the area is really majestic. Hideout lodge is a simple but well-run accommodation centre nearby the village and well worth a stay.

Fort Batenstein - built by the Dutch in the late 17th century, it was handed over to the British in the late 19th century and fell into ruin soon after

The beautiful beach at Butre, with Hideout lodge in the foreground and an Ewe fishing village 400 metres beyond

Inside the fort, which needs a bit of a weeding

The winds of change will change little

2009-01-10T05:15:00.001-08:00

2009 has hit Ghana, as has the final election result from the presidential run-off between the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate, Nana Addo Akufuo Addo, and the Opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) runner Professor John Evan Atta Mills. With one final constituency to vote on January 2nd the political nemeses were neck to neck, but with NPP calling for a boycott from the Tain constituency vote as a protest against electoral regularities (meaning they knew the hadn't a snowball's chance in hell of winning), the former Internal Revenue Service Head Prof. Mills succeeded in gaining the leadership post – a matter of being 3rd time lucky, as he had previously being defeated in 2000 and 2004 by outgoing NPP president John Kufuor.

Fears remain amongst NPP supporters as to whether Jerry Rawlings, the former military dictator (1979, 1982-92) and civilian leader (1992-2000) will have a major influence on Atta-Mills NDC regime.

The President-elect will receive the keys to the new US$37.5 million presidential palace in Accra on January 7th, built on the former site of Independence leader and Pan-Africanist Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's HQ (overthrown by military coup in 1966 after being in power for 9 years). Sprayed in gold it is a typically indulgent elitist project which has squandered vast sums of taxpayers money.

Ok, enough politics. No matter who is in power, the students of the Dept. of Social Welfare vocational training school at Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre haven't a prayer of getting access to their statutory right to grants to aid them start their own small business ventures. Basic resources like sewing machines are in need of repair and pleas have to be made at every corner to ensure that there will be sufficient food in the coming semesters so that the school can re-open. But Ghana's political elite will bask in a gold-sprayed edifice and dine with cutlery sets that could probably fund one of the talented students here for the coming 12 months. Sympathy from readers, whether their pockets are deep or not, will not solve the 'begging syndrome' which is an inevitable result of being desperate for funds here.

And yet there is not a whisper of dissent to be heard from the church, trade unions, students, media or civil society at large at this evident waste of money on one building for one man his entourage. Yes, we all know, the Ghanaian politicians aspire for Ghana to be a 1st world country by 2025 and inviting world leaders to a roadside chop bar will not do anything for poitical or economic prestige. It's all about keeping up appearances. Ghanaian politicians, through the UN Millenium Development Goals, are still hoping to eliminate poverty and ensure primary education for all, abolish the high infant mortiality rates, etc. etc. etc.

Forgive my economic immaturity and mathematical dumbness, but investing almost US$40 million in a time of global financial hardship (albeit the project was commissioned some years ago, that is, when Ghana's economic outlook was far more negative) doesn't seem like the best way to go about achieving these targets. Many of these grand proclamations of poverty and infant mortality reduction, gender equality, disease control, global cooperation and development expansion are testimony to the distance the elite find themselves from those on the grassroots level. GDP, GNP rates are inhuman economic indicators that often miss the true human picture of how people continue to struggle to better themselves against overwhelming odds. Yet they are the acronyms that are often quoted throughout the media that Ghana is a beacon of light in the midst of a 'heart of darkness' (Yip, I had to put in some Conrad- afterall, I am writing about Africa, remember).

Whether it is our local porridge/omelette seller or tyre dealer who will likely never gain access to credit to improve their small businesses if they wished to do so. Whether it is the sprawling masses of child labourers (e.g. kayayee girls) who flee rural villages crucified with agricultural productivity deprivation due to World Bank and International Monetary fund stipulations that the State cut subsidies for farm machinery, irrigation schemes, etc. Whether it is the elderly churchgoer who gives her hard-earned pesewas to exploitative self-styled evangelists, pastors, and prophets who poverty preach, rant and rave in tongues. I just wish the Pentecost did actually descend one day and show those who use the facilities at this Centre the difference between a shower room and a toilet. Maybe then they would find divine inspiration to walk the extra 4 metres and stop pissing in the washing facility.

All in all, I hold out little will change under the governance of the NDC. Solutions that will be advantageous for those on the bottom rung are hard envision when spending exorbitant amounts of money on a presidential palace is welcomed as a grand symbol of national pride and achievement. It appears to me, that it rather perfectly symbolises the growing gap between rich and poor in this country.

Or maybe I will be proved wrong, and as I write contingents of labourers from Anglo Ashanti goldmines in Obouasi are being organised to spraypaint every Ghanaian State centre for the disabled with gold?

Time will reveal all as to whether my grunts of anger transpire to be true or not.

Being White in Ghana

2008-12-27T07:22:00.000-08:00

As a typical stereotype here, one may deem that the absence of melanin from our skin (and resulting whiteness) due to our temperate climate in Europe/N. America is generally correlated with the notion that we are weighed down with banknotes and potentially invaluable assets. There is nothing too out of the ordinary with this concept really. How else did you, the white person, afford your plane ticket, mobile phone, digital camera, laptop? How can you manage to keep yourself fed and clothed when you are volunteering? How come you can travel so extensively without any standard work-related income? Somebody must be paying! Indeed, somebody or some institution is.

Namely, governments who have a long past history and current practice of plundering the resources of Africa (yes, the whole continent of 922 mn. people and 54 Euro-constructed states). Or, in my own case, my own savings from work and generous family/friend donations. So despite the fact that we, Obronis, get annoyed with the fact the majority treat us like we have more than them and could potentially be a route to assist their education and so forth, lets put our hands up and admit that this may well be the case, whether we like to admit it or not.

A quick class analysis of volunteers in the Global South will not turn up legions of the West's underclass, nor the children of the traditional working class. We, white volunteers all, when all is said and done, are extremely secure in relative terms. Of course, there is nothing revelationary about this information. But it seems to me more and more that the recipients of our 'charitable' time and efforts are innately more aware of the almost inescapable differences between our circumstances. Out of this guilt we feel, maybe a feeling of charity arises - problem is, are we really affecting any change that is sustainable or are we just mopping up, providing a smokescreen for nasty folks in suits who are working hard to undo small steps we may be making in the 'right' direction. Yes, the dreaded 'M' word - the multinational!
Think Shell, Anglo Gold Ashanti, Firestone - the list is almost perpetual.

We, the pale folk, seek potential sponsors so that we can carry out good deeds for the needy other. Our governments, or a host of NGO's may grant us the possibility of a career break, a post-high school transition, an escape from the boredom of our lives at home. Our job, as volunteers and workers for these institutions, is to make ourselves jobless – that is, we have to try and facilitate the reintegration of refugees, help ensure HIV/AIDS education is effective, teach numeracy and literacy to those excluded from the mainstream school system.

Making oneself jobless is not a great motivation to achieve one's goals, especially if you are a paid development worker with dependents. But then again, are these goals (for example the UN Millenium Development Goals really achievable by 2015) desirable or even achievable. At the current rate, the answer is a plain and simple 'No'. This has already been widely accepted by the UN and mainstream NGOs.

Dropping one's expectations may reduce the disappointment we will all feel when the Western government's promises of 0.7% of GDP is allocated to Overseas Development Aid budget. Of course, it's not justified that we have to do so. But it has always been this way, and always will until radical changes occur on our own home turf. There is no political will. There is no social demand from the masses for things to change. In other words, do we really give a shit whether things change or not. It's a question I ask myself daily here. For fear of coming across as a cynic, I beg to differ.

But hand on heart, when one sees the neglect of many children both from Dublin to Hebron, Warsaw to Kumasi - the prospect of ever reaching these UN MDG's, which I think are quite moderate anyway, seem a million years away, and not the 6 years which is the desired deadline for poverty and hunger to be abolished, primary education to be universal, gender equity achieved, etc.

It just ain't happening. Some solutions and less complaining will follow next time.

Christmas at Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre

2008-12-27T06:27:00.000-08:00

Thanks to the students, staff and volunteers' collective efforts with the Christmas Card Project, the food and drinks generously donated for this year's Christmas party by various churches and individual benefactors could be supplemented to ensure there was also entertainment and enough chicken, fish, rice, salad, beverages, juice and biscuits for all concerned. So as the students return home to be with their families for the coming two months thanks to all who bought the cards or otherwise supported the project. Rest assured Christmas time was very enjoyable for all concerned.

Nobody needs encouragement to dance at Edwenase. Here, the students are dancing to the tunes of a local DJ who once again donated his time to create an atmosphere of fun for all. A small sum of money was charged to provide 8 hours of entertainment. Drinks and biscuits were donated by the DJ's wife.

Canopies were also provided to protect all from the 33 degrees C of heat

Anita and Dorota enjoying the beats

Our first game of basketball after a long quest for a ball that didn't cost an enormous sum of money. Unfortunately, somebody decided to pump the ball up too much afterwards and it blew up. So it's back to the market next week

Party in the Centre Assembly Hall. The 55 or so students who remained at the Centre for Christmas were joined by about 10 members of staff and volunteers along with their families and friends. Everybody was stuffed after the beautiful food. Thanks to the catering staff for their culinary skills and Madame Rita, Mr. Modesto and Mr. Oduru for all their hard work.

6 things an Obroni should have in Ghana

2008-12-20T11:57:00.000-08:00

Some of the following may be obvious, others lifesaving, while others you may deem ridiculous. Judge for yourself if you ever venture to this neck of the woods.

Mosquito repellent and net - Unless you want to suffer from extreme fever, loss of appetite and the feeling that your life is about to end prematurely, then it is worth keeping a good eye on your mosquito net, ensuring there are no wholes nor minor gaps for one of the little terrorists to enter and suck on your sweet blood. The evening anepholes mosquito are particularly nasty so cover up head to toe. If you're taking a break on the beach, do likewise. Many volunteers letting their hair down make this mistake and come back with a parasite in their blood and an empty pocket with all the treatment they require. Some of the medication to combat malaria may cause stomach problems, possibly due to the aspirin content. Get advice from the doctor how to alleviate the problem, Injections against malaria cost a bit more but are a quicker solution. Oral medication can take at least 5 days to effectively work and may suppress your appetite despite the fact that it is essential for you to eat (light soup, non-fried food).

First Aid medical knowledge - Many private clinics just have doctors a few hours a day. Most public hospitals are full to the brim with patients. So remember, prevention is better than cure. Avoid going to clinics and hospitals by using common sense for common sicknesses. Don't take risks with unfiltered or unboiled water - your insides are just not used to it. Drink lots of water as a daily habit. Don't share water you have back-washed into, if possible - you are likely to either catch a bug or pass on one. Eat lots of fresh fruit. Avoid midday sun. Walk in the shade when possible.

If you need hospital care, ask for embassy and local advice. When you get there ask for everything (a bowl to puke in, balm to relieve muscular pains, etc.)as many times as it takes you to get it but be respectful to the probability that others may have been waiting prior to your arrival for attention. Be patient with what may seem casual attitudes from nursing and even senior medical staff. They will usually get the job done, just not in a way you are accustomed to.

Appropriate clothing – Yes all the guides say it. So though your pre-trip advisors and volunteering counsellors. But it sometimes just does not sink in. Nakedness, even if you are a hunk guys, is culturally disrespectful. Ladies, the less revealed the less hassle you will get – seems like a fair bargain. Yes, you may be boiling hot, but just get used to it and keep your pale, hairy chest covered. Trousers below the knee are (i) more attractive (ii) more respectful (iii) more practical if they have pockets. Nice clothes to wear on Sunday are also a good idea. You will be amazed how beautiful Ghanaians look for their religious services. No tracksuits, t-shirts, wellington boots, etc. Even if you are a die hard atheist or an a la carte Christian, it's best that you do not stand out like a sore thumb. Keep your shades, basketball top, Nike Air locked up. Smart and casual is also fine.

A sponge – They cost 1.50 Ghana Cedi for and will help scrub off the layers of dust that gather on you skin each evening. Washing yourself 5 times daily without one will not suffice. Get it, scrub like hell, and avoid being and smelling dirty (you won't see it from your own naked eye as mirrors are a rarity), looking tanned (it's actually dust). You will feel a lot better afterwards.

Small change - Traders often do not have change of 5 or 10 cedi. Therefore the water, ice cream, chocolate fix, newspaper, orange or banana you desperately want may not become yours unless you carry small coins at all times.

The ability to say 'Hssst' - This is how Ghanaians grab each others attention. I don't really know how a trader 40 metres away can distinguish the sound of a 'hssst' from a potential customer while she is walking in the opposite direction, but it is a quintessential part of his or her doing business. It's kind of 'one of those things you have to see and hear to understand'. It may seem rude to you, but it is perfectly acceptable for you to use this mechanism of communication also.

Ghana leads the way with peaceful elections

2008-12-15T13:17:00.001-08:00

The results have poured in and Ghana is not much the wiser. With the nominally centre-left National Democratic Congress winning 113 parliamentary seats, the current ruling centre-right regime of New Patriotic Party came a close second with 108 seats. 4 Independents were elected, although they are all former NPP and are expected to support their former colleagues. The People's National Convention received 2 seats while former Independence leader Dr. Kwame Nkrumah's 'rejuvenated' but ultimately 'decimated' pseudo-socialist Convention People's Party just received 1seat.

The separate presidential race was won by NPP's Nana Akufuo-Addo, tipping Professor John Atta Mills of NDC by a slight majority (around 1.5%). The president holds alot of power in Ghana and the fact that parliament may swing to a party different to the president's political base leaves Ghana in unknown territories. But the elections passed peacefully and fairly and all Ghanaians are to be commended for avoiding tribal politics that have marred Kenya and Nigeria recently. Personally, I think little if anything will change for the majority marginalised whether NPP or NDC come to power.

2 constituencies are being disputed, one because members of NDC allegedly tried to run off with 3 ballot boxes! What this all means is that a run-off is required between the two leading parties. A new election will take place on Dec. 28 and New Year 2009 will literally ring in a political party who may transform Ghana into a prosperous nation - that is, if they used the expected oil revenue of US $billions from the western region for the benefit of the public. If you're a gambler, put your money on it being soaked up be a handful of cronies. But maybe I am just being cynical. Hard not to given the experiences of Nigeria, Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Sierra Leone when it comes to natural resources exploited to the detriment of local communities.

Keeping it simple and saying it often is the favourite style of politicking in Kumasi. A massive turnout is expected again (over 60%). But one thing is for sure, education on voting is needed. 2.4% of those who voted used their little finger instead of their thumb. Who knows what awaits Ghana in 2009!

The face of joyful learning

2008-12-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

I am on computer number 13 in Patase's internet cafe. Before me, written in black pen on the wooden desk which holds the monitor, is written: "Women are very wicked." Evidently the last customer had some serious angst to project. One can't help but determine religious undertones in many such strong comments from Ghanaians pointing out human flaws. Deviators, fornicators, sinners - the rapture seems to be soon expected in many quarters. End time service banners abound. I hope it is not a premonition for things to come following the Sunday general elections.

Students and teachers who are allowed and have registered to vote are moving out this evening and tomorrow morning to make their way home in order to cast their ballots on Sunday.

This evening I tuned into BBC's radio world service to catch worrying news regarding Jewish settler evictions in Hebron, West Bank, a city I lived and volunteered in with the International Solidarity Movement for about 2 months in the summer of 2007. Reprisals have already begun to occur for my friend Fawaz in Tel Rumeida district. Just 37 minutes ago he reported that his house was under attack from settlers.

So things get somewhat depressing when such news pours in and one is so far away and helpless to show solidairty apart from a message.

On a more positive note, photos of our Centre's students joy at receiving their copybooks below show how enthusiastic and willing they all are to utilise their talents.

Rita, Norah, Naomi and Agnes in the school assembly hall after receiving their notebooks, pens, pencils,erasers, and pencil sharpeners. These were bought from funds raised through our Christmas card project. The students are very motivated to learn numeracy and literacy and have been working hard filling up their copy books practising their skills this week. Thanks to all who bought the cards and supported the project.

Lydia, Lydia, Kwaben and Emilia putting their notebooks to good use in literacy class.

Fire, Hell and Brimstone: Ghana style

2008-12-01T12:01:00.001-08:00

Do you like quizzes?

If yes, then try to guess who said the following:

"The United Nations have not brought peace to any country........... Only Jesus Christ can bring peace to Ghana............ Nevermind what these soldiers and their AK47s can do. God's AK47 can wipe out whole nations: landslides, fire, water"

I don't expect you to know his name. Not even I know that. But you get first prize if you thought a Pentecostal preacher could be one of the few to utter such bizarre words. Attending a ceremony out of interest and invitation recently the sermon kept me alert despite my evening drowsiness. Nothing like a bit of brimstone to put fire in your belly!

Religion plays an interesting role in Ghana. Christian signs are everywhere: on buses, food shops, hair salons. But by far the best I have heard about was the restauraunt called "Let's crap for Jesus". It doesn't get much more ironic than that.

Ghana's Rice, Elections, Students and Traders - Photoblog

2008-11-24T12:18:00.000-08:00

Methodist Women's Fellowship from Patase last week donating Brazilian sugar, Uruguayan rice, Malaysian cooking oil, and Italian tomato sauce

Women traders who requested a photo from Dorota in the National Democratic Congress stronghold section of Kejetia market

With its school rooms available from 4pm, Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre attracts a wide variety of extra-curricular activities. On any given Sunday 6 churches have services around the school, all at the same time. Not a very peaceful place to be

Kitchen staff at Edwenase

Dorota and I had been looking for weeks for locally produced rice. Last weekend we found it at Kejetia market in Kumasi. Undercut by U.S. and Asian rice imports since large-scale privatisation policies imposed since the early 80's after Jerry Rawlings coup d'etat, the IMF and World Bank's financial 'support' towards Ghana has devastated rice farming. 2 weekends ago there was a massive protest in Accra by rice farmers from all over the country appealing for support from the gvt. to grant subsidies and support their livelihoods to regain and exceed subsistence level. It's very doubtful anything will change though. Market forces rule the roost here now, and rice farmers will unfortunately have their slogans of 'Developing or Developed Countries, Who Needs Subsidies?' heard by officials.

First Aid, Health Screening and Hygiene School Assembly we recently organised at Edwenase. Thanks to Gloria Quist and her sister Esther for their skills and time.

Literacy and Numeracy classes at Edwenase. We have just implemented a programme to include all 59 students, regardless of their disabilities. We have spent a long time trying to experiment with different groups and methods to see what works best. Still a work in progress, but the students seem happy so far.

Getting ready for Dec. 7th elections

Ghana's Lotto - curse or a blessing?

2008-11-22T01:35:00.000-08:00

L. is our local shopkeeper. Her blue and white painted store made from corrogated iron is a hive of activity on Edwenase Road, just 40 metres from the Rehabilitation Centre where we work. Her opening and closing hours are dictated by the lotto man next door. He brings regular custom. People aspiring towards gaining profit to better themselves can cool off with a drink of non-alcoholic Malt Guinness. The majority work hard, very hard here. 17 hour waking days and 15 hours of work 6/7 days a week are common amongst traders. Problem is though, it's quite hard to win anything in the 30 year old Ghanaian State lotto system. Not surprising, seen as the numers range from 1-99 and you can choose a maximum of 5 numbers. A BBC article 2 years ago entitled 'Is the lottery a curse?'

Throughout both the developed and developing worlds, state lotteries are a voluntary tax on those who can least afford it. The English proverb that "A fool and his money are soon parted." may be true, but a government that taxes the poor is just as foolish. Unfortunately with state lotteries both those who stake the lottery and the governments who run them quickly get addicted to them.
Kwabena Peacock, Nkonya Ghana

The national lottery in Ghana has contributed to the development of roads and other social amenities. it has contributed to employment especially to university students who are on vacations. but we should not forget that this same thing is causing the break down of families. money to buy food and pay fees are used to gamble. to a larger extend I think lottery has helped in the development of my country.Daniel Bassah, Accra- Ghana

But there is a secret system of success that not so many know about, according to L. In the event of a car crash, witnesses or those who hear the crunch of metal upon metal and the shattering windows best get to the scene of the accident as speedily as possible. Why? Well, the registration number(s) of the car which has just crashed into something or somebody, in particular if blood has been spilled, holds particular significance if it falls on the same day as the lotto draw is due to take place.

So with lotto card at hand, one should immediately note down the numbers on the battered car reg. I hinted to L. that it would be worth us buying two old bangers and staging a 'crash' so we could split the profits. I added that I wouldn't mind bumping my head off the steering wheel and shedding a little blood to up our chances of success. She laughed and said it doesn't work like that.

I remain confused as to whether a car reg. numbered 972635-GH holds a lucky combination of 97,2,63 and 5 with one number missing or 9,7,2,6,35 or 9,7,26,3,5 or anything else you can think of. Truth is, I don't think L. will be winning the lotto anytime soon. There are just way too many car crashes here to figure out which combination of numbers are the luckiest ones!

Photo blog from Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre, Kumasi

2008-11-11T11:13:00.000-08:00

Old sign at the staff compound in Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre, next to the vocational school

Our room is in the centre of the photo, with the curtain
(traditional cloth we bought at the market) drawn. One the right is the wash room (no running water) which is opposite the toilet (no running water). The yard is usually a hive of activity with the kids of the staff doing their homework and playing from early till late, maize being pulled asunder for packing in bags and cooking purposes, dogs and their puppies battling with cocks, chickens and guinea fowl for territory.

Apart from ants and geccos in our room this part of the layout. It's about 7 by 4 metres in size, consists of a desk, bed, mosquito net, a socket and some shelves. I got this guitar from a German volunteer for 25 Euro so at least I won't get too rusty over the coming months. I hope I can start doing lessons for some of the trainees soon.

Our route to the school and centre which is next to the living quarters for staff. We are usually tempted to decapitate this cock as he has a tendency to drive us mad from about 5 in the morning.

Guinea fowl lazing around, looking for old corn cobs, getting ready to fill their bellies before annoying us in the evening as their headquarters are 5 metres from our bedroom.

Mr. Modesto, Director of the Centre, pumping up the wheels on some of the new wheelchairs presented by the Mormons in early November. 750 wheelchairs were granted to the Social Welfare Department this year, 250 for the Ashanti region where we are based. 8 of them were put aside for residents of the Centre, but the trainees are still using ones they received last year. Why? Well, some families have a tendency to sell new wheelchairs during school breaks and send their kids back to school without wheels and a chair.

Some of the recipients of new wheelchairs, including David Nkrumah, resident at Edwenase. David recently made me beautiful leather sandals at the school workshop. He has been trained at Edwenase for the past 3 years and hopes top set up his own business from next year. Grants are hard come by in Ghana despite the fact that disabled persons have the statutory right to receive start up funds.

Trainees waiting for the ceremony to commence. In the foreground is Gifty; the student looking towards the camera is Naomi. All photos of this ceremony were taking by Judith, one of the trainees with my digital camera.

Lake Bosumtwe near Kumasi - from left: Dorota (Poalnd), Mattia (Italy), Lena (Germany)

Students dancing at recent ceremony welcoming new wheelchairs for Edwenase Centre and Ashanti region

Volunteering in Ghana - some challenges

2008-11-09T12:28:00.000-08:00

Wheelchair beneficiaries at ceremony in Edwenase last week. The Mormons soponsored 750 wheelchairs for Ghana

I am 3 weeks in Ghana today. as is often the case when one embarks on a journey, characters who cross your path in the initial stages of assimilation have a tendency to pop in and out to varying degrees of friendliness.

This coming Thursday, I am hoping that Gloria Quist, a Ghanaian native and nurse educator who has lived in the US since 1991, will give some First Aid training to staff and students at Edwenase. Gloria was in seat 28A on our British Airways flight from London Heathrow. We got talking about racism in the US, Ghanaian culture and politics mid way through the flight.

Her short trip back home had been filled with drama. 10 days after arrival, travelling with her nurse friends over from the US for the first time (among their questions were: „Does Ghana have cars and tomatoes?”). Anyhow, too cut a long story short, travelling near Kumasi last week a drunk stepped out in front of their car, they knocked him down and he died soon after in hospital. Although he was at fault, the shock remained with Gloria and that as the reason why she hadn't managed to visit our project with her friends.

Thankfully though she is due to come soon and her skills and authority will be a great asset in convincing students and staff alike that one teen girl who has epilepsy is not actually possessed by demons. In addition to this we are hoping education about early intervention in keeping wounds clean and dressed properly will reduce the amount of infections we see here daily. Lastly, we hope this will be a trust building exercise amongst us, the volunteers, and the staff.

At this stage, it seems to me that we are courteous up front but both sides are highly critical of the role being played by the other. From my perspective, it doesn't inspire confidence to see the hairdressing teacher sit in a chair for 2 hours in her classroom with an air of disinterest, while her 3 students teach other. Or that the head of the visually handicapped, literacy and numeracy department only had his first lessons last week for this semester (which officially began in late August). His 56 students have therefore received no tuition on these issues for 4 months as prior to the start for the school year they were back with their families.

On the other hand, with little interaction between us or a clear vision as to what role the volunteers play here, it's difficult for them I think to see us as anything other than naive well do-wishers who really are out of touch. I reckon we have a fair idea as to why there is little motivation or opportunity for them to drive their department to vocationally train students.

Broken machines, lack of material, little positive affirmation of their work in difficult circumstances, solidified by years of neglect by the Social Welfare department and harsh judgements by the rest of society upon those with special needs and their potential role in the future of their communities, combine to create a recipe for educational disaster. Though despite all of this, most of the teachers do what they can to pass on their excellent skills in needlework, shoemaking, tailoring, and dressmaking.

The catering, hairdressing an rural craft sectors have need for much investment and assessment to determine how they can address the difficulties of their students and the obvious lack of material to use in order to train them in their trade.

With time I am confident that we can forge a path together. Tomorrow we will kick start literacy and numeracy classes. The Christmas card project is off to a flying start and we are already running out of cards, and banana leaves! The dry season is kicking in, sweat is rolling down my forehead like a waterfall and evening showers are a joy to behold.
Our Ghana flag project with the rural craft department. Green leaves used for the Ashanti region's garden city, Kumasi

The final product. Red for blood flowed, gold for their rich mineral resource, black star for Pan-Africanism

Welcome to our Edwenase Christmas Card Action - Appeal for support

2008-11-05T01:42:00.000-08:00

Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre Staff and Students

For more info about Edwenase please visit our new website: www.ercghana.blogspot.com

Even great potential and enthusiasm needs money to start off, so as Edwenase's 5 volunteers from Germany(Lena and Markus), Ireland (me, Damien), Italy (Mattia) and Poland (Dorota), we decided to make use of the art skills and amazing creativity of the students to generate funds for their different needs in the centre.

With Christmas approaching it seemed like handmade cards for friends and family at home would be worth exploring.

The teachers of the Centre came up with the idea of creating more "Ghanaian" cards bearing Adinkra symbols, typical for the Ashanti region which Kumasi is the capital of.

How the cards were made

We tried to make the cards as natural as possible by using banana leaves as the base creating the shape of the card. Inside a piece of paper is sewn in order to allow you to write a personal message for a friend or family member.

Trainees have different skills and so patterns were prepared to help them draw certain shapes. Sometimes they needed help with cutting them out, but the composition on the card or the choice of colours (i.e. red palm tree) is completely their own creation which we dared not to intervene with. Students also participated in collecting the banana leaves.

At the back of the card there is a sticker with: Made by the students of Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre for the disabled, Kumasi, Ghana - www.ercghana.blogspot.com - so the receivers of these cards will know who they were made by, why they are special, and how to receive more information about our work here.

There are therefore two types of cards :

with an Adinkra symbol cut from a Ghanaian cloth

with different shapes ( Christmas tree, angel, shooting star) cut from paper or banana leaves and coloured

How will your donations be spent?

All the money raised from the Christmas cards will be used for the benefit of students. Three main issues we hope to address with the donations are:

1. Wheelchair ramps

The centre has ramps for the the trainees who use wheelchairs, apart from the steps to their dormitories. These steps mean that to go in and out of their room they need to get off the wheelchair, bring it over to the other side and climb on it again. During the day there may be 10 to 15 such journeys. Concrete ramps would solve the issue.

2. Library
Evening time is usually boring for all, apart from the time when TV is on. There are few games or books to compete with the box and develop different skills of the students. This is what we aim to change by introducing a library, where trainees will be able to choose from language (Twi and English), art and song, literacy and numeracy books; games (e.g. table tennis, boardgames, music practice) to fill in free time, enjoy communally and practise important skills.

3. School kit

Numeracy, Literacy and English classes are to be introduced for all the trainees, but in order to practise and be able to fully benefit from them each of the students should have a school kit containing: notebook, pencil, pen, ruler, eraser, pencil sharpener.

After the end of the action we will include a detailed report including photos of how the donations were spent.

If you would like to get more information about the centre, order a card or make a donation please contact us at erc.kumasi@yahoo.com

How you can buy them

If you are interested in receiving cards then please email me at dbamoran@yahoo.com, send me an sms at 00233240020157 with your name, postal and email address, amount and type of cards you would like.

Cost

There is no set price for these cards. They were handmade by the students at Edwenase with the assistance of volunteers. A suggested donation would be €0.50-€2 per card depending on the size and whether you purchase those with traditional kente cloth in the shape of Adrinka symbols or those with coloured Christmas symbols.

For example, a mixture of 10 cards may average out at €10. If you can afford less or more that's also ok. It's important for me to stress here that these cards are special because they are handcrafted and each is unique. There is no chance you will receive a duplicate card as the shape, size and colour of each card is different.

Volunteering in Ghana and exploring Kejetia market

2008-11-03T12:04:00.000-08:00

Outside the tailoring room. Boys dormitory and toilets in the background. Immanuel taking a beak.

Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre - Staff and Students

I've been just over 2 weeks in Ghana now. Tonight I found a great internet cafe so hopefully I can update this blog a bit more. The below entries have been waiting patiently to be uploaded for a week. At last they can see the light of cyber-life. I hope they can give you some insight into daily life here from theperspective of an 'Obroni' (Twi word used to describe anybody with white skin).

Kejetia Market

The livelihoods of thousands of Ashanti region families rely upon daily business at Kejetia market in downtown Kumasi. From the fishermen who supply dozens of fresh choices to the traders, to the weavers who provide yards and yards of traditional, beautifully coloured kente cloth for people to use as curtains, dresses, trousers, shawls and shower towels, amongst many other purposes.

From a high vantage point, the sprawling mass of individual units and mobile sellers seems to be a chaotic mess. But everything has it's own 'way' here, and once one steps of their global northern horse for a moment, the particular districts specialising in certain commodities become more apparent. Entering from the tro tro (minibus) station side, one approaches the stationary area, advancing eastwards towards sweets, lanterns, cups, buckets, brooms, and general household materials. After a few hundred metres one may stumble upon a disused railway track (Ghana's railways are somewhat obsolete and unused nowadays) is home to general clothes, progressing from menswear trouser and shoe wear to women and children's casual western style clothing. It reminded me of images I have seen from a great distance of the Kibera slum district in Nairobi, Kenya – though trading actually occurs on a live railway there and traders have to be efficient in gathering their stock out of the way when trains appear.

Branching off to one of the labryinthine side streets after 200 metres of railway, with a quick sniff you will wander into the nut quarter, and soon afterwards into the massive fish section. Before coming to Ghana I rarely ate fish, but given the fact that I have no or little other source of protein apart from daily fish portions served at dinner, my past habits have gone to the wayside.

Even for carnivores I would imagine that the sight of cows' heads in the back seat of a car are enough to speed up your departure from the meat section. The more pleasant smell of peanut butter and colour of traditional cloth stalls attracted our eyes and we ended up having a useful Twi lesson from the owner. Dorota bought 2 yards of beautiful cloth for a trousers to be sewn in the tailoring workshop at Edwenase Centre. I got 2 yards of cloth to work dually as a cover in bed and a spare, quick to dry shower towel.

After about 3 hours we had pencils, pens, rulers, sketch pads, cups, traditional cloth, soap, a clothes brush and other assorted items in our bags as we headed back to the Centre for lunch.

Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre

Well, my first full week at Edwenase should have been a week to remember but it was so full of activities that I can hardly believe it is already over.

Monday saw Markus from Germany, Mattia from Italy and I cover for the rural craft teacher. We had already done 3 days of his class the previous week, though given the lack of materials, and the students' multiple special needs the class is usually somewhat idle. So after playing Uno playing cards for numeracy and colour recognition, basketball and bowling for fun and accuracy, dominoes, paper plane construction and flying competitions, we decided to keep the inclusive and participatory nature of the class going.

With 'Mikado' game sticks we made the outline of a Ghanaian flag: red (representing the blood of their ancestors), green (for the beautiful fauna throughout large parts of the country) and gold with a black star representing one of their key resources (exploited by Anglo Ashanti Gold) and pan-Africanism, respectively.

Other stuff I have been involved with is our Christmas Card Action, teaching the director basic computer skills, teaching English to Rita, the Needlework teacher and Centre supervisor, co-planning literacy classes for the 70 students (due to commence soon), sports games and activities, general maintenance, manual and cleaning work around the Centre, helped organise the Centre's first group photo, amongst many other things.

I'll write more details in my next blog.

One thing is for certain, there is always something to do at Edwenase Rehabilitation Center in Kumasi.

I'll upload some more photos of our work as soon as possible.

Hope the photos included here satisfy any hunger for images and less text. I'm grateful to Dorota and Lena for allowing me to use them from their blogs.

Dorota's blog

Lena's blog

Blogging obstacles in Kumasi

2008-11-01T03:25:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's a dead slow connection. Other times, like today, the internet cafe will not accept my usb device as it exceeds the power limit. Therefore, the stuff I wrote offline will just have to wait before I can upload here.

Suffice to say that all is going well in Kumasi, Ghana. Time is flying by already and all of us at Edwenase are kept very busy. Once I get the usb working I will upload photos of our Christmas card project and other impressions of my 2nd week in Ghana.

So far, so good.

First Impressons after 6 Days in Ghana

2008-10-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

Dublin to Accra

I was lucky to be sitting beside the woman in seat 28A. Gloria, a nurse educator and Ghanaian native has been living in Virginia, U.S.A., for the past 17 years. A Barack Obama supporter and woman acutely aware of African American history and the undercurrents of racism in US society, the paralysis of their media, the corrupted nature of their political system that spouts freedom on one side of its mouth and blows innocent people asunder from the other side.

The trip of 6 hours from Heathrow passed by like a soft cool breeze, a rare act of nature in Kumasi where I currently reside. I have now been in Ghana for 6 days and after calling Gloria yesterday it seems like she will come to Edwenase Centre to give some First Aid training for the teachers and talk on a range of other necessary health and safety issues for the betterment of the project.

Accra

Dorota met me at the airport and she was grateful for myt swift arrival as a number of men had already apporached her to talk about Jesus. It seems the locals are not so good at the chat up lines when it comes to European women. We got a taxi to Date Hotel (a hostel that has dropped the 's' for marketing purposes), stayed 2 nights in the Adabraka district, had some lovely street food from the local roadside eatery, picked some shells and stones on a beach walk and soaked up the rays, though we were a little roasted afterwards.

I was hesitant at first, as the only way we seemed to be able to get access to the beach was through the Afia village hotel. Naomi Klein's tales in her wonderful book on disaster capitalism, 'The Shock Doctrine', sprung to mind as I pondered whether I should ruin a nice sea side walk as a result of my angst against privatised beaches.

Thankfully the beach was public so no such worries came into play.

It's silly to even begin giving impressions of a place one has only visited for a 36 hour period and I have no intention of falling into the usual trap that visitors, volunteers and journalists from the west fall into, as Binyavanga Wainana writes of in my last blog.

So suffice to say that Accra is alive and kicking, buzzing with colour a friendly smiles and a hectic rythymn that would put the fastest of Irish music to the test.

Accra to Kumasi

The tro tro (minibus transportation) station was about a 20 minute walk from our accommodation, so well sweated I arrived and Dorota found us our link to Kumasi. We waited 45 mins for it to fill up, had to endure a Christian preacher barking at us with a bible aloft for the first 20 minutes of the journey (3 or 4 passengers enjoyed his speech and gave him some money at the end), 6 police checkpoints to check the driver's licence and monitor his speed, a good few dozen overtakings performed by our good but fast driver, heat pelting down upon us like we had hit the earth's core. And its not even dry season yet.

All in all it took 5 hours. We arrived at Kumasi around 2.30pm and a short walk brought us to another tro tro en route to Edwenase, my present home until August next. Dorota both me a vanilla icecream on the way so that helped cool the body temperature. They cost 25 pesewas (about 16 euro cents) from the traders who walk around with them on their heads. They are stored in a special wooden casket with a transparent screen and taste like heaven (if heaven has a flavour) when your boiling up.

Edwenase

I have just being at Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre for 3 full days now, but already things are going well for me. There are about 70 residents who learn tailoring, dressmaking, shoemaking, practical agriculture, rural craft, hairdressing, as well as common life skills and a wide variety of games. I will write more about my activities and post some photos taken by the students over the coming days.

I am happy that I have concentrated totally on the life of the Centre thusfar and slowly integrating, getting to know the students special needs. Some are deaf, others blind, quite a number have mobility difficulties, while many have multiple disabilities. Despite the mnay challenges they face they are inspiring people to look at in training, intelligent in mnay ways, some not so obvious from the outset.

The best drummer in the centre, for example, is blind and almost completely deaf.

From Wednesday to Friday I helped organise class activities for what is usually the 'rural craft group', as their teacher had left to attend a family funeral. The class became more a games and activities centre including making paper airplanes, playing bowling, basketball, drawing and colouring, card games to help with numeracy and colour recognition. All games focused on student participation and positive affirmation as the norm unfortunately ends up that many are just unable to perform their class activities without special assistance and constant repetition.

The challenges and needs are many at Edwenase. Due to the fact that it is a Dept. of Social Welfare project the funding is sporadic yet the land and dedication of the staff is really great. The participation of the students in the everyday life of the centre is fantastic and they are always willing to help 'obroni' ('European' or 'white person') find his or her way.

How to Write About Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina

2008-10-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

If you have ever mentioned the word Africa from your mouth, or have written something about the continent and its inhabitants, then I hope you have read this beforehand. I hadn't, unfortunately.

I had, however, received good guidance from Dorota about the code of conduct on images and messages regarding the global south and development issues.

Both are important and substantial food for thought. Indeed, they are a life time supply of 5 course meals in wisdom and fairness. All volunteers, journalists, activists, religious, etc. should consider their content carefully. Please read on and check out the links.

Always use the word ‘Africa or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’. Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans.

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress.

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular.

Read full text here

Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre

2008-10-14T08:44:00.000-07:00

Dorota has been based in Kumasi for 2 weeks now. She is a volunteer at Edwenase Rehabilitaion Centre. I will be joining her in Kumasi on Sunday and hope to start volunteering soon after.

Edwenase Centre aims to help with the rehabilitation and provision of vocational training to disabled and physically challenged individuals. At the moment there are about 70 residents at the Centre.

Daily training provided includes catering, education, rural craft, hairdressing, dressmaking, needlework, agriculture, and basic numeracy.

Any community member who is disabled or physically challenged is welcome to join in on the activities where vocational training opens up lots of opportunities for income generation and greater access to the workplace.

Edwenase does not have a website at the moment but solidarity projects have accounts of their interactions with the residents and photos of the centre.

Worldwide Travel and Emergency Medical Insurance

2008-10-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

I've had to do a bit of shopping over the past week. On previous travels I've opted out of travel insurance plans but given that I will be away this time for 10 months in an area where I may catch malaria or have an accident but have no medical cover, I thought it best (with some persuasive advice from loved ones and other volunteers) that basic cover is essential for Ghana.

VHI have a global health cover policy for travellers going abroad (worldwide excl. US/Canada option)for 6 months+, but that excludes dental emergency care and costs €763. Maybe they offer a cheaper option to VHI members? But it's a bit steep I think.

Quinn Direct do not seem to have an option beyond 31 days for a single trip. Multi trip does not apply for more than 30 days on any one trip. I spoke to one of their agents and was told the max. they can cover for is 6 months. I didn't get a quote but as they are a private health insurer expect a quote around €500, probably more.

USIT on the other hand have 2 options for backpackers (even though I wouldn't count myself in this category). Their work and travel section only covers US, Australia, for example, so volunteers not going through a USIT programme havethe following options:

Silver policy (10 months)- €330

Gold policy (10 months) - €345

In order to get access to either of them you have to have one of their cards. The cheapest to get if you are not a student is the backpacker card, which will set you back €25. Or if you can prove that you are a teacher (bring a reference) you can get a teacher card costing €13.

The difference between the policies is fairly big in terms of the amount you can be paid out. For example, if you die, under the silver policy you get (or your next of kin) €1 million, whereas under the gold policy you get €1.5 million. But you'll be dead so who cares! Essentially they cover the same ground, including emergency surgical or medical procedures, repatriation in the event of illness, high risk sporting activities, travel cancellation, luggage loss, etc.

Then there are some cheaper options that I searched through, but most do not have appropriate annual cover. For example, Insure have an "annual multi trip cover which means that you may make multiple journeys of up to a maximum of 31 Days duration each, subject to a cumulative 90 days during the policy period."

Watch out for this small print as Bank of Ireland have the same stipulation for their multi-trip insurance. The single trip cover is for 90 days maximum. If you are going on a 3 month voluntary trip this may work out well. It costs €68 for the first 31 days, then €9 for each additional week.

AIB probably have something similar but I don;t have an a/c with them so didn't bother checking.

Just Cover offer a Backpacker / Longstay quote of €200. With cancellation and baggage cover it moves up to €258. This might be the option that I'll take. €130 less than USIT, it has quite good coverage in terms of medical emergency, dental emergency, and you have the option of opting out of cancellation and baggage cover which USIT does not have.

If you know of any more options please add a comment.

Crisis in the West - Opportunity for Africa

2008-10-06T17:33:00.000-07:00

Paul Collier, who directs the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, has written an interesting article about how the global financial downturn provides a timely opportunity to root out the looters of Africa's wealth and their banking facilitators in the West. He is the author of The Bottom Billion

...........now that we have the banks on the run there is an opportunity to extend scrutiny, not only to help ourselves, but to help Africa.

The loot-seeking elites that control parts of Africa illicitly send capital out of the region to the tune of $20 to $28bn per year. Illicit money flows are hard to quantify, but this is the new estimate by Raymond Baker of the NGO Global Financial Integrity, the most careful and ingenious study to date. Capital flight of this magnitude is roughly equivalent to the entire aid inflow to the region, so closing it would generate a similar resource transfer to doubling aid. One side-effect of the financial crisis is that aid commitments will be at the front of the queue for spending cuts. For example, in the vice-presidential debate it was the only Democratic spending pledge that Joe Biden suggested might be rethought.

While the crisis will weaken our assistance for the poorest countries by curtailing aid, it could inadvertently have an offsetting effect if we use it to close the illicit outflow. Money flows out of Africa into our banks, and into the offshore banks that depend for their existence upon being able to transact with our banks. US rules on banking transparency are even weaker than the European rules: vast sums looted from the public purse in Africa are being held in nominee accounts and moved around the world at greater speed than our cumbersome legal processes can track them down.

Western legal systems are stacked, thanks to the hired hands of skilled lawyers, to protect the rights of the crooked over the rights of Africa's ordinary citizens. At the time of the Commission for Africa, I urged that Britain revise its laws on banking secrecy. Yet despite the enormous emotional energy aroused by Gleneagles, there was no political appetite: aid, yes; banking openness, no. The silver lining in this grim cloud is that we have a second chance to clean up the banks. Which takes me back to where I began.

But why would we expect western governments to return that which is rightfully the wealth of Africa's citizens (remember: 54 countries, 922 million people)looted by Africa's elite when they've never returned the wealth (note: gold, cocoa, sugar, coffee, ivory, rubber, oil, diamonds, amongst a wide range of other minerals, agri-produce and resources including, e.g. coltan essential for mobile phones) stolen from their former colonies which they continue to plunder through brutal trade policies, etc.?

Passport arrives, Visa and Flight Ticket on the way

2008-10-06T03:10:00.000-07:00

The Passport Office have a great service in Dublin. One can log in online and check the status of their application by entering the reference code underneath the bar code on their receipt.

So I was happy to see that my renewed 10 year passport (obligatory for travel to West Africa) is 3 days early and ready for collection.

That opens all doors for me to get a 6 month visa in the Ghanaian consulate open between Tuesday and Thursday (opening hours 10-12 noon for those interested) and also for me to get to Dublin airport in order to pay for my ticket.

As posted earlier, British Airways flights to West Africa only accept Mastercard or Visa with 'secure code' (This is not the 3 last digits on the back of our card) which Bank of Ireland for one do not even offer their customers. Most British banks do provide the service but one needs to upgrade to Silver, Executive or Gold membership. A bit of a pain really.

Anyhow, things finally seem to be working out ok, and I'm looking forward to heading off on Thursday Oct. 16th. I never realised I would have had to scale so many obstacles just to get there though.

Flights to Ghana - More hardship

2008-10-04T10:42:00.000-07:00

Murphy's Law continues. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. Well, at least it tests one's resilience. After months of researching flights with limited information as to when I could exactly go ahead and book one, I tried British Airways yesterday. Unfortunately, when one is going to West Africa, your Mastercard or Visa does not have 'secure code', then you cannot book online.

When I rang Bank of Ireland credit card services I was told that they don't offer 'secure code' services. However, British Airways claim that once you get an Executive, Silver or Gold credit card then you should be able to secure your payment and reservation.

Therefore, if you have an Irish credit card and want to travel to West Africa you have to go their Dublin office in person. The catch, you have to have your passport. Unfortunately I won't have mine back from the passport office until Thursday.

Is your head spinning yet?

At least today I managed to put down a 96 hour reservation for departure from Dublin to Accra Oct. 16th, returning Aug. 15th 2009 for 952 euro. Let's hope they won't ask for my passport when I go to their office on Wednesday!

Hope this helps any volunteers who are planning on going to West Africa in the near future.

Cheap flights to Ghana

2008-10-02T02:32:00.000-07:00

I thought I had struck gold last night. Ghana International Airlines gave me a confirmation number and the details of my flight - but I hadn't even paid them a cent or a penny through the booking process.

Reviews of Ghana International Airlines look like a nightmare. Maybe they write the few good ones themselves? I am not a fussy traveller by any stretch of the information, but I do not like getting screwed, so will probably end up avoiding them now.

When you try to book on their website you just get a confirmation number which it seems you have to bring to Gatwick airport. No payment is made until you get to the desk. At least they don't ask or do not provide a service on their website to accept payment for the ticket.

This seems to be what awaits me if I go down the GIA route

Looks like you just have to bring confirmation no. to the check-in desk and if you are too late joining the queue (e.g. no. 301 on a 300 capacity flight, then you don't get on the plane and have to pay a $100 fine in order to fly the next day cause you were supposedly 'late.'

Problem with going there early seems to be that there are already going to be a load of people waiting from the previous 2 days!!!! So despite the cheap prices, it seems like a major risk and may end up costing the same as British airways or Lufthansa in the long run. In addition to that, I would have to deal with getting from Dublin to Gatwick and change terminals, pick up luggage, etc.

Finally, quite a few complaints have been made about lack of or late luggage arrival. Not that anyone would benefit from going through my stock of clothes, but it just causes more unnecessary delays and hardship. Furthermore, it seems that when people get so frustrated while waiting in the queue, they are often willing to pay more for business class seats. So even if you are number 1 in the queue, you will have to wait until those who have paid more money, whether it be for refundable or business class tickets, to board first, thus reducing the posssibility you will get a seat.

Confused???? Me too...........

British Airways have a quote for Dublin-Accra of €944, departure Oct. 16th 2008 and return August 15th 2009.

Lufthansa have a quote for the same route for €918 but the flight stopover in Frankfurt means the total journey is about 3/4 hours longer each way.

Murphy's Law for volunteers

2008-09-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

Well, it all just seemed too good to be true. That return flight for £617 which I wrote about in the last blog appears to have been a myth. I was patiently waiting for Travelhouse UK's agent to get back to me yesterday and today so I could book the quoted Ghana airlines flight he had told me about on Saturday. When there was no response by 4pm today I rang him, but as I was almost out of credit and in the internet cafe ready to finalise the details, I asked him to ring me back.

That took another hour, and I was anxiously looking at my watch as I was due to go to work shortly afterwards. Problem was, I couldn't hear what he was saying on the phone. But I caught enough to hear that the flight he thought he had for me could not be booked. Even though it claimed to be available when he tried to access it the latest return date available was March 27th 2009. I already knew this from my own efforts online.

So I asked him to email me the details immediately. Still waiting................

Next, I went onto Ghana airlines website, which was down on Monday night and wouldn't allow me to access their fares. If I was to get a one way non-refundable ticket it would set me back €497. The same would apply returning from Accra to Ghana. All other flights, whether it be from British Airways or Lufthansa are far more expensive. I just don't understand why Ghana airlines, who must have the worst airline website service in the world, do not allow people to book beyond March 27th 2009 even though their flights are valid for one year.

I emailed them yesterday for info. on this. Still waiting..............

Then more bad news poured in. Seems like Dorota will be staying in a room with another volunteer so our hope that I might be able to bunk in has just gone out the window. Now I really do have to worry about accommodation, despite casual assurances from a host of people that everything would work out in time. Well, we'll have to make it work out some way cause the dice just ain't throwing up any 6's at the moment.

So the question is, should I revert back to the offer of 6 months accommodation and 2 meals a day for €770 with a host family in the hope that Dorota could stay there when she wants? Should I request a host organisation to set up a concrete placement for me prior to my departure, rather than keeping my options open to work with small, grassroots organisations that have little infrastructural support? Should I bring a tent and a sleeping bag and kip anywhere I find space?

My tired brain and need for concrete information and security says yes on the first 2 counts. The latter, before you think I'm dumb, is only a joke. Hopefully Dorota will be able to sort out something over the next two weeks. In the meantime I'm going to keep my hand in my pocket, creidt card in my wallet, and keep plugging away at getting a flight.

Given that I am going to receive my new 10 year Irish passport on October 9th and that the Ghanaian embassy is only open that same day from 10-12, I may have to wait until the following Monday to get my visa sorted. Good news is that I only need 2 photos, passport, relevant filled out form and the name and address of a host organisation in order to receive a visa to work as a volunteer. In order to get a 1 year visa one would need an invitation letter. Nevertheless, it seems that immigration on the Ghanaian side only give 60 day stamps and require one to check in at a local office to renew the stamp. There should be no additional cost of course, in theory that is.

I hope that every cloud in this saga has a silver lining. One thing is for sure, every independent volunteer has bucket loads of bureaucratic hardship.

Volunteering in Ghana - organising update

2008-09-29T15:18:00.000-07:00

Hopefully by tomorrow at noon I will have my travel arrangements secured. I emailed Travelhouse UK agents on Saturday morning as they organise Ghanaian International Airline flights. Unfortunately, one cannot get access to their return flights beyond March 2009 from their website so if you are going to Ghana drop an email to Travelhouse or GIA themselves. The former's agent's got in touch with me within a half hour and found a flight leaving Oct. 16th from London Gatwick-Accra returning August 15th and valid for 1 year - price: £617, €777, or 2079 Polish zloty. I've put in the Polish zloty price as that is the currency I have been earning over the past few years.

I just need to reserve it tomorrow morning and then I can tick that box on my list of things to do.

Regarding medical insurance, I thought I would head into USIT in Dublin citv centre today to see if could get a hold of one of their under-30 cards and a basic medical insurance quote. Unfortunately, they have 2 policies which are both costly. The cheaper Silver policy costs €330 and though it covers 10 months, I am uneasy about spending such money for insurance. If one breaks it down it's probably not much more than €1 a day for the period I will be away, but with vaccines on top of that I'm watching the bank balance.

I have booked in to my home health clinic in Banagher this Friday to get yellow fever and typhoid jabs as well as a prescription for anti-malaria tablets.

I also have to get my 3 month holiday visa soon and should ring tomorrow to find out if I can volunteer with this or whether it is essential I have a business visa. I've heard differing stories so need to get on top of it tomorrow morning.

Dorota has arrived safe and sound in Germany and has started integrating with Inter-cultural youth exchange volunteers. Her partner at Edwenase Rehabilitation centre is Italian. They leave for Ghana on Thursday from Berlin with KLM.

I studied Twi for a while today but really need to dedicate more hours to it from now. Maybe I should have a look for an online forum to see if I can find any Ghanaians willing to share their language skills......hmmm, time to publish this, browse elsewhere and then hit the sack.

Cheapest travel to Accra from Dublin/London?

2008-09-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

If you have any information as to how I can travel to Accra from Dublin by land and sea please add a comment below with relevant information. Personal experiences preferable or at least interesting wewbsites. I have done research myself but would like some fresh insights. The cheapest airfare I can get at the moment is €959 with British Airways Dublin-Accra Oct. 16th rtn. July 15th. I would rather retutn August 2009 but unfortunately the fares are not yet available for purchasing through travel agents I have visited. Thanks for your help.

The Great African Scandal (2007)

2008-09-25T17:27:00.000-07:00

"In this thought-provoking documentary, made with the help of Christian Aid, academic Robert Beckford undertakes a challenging, emotional journey to Ghana in West Africa. This is where, two centuries ago, Robert Beckford’s ancestors were seized and taken as slaves to Jamaica. Now he is making a journey to the land of his roots to discover the hidden costs of rice, chocolate and gold." Official site: channel4.com

Watch The Great African Scandal (2007) now

Ireland and Ghana - common points

2008-09-25T15:39:00.000-07:00

The weather? Hmmm, not really!

Hurling and Gaelic Football? Ahhh, rather not.

Pubs, bookmakers and chippers stuck to each other every corner you turn? Thank heavens no.

But there are lots of commonalities which Ireland and Ghana share. Let me tell you of just a few for the moment.

Ireland was the first country in Europe to gain independence from Britain (1922), while Ghana became the first sub-Saharan country to gain independence from Britain (1957).

In additon to this, the discovery of oil in Ghana has led President Kufuor to declare Ghana would become an 'African tiger'. That's interesting, cause our 'Celtic Tiger' seems to have been robbed by a circus over the past 12 months.

But as Joe Higgins, the former Irish Socialist member of parliament party cautioned to the Association of Ghanaian Professionals in Ireland (AGPI)last March,

"the proceeds (of oil) should go towards the improvement of the lives of the ordinary Ghanaians rather than the multinational corporation, corrupt politicians and public officials."

Last year The Guardian wrote 'Ghana enters oil age with wary eye on neighbours', hinting at Shell's destruction of the Niger Delta and that ordinary Nigerians have not benefited, as well as the lack of prosperity for the populous following the discovery of large deposits in Equatorial Guinea, Angola and Congo-Brazzaville.

Joe Higgin's remarks to any audience in Ireland would sound like a comment made towards Shell and the Irish government's antics around the Corrib gas controversy, rather than something due to occur in north-west Africa.

Over the coming months of this blog, I will try look at a host of other areas where relations between Ghana and Ireland overlap.

Flashpackers stay home!

2008-09-21T15:50:00.000-07:00

Well, as Dorota enters her 11th last day prior to departure from Berlin for Accra, the coming week will hopefully see me have a return plane ticket in hand and vaccines in bloodstream as part of my own preparations. I'm also waiting to be sent an invitation letter from a local organisation so I can get a 3 month business visa and then all will be set - apart from the packing that is.

After reading an interesting article recently about flashpackers (backpackers with a colossal amount of tech gear in their rucksacks), I've decided the most sensible thing is to leave behind my laptop. It'll only be a nuisance to carry around and consume time that could be better spent learning Twi and meeting people in Kumasi, playing the guitar, not to mention the detrimental barrier to communication that it poses between couples.

My laptop has it's time and place - but this time and place will be best served with my friend Gerald, who has been thinking of getting a laptop for a while. He'll have a free one for a year now and can then decide whether he wants to splash out on his own. And I'll have pain free shoulders when I transport my luggage.

So that's one load less to think about mid-October when I am wedging stuff into my bag. Now, how about the digital camera? yip, no need for that either I think. If I'm desperate I can always get a disposable somewhere. MP3 player that I got from a friend en route to the Mid-East last year? Well, it's very handy for language learning and doing interviews, and most importantly is tiny and weightless. Mobile? Hmmm, well it's also weightless and small and a must for emergency contact, so best bring that too. For sure nobody will pinch it even if I left it behind somewhere as it's falling apart.

On a less tech but still on the bulky side, the classical guitar will also have to be left somewhere in Ireland. I already managed to find a grateful new owner for my acoustic guitar in Poland prior to travelling to Dublin. Hopefully I can pick up a cheap one in Kumasi to avoid losing my mediocre talent.

Knowing that I will be away from TV, my laptop and the multi-faceted digital assaults one must endure in Dublin for a year is quite therapeutic. I'm looking forward to meeting more people face to face and not on facebook! Surely that is the proper foundation for inter-cultural networking.

Ghana school - Random View

2008-09-17T17:49:00.000-07:00

New African Partnership for Development (NEPAD) e-Schools Initiative

Ghana School Welcome Dancing

Donations gratefully accepted

2008-09-16T17:21:00.000-07:00

Thank you so much for donating to my voluntary work in Kumasi, Ghana. I really appreciate it, will ensure that your money is spent wisely and give a full account of how it has been used through this blog, accompanied with photos when possible.

I am prepared to cover all my costs to volunteer and have been working and saving for over a year to do so. However, if you can specify whether you would like part of your donation to help cover my vaccine, flight, visa costs, etc. (I promise it won't go towards pizzas or tourism) or to just assist the educational and community development projects I will be engaged in, then please let me know by adding a comment here or emailing me at dbamoran@yahoo.com

Thanks again for your generosity and please let friends know about this blog. Although donations are important, education and knowledge about the benefits of volunteering and our responsibilities to help make trade fair, donate aid without strings attached, alleviate debt unconditionally, etc. are of far more importance in the long-term.

The money you have donated will assist in the provision of much-needed resources, like the financing of school books and equipment or key infrastructure for small community development projects in the form of computer gear and medicine. More details of how your donation has been used will be given in detail here from mid-October 2008 to the summer of 2009.

On return to Europe in August 2009 I will be available to speak at schools, churches, social centres, sitting rooms, pubs, etc. about my voluntary work in Ghana, in addition to previous work on a wide range of social justice issues. For more background on my activities go to my olderPeacenikhurler blog, anti-war acquittal website PeaceonTrial, Palestinian diary, Polish anti-war activities, amongst others.

Please keep in touch as will I through regular blogging here.

I would really like to teach my students how to say 'Thank you' like the above image from this interesting teaching website

TWI - Study for Ghana

2008-09-12T06:26:00.000-07:00

Here's a little Twi lesson for those of you interested in seeing and hearing what it is like. Follow the audio link here for a sound sample

This is the translation of the above text:

A cow was grazing in a field of grass.
This field was near a pond which was full of frogs.
When the frogs saw him some of them exclaimed, "This fellow is extremely big."
Just as they said this, one of the frogs remarked, "I can blow myself up as big as this cow."
No sooner had he said it, than he began to blow himself up, and he went on blowing until he burst.

Shopping around for flights to Ghana

2008-09-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

Phew, at long last Dorota has had her ticket organised for Oct. 2nd. So off she jets from Berlin to Accra, preceded by some training in Germany and followed by some integration days once she lands.

With passport and credit card in stock today I ventured towards travel agents to see if there good offers from a few weeks ago still stood. Thankfully, they do. But a return flight for mid-August 2009 will only be available in 2 weeks time - so the wait continues. The good news is the flight quotes I am getting for Dublin-Accra through London are around €850, which is €200 less than what the Inter-cultural youth network are spending on tickets for their volunteers.

So Mary Harney was right for once - shopping around certainly pays off.

The Masterplan

2008-09-06T04:53:00.000-07:00

My pet hate is procrastinating. Therefore, I have decided on the following:

VACCINES - Get them this Friday in Banagher clinic

FLIGHT - Take the British Midland €813 return offer

ACCOMODATION - Bank on Dorota's organsation helping out

VISA - Request invitation letter from organisations I have been in touch with and hope that I will get a business visa.

Let's see if the Masterplan pans out as easily as I wrote it down!

Patience isn't just a popular card game

2008-08-25T17:31:00.000-07:00

It embodies everything when one is preparing to volunteer, travel, move house, amongst an abundance of other stressful yet exciting transitions. We're still waiting to find out if we will be able to share accommodation through Dorota's organisation. If not, there are contigency plans, but it doesn't help ease the stress factor.

On a positive note though, I found out on Wednesday from Thomas Cook travel agents that British Midland fly Dublin-London-Accra return for €813. That's €70 lower than the previous cheapest quote of €874 we had received with Lufthansa. Dorota heads back to Poland this Thursday so I will be all on my own in overcast Dublin. Let's hope I get relief work in homeless shelters asap for the last month before I head off. Question now is whether to leave early October around the same time as Dorota, or wait, let her settle in, and head over a few weeks later.

Lots of questions, not so many answers at this stage.

I will also have to make do with a 6 month holiday visa initially unless I get an invitation letter from a host organisation. That would grant me the possibility of a 1 year work/volunteering visa.

Anyhow, I'll get the jabs over and done with soon to have that out of the way. One hurdle off the list will help in the long run.

Costs of vaccines for Ghana

2008-08-18T16:19:00.000-07:00

Got a good phone call from Banagher health clinic the other day. It seems like I will only need yellow fever and typhoid vaccines as I am protected from Polio, Tetanus, Diphteria and Hepaitis A up to 2011 (due to going to Haiti in 2001). So instead of lashing out up to €250 the costs have now fallen to:

Administration - €28
Typhoid - €30
yellow fever - € 35

I have yet to find out what anti-malarial tablets I should take, but all in good time.

Only the rich need apply (Part 1)

2008-08-13T02:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was quite eventful as regards my search for a placement in Ghana. Dorota suggested the great idea that I should directly contact the Kumasi based organisations on Idealist.org(a global volunteer portal) and see what replies I'd get. At first, I didn't hold much hope for this avenue. Why?

Well, despite the fact that most local organisations claim they are non-profit, some have offices in Washington, London, etc. and require hugely inflated fees to cover one's administration, accommodation, feeding costs. Even if the HQ of the NGO is locally based, there seems to be an attitude - 'these white folks are rich so let's bleed them dry!'

Could you blame them? Absolutely not. After all, many struggle to run their projects on limited resources, so if somebody with a wallet full of cash from the US or Europe wants the experience of a lifetime then, so be it.

It kind of reminds me of the irony surrounding LiveAid and it's Make Poverty History successor during the Gleneagles G8 summit 2 years ago. Rich popstars flying in from all over, singing to combat mass poverty, but with little or no consultation involving grassroots pan-African social movements about change from below.
Time to be humble. I recently read on Larry James's blog (He works with the 'marginalised' in Dallas) that he carries business cards with an asterisk * directing people to the following warning - "Beware: this man doesn't know what he is doing!" So if you think what I'm saying here is utterly wrong, then feel free to attack.

My problem does not really lie with what seems to be the Poverty Industry's maxim: 'Only the rich need apply'. My problem lies with the fact that many organisations in Ghana and elsewhere just don't want a volunteer who won't cost them a cent. There are always strings attached.

It seems impossible to opt out of offers of having to pay $100 a week for 3 meals a day - this is Kumasi in Ghana, not Galway, Chicago or Warsaw. Food, even taking into consideration recent price increases, preparation time and effort, etc. comes nowhere near that cost in Ghana.

Dorota and I spend a maximum of $100 a week on food for both of us. That would include water, electricity charges. And I'm talking about living in Dublin, Ireland - one of the most expensive cities to live in throughout Europe.

So charging one $3-5,000 for 6 months feeding, accommodation, airport pickup and some other minor accessories seems totally inflated. I've asked around and former volunteers, even people from Ghana and the general region, tend to agree.

The best option I have seen to date is 6 months accommodation and food with a host family for $1,150. This seems to be quite a reasonable price. Am I tight? No! I just don't want to be used and don't see how been used benefits anybody. So I look forward to keeping in touch with the Special Need Children Center and see if we can work something out.

Only the rich need apply (Part 2)
I am not going to whine or name any organisations here. That would be unfair. Suffice to say I developed a healthy scepticism about how NGO's utilise money after hearing about Concern workers dining on lobster in 5 star hotels in Sri Lanka whilst post-tsunami victims picked up the pieces of their lives. Concern workers on the ground, like most NGO relief agenices, do amazing work. The problem lies with their high-living hierarchs.

After following the issues around Dorota's Masters thesis earlier this year (on the motivations of volunteers who go to the golbal south, both those who pay huge amounts of money and those who receive some sponsorship), as well as my own research for volunteer placements over the past few years, one certainly does see the highs and lows of the Poverty Industry.

It's no different here in Dublin. Huge amounts of money for homeless and immigrant services are wasted on unnecessary bureaucracy, branding, huge wages for the CEO and his/her playmates (who from experience rarely call into homeless shelters or hostels for asylum seekers). The have assimilated the stereotypical modern corporate structure - hook, line and sinker.

So where next for me? Well, I'm still hoping that my contacts with the African Centre here in Dublin will come up trumps. I'm also awaiting news from the Spiritans (Holy Ghost Fathers) in Ghana to see if they have any contacts. I'm trying to get in contact with a Ghanaian who I lived with when I was studying to be a priest in Kimmage. Dorota has contacted her organisation to see if they can facilitate our request to be accommodated in the same volunteer house. So singers crossed, or as they say in Polish: Trzymaj kcziuki (Hold your thumbs)!

It's vaccination time

2008-08-11T14:00:00.000-07:00

Hepatitis A (€47); Typhoid(€35); Yellow fever(€35); Meningococcus(€55); Polio/Tetanus/Diphteria(€30); Hepatitis B(€32); Rabies(€26); Measles, mumps, rubella (MMR - €?) and Tetanus-diphtheria; Malaria(€?)

Uh oh - looks like I'm going to get a lot of jabbing very soon.

I rang home today to my local health clinic in Banagher, as I need a bit of a reminder about what exactly I received prior to travelling to Haiti in 2001. I'll find out exactly tomorrow, but I'm pretty sure I can strike Yellow fever, Polio/ Tetanus/Diphteria. I may need a few boosters for the others. I plan to head home on Friday, roll up my sleeve, squeeze shut my eyes, put a sock in my mouth and get some serious doses of bacteria under my epidermis.

It's a sharp jab in the wallet as well. The rates in Ireland, including consultation fee, amount to at least €260. Gulp! But I'm hoping that the previous jabs will cut a good chunk out of it.

And I'm also hoping the local GP, nurse doesn't take too many chunks out of me on Friday!

Preparing to volunteer in Ghana

2008-08-08T16:23:00.000-07:00

My name is Damien Moran. I am a teacher from Banagher, Co. Offaly, in the heart of Ireland. Currently I am planning on volunteering in Kumasi, Ghana, from early October, 2008. My hope is to find a non-profit placement for 9 months, followed by visiting social activists in North West Africa for 3 months, then returning to Ireland to share my experiences.

My Polish girlfriend currently has a placement to work with disabled adults through a European Voluntary Service programme hosted by the Edwenase Rehabilitation Centre in Kumasi, capital of the Ashanti region of Ghana. She begins in October and I plan to spend the time volunteering with her.

Dorota and I on my birthday, at The Thatch restaurant in Birr, Co. Offaly

I have decided to set up this blog as a medium for friends, family and interested cyber-visitors to tune into how these preparations and the volunteering experience itself unfold. No mortgage, car, kids - yet, yet, yet (kids are the only 1 out of this trio that I ever want) - my most valued possession at the moment is a rusting raleigh racer.

So if you consider your pockets as bulging, you feel weighed down by all them €500 notes and credit cards in your wallet, you have one to many apartments in Budapest, have decided to give up the drink for November and the cigarettes for December, please consider donating a small token sum of money to help alleviate the substantial costs I will incur in order to work for free and share my skills as an English, Geography and EFL teacher.

Next stop, Ghana!

To get to know me a little bit better and ensure that I am not just another scam artist who is in fact the son-in-law of the former president of Nigeria, please have a look at my personal blog: www.peacenikhurler.blogspot.com

Having previously worked in an Irish bar in Gran Canaria, volunteered in Haiti, worked with a plumber in New York, worked with homeless alcoholics and drug addicts in Dublin, taught English in Poland, and most recently volunteered in Palestine, I should, perhaps, hang up my carbon over-loaded boots and start planting trees for the rest of my life.

But it seems to me that we are so disengaged in the prosperous regions of the global north from the daily grind of life in the vast majority of the global south. To combat counter this it is important to continue developing strong personal friendships and networks amongst those who infinitely toil to meek out a subsistence living. This provides deeper opportunities for us to connect with and positively influence our societies about global responsibilities in a spirit of mutual aid.

From the school classroom to the pub on a Friday night (well, actually, I don't drink, so you may not meet me at your local), we can break down prejudices and help others work towards social justice for all.

So, from our current struggles with the Ghanaian (just one of them) language, Twi, the vaccinations, visas, work placements, travel, preparatory self-defence training to combat affectionate mosquitoes, this blog promises to be a mish-mash of anxieties, hopes, fears, revelations, cultural faux-pas's, successes and failures, friendship-building and inter-cultural learning, struggles and dehydration, and of course, more lethal fights with mosquitoes.

Tune in, stay tuned, spread the frequency amongst the masses, add comments, criticisms, tips, blank cheques and whatever else you feel like.

To conclude, I will try integrate some Twi wisdom, words, phrases every now and then on this blog - partly so I remember them, and partly for you to experience what a beautiful language it is:

'Obi a ɔyɛ basabasa ntumi nyɛ Onyankopɔn adamfo'

In English: 'A violent person cannot be God’s friend'