First Impressons after 6 Days in Ghana

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.