The feelings of indescribable nervousness I felt when I first stepped foot in Ghana have faded and my confidence has been growing. However it has certainly not been easy adjusting to life in Ghana and I have had to overcome numerous difficulties and setbacks. I believe the main reason for my growth in confidence here has been because of my partner with me in Ghana, Fabian. His experience of travelling showed early on and I feel safe when roaming the streets of Accra with him.
We were sent to Ghana to work in partnership with the charity, Alive and Kicking, where our goal is to deliver health messages to kids in schools on HIV/AIDS and malaria using football. We visited the Alive and Kicking factory early on to see how the footballs were made and meet the others employees working there. The footballs they make are durable to withstand the rough playing conditions in Africa and have health messages printed on them to further spread knowledge of the possibly fatal conditions.
White men and women are not such a common sight in Ghana and unsurprisingly you get a lot of attention from the locals. We live a 10 minute walk away from the Oxford Street of Ghana and we find ourselves constantly approached by street vendors trying to sell us bracelets or clothes every time we make our way down the street. They like to greet you and then grip hold of your hand tightly so you’re unable to get away and are forced into listening to their sales pitch. Ghanaians also have a culture of beeping their horns at almost anything here and we find ourselves getting continually beeped at by taxis attempting to persuade us to get a ride.
Our food allowance here is just 250 Cedis a week which equates to roughly £6.50 a day for 2 meals. We live in quite an expensive area and have therefore struggled to stick to our allocated budget. Unable to eat from street food vendors because of the risk of disease, we have found ourselves eating at a fast food chicken restaurant, Papaye. We have recently located some other reasonably priced restaurants so hopefully we should have a more varied diet!
We are staying in the Green Leaf Hotel and the staff are very friendly and talkative. I began my stay in a small child’s room with the promise I would move into a bigger room when one became available and when that time came I was very relieved. However my stay in that room did not last long after finding an infestation of bed bugs! I woke up to find one scuttling across my sheets and after checking the mattress, found many more hiding in the seams. Immediately I went to tell the staff who moved me back into my old room, which I think will be where I will stay!
Coaching the children here has been a fantastic experience so far and I feel that we are truly making a huge difference to a great number of lives. We tell the children after each session the importance of spreading the information we tell them so that our impact reaches further and further out. We like to combine our own creative sessions with some that Alive and Kicking have given us to create a great 2 hour session for each school. The most difficult part of the schools is contacting the PE teacher beforehand to organise the session as we struggle to understand each other’s accents over the phone, however everything usually works out in the end.
Our contact in Ghana for Alive and Kicking is Sam Bonsu and he wanted us to experience a party in Ghana, so managed to get us invited to his friend’s 50th birthday. The theme was the colour white and we arrived to a beautiful setup of white tables and chairs under huge, white tents. Everyone was very friendly and we were served some amazing food, including chicken, beef and Tilapia, a well-known Ghanaian fish speciality. Sam made us take part with the champagne popping and I think we coped pretty well for a first time. Watching everyone dancing to the African music really summed up the style of the Ghanaian people, going with the flow and looking very relaxed. I’m hoping that’s the way it will stay for the rest of my time here.The feelings of indescribable nervousness I felt when I first stepped foot in Ghana have faded and my confidence has been growing. However it has certainly not been easy adjusting to life in Ghana and I have had to overcome numerous difficulties and setbacks. I believe the main reason for my growth in confidence here has been because of my partner with me in Ghana, Fabian. His experience of travelling showed early on and I feel safe when roaming the streets of Accra with him. We were sent to Ghana to work in partnership with the charity, Alive and Kicking, where our goal is to deliver health messages to kids in schools on HIV/AIDS and malaria using football. We visited the Alive and Kicking factory early on to see how the footballs were made and meet the others employees working there. The footballs they make are durable to withstand the rough playing conditions in Africa and have health messages printed on them to further spread knowledge of the possibly fatal conditions.White men and women are not such a common sight in Ghana and unsurprisingly you get a lot of attention from the locals. We live a 10 minute walk away from the Oxford Street of Ghana and we find ourselves constantly approached by street vendors trying to sell us bracelets or clothes every time we make our way down the street. They like to greet you and then grip hold of your hand tightly so you’re unable to get away and are forced into listening to their sales pitch. Ghanaians also have a culture of beeping their horns at almost anything here and we find ourselves getting continually beeped at by taxis attempting to persuade us to get a ride. Our food allowance here is just 250 Cedis a week which equates to roughly £6.50 a day for 2 meals. We live in quite an expensive area and have therefore struggled to stick to our allocated budget. Unable to eat from street food vendors because of the risk of disease, we have found ourselves eating at a fast food chicken restaurant, Papaye. We have recently located some other reasonably priced restaurants so hopefully we should have a more varied diet! We are staying in the Green Leaf Hotel and the staff are very friendly and talkative. I began my stay in a small child’s room with the promise I would move into a bigger room when one became available and when that time came I was very relieved. However my stay in that room did not last long after finding an infestation of bed bugs! I woke up to find one scuttling across my sheets and after checking the mattress, found many more hiding in the seams. Immediately I went to tell the staff who moved me back into my old room, which I think will be where I will stay!Coaching the children here has been a fantastic experience so far and I feel that we are truly making a huge difference to a great number of lives. We tell the children after each session the importance of spreading the information we tell them so that our impact reaches further and further out. We like to combine our own creative sessions with some that Alive and Kicking have given us to create a great 2 hour session for each school. The most difficult part of the schools is contacting the PE teacher beforehand to organise the session as we struggle to understand each other’s accents over the phone, however everything usually works out in the end.Our contact in Ghana for Alive and Kicking is Sam Bonsu and he wanted us to experience a party in Ghana, so managed to get us invited to his friend’s 50th birthday. The theme was the colour white and we arrived to a beautiful setup of white tables and chairs under huge, white tents. Everyone was very friendly and we were served some amazing food, including chicken, beef and Tilapia, a well-known Ghanaian fish speciality. Sam made us take part with the champagne popping and I think we coped pretty well for a first time. Watching everyone dancing to the African music really summed up the style of the Ghanaian people, going with the flow and looking very relaxed. I’m hoping that’s the way it will stay for the rest of my time here.