I had only just started to feel comfortable and at home in Accra when I found myself being driven away to our second location, Kumasi. However having visited and completed coaching sessions with HIV/AIDS and malaria education in 16 schools in the Osu and Adabraka regions I feel our presence will have a profound effect in Accra and hopefully will save lives in the future. It is a great feeling witnessing the improvement and eventual perfection in the children’s knowledge of the possibly fatal conditions.
However I did not fully realise the implications of a lack of education until our final school in Accra, where I heard a sudden screaming and shouting outside of our classroom. I looked outside to see the shocking sight of girl having a fit and screaming as if she were possessed. This is one of the symptoms of a rare type of malaria named cerebral malaria which effects the brain and it was clear she needed to be taken to the hospital immediately. However I could not believe it when the school pastor was shouting at the girl, ‘Let the spirit out! Devil free her!’ with no clear hurry to get her any medical attention. I knew Ghana was a very religious country, however I could never have prepared myself for that. The last I’ve heard of the girl’s condition is that she is in hospital receiving treatment for malaria with additional symptoms of anaemia.
Alive & Kicking has many connections with media groups and we were given the daunting task of appearing on live television and radio to be interviewed about our aims here in Ghana. The presenter who would interview us had a huge ego and did not even greet us when we met before the interview! We were led to the radio booth and suddenly we were sat down answering questions. I feel it went well and we didn’t have too many awkward moments considering how nervous we were beforehand. Next up was the TV interview and we were feeling more confident and prepared this time out. Trying to ignore that we were being watched all across Ghana, we kept our cool and got our message across. Relieved and proud of ourselves we had a celebratory meal at our favourite restaurant, Papaye.
In our penultimate day in Accra we attended a tournament, where selected pupils from the schools involved in our programme got to represent their region, Osu and Adabraka, in a one match showdown. In typical Ghanaian fashion, we started over 2 hours late with the girls’ match up first. The girls are very feisty and gutsy when going into challenges, something you would never see in your average London school! Both matches ended up going to penalties, mainly due to the large puddles situated in either penalty area, which proved to be an undefeatable obstacle to beat! We concluded by presenting all the schools with 5 footballs each as well as arsenal football shirts to the best players, which put some big smiles on their faces.
Our journey to Kumasi was about 5 hours, but it felt much quicker with the amazing views and rural villages we passed along the way. I felt I saw more of Ghana in that car journey than in the entire month we spent in Accra. Our new hotel is much better than our previous, with air conditioning and much more space. However I have been struck by the differences between Kumasi and Accra. Everything is much more rural and spread out and at first I felt like we had been placed in the middle of nowhere! It took a few days to start to settle in and begin to know my way around and soon enough I was feeling just as confident as I was at the end of our stay in Accra. I think this shows I am already becoming a more experienced traveller as the feelings of isolation and alienation when going to a new place are fading quicker.
So far we have found children in Kumasi have a much poorer understanding of english than those in Accra and we are having to repeat instructions much more as well as ask teachers to help with translating. I am worried our impact may be less effective if we cannot communicate our messages because of the language difficulties. However we will keep working hard and will try and think of some new ways to convey the information.