Last Chance to Be…

…….I will be on Christmas Day. A I write this it’s November in England. It’s cold and damp and 18 days until I leave for Ghana. The wonders of technology means this post will appear automatically on 25/12/06. I will probably be nowhere near an internet connection. I wonder how I will be feeling. I wonder who I will be with. I wonder what it’s like to be on the equator for Xmas.

In a way part of me wants to escape the obscene materialism thrown at us at Christmas in the UK, so I am glad I am not there. I guess somewhere  am worried about being on my own for that day.  I may not even get a chance to get on the inet between my arrival and now. This could be my first post here since I arrived. Hi! I don’t know the Ghanaian for Merry Christmas so you will have to presume we all know it and I just said it. Cheers!

MONDAY 18TH DECEMBER 2006

I lost track of when my last entry was or what was in it.

To recap…..

I have a new phone number, which is as bad as the old one. I still have to climb a tree to send and receive calls. Text messages are still unreliable. The number is 024 9115816. From the UK I think you dial 00 233 24 911 5816. Receiving text messages is fine, but there is no guarantee you will receive a reply, although I think it’s better than it was.

Receiving messages is always a pleasure so feel free

Rumour has it there is a new mobile phone mast in the village but it won’t be turned on until January. We live in hope. I say we, I think it’s just me. There are still Internet possibilities floating about but I have no idea how long this might take to get implemented.

The other day I was given a bicycle. Theoretically this should make the journey down the mud road a bit easier, however, it has a puncture. Ghana does not have puncture repair kits. I am working on it.

I might take this moment to explain what ‘Chewing Gum for Change’, the
title of my previous post, is supposed to mean….

Because of the ridiculous money situation here, people generally can’t be bothered faffing around so much with change so they offer you something else instead. More often than not this comes in the form of chewing gum or ‘PKs’, as they are known here. I like this as it saves the effort of having to buy chewing gum on a regular basis. Having said this, if you don’t like PKs, I imagine it’s a pain.

As we all know, Ray Mears is a legend. If anybody would like to buy me a Ray Mears book and send it out if would be appreciated, if only for the section on tying knots. I am, seemingly, the only person here who uses a washing line. Most people just leave their stuff lying around on the grass.

My washing line is made of Para cord tied between two trees. This is a temporary arrangement as I am afraid of somebody garrotting themselves against the line. Normally I wouldn’t be so worried about this but because of all the clothes lying around on the floor I am worried somebody will do themselves an injury while staring at the ground, avoiding all the clothes lying around. For this reason I remove the line when it’s not in use. I recall Ray uses a quick release knot perfect for the job. Despite watching endless repeats on UKTV Gold, I can’t quite remember it.

POSTAL SERVICE UPDATE.

My test parcels have not arrived. I have managed to talk with other VSOs, some of whom have problems and some of whom don’t. I have also discovered that the Post Office I used in the UK didn’t really know what buttons to push on the machine so
airmail should not have been so expensive and should only take a week. So, if you want to send me stuff here is the low down:

1. Use recorded if you can. The parcel will be sealed and there is a paper trail (however useless this might be, it might be enough to prevent theft).

2. List the contents of the parcel (omitting anything valuable) on the outside. This will put somebody off opening it and nicking stuff as they tend to pilfer one or two things. If they are listed, this becomes awkward.

3. The name of the school is the St Theresa Centre for the Handicapped. This name is outmoded and not politically correct in the UK, however, if written in full on the package, may discourage theft or the need for customs bribery to retrieve my package.

4. Ghana is so incredibly religious that a picture of Jesus or a religious slogan (e.g. GOD SEES EVERYTHING or JESUS LOVES YOU etc) might be enough to deter theft.

5. The only thing scarier than God is Juju Power (sic). This is (very roughly) a belief held by traditional religion that some all-seeing power called Juju is responsible for anything bad in the world. Some people see Disability as Juju. Anyway from what I have gathered, red is the colour of Juju, so if you want to experiment with wrapping stuff with red ribbons, fill your boots :p.

For maximum effect therefore, use this address,

Jonathan Barratt
VSO Volunteer
St Theresa Centre for the Handicapped
PO BOX 37
ABOR
VOLTA REGION
GHANA

The test parcels I sent apparently take eight weeks because I sent them by land. I think this was a mistake by the Post Office as we should have been able to find a more cost affective airmail option as most other Volunteers have received post (albeit having to pay the occasional bribe to get it).

If I had a Tesco Metro at the end of the road, these are the things I would buy.

Cotton Buds
Dental Floss
Toothpaste with FLOURIDE
Instant Coffee without CHICORY
Filter Coffee
Tea with TEA in it
Biscuits – all types
DVDs
Milk!
CHOCOLATE! (I am still agog and agape that chocolate is so difficult to find here given that the number 1 export from Ghana is cocoa)
Soap without ACID in it
Everything else probably

If you really want to send me something valuable send it to

Jonathan Barratt

Voluntary Service Overseas

PO BOX AN6526, Accra North, Ghana, West Africa and I will pick it up eventually. This is VSO HQ.

DISABILITY SECTOR MEETING

On Wednesday 13th December I went to Accra to meet up with VSO and have a meeting with the disability sector. We went to a hotel near Akosombo. On the way we stopped at a petrol station for a drink. The station was an anachronous place, just like a Tesco Metro in Britain. Most people bought ice creams. I just stood and drooled, cursing that we didn’t have more time as it was the best shop I had been in since I got here. I could have done a monthly shop there. Most vols live in towns, few are as isolated as me so I don’t think they saw the beauty of the place.

My hotel room opened out straight onto the African plains, overlooking a large mountainous rupture. You would be forgiven for thinking Ghana lies on a fault line, but I have been promised it doesn’t. Perhaps these are very old mountains. They rise out of the flat plains so dramatically you could imagine a huge earthquake caused them quite recently.

I took a picture of a Harmattan Sunset as I arrived, with the mountains in the background. It was breathtaking and I am beginning to see some real beauty here. The Harmattan is a warm wind from the Sahara which brings with it lots of sand.
During the Harmattan season there is a layer of sand in the air so thick that the sun sets behind it, before it reaches the horizon. So if I managed to get to a cafe with more than a tin can and piece of string for its Internet access, then you should be able to see it for yourself.

The meeting was ok. I say ok, the hotel was great and food outrageously good and meeting other VSOs was great. The actual meeting was more useful to the other vols. They have serious issues, problems and hurdles to deal with on a daily basis. Although I haven’t actually started yet, I am beginning to realise, I have things easy.

My job will be more demanding in terms of workload and hours but that’s one of the good things about it. Most other VSOs spend a large part of the time working out how to be effective, how to make positive changes, how to make a difference. That is tough for them. Mine is all worked out for me, all I have to do is be a good teacher.

After meeting the other Vols and stuffing my face with food I went off with two of the Vols to Ho, my nearest big town and a bit closer than Accra. On the way I saw why the Volta has such a reputation of beauty, with mountains like the ones at
Akosombo, except that the slopes are covered in rain forests. Awesome.

I didn’t see too much of Ho, just a bit of the market but I was able to eat more ice cream and all sorts of FOOD. Wow food is such an issue for me and not for anybody else. They laugh when I drool at simple things, like coffee. I have coffee here but
it’s flavoured with Chicory and ropey as hell. Filter coffee was enough to make me want to do something I can’t type because my mum reads this.

THE JOURNEY HOME. SATURDAY 16TH DECEMBER 2006

So I took a long journey home by tro tro alone and it was pretty cool with no upsets just several people wanting to be my best friend and visit me. I really hope one of them doesn’t turn up and expect me to entertain them. Don’t get me wrong Ghanaians are, on the whole, decent people but my small home is kinda private. To have some guy who I met on the bus just turn up and visit will freak me out. I have yet to play this particular culture clash very well. I shall have to work on it.
The other night two students came to visit me and I just stood and talked to them at the door. I think they were expecting to come in and I probably deeply offended them by not letting them in. hmmmpf.

When I got back the school was empty as everyone was gone home. I remembered I had to do something about the GAP as all the snakes move back in now there is very little noise here. Eventually I came up with an ingenious device made from the folder VSO gave me at the meeting I had just returned from. I cut out long strips of plastic and made notches in it. I then placed it over the gap and put drawing pins where the notches are. As the door opens (due to the uneven floor my device had to compensate for the undulations) the strips of plastic rise and fall and the drawing pins hold the cunning thing in place. Mr Mears himself would be proud.

Even more good news is that after snake proofing my place, I found a Gecko had moved in. Due to the snake proofing, he now can’t escape! Winner. I quickly named him Marcus and took a photo. I should add that taking a photo of a gecko is very hard
without a huge telephoto lens as they are really scared of people. This explains the blur. He mainly hangs out behind the wardrobe. I imagine he comes out when I am not here or in bed and eats cockroaches.

I am doing well on the dealing with insects front, my biggest fear before coming here. I am still, however, rather worried about the inevitable night when a huge cockroach wakes me up by crawling across my face. This is Africa, it’s going to happen. Marcus may help delay it but it will happen. I have had three cockroaches so far, all tiny ones and one of them was dead. The other two came out of the plughole while I was having a shower and subsequently drowned. I guess they are breaking me in gently or maybe the frogs have been eating them and the ‘Snakebuster’ will prove to be my downfall. Who knows.

I have serious amounts of work to do now, lesson plans for what will be a very full timetable, so maybe will spend less time doing this diary. I am not sure. Perhaps I will update as frequently but perhaps not so hugely. Time will tell.

As I type this there is something running down my spine. I am quite calmly deciding whether it is a bead of sweat (common) or something more sinister (also common). I decide it is the former and chose to ignore it, as this is the easiest option.

Welcome to Ghana or, as the Ewe put it, ‘Woezor!’

(PS I might add that the formal reply to ‘Woezor’ is ‘Yooooo!’)

WEDNESDAY 20TH DECEMBER 2006

Now that I have access to the syllabus I have been busy planning my lessons for the last few days. Ironically we have had several power cuts or ‘Lights offs’ and I have yet to devise an affective method of working without my laptop.

The monotony was broken today as my bicycle is now fixed. At 6.30 am I rode into Abor. This sounds crazy but most people get up around 5-6am here. This is because it gets dark at 6pm and there is limited power, so daylight is valued. 6.30am is also a good time to ride into town (people say town but it’s really a village), as it’s less than 30 degrees, just about.

I made the journey in 5 minutes. Having transport makes all the difference. It’s a really easy cycle too. Instead of being a Javu I am now Javu on a bicycle, the source of much hilarity. Some really young kids ran after me shouting Javu at one point. Kids here always make me smile.

Instead of losing 3 litres of water on the trip to town, I only lost one or two, and I saved an hour of making best friends.

I have an offer to go to the beach for Xmas, Cape Coast to be precise. I haven’t quite decided what to do yet.

DAY AND NIGHT

I have begun to realise that there is a distinct difference to how I feel during the day and the night here.

During the daytime I have to deal with the heat, but it’s also sunny all day long, which can only be good for the soul. The occasional breeze cheers me up, as do all the smiling faces you see in Ghana. Dehydration is a problem as, if you make any effort at all, you lose litres of water.

Nighttime has one major benefit of being cooler (albeit only one or two degrees). It has several disadvantages, the main one being the wildlife. Snakes, frogs, mosquitoes and a plethora of other creepy crawlies come out at night. (Frogs are not inherently scary but they are, of course, snake food). During lights out, the night is also painfully hot and, when there is no moon, scary as hell.

So far anyway, I prefer the daytime. I have developed a technique of doing things in slow motion, which helps me keep cool. Anyone who has ever seen me play football will understand how easy I find this. When I talk to people about my acclimatisation they are generally impressed with how I deal with the heat and markedly nonplussed by the way I whine about insects.

The other night at dinner, for example, I pointed out that a small family of crawling things had moved into the sugar bowl. I found this amusing and disturbing. Everybody else seemed to find it banal.

Somebody else explained to me that seeing your first really scary spitting cobra was a bit like driving down the motorway and seeing an horrendous car crash in the UK. You’re scared for a bit, slow down for a while, and then forget all about it.

One good thing that is happening at the moment is sugar, salt and carbohydrate. In the UK I spent a good deal of time avoiding all three. In Ghana it’s quite hard to eat enough calories so you have to pile in the carbs. You also have to cover it in salt in order to replenish what you lose through sweating. Bonus. I would be extra happy about all this if I didn’t have to also replace sugar. I haven’t actually found any sugar to buy yet so I am having to use the bowl in the main house - which I share with some insects. Luckily they have small appetites.

KITTEN KILLERS!

I have a friend who killed some kittens once. He didn’t mean to, so he tells me. I enjoy pointing out to him that he has more in common with Sid Vicious than me for that very reason.

I like cats. When I got to the school I found they have lots of kittens about the place. They are incredibly cute. I haven’t made friends with any for fear (irrational or not) of catching rabies. It turns out that that this is a good thing, as the Ewe people like to eat them. I think they wait until they are fully grown until they kill them and eat them, unlike my impatient friend who kills them before they have had a chance in life.

I spoke to somebody who had eaten cat and he said it was really nice to eat but he couldn’t quite explain what it tasted like.

I am almost a vegetarian at the moment but today I ate cow liver. I believe in England we only eat pig liver? Who knows? I haven’t quite managed a chicken’s foot yet but am building up to it. I am promised that the meat is a bit chewy but the taste is divine. The same applies for chicken stomach, which I haven’t ventured into yet. I eat the same food every day here - here is my daily diet.

BREAKFAST

Cake Bread (from the village) and Honey from the school
Instant Coffee with Chicory Flavouring and milk powder (NESCAFE MY ARSE! Wonder why this translates as NO COFFEE in Spanish)
I like to top this up with biscuits if I can.

LUNCH

Plain Rice or Pasta (sometimes I get a spicy tomato sauce with this). Believe it or not we also sometimes get freshly grated real Parmesan cheese!

Then either

Boiled Yams
Yam Chips
or
Sweet Potato Chips

Some days there is some meat with this but sometimes I don’t fancy it. This could be fried beef, boiled or fried chicken, or fried liver.

Dessert is my absolute favourite as we have pineapples mangos and oranges.

Dinner

Soup (This is a traditional Ghanaian soup but I forgot the name - it’s tomatoish with rice in it)

Followed by Tuna or Egg Salad with the following
Some green stuff, which tastes a bit like spinach/lettuce
Raw Cabbage
Cucumber
Sometimes Fried Aubergine
Red Onions

Dessert

More Pineapple, Oranges, Mangos and Paw Paws

There is not much variation on that. Sometimes we have a special occasion and there is cake or biscuits.

If it weren’t for the dessert, which is just insanely good, I would have gone nuts by now. The only thing better than fresh mangos, pineapples, paw paws, water melon and oranges straight from the trees, is a fruit salad it’s worth it just for the juice.

Thursday 21st December 2006
ANTS

Being on the equator has one huge impact on the environment, life. Life exists everywhere here. Every nook and cranny has something living in it. There are beautiful and varied butterflies everywhere, goats, cats, pigs, chickens, wild fowl, spiders, snakes, birds, insects and a whole lot more.

Some of the creatures here I had never seen in the flesh, such as the vultures, which circle overhead almost all of the time. This is a bird watchers paradise. There is a huge lagoon nearby which is a host to some of the world’s most important species. Just now on my walk around the campus I saw some kind of flightless bird running across the football pitch. Amazing.

The things you notice most of all though, are the ants. Ants inhabit the air here. Their environment is not a tree, or a hole in the ground or a 15 foot high termite mound (commonplace) they are just everywhere.

Yesterday I stood and stared at a tree for a few minutes. There was a colony of large red ants living on the outside of the trunk. The trunk itself was covered in sand. This sand is placed there by another species of ant who are sensitive to light and so cover everywhere they live in sand. The large red ants were feeding off them. As I stood watching some smaller red ants crawled onto my feet and persisted in biting my ankles.

I stood back and looked further up the tree to find some more types of ants who make their nests in the leaves of the tree. The tree itself was known as a custard apple tree. It has this amazingly tasty fruit, which tastes like custard and apple. Incredible. So anyway, another type of ant were ferrying some custard out of the tree, to their nest somewhere else. There was a huge long column of them going off into the distance with custard on their backs.

Further down the trunk a group of funky shaped larger dark ants were just passing through for no particular reason. They had worked out that falling has no particular impact on ants and so were able to jump from the wall to the tree and then just fall from the tree in order to save time on their journey.

Looking at the floor at the base of the tree there is another variety of ant, the big ones. By my standards they are big anyway, perhaps 1 to 1.5cm and fairly solitary creatures, thankfully. You see them now and then and for a reason I cannot quite fathom, I normally stand on them.

Walking back to my house, which is a room in a very long (perhaps 50m) building, I saw another common sight, the hardcore travelling ants. These guys have permanent highways. I have no idea what is at either end. I did think perhaps they were moving nest but this particular highway has been there since I arrived and also they travel both directions.

The procession starts by coming out of the floor, up a column and across a ceiling. From there it travels around head height for about 25 metres, using the tops of the windows as a guide. About 5 metres before reaching my front door, they take a perpendicular right angled turn back towards the column and disappear into the ceiling, thankfully. As I type this the occasional scout is crawling across my desk. I feel like an Indigenous American Indian seeing his first white man. Should I kill it? If I do will more come? Perhaps I could just ignore it and they will go away, or maybe I could hide my natural resources? At the moment I choose to squash them.

There is one last type of ant I have yet to mention, the soldier ant. Soldier ants are perhaps one of the scariest creatures in Africa and the biggest reason, after Malaria, we should be concerned about global warming. Solider ants are bigger than anything I have mentioned so far and they consume everything in their path. We don’t have any on the campus but we do have them on the farm. On the farm they walk around in huge long and wide columns, consuming everything in their path. They frequently eat chickens and other farm animals.

If you were in the path of a column of soldier ants and did not move out of the way they would eat you. This sounds absolutely insane and is absolutely true. They do not like noise or civilisation so won’t come near my house but if you live in a mud hut and a column of soldier ants comes to your village you have only two options - surround the house with paraffin or leave. There is a third option but not many people would choose to be eaten alive.

Getting drunk and falling asleep in the in street in Lewisham has serious consequences, but not as serious as in Sub Saharan Africa.

One of the greatest minds of the Twentieth Century, a mathematician and synaesthete called Richard Fenyman, began his life by studying ants in his bathroom. I wonder if it is too late for me.

FRIDAY DECEMBER 22ND 2006

I have decided to stay on campus for Xmas and get some more work done. I will save some money if I do so and also I have been invited to Christmas Lunch here. Among other things we are having duck and ice cream. Amazing how those two things alone were enough to keep me here. It’s also amazing how unprofitable my work time is being. I find it hard to get anything done, even without distractions.

This morning I saw my first giant cockroach, lying on its back, in my bathroom. When I sprayed it with some nasty chemicals it wiggled for a bit then died. I am unsure why it was there on its back or where it had come from. It was huge. Marcus would have had no chance eating it, as it was twice the size of his head. I haven’t seen him lately either, which is no surprise considering how scary the cockroaches are around here. I spoke to other people about them and they don’t seem to care. I hope I get used to them, somehow.

Tomorrow I am going to another town, Aflao, which is on the border with Togo and close to Lome, the capital. There should be more stuff to buy (I live in hope) and perhaps an Internet Café which has computers which work and Internet connection. You never know your luck.

This morning I found a lady selling chocolate in the town. As an added bonus it was Ghanaian chocolate which means it wouldn’t melt on the way home. Unfortunately it’s rank. Not only is it very bitter but also, like a lot of local produce, it does not taste as if it has been made in a clean environment. I do not know if this is true or just my taste buds adapting but overall, eating it was a sadly disappointing experience.

Oh, I also found out that the tiny things which live in your sugar bowl here, are also ants.

Happy Xmas etc

Jon

No time AGAIN!

Only enough time to say I am happy and paste some notes from last week.

My phone number will be superceeded by a new one in a few days so if you text me and I haven’t replied I’m not ignoring you

————————————————————

Saturday 9th December 2006

I was nervous before leaving to go to Akatsi market today. I had a few things to contend with and diarrhoea was the least of them.

I had to go on a Tro Tro for the first time, navigate my way to somewhere I had only been once before, deal with the heat and haggle.

Getting a Tro Tro was easy, but as I got on the lady in the front seat, next whom I had been placed, huffed something in Ewe, which ended in Javu. She didn’t seem too happy to have to sit next to one. I wasn’t feeling my best anyway and this didn’t
help. I was not in the mood for haggling.

Anyway, as it was I had a great time. I spent half a day wandering around Akatsi and didn’t see another white person. I also decided to approach all the stallholders who shouted ‘Javu’ rather than those who asked to be my best friend, and, surprisingly, had a really good laugh with all of them.

My interim haggling technique of just wandering off when I am given a price didn’t seem to be working until I managed to buy a Kerosene lamp for 17 000 Cedis which I considered a bargain. Tune in next week for the exiting adventures of me trying to find Kerosene to put in it.

I went to the 28K Internet Cafe again and had plenty of emails and comments on the site to read. Great stuff, thank you.I have started to play two games while I am here. The first one is, how many times will the Tro Tro driver sound his horn? The journey from Akatsi to Abor is about 10km. Can you guess?

The other game is the G Shock Sociability Game. My watch has a meter on it to show how much time I have been outside (i.e. how much charge does the solar panel get), low, medium or high. While I was showing off the features of this watch once, somebody asked me if I get out much, so I decided to prove that geeks have fun too. The idea of the game is to keep the watch at High. The more I go outside, the easier that should be. When you go outside here you can’t avoid being social.

On my way home today several people approached me on the mud road (I wonder if it has a name) asking to be my best friend. This happens all the time. I normally tell them that if I said ‘yes’ to everybody who asked to be my friend, I would have too
many friends, so for now I am saying neither yes or no. Some of them take offence to this and some don’t. I think some of them take this as a yes anyway.

In fact I am fairly sure some of them now think we are best friends and when they see me walking along the mud road make a special effort to come out and greet me. Unfortunately, having met about fifty people in this way in the last week, I can’t
remember any of them. It’s all a bit difficult.

Feeling triumphant with all this socialising this morning, I spent time this afternoon chatting with my students around the campus. They are awesome and curious about me but not intrusive, not like the mud road people. They laugh at my jokes, which is really cool. This could be because they haven’t heard them before. Let’s see if they are still laughing this time next year.

They are concerned about me sitting in my room being ill and generally really nice to me even though they hardly know me. Most of them also want to be my best friend, but because I am their teacher, they know this is unlikely.

Every Saturday night the students entertain themselves on the stage at the front of the school, with some kind of play. They have asked me to come up on stage and tell a funny story - which I politely refused as I am not good with large audiences. I have a feeling I won’t be able to get out of it so plan to take my camera with me and just ask them all to say cheese or something.

Oh, for those playing along, the Tro Tro driver sounded his horn an amazing 56 times on the way to Akatsi and a disappointing 43 on the way back.

Sunday 10th December

I seem to spend a lot of time washing clothes. This is mainly because they get covered in sweat within about five minutes of putting them on. Also during the Harmattan everything is covered in orange sand. Most of this morning was spent doing washing.

Father has intimated that he wants to get an internet connection at the school along with a server. This is excellent news. I am going to Accra on Wednesday so plan to investigate a possible option. There is a chance we may get an always on mobile/gsm type connection.

Despite my reticence, I have also drawn up a shopping list for when I go to Koala. Spit!

Everything is photogenic here, but I have yet to start snapping. The kids have nothing here and I feel bad enough using my mobile phone in front of them. A few of them have mobiles, but mostly they are broken or have no credits. I will try to take some before I come to Accra and ….. broadband! My watch is also causing a problem. I am going to have to put the G Shock game on hold as most kids just stare at my watch all the time. I am going to pretend to lose it this week.

After washing, I spent the whole day chatting with various folk around the school. I am starting to feel more healthy and less itchy. I also finally got some work to do as I have found out some of the topics I will be covering next term so will be able to do some preparation, finally.

I have been trying to buy a bicycle over the last week. I found one for sale in Abor last week and was told it would cost me 350 000 Cedis. Rather than haggle, I told the guy I would be back next week to see if the price had changed. So today I asked him how much again. This time he said 1 million Cedis. I guess the technique doesn’t always work.

Deep joy, I am going back to the bank tomorrow.

I am starting to develop a tolerance to insects. Last night at dinner I had a procession of ants walking across the table and managed to ignore them almost completely for at least five minutes.

Monday 11th December 2006

Highs and lows are normal. The lows are worsened by illness. Perception of a problem changes from one day to the next. Now that I am no longer ill I am no longer bothered by the gap under the door. Strange.

A larger lizard has moved into the bathroom, but I don’t think it counts as a Gecko.

So, to the bank, armed with photocopies, photos and a utility bill. I considered taking something completely random like a tin of tuna fish and giving it to the manager, when questioned, I would reply, ‘just in case.’ I thought better of it.

So anyway, when finally the accounts Manager cant ask for any more things, he finally started to process my account. I think I then started to understand why there had been a problem before.

Despite there being several computers in the bank, with which one could create a new account, only one of them seems to ever be used. This is the same one they also use to process withdrawals and deposits. On the previous days when I have tried to open an account there has been a long queue.

When they open an account it takes quite a while. This is mainly because nobody quite knows how to do it or use the computer properly. They can’t get away with hogging the computer for so long when there is already such a long queue. I deduced this from watching the staff crowd around the computer randomly pushing buttons until all the errors went away as they tried to create my account. A further clue was
provided when the manager asked me to give him private computer lessons. Polite refusal is becoming a habit.

I was a little less polite when refusing to pay the school fees of one of my ‘best friends’ on the mud road. It was really sad to have to do so. The boy who asked has met me about three times and doesn’t say very much apart from the fact that he likes me and would like to visit me. I tried to explain that I was a volunteer and that I had much to give but it was mainly skills and time. Nobody believes me when I say I have no money. This is not helped by my watch which I am going to ‘lose’ in Accra this week. What is worse is the fact that I bought my watch for the equivalent price as one year of school fees.

After having walked with me for about four trips down the mud road and promising to ‘visit me’ a lot, he cycled away shortly after I said no to the request for money. The belief that Javu or white men have money is a big problem here. It seems fairly well
accepted that all you have to do is befriend a white man and your life will change somehow.

I have tried to find out if the mud road has a name to no avail. I shall have to think of a name for it myself. I met a lady selling plantain crisps on it today - they were awesome and only 2000 Cedis. Better than crisps!

By the time you read this I will be in Accra, for a VSO meeting. With any luck I will meet a friendly Volunteer who wants a visitor for Xmas, if not there is a chance I might go off travelling for a week or so up into the rain forest.

I went outside today and took some pictures. Because of the Harmattan the sky is dull. I didn’t feel up for getting my camera out in front of the students yet so I took these while they were in class.

That’s all for now apart from something I just heard on BBC World Service about a Michael Essien wonder goal? What was that about then? There is only one TV Station here and it sucks, so I won’t get the chance to see it.

EDIT

Due to a request I have included a picture of me on the right is my bed with mosquito net and fan (crucial). Me and my Robert’s radio in are the middle. The one with the inane grin is me. Behind that is my Ray Mears style filing trays made from cardboard. Those curtains were hand made just for me.

PS I am writing this under the light of a kerosene lamp to power rationing - cool

PPS In the picture called School Building, my house is about halfway down on the right.

UPDATE! My mobile phone sucks. I have missing messages all over the place but only just found out. I will try to get a new one soon.

Tuesday 5th December 2006

On my first morning in Ghana I woke up and walked around the room naked for a few seconds, before realising the hotel room had no curtains and two windows overlooking a busy street. I was initially concerned about how my naked hairy body might offend my hosts. This was their first view of me and mine of them. The first thing I saw was a woman standing in the street, pissing. Women pee in the street in the same way men do in Britain, on a Friday night, men do too. The only difference is it’s Friday night all the time here. Suffice to say, my minor faux pas, went unnoticed.

Ghana has almost no public services, even in Accra. There are no street cleaners and no bins. There are open sewers everywhere. These are also used for waste disposal and urination. There is rubbish everywhere. Where the open sewer is not used as a type of amenity, the street is instead, and this is the first thing I saw of Ghana in daylight. The women don’t squat Western style, but have developed a rather less elegant (if elegant can be used to describe public urination) standing pose.

Abor is no different to Accra. Yesterday I saw a small girl of perhaps two years of age, climb up onto a pile of waste and defecate. I keep telling myself that Ghana is a ‘beacon of development.’ The HDI (Human Development Index) may have improved here but I was not expecting it to see that.

This morning I was invited to school assembly and was presented by the Director to the children here. He said how happy he was for me to be here and explained a little about VSO. I was then asked to stand up and say something so I just repeated what he had said, introducing myself as Mr Jon, formal but casual. I then got a big round of applause, which was nice. I should mention after my whinge, that the school is very clean.

I was finally provided with an iron last night, saving me the chore of finding one. Thank you Director. So after assembly I did my first bout of ironing in 30 degree heat. With the ceiling fan on, it wasn’t too bad. Given the whole Mango Fly debacle, it goes without saying that I was very thorough, perhaps overly so. The temperature here has actually dropped a little due to the Harmattan.

The Harmattan is a North Easterly wind from the Sahara. It should last for the next month or so. It brings with it a ‘coolish’ breeze, which you can feel at night. Overnight, it probably drops to about 26 degrees, rather than the usual 30 or so.

During power rationing the school has a generator, however, if the power rationing happens at night, then the generator is turned off. This makes sleeping a challenge. At the moment I have a standing fan pointing down at my bed and with this on full and earplugs in (thank you Clare!) I can sleep ok. During the rationing, sleep is impossible as after about 30 minutes of no fan, I wake up boiling hot. The annoying thing about this is that the school would be quite happy to leave the generator on overnight, however, the electrics are metered in such a way that they actually get charged for electricity they generate. I don’t think this is policy, just a fault with the electricity metering that has never been fixed.

Today I also went to Akatsi market. It is much much better than Abor, which is very good news. Unfortunately I got a lift there and the person I went with didn’t seem too happy about letting me wander off, so I ended up buying nothing. I might be able to get some household goods here, such as toothpaste. I plan to go back Saturday.

Akatsi also has an Internet café, which is unbelievably poor. It has a 28k modem, shared between six computers. It took twenty minutes before the kid working there got it to work. I could see that the switch was not connected, so after much whining by me that waiting wouldn’t solve it as something needed to be done to resolve the issue, the boy working admitted that the power adaptor which supplied the switch, also fitted another computer, which he was using, so we would have to wait.

I gave him a look which said, ‘This is an Internet café, therefore I would quite like to have Internet, failing that, I’ll have a coffee.’ As the café didn’t have the café part of ‘Internet Café’, the boy realised Internet was actually crucial to his business and turned his computer off.

After another twenty minutes I managed to upload something to my website. I gave up on everything else as my lift was waiting. I realised afterwards that I left my email logged in on the PC I had been using. Fingers crossed. The only benefit of the excursion was the cost. Internet cafes are cheap in Ghana and all he faffing about only cost 2000 Cedis, about 15p.

I plan to come back to the market and the cafe on Saturday, alone.

Wednesday 6th December 2006

I spent most of the day on the loo. Although this is to be expected, it’s still unpleasant. In a way it’s a good thing to get it out of the way early and while I still have some Koala toilet roll left. Hopefully I will make it back to Akatsi market before I run out.

Despite the dehydration caused by diarrhoea, I had to walk to Abor today. I was accompanied the entire way by a man who told me he was the Chief of Abor. He was drunk and on his way to work. He told me his name was Frances Conde and that he was a Librarian.

He said that walking with a white man would help to elevate his status and give him more power, which seemed to please him. I wonder if he was trying to abuse his power as he shouted his way to Abor, at passers-by. Apparently we are now very good friends and he is expecting me to visit him at work in order to help elevate his status there too. He said he would visit me too. I get this a lot from people I meet. I don’t want to be visited by random people who befriend me because I am white. I hope I don’t offend too many people by telling them to go away if any do actually turn up at my door.

Because I am white, I am normally approached in two different ways. Firstly, there is the over-friendly approach. Within five minutes of talking to whomever, I am asked to take them back to England so we can be friends. Befriending a white man here, is seen as a way out of poverty, hence why a lot of ladies smile at me here.

The second approach is just to shout Javu at me. Javu is Ewe for ‘white man’ and has its roots all the way back to colonial times (as do a lot of things here but I will come back to that on a no news day). On a typical walk into Abor somebody will shout Javu at me about twenty or thirty times. The kids even have a song, to which I have yet to learn the words, Javu Javu something something. There is, fortunately, no malice to Javu. Comparing it to shouting racial abuse to Pakistanis in the street in 70s Gravesend isn’t really fair. (I hope it’s not too idealistic to think we stopped doing that in the 70s?)

I am wondering if I should aim to make friends with the ladies who shout Javu at me instead of those who smile. At least is seems like they are expecting nothing from me. There is an exception to this, a lady I walk past most days and shouts, ‘Javu give me some money – then laughs.’

So, the reason for my walk to Abor, was so that I can open a bank account, in order to get paid. Sadly, I anticipated ridiculous beaurocracy before entering and was not disappointed. Just think how boring this diary would be if everything went smoothly. Anyway, within a few minutes, which was pleasing, the manager told me that the letter I had from VSO was not good enough and that I needed to provide a photocopy. I tried to explain he could have the original to no avail.

‘You may need the original to open an account elsewhere, therefore I must be provided with a copy.’

‘Do I need anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Ok I will come back tomorrow with a copy’

‘Yes and also bring with you a letter from the Director of the Centre and a copy of your VSO ID’

Despite the obvious gaff, the fact he had told me as I was leaving was a good thing. He could have waited until I came back the next day.

I spent the rest of the day drinking ‘Oral Rehydration Salts’ and sleeping. I also agreed to give English lessons to Hisa, a Japanese Volunteer here. This is really to help pass the time.

Our first lesson was pretty much hopeless. She showed me her Japanese textbooks. They are all the same and teach English in exactly the same way by learning and regurgitating sentence after sentence. I asked Hisa what happens if she needs to say something which isn’t in one of the books and she didn’t know the answer.

I spent about two hours explaining that the way to learn a language was to learn how the language is formed, with verbs, subjects, objects etc and that we should start by learning verbs and conjugation. Later on we could learn prepositions, pronunciation, vocabulary and whatnot. Eventually, she would be able to form her own sentences using the tools she had learnt.

When I asked if she had understood she said, ‘yes so now can you teach me some sentences.’

I sometimes wonder if the whole world is insane.

Thursday 7th Dec

Today was horrible.

I spent hours filling up the loo with water (bodily water), flushing it with more water, filtering water and drinking water. Eventually something had to give and it was the toilet. Being confined to quarters as I could only walk about 10 feet without needing a dump is not nice. When the toilet got blocked it was even more unpleasant.

I considered the options of running for a loo elsewhere, using the sink or the shower and eventually decided to put my hand up the U-bend. When I pulled a frog out I thought about the insanity question again and thought perhaps this was one big Larium trip and that I hadn’t actually left the UK.

I would go on to explain that the whole school then saw a crazy Englishman throw a frog covered in poo out of the door, but nobody saw me so I felt like the entire thing could have been a dream. The good news, however, was that I was able to continue filtering water through my body.

Oh yer, just for good measure, there was another frog in the loo brush holder.

As is about the norm, by about 11am, I felt up for going to Abor and the bank again, armed with my photocopies and letter from the Director.

I think that the whole Bank thing is going to be a long one. I shan’t labour the point with dialogue. All you really need to know is that, after presenting the Manager with everything he asked for, he asked me for some other things, namely, a utility bill and some passport photographs. He also gave me the forms which he was supposed to fill in but clearly couldn’t be bothered to and told me to come back. I laboured the point that if there were anything else he was holding back, now would probably be a good time to tell me. He assured me there was nothing.

I also tried to explain that a utility bill would be a good way of proving my address, if my name was on it, but as that as I live in a school, it wouldn’t be. He still wants to see one.

I have come to the conclusion that a developing country only needs one thing to kick-start everything else. In the circle of poverty this is often all it takes, one thing to turn the circle into an outward spiral of goodness. I have decided that this one thing is litigation. If I could take the Bank Manager to Court for wasting my time then he would think twice next time. Power abuse is a big problem here and really hinders development. My example is a minor one but mirrors the bigger problems.

When I go to dinner in the evenings, any post I may get will also be there. I got my first post today, the Guardian Weekly. (No sign of my other packages yet so if you’re thinking of sending me stuff probably worth holding back). My Dad paid for my Guardian Weekly subscription and am I glad he did (Thanks!). Having something vaguely connected to sanity to read is a real blessing.

At dinner I explained the frog story to everybody. I expected it to be of more interest than it was. I mean, we are in the middle of the African Bush, Mambas, Cobras and Scorpions are common and I have frogs in my room. Nobody seemed to care. I asked if anybody had anything to help block the gap under my door and nobody did. I was told not to worry about snakes because the noise of children frightens them away. I pointed out that in ten days time everybody except me leaves the school for three weeks and was told then yes I would have to worry about it then.

Somebody then told a ‘funny’ story about some guests who had a cobra in their room. When they asked for somebody to come and get it out the snake made a run for it and escaped down the loo. It didn’t come out of the loo again for another thirty minutes. It transpired this had all taken place in my room a few months ago. Hilarious.

I am willing to bet they aren’t bothered by all this as much as me as they don’t have massive gaps under their doors. I think they think I am a wimp.

I shall have to find something to plug the gap myself.

Before I came I was told that being VSO is full of ups and downs and today was definitely a down. Perhaps tomorrow will be better.

My maggot is getting better, very slowly. It’s still there but much smaller. I think it is being broken down under my skin by my body doing its thing.

For anybody embarking on anything similar to this I thought I would list the items I could not have done without so far.

Earplugs!
Wind Up torch (Even if you have electricity a good wind up torch is awesome)
Short Wave Radio (Make sure it goes as low as 16m on SW otherwise you can’t get BBC World Service all day)
String
Small Rucksack
Fold Up Water bottle thing.
MP3 Player
Audio Books

I have been listening to ‘The Silver Pigs’ by Lindsay Davis on my mp3 player. It has been my saviour, my escape. Thanks Lindsay.

The protagonist to the Lindsay Davis novels is a Roman called Marcus Didius Falco. I agreed with a friend before I came that if I was fortunate enough to have a Gecko move into my room (Geckos are cool for several reasons but the main one is that they eat cockroaches) I would name it Marcus Didius Gecko.

Unfortunately, so far anyway, I have plenty of other amphibians and reptiles but no Gecko. I shall hold back on naming anything as Marcus Didius Small Lizard doesn’t have the same ring.

Friday 8th December 2006

Nothing at all happened today except for the fact that I ran out of loo paper. I hope tomorrow morning I am able to leave the house for Akatsi market without the usual two hour toilet break.