Tuesday November 28th 06

I must begin this entry by talking about something which happened to me on the day I
arrived.  On Sunday night all I thought had happened, in a nutshell, was for me to land, take a taxi to the hotel, drink some water and panic a bit before going to sleep. The following morning I had breakfast with Aleno, the other VSO with whom I had arrived. It was during this breakfast that I showed her my mosquito bite zapper.

The ‘Zapper’ was something I found in an Army surplus store in Salisbury and had previously heard of so when I saw them decided to buy two as they were very cheap. In addition, they have the musical slogan, ‘Click it! Don’t Scratch it!.’

The zapper is a pretty basic thing which looks exactly like those electric things you use to light gas hobs, except they are small enough to fit on a key ring. They work in the same way.

Some bright spark realised that the bright spark from the zapper has the convenient side-effect of reducing the swelling and itching on mosquito bites. Aleno had suffered in the night so I showed her my zapper and gave her my spare one. I demonstrated its use on a small bite on my arm, the only bite I had received. Five clicks for an itch, fifteen for a swelling. For the purposes of this story, my bite received twenty small electric shocks.

I paid no attention to the fact that the bite I had used for this demonstration was rectangular, or that the ‘hole’ of the bite was off-centre. Erk.

So that brings us to Tuesday afternoon and the meeting with the Doctor. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect as the timetable just said ‘medical’ so was quite pleased to find out it was just a chat with a local doctor. By this time Aleno and I had met up with another VSO, a Ugandan psychologist with the best teeth ever, called Sulaiman.

The three of us were taken into the Doctor’s office, a lady in her late 60s, who went on to explain about food safety, hook worms, malaria and all sorts of other unpleasantness. I started to fall asleep as I had read most of this stuff before. I was asleep with one eye open when she started talking about AIDS and ‘The Homos’. Apparently ‘homosexuality’ had been ‘introduced’ to Ghana by Tourists. After reading the headline in the newspaper that morning ‘Tourist Homos Raid Mens Bums’, I figured I wasn’t going to learn much more that morning.

Luckily I woke up just as the subject got around to the Tumbu Fly Larvae. This larva seems to have several names, another being Putsi fly. I know as I had read about them before leaving. If you go to Google and put in Bot Fly Larva, you will see some interesting pictures of what we are talking about. Even the Doctor described them as ‘icky’.

For now we will call them Mango Flies, as my spell checker likes that the most.

In my preparations and research I had not read what the Doctor told me next. The bite of the Mango Fly is not round like a mosquito bite but more ovular/rectangular. The bite is off-centre, she added nonchalantly. Mild panic swelled in my belly as I looked down at my arm. While she talked I felt a 1cm long, maggot shaped lump under my skin.

The Doctor went on to explain that although, ‘icky’, they were harmless and easily removed. A small amount of butter placed on the hole would suffocate it. The proboscis would then extend out of the butter, which you can grab and squeeze the thing out. Nice.

The combination of nervousness, shock, disbelief and possibility of removing it myself, prevented me from mentioning it there are then.

It was only during the drive home that I recalled electrocuting my new guest with the zapper the day before. As I felt what was effectively a maggot living in my right elbow, I am sure I felt it move under the prodding of my finger. I did not feel it move after that so convinced myself this was the movement associated with its last breath after being electrocuted the night before.

The Mango fly lays its eggs on clothes, which have been hung out to dry. If you wear these clothes without ironing them, you run the risk of having a new house guest, under your skin.

Wednesday November 29th 2006

I spent most of today shopping for stuff I don’t know that I need. So mostly I guessed. I also spent a lot of time feeling my arm, trying to work out which end was the head.

The night before I had shown the other VSOs my mango fly but they seemed largely disinterested. I went for the butter technique at the dinner table just in case it was still alive but nothing happened. I think because it didn’t work, everybody else thinks I am being paranoid and have a funny shape bite. Either this or they are hiding their disgust with a veil of disinterest.

I have the luxury of feeling it every 10 minutes. There is something in there. Try getting somebody you hardly know to actually feel a lump under your skin and work out the contours of a maggot, and you will see what I mean. The lack of sympathy has been a little disconcerting but then I hardly know these people so what can one expect.  I wouldn’t like to feel a stranger’s maggot, wherever they kept it.

In the afternoon we went shopping in Accra and discovered that the cost of things are outrageous. I think this is because there is almost no manufacturing in Ghana and importing goods into the country is such a hassle with taxes, corruption and theft. The upshot of this is very poor quality imports, to offset the cost problems.

The average wage in Ghana is (allegedly) 3000 Cedis a day. £1 = 12 700 Cedis. How then, a 1 GB USB Pen Drive ends up costing 1 million Cedis, I have no idea. It’s all a bit odd.

Another oddity of the money situation in Ghana is the small denominations of notes. The largest note you can get is 20 000 Cedis. The most common note is the 10 000 Cedis and what I have most of. So after not buying very much in ‘Koala’ (the World’s most expensive Supermarket - to a Ghanaian anyway) the total was about 800 000 Cedis, nearly two weeks wages for a VSO in Ghana.

The upshot of the small denominations problems is that if you are buying say 2 or 3 bags of shopping you have to count out 80 notes. You also have to carry around huge wads of cash with you.  This presents an interesting challenge as, for security reasons, carrying around huge wads of notes is exactly what we are frequently told not to do.

Strangely, the Ghanaian Administration have decided that the notes are fine, but that their computer systems cannot handle all the zeros. Sometime soon they are going to reprint all the notes and remove three zeros, dividing the currency by 1000. Most Ghanaians are not at all happy about this as they think their life savings will also be divided by 1000.

They could save a whole lot of hassle by inventing a new denomination to represent 1 000 instead. The time saved convincing the entire nation not to worry could be spent thinking of ways to stop people having to carry holdalls full of cash everywhere when all you really want to do is pop to the garage and buy an ice cream.

In amongst all the confusion and counting of bundles of notes, I tried to buy the one item I know that I do need, an iron. The iron is very important unless I am planning on providing company for my pre-existing ‘under the skin’ house guests. I found two Irons in Accra - one very cheap looking import for 500 000 Cedis and one very cheap looking import, with steam, for 500 000 Cedis.

500 000 Cedis is over a year’s wages to the average Ghanaian and a week’s wages to me. If anybody reading this would like to verify this figure of the average wage, which seems unbelievably low, please feel free. Somebody here told me. I did read before leaving that 40% of the population live on under $1 (apx 6000 Cedis) a day so it could be possible.

I ended up hoping that I will be able to borrow somebody’s iron when I get to my placement. I could afford to buy either, but refused on principle due to the cost.  I figured I can always buy anything else I don’t know that I need when I get to Abor, so no need to worry. This was to prove an interesting miscalculation.

Thursday 30th November 2006.

This morning I was collected by Malcolm and Father Giancarlo from the St Theresa Centre. Father Giancarlo is the Director of the Centre and Malcolm, my soon to be colleague, is an ex-VSO Volunteer. With a 2 year break included, Malcolm has been in Ghana for 7 years.

I met them that at the VSO Office and could feel the expectation on both sides as we shook hands.

‘I hope he isn’t lazy and makes a difference at our school’, from the two of them.

‘I hope they don’t think I’m going to be lazy and make no difference to their school’, from me. I am fairly sure I won’t be lazy anyway so no problems there, but making a difference? We will see.

The first thing Malcolm and Father Giancarlo did was take me to Koala to buy ‘stuff that I need.’ I tried to explain again that I had no idea what I needed and had already spent a weeks wages on two loaves of bread and a packet of Hobnobs but it fell on deaf ears. I was a little more reserved this time and bought some milk powder, yum. There is little or no pasteurisation Ghana, which means dairy products are a luxury.

UHT Milk is better than milk powder but unfortunately they sell it in 1 litre cartons. For a country with power rationing this makes no sense at all, as it means you have to drink it all in one go, just in case of a power cut. My budget for living is 50 000 Cedis per day and UHT milk is about 15 000 Cedis. For reasons I will explain later, this sounds much worse than it actually is, for me anyway. All other VSOs actually living on this amount are forced to live on local produce and have my utmost respect if they manage it without whining or subsidising their wages from savings at home.

The VSO supplement is fine, if the host country actually has local produce, but, as I already explained, Ghana has virtually no industry. So far the things I have found that you can buy that are actually produced in Ghana are – Salt, Mangos, Pineapples, Lager, Whisky, Tomatoes, Okra, Yams, Plantains, small fish with no meat on and small red peppers. I am sure there are more but that’s all I have encountered so far. The Whisky mentioned here by the way, is actually just pure alcohol with food colouring and has never seen the inside of a cask. Most other imports are prohibitively expensive for most people.

I am obviously digressing from the whole ‘VSO Diary’ thing here, but the problem is a serious one. The lack of industry is doing nothing for this country. The West has its fill of cheap imports. It seems a shame that one of the most promising developing countries in Africa actually receives even worse quality but more expensive imports.

In an ideal world I would live on Fufu, Bananas and Pineapples thus helping, in my own small way, to support local producers but it seems rather futile to do so. Ghanaians do not seem to have pride in their own produce and any change will have to come about from a Governmental Level. I am quite prepared to Be the Change I Want to See, but not at the cost of my health.

So anyway we eventually left Accra and headed off East, towards Togo.

The traffic out of Accra was heavy, caused by a small minority of the population who drive around in SUVs. Some of the remaining majority crowd the streets trying to hawk their goods to the traffic jams. We were offered all sorts on the way, including a dog. I suppose it makes a change from window washers or the Evening Standard in London.

After two hours we finally crossed the Volta Delta and entered the Volta Region. This coincided with the change from reasonable tarmac roads, to a very dangerous unlit potholed excuse for a road. Driving standards here are poor and road accidents are a serious risk. I shall have to be careful. I am considering getting my own transport as I would rather be in control of whatever might happen to me. Avoiding travel is not really an option.

After forty five minutes of pothole dodging and getting stopped at a Police Checkpoint we finally arrived in Abor. It was too dark to see anything of it and we turned off down a dirt path.

After a minute or so I expected to stop but we didn’t. I am not sure how long it took but later learnt that we drove 2km down this dirt road to the school. This was quite a shock to me as I always knew that the village was on a main road, so although isolated, I would be able to be independent. Again it was too dark to see much and I was pretty tired anyway.

I had supper with Father Giancarlo, Malcolm and met some of the other staff. For the sake of their privacy, I am not going to talk about them by name here. I don’t really want to ask permission to have this website. Similarly, I don’t want to write about them without their knowledge. Suffice to say, the place is run by various religious folk from Italy, Spain and Nigeria. There are two non-religious English staff (including me) and a Japanese teacher who works for a similar organisation to VSO. The rest of the staff is Ghanaian. One of the staff has been designated to be the ‘nurse’ although from what I can gather has no formal qualifications.

When I showed everybody my Mango Fly I was shocked to learn that although most of the people around the table had been living in Ghana for several years, none of them had ever heard of Mango/Putsi/Bot/Tumbu Flies. The person whose turn it was to be nurse told me to come to the infirmary tomorrow so we could try to poison it to see what happens.

I can’t remember what else we spoke about before being shown to my room, most of it was in Italian anyway. My ‘room’ is just that, a room. I was expecting something more like a flat or a house but it’s just a large room, in part of the main school building. It’s big though, which is nice and the ceiling is perhaps 10 or 12 feet high, giving a great feeling of space.

There had also been some effort and nice thought put into preparing my new accommodation so I wasn’t too perturbed at it being a room and not a flat or whatever. I have a separate bathroom with toilet sink and shower, which was nice because that was what I had been told. I had come to expect the opposite from what you are told so to actually have what I had been promised somehow came as a surprise! I think VSO have been indoctrinating me to lower my expectations and it worked as my accommodation is fine.

After four days in an hotel with air conditioning, I was about to spend my first night
without it. Heat and me have a strange relationship. I like it as long as I don’t have to move. Luckily therefore, sleeping in 30 degree heat wasn’t a problem. Having said this, I did put the fan on full power, point it at the bed and use ear plugs to drown out the sound. I have a ceiling fan and a standing fan in my room – I wonder how I would cope without them.

Friday 1st December 2006

So my first day in my placement. I was pretty much left alone all day with two loaves of bread and some Hobnobs. I went to explore the place and was utterly astonished.

I knew when I accepted the placement that Ghana was one of the better African Nations, in terms of development. Equally, the Volta is much wealthier than the North of the country. What I found when I walked out in Daylight was amazing.

The St Theresa Centre is in the middle of the African Bush/Jungle. It is approached by a bright orange dirt road. In one direction it goes to Abor, the local village, a 20 minute walk. The other direction goes to Mamedo (sic), a tiny electricity free mud hut settlement.

You could say ‘it’s Africa, what did you expect?’ and I think I just felt disbelief that I was actually in Africa. It is not how I imagined it to look because I somehow thought that my placement would be atypical. As it is the St Theresa Centre is, although itself unique, is in a very typically African location.

It is surrounded by bush, trees and some very dry looking crop fields. The orange dirt road is wide, long and straight. It is also beautiful.

The centre itself is an oasis. The buildings are newer and cleaner than most around about. My first day was a national holiday so I had some time to explore unperturbed.

As I write this I am starting to feel the pressures of a writer. I wonder if there is enough time to type enough words to explain everything. What should I chose not to tell you about? Do you care? If so what do you want to know about? If I describe everything now will I run out of things to say in six months? Will I care by then?

I think I will skip ahead to this evening, when I finally had some company. Malcolm, myself and two locals walked the dirt road (I wonder if it has a name) to Mamedo. It was dusk when we arrived.

The village seems to consist of about 15 mud huts and a bar. We crowded into the doorway (this is the equivalent of the ‘public bar’ in a British Pub) and downed (as advised to do so) my beverage. It tasted how I imagined lighter fuel might taste. I think it was pure alcohol or something. I was not unduly perturbed by this however, as the bacteria in Ghana has caused me to have simultaneous constipation and the squits. A bit of lighter fuel might be just the job, I hoped. (I must apologise for the term squits but when your brain is boiling, the synonym beginning with D seems like a real challenge.)

The walk to and from Mamedo was awesome even if it only took twenty minutes. I think this might be my Friday night entertainment for a while.

On the way back a boy on a bike came to find us to explain the power had gone out at the school and the generator would not start. Good news bad news.

I am not too impressed by the power rationing here. The Akosombo damn provides, as far as I know, free, green, renewable energy for the whole country. It has done so since the 60s. I have no idea why they are rationing the power. That’s actually not true, I have a very good idea, but I will assess how likely I am to be arrested for criticising the government here, before I explain it in public. Anyway, the good news is that the school has a generator. The bad news is, they turn it of at night, so my second night in 30 degree heat was to be spent without a fan, with a belly full of lighter fuel. Mmmm.

(NB I use the term ‘green’ loosely to describe the energy cost of the Akosombo Damn with some ignorance. I would imagine that damning a massive river and creating a huge delta the size of Kent and a false lake the size of Scotland has huge environmental cost.)

Saturday 2nd December 2006

This morning the nurse put some poison on my Mango Fly. As it was electrocuted several days ago now, nothing happened, so I put a plaster on it and forgot about it.

The rest of the day I was left alone again so decided to walk into the village and buy some provisions. A twenty minute walk along a red hot dirt path in 38 degree heat with 100% humidity is hard work. As I was going shopping I was also carrying a holdall full of wads of money. Due to the weight of the money I also had 2 litres of water. An extra difficulty was added by the fact it might be considered rude to turn up in shorts, so I had to wear full length trousers and a shirt. As you can imagine I was hot before I started.

The heat involved is such that the sun makes no difference here. Everything is conspiring against me to make me sweat and get as hot as possible. The sun being out or in is really an irrelevance. In fact the humidity drops a little when the sky is clear. Bring it on.

So I wandered into Abor and went to meet all the shop keepers and stall holders. I found almost nothing worth buying. Anything useful is too expensive as the shop keeper has gone to Accra, into Koala, back to Abor and back on the shelf. The closest thing to milk, Carnation evaporated milk, costs 15 000 Cedis, more than 25% of my daily allowance.

I can buy three mangos for 2000 Cedis though, about 15p. Local produce is cheap and very affordable when you can get it. You just can’t get much of it in Abor. In the centre of Abor is a huge market which has been a massive failure since it was built. Sadly, it has just one stall selling tomatoes and dried fish, which looks pretty ropey.

I did manage to find washing up liquid and some mineral water before returning home. Two hours later and seriously dehydrated I delved into my shopping bag to find everything covered in bubbles.

The water had turned out to be fake mineral water, just refilled with tap water and the lid wasn’t on properly. The washing up liquid was the same although whatever it was refilled with did make bubbles. I wouldn’t have minded but I had to haggle for them both.

I decided my Mango Fly problem needed to be resolved this evening as I started to get pins and needles in my arm today. I sat down in front of my camera and set the video to record. I sterilised a metal toothpick, tweezers and pen knife with iodine with the intention of removing my Mango Fly and recording the event for posterity (proof!). Nobody else seemed to care and self-prescription seems to be the norm here. Due to the heat and dehydration I felt feint sooner rather than later and had to abandon the idea before I had really begun. In hindsight this was probably a blessing.

Instead I spent the evening hanging my mosquito net with dental floss due to the lack of string in Abor.

Sunday 3rd December 2006

Today I was shown around the centre properly and met some of the students. I am looking forward to getting to know them personally and start work. It really is a haven here, peaceful most of the time and sometimes very noisy. The students like to make noise whenever they can (normally by singing and banging drums) and the staff prefer them not to.

The disabilities that the students have seem, for the most part, to be related to mobility, problems with legs etc. I am afraid my medical knowledge is somewhat lacking. Perhaps I will learn more later on. They seem very pleased to see me.

I still had lots of questions and concerns and talked a few of them over with Malcolm as we walked around the school. Slowly problems or queries are being answered and I am beginning to relax.

I got a few reminders from Malcolm which helped to prevent my relaxation from getting hold too much. For example, when discussing insects and the size of the gap underneath my door. He explained that most stuff could get through the gap so it was futile trying to keep anything out. I shouldn’t need to worry about ants or spiders as they are mostly harmless. If I see a scorpion I should tell some students and get them to come and kill it. Although they can’t kill you they ‘hurt a lot.’

He didn’t ‘think’ a snake would be able to make it through the gap but if it did I should not approach it, especially the Cobras as they have a habit of spitting in your face. I keep thinking I should keep some glasses by the side of my bed, perhaps one of the more pressing things I need to remember to do.

I can’t think of anything which I can buy in Abor which I could use to plug the gap. Any bright ideas dear readers? On Tuesday I am going to Akatsi, which has a bigger market than Abor. Fingers Crossed.

Today apparently was some kind of ‘Disabled Day’. I have no idea of the actual name of the day or whether it is a Ghanaian or International Day. Nobody else seemed to know either. In order to celebrate it was decided to take the kids to the beach and I was asked to come along, leaving at 3pm.

There were about 100 students wanting to come to the beach. I gather this was quite a rare treat for them. Unfortunately, there was only space in the vehicles for about forty students.

It took so long to get organised and get going and actually get to the beach that we only had about 90 minutes of daylight left when we got there. The vehicles got stuck in the sand so we had to carry some of the less able students perhaps ¼ of a mile to the water. I was exhausted and as usual by this time of day, dehydrated and feeling feint. (I am drinking insane amounts of water at the moment, litres of the stuff). As much as I wanted to get my white body out and be laughed at by all the students and curious on-looking fishermen, I decided that I had diced with death too many times that day and that swimming in the African, shark and dangerous tide ridden, waters was pushing my luck.

It was however, totally amazing to be there. I signed up to VSO to give kids less fortunate than me more chances in life and more experiences. I thought teaching IT might help so to be able to carry wheelchair bound kids to the beach, some of them for the first time, within a few days of arriving, was awesome. I would not have swapped my Mango Fly for this afternoon.

More good news is that after poking a small hole in my skin last night before wimping out of performing surgery on the Mango Fly, it has started to go down. I think my body has started to clean it out of me. There is a slight scar/scab thing forming and I think it is getting smaller. Apparently these things come out in the same way splinters do so I might get some sort of trophy out of this yet.

Tomorrow morning I am going to my first teachers meeting and will meet my students. I have a feeling I will not be expected to do much teaching this year due to exams. If that is the case I won’t actually be starting work until around 10th January 2007. Plenty of time to acclimatise, if nothing else.

Monday 4th December 2006.

It’s official. I won’t actually be starting work until 8th January 2007, five weeks from now. I have some lesson planning to do but it won’t take me more than a few days. I shall have to ration entertaining myself. I have plenty of experience of this so I should be ok. The key is not to do too much at any one time.

For example I have to open a bank account. I also have to visit the dressmakers to ask them about how much materials I needs to get some clothes made up. Two things, two days. No need to rush things. That’s how I think it might be for a while. Siestas and Miestas.

Miestas are like a siesta only you have them between breakfast and lunch. Also, I have to slow down and do everything in a very laboured way in order to stretch out the entertainment factor. I have plenty of stuff on my laptop to keep me entertained, but I am loathed to dip into it just yet. I have limited myself to one chapter of an audio book per day on my mp3 player before bed each night.

Making a coffee generally takes me all morning. This is probably a good thing as you can’t buy decent coffee here anyway. It’s flavoured with a really bogus ingredient called chicory which I hate. The packet doesn’t say so but I can taste it.

This brings me onto something I said I would mention. If I had to cook for myself I would be distraught at this point, not knowing how on earth I would cope. I am quite happy to eat local food but with such limited supplies and a monstrous walk to somewhere where I cant buy anything decent anyway, this could easily be a serious problem.

Luckily, the Director seems happy for me to eat with him and the other Expats. This is a double edged sword however.

The food is amazing by Ghanaian standards. Last night we had cheese. We often have Italian food and always have lots of greenery and fruit, often with chicken or fish. This has helped enormously with the blockage I have had from eating the repetitive rice/meat combo in the hotel. I also get to drink normal wine or even Palm wine with each meal if I want it.

So I sacrifice my independence for free food. I have decided for now this is a worthy sacrifice. When I start teaching, however, this will present an interesting problem, as for some reason I haven’t worked out, the times of food with the Director, clash with the teaching timetable.

The happy medium I would like to make is breakfast alone, lunch with the Ghanaians and dinner with the Expats. We will see how it turns out. There is one huge advantage to eating with the Director and Co and it’s not just to make me regular. They speak Italian most of the time and I can already notice my ear tuning in. I imagine it would be fairly easy to learn another language like this over a sustained period of time.

So anyway breakfast. I need to find a way to be self-sufficient in the mornings. I think I can buy bread in Abor, albeit it’s horrible and turns to stone by next day. What I have planned is to buy it, slice it, freeze it, and toast it. I can buy honey from the school as they keep bees here. Fruit I can get from Abor. Breakfast sorted therefore. Lunch I am working on. One foodstuff I have noticed is really useful here is biscuits.

A Hobnob has sugar, carbohydrate and fibre in it but also keeps for a fair amount of time. So if anybody would like to send me biscuits then please do. I have no idea if and when packages sent from the UK arrive here. I posted some as a test before I left and they have not arrived yet. I will keep you posted, dear readers! J Coffee without Chicory would also be nice, as would tea bags that have tea in them, unlike the ones here, which look like tea, but taste of tea coloured water. I suppose I am being really fussy, some string to hang my mosquito net up would be good as dental floss has a habit of snapping. I seem to be running out of dental floss too and guess what! Yes you can’t buy that here either. If you could it would probably cost a week’s wages and be about as useful as cotton rubbed with mint leaves.

If it sounds like I am whining then you got it right! Having said this one of the first things you are taught when it comes to Mainstreaming Disability is to move the object. To clarify, a more recent and progressive way of looking at disability is to consider the obstacle as the problem, not the disability. Ghana is merely a metaphor for the shop without a ramp and the St Theresa Centre, from just a few days observing, seems to do an amazing job building ramps.

This morning, along with finding out I have five weeks off, I met my students and fellow teachers. I can’t begin to describe how welcoming people are. I hope I can meet their expectations and actually be useful around here.

In total I have eleven students, split into two classes of five and six.  Of those eleven I think eight are disabled. The class sizes are generous even by British Standards, so should make life a whole load easier. I haven’t spent much time in my classroom yet but there is another reason I cannot wait to get started and it’s purely selfish. My classroom is air conditioned!

So, let’s recap here – I have my own rent free place, a toilet, running water, a newish looking shower/bathroom, electricity (most of the time), free (and excellent) food three times a day, air conditioned workspace, countryside which takes your breath away and everyone seems to want me here. Despite the fact my students asked me to start this morning I actually have five weeks holiday. Oh, I nearly forgot, I get twelve weeks holiday a year.

For the sake of thoroughness I will list the bad, but I think I already answered any doubts!

The risk of death by car accident is quite high, snake bite is also a possibility (my mum might be reading this so each time I mention mortality you will see a small disclaimer in brackets like this one – hi mum please don’t worry I will look after myself and make the right decisions). Abor is quite boring and the shops are crappy. It takes ages to get anywhere – I may have to take a three hour bus ride to get internet access. Things are really expensive. I still don’t like spiders etc although have developed a tolerance for them.  I have a decomposing maggot in my arm.

Talking of spiders if by any chance I have managed to upload some photos to this site you should see one of a spider in my room. I have no idea if it is poisonous, nobody seems to know or care but I see quite a lot of them in my bathroom. If any of you are arachnophiles please let me know if I should run.

There is more stuff I could write now but like most things, I have to ration my writing, as I have a lot of time to kill. Perhaps it’s time for a little snooze. If I am really lucky, tomorrow I will get a lift to Akatsi Market. If I am really really lucky (seems to be par for the course) there will be internet access there.

I have been in Ghana a week now and written about 20 pages of gumpf. From here on in I won’t make a diary entry every day, just when important things happen.

More stuff

My mobile number in Ghana is 027 567 9435 – I have no idea what you need to dial from abroad to reach me. As it stands I can only receive text messages unless you get lucky. If you want to call me then you need to text and give 24 hours notice so I can go and stand on a chair in the middle of the bush at the agreed time. Texts are most welcome.

My address in Ghana is Jonathan Barratt, St Theresa Centre, PO BOX 37, Abor, Volta Region, Ghana. I have no idea if post sent here will reach me, get stolen or whatever but will know soon. Apparently DHL works better but I don’t know how much it costs.

I heard David Gest didn’t win IACGMOOH and some dude we never heard of from Busted won. Sign of the times and glad I missed it! Hope everything else in Blighty is cold and miserable.

Mr Jon (my name here :D).

PS For the Geeks: I worked out a cunning way of beating the keyloggers as all other techniques seemed a bit flaky. I copied the entire works of Shakespeare into a text document and somewhere within it, wrote my email password. In order to steal my password, you would have to read most of Shakespeare’s bibliography but as I know where it is I can copy and paste. Winner.

PPS I found out that a company called Areeba make a device which enables me to get internet access anywhere in Ghana via their mobile network. I was told it costs 2 Million Cedis for the device then 20 000 Cedis per MB. I haven’t been able to verify this but even at that cost, it might be an option. Anybody know anything more?