The first few days

Hello from Ghana!

It feels as if we’ve been here a week, but in reality we’ve only stopped 1 night in Accra. That is not a bad thing at all- just we’ve done so much already.

Yesterday we arrived at 5am, to a 25 degree heat. There is a time difference, as although the time zone is the same in Ghana as the UK, Ghana does not change the hour for British summertime. When we arrived we were picked up by Simon, the minibus driver and somebody else with a truck for our luggage. They brought us to the Ghana Girl Guides Training Centre. We were welcomed by Betty who gave us breakfast of soft bread with sausages or apricot jam, with tea, hot chocolate and multifruit juice; Betty is a teacher and has a troop of Ananse Guides (Brownies) and Guides who would be coming to the Training Centre for a camp to meet us. It was fantastic to hear that the girls were as excited as we were to join together and play games. After breakfast, we had a rest since we had all been travelling for about 24 hours. We are staying in rooms which are named after flowers and are arranged around a courtyard, so after we had all rested a little we met up again in the courtyard and decided to take a walk around the Training Centre. Then we elected to get a minibus into Accra in order to visit the National Arts Centre, a large craft market. On the way we had to change our dollars into Ghanaian Cedi, so we stopped at a foreign money exchange, which was in the same building as the Ghana Girl Guides Association Headquarters. Sylvia, who was showing us round today, also took us to their offices, including the Chief Commissioner’s Office and a conference room with photographs of the previous Chief Commissioners, the Founder and the President. There were also large pictures on the wall of Ananse Guides, Guides and Rangers.

We got back on the minibus to go to the market. On the way we saw many people selling things by the road. Lots of them carry their goods on their head and walk between the lines of traffic selling them to passengers waiting in queues. At the market we looked at stalls selling fabric, clothes, jewellery, ornaments, souvenirs, shoes, bags, flags, drums, other musical instruments, traditional music and much more besides. As a large group of white women we attracted a lot of attention, and we wondered if wearing our team vest tops had been a mistake as the stallholders read our names and called them out to catch our attention. Many people shook our hands and gave us high-fives, asking where we had come from and welcoming us to Ghana. There were some people who thought we were something to do with one of Ghana’s political parties because the colours of our neckers are the same as the colours of the party.

After the market we visited a shopping centre to buy Ghanaian sim cards and chilled drinks, then we returned to the Guides Training Centre for lunch. Betty prepared a traditional local dish of bean stew with fried plantain and vegetables, which we all enjoyed. We planned some activities for Betty’s troop, who arrived at about half past four. First, they sang a welcome song for us, then we all introduced ourselves, before heading out to the hall at the front of the Training Centre to sing songs. We taught them Alice the Camel, Singing in the Rain, Peel the Banana, Crazy Moose, the Penguin Song, and Thunder Thunder Thunderation.

We then split into groups to play games and then played parachute games, which the Ghanaian Guides seemed to really enjoy! They had dinner while we had a break, and the sun went down. It is very noticeable how quickly it goes from dark to light and light to dark here.

Today  (Thursday).

After a very interesting breakfast, we headed off to the King Jesus Charity Home. We were soon chatting to the children, getting to know their names and their personalities - some of the older girls were asking us if we had ever seen snow! The younger children are adorable, and they loved holding our hands. They clung to us and refused to be put down when we were carrying them about the place. It was really touching to see how attached to us they were after just a few hours; Mary and Elizabeth had children fall asleep on them.

We played some games with the children, sang some songs and introduced them to the parachute which they hadn’t seen before! Pastor Kofi, who is the founder orphanage came and greeted us, and spoke to us about how he started orphanage. He had a dream in which he was feeding the children on Kumasi, and he began by teaching children he found on the streets, that weren’t in school. The children were so delightful, and it saddened us to hear their stories and how they joined the orphanage.

This afternoon we headed off in a Tro-tro (the Ghanaian minibus service) in search of a supermarket, which we found the 3^rd time, after a memorable journey. Kumasi’s roads are rather bumpy, and we were all rather cosy in the minibus, with Rebecca and I sat on Cara and Ellie’s laps..... we are all getting to know each other very well!

We had a relaxed evening, planning for our activities at the orphanage tomorrow- we are all very excited.