A Volunteer in Ghana '98

I decide to volunteer because I felt guilty. I am white (more of an off-white really), and, much as I hate to, would rank myself among the middle classes. I attended a single sex public school with a distinguished reputation followed by the requisite stint at University. I was about the only girl in my year whose parents had managed to stay together and so could not even lay claim to a troubled upbringing. Something had to give — my conscience could bare the build up of guilt no longer. It was the guilt of those that go to exhibitions, stand in front of harrowing images but can't quite get them in perspective — standing in a clean, warm gallery, bellies full from Sunday roast.

In going to Ghana I hoped to gain that perspective by going beneath the surface, beyond the realm of the back-packer constantly passing through places and people. I hoped to know ordinary people and understand how and for what the lived their lives. For this purpose I had not marked Ghana out, I would have gone to Columbia or Papua New Guinea just as readily, but in fact Fate must have rigged it for me. Ghana and its people were perfect.

There were five volunteers including me, three girls on their GAP Year and another also post-university. We had all singled out St David's (Africa) Trust out from many GAP Year Organisations. St. David's is a small organisation supplying volunteers to areas where they are really needed giving them the opportunity to experience something very unique whilst at the same time providing a first class network of support and advice to fall back on.

On January 28 1998 I woke up in the very early morning. My teeth would not stop their chattering in the cold of a dark grey monochrome, rain-swept Monday morning in London. I pulled on light cotton trousers, a thin t-shirt and sweatshirt and felt the cold settle in. I was a nervous emotional mess having spent most of the night worrying about where I was going and how I would measure up once we arrived.

Our British Airways plane landed in Accra and I was loath to leave behind the comforting familiarity of the cabin staff's winter uniform: navy, red and white. All the same we emerged into the hot tropical evening and by the time we reached passport control we were covered in sweat, which we sprayed rather over-zealously with Deet. We were shockingly white, were wearing too many clothes, and were dripping with sweat. We had arrived in Ghana.

Sister Pat Pearson, Sister Monica Smythe, mark Mantey and Bernard came to meet us — the Ghanaian team of the St David's (Africa) Trust. We drove for three hours along the coast road west towards Cape Coast. We arrived late outside our new home which was overrun, despite the hour, by people helping to bring in our belongings which they deftly balanced aloft whilst introducing themselves and repeating "akwaaba" (welcome) over and over. Our house was beautiful, the table was laid out ready with tea and bread, we had a toilet, a shower, a kitchen, beautiful big bedrooms and a sitting-room but Sister Pat cautioned: real life began outside our gates.

So we became the first white people ever to live in the village of Abee between Cape Coast and Elmina. We took the bus into Ahotokrom with the workers, "Ahoto" meaning peaceful and "krom" meaning town, this was an apt name for where the Sisters, daughters of Mary and Joseph were based. They had built a nursery school there to cater for children from the surrounding villages which number among some of the poorest in the area, along with a residential home for elderly Leprosy sufferers and a Children's home.

Work starts early in Ghana before the dibilitating heat of the day sets in. The sounds of the village began at 5am with the cockerels and bucket baths just beyond the mosquito netting and reached their crescendo with the opening of the bar opposite and the morning dose of inspirational high life music. We couldn't quite understand why nobody complained about the head-splitting volume until Mark explained how much Ghanaians love music but seldom own their own tape-recorders thus relying on the village bar to turn the volume up high enough for everyone. After such a rude awakening we too prepared for the day's work. This could be working at St Clare's with the elderly people; teaching the nursery school children; working in childcare or spending the day visiting with Sister Monica as she did her rounds. It so happened that I spent a lot of time at St. Clare's

We took the workers' bus into Ahoto or "the compound" from our village, about 20 minutes walk away. On arriving in the morning we spent time greeting the Sisters, then Gladys Mantey, Bernard, Kwaku, Agatha and everyone else we chanced upon. It is an important ritual in Ghanaian society to acknowledge everyone on arrival and on departure. Failing to do so would have been considered extremely rude. Mark told us how his overloaded schedule was often delayed as he stopped in his pickup on the way to the main road to greet, offer a friendly word or even a lift to those going by. Such is the Ghanaian spirit.

When I finally arrived at St. Clare's I would visit all the residents to wish them a good morning and ask them how they were in strangulated "Fante" (the regional language for the Central Region of Ghana). Then to the kitchens to greet the kitchen staff as they prepared porridge outside on smouldering logs in huge cauldrons beneath the shade of the mango tree. After greeting Maggie, Peter and Ester I was ready for work.

At St. Clare's we started with the bandages. The elderly people there have been struggling with Leprosy and the nerve damage it causes for years. Initially symptoms seem quite minor: patients commonly present with a simple skin lesion which, if stimulated, is without feeling. Nowadays the Leprosy would develop no further than this. However, 50 years ago, people would continue to go out to farm despite their lack of feeling — unable to afford not to work. Inevitably accidents would happen whilst carrying out such heavy, physical work and, unable to feel any pain and rather than paying for expensive bandages or antiseptic, they would be left to fester in a dirty rag. This lead to the onset of gangrene and ulcers as the flesh rotted and ultimately could only be treated with amputation.

Most of the old people at St Clare's had been disabled in this way and many were now losing their sight as the Leprosy committed its ultimate indignity of attacking the nerves in the eyes. Laura (another volunteer) and I would often do the morning bandage session together as the ulcers needed to be dressed every day. The old people formed an orderly, dignified queue and were not afraid to direct the proceedings in Fante. We asked Maggie to translate, after all they'd had a lifetime's experience of this disease: some of their ulcers were older than we were.

It's difficult to describe the peaceful serenity of St Clare's home and the beauty that surrounds it. Maggie delighted in showing us a cornucopia of bananas, pineapples, prickly pear, plaintain, cassava and mangoes all growing in the lush kitchen garden. However the real sense of peace that pervades St Clare's emanates from its residents who lead their lives in quiet acceptance of their lot, not quite able to believe their good fortune at being admitted. Here they have beds with clean sheets and regular meals and most of all the healing, gentle presence of Sister Monica.

As we acclimatised to Ghana we were gradually weaned off hybrid attempts at tuna shepherd's pie topped with crispy mashed yam and onto more local fare. We learned to speak more of the local language "Fante" whereupon people became instantly more amenable to us, more willing to open their hearts and their homes and exchange daily greetings. We dared to eat more of the street food in Cape Coast and knew the correct price of an orange, a loaf of bread, a stick of plaintain, a pineapple or a "shared" taxi ride back home to Abee. When there was electricity we followed England's progress through the World Cup on a television set in our local bar under a sky bright with the Southern Cross and the Plough. Our neighbours were happy to support us —once the last African team had bowed out.

During the Month of March the heat was suffocating. Ghana depends on the Akosombo Dam to supply its national power grid and as the level of the Dam lowered due to lack of rain and evaporation from continuous sun and intense heat, a national crisis loomed. What had started out as a day here and there without electricity that we faced with jolly English bravado and instincts of "making do" culminated in 12 hours with electricity and 36 hours without and our adventurous enthusiasm waned. We would sit at our dining room table writing letters by candle light bare-chested as the sweat literally dripped off us, our envelopes sealed themselves in the humidity and the thin air-mail paper stuck to our skin. The fridge door gasped open and we longed for chilled water. No water in the dam meant none in the reservoirs so that we soon had no running water. It was at this point that we all started to work full time on the project at Ankafal Camp.

The current missionary work on the Cape Coast area, including that of the Sisters, began with one man's desire to alleviate the suffering of those at Ankaful Camp and this remains the overriding objective. The Leprosarium nearby at one time represented the only source of treatment for those suffering from Leprosy not only in Ghana but also in the surrounding West African countries. In fact one resident of St Clare's told me how he had walked to the area in search of treatment from his native Mali thousands of miles and several border crossings away. These were people who had been stripped naked by an unforgiving disease that spawned fear and loathing in all but the most exceptional members of society. The afflicted arrived at the hospital homeless, friendless and often hopeless, this was truly a last resort. Thus Ankaful Camp came to be, as out-patients had no alternative but to squat on government owned land in vermin-infested, unhygienic huts that cracked and crumbled in the heat of the dry season and leaked or were completely washed away in the rainy season.

Mark Mantey, who is something of a local hero, grew up at Camp. It was a poverty stricken existence spent struggling to survive. Both his parents suffered from Leprosy and Mark remembers getting up at 4 or 5 in the morning to do the farming before walking two hours to school in Cape Coast. He also remembers the stigma associated with living at Camp — the "tro-tros" (a form of public transport) didn't stop there, people didn't buy their produce there and he couldn't just ask school friends over for fear of their reaction. Such an isolating experience at such a young, impressionable age would have made embittered pessimists of lesser men. Instead, Mark has an extraordinary talent for life inspired by a deep love of humanity and a need to do all he can to alleviate suffering and misery.

When we arrived in Ghana, Camp was noticeable from the main road because of the poor standard of housing in comparison to other villages in the area. However, part of the reason for our presence there was to work on a project funded by our own British National Lottery with the aim of re-housing the people at Camp in solid, clean, concrete dwellings. In January 1998 work had only just begun and the atmosphere at Camp was marked by good-humoured disbelief as though we were all involved in some magnificent hoax engineered by Mark. When we left at the end of July, half of the new homes were nearing completion and several had already been allocated to the most needy families. The excitement at Camp was then real and hung heavily in the air like the long-awaited rain.

So we set to work at the hottest time of the year along side the men Mark had contracted to work full time at the site. We got all the easy jobs: painting the wooden beams with sologramme; fetching and carrying head-pans of earth for filling the foundations; carrying head-pans full of stones and buckets of water for concrete mixing. Later on we painted the inside walls with lime paint and the iron railings on the windows with red oxide. It was physically draining especially once the midday sun had reached its zenith and we were painting in temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. We would be covered in sologramme — a thick black viscous substance — so unable to wipe the sweat from our eyes as it dripped down our noses and onto the newly painted wood. I remember licking my lips to catch the sweat.

Saturday was communal labour day at Ankaful Camp. For all the inhabitants of the village and anyone who shared even the smallest interest in the progress that went on there it was a matter of honour and pride to take part. The smallest children, some only recently able to walk, made their own contribution carrying earth in margarine tubs balanced on their heads. The older children also helped carrying buckets filled with earth and stones that were often too heavy for us to empty. While the men at Camp mixed the concrete and transported it around the building site in wheelbarrows, the women, often with babies on their backs and some even pregnant carried concrete blocks balanced elegantly on their heads cushioned by their "dukus" (headscarves). Like so much of the work at Camp, this was a task we could not physically done, puny and weak as we were by Ghanaian standards.

When the water crisis was at its worst we came home from a day at Camp drenched in sweat and covered in grime. There would be no cold water to drink and worse, no running water to wash in. We were restricted to several lunch box fulls of water each. The incredible heat brought me out in a heat rash all over my back and up my arms that I had no way of cooling down or soothing except for the occasional visit to a hotel swimming pool where they had put their prices up — water being such a premium. The pile of dirty Camp clothes also mounted up and we considered washing them in the river as the villagers were doing.

To experience such hardship (by European standards) had a humbling effect on all of us. In the simplest terms: water is essential for existence and this experience of life without it was invaluable in that it reduced the distance between our lives and those of our neighbours. The walls of our house became more porous as the worries and concerns of the villagers outside filtering in. When would it next rain? Where would the next lot of water come from? We spent several evenings collecting water from a nearby pump and started hoarding plastic mineral bottles and any other possible water carriers. Bouts of diarrhoea at this time were particularly unwelcome as we were using malodorous river water from the bottom of the garden to flush the toilet.

One day it started to rain and we cheered as loudly as any of our neighbours joining with them in putting anything vaguely watertight outside to catch all the precious drops and dancing around the contents of the kitchen in our bikinis. We lathered our skin with bars of soap and luxuriated in the free shower.

Nevertheless our privileged life continued. We were driven to collect our water in the pickup truck. The villagers walked, often for miles. We worried for our neighbours and their farms but not with the same desperate concern for survival. Whatever happened we could rely on having clean, safe water to drink and could afford to treat all the minor skin conditions that broke out from the heat with medicine from the pharmacy in Cape Coast. The villagers, our friends and neighbours, faced these same irritations without hope of alleviating them. We still had the nicest house in the village, big bright rooms and enormous double beds while the families surrounding us slept on the floors of their huts. Auntie Atta, a local single mother of 23, came by every day to cook for us and often did our washing up. We ate well every night and were kept well stocked up with luxuries such as coffee, tea, powdered milk, sugar, bread, jam etc. Taxi drivers insisted on taking white people first. We took the workers' bus, but were often told to sit with the driver in the front where it wasn't as crowded or as hot. We could afford to go to the beach and buy a bottle of coke, no one else could. In fact, most of the children from the village had never seen the sea, only a 15 minute car drive away. I bought biscuits for the local children to make myself feel better and the occasional loaf of bread for a hungry neighbour, however in the end I was glad of our extra comforts and so the guilt remained.

We came back home at the end of July to the same grey airport we had left six months earlier. Ostensibly nothing had changed and yet everything had. I thought it would be relatively easy to slot back into my life: seeing friends, socialising and, in the end looking for my first "proper" job but my soul was true to Ghana. I scrutinised those around me and found the way they behaved rude, selfish and pretentious. They looked sallow, pale and unhealthy as they shuttled back and forth between home and the office — compressed into tube compartments, breathing black air. Scarcely spending time in the open air, they exercised in sports halls moving to the orders of a fitness instructor. Nobody smiled or communicated. Train tickets, bars of chocolate, cinema tickets could all be purchased without uttering a word. Even my own friends seemed changed into frivolous consumers intent on image and appearance. There was no colour, no sincerity and no content. People seemed to be wasting the working week doing jobs that made rich men still richer so that at the weekends they could go on frenzied shopping trips. From such a perspective the world seemed to have gone mad.

5 months later I'm better acclimatised and can more easily quantify what being in Ghana taught me. In the final analysis, Ghanaians smile and laugh more than we do because their pleasures are simpler, more easily and more often fulfilled: their aspirations set that little bit lower. We, the most spoilt children of the international community, constantly need new toys to entertain us: ever more sophisticated gadgets, electric tin-openers, egg-slicers. The fussiest food remains the most popular, we mix Pacific Rim with traditional English bacon & eggs in our quest for ever more quirky combinations to fire our culinary imaginations for we are easily bored.

The worst realisation is that there's no going back. Like a child who's sweet good nature has already been ruined by an overly submissive parent, we have no bona fide way of regaining such lost innocence, which is not to say that we do not try. Think of Lucy Irvine and her family going back to basics on Pigeon Island or the crowds of twenty something travellers, taking six months to float around Thailand in a misguided attempt to "find themselves". Exactly what are they hoping to find? It seems to me more probable that they are running away from the people they already know themselves to be.

Out there I learned what was most essential in life: human contact. I count myself lucky to have known truly good, inspirational people who live their lives according to principles that I can now refer back to and aspire to. Thinking of Ghana fills me with tremendous warmth and I think of it every day. Never have I met such generous spirited people, willing to stop, give their time and help out of genuine concern. Never have I been anywhere so colourful or so alive. Ghanaians are fortunate in that they still know how to communicate and live most of the time out doors breathing fresh air and eating fresh fruit and fish. Their bodies even at the age of fifty are toned, smooth and healthy, they don't suffer from cellulite: their bodies aren't overloaded with toxins. Their children are adorably well behaved and even the youngest know how to look after each other: they don't demand attention but will reward it with the biggest smile. I admit theirs is, by no means an easy life, only less polluted and somehow more honest.

The St David's (Africa) Trust sends volunteers to Africa in the hope that this will lead to an exchange of ideas and cultures. Volunteers learn as much, if not more, than they give. Of course, Ghanaians have their own ambitions and aspire to much they perceive us to have achieved in the West, however, what is not generally recognised is just how much we could learn.

I miss the beauty of the coast and the bright shimmer of the stars at night over the equator. I don't feel guilty any more. I just miss them: those beautiful people.