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As I was approaching my final exams for my degree, I was aware of being unwittingly led down the path of interviews, assessment centres and careers fairs and something told me that I had to stop and take stock of what I really wanted to do with my life. Having spent the past nineteen years in academia, I thought I would explore my options, as the thought of being stuck in a job that I didn't really care about was a frightening one. |
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I had several friends who had taken "years out" prior to coming to university and those who had gone to Africa particularly inspired me and so I began my search. I still doubted the wisdom of my decision to consciously "opt out" of the whole careers thing as I was surrounded by colleagues who were stressing about application deadlines and competing for limited graduate places in prestigious companies.
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Having looked at a number of organisations, I stumbled across a report written by a former volunteer on the Africa Trust website and it really spoke to me, so much that I thought, "this is the one for me!" The Trust offered projects in a number of countries in West Africa but I decided to apply for Mali, as it is a French speaking country, to tie in with my degree in French and Marketing. |
I was successful in my interview at the end of March, which meant that all I had to do was concentrate on my finals and the small matter of raising £3,250 to cover the costs and project money needed for the six months. Africa Trust did provide help and guidance on the fund-raising.
This was not an easy task. However, with a lot of letters, a few generous contacts and some perseverance and a little patience, my efforts were rewarded. I managed to obtain the full amount required by the Trust, plus an additional amount, which would be added to the monies designated for the projects with which we would become involved.
Of course, nothing is quite that simple. Just before Christmas, I learned that it was no longer possible for me to go to Mali due to some accommodation problems that the Trust were having out there. This really threw me and when the Trust offered me a place on the team going to Ghana, I didn't know what to do. Reluctantly, I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be going to a Francophone country but I clung to my original objective of trying to offer myself in the hope of making a difference and so I prepared for Ghana.
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However much you read, whatever people tell you and no matter what ideas you already hold, nothing can prepare you for the experience of living in a country such as Ghana. In a way, reading this report is a bit like looking through somebody else's photos. You can see what it is like and imagine and almost pretend you were there but unless you actually go and experience it, there will always be that vital dimension that remains unknown. |
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Obviously, every individual experiences life in their own personal way, so I will attempt to detail my experiences as fully as possible to give you a good idea of what it really was like.
I am willing to bet that when I told a lot of people that I was going out to Africa, images of starving children with pot bellies and flies all around sprung to mind, maybe mixed with a war zone and a lot of need for aid. I should perhaps admit that this media-perpetuated image of the continent is quite a difficult one to shake off and if I am really honest, there was something about this need for help, which attracted me in the first place.
Having lived with and among the people of Dunkwa-on-Offin, an old mining town in the Central region of Ghana, for the past six months, I can tell you that whilst there was an obvious disparity in our material wealth, the people are the most generous spirited people you could hope to meet.
Many aspects of life were different for us. We had to get used to boiling and filtering all our water instead of just being able to turn on the tap. We always had cold showers on a morning - providing that there was water at all. The range of food available to us did not extend as widely as you might find at your local Sainsbury's, but we had enough to eat and it was good. There wasn't always electricity, but we had fun using candles to light our way. There were no cinemas or other places to go to be entertained, though we had lots of time to appreciate the art of conversation and catch up on all the books we never usually had time to read. The things we missed were material and yet we gained so much more by not having them to clutter our lives.
The children in particular treated us like celebrities. They were always chanting their famous rhymes, "Oh Boronyi [white person] how are you? I am fine, thank you!" They didn't even await our response and it wouldn't be unusual for us to be asked several times by the same children, it was just their way of trying to be our friends. They would also permanently pester you for your address - collecting Boronyi addresses seemingly is a highly competitive activity! In fact, the adults were just the same - it would be impossible to just "nip to the shops" - the normally five minute journey might take twenty minutes as greeting people is very important in Ghanaian culture and being the only white people around, we were easily spotted from quite a long way off (I am sure the children had special radar!)
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We did see poverty. Education and Health care are not free in Ghana. Government schools cost about 40,000 cedis (the equivalent of £4) per term. When you consider that the minimum wage is an average of 5,500 cedis a day (55p) and nearly all families have many more than a single child, this equates to a large proportion of the income for a family. Hence not every child goes to school - you see many working, selling things on the streets- and those that do go are frequently sent home or "sacked" from school if they cannot afford the fees. |
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Unfortunately, corporal punishment is very much in use and that means that when the children do return to school, they are likely to be caned so they can't really win.
The hospitals operate on a cash and carry system, in other words "no cash, no carry." This is partly why when people get ill, they prefer to consult a traditional doctor who may give cheaper remedies but then if that does not work, they might go to a chemist, failing that and generally only as a last resort will they go to the hospital. Often by this time, the problem has got more serious - maybe resulting in an emergency operation, which increases the risk of death and the cost of the treatment becomes significantly higher than it might have been if they had come to the hospital in the first place. This means that people die needlessly from things that can be treated like appendicitis or hernias or in childbirth.
The people are extremely proud though and would rarely admit that they couldn't afford, although on the other hand, many believe that the whites - English and Americans in particular - are the answer to all their problems. They are all desperate to get visas and move to London, where they believe they could tap into the gold-paved streets. What they don't seem to realise is that it is their own land that is rich in so many ways and that there are many things we could learn from them and their own way of life.
My role as a volunteer was to offer myself as a teacher in the schools. As guests of the Archbishop of the Cape Coast diocese, we distributed ourselves among the Catholic schools in Dunkwa. I chose to teach English to the form one and two classes at the Girls Vocational School - where they learned the trades of dressmaking, hairdressing and catering. The sisters made us feel particularly welcome and it was a challenging though rewarding experience. When we were not teaching, we would often drop in to try our hands at tie dying, or to sample their wares -food practical days were especially popular!
I also taught French at the Boys and Mixed Junior Secondary schools, and I introduced the language at the Boys primary, which I felt was a real privilege and opportunity. At first, teaching had been quite a daunting prospect for me but it didn't take long before I really started to enjoy my lessons and the children were generally enthusiastic too.
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Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of my time in Ghana was seeing our project money put into action. We put a lot of money into the building of a kindergarten in Breman Asikuma; we also gave the equivalent of £1000 to the Vocational school. This was used to provide the plumbing for the new hostel for the girls. This is a huge project, however, which will need a lot more money before it can be used. We also gave some money to repair some of their sewing machines. |
The sisters sell machines at a reasonable price to girls who want
to set up as a seamstress on leaving the school, and so they need
to replenish their supply for the girls that are still learning.
We gave books to both the Boys and the Girls Junior Secondary schools,
to add to their small libraries.
In addition to this, our most ambitious project was the creation of the Dunkwa Children's Library. We opened it on the 17th June, having worked hard for the past few months, painting murals, having furniture made and painting it, making membership cards and buying hundreds of books. Opening the library has been a big success - so much that we would be stopped in the street by children asking us to write their names down to show their interest in becoming members of the library. When we counted over one hundred names, we decided it was time to stop as we only have one room for the library. Having started off with twenty permanent members, we introduced a temporary membership scheme - to try out potential members and to give more children a chance at reading. When we left, we had forty-five members and these were from virtually every school in the area - of every denomination, both primary and secondary. Word had certainly spread throughout the whole town! It is a project that we hope the next volunteers will continue, I know the children at least will make sure of that. Just before we left, we also had a wall erected, to make the library more secure, and we had electricity connected to the kindergarten building where the library is housed. This gives the possibilities of evening classes or later opening hours and the potential for computers to be brought to the library in the future.
| From a tourist perspective, Ghana certainly is a beautiful country with idyllic golden, palm tree lined beaches, rainforests and wildlife but the people certainly made it special for me. I have heard it said that Ghanaians are the happiest people on earth and they certainly have cause to be. I just hope that they realise their own worth and that we might have started to dispel the myths they hold that as whites we are superior to them. |
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Returning to England having spent time in Africa certainly made me appreciate the relative ease with which we live in this country, however it is to Ghana that I would look as a model of the truly important aspects of life like family and community, where they can teach us many lessons.
Many thanks to Dr. Kwansah-Filson in Ghana and for the support from those in Crickhowell, Wales.
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two worlds diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made the difference."
[The Road Not Taken: Robert Frost]