A great deal has transpired since my last post.

It took quite a while to get over my illness – even after the anti-malarial injection in my ass I was struggling with an upset stomach and vomiting constantly for days. Three visits to Tetteh Quarshie hospital in Mampong for blood tests and a ridiculous amount of tablets later, I finally climbed back into the world of the living again.

One thing I would say is that being sick even at home is not pleasant. Contracting malaria in Africa, with no proper toilets, no settling food, and limited twi, is not something you would wish on your worst enemy. Not even on Thierry Henry.

Once I was feeling up to it I returned to work at Akropong Methodist to put down a porch in front of the four classrooms we were building. This entailed digging foundations with picks and shovels, and laying blocks up to the appropriate height. We were also making more blocks.

My last day of work on the building project was at Saforo, a much smaller school than Akropong and the school at which I had worked when I first arrived in Ghana. This time we were putting the floor down so the whole day was spent mixing sand, cement and water.
Last weekend I was able to travel with a few volunteers to the Volta region of Ghana in the east bordering Togo. I left on Friday evening after work and spent five hours on a tro tro to get to the town of Hohoe. On Saturday morning we visited Wli Falls (pronounced ‘vlee’) and after a 45 minute trek through the forest swam under the waterfall and relaxed among the impressive scenery.

In the afternoon we made our way (slowly) towards the town of Amedzofe and after waiting for what seemed like an eternity by the side of the road in Fume, we managed to get a line taxi to a hotel called ‘Mountain Paradise’. The road up the mountain was ‘pound for pound’ the worst road I have been on in Ghana, bar none – Gerard and Paul, we’re talking Ko phangan dirt tracks. The view at the top, however, was spectacular and listening to a thunder storm which knocked out the power, we relaxed in the evening, playing oware under candlelight.

The following day we visited a monkey sanctuary at Tafi Atome, which is literally just people standing on the side of the road and buying bananas to entice the mona monkeys out from their homes in the adjacent forest. It was a lot of fun.

It has come to my attention that the primary 5 class at St. Joseph’s Bessbrook are following my blog and undertaking a project on Ghana in their school at the minute. If their project requires any particular information or if they have any questions, they should ask and I will attempt to find out the answer first hand here in Ghana. I have posted more photos of the classrooms we are building and I shall mention to the schools in Akropong and Saforo that there is interest from South Armagh!

On Monday past we organised a football match between the volunteers and local Akuapem U17 team in Kwamoso. The volunteers called ourselves the ‘Obruni White Stars’ (as opposed to the national Ghanaian team, the Black Stars) and wore white stars imprinted on our t-shirts. The Akuapem team played in the blue and white colours of St. Peter’s GFC. Akuapem won 4-2. I think it was down to the fact that they were wearing Warrenpoint jerseys. Celebrations and commiserations ensued in Mama’s.

I have moved in the last few days to the capital of Ghana, Accra, where there is electricity and running water and no small amount of traffic. It has been difficult to adjust to air conditioning and toasters and supermarkets again. I will keep you updated on events as they happen.