Ok, so I got malaria. In my last blog I discussed the never-ending struggle against the mosquito and the onslaught of sickness. I joked about an upset stomach, my blistered lips, a head cold. What I thought was perhaps a sun related headache or a dodgy food problem was, in fact, the onset of malaria. For those of you who have not suffered from this disease, it is not pleasant. It came to a head on Thursday. I went to work with a sore head and a lack of energy w...

There is a scene in the 2007 science-fiction-horror- apocalypse movie, 'I am Legend', in which Will Smith runs home before the sun goes down to bolt up the doors in his Manhattan house and lie hiding in the bathtub clutching his shotgun while listening to the zombies outside wail and scream and try to penetrate his doors and windows so that they can eat him. I am involved in a similar scene almost every night here in Ghana. Instead of hiding in a bathtub, how...

Last Thursday was probably my least productive day at the building project so far. My mortar was poorly mixed. My mud blocks were few in number. My plastering was shoddy and slow. I blame Mama. There were more people in Mamas last Wednesday night than there have been since I arrived in Ghana. With no closing hours and with large bottles of Star beer costing less than 50p, the craic did not seem to want to end. It was a special night for a plethora of reasons: on...

My brother Donal spent last summer working in Bolivia. He told me of how the Bolivians started their day early, and of how on one particular morning when his body battery had not been fully recharged, a rooster began to crow. And crow and crow and crow. Crazed with sleep depravation and tense with frustration he got out of his bed at five in the morning to go and shout at the rooster to tell him to stop. On recounting the story to me he acknowledged how stupid th...

The moment came on a tro tro somewhere between Mamfe and Kwamoso in the late morning of Sunday past. Through the window the tropical banana and cocoa trees sprawled out before me in the Akuapem Hills as the tro tro fought its way noisily up the not so gentle slopes towards the regional capital, Koforidua, where I was meeting some other volunteers to go for a swim. I felt settled into this strange place. I now know my way around the Hills and am confident to nego...