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...

With four days of work behind me I have made it to my first weekend in Ghana. For the last few days on the community building project we were painting the inside and outside of the school in Saforo, coating the walls and then painting various pictures which supposedly have an 'educational' element. Today, however, we got into the heavy work of mixing cement for the front porch area of the school. This was exhausting, especially in the heat, but I really enjoyed ...

It took me over half and hour to walk to this internet cafe from my village, Abiriw. As the sweat drips from my forehead onto the keyboard, I type and squint, type and squint. I managed to get to Africa with relatively little hassle - my bags arrived to Accra airport and none of my flight times suffered from the terrible weather at home. As it was late when I got in I was picked up at the airport and brought to the office in Accra which doubles as a guest h...