During my first year working in Africa I had the opportunity to work in Ghana twice, the first time was in May 2006 for around a month and then again in July/August for around 6 weeks. This was my first time to west Africa and it was quite different to the northern, eastern and southern parts of Africa I had been to.

The reason why I went to Ghana was to establish new sports projects for our volunteers in Accra the capital of Ghana. There were a number of volunteers in Ghana when I arrived and a few doing cricket which you might think is a bit of a strange sport to be coaching in west Africa in fact it is because the kids don't really know what it is, all they really know is football and they don't really have the opportunity to do any other sports.

The other sports projects I was tasked to establish was football, Volleyball and Athletics for our volunteers to come out and coach. The volleyball and athletics we established with probably the only school in the area that could cater for our volunteers which actually had the facilities and infrastructure to deal with these sports programs as most schools in Ghana have very little sporting facilities.

The football was a little easier to establish as football in Ghana is a religion. I know that football is big everywhere around the world but I would have to put the passion for football in Ghana matches the passion for rugby in New Zealand and cricket in India, it is played everywhere and every Ghanaian child wishes to be the next Michael Essian. As we already worked with a number of schools it was fairly straight forward to set up. Our volunteers would work at 4 schools coaching 5 times a week developing football at grass routes. As well as coaching football I wanted our football volunteers to do more than that so I established something called the Travellers Football Tournaments that would allow our football coaches at the end of their placement to organise a football tournament for the 4 schools they worked at and we would donate prizes, transport costs and food etc.

As there is very little opportunity for kids to actually play football in Ghana I wanted to give them this opportunity to showcase there skills and abilities and represent there skills on the field. To date we have had a number of volunteers run these football tournaments to great success which the kids all love. As well as coaching football and running tournaments I wanted to go one step further and organise opportunities for volunteers to play football as well. We approached a number of football clubs in the area and they were keen for our volunteers to join them, I also went training with the clubs which was good as I got to keep up my fitness and skills although the Ghanaian's play football very physical fast pace football but it is very disorganised and they only play to attack they never look around to pass it backwards or sideways always behind. It also takes a while to get use to playing on the pitches in Ghana as they play on gravel pitches with no grass and it is always bumpy but great fun, it makes me laugh when people in the UK moan about the playing surfaces they have to play on, some people don't realise how lucky they have life in the western world.

One of the clubs we established ties with was Nania FC which was owned and coached by the legendry Abedi Pele. Abedi Pele was a former UEFA champions league winner, 3 times African football player of the year and most capped Ghanaian football player of all time. I helped at the club for a short period working as the fitness coach for the team. It made a change from working with the amateur clubs as Nania had a grassed pitch and good facilities for a club in Ghana. I did a variety of plyometric training with the players and other fitness drills that they had not ever done before. Working with Abedi was quite an honour as he is very well known in the football community and has a wealth of experience.

As well as working with a number of teams in the area my host father Joe suggested that I establish a local football team as their was a pitch around the corner from the house I was staying in and their use to be a team but they had collapsed due to disorganisation, this seemed a good idea as it would provide the local guys in the community to have something to look forward to and we could provide it as a tool for community development and enrichment.

I set about organising the team and we held a number of trials for the team. After selecting the initial team we selected a squad who would play for our team and we trained nearly every morning at 6am and then again in the evening such was the love for football from the players. I took on the coaching role for the club but also got involved with playing as well because I love to keep fit and play football myself. Travellers sponsored the team buying them a kit, balls, cones and other equipment to use of the club. Everything was going well and whilst I was there when we played our first game in which we lost 1-0.

During my time in Ghana I was also running the holiday camp which our volunteers were working in. The holiday camp was great as it allowed kids from the local community to do something in the holiday rather than just sitting around. Myself and Chris one of the male volunteers use to do the sports and coach football and the other volunteers would do lessons with them as well as other things. At the end of the holiday camp we held a show for the parents and locals and myself and the volunteers had to do a dance with the kids which was in much amusement to the locals to see these white people dancing around in typical African clothes.

During the weekends in Ghana myself and the volunteers use to visit Kokrabita a beach resort about 30 minutes outside of Accra. The beach resort called Big Millys Backyard was right next to the beach and had really nice western food and provided a change from the normal rice that we would normally get served. Swimming in the ocean was a bit limited as the current was quite strong so you didn't venture to far out but the beach itself was nice and there was always some kids to play football with. The sunrises and sun sets were beautiful as well especially with the palm trees in the background.

During other weekends we use to spend time at Champs sports bar which again provided a nice break from African life and allowed us me to catch up on the sporting front as well as grab some western food and have dairy products of which I was deprived living with a local family.

During my time in Ghana I lived with the volunteers in one of our host families houses. The family had a large number of family members and there was always people coming and going from the house. I really enjoyed living with the host family as you got to see what the real Ghanaian culture and life was like. We use to eat local food every day which was sometimes better than others. For breakfast we would typically have fruit or porridge, for lunch we would have something like fried plantain and then for dinner spaghetti, rice or something along those lines. Due to the lack of protein, dairy and other such necessities I had been use to as part of my daily diet as I tend to eat very well I would often find myself craving certain foods. I would always buy oranges from the side of the street to get my vitamin c and they have some meat from the kebab man next door.

One weekend myself and the volunteers took a trip to Kumasi, Ghana's second city. Kumasi for me did not really have much of an appeal it seemed like a normal African city. We took a trip to Lake Bosuntwi which was quite eventful. We caught a bus from Kumasi to a point near the lake and from their got in a taxi to get down to the lake. We were driving along when we saw a rope across the road and a load of Ghanaians. As soon as they saw a taxi full of abruines (white people) they jumped on the bonnet of the taxi and demanded payment for going on the road towards the lake, the manner in which they did it was quite aggressive and over the top. As soon as we paid our levy for getting past the 'roadblock' we headed down towards the lake where we were greeted by some locals one of them who claimed to be the chief of the lands (although I am not sure he was), he then in turn started to tell us about the lake and what they were doing there planting trees to help with the lake etc etc, after the little talk he did he then went on to say how they needed money for the planting of trees. Myself and the volunteers did not want to give him any money as he was a bit of a joker and I seriously doubt that any money we donated would find its way into the planting of trees so we refused. After this they turned quite nasty towards us and told all of us to put our cameras away or they would slap us, this was with a number of girls in our group some of them were 18. Overall the lake is really nothing special after all it is a lake and the Ghanaians in that area have very little idea of how to treat tourists or how to set up a tourist friendly environment so my advice would be if you are in Kumasi don't waste your time going there. It was the only time in my life since working in Africa that I wanted to go home so bad was the treatment from the so called locals!

Overall Ghana is a great country, it is very challenging in terms of travelling compared to other parts of Africa but it is quite rewarding and I have some amazing memories of the place. Overall it is in the top 4 countries in Africa for along with South Africa, Tanzania and Namibia.