Ghana never fails to make an impression on me. What a beautiful coastline, and a fantastic break! The 18 hour bus journey, which had no less than 7 Nigerian movies blaring back to back way into the night along the bumpy roads, no more than three pee stops in daylight at smelly and unsightly urinals (not on your nelly am I risking those things at night!), and one hugely built policeman equip with serious muscles and an even more serious gun, was less exhausting t...

I never expected you could see so many gorgeous bundles of babies all in one place! Beautiful little round faces, shiny cheeky cheeks, big wide overwhelmed brown eyes, some snugggled deep under layers of thickly knitted wool jumpers and bonnets, other strapped tightly to their mothers backs, eyes peeping over the top of the wrap, little feet sticking out on on either side of mummys tummy. Round bumps of babies bottoms everywhere, cute little toes wiggling abbou...

When you go to a drinking spot or local 'restaurant' in Ghana, the best strategy is to first make the relevant 'hissssssss' or 'TSK TSK'-ing noise (of course) the sure fire way to get the 'bartender' (AKA 'small boy') or 'waitress's (AKA 'small girl') attention (...I never never thought I would actually hiss at another huan being at all, never mind as much as I do now!), then, instead of looking at the menu (if there even is one) and chosing what you want (or ch...

Highlight number two of the week...actually doing some advocacy! The main objective of my week has been to support my colleague Abbie (World Vision Programme Officer for Health) to run advocacy meetings with stakeholders in all six Sub-Districts and their surrounding communities. The theme is Safe Motherhood Practices, and the meetings are expected to have a direct impact on Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5 in these specific communities: improve matern...

Highlight number one this week - saying 'Lam' over and over again to 300 plus children at Gbantongo (said Bantongo) school! 'Lam' means smile, although if you saw the way they looked at me when I said it, you would think I had said 'boo!' - some laughed, some plain almost cried. Oh dear, not a good start when we need to get every single one of these kids photographed looking happy to please their fee paying sponsors back in South Korea. It's the time of y...