Fishing and relaxing

Anomabu is a beautiful beach resort west of Accra.The ocean is full of fish and the waves are safe enough to body board. The ocean breezes were deliciously cool after the intense heat of Tamale.

Pulling in the nets is hard work so everyone joins in. The catch will either be sold at the market or the fish will be smoked before they are sold.

View from the castle and the Door of Return

Cape Coast Castle

This is one of the many castles along this beautiful coast. It contains a museum that outlines the terrible history of slavery that took place over hundreds of years.Our guided tour showed us the dark dungeons where the slaves were kept awaiting transportation and the 'door of no return'.

Happily in the last few years a ceremony has taken place which enabled the door to be renamed as the 'door of return'. This acts as a symbol of hope and a reminder to all peoples that never again should anybody be treated in this cruel way.

Goodbye Tamale Hello Cape Coast

Goodbye Tamale .April 5th
The past three months have been one of the most fulfilling and amazing that I have ever spent.
I have thoroughly enjoyed working in my four schools, teaching the children and sharing ideas with the teachers and heads. It has been such a privilege and I think deeply appreciated on both sides. Getting to know volunteers from so many different countries and backgrounds and sharing a house for 3 months with Tim, Fred, Kim, Nina and others who shared our spare room briefly, has also been a delight; we have all had so much fun together.

I have made some really good friends here and shared amazing experiences so it was always going to be difficult in my final week to say ‘Goodbye’.

Three months just did not seem to be long enough for all I wanted to accomplish and embed and I just ran out of time at the end. Even during my last week I was still delivering phonics training to one school. Time was so tight that Helen, Early Years co-ordinator for the GES, came to my house the day before I left so that we could work together. However I did manage to watch class teachers deliver phonic sessions with the laminated cards I had provided and talk to the staff in each school about any
impact my visit had made. The answers were sometimes unexpected. One HT said that her school now valued punctuality as I was always on time for the training and refused to start until everyone was present. Other teachers told me they now used some of the alternative ways of discipline covered in our workshops, rather than the cane. The two schools I had visited late in my stay said that they needed more time with me. I agreed with them. Next time..?
In my final week I visited my schools to say Goodbye. I had bought them footballs from the UK and other small gifts. The children jumped for excitement when they saw the football. The game was now back on the curriculum! To my surprise and delight the schools also had gifts for me. One school even had a gift for my husband Ken. Eloquent thanks were expressed, not just for me but also for those who sent me including my family and school. It was very emotional and humbling. I shall never forget just how hard life is for many of the people I have met and also just how generous of spirit they are.

I asked volunteers, Asma and her deputy Zanabu to meet for supper at one of our favourite venues the Wednesday before I left. We all had a great time, managed to get home before the electric storm was in full flow but the next day I had food poisoning! .Not quite the exit I wanted from Tamale!

Hello Cape Coast!
The usual way of travelling from Tamale to Accra is by the STC bus which takes at least 12 hours! Fortunately I had decided to fly. This was not without its own difficulties as there is only one, very early, flight a day. Fred nobly got up at 4.30a.m in order to help me ferry my luggage, in the darkness, to the main road so that I could get a lift with the airport bus. He then waited with me until dawn. I was still suffering from food poisoning so everything was difficult.
I then need to get from Accra to Cape Coast, a three hour journey by STC. I wasn’t well enough for this so splashed out on a taxi for the 100 mile journey instead. The only alternative was to stay the night in Accra which would have been more expensive. I finally arrived at my friend’s house and went straight to bed and slept. Bliss!

Patricia and Bill had generously offered me the use of their house at Cape Coast and it has been an unusual experience to stay in a house without the host. However I have enjoyed every minute. The climate here is much kinder than in Tamale. It is still hot but their house is on a hill overlooking the sea and catches the cooling breeze from the Atlantic. The garden is a delight: green grass, birds and butterflies. Such a contrast to the dust of Tamale! There is both a day and a night watch man so I have felt very safe and well looked after.
I have spent the last two days having a wonderful rest at the Coconut Beach resort at Elmina. The ocean here has dangerous currents and a strong undertow so with red flags everywhere, swimming is out of the question. However the beach is enchantingly beautiful; white sands fringed by coconut palms and the food and service are excellent. This is a 5 star resort but the pool and all the facilities are open to all for a fee of 5cedis (about £2.50). Excellent value and a wonderful location for some r and r!

Tomorrow I leave this lovely house and move further down the coast with my HT friend Maddy at Anomabu. I haven’t seen Maddy since she dropped me off in my house in Tamale in January. She has been staying in Wa in the Upper West; eight hours by bus from Tamale. She leaves Kumasi, where she has visited friends, on the 4.00am bus tomorrow and we meet at eight. We will have lots to talk about.

From there we travel to Accra for our exit interview and then home for Easter. What does chocolate taste like- and bacon again!

Winnowing the rice

When I explained that I was a teacher and the children at my school would be interested the ladies were happy for me to take their picture.


Ghana grows its own rice and the quality has improved which reduces the need for expensive imports.

Adventures with Asmawu

Adventures with Asmawu
Asmawu decide to take me on a cultural tour of Kanvilli village on our way to the Presby Education Office. Walking through the village we could see the women winnowing the rice and gathering around the water pump; interesting for me but very hard work for them. We visited Asmawu’s home so that I could see her flock of goats, her chickens, and unusually for Tamale, her pigs. Primary school teachers are badly paid in Ghana; their monthly pay is 190 cedis (£100) and headteachers only receive an additional £2.00! Even by local standards this is very low and Asma has to sell one of her pigs when school fees are due.
We next visited her bar or ‘spot’ and she showed me the recent storm damage. Cow head stew was on the menu and was delicious although I found the cow skin a bit chewy. We went across the road and I was persuaded to take a calabash of the local brew made of fermented millet. It was generously finished for me by an elderly gentleman and Asma later sent me a big bottle to share with my house mates. I was very popular. We eventually arrived at the education office where I was made very welcome.

The countryside is beginning to look green after the recent rains and blossom is starting to appear on the trees. I hope this continues because since I have been here I have just seen a very dry and dusty Tamale.

Church and the chicken tractor
I have just returned from a 2 hour church service with Moona and it was just like being at a Dianna Ross concert. The music and singing were fantastic; everyone was clapping and dancing and full of joy. This was followed by Bible study groups but I could not stay as I had arranged to see Will and his chickens.
Will is a long term volunteer working with agriculture and I wanted to see his ‘chicken tractor’. The soil here is subject to long periods of very high temperatures and many of the nutrients just vaporise. (It’s currently 47C in our garden). Will’s 5 chickens are enclosed in a pen where they naturally scratch up and turn over the soil, fertilising it at the same time by ‘digging’ in the old vegetables and their droppings. Will thinks the soil will be ready to cultivate in 6 months. Should I try this at home? At night or when it rains Will puts the chickens in their basket and hangs them up in his spare wardrobe!

Work!
I’m continuing to provide whole staff INSET for my schools. The head usually gives me an hour sometime in the day and the children are all told to stay in their classrooms and behave them selves. I’m not sure what they do as they are no books for them to read or games to play but it seems to work. The teachers and heads get very little INSET and appear to be thriving on sharing ideas. We have had some robust discussions on pedagogy and special needs. We have tackled the thorny issues of differentiation and control without the cane! We have also seen the power of sharing the Success Criteria.
I now have less than two weeks here so also want to monitor the impact in the classroom.
PTA
This Saturday saw the first PTA meeting for over 2 years at one of my new schools. The school has less than 200 pupils but there was overwhelming parental support with 60 parents at the meeting. We started and finished the meeting with prayers. This time the meeting was all in Dagbani As before all the teachers were present and I was asked to share the results of my monitoring report with the parents. My address which included observations of the strength of community and family life, the beautiful manners and thoughtfulness of their children as well as recommendations that would move the school forward were warmly received. The teachers appealed to the parents to send their children to school regularly, punctually and well fed. By the end of the meeting a new executive had been elected, a school fund started and a levy of 2 cedis per family that would be used to provide the wood for doors and windows that would keep the animals from using the classrooms as a shelter. It was a very productive use of a Saturday and the headteacher was very pleased with the result.