Weekend getaway (1) - Day One

Went for a short weekend trip to the southern coast of Ghana last week with all the other interns. The place we stayed at was isolated but beautiful.

Here are some pictures from the Day one of the trip.

The journey to the place we were to stay took a bloody long time. It couldn't have been more than 400 km but it took us almost 10 hours to cover that distance due to the bad conditions of the roads here. Anyway along the way, we saw some kids playing volleyball and we decided to stretch our legs and join them in the game.  

View of the beach from the resort

The beach resort runs a local turtle conservation program. So for a small fee, visitors can join in the beach patrol at night and they might see mother turtles laying eggs or help to dig out newly laid eggs and bring them back to the resort's nursery for protection.

HIV test

Went for a HIV test. Not that I did anything stupid enough to warrant going for a test. The topic for the next 2 weeks sessions is on the importance of knowing your HIV status and I feel there's no better way to talk about it then to get myself tested first. It gives me first hand experience of how the whole testing process works and I can better relate to the students about it afterwards.

Here's a little rundown on the test. HIV status test is also known as VCT (voluntary, counselling, testing). When you go for a test, a trained counsellor will do a pre-test counselling which consists of providing you with the basic information on HIV/AIDS. The test itself takes only 5-10 minutes and consists of pricking your thumb to get a little blood after that there's a post-test counselling session. So altogether the process takes less than an hour. And its for free!

  Btw, my test result is negative.

TIG

Recently one of the interns coined this word - TIG (This is Ghana). We generally used it to refer to situations whereby we are at a loss of words to explain what's happening and simply have to accept that its happening because we are in Ghana (Africa is interchangeable with Ghana here). Encountered this moment just now. This particular school have for the past 3 weeks been informing us at the last minute that we cannot do the session for the week due to various reasons. So we are now seriously behind schedule for that school not to mentioned pissed off at the last minute changes and we cannot indefinitely extend the project just for the benefit of one school. So me and Tomoki went down to the school to attempt to find a solution. There was no one around the school as they had all gone for their athletics meet this week. Managed to find one teacher and she 'agreed' to allow us to do 2 sessions next week to make up for lost time. Not sure if she can make the decision but having someone agree to something is better than nothing I feel. Also we wanted to find out when is the end-of-semester test (to avoid future clash of schedule) and the TIG moment occurred. She has no idea! WTF! At another school earlier, they were not sure of the exact date too. Its gonna be held sometime in Dec. The exact date is a mystery. In fact they are not sure if its gonna be a uniform date for all the schools or not. Can you believe it? I wonder how the students are suppose to prepare for it. Kind of makes you question the professionalism of the education service here in Ghana huh. Anyway this means that we will have to make a trip down to the education service department in Obuasi to sort out the mess. More work :( 

World Cup Qualifier: Ghana vs Mali

Went with the other interns to watch a World Cup qualifier between Ghana and Mali last Sunday. My first time watching a World Cup qualifier match 'live'. Never imagine I would be seeing some Premier League stars in this way. Yes! Michael Essien (Chelsea) was playing! I like him and its a pity that Man Utd didn't managed to sign him. Anyway Ghana had already qualified prior to the match which probably explained their rather lackluster performance. The match ended 2-2.

The stadium

Street peddlers

Supporters

 

From left: Yu Jin (Korea), Hitomi (Japan), Aireen (China), Hannah (Germany)

The match

 

 

 

 

The gift from heaven

The tap went dry a few days ago at Phillip's house. It has happened once previously though we were better prepared the last time. The previous time, there were signs that the water supply might stop as the water was flowing rather erratically and we made sure to store up water in a big container that most Ghanaian household have. This time round, we were all caught by surprise and were left rather unprepared. Worst of all, there wasn't much water left in the big container. Unfortunately for me, I had soaked my clothes the night before in preparation for washing them that morning and the water shortage made the washing rather difficult. Tricky balance to strike between making sure the clothes are clean and not using up too much of the precious little water left in the big container. Towards the night, the water supply still showed no signs of coming on anytime soon and we were left to wonder how to take a shower that night. But the heavens probably saw our predicament and decided to intervene. It rained. In case you thought that the tap starting flowing again, you've got it wrong. Oh yes, we collected the rainwater and for the first time in my life, I bathe with rainwater. Kind of a experience huh!

It made me realised one thing. We should never take a country's development for granted. Ghana is probably how Singapore looks like 50 years ago. But look at where we are today and where Ghana is. Ghana is blessed with natural resources from gold deposits to land for agriculture (they are one of the biggest producer of cocoa beans in the world). But still they struggle to provide decent clean tap water to the majority of the people here. The tap can and will go off anytime here without warning. Imagine if PUB does that in Singapore, what an outroar it will create. Here, people just shrug their shoulders and carry on. Some people might argue that the development in Singapore came at a steep price of lost of liberty etc. Perhaps they should spent some time living in a less developed country. There is no liberty to speak of in my opinion if your stomach is hungry, if your kids have no access to schooling, if you have to trek under the hot sun to get to a communal tap for access to water. Took a tro-tro just now. (A tro-tro is a form of public transport here. It's basically a converted van used to carry people. Tro-tros are operated by a team of 2 people. A driver and a 'conductor' whose main responsibility is to collect fares.) The 'conductor' in that tro-tro was just a boy. Probably no older than 15 years old. What were you doing at that age?

Making of fufu

Here are some photos of the process involved in making fufu. It's a rather tedious process!

Larabanga and the mud mosque

Larabanga, a small town, lies at the entrance to Mole National Park. According to the Bradt guidebook, it hosts the most famous and reputedly oldest of the West-Sudanese-style mud-and-stick mosques in Ghana. The exact age of the mosque and its builder(s) is subjected to dispute. Can't remember the exact story but it goes something like this. A man wanted to built a new house and somehow he decided to throw his spear and relocate to whatever the spear landed. Miraclously, the spear flew half a kilometre and landed at the present location of the mosque. Even more amazing, it landed in a foundation which had appeared out of nowhere and he decided to build a mosque upon that foundation. Not too sure about the authenticity of the story, but one thing's for sure, it's a old mosque with a unique architecture and that's all I need to know.

Scenery


















Traditional mud hut









Guide explaining the story behind the mosque









The mosque

Photos from first week of classes

Here are some photos from the first week of ASK classes.

Head Teacher's office









Classroom

School compound

Canteen!









Another school



















Resting under a tree