James reports back from Ghana - it's not all fun...

Hey David
I have only got on to the internet today so do not worry as I wouldn't have noticed a late reply if you had not said anything!Its good to be feeling well again and with that has gone any of the homesickness I was feeling last week. This week has been a bit of a mix.

We decided to go to the lake in the end and I am very glad I could make it. The place was beautiful, surrounded by small hills the small circular lake is the crater of an asteroid that came crashing to earth long ago. The tro tro dropped us off a little away from the hostel we were planning to stay in and we had a pleasant walk though we were carrying a bag of water sachets that was about 15 litres of water and therefore was quite hard work. The lake when we got to it was a lot bigger than I thought, apparently it is 90 metres deep in the middle and gets steadily shallower towards the edge. The resort had its own private little stretch of beach which was lovely and peaceful and had a great view. The water was unbelievable! It was like walking into a bath, only on a huge scale, the water was so warm and smooth and it was a very clean bottom of soft sand so it was pleasant in all aspects. We sent the first day just lazing around by the lake which was a welcome break from lying about at home feeling ill. The food that night was awesome, I had prawn Masala and noodles. Quite expensive by Ghanaian standards but the whole trip worked out at about 20 pounds for everything over two days.

The following morning was Monday and luckily it is African Union day and my school was off so I was able to spend some more time at the lake. We started the day with a climb up a mountain but in the end we got a little lost in the forest and never reached the summit and had a bit of a struggle getting back to the path again. The rest of the day was spent at the lakeside until we packed up and headed home about 4pmish. Jus had an early night to prepare myself for school the following day.

Tuesday is my early start day with my first lesson at 8am but it went really well and though the subject was a bit boring the kids do seem to make an effort to understand it. After this I walked to Ashtown were the orphanage is and spent the rest of the morning with the kids there. I am trying to spend as much time with Seymour before he gets adopted and I really will miss him when he heads of to his new home! I spent the rest of the day at the orphanage and then headed home to bed.

Wednesday classes again went well and I managed to set my first homework though I wasn't sure if they quite understood what I wanted them too do and now that I have had a chance to mark it I have come to the conclusion they deffinitely didn't get it. Today my usual trek to the orphanage was interrupted today as a new volunteer has arrived in the country and is coming to share my room. I am therefore losing the pleasure of a room and ensuite to myself however it will be nice to have another boy around as the two who live down the road maybe gone by next week. We just spent the evening chatting and getting to know each other as we were going to have to live together for the next few months and it would be better if we got of to a good start which thankfully we have. His name is Robin and he seems very nice and he has settled in quite quickly to the way of life here which is so different from home.

Thursday is my day of mixed classes were my two classes shuffle around and it is a bit chaotic as I try to work out who has been taught what. We started number lines today and I went round the class and gave the kids a number each from -20 to +20 and then took them out to the playground and got them all to line up in order. As easy as this might seem to you and me the idea of negative numbers has not quite settled in them yet and I ended up with 0 to 20 being right but the next number after 0 going down was -20 then -19 all the way to -1. This was very amusing and in both lessons today the same thing happened. The kids think just because the number is big it must be a large number instead of being a large negative number. On this logic -20 is bigger than -10. Anyway after a lot of laughing and sorting out with managed to get the idea and got lined up properly and wasted an entire period in the process. After this I headed to stadium with Edward and Robin to play hockey and we ended up playing 5 vs 6. The three of us and two ghanians against a team of local kids and one of their dads. We ended up losing 3-1 and not surprisingly as me and Robin are not hockey players and the kids are exceptionally good for their size. All the same it was great fun and we deffinitely had our work cut out running around in the heat of a full size hockey pitch without a fullsize team to use it.

Friday was again school and orphanage and similar to the other days, however Sat was a bit of an experience. Robin and myself headed to a wedding with Francis to see what a wedding ceremony is like here. Well I can definitely say its not a dull affair. There is a huge amount of singing and dancing and clapping and celebrating and it was all quite exciting. We even got fed at the reception though out of takeaway cartoons and plastic bottles instead of our usual hotel style meals at home. It was good fun and next weekend we are going to a different sort of wedding. This one was a church one but next week is a Ghanaian style one using the traditional ways. I am quite excited to see it and I am sure it will be very different again from the one we have been to.Today I headed to the orphanage in the morning and the kids were all outside so we played a lot outside and I had to do a lot of lifting and swinging of the kids. They had rice balls and soup for lunch and it was sooo messy. Most of the kids were covered in it by the end and one kid especially called Ben had managed to rub it all over himself. On his head in his ears on his legs up his arms over his neck. He had to be thoroughly washed afterwards which just made it even funnier. I was left to do all the changing and washing of the kids myself today. When you have 10 excited toddlers this is no easy feat and it took almost an hour to get them through the potty into fresh clothes and all into bed before I could head off. I spent the rest of the day in a local hotel by the pool which was really nice and relaxing.

The days have certainly got a good routine about them now which is quite good and means I'm not stressing over what I am supposed to be doing next all the time. I am grateful to be feeling better again and this week has been an improvement on the last.

Anyway maykwaba (I am going) I hope your all well
James