Week 1 19 February Ghana
We are starting to settle down, managed to buy all the mundane things in the local outdoor market, all the very essential things, like mops & buckets coat hangers mosquito fly spray.
The Boys Home covers a site of about six football pitches, at one end is our accommodation block, in the middle a football pitch, net ball pitch, and a basket ball court.
At the other end is an accommodation block for about sixty boy’s adjoining the admin buildings and a teaching block, this is where it differs from our secondary schools. One of the blocks is devoted to teaching motor mechanics a very large modern set up that has been donated by Germany. A German engineer comes over frequently to train them, it is largely self supporting it repairs the cars at an economic rate so as not to upset the local garages.
At the moment I am devising an Excel Finance computer programme to help them set up their own business when they leave here.
The other programme trains electricians in wiring houses, door bells burglar alarms etc so that they are olso able to get jobs when they leave here..
One programme teaches technical drawing, and electronics. The girls are taught to be Secretaries although all the classes have a mixture of boys and girls,
Week 1 21st February
My first class was teaching Publisher to the Mechanics who are in their final year mainly 22 to 24 year olds quite big lads; some of them would have made Mohamed Ali look small. The previous night we had had a celebration for one of the Salesian Priests from Croatia who has been in Africa 25 Years.
I have never seen anyone dance at such a frenetic speed, everything is accompanied by drums even the mass The choir had about 50 members all singing in four part harmonies the base section had about 20 members and what a rich sound they made, every night you can her the people singing and playing drums it really is the sound of Africa.
The students are very friendly and helpful whenever they see me carrying any thing they run across and insist on carrying it for you.
There are two computer rooms one with 15 computers and the other with 21 all sit with two to a desk the classrooms are quite small with very little room to get around so I will have up to forty two students in some of my classes with no air conditioning I will let you know how I survive.
We are gradually acclimatising to the heat and humidity, very dusty but we are told the rain will be coming any day now so this place will turn into a sea of red mud. Most of the African roads are made with Laterite a form of red clay quite hard in the dry season but turns to red mud when the rains come.
The surrounding area is just a mixture of tin shacks and market stalls with piles of rubbish every where, even though big notices tell them not deposit rubbish. All types of rubbish are just burnt on bits of open ground so as you are walking or driving you pass through clouds of acid smoke.
The few factories that they have belch out clouds of black smoke similar to our factories of 60 years ago.
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Till next time
Leo
Week 2
26th February
Ten years ago when I retired I never dreamt I would be out here in Darkest Africa teaching computers in a Technical High School. Why they called it Darkest Africa, I will never know, the sun is directly over head most of the time very bright and hot,
Having started at Runs haw College eight years ago and caught the computer bug little did I know where it was going to lead me.
Angela has the difficult job, English is the main language but most of the pupils speak four local dialects and mix them up with their English, the government would like every body to speak good English so Angela has 276 pupils to give English lessons to.
Last week when we arrived they gave Angela and me a time table for our first week of teaching, it looked like we were going to have an easy time, this week they slotted another four hours in, next week another four or so they say!!!!.
Having to prepare and print all our own teaching resources takes a lot of time, they have absolutely no resources here, I now bring my own Lap Top and Printer and we print our own teaching plans in our bedroom come office.
Out of the twenty staff here only one is a qualified teacher, some of the courses, as in England a good quality tradesman is their ideal teacher i.e. Car Mechanic, Television Repairer, Electrician, Air Conditioning, Welding, Technical Drawing etc, in fact the technical drawing teacher and his class have just finished the plans for a new Don Bosco Technical High School to be built west of here, it is being sponsored by donors from Germany. Our school was built completely by the Brothers Priests and our own boys, the standard is excellent
Some times they send the teachers on refresher courses but it costs money which is in very short supply, in fact at one of Salesian school near here which was built by a German sponsor, they can no longer afford to feed the pupils so they have to go home for their rice. Long term sponsorship is essential.
The teachers cannot afford to go to Accra for training, as their wages are less than £10 per week, only one of them has computer skills so after school hours I’ve been given the job of training seventeen teachers with computer skills, I don’t mind as there is just no where to go out here in the evening
Also it is far to dangerous to come home late as the priests let out three fierce dogs, to protect the school grounds, one volunteer was attacked one night so it is safer to stay indoors
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Till next time
Leo
Week 3 March 4th
This week starts the Celebration of the 50th anniversary of Ghana’s Independence, Angela has gone in to Accra to join in the Independence celebrations Today all the Christian Churches are going to Independence square for a religious celebration, I’m going to stay here, Angela can go and stand in the hot sun for hours and pray for me, as Angela says I’m a Wimp. The temperature this week is over 96 degrees.
Ghana is a very religious country about 30% catholic 20% Muslim and the rest mainly Pentecostal and indigenous religions. .
About 25% of our students are Sunni Muslim and dress in school uniform. They have their hair uncovered just like our students at home, they even join in the prayers and sing Christian Hymns, I didn’t know so many of my pupils were Muslim till I asked them their names, evidently there is hardly any fundamentalism here.
English is the official language of Ghana and is universally used in schools although it is not a mother tongue most of our students speak reasonably good English, but at times they mix it with local dialects of which there are 79 not always easy to understand them.
The currency of Ghana is the Cedi, for £100 you get 1m.800.000 Cedes and depending on what notes they give you it can be up to three inches thick, not made for our wallets. It takes ages to count money out, but in July they are going to take three noughts of the notes, it should be much easer to manage.
This Don Bosco school was started seven years ago by donations from the German Dentists association, it is about twenty miles from Accra in a suburb called Ashaiman, the land is reasonably cheap as it on the very edge of the populated areas, beyond here is just Savannah and scrub land.
The last rain fall they here was over five months ago, everywhere is very dry and dusty, all the electricity is generated by the Volta river dam built over 50 years ago, the water is now very low and it is at a critical level. When the government cuts the power supply our own generator trips in. We can only afford to keep it running till ten thirty each night after that it’s very dark, you need to be in bed by then, any reading has to be done by torch light. At our other school in New Town they only have water from 4am to 7am and the electric switches of at 9pmThe biggest problem is that we rely on the government for our water supply; with a shortage of electricity the water supply is being restricted.
The priest tried drilling a borehole on our land here but it only produced salt water, Every day the newspaper publish the water levels
This dam provides 95% of the electricity in Ghana
The northern savannah is drained by the Black Volta and White Volta rivers that join to form the Volta , which then flows south to the sea through a narrow gap in the hills. Lake Volta is the fourth largest artificial lakes in the world.
The picture of the family on the canoe that I sent last week was taken where the Volta enters the sea through hundreds of small islands,
It was on one of these islands that we came across them using a still to make alcohol from cane sugar and toilet rolls from the residue.
Till next time.
Leo
Week 4 10th March Life is certainly interesting.
Sunday, up at 6.45 to attend mass at 7.30.am at the new Parish Church .
The Salesians started building it four years ago with only 12 parishioners, it is just a tin roof with a five ft wall all round. It is over two miles from here by bus, mass times are slightly different, starting early to avoid the heat, we sat by the the wall so we would have something to lean against, not realising by 8 o’clock the sun would be streaming in on that side of the church, three hours later we where wilting.
At the moment there is seating for 400 on plain hard wooden benches no backs!!! Over the next 4 years there are plans to build a new larger community church to seat over 500 as this one is no longer big enough, Over 500 attended mass last Sunday mostly young people they have a fantastic choir, and everybody dances and sings in the aisles, swaying to the sound of drums and organ. The ladies all dress in colourful African dresses and hats, religious symbols and words are often printed into the designs of the fabrics some of which depict which parish they are from, e.g. St Paul’s our Lady of Lourdes etc.
The service is exactly the same as ours in English, where it differs is sermon, bidding prayers and notices are translated into one of four different languages (hence the three hours) At the offertory every one goes up to the alter to make an offering, as they have very little money, yams, rice, papaya, bread, coconuts, tins of food, and even toilet rolls, are given to the priest
Later having survived three hours in the hot sun I asked Fr Blamo who is a Liberian Priest if I could go with him to the Liberian refugee camp about two hours away from here, every Sunday he takes food to give to the neediest refugees many are destitute.
There are thirty thousand in the camp, they have lived on the site for 15 years and continue to exist entirely on donated food by Unesco, most of them can never go back to Liberia as they are from the wrong tribe, nor are they allowed to take up employment here.
When you think how many we in Britain have absorbed over the last fifty years, it makes you realise what a great country we are.
Till next time.
Leo
Week 5 March 20th
The rains have arrived at last only a gentle shower but everybody is very hopeful the
Easter Ghana 2007
At long last we have a break, we have decided to go up to the Cape Coast for five days. Formally it used to be called the Gold Coast or the white mans grave when the British were here.
Yellow fever and Malaria are widespread, but with all our tablets and injections we should be OK.
Our first visit was to the Elmina Castle this was the largest of the seventy castle that were built along this coast to hold the slaves till the boats came from the Americas. Over the two hundred years seventy million Africans where transported through here, many brought overland in chains from neighbouring countries taking two months to arrive, locked in the cells for a further three months with no sanitation, finally chained in a ship and transported to America..
It’s amazing they still love us.
Good Friday
We went to the Stations of the Cross at St Joseph’s Church Elmina, the church is at the top of a steep hill, in the centre of the hill are the Stations of the Cross, with the final station in front of the church over a thousand people made the stations in bare feet taking about two hours in the hot sun..
Easter Saturday
I’ve long wanted to go down a gold mine so I took the opportunity to go overland to the Ashanti Gold Mine. Having studied Geology many years ago I still go on geological field trips it was an opportunity I didn’t want to miss, the brother of a friend of mine was the sectary to Tiny Rowland when he ran Lonrho now it’s called Ashanti Goldfields.
The mine employs 8000 miners underground with as many again on the surface a complete village has been built to house them, with schools shops and banks etc..
The mine has over sixty levels but I was only allowed to go down to the eighth level however I did manage to find some nice samples of rock with traces of gold in.
Easter Sunday.
Mass at St Joseph’s Cape Coast
There where two Masses one at 7 o’clock and one at 9 o’clock we decided to go to the nine o’clock one, the seven o’clock one had not finished when we arrived, finally our mass started at 9.30,
There where about five hundred inside and as many again out side.
In the middle of the mass about twenty babies where baptised, not one cried.
The previous night over fifty adults and young people had been baptised and the previous week at our Don Bosco Mass twenty adults were received into the church..
The offertory took over 30 minuets every one walks up to the altar to make their donation followed by all the different confraternities, who take gifts on their heads to the priest, every conceivable gift was given, from toilet rolls to loves of bread, brushes and buckets not sure how Fr Marsden would like a platefuls of live snails about four inches across crawling around, evidently it’s considered a delicacy, I hoped the priest liked them as it’s considered bad manners to give them away..
Finally at 1 o’clock Mass finished, but I must admit we enjoyed it, we just didn’t notice the time with all the singing and dancing, evidently every one else did as no one left the service early.
Five years ago this Parish started in a chicken shed. This Sunday 600 hundred went to Mass
Till next time.
Leo
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on will soon arrive, the last rain they had was 15 of Oct 2006
Yesterday they closed down the largest employer of labour in the country the Bauxite Mine and smelting works due to the lake levels being unable to generate sufficient electricity to feed the smelting works.
Even generator in the school is not powerful enough to run all the computers at once so the computers keep shutting down due to low voltages, very frustrating on top of normal computer glitches.
In our accommodation block we have no electric every alternative day from 10pm till early morning, having no fans on during the night is unbearable, but life goes on with or without electricity; at least it is never dull..
This week end we went to see the Acosumbo Dam,
Fifty years ago when it was built it was the largest in the world now I believe it is the fourth largest, Yes it is at a critical level only two of the six turbines are working, any lower and the whole of the electricity supply to the country will come to a halt, the government is franticly trying to bring emergency generators into the country but I’m afraid they will be too late to stop a complete shut down
Week 5 March 25th
The monsoon has arrived but in the wrong part of the country to fill the dam.
The rain came down horizontally, our accommodation blocks doesn’t have full panes of glass just louvers the rain was so powerful it just blasted straight through the louvers across the room, out came the mops and buckets to try and keep pace with the floods.
Once again we are comparatively lucky in one of the girl’s dormitories in New Town, the weight of water against one of the walls was so great it undermined the building, it now has a crack right across the end wall.
At the Liberian refugee camp the damage was much worse roofs flew off and flimsy wooden walls collapsed, some one from the camp rang the Salesians to ask could they help, so some of the money we raised has gone to help them build new shelters.
Till next time.
Leo
Week 8 Ghana
Back to work, this week its exams.
The curriculum is very different from schools in England , beside the normal subjects, they are all taught a trade, Welding, Auto Repairs, House Wiring Electrical Repairs,eg. fans, air, conditioning units, electric irons, etc. their ages are between 18 and 22 years.
The girls are taught to be Secretaries; we do have some girls working in Auto, Installation, and Electronics. Each class has about 20 to 26 students so in one day we teach students who are studying a wide range of subjects,
This week Angela set the English Exam, lots of surprises most of the students didn’t know where England was on the world Map, all thought it was bigger than Ghana in fact England is four times smaller than Ghana with 60 million people against 20 million.
Angela gave them a pictorial map of England the map showed Scotland with a piper in a Kilt playing the Bagpipes which led to a few questions, Wales depicted a Dragon they had never heard of Dragons in Africa I then had to explain it’s only a mythical creature but our St George actually killed a mythical Dragon sort that one out.
As well as the normal IT subjects I’ve been asked to teach Graphic Design not one I’ve taught before so it’s been quite a challenge.
This week it’s all theory exams, next week all practical exams, after that two weeks holiday.
Week 9 Ghana
We are going up to the North of the country, where we will be travelling through Ashanti country and on to Kumasi a journey of about 6 hours and then on to Sunyami where we have a large Technical school for 460 street children. We will probably stay for a few days and with luck we may see a few wild animals in their natural surroundings.
Last night we went to a party to celebrate the leaving of one of our volunteers parents from Germany, Marcus is with us for 12 months evidently in Germany they still have national service, either they can do eight months in the army, or twelve months voluntary work, many choose to work with the Salesians in West Africa.
The party was a Foo Foo Party not the tastiest of foods, it’s made from Yams which looks like a large potato about 18 inches long and Planten which looks like an unripe banana, the two are mixed together and pounded with a wooden stave for about two hours, it ends up looking like a large ball of dough you are then given a large ball of Foo Foo and a bowl of very hot spicy soup with meat in it, everyone eats it with their fingers.
The other popular dish is Banku this is made from Cassava but tastes much the same as Foo Foo I try to avoid both!!!
I will let you know in two weeks time if we survive the trip.
Temp still 96 degrees, 90 % humidity day and night, with no electric every alternate day.
Till next time.
Leo
Week 10
25th April
Our trip to the North of the country has been put back , the lack of water in the Dam is causing endless problems, the electricity is only on every other day, water in some parts of the country is only on three days a week and now we are having diesel shortages, the last three days the pumps have been dry, they all say diesel tomorrow but as usual in Africa they don’t plan for the future. Our exams are finished lots of department meetings are taking place to plan for the next term; the main problem is always the same where the money is coming from to meet all the running costs. The only incomes they have are voluntary donations, this at the moment is only covering 25% of the running costs, and it’s quite a problem. It would take about £15.000 a year to change the lives of over 400 students and teachers
Our students are only taken from poor families, street children, and orphans, it is impossible to charge them realistic fees, the children who have parents will be selling charcoal, or water in plastic bags etc, carried on their heads, it’s impossible for eighty percent of families to earn more than £1 a day.
The three priests have a very heavy work load Fr Chris is the Bursar he also runs a boys and girls First Intake School and Hostel for about sixty pupils this is for the boys and girls who are taken straight from the streets, most of them have never had any education so if a twelve or fourteen year boy or girl comes in and has never been to school they are put straight into primary education, they are all fed and given a bed and school uniform the others are given an elementary education by eight young German student three girls and five boys, doing their twelve months national service. At eighteen the students move here for three years and are taught a trade.
The other home is in Tema New Town right in the middle of the slums and fish market so you can guess what their diet is Yams and Fish.
A German student called Tobias who lives with us goes every day to teach them maths and English, this School and hostel has lots of problems structurally, when it rains it floods the building last night two tin sheets blew off the roof.
Fr Chris from Poland is also is in charge of the Auto department in our Technical Training School, this has a very large repair shop, forty students are taught how to repair cars, he is also trying to make this department cover its own costs and make a small profit to cover some of the running costs of the other departments.
Fr Blamo is from Liberia he is the Head Master of the Training Centre with 267 Students very rarely does he get back here for lunch as he always has students with problems waiting to see him. Most of the problems a head master would never have in England, for example if a pupil is ill he has to arrange them to be taken to a hospital or doctor and pay for them.
Many desperately ill people travel miles to come and see if we can they help them, some with very large black cancers growths covering fifty percent of their faces, some with their feet looking like Elephant feet and others with Guinea worm not only are there very few doctors to treat them, but can’t afford to pay one. Their own people still believe it’s an evil spirit that is affecting them and often shun their own relatives and drive them out of the village, only by educating them will you change their mentality.
Fr Evan. is from Croatia, he is the Rector of our Training Centre he is also the Parish Priest of Don Bosco Parish Church, both of which were started six years ago. The Church was started in old chicken shed, the training centre started in a small building with 12 students. All have grown so big it’s difficult to manage with just three priests especially when they go on leave Fr Chris and Fr Evan have not had a break for two years,
At least Angela and I will be home in six weeks.
Till next time
Leo
Week 14 Ghana
Akwaaba this means Welcome in Twe. Fanta. Ewe three of the local languages
Each Sunday our one luxury of the week is to a escape to a hotel called the Marjorie, it’s in the next town Tema, for once I’ve not had to go around looking at clothes shops with Angela, it’s unbelievable but there are hardly any cloths shops here in Ghana just market stalls, shacks and people walking around selling goods carried on their heads, in fact we have more and better shops in Adlington than they have in Tema.
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Going to the Marjorie gives us the opportunity to meet other western people, and hear their stories and frustrations, there are many.
Four weeks ago I talked to a Irish man importing thousands of tons of logs from here with virtually no replanting being done. The Sahara is advancing ten miles a year into Ghana, most of the northern part of the country is now desert, people are leaving the north of the country and coming into Accra and thus creating vast slums, there appears to be no town planning of any sort.
Three weeks ago I was talking to a Dutch team who have just completed the setting up of a meat processing factory. Suddenly they are down to three days a week of electricity and two days water, this factory was built to process 120 cows a day three hundred sheep and two thousand hens, not only do they have no water and electric but they now have Bird Flue, now we are loosing our supply of eggs and chickens!!
I also met a engineer from Preston who works in the mining industry. It’s massive, Diamonds, Gold, Bauxite, etc all run by Australia, South Africa, and other western country’s he told me Ghana only gets about three percent of it’s own wealth.
This week I was talking to three Americans who are putting in the pipeline for Gas from Nigeria, the Energy Minister keeps telling us in the papers, we will not have to wait too long before we have a new source of power, the engineers told me they haven’t even started laying the pipe yet and are waiting for release of three friends of theirs who have been kidnapped in Nigeria.
Talking to a NGO we met we asked him what his main impression of Africa was, he said WAITING.
This week I was talking to some Norwegian fisher men.. Norway and Iceland have been given a licence to fish these waters, they have a large factory ship of the coast so they don’t need to employ many Ghanaians, the fish never see Ghana. Five hundred tons a week are sent to Europe; soon the local fishermen will have no fish close inshore and no jobs.
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The local farmers who grow Coco beans only get five pence out of a 95 pence bar of Chocolate they struggle to earn one Dollar a day, by giving them 10 pence for a bar of chocolate, you could double their standard of living it’s no wonder they have to employ children instead of sending them to school.
After fifty years of independence 70% of the country is illiterate, and Ghana is the most democratic country in Africa
When we talk of slaves being brought from the north to Kumasi, it’s economic slavery, the quarries you see along side the roads have hundreds of young children breaking stones with hammers, no health and safety, if one child gets injured they are just disregarded and if they are lucky they end up in a school like ours,
Free education is their only hope, , and for Western countries to stop exploiting them, all commodity prices are fixed in London, we do have fair trade here but on too small a scale.
Till next time
Leo
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