Final day in Accra

We leave first thing tomorrow for our long journey north, there will be 7 of us travelling with luggage in the VSO Land Rover. Our first drop off is in Tamale - 12 hours away, Three vols will be leaving there, the rest of us will spend the night and then leave first thing Monday for Bolgatanga. Two vols will be based there, one in bolga and one in Bongo which is North of Bolga so we are to make a slight detour up there. then there will be two remaining. We have been told we will spend the night in Bolga, and leave for Tumu on Tuesday morning. I will arrive in the afternoon, the prinicpal has been told I am coming and hopefully he will be there to meet me - I have also been told that I shouldn't be surprised if the Chief turns up too... I must practice my greetings.

I tried to find out some more information about my placement:

1. The computers could very well have windows xp (they say they are pentium 4)
2. My school day is 7-2 though during exam time there is a likelyhood that it could well be earlier, apparently it is quite common for the students to knock on the door at 5am - thank god for ear plugs because they won't get a very nice reception at that time!
3. I will no longer be teaching secondary Maths but I will be teaching JSS which is basic level - I am pleased about that - they tried to rope me into teaching englist but i have put my foot down on that.
4. I am 2-3 km out of Tumu so definitely need a bike - eek!

Today we have a free day so I did my usual of wandering around the city - best way to find your barings... we ended up near the beach though we couldn't see it and found ourselves in very local places where the children run out to greet us and did high fives.

Nothing new to say, so i will leave it here and write again in a few weeks when I am next in a place with internet

How is it possible?

to pack your life into 25kg luggage allowance... Answer IMPOSSIBLE!! I did however, manage to pack it into a 120 litre holdall. Fantastic apart from it took both me and my dad to lift it into and out of the car. At checkin the woman almost fell off her seat and told us that the maximum one bag could weigh was 32kg and that 46 was just not acceptable! - I had to go and repack it... luckily I was using my rucksack as hand luggage, so transferred some stuff into it, and ended up with 30kg and 20kg!

We then queue jumped and met a great check in clerk who didn't charge excess baggage. - phew!!

Day one in accra was spent going into an internet cafe and buying a local sim card and then being introduced to the course. There are 10 volunteers (inc me) starting this week, 5 from uk, 1 from Canada, 2 from India, 1 from kenya and 1 form Philipines - so quite a cultral mix. No one is going to be quiter as remote as me but there are 2 based in Bolga and one in Wa. I have found out that there are three other VSO vols in Tumu, so I won't be totally alone.

We have been learning about the Ghana culture and I can also greet introduce myself say where I am from and what I do and buy food at the market in my local language - all very important.However my local language covers Tumu and the close surrounding area further than that I will need to learn another language. There are 72+ in total - so not much chance at being fluent...

On Wednesday evening we were all invited to the British High Commisionners Residence to a reception for the VSO Global Education Conference. There were representatives from most (all) the countries that VSO has an education programme, as well as some reps from UK and a couple of vols from my region. It was interesting to chat to the programme managers from other countries.

I have found out a little more about Tumu, my mobile phone will work if the wind is going the right direction the sun is not too high there is no "day" in the spelling of the weekday! - so i feel even more isolated than before... I have been told that there is taps in my house and a bore hole nearby - there is a shower but I am not sure if it works. However I have been told there are ceiling fans and at an average of 48degs at midday I will pretty grateful for that... All in all I am very much looking foward to moving there now. We begin the journey on Sunday morning, and I should be in Tumu on Monday evening. I have a day off tomorrow so I plan to buy a bicycle to take with me as I will be living 2-3 km from Tumu itself.

I also plan to go to the beach for a while on Saturday to make the most of being in a hot country in February... it is really quite wonderful to be here. Ghanaians are really lovely and if the people of Tumu are even just a fraction as friendly it is going to be great.

My language teacher has told me to look up his friend who is a teacher at the college "Taller" cos he is very tall, as well as his sister who is a nurse at Tumu hospital, so I have two friends already.

Just to finish, two things I have found really refreshing here so far are that there is no incessant beeping of car horns and there is none of the usual harressment to but this buy that, it is a really chilled out country... My kind of place.

Well this is it...

...I am all packed and ready to go, just hope they let me off the excess baggage charge!

Now I have this blog I can't think what to write. So rather than waffle I will keep this blog short and say thank you to all family and friends who have supported me in all sorts of ways since I decided to embark on this adventure, and also my new VSO friends and wish you all the best in your placements

I will write again as soon as I have some free time next week and fill you in on Accra and the warm weather and sunshine!!!