Oranges are the only fruit

Afternoon, readers! (Always wanted to say that.)

Allow me to take you back in time before Christmas to a very simple moment etched in my memory.

I watched the pink sun set behind the trees, my legs caked in mud from an afternoon of football. In my hands I was carefully eating an orange which had taken a whole 20 minutes of preparation before I could take even one bite!

Even after four months here I still have sudden snapshots of a situation that make me think “wow, I’m actually in Africa”. This was one such moment. It was beautiful.

It got me thinking about the orange… and I think I can sum up my experience here with a single piece of fruit.

The first thing you need to understand about African oranges is that they aren’t orange. In fact, they vary from yellow to green depending on ripeness, each is bigger than a fist and is protected by a thick skin. To eat one you need a sharp knife and a good amount of patience* (see below.) The reward, however, is delicious - hands down the best fruit I’ve ever tasted.

This illustrates average life for the Ghanaian - without hard work, you'll get nowhere. Or my personal favourite: The Only Place Success Comes Before Work Is In The Dictionary.

Let me explain.

Something as basic as doing the laundry leaves callouses on your fingers, but that grubby shirt is now whiter than white. The women all have arms like tree trunks from hours of pounding cassava to prepare the evening meal for the family. To have a house to call your own, you must first buy a plot and build the house brick by brick yourself, saving small amounts of money to paint and furnish it over painstaking years. The daily life of buying, selling, buying, selling seems to involve such tight margins that often I wonder how they survive. 

For the luckier minority, there are bad teachers and lecturers to be overcome to become a graduate - and that's before we've even considered the corruption at most levels of society. Even then there may not be a job at the end of the road of higher education.

That's not to say it's all doom in Ghana - it's just a far more unfair way of life, where opportunities are limited unless you have money. Those who do succeed do so because of sheer hard work.

As a semi-tourist, I've found the same "hard work" principle to work the same for myself!

For example, greeting people is a big effort in Ghana. Especially for a boring guy like me. Everyone wants to shout "White man! White man!" "How are you?", which, as you can imagine, is tiresome after a while... But from these conversations I've made some really good friends here who I hope to keep in touch with for a long time. (I've also met my fair amount of nutcases, but you take the rough with the smooth.)

I met one man in Cape Coast who was completely deaf. Using makeshift sign language and lines in the sand I found out about his life, and it was one of the longest yet most amazing conversations I’ve had. 

Ghana lacks the means to adopt our materialistic culture which relies on the immediacy of everything. Hard work is the currency of the country.

That said, it's now under 3 weeks till I'm back in the UK, and it goes without saying that I'm looking forward to clean clothes and hot showers! Not to mention the food... Nom Nom Nom.

*Back to the orange…

Step 1: Use a sharp knife to slice off the outer layer of skin, taking care not to cut any deeper than a millimetre or so.

Step 2: Decapitate a small portion from the top, leaving ¾ or so of the orange remaining

Step 3: With your mouth over the opening, suck out all the juice you can

Step 4: Turn the orange inside out and peel away the remaining flesh to eat.

Enjoy!

FC Ghana

Ghanaians love shouting.

If you don't shout, you don't get heard...
Whether it be yelling the main concept of refraction to more than 50 students; trying not to get ripped off ("negotiating") at the market; or explaining exactly why, in a shouting match between guys watching the football on a Sunday afternoon, David Moyes should in fact not be sacked.

There's nothing that gets everyone shouting quite like football. In this country it's perfectly acceptable to spend hours discussing the freedom given to his full-backs by Roberto Martinez this season at Everton, the inadequacies of Man United's creative midfield options, and asserting that of course Ghana are going to win the World Cup - God is on their side, obviously. I would hope so given the amount of prayer meetings dedicated to this "miraculous victory"!
And don't even get them started on the Messi Vs. Ronaldo "best ever player" debate. (It's Ronaldo as he has more "swag" and Messi wouldn't survive in the premier league. Of course.)

For the record, most people are Chelsea fans - a legacy from the Drogba and Essien era. But then some support Man United and Arsenal at the same time... It's a bad time to declare yourself a Red, however.

They shamelessly love the drama, the skills, the media comments... In a previous post I said religion is what really matters here. Forget it - it's football that matters.

At the school I teach at, once of twice a week we take to a "park" riddled with bumps at a gradient of about 10%, to play some 4-a-side with tiny goals. It's all I can do not to fall over sometimes, the skill and strength of the students is incredible. Compared to them, I have the physique of mashed potato.

The women here have arms like tree trunks from carrying and preparing food. And even twiggy people can beat me in arm wrestles. It's embarrassing. Most Ghanaians find the concept of a gym hilarious - they do so much manual work growing up that "toning up" never enters their radar!

It's not a taboo topic to discuss someone's weight, either. I witnessed a hilarious encounter this week when a male student was commenting that a female student had "eaten plenty" over the Christmas break, and was now "too fat around the buttocks"! He got a thump on the shoulder for his trouble. I explained if he said that to a British girl he would do well to escape with all his limbs intact.
Luckily for me, I'm losing a fair amount of weight. I've started jogging in the morning, and the change in diet is clearly working wonders for my digestive system. Just wait until I rediscover fried breakfasts and biscuits when I get home...

For now, I'm just enjoying being in a country where every other person on the street is wearing an obscure retro football shirt (we're talking Watford away, Rangers circa 1996, and even a couple of Wales rugby jerseys) and pretty much everywhere you go there is a football game to be enjoyed.

A belated Happy New Year !

I saw in 2014 in a Muslim town without electricity in Northern Ghana, with a cup of hot oats and some cheap Chinese fireworks for entertainment.

I should point at that it was a temporary power cut, but it did mean there were only a dozen of us who were committed enough to be awake at midnight in the pitch black. Well, us and a few hundred goats.

Three weeks ago me and my fellow volunteers left the dirt and familiarity of Takoradi behind and headed East for the school holidays. 

So, at the risk of this whole blog turning into a travel guide, let me tell you about our tour of Ghana.

Leg 1: Volta Region

The Volta region lies to the East of the gigantic Lake Volta, which sprawls across the bottom right-hand corner of Ghana, which was created by the Akosombo Dam 38 years ago, and at 8502 sq m is the largest man-made lake in the world (yawn).

We used a Rastafarian lodge in the small town of Peki as a base for our travels – the half-British owner made us feel right at home with a dart board and beans on toast for breakfast! Over the course of three days we visited the waterfalls at Wli (pronounced V-lee), climbed the Afadzato mountain, took a canoe trip on Lake Volta, and saw more species of butterfly than you could count. Supposedly the tallest waterfalls in Western Africa, it’s pretty surprising than no-one has taken the time to measure the height properly – estimates vary from 20m to 400m! Check out its helpfully detailed wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wli_waterfalls

Dusty winds from the Sahara blow across Ghana every January, meaning the views from the not-quite-a-mountain 885m Afadzato Mountain weren’t as spectacular as I hoped; I’m planning on visiting again before my flight home.

When passing through the region we narrowly missed out on the industrial town of Ho – such a shame for terrible joke fiend such as myself. Especially considering further North we stopped in Hohoe. Ho Hohoe… Merry Christmas!

Leg 2: Tamale

Next we headed for the Northern region in a ‘Rat Race’-style competition, which eventually ended in all of us desperately hoping we were all heading for the same place and not separate nowhere. Travelling in Ghana is pretty dicey at times, but as often happens the locals helped us out a hell of a lot. Hats off to ‘em.

Tamale (pronounced Ta-ma-lay) is proclaimed the ‘Capital in the North’, and it was so different to anywhere we’d been. All the women were wearing headscarves, the men were smoking 3p cigarettes, and there were countless motorbikes - many with three riders and/or children. The change in heat was what hit us, though. Gone was the humid, sweaty heat of the South, what replaced it was a dry, dusty heat which left you constantly looking for shade and water.  It felt like we were entering a new country!

Leg 3: Mole National Park

So Christmas morning was a bit different this year. Instead of a far too excited sister waking me up at 6am by bring in a stocking overflowing with highlighter pens, socks, tangerines, and other goodies, I was awoken at 6am by the chilling cold swishing around my elbows – and the bleary realisation that the camp fire was out again. Apparently 5 T-shirts isn’t enough to keep warm in Africa!

After saying good morning to the baboons we discovered we had been paid a visit in the night… Santa? Not quite. We saw some fresh elephant footprints no more than 20m away from where we were sleeping, and marks where the elephant had been digging the soil for salt, too.

We caught up with said elephant later in the day, rampaging through the dry forest in search of fresh vegetation. While we saw several elephants and plenty of monkeys, antelope, and amazing birds during the course of our stay, many of the animals were confined to the centre of the park during the dry season as the water holes within driving distance of the hotel all had all but dried up. Overall the safari experience was amazing (and cheap), but it’s a shame we didn’t get to see any lions, wildebeest, or the large herds of elephants.

Xmas morning

The highlight for me was Adam’s encyclopaedian knowledge of the latin names of all the animals in the park (hyena hyena: striped hyena), all pronounced with a perfect thick Ghanaian accent. David Attenborough eat your heart out.

Leg 4: Larabanga

Other than having an incredible name and an ancient mosque, there isn’t much to mark out Larabanga as anything special to travellers. In fact, the village has a terrible write-up in guide books. 

Looks can be deceiving, however, and it quickly became one of the highlights of my journey. A one nights’ stay turned into two, which turned into a week, due to the warm welcome we were given by the whole community. We ended up helping at an extremely poor orphanage run by an extended family network, and we were able to play with the kids and teach them some basic English and maths, as well as helping with medical supplies (this wasn’t me you understand; I’m too squeamish).

I played with the local football team, which contained a few Ghanaian Premier League players, and got one goal and two assists - 10 points, thank you very much! We kipped under the stars every night we were there, and it was genuinely so nice just hanging out with people there.

A couple of days after New Year I made the 17-hour journey back to the school in Takoradi relatively stress-free, thankfully. I enjoyed a long lie in the day after, followed by a well-deserved burger and chips, and other such luxuries.

It’s feels great coming ‘home’, and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into teaching again for my final month here.

Just Dance

What shop do you work at?

“God Only Knows.”

This can be more literal than it seems.

It’s hard to keep a straight face when passing shop after shop bearing eccentric names such as Jesus Above All Trading, Jesus is Saviour Repairs, God Lives Bar, Trust Him Always Food Spot… On a shopping spree around the nearest town, Shama Junction, you can get your hair done in Hebrews 13:8 hair salon, get a dress made in As God Wills boutique, and get buried with God’s Time funeral services.

Shops, road names, T-shirt slogans; God is everywhere in Ghana.

It's a given that a Ghanaian believes in God. The question is: how do they worship him? Catholics, Methodists, Pentecostals, Anglicans, Baptists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses are well represented. Even Mormons can be seen roaming the odd town in their white shirts and rucksacks. American guitar worship songs are all over the radio stations, and the streets are filled with billboards advertising the latest “awakening” or “spiritual journey” offered to a lucky few thousand worshippers.

Muslims make up around 15% of the population, co-existing peacefully alongside Christians in a way which would make the UK envious. The remainder are believers in the more traditional religions of Africa, with their spooky witchcraft and wizardry. 

More significantly, there isn't an atheist in sight. To countless Ghanaians, God is real and he actually matters; church is not just something they do. Without God their lives don’t make sense, and he gives purpose to their impossibly tough work or mundane routine - no matter how poor they are. It’s pretty humbling to see, to be honest!

Sunday's are sacred days, markets are quiet and everyone is in church. This morning the students at my school were up bright and early in their pristine Sunday whites, cheerfully going about their business with an extra spring in their step. The school holds a lively service for all denominations, involving some of the more disturbing elements of charismatic African worship. It is always entertaining and amazing fun to be at – no snoozing in the sermon here! There is enough singing and dancing to make you dizzy.

Ghanaians love dancing. It's not unusual to see spontaneous dance troupes begin in the street, for no reason other than there is a drum or loud radio playing. And this is no awkward nightclub dancing we’re talking about here; it’s more dad-dancing, if anything. Don’t get me wrong – the dancing is incredible. But there is no shame in dancing badly, thankfully for me! It’s just for some reason Africans always look unbelievably cool when they are doing it.

Beach shindig

In church the dancing is more restrained, however, but with the same tap-dancing footsteps and extravagant arm movements, moving along to everything from local tribal songs to an upbeat “Abide with me.” It's a work-out for both soul and body, and the congregation leaves church gasping for water with sweat pouring from their brows (me included.) 

A change of outfit is needed pronto, which is something of a recurring theme for me here - I’m currently going through an average of 3 changes of clothes per day!

It’s exam time at school this week. Needless to say, there has been an added urgency to morning prayers. 

Nzulez-who?

Our latest travels took us Westward to a coastal town called Beyin. The resort we stayed in is home to one of the largest and most peaceful beaches I’ve seen, for both humans and nesting turtles (we didn’t manage to see any, sadly.) Instead we got an awesome thunderstorm, the cabin flashing with light and shaking as if God himself was walking across the sky.

On Saturday morning we headed to one of Ghana’s principal tourist attractions – the stilt village of Nzulezo (try saying that with a mouthful of noodles!)

A village home to 450 people, Nzulezo sits slap bang in the middle of Lake Tadane, accessible only by canoe. Its residents are in fact farmers, and no-one knows exactly why they decided to build their village on water instead of land. Perhaps they just got confused

.

Visits are frequent from domestic tourists and foreigners alike, who come from far and wide to visit this strange place. In many ways it is like any Ghanaian village – it has electricity, food stores, churches, and friendly people (surprising given the amount of tourists they have to suffer). The only difference is no football. And they watch their small children a hell of a lot more closely!

The canoe trip itself was spectacular - 5km through tunnels of reeds and dragonflies, opening out onto an enormous lake and parking up “underneath” the village. In a way it epitomises travel in Ghana: uncomfortable, yet so much to see that you seldom care.

The main mode of transport here is the tro-tro; a small minibus carrying as much as physically possible. They travel to almost all destinations, stopping wherever you like, and picking up bystanders from the road side on any road. Absurdly cheap and constantly cramped, a 40 minute journey into town costs just 1.20 (40p), but you may have to share your seat with an intimidatingly large woman. Our 7-hour round trip to Beyin cost us 18c in total (£6), including bone-shattering jolts from the cratered road surface, and a hilarious old lady who couldn’t stop making funny faces.

Tro-tros have their own code of conduct with regards to getting on and paying. Alongside the driver in each vehicle is the “mate”, who leans out of the window and shouts “Takoradi, Takoradi” or “Accra! Accra!” as loud as he can to entice customers. Once you have successfully flagged down a tro-tro (after shouting your destination and improvising some hand signals), you then have to negotiate the tricky task of paying for your journey... Watch out for the mate’s eye contact. Does he want my money now? Everyone is looking at me. How much does it cost? Rummage through wallet. Does he have change? This exchange will usually take place via the medium of hand signals.

The standard of English among many locals is really poor, and most will speak their tribal languages to each other – so when travelling around here, its better to use as few words as possible. Wherever you travel there are people queuing up to sell you oranges, plantain, raw eggs, fish heads…you name it, it’s there.

I’m gradually getting used to the food here, despite the protests of my taste buds. Most of our meals at the school consist of rice and fish in a sauce which ranges from hot and tasty to leaving your lips stinging until bed time. It’s all delicious, despite occasionally leaving you with your mouth at the sink. Plantain and yam are a treat here. After initially grabbing burger and chips at every opportunity I can now survive on a store of biscuits in my room and eat everything I’m given. The oranges and bananas are incredible. The pineapples are so soft and sweet I don’t think I can have one in Britain again! The bread comes in a range; tea bread, sweet bread, or butter bread - all fantastically dense and great for breakfast.

I’m feel embarrassed when I run them through the list of meals I can cook… Welsh cakes are the only thing I can think of making which is genuinely British and easily attempted. I’m going to try and introduce Ghanaians to them this week.

Bon appetite

Black and white

Picture the scene: 

You are taking a tour around a 500-year old castle. You learn this is where British thugs stored African slaves in the worst conditions imaginable, before packing them into ships set for various ‘developed’ countries around the world. The local guide tells you the floor is in fact an original feature from those disgraceful days, and the surface you are stepping on is not tarred, but caked in layer upon layer of the human sweat and excrement of the thousands of slaves who lived their horrific days there.

Oh, I forgot to say – you are only white person in the building.  ‘Uncomfortable’ does not even begin to describe it.

In Africa it is unavoidable to feel strange because of skin colour. But it has never caused problems; only curiosity. In Cape Coast, however, it felt different. Perhaps it was the sight of numerous white tourists and the local children begging for money.. Or the undercurrent of resentment I felt when talking to some locals about Britain’s colonial history... Or perhaps simply the sight of the castle and the knowledge that our ancestors enslaved whole generations of this land, and now we are back with more money than most Ghanaians could ever dream of.

For whatever reason, a times I felt uneasy there. This was not a regular thing, don’t get me wrong, but it was notable because it was the first time I have felt it here. Everyone is very welcoming to visitors here (it’s in their constitution, apparently), and despite their independence in 1957 they are interested in all things European, especially football. But I’ll tell you about football here another time.

Inside the castle - cannonballs from the 1800s

The castle was built in 1653, and is one of dozens of old forts along the Ghanaian coast, all monuments to the European domination of Africa over the course of 400 years. The Dutch, Portugese, and finally the British all laid claim to the castle, and used it to protect their colonial interests at the expense of the locals. Inside there are there are many of the old features of the castle intact, along with a museum exhibiting lots of local history. Pretty interesting stuff!

This past weekend we visited Kakum national park, taking in the sights from a 40m canopy walk and seeing many different animals and awesome trees. We saw a Dutch monkey sanctuary and crocodile park – in separate places, thankfully – as preparation for a trip to Mole national park in the North over the Christmas holidays.

Canopy walk - don't look down!

The two times we have stayed in Cape Coast we have been treated to some amazing Rastafarian hospitality. They get to see a lot of tourists, but they have been so welcoming to us – making us punch, pancakes, smoothies, giving car rides and generally being pretty cool guys! They run their own school and I’ve loved getting to know them and their way of life, and their crazy-long hair.

Talking to Ghanaians is one of my favourite parts about being here, in spite of the frequent communication problems (English is often not their first language). Last week I stayed with a friend named Ben in the coastal town of Elmina, and it was lovely to eat and watch terrible TV with his wife and kids.

I’m almost half-way through my time here already. It’s getting hotter but I’m enjoying it the longer I stay.

Huw

Cape Coast at sunset

What's my age again?

Two weeks ago I turned 23. A whole year older than Darwin when he set off on HMS Beagle, two years older than Messi when he won his first Balon D’Or, and three years older than Bill Gates when he founded Microsoft.

To face facts, I am edging ever closer to 25 and I don’t like it.

BUT it is not all doom and gloom. In fact, I may only be 18 after all! Perhaps my whole life is still ahead of me after all. Let me explain.

There is a strange phenomenon here known as “football age”. Given the rarity of birth certificates in Ghana and much of Africa, age can end up being irrelevant; post-childhood birthdays may be forgotten, pupils can enter school at any age, and if you are over 30 your age tends to be a secret anyway!

So when a promising young footballer (such as Atsu, recently signed for Chelsea), moves to a European club, no-one notices if they roll back the years and rack up their market value in the process. 19 year-olds become 15, and 15 year olds suddenly become pre-pubescent children. It is an accepted fact. I have met two people who swear blindly than Michael Essien is at least 35, which explains his recent decline – along with Obefemi Martins and Kanu before him.

Birthday meal - plantain and red red (beans)

Despite the apparent confusion, age is extremely important to life here. Elders are given total respect, and the youngest in a family will usually be the one doing the most work. Form 3 students are superior to form 2 students based purely on their year of school entry.

People use “senior” to describe a good or accomplished footballer, and “small boy” for someone unfortunate to make a sloppy error. Experience is valued more than skill.

Time moves differently in Ghana anyway. Einstein could have saved himself a lot of time figuring out Relativity and travelled to Africa instead! In a school day lessons rarely start on time, and lunch can last anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. Instead of looking up a bus timetable you flag down a “trotro” (minibus) whenever you get lucky and have a sympathetic driver.

Ato, our guide in Accra, warned me that when an African says “soon” he could mean any conceivable amount of time…  an even vaguer version of the Welsh “now, in a minute!”

The only time I have ever seen a Ghanaian rush was a teacher running to catch the start of an Arsenal match.

On Friday the school held a football match: Day students vs. Boarders. The build-up was intense. I played in central midfield – not a sensible idea with the match starting at around midday, so I was limited to sitting back and passing the ball as well as I could over the rough pitch. The match ended 3-3 with the Boarders winning via a penalty shoot-out, by which time I had long since collapsed in a heap on the sidelines. 

Boarders team

My passing, hair and lack of tackling (without wanting to confirm a racial stereotype, these guys are incredibly strong) have led to the nickname I’ve wanted all my life: Paul Scholes. Senior player.