TravelStream™ news feed for member amalawski on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/amalawski en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:23:40 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1222864440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1222864440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1222864440/tpod.html Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:23:40 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Accra, Ghana

My last week in Ghana was a weird one. With Emily gone and my internship over with
the Commission, I was hanging around Cape Coast wrapping up 'loose ends' and
saying goodbye, but really didn't have much to do. I had originally thought
that I would be needed to help finish the October issue of Youth Alive! but Sossah
and the management team had decided to postpone the issue, as there was a
lack of copy (no surprise there) and they were trying to re-jig the programme because
of new funding from the Open Society Institute of West Africa (OSIWA). That
final Saturday was the last youth engagement workshop for the DED funded
version of Youth Alive! and it was a good one. We had a feedback session with
our most dedicated participants in order to figure out what worked with the
programme and what didn't, so that the OSIWA funded version could be that much
better. It was a nice ending for me and it left me feeling sad that I was leaving
the project, but somewhat optimistic about its future.

 

That week I decided the best thing to do with my free time was to be a tourist in
Cape Coast. So I went and saw the castle, I took pictures of funny signs and I
wandered around aimlessly- it was really nice. I also had some final dresses and skirts made up by my seamstresses and said a final goodbye to them.

 

Unlike many of the volunteers that came before me in the Abusua house I did not have a
going away party or a big dinner. I decided that I wanted to slip away without
any commotion and say proper goodbyes to the people who meant something to me
in Cape Coast- Sossah, Isaac and Aggrey. By Monday I was all packed up and
heading to Accra to spend my final night there before leaving Tuesday evening.
I met some friends for a farewell dinner at a very expensive Chinese restaurant
and had a couple drinks at the expat hangout Monsoon. Really, a classic Accra
evening.

 

Leaving was bittersweet. The work had been interesting and challenging and I had made
some good friends in Accra and in Cape Coast, whom I would miss dearly, however
I was ready to go home and face the music of my real life.

 

I have now spent the last week and a half in the UK giving away ¾ of what I own
to charity shops and to friends and packing everything else away into suitcases
to cart across the Atlantic back to New York. Now back in the big city my life
plans are up in the air and it looks like the next couple months will be uncertain
ones, but I am happy to be, once again, on my own.

 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1221820140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1221820140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1221820140/tpod.html Fri, 19 Sep 2008 08:19:56 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Abidjan, Cote D'Ivoire

So I had been super exited about Emily`s visit and after months of planning I was going into Accra to pick her up from the airport. I had gone in the night before and had an awesome meal with Gislain at Captain Hooks in Accra- think huge plates of steaming seafood, yes seafood- and then went to Bywell`s for a drink with another friend, photographer Olivier. It turned out that week in Accra there was a huge conference on foreign aid and tons of big shots from NGOs and the UN were in attendance, including a huge delegation from the UNDP. So Bywell`s was more interesting than usual and I was able to meet a bunch of really interesting people from the UNDP and get some good contacts. The next morning I dragged my slightly hungover self out of bed and threw on some clothes and headed out to the airport. After about an hour a surprisingly refreshed looking Emily appeared and we bundled into a taxi and headed to Gislain`s house. The reason Emily looked so good for the almost 10 hour flight was because, as she put it, she was `not traveling at the back of the plane`. Ahh hahhh.

As that weekend was the Fetu Afahye festival in Cape Coast, and Emily was doing a multimedia story on it for the NY Times with the help of Olivier as her photographer, we had to book it to Cape Coast. The good thing was we had company as Gislain and another friend Melinda wanted to come to Cape Coast for the festival. After a busy morning running around Accra getting money and a SIM card for Emily we packed into the car and headed west. On Saturday the festival was in full swing and we all headed down to the main street in Cape Coast to watch the parade of chiefs. The annual Fetu Afahye festival ends with the parade where the chiefs are carried down the main road in Cape Coast and then they ceramonally sit on wooden stools to re-affirm their power as local leaders. It was a wonderfully colourful and exciting affair, and Emily, Marc and Olivier were busy working snapping pics and doing interviews. Gislain, Melinda and I were able to just enjoy the show and take it all in. That night we headed to our local spot Tina`s and had some Ghanaian food and lots of club beer. As the festival had brought out all the national sponsors there was a huge MTN party at our local petrol station, the Goil. It was bizarre and very fun, dancing next to petrol pumps.

That Monday it was back to work for me and Emily busied herself checking out the local sites in Cape Coast and Elmina. The graduation ceremony for the nurses was scheduled for that Wednesday and my boss and I were running around like headless chickens trying to finalise everything for the event. The week before we`d been in Accra and had a very successful meeting with the Deputy Commissioner of CHRAJ about public education programmes in the Central Region, and the ceremony in particular. He agreed to come through to Cape Coast for the event the next week, which was a huge relief to us as that would guarantee media coverage and funding for upcoming programmes in the future.

By Wednesday morning I was a bit of a nervous wreck. We had had a hell of a time finalising the programme and had been printing them late into the night on Tuesday, so when I started to put on my outfit (a traditional Ghanaian top and long skirt) only to find that it was rather tight I was not pleased. I should have known that with one bad thing comes another and another. As I was walking down my road to the main road I slipped in mud, covering my shoes, and then as I got into the taxi the zipper on my top burst open like a pinata after being whacked by hyperactive children. But I remained calm as my entire backside was exposed and called Sossah to ask him to bring me a back-up top from my room, and thanked the almighty that I had my backpack to cover my newly naked topside.

After a few minutes in the ladies room at the conference hall I had managed to fix my zipper and had resolved not to sit down or bend more than 40 degrees for the rest of the day. At about 10am the first of the nurses started to file into the hall and we sat them according to graduation order in their seats. An hour later, and of course and hour behind schedule, the programme began. The Deputy Commissioner had made it with all the signed certificates and all the nurses were looking great in their uniforms. The press was there, and our projector was sort of working. As the first of the dignitaries started their speeches I looked around at the hall and at what we had accomplished and was very content. However, that moment of quiet reflection was quickly shattered when I realised that the 253 certificates were not in order (aka the nurses would be filing on stage and collecting someone else`s certificate, possibly not even from their school) and the computer that we were going to play the slide show from had crashed. Breath, breath I told myself.

After a quick consultation with my boss we decided to collect the certificates back from the nurses at the end of the programme and deliver them to their schools at a later date once they had been resorted. As for the computer a couple re-boots later we were (sort of) up and running and I was able to open our picture slide show. Two hours later all the nurses had graduated and the speeches were finished. We took some publicity pics with the nurses and the Dept Commissioner and everyone was happily chowing on snacks and drinking minerals. I had received a wonderful commendation from my boss and from the Principal of Ankaful Nurses College and left the day feeling exhausted but very rewarded. As it was my last day at CHRAJ I headed back to the office and finished up some final stuff on the nurses report and said my goodbyes to the office. The new intern, Lakai, had been with me that day and would take over from me the next week. I hoped that the ceremony inspired her to continue creating education programmes and to have the energy to keep my boss on track in the upcoming months.

The next day Emily and I packed up our bags and waited for Gislain and Marc to arrive from Accra. We were all headed to Abidjan in Cote D`Ivoire for the weekend and there was a mix of excitement and apprehension between the two of us. Gislain had been a diplomat in Abidjan during the crisis in 2002 and was very familiar with the workings of the country, however it was still on the US State Dept travel warning list and I couldn`t help but think maybe it was a silly idea to go here for the weekend. But he and other diplomats in the country reassured me that it was calm right now and a good time to visit. We hit the boarder at lunchtime that day and Gislain, playing the role of Dad for the 3 of us, sorted out our exit from Ghana and our entry into Cote D`Ivoire seamlessly. Emily was pleased with the new stamps in her passport and I was just pleased to have my passport back, and we continued the drive towards Abidjan. By 3pm we were checked into our self-catered flat and were at the local grocery store picking up provisions for the weekend.

Abidjan was fascinating to me. It wasn`t particularly good looking but you could tell that this city had once been very cosmopolitan. There were huge office buildings and a downtown and grocery stores and people selling baguettes on the street. It almost looked like Geneva, if we were in the 1970s and the city had been through a decade of coups. The city was busy and expensive and very civilised. That night we met up with Gislain`s friend Juliette who took us to a wonderful Lebanese restaurant right by the lagoon where I ate the best middle eastern food I have ever eaten. The food was so fresh and the service was impeccable and Marc and I kept stealing glances at each other, so to say with out eyes `is this for real!`.

The next day we met up with a bunch of staff from the Canadian Embassy for lunch at a local Maquis, Chez Alice, where the specialty dish was fried fish with ground cassava and hot sauce. I usually stay clear of fish due to a childhood `trauma`at the Boston aquarium, but this was incredibly good and I gobbled it right up. We washed it down with the local lager Flag and I had a great conversation with the wife of one of the local diplomats about her life in Abidjan and their plans for the future. I couldn`t help but be a bit envious.

Abidjan was full of surprises and I was bitten by the French West Africa bug. There was so much joie de vivre and energy that just doesn`t seem to exist in Ghana, and which I had missed without really knowing it. I resolved that if I was going to continue living in Africa I wanted to be in French speaking West Africa.

For the most part we were left alone by the security forces because we were in a Ghanaian diplomatic vehicle, but the last night our luck ran out. As we were driving from dinner to a local spot for a drink a security officer waved at us to pull over. Gislain did what he had done the whole weekend and tooted his horn, waved and kept driving, but this time the security guards decided we were not getting away so easily. A couple minutes later I looked out the right window and to my shock there were two officers in a taxi brandishing guns and waving us to pull over. So pull over we did, this time. Turns out these guys had commandeered the taxi and had been following us for several minutes, getting more and more worked up. Gislain, ever his calm self, put on his best Cote D`Ivoirian accent and began the back and forth with the security officers. Turns out he had left his driver`s license at home and in addition Gislain was wearing army fatigues shorts, and according to the officers this was a big problem. But of course almost every problem can be solved with money in Cote D`Ivoire, it is just a question of how much. Gislain was having fun with them, much to my and Emily`s chagrin, but after about a half hour of negotiations, and threats to call the Canadian Embassy, we paid the equivalent of a $5 bribe and were on our way. Once we were happily seated in a bar a couple blocks away Gislain said to us `how fun was that! I`ve never paid a bribe before in my life!`. At that point, safely away from the men with guns, it was very funny.

Now we are safely back in mother Ghana and after a couple relaxing days on the beach we are in Accra and on the hunt for live music. Emily leaves on Sunday (boo) and then I am off to the UK in less than two weeks. Shocking really.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1219656180/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1219656180/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1219656180/tpod.html Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:46:47 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Cape Coast, Ghana

I have about a month left in Ghana and the reality of it is really starting to settle in. I am pretty busy at CHRAJ trying to organise the graduation ceremony for the 250 plus nurses who have passed our human rights course and the September Youth Alive! also goes to press in one week and we no articles ready to go into the issue. But that's nothing new.

What is new is that we have four new volunteers, and they are working with Abusua for a whole year. The German volunteers have been placed with Abusua by the DED (German Development Agency) as a gap year between high school and university. Luckily two of them, Fabian and Erik, will take over the production and web design for Youth Alive! from me when I leave next month. So we have four weeks to teach them how to typeset, do layout and manage a team of Ghanaian volunteers. I think the learning curve will be quite steep but hopefully Abusua will benefit from having these guys for a whole year, even if they don't have much experience from the outset.

There is also only one week left before Cristin, one of my favourite housemates, ends her internship with the Ghana Health Service and goes back home. She has been a breath of fresh air, as unlike most of the previous volunteers she doesn't work at CHRAJ, and she's very self-sufficient. In addition to working with the health ministry she has spent her free time at a local orphanage outside Elmina. As this was her last week she decided to throw a party for the kids and invited me and the other housemates to come along.

An orphanage party was certainly a first for me but I was interested to meet all the kids whom Christin has spoken so much about, and on a more practical level pitch participating in the Youth Alive! project to some of the older kids. So Youth Alive! issues and brochures in hand I headed off with Christin, Marc and the Germans to the orphanage on Friday afternoon. What I was greeted by were 55 amazing and wonderful kids ranging in age from 6 to 20 years old. They were all so welcoming and to my surprise there was no hint of cynicism or apprehension in any of them to our arrival. Quickly after our entrance one of the kids put on some Sean-Paul and an impromptu dance party kicked off. It was wonderful and continued until the kids had become exhausted and dinner was being served.

I was toured around the orphanage by Ezekiel, who took an instant liking to my sunglasses and which I quickly had to accept as a write-off. We walked around the grounds and he showed me the farm where they grow all their own food for the orphanage. He told me about all the different types of food they were eating and it was a relief to know that these kids were consuming a relatively balanced diet. We also met the two resident cooks who were busy preparing dinner in the outside kitchen. I knew that the orphanage was being funded by a Canadian NGO, but that fact was really brought home when I spotted one of the cooks wearing an apron from Zellers. It's amazing how far brands travel and how ridiculous they are when completely out of context. It was also interesting to spot a tattered copy of John Stuart Mills' On Liberty on one of the tables next to her.

When we left I felt really good about the partnership we were trying to create between Youth Alive! and the older orphans. Because our office is on the University of Cape Coast Campus many of our participants are already enrolled in the university. While their participation is certainly worthwhile, they already have reached a point in their personal development where they can attend university, while for many of these orphans simply having access to computers and to skill workshops may change their lives entirely. The other two Germans, Natalie and Mona, have decided to work closely with the orphanage and to be the link between them and the Abusua Foundation and I only hope that they can create a sustainable one.

On Saturday it was yet another party, this one being for Sossah's 30th birthday. I donated one of my chickens, Eduardo, to the festivities and he was slaughtered in the morning and prepared for the BBQ. My good friend Gislain who lives in Accra was also in town staying at Anomabu Beach hotel and so Cristin, Marc and I met him at the beach and enjoyed a day of relaxing in the sun. That evening we stocked up on supplies at our local Goil petrol station (aka cheap red wine and Ghana's version of Pringles) and headed home. After a few hours the house was really bumping with Sossah's friends, most of whom are students at UCC, and we all enjoyed Sossah's famous grilled chicken. That was followed up by a rather wild night out at Elmina night club, the 'posh' club of the Cape Coast, with 20 of Sossah's closest friends and we took over the dance floor for many enjoyable hours.

The next day we all peeled our hungover selves out of bed and piled into Gislain's car in search of food. We eventually ended up at a German owned hotel near Cape Coast, which has become one of our more frequented spots, and tucked into our overpriced and moderately tasty meals. It was also a nice opportunity for Gislain and Marc and me to discuss logistics for our upcoming trip to Cote D'Ivoire. While my friend Emily is visiting me from New York in September we have decided to accompany Gislain to Abidjan for a long weekend. It should be a really interesting trip as it will be great opportunity to see some of the French-speaking part of West Africa and be toured around by someone who knows the country very well (Gislain did a three year posting there several years ago). So I'm busy sorting out my visas so that I can re-enter Ghana and working out our travel plans for when we get back from Cote D'Ivoire. So with only a month left before I go back to the UK/US and with no job in sight or a clear plan of where I will be living in the upcoming year it's a terrifying and exciting time. I suppose I should be thankful I'm not bored, but it doesn't make getting to sleep any easier.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1217515860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1217515860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1217515860/tpod.html Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:54:25 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Cape Coast, Ghana

I cannot believe that the August issue of Youth Alive! is due to go to press at the end of this week! Where has the month of July gone? It has been an eventful couple weeks for the newspaper; last Wednesday Coastal TV called Sossah to say they had a cancellation on one of their programmes, Beyond Politics, and could we fill in. So at 6pm Sossah called me to say that we were going to be in TV and that he would pick me up within the hour. This was a bit daunting considering I was still at the Abusua office, and more importantly had not showered in a couple days- certainly not screen ready. So I rushed home, threw on some clean clothes, pulled my hair back and put on a little make-up. That was just going to have to do.

'So what are we talking about on air' I asked Sossah. He wasn't entirely sure and said the host would prepare the questions with us when we got to the studio. We met with the host Tommy, a very tall and very nice man who questioned us about the Youth Alive! project and its aims. Once he felt ready that there was enough material he shuffled us into the studio and we took our places. The show lasted for about 30 mins and I was surprised how calm I was. I think I answered the host's questions clearly, and hope it was remotely interesting for the audience.

The next day at CHRAJ we attended a conference on child labour and trafficking, which was organised by the International Labour Organisation (ILO). In attendance was a smattering of the who's-who of Cape Coast, from tribal chiefs to council members. The conference for the most part was interesting, though some of the discussions seemed to get side-tracked and did tend to drag on. At one point we were all entrenched in a heated discussion about whether a woman's rightful place is "in the kitchen". What this had to do with child labour I do not know, but I certainly put my two-sense in. Later that day I was hit by a wave of nausea and quickly excused myself and headed home. The next day and a half was not pretty and involved a lot of vomiting. Once I was mobile I ran some tests with my local doctor and he diagnosed me with typhoid. Again. Not really sure whether that's what I had but he put me on enough medicine to knock out a horse, so hopefully whatever was in my system is now gone.

This week is also the last week of lectures with the nurses and it has been bittersweet. I have really grown fond of a lot of the nurses and while I am happy that we are successfully wrapping up the course I'm sad I won't see them anymore. It has also provided a routine to my schedule that helps me get through the week, as I am a creature of habit and need a routine. So it's back to the drawing board for me and Mr Aggrey as we try to come up with new public education initiatives for the upcoming months.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1216810920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1216810920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1216810920/tpod.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:05:04 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Cape Coast, Ghana

After a lovely holiday in South Africa it was back to work for me last week. I gave my second to last lecture with the nurses in Cape Coast and we submitted our budget to head office for the graduation celebration. I was shocked to see that the budget for the one day graduation ceremony was greater than the entire original budget for the Youth Alive! project. Needless to say there was some fat to be trimmed off the CHRAJ budget and once I had convinced Mr. Aggrey that we did not need $200 for stationary, and other such items, we resubmitted it for approval.

Youth Alive also had its lunch launch on 17 July at the Centre for National Culture in Cape Coast. A full day of speeches and 'cultural displays' were organised by Sossah and the marketing team, with local representatives attending from political parties, the German Development Agency and CHRAJ. The turnout was below average, but overall the day went well. Several journalists appeared later in the day and everyone tucked happily into the buffet lunch. I was pleased to get really positive feedback about Youth Alive! from all people I met at the party, and I had the feeling that while small the newspaper was still an achievement for Abusua and for me personally.

With Isaac away I have agreed to organise the next youth engagement workshop for this coming Saturday. I have decided that we need to get the participants out of the classroom and into the 'field', so to say. So we are breaking them up into three practical modules, each 1 ½ hours long. The first is on how to write a lead, the second is on photography and the third is on presentation skills. Marc's new neighbour is a professional photographer from the UK, so I am hoping to convince him to help facilitate the workshop on Saturday. I will be giving the presentation skills module and plan on having the participants give a 5 minute presentation that I will record on my camera, and then play back to the group on the computer. Should be a pretty high-tech day if the gods play ball and provide us with electricity.

It was a working weekend for me last weekend, with Mr Aggrey and me giving a presentation on human rights to the local chapter of the Ghana Red Cross on Saturday afternoon. The group was young and enthusiastic, but to my chagrin was most concerned about discussing whether woman deserved to be raped if they dress provocatively. It seemed that several people in the group had a bone to pick with each other, and by the end I was a bit worried that they had asked us to come speak in order to mediate a private matter between the members. But to my relief, as we wrapped up the discussion they dispersed without pressing the matter much further.

That night we had a party for Koji's birthday and Alex's departure. In celebration we bought a goat from our village and slaughtered and BBQ'd it. Some of Marc's programme participants joined us at the house and we rocked out to music from my new I-pod and ate Sossah's fab cooking. The next day I moved one of the sofas out onto the veranda and had a lovely lazy Sunday consisting of reading my book, watching Rita eat bugs and clean herself and listening to the singing and drumming wafting in from the local Apostolic Church service. There was sunshine and a cool breeze and I could think of nothing nicer to do on a Sunday in Cape Coast than sit at home on the veranda.


]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1216203900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1216203900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1216203900/tpod.html Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:42:41 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Cape Town, South Africa

It was a relatively hectic week before I left for Cape Town, South Africa. The Youth Alive! July issue was behind schedule and none of my production team were anywhere to be found. They all seemed to be on holiday or out of town with similarly infuriatingly reasonable excuses. July 1st was a national holiday in Ghana, Republic Day, but I spent the entire day in the office finishing the July issue. The end result was worth all the hard work. At the last moment we got some amazing photos from two of our youngest youth participants, Justice and James, and they fit into the issue perfectly. The next day Sossah and I took the issue to the printers, and then headed off to Accra.

I spent a day and a night in Accra before leaving for South Africa so I could attend the Canadian High Commission's Canada Day celebration. I wasn't sure what to expect, but had thought the affair would be relatively laid back- why I'm not sure. The party ended up being invite only (I was attending as Gislain's spouse and was therefore covered) and was on the Canadian Ambassador's private residence. Thank goodness I had the good sense to dress formally, and was thankful for it once I arrived at the party. A huge tent had been erected on the grounds of the residence and there were hundreds of red lanterns to illuminate the night time party. I wasted no time in tucking into the free bar and canapés and began to survey the party. The crowd consisted of diplomats, Ghanaian ministers and dignitaries, employees of CIDA and the Canadian university students involved in an 8 week exchange programme. Marc-Andre was also in attendance, as he is the programme coordinator for the CIDA exchange and was busy supervising his 'kids'.

The party was nice and I ended meeting some very interesting people, including the Political Officer for the US Embassy in Accra. We spent some time discussing human rights in Ghana and CHRAJ and he gave me his card and said to get in touch next time I was in town. He seemed like a great contact so I happily took the card and made a graceful exit back towards the bar and the friend security of Gislain and Marc-Andre. The rest of the night was a fun one and was highlighted by Gislain introducing me to the Ambassador's wife as his 'rent-a-spouse' (to which she very politely managed a smile) and me trying to convince the Ambassador that he should come to a gay bar in town with me and Gislain and Marc-Andre. Oh dear, great first impressions!

The next day I left for Cape Town, flying South African Airways from Accra to Johannesburg, and then from Johannesburg to Cape Town. I was spending a night on my own in town before meeting Eric and Carol the next day at their lovely hotel further down the coast. I teemed with excitement on the plane at the prospect of finally visiting the country I did my Master's degree on, and on a more gluttonous level for the food and wine I was going to consume. As we touched down in Johannesburg I was surprised how modern the airport was; it's not that I had thought we were going to arrive in some backwater bush, but this was arguably one of the nicest airports I had transited through. Cape Town airport was less impressive, but there was tons of construction underway for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Once out of the airport I grabbed a cab and headed into town to my hotel Daddy Long Legs. My taxi driver was very friendly and offered up lots of information about the history and geography of Cape Town, how much of it was true I did not know. I asked him about the recent xenophobic violence that had been so widely publicised in the news recently and he shrugged his shoulders and said it would not be problem for me. When I probed deeper he said that the mobs were only targeting 'black' Africans, and that most of them got what they deserved, especially the Nigerians. This did not shock me as most Ghanaians I have come in contact with have a shared distrust and dislike of Nigerians, who they believe to be only thieves and crooks. I couldn't help but think that he also appeared to be a 'black' African (and by that I mean not 'Cape Coloured') and wondered about the extent to which South Africans thought of themselves as being distinct from the rest of their African neighbours.

I didn't have much time to ponder these concepts before I was dropped off at my hotel, which had been described by reviewers as the most original boutique hotel in Cape Town. It was a small hotel, where each room had been designed and decorated by a different local artist. I was put into room 'Do not disturb', which could be best described as a psychiatric hospital room meets a recording studio. It was a bit cold, but very unique. I quickly showered and headed off to walk around the streets of downtown Cape Town. After a couple hours of much needed retail therapy and general consumerism I bought a Time Out Cape Town and set to work in a local café of figuring out where I was going to have my solitary dinner.

After much deliberation and consultation with the hip-enough looking staff at Daddy Long Legs I decided on Mesopotamia, a Kurdish restaurant just a few blocks from my hotel. The restaurant had a Moroccan feel with pillow seating and houkas in the corner. The food was cheap and good, and I enjoyed eating on my own and peeling over my new magazines. Earlier that day I had received an email from Carol saying that her mother had been unexpectedly admitted to hospital and that she was going to Vancouver to be with her, so I made preliminary plans for the week ahead with Eric. The next day I took a taxi along the beautiful coastline to the hotel Eric and I were to stay in for the next week, the very luxurious Twelve Apostles Hotel.

We spent the next week eating in amazing restaurants, shopping and doing a spot of sightseeing. I did manage to visit the Grande Kirk of the Dutch Reformed Church (Afrikaner church) and St. Georges, the Anglican Church where Desmond Tutu became the first black Bishop of Cape Town. It was amazing to see these places where so much of the apartheid movement and countermovement had taken place, and it was poignant to me that they faced each other on opposite corners of the square in town.

The weather was not cooperating and reminded me too much of winter in Scotland for my liking, with horizontal rain and all. But we made the most of it and went on some wine tours and found other creative ways of staying out of the rain. One vineyard in particular, Grand Provence, was not only set in breathtaking surroundings but had a great restaurant with a modern art gallery attached. In fact, the architecture and interior design of all of the vineyard compounds I visited had employed a wonderful mix of new and old, and had a freshness about them that was inspirational. But security is always a problem in Cape Town and South Africa in general, and the ever present 3 metre walls with barbed wire and security perimeters were a constant reminder of this. This meant that the rich communities made a real effort to keep outsiders out, and it left these areas looking a bit like the suburban sprawl so popular in the United States. Actually I felt safer in Accra than in Cape Town, but this was part in parcel of the trip and I decided it was a fair price to pay for the amazing wine, food and natural beauty of the Western Cape.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1214313480/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1214313480/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1214313480/tpod.html Thu, 26 Jun 2008 09:32:03 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Cape Coast, Ghana

We finished our inspections for CHRAJ with Ekon the slum community, and the report writing began in earnest this past week. The team, consisting of Mr Aggrey, Alex, Koji, David and me, locked ourselves in the office for most of the week pounding out the reports on all the institutions we have visited over the past few months. It was tedious work, as most of the electronic forms were cumbersome and the handwriting hard to decipher, but we got through it. This is one of the most important things that CHRAJ does, and the report compiled by head office is presented to Parliament every year. It is one of the few opportunities we have to tell the politicians (and the press) what is going on in hospitals, schools, prisons etc. in order to enact change. Whether anything ever changes I'm not so sure. Watching Mr Aggrey during the inspections it became clear that most of the institutions we have visited he has inspected year after year and the improvements, if any, seem always to be small. But regardless we write on hoping that someone is reading.

The radio broadcast with Eagle FM was a topical one this week. In celebration of father's day we spoke about the involvement, or lack thereof, of fathers in families and its impact on human rights. Earlier that week Obama had just given a speech to a congregation in Chicago where he called out to black fathers in America to take more responsibility, and own up to fatherhood. It provided good fodder for discussion.

The weekend was spent with Marc and Stephen in between Accra, Anomabu Beach, and Cape Coast. Saturday night we had an American themed BBQ at the house where I made onion rings and French fries, and Sossah wowed us all with his grilled chicken. The night progressed to a couple local spots and ended with the group busting some moves on the dance floor of Hacienda. On Sunday Stephen and I went shopping for high-tops, which he managed to buy even cheaper than mine (outrage!), and consuming lots of food. Marc and I had heard about a nice German owned restaurant on a hill overlooking the beach near Cape Coast, so the three of us ended the weekend there eating seafood and drinking ice cold (for a change) Star beer.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1213619880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1213619880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1213619880/tpod.html Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:12:21 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Axim, Ghana

The Quebec theme continued into this past week. Marc had four French Canadian friends visiting from Drummondville, Quebec, and in order to escape from the South Carolinians camping in my house I spent most of the week and weekend tagging along with them.

Actually work was very interesting this week. With CHRAJ we did a radio broadcast on Eagle FM on the abuse of power by politicians and the police and we did our last inspection of a 'slum' community outside Cape Coast.

There was something very interesting about Ekon, the fishing community we visited on Friday, and I had a hard time characterising it as a 'slum'. Why I'm not sure. Perhaps it's because I'm getting used to the constant poverty that surrounds me or maybe because there was something I found inherently beautiful and dignified about this community. Yes, technically the town should be characterised by a slum because of its lack of infrastructure and access to schools and healthcare, but this seemed to do it an injustice. We sat with the local leaders of the community for some time and asked them questions about their quality of living and about their lifestyle in general. They all seemed to be content and proud people, certainly not looking for pity or a handout.

Later that day I joined Marc and his friends and we headed west to Axim. The first tro-tro from Cape Coast to Takoradi was comfortable (for a tro-tro) but the second one from Takoradi to Axim gave me an uncomfortable feeling. In reality, the travelling to Axim was completely hassle free, but I still was left a bit shaken by the journey.

Although it was raining for the rest of the day we enjoyed a couple drinks by the beach and a boozey dinner at the hotel's restaurant. Later that night we met some Irish gold miners who were at the hotel for a weekend break; at first they were entertaining and pleasant enough but they became aggressive and uninteresting, so I bayed farewell to the group and went to sleep.

The next day we hired two taxis to take us to Nzuelezo Stilt Village, roughly 30 km away from the Cote d'Ivoire boarder. It took a couple hours of bone shaking travelling along dirt roads to reach the town of Beyin where we arranged to travel by canoe to the village itself. The village sits in protected wetlands, so we arranged our visit through the Ghana Wildlife Commission, and were given two guides/boatman to take us to the village. After we had bought the customary bottle of liquor for the chief, which is a customary practice all over Ghana, and acquainted ourselves with out guides, we headed off.

It took about an hour to paddle out to the village and team America (me and David) took the outbound journey, while team Canada (Marc and Alex) took the inbound trip. Team America was by far the fastest, but that was to be expected considering the Olympic athletic prowess of our great country- Ha! The canoe was a bit unstable at times and the paddling a bit tiring, but overall the journey was very pleasant. Once at the village we exited the boats onto 'dry land' and poked around at our leisure. Our guides then introduced us to the Chief of Nzuelezo Village and he explained the history of how his tribe migrated from Mali several hundred years ago, and how they built their village over the lake. While I enjoyed meeting with the Chief, and with the villagers, I had an overwhelming feeling that we were intruding on them. The village has benefited from tourists monetarily, but they also have lost their privacy since there is a steady stream of tourists constantly walking through the village. It felt almost like an African Disneyland exhibit, and was forced to say the least.

We spent another night in the lovely hotel in Axim and then headed home to Cape Coast on Sunday. While I had not travelled extensively during the weekend, I still came to the conclusion that I do not want to travel much more in Ghana by public transport. It may be because of the two horrendous road accidents that happened last week or maybe because I'm getting old and weary, but my initial plan of travelling overland to Burkina Faso in August has been axed. I may still do the trip but it will have to be by private car or by plane. Then again, as usual, I may always change my mind....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1213020000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1213020000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1213020000/tpod.html Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:02:10 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Cape Coast, Ghana

The new interns certainly arrived at the wrong time. All the management staff and the public education department at CHRAJ was away in Accra all week on a seminar, which extended into the next week albeit unexpectedly, and Sossah had a 3 day meeting he was also attending in Accra. So after almost a week of coming into the office, and looking to me to keep them busy I finally began to lose it. Since our marketing and distribution coordinator for Youth Alive! had decided to take a 1 month leave of absence, or quit, we had empty positions available on the team. While they are all university students with little or no experience, they do have a lot of energy and want to work. This energy is hard to come by, and not really present in the Ghanaian volunteers. So after consulting with Sossah and Isaac, we offered the three of them the opportunity to work on the marketing, advertising and distribution of Youth Alive!, respectively. But this now means that this team has joined with Production, so my team has gotten bigger as well as my workload.

Things were also changing in the house last week. Sammy, Bala, Erin and Tetteh finally moved out, and preparations began for the housing of 15 Americans from the University of South Carolina for the Youth Camp Week. So Alex has moved into my room, and I'm having to hide my shampoo and toothpaste, so it doesn't get ransacked by those who arrive unprepared. I'm not sure whether this week will be really fun or just a pain. I have a feeling it will be the latter as the trip is supposed to be dry, as all of the students are under 21. Marc has some friends in from Quebec visiting for the week, so I may tag along with him if the South Carolinians get too much.

This past weekend Marc and I went to Accra to unwind. After spending the entire week covering for my boss at CHRAJ for the nursing lectures, and for Sossah with the new interns, I decided I needed to get out of Cape Coast. We hopped on the Ford van midday Friday and made our way to Accra. All was going well until smoke started pouring out of the bus's air conditioning system and driver pulled over on the hard shoulder. A collective sigh was exhaled by the passengers, and the men jumped out of vehicle to relieve themselves by the roadside. While the driver poked around the bonnet, Marc and I passed the time by exchanging our celeb spotting stories. I do have the competitive edge being from NYC, but I have to say Marc had some pretty funny stories from his time in Montreal and Quebec City.

After about 20 mins it became apparent that the driver did not know what was wrong with the van, and he did not know how to fix it. So we joined the Ghanaians who were lining up by the roadside, trying to flag down empty tro-tros. After 40 mins of unproductive handwaving, and no vehicles stopped, I looked at Marc and asked, 'So what do you want to do?'. He said there was one thing he had learned while living in Senegal- 'Don't think you're smarter than the locals'. I asked him what he meant and he said that if the Ghanaians didn't look worried, then we shouldn't be. We should stick with them because they would get to Accra one way or another, and probably faster than us on our own. And Marc was right. About 10 mins later a half empty tro-tro pulled up and all the Ford van passengers piled on. One of the fellow passangers told the mate that our driver would cover the fares for all of us, and that's exactly what happened. The Ford driver forked over the money to the mate and I shot a look of disbelief at Marc. He just shrugged, and off we went towards Accra.

As I looked around the bus, there seemed to be a marked difference in the passengers who had been on the tro-tro and those who had been on the Ford van. All of the latter group were well dressed, and had an air of superiority about them, while the former seemed to be of more humble means . A group of the young smartly dressed men then started into a heated discussion about the cost and effectiveness of the educational system in Ghana, and it was then that Marc started singing under his breath, 'J'aime le bourgeoisie'. And it fit the moment perfectly. We were surrounded by, and were ourselves what can be best described as 'tro-tro bourgeoisie'.

How do you know whether you are part of this group you may ask? Well you know you're tro-tro bourgeoisie if you debate about higher education while on a tro-tro. You know you're tro-tro bourgeoisie if you go to Koala supermarket in the expat district of Accra and spend $50 on groceries and then tro-tro home, and you know you're tro-tro bourgeoisie if you read the Daily Graphic the BBC Focus on Africa while in a tro-tro, etc. etc. etc. Marc and I felt this fit us perfectly. Here we were in Kaneshie market shouting into a crowd of tro-tro drivers for the right one that would take us to Canadian diplomat's house because we were too cheap to take a drop taxi. But we very happily went out for dinner that night and spent far more than what the cost of the taxi would have been.

Needless to say the weekend in Accra with Gislain was fab. We ate great food, and drank way too much red wine, and had a great time. I met another one of Marc's friends, Olivier, who is a freelance photographer, and that completed the triumvirate of French Canadians in my life. Ahh you can take the girl out of Quebec, but not Quebec out of the girl I suppose.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1212421020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1212421020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/amalawski/1/1212421020/tpod.html Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:43:19 -0400 Internship in Ghana

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Cape Coast, Ghana

This past week my boss at CHRAJ and all the senior staff in the office were attending a week long conference in Accra. This meant that not only was the office very quiet, but that I had to give the nursing lectures on Tuesday and Thursday on my own. Luckily one of the National Service guys, Martin, agreed to accompany me and help me field questions. We also got two more volunteers this week, both of whom will be working at CHRAJ. One is an American, David, from the west coast and the other is a Canadian from Ottowa. They're both university students and here for 8 weeks.

While my boss was away I gave the two nursing lectures; I had been fretting about this for weeks as the class size is 200, and young women aren't always the easiest people to lecture to, but it went really well. They have now gotten used to my weird American ways and the two lectures were really successful. I was most pleased that I didn't have any stage fright, which has been a problem with my public speaking in the past.

The rest of the week I spent at Abusua copy editing, chasing adverts and typesetting. By Wednesday things were really up in the air; the copy had not been finalised and we were still missing all our ads for the issue. But put in perspective of what I used to have to deal with in my Blackwell days, I fretted not. This was not an insurmountable problem, we'd just have to work harder and later over the next few days.

By Friday afternoon I had finally received the last advert from ATL radio, the typesetting was finished and I had tracked Sossah down so we headed off with the final approved issue for the printers. After about an hour at the printers, negotiating terms of the print run and approving a printed version of the issue, we left triumphantly. Sossah and I congratulated ourselves with a couple Star beers at the local 'spot', the petrol station at Pedu junction. It wasn't the best issue we could have produced and there's still a lot of work to do on the upcoming issues, but we managed to print it on time and to budget. In the past two months we had helped to get a group of Ghanaian youth together to create a new newspaper, and we printed their articles in a good looking publication.

I spent most of Saturday at the June Youth Alive! workshop and gave a presentation on human rights in Ghana. I was hoping to fire some of the reporters up by showing them that human rights violations are taking place here in Ghana. It's not only in countries like Zimbabwe and South Africa, but violations of basic human rights are happening on our own doorstep, and they should be writing about it. I think some of them were genuinely interested; I only hope it gets them to write on more important topics than whether gospel singers in Ghana are dressing appropriately. But as always, it's up to the editors to decide the content of the newspaper.
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