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Youth Alive! begins in earnest
Entry 8 of 21 | show all | print this entry |
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I spent most of last week working at Abusua on the Youth Alive! project. We have finally chosen a printer (Hampton Press in Cape Coast) and have decided on typesetting software (Corel Draw), so I was able to put my head down and get to work. We using an A2 format with colour, so I set to work learning how to use Corel and experimenting with different layout and font options.
This Saturday's workshop went really well. We had a great turnout and the presenters gave interesting and useful presenations to the group. The youth then spent a couple hours brainstorming topics for the next issue, and I had a meeting with the production team. Enthusiasm is high and it looks like this will be a really interesting project to work on. I'm developing my typesetting and graphic design skills as well as working in a leadership role within the production team. While in general I find the work at CHRAJ more fulfilling, I have more input into this project and more responsibility.
On Saturday night a bunch of us took a drive out of town to Hans Cottage for a meal. The restaurant is situated close to Kakum National Park and sits on a platform suspended over a lake full of crocodiles, although I didn't see any in the flesh. At night it's lit up by candles and the atmosphere is both romantic and eerie. We had a pretty good meal there and I got to talking with my housemate Haley, who in unfortunately coming to the end of her placement in Ghana and is leaving for home in one week.
Today we all piled into Tai Tai's taxi and headed to Takoradi for some shopping, and to escape Cape Coast. The city had a pretty bad review in my guide book, but I had heard good things about the city from Erin and Marc, so I was eager to see it. Although it was a Sunday, part of the famous circle market was still open. I popped in and out of stall looking for some fresh veg, and had finally given up the hunt when I came across a stall full of live birds. A bunch of us at the house had talked about getting our own chickens, but had never done anything about it, so I grabbed Bala and Erin and we went to begin negotiations over some hens. Once a price was settled ($4) I had my very own chicken, who I promptly named Rita.
We ran a couple more errands and then went to the beachside to grab a drink before we headed home. For the first time since coming to Ghana we were at an 'upmarket' bar full of 'rich' people, but we were the only white people in the entire place. I had thought that the Ghanaian middle/upper class did not exist, or they were so few and far between that I might never see them. But here we were surrounded by well to do Ghanaians in Western clothing, drinking it up. I felt mixed about the place. It was nice to see a bar like this full of non-Westerns, but it also didn't feel like we were in Ghana anymore. It felt like we were in an TV advert for a mobile phone, one of those adverts that most people watch in Ghana and go who lives like this? These people were living the dream I suppose, but it had a bitter-sweet quality to it.
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