Orphan party to Sossah's b-day party
Trip Start
Mar 27, 2008
1
19
21
Trip End
Oct 01, 2008
Cape Coast,
Ghana
Monday, August 25, 2008
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
Danceparty!
. 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
Orphanage building
. 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
Me with the adorable kids
. 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
Ahh Canada
. 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. 
