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Feedback from Ghana Volunteers

Here are some of the emails we have received from volunteers about their experiences in Ghana.

I am sorry I have not been in touch before now, but it is only because I have been having such an amazing time and everyday has been full. The family I am with (Phyllis and Wallace) have made their home mine and welcomed me into their family. I cannot believe it has been less than two weeks because I have met so many people, seen so many things and found myself so at home already. The children are amazing of course. Since I am not a teacher at home it is a welcome challenge for me and I have found that things come back to me from other times that I have worked with children. If your other placements experience even a fraction of the hospitality and friendship that I have so far, they will have a great experience.

I love Ghana and am positive that I will be back. For now I continue to embrace all of the opportunities and experience every moment of everyday.

Kim

Thanks for the letter! I do miss Ghana, my host family the most...they were great to me and so much fun. I'm travelling around europe for a bit before heading back to the states, so my vacation hasn't ended yet.

Feel free to give my email to inquiring volunteers and i'll definitely work on writing something up when I get back in early August.

Regards,

Kara"

I am now in Ghana and enjoying my time very much, though I have only been here a few days.

My placement will start tomorrow. This weekend Alicia and I and 3 volunteers from Australia (with another organization) who are staying in Akropong as well went to Ho in the Volta Region. It is nice to travel a bit.

Stephanie

All is well here on my front. I have been challenged in many ways personally, but in terms of your program and the arrangement with Mr. Arthur and Mr. Otu, I have no complaints. Please note that Mr. Otu's hosting has been excellent in every way and that his school should receive top priority for the placement of future volunteers.

Yours,
Adrian

Hi, Everything is fine over here! At the moment I am in Togo visiting some friends! I will be returning to Ghana on Monday, because the border will close due to elections over here!

I am here now almost two months and I am enjoying it very much. No difficulties what so ever! The people already want me to stay for more than a year! I think I want to stay one academic year!

My family will visit me in January. A group of 6 will come... I am really looking forward to that!

See you later!
Dennis

Hello, thanks for writing. I am finding everything just fine, although I do not start teaching until Monday, but that is okay. I am at a Kindergarten which ends up being good because I brought a lot of supplies (crayons, colored pencils, paper) that will be good for that age group.

Have to go but thank you for writing.

Bye,
Naomi

We are home from Africa and missing it already! We had a wonderful time and can't wait to go back. We started building the KVIP before we left Africa so I think it should be done now. We have never felt so excited about a project!

We asked the elders if they were interested in more volunteers in Tokokoe. They are very interested, but only when students are in class. The village is so special, so all I ask is that you send the best of the best volunteer applicants out there (hehe).

I hope everything is well at Global Volunteer Network. Thank you for having the initiative to start an volunteer organization that people can afford to do!

Cheers, we will be in touch soon!
Clare and Adam

Bluebells is a very nice school and the Gbedemal family is so great that I hope to visit them in the future.

Thank you for this unique experience.

All the best,
Julie

Thanks for checking on me, everything's fine here. I just had to travel almost two hours on a bus made to convince us all of our own mortality and walk through a market which, I'm convinced, is a sure candidate for Bombay and Calcutta's lovechild to email - explaining why I've taken so long to get back to you!

The school is great, I'm feeling Western guilt daily, coming from schools whining about not having IT labs, to here, where the kids don't all have chairs, or pencils. I can't believe how much trust they've put in my teaching ability, I hardly feel inspirational.

My host would do anything for me, he's also here now, he wants to learn to use email! Anyway, I have about a billion family and friends to contact now, so thanks again for all your help.

Laura

Thanks for the message. I have been having a wonderful in Ghana. The host family I am staying with have been so kind and welcoming to me. The teaching is really enjoyable too, all the children have been nothing but keen and interested in everything I do. So it is great, I only wish I had longer here. Thanks again for all your help organising the trip.

Regards,
Lucy"

"I am doing very well here in Accra. The family I'm staying with is quite nice. I have been spending weekends traveling with other volunteers and having a great time. Teaching is sometimes rewarding and sometimes very frustrating, but I feel I have made some progress. The schools here are incredibly different from what I'm used to, though of course I expected that. Thanks for this opportunity- it's something I'll never forget. Got to go now, I'll write again later.

Sincerely,
Colin

Yes, my flight back home was so uneventful. I cannot believe how much I miss the children there. They've impacted my life in an inexplicable way. Teaching my Ghanaian children was by far the highlight of my trip. I would like to say that my students were some of the most grateful children ever! I was happily shocked when I was in the middle of a lesson on food and my class 3 requested to stay in from break and lunch to hear the rest of my lesson. They were very interested in everything I had to say, even about mundane life in Canada.

Ghanaians are the friendliest people I've ever met. The scenery I've seen in Ghana was some of the most gorgeous I've ever seen. The landscape is as beautiful as is shown in Hollywood movies!

Cheers,
Andrew

Thanks for the follow up. I'm doing great here. Everything is ideal. The proprietor {Mr. Tettegah} and his family are taking unbelievably good care of me. Everyone has made me feel so welcome. Even the local people are really friendly. I was way more nervous/scared when I first arrived than I thought I'd be. But it only lasted the first day. Once I was brought here with the family, it's been fantastic. If there are any other questions don't hesitate to mail. Thanks for all your help with lining this up. It's better than I could have expected.

Loree

Everything is so great here! The family has been so kind and welcoming and I am in love with the children of the school. Thanks for my placement!

Sincerely,
Erika

"Thanks for your message. I arrived home yesterday morning. I had to leave Ghana a week early as I needed to sign some papers - my partner and I are in the process of buying a house.

I had 3 weeks at Grace Academy but this was not long enough! I enjoyed my stay and loved teaching the children. I was very sad to leave them. Madam Grace, the proprietress, was very welcoming and she treated me like a daughter. I am now trying to re-climatize to the English winter weather!

Thank you very much for organising it for me."

Regards,
Sheena

"Things are wonderful in Ghana and I'm really enjoying teaching at the school. I have been very busy travelling with other volunteers and I love the Ghanian culture and people. I feel very at home and accustomed to the town I live in. Thanks for checking up on me and I assure you that all is well."

-Amber

"I feel GVN did a good job of preparing me. The information was very complete. Bradt Travel Guide to Ghana which was recommended by the organization proved invaluable on my trip. GVN kept in contact during and after my placement and getting contact information for other volunteers who would be in Ghana at the same time as me was nice because we were able to arrange visits and discuss our experiences with one another.

GVN's partner seemed to be pretty well organized, even though some placement changes were made before I left for Ghana. Once you understand how "Ghana time" works, it is more understandable. He has a genuine concern for the schools and children in Ghana.

I didn't know what to expect. Although running water and electricity were sporadic, this is a condition of the entire country and not the house I was living in, and I was warned of this before I embarked. The family provided me with an exorbitant amount of food. Let them know that one person cannot possibly eat 3 egg sandwiches, a bowl of wheetabix, bananas and pineapple in one sitting! I wish I could have had more interaction with the family, I got to know the children quite well but most of the time Mr. Stephenson came home from school and went straight to his room. At times I felt like a commodity, being shown off as the "new white one" at the school. He is a very strict head of household and (perhaps because of how the boarders spoke of him) was difficult to approach some of the time. However, everyone was extremely friendly and willing to help us. They even had a woman come wash our clothes, even though we insisted we could do it ourselves. I was not once allowed to carry my own water bucket."
- Melissa

"This week was a very exciting one for us at school because we both gave our first tests!! We decided to try and photocopy tests for everyone instead of writing the tests on the board. We thought this would be a simple thing to figure out because every other shop window says "Photocopy". We have to admit we thought it was a bit strange that there were so many photocopiers around given the level of poverty here. We soon realized that no one actually has a photocopier - and we still haven't figured out why exactly the word "photocopy" is in every other window. At first this was a bit frustrating for us, but by the thirteenth place it was just plain funny. We finally found somewhere that actually had a working photocopier several hours later. We just finished marking the tests and judging by the results some of the students have actually learned from us- this is a very fulfilling feeling!"
- Matt and Lori

"I can't honestly say that I've found much food here that I've liked yet. Except perhaps for Ghanaian donuts, which are fairly similar to our donuts but no cinnamon. Fufu is very gooey dough with fish soup (including head and bones), which makes it very difficult to eat - even more so when hands are expected to be used. Kenkey is a quite sour, hard paste, which isn't great.
For dinner, I'm normally having rice and some kind of meat or fish, with a spicy sauce. I'm not sure why they use so much spice when everything is hot enough without making it worse...!

I've tried some of the local gin here, which is pretty strong stuff...the beer is quite drinkable though, and only about $1 for a pint.

"Eating" is "chopping", and there are chop bars all around which are mini-restaurants. There's also Palm Hill Hotel, a semi-Western restaurant just outside Akropong, where I went last night with a bunch of British volunteers who are all in the same area (with a different organisation).
It's kind of strange being with so many white people at once! Palm Hill's food isn't great but it's a nice change from rice - I had chicken and chips :)

I thought I'd give you an idea of my basic menu for a day. Breakfast is some combination of porridge, gruel (a dark brown watery substance), an even worse gruel made from millet, donuts, an omelette, and bread. Lunch was often "fish and chips" - a complete dried, smoked fish (just pull off the head and tail, and eat out the middle... actually it's quite nice) and some fried yam which is much like potato chips. Lunch recently has been sometimes two cupcakes and a bottle of Sprite, which hasn't really been enough. My host is the catering teacher at the school, so you would think she'd know better than to claim that two cupcakes and soft drink is a nutritious lunch.
But that's only been a few days - yesterday I had wakye, which is rice, beans, a hardboiled egg and some spicy sauce on top - not bad.

Dinner last night was spaghetti! More or less the same as usual, except for a spicier sauce (of course) and the meat is luncheon pate from a can rather than mince. But it's quite palatable, as they say here.

One food problem I did have last week was maggots in my dried smoked fish. I don't think I ate any of them, but it turned out to be not much of a lunch once the fish had been thrown away. It's not surprising I suppose, since all the food is just laid out by the roadside on tables with thousands of flies buzzing around. There aren't many refrigerators around either, so things just go rotten I guess.."
- Jarrod