I arrived in Ghana on Saturday 21st June 2008, and was immediately overwhelmed by the heat. Stepping off the plane, I was exposed to temperatures of around 28 degrees, after 8:30pm! I was also astounded by the bright colours and enthusiastic welcome or "akwaabe" I received. I was collected from the airport by Rupert, one of the Madventurer staff and taken back to the house where I would be based for the next 21 days. When I arrived, I was told that there had been a power cut, and so unpacking anything that night would be unreasonable in the dark! I also had to get used to going outside and filling a bucket every time the loo needed flushing or I wanted a shower, but after a while it did become almost second nature to me, and I did find bucket showers quite refreshing! The next day, I met some of the volunteers who would be living with me. We visited the main stadium in Accra to watch a World Cup Qualifier between Ghana and Gabon. The atmosphere was amazing, and very intense, and you could almost sense a sigh of relief go up in the crowd when Ghana won the match 2:0! On Monday, I began my placement at the Peace and Love Orphanage and Academy. I was introduced to Salah the director, the head teacher of the academy, and Jim whose class I would be working with. The class were Class One, and were mainly aged between 7 and 8 years old, although there were some older pupils as well. The children were very keen to please, and even keener to have their photograph taken! I found that writing a comment in their books under their work brought delight to their faces, even if all I wrote was “Good Work!” During my first week, I taught them about England, as well as introducing some new games and songs. These were really enjoyed by all the children, because they are so used to copying straight from the board. However, I did find that using that strategy every once in a while was effective! During two of my English lessons, the children drafted and wrote letters to a class in England, who are very keen to send their replies! In my final week at the school, I read them some traditional Ghanaian stories in English, and took control of the class for the whole week. On my last day at the school, I organised a Mini Olympics competition which the majority of my class participated in. They really enjoyed the races! I found the teaching really rewarding, although I had difficulty writing with chalk to begin with! I also thought it was challenging teaching with only limited resources, and had to accept that some children couldn’t do the work because they had finished their book and had no money for a new one! Consequently, some of the children in each lesson fell asleep, due to the heat and having nothing constructive to do. I was also shocked by the amount of caning that went on at the school, although I was lucky enough not to witness it myself. Although I spent most of my time teaching, I also had the opportunity to meet and look after some of the younger children at the orphanage. Some of the children I met included Adom and Grace, aged 4 and 3, who had arrived at the orphanage around the same time a few years ago, and Blessing, a 10 week old baby. Some of the younger children even came to visit during my lessons, as there was no door to the classroom! My first Friday in Ghana was spent taking about 30 children, who lived at the orphanage, to the beach with some other volunteers. Some of the children had never seen the beach before, and had a great time paddling in the sea and working out what to do with a Frisbee! In the evenings, we went out as a group to explore some of the local nightlife in Accra. We particularly enjoyed going to Lizzys, a street side bar on Oxford Street, (yes, really), which had a great atmosphere, but could sometimes be overcrowded with street children and people trying to sell you various items. Travelling around was fairly easy, “Tro Tros”, (these look like minibuses, but can get VERY crowded), were frequent, at reasonable prices, and there were plenty of taxis around, although negotiating a price sometimes took a while! At the weekends, we had the opportunity to travel around. On my first weekend we visited Elmina Castle, which is famous for its part in the slave trade. We also visited the Oasis Hotel in Cape Coast, where we were entertained by drummers and traditional African dancing. I was also given the chance to visit another school in Accra. The Christ Love Academy was founded by Cathrine Annan, a preacher who lived and worked near our house in Madina, Accra. The school educated children aged 3 – 10, and had very basic resources, not even tables to lean on to write! The main issue for me, apart from their obvious lack of supplies, was the condition of the building. Although the school had a roof, this was not adequate, as there was a gap between where the wall ended and roof began. This resulted in buckets having to be arranged round the classroom when there was a torrential downpour/storm. We were visiting during one such storm, and at the end of the day Cathrine called the children together to tell them that because of the rain, there would be no school for the remainder of the week. I was moved by the obvious disappointment of these children, some who saw the school as a refuge, and all who were willing and keen to learn. Cathrine also founded an orphanage, which is also very basic. In fact, some orphans have to rely on the hospitality of neighbours to be able to have a bed for the night! The hardest part about the trip was the culture shock. Although I had read guidebooks, spoken to people and looked up endless information on the Internet, I didn’t have a picture of what I expected in my mind. Although I had prepared myself for limited water and electricity supply, I found the shouts of “obruni obruni” (white person white person) as I walked down the street quite difficult to deal with at first, as well as people wanting to come up and touch me because I was different. Taxi drivers also constantly shouted “where are you going?” as though they thought that because I was white I wouldn’t know the way! The food was quite spicy and I thought it was also quite rich, so I was eating small portions for a while until I got used to it. I did find myself eating A LOT of rice though! I was also quite homesick for the first week or so, but as I got used to how things worked in Ghana and got more involved in my placement, this became less of an issue. Overall, I enjoyed my experience, and feel that I faced a lot of challenges over the 3 weeks, and learnt a lot of valuable lessons myself. I met and worked with lots of lovely people (and got a couple of marriage proposals thrown in from over friendly Ghanaian men) and would definitely recommend this to anyone. You’ll be surprised at what you can do when given the opportunity!