Theo goes to Ghana

16th May 2012

Post with 5 notes

Update

So on Saturday I finish my time at the University of Ghana. At 7:30 am I have a two and a half exam exam on Issues in Africa’s International Relations followed by a 11:30 exam of the same length on Politics and the Bureaucracy in Africa. However, after the fun filled extravaganza I’m finished!!!

Fear not good friends for that is not the end of my trip. I am then taking a weeks holiday (I need one after two weeks of occasional work) during which I intend to go to Lake Bosumtwi (the only natural lake in Ghana and by all accounts one of the most beautiful places in the country) and also to the beach for a couple of days. 

Then on the 26th of this month Matt and I are off up north to the Ashanti Region to work for two weeks in a school teaching with the Ashanti Axim Community Organisation which I am so pumped about. 

Then we return to the capital for my birthday to watch England beat France in the Euros and catch our flight home. Less than a month to go. Bonkers

Tagged: ghanaashantiug

10th April 2012

Post

Dr C J Obama

So the last two weekends I’ve hit the beach (for a change). The first trip to Kokrobite  passed without incident, short of me getting the most beautiful tan but the second to Buisa beach was one of my favourite places I have visited in Ghana.

After an hour or so of swimming in the sea I decide that as a Sheridan it is wrong for me to sit on the beach without a ball of some description so I head into the village to find one. This being Ghana it was about as hard as searching for a baguette in Paris. Before the purchase had been completed two kids ran up took the ball from the shop owner and off we went to the beach. Clearly the only reason I bought the ball was to play with them. What followed was ‘two-on-one’ played on one of the largest pitches I’ve had the pleasure of gracing I was grateful when after a few minutes of me being run off the park reinforcements in the shape of more kids showed up and I could dictate play from the central role.

Throughout the weekend if I wasn’t playing with the ball someone else would come up ask to borrow it and return it when they got tired. I loved the mentality and attitude that it was simply a waste for a ball to be doing nothing. A few games of beach volleyball (with lots of shouting at the line judge) and football in the shallows later and the ball was popped having lived a productive if short life. As I get up to check the damage this kid stands there holding the flat ball and says to me “You buy us new ball?’ Classic

About midday Brian and I decide to walk down the beach and head out on some rocks. I’m desperate to dive in and so stand on the rock, shout to Brian its safe and stand on a Sea Urchin. OUCH. I can assure you if you have never stood on one that they are fairly painful. I hobble back to the beach where the needle and tweezers from my ever prepared friends are brought out and we attempt to get the stings out with no success. A local guy comes up checks out the foot and tells me to soak it in red oil. Half an hour of soaking later and Gus has another go at trying to remove them. Thirty minutes later, one down fifteen to go. By this point a crowd has gathered. And then out of the crowd comes the hero of the hour.

“My name is Dr C.J Obama. Let me”

One thing I should mention is that Dr Obama couldn’t have been more then 13.

 He may have been young but he knew how to get the spines out. Unfortunately it involved being a good deal more aggressive then Gus was. After another twenty minutes a discussion with his (younger) assistant commenced the result of which was the purchaseing of a ‘blade’. A kid runs up the beach and returns a few minutes later with an old school serrated razor blade. My protests are quieted with more reassurances that he is a doctor and he knows what to do.

Although there was a fair amount of initial pain when stepping on the urchin over an hour of two kids scraping and digging at my foot with a razor was flipping worse. At one point I ask them to stop for a minute. “No, no let me finish”. To be fair he probably had a few other patients to see to doctors are in demand.

To cut a long and fairly painful story short he did the job and by the evening I was back playing football (we won’t mention that the sewage ran down the right wing) and minus a bit of pain am back to walking without a hobble. There were many other funny stories from the weekend but I will stop here as this post has been long enough.

Tagged: ghana