The One With The Mug Tears

So with a little under two weeks until departure date I thought it might be quite nice if I wrote another blog post, since it has been six and a half months since the last one!

In August I traveled once again to the Isle of Coll for training. On training I met the Ghana Fam, who I will be spending A LOT of time with over the next year and are just amazing. More importantly I met Sian, my partner, who I will be living, working and occasionally fighting with. She's great and I can't wait to see what this year brings for us. On training we did some teaching which was so much fun and I was surprisingly OK at it. We also learnt more about the county, it's history, it's people and our projects.

My project is in Ve-Koloemu near Hohoe, which I know will mean nothing to you, but trust me it's a pretty cool place! The school is called St Michael's RC Basic High School and I will be teaching Form 1, 2 and 3 which is like 1st, 2nd and 3rd year. The only problem is that they have me teaching English which is ok, Maths which is meh, Science which I haven't studied since 4th year and ICT with no computers. I feel like some swotting up is in order then!

On a more relaxed note my fundraising is done and everything is paid off! This is just crazy. I never thought that I'd ever get to this point. As a reminder I had to fundraise £5,600 for PT and £1,500 for traveling ect. This is the most amount to money I have ever had to deal with and has been, what you could call, a learning experience. I just want to take a minute to thank everyone who was able to donate or help with my efforts. I like to make a special mention to my Mom. Without her I'd be sitting here pulling my hair out because I'd have been so disorganised. Mom, I PROMISE that I'll work so so so so hard in being more organised, tidy and on top of things.

People keep asking me if I'm nervous about going and leaving everything behind. Up until yesterday I have said "Noooo I'm definitely ready to go!". However yesterday I randomly chose a 'There's no place like home' mug and I burst out into tears. I then told Mom this story and burst into tears again. So maybe I'm not as ready as I thought...

I'm starting to pack now which is weird. How do you fit your whole life for a year in under 20kg? It'll be a challenge I guess.

Anyway I'll end this one here. I should have another one up the day before I leave or sometime around then :)

Abby x

Map of Ghana with Hohoe

Waterfall near Hohoe

Ghana Fam with Our Dave (Ghana Desk Officer (front))