Written 22nd September 2014
So we have been in Lolobi Ashambi for just under two weeks now and we haven’t had a chance to sit down! It has been so unbelievably busy to the point where we are starting to go a little bit crazy. I am just feeling over stimulated all of the time and its resulting in feeling annoyed and snappy at certain points, but overall I’m having so much fun. Lolobi Ashambi is a small town in the Volta Region of Ghana very near to Togo. It has about 200 people in it and is pretty run down. I don’t really know much about the place because I only found out that I was coming here two days before we came. Ashambi doesn’t speak Ewe which is what we learnt on training which is kind of annoying but I’m getting there with it. I can greet people and reply to greetings which is important because it is considered rude to not greet every single person you walk past. I’m in a three with Frances and Rebecca which has its perks and its challenges but on the whole we are making it work.
Our host/mother Eunice is a character to say the least but here cooking is fantastic. Fufu, which everyone warned us about, is surprisingly nice but there are a few gag-worthy foods. One morning we were invited to the chiefs house for breakfast (at 6am) and were served porridge. It’s not like porridge at home though, its boiled, fermented maize and has the consistency of 4 day old sewage. To make things worse she served it with a huge sardine roll, fair to say all through church I was not feeling so great.
Speaking of church I went for the first time out of choice. It was…..an experience. It’s all in the Lolobi language so we didn’t understand a word of it and just sat on the wooden benches for 3 HOURS trying not to look bored. The only time he did speak english was to introduce us to the ENTIRE congregation. Frances and Rebecca were mortified but I thought it was sweet of him to do that.
One of the best things that has happened was that ALL of the other volunteers came to visit us in Ashambi. On the saturday we went to a funeral in Kumasi, the next town. Eunice, Frances, Rebecca and I wore hideous matching dresses which we got made the day before. Yes there is photo evidence, no you cannot see it. At the funeral they were doing a traditional dance which consists of tiny little movements and looked so simple (looked being the key word). Some of us thought it would be a good idea to go and join in. IT WAS SO HARD AND WE WERE RUBBISH! By the end we had to leave because we were sweating and exhausted. It was hilarious though and people in our village keep pointing and laughing because they saw us there. Yes there is video evidence, no you cannot see it.
School started last tuesday but not really. The first week of term is what they call a ‘clean up week’ and most of the teachers turn up at 11 and leave at 12 30 with just the teacher on duty staying to supervise. The kids cut the grass with machetes, they chop wood with machetes and they even clean the classroom with machetes! Definitely would not pass health and safety rules in the UK. This week Monday (today) is a holiday so I spent the day with Eunice, Elizabeth, Emefa and Linda cleaning the creche. The creche is an old church which should just be burnt to the ground because it carries so many diseases. We walked in and there were two dead birds and a dead bat on the floor and the roof was covered in nests and decaying bodies of who knows what. On the plus side the kids knew not to touch the bat because of Ebola, in fact one of them pointed at it and just started to shout EBOLA BAT, EBOLA BAT, EBOLA BAT over and over again. After an hour of sweeping and five industrial washes of the floor the water was still coming out mud brown and sandy. Tomorrow we start observing for the week which will be either really interesting or really boring, either way it will be useful.
Reading the blog back it sounds really negative but I promise you that I am having an amazing time! It’s just that the negative things stick out more because they are so few and far between.
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