Ghana Photos

Ghana

On February 19th 2011, two teachers from Philips High School paid a visit to our link Partner school in Ghana, West Africa. The school is 2 hours drive north of Accra the capital, in a small town called New Tafo Akim. Here, the teachers met colleagues and pupils from Gifpraise school to learn about the learning that takes place in Ghana and to improve their own teaching of African issues.

The school is a junior high school with three classes at present, Base 7, Base 8 and Base 9 relating to Years 7,8 and 9 in the UK. At present there are 160 pupils in the school. The primary school has over 500 pupils from reception to Base 6. There are 3 main classrooms in the secondary school with an ICT room. There is provision on the second floor for more classes to be admitted. The ICT room has 13 computers with one linked to the internet. The school would like more CD Roms to use in the school.

The school day starts at 7am and ends at 2pm, the early start due to the hot weather. On two days thunder storms hit at 3pm and lasted the rest of the evening. Power cuts occured and as there were no street lights, driving around in the dark was hazardous for both driver and pedestrians. There were no pavements, so dodging the pot holes, the pedestrians and making sure your wipers and demister work proved difficult for our taxi driver, but we managed with no injuries to anyone in close vicinity.

Pupils woke up at 4am, indeed most people woke at this time to get most of the housework out of the way before it got too hot. Some pupils arrived early (!) to help prepare the school for the day and tidy up. Many walked the long distances to school. On our first day, we were greeted by two rows of pupils the singing of the national anthem.

Pupils had made flags half union flag, half ghanain. The Ghana flag being three colours. Red for the blood shed by their ancestors, gold for the mineral wealth and green for the rich earth and vegetation. The star for Africa.

School began with assembly on the lawn and the national anthem and then messages read out, finally ending with a prayer. Lessons included Maths, English, Science, ICT, Social Studies, DT, Art, Music and Dance and PE. Boys played football and the girls netball.

Lunch was made in the primary school about two miles away and delivered by taxi. The pupils queued quietly and exercised patience waiting for lunch. This comprised of chicken and rice or Joloff or sometimes maize and cassava mashed up. Lunch was served through a small wooden hutch like construction, with fine mesh around it to stop the flies getting in.

At the end of school, the bell is rung and there is another assembly led by the Head boy and girl. Messages are spoken out and prayers said for the day. The pupils then drift off home. The Head Boy and girl having responsibilty to lock the school up. Around the grounds, there were numerous animals roaming around such as lizards and small goats. In one tree, there is a bee nest which pupils especially boys, have been known to throw stones at. People would use the public road and path at the bottom of the school green and the school had no gate or any sign that showed where you were. Infact, it would have been extremely difficult to find the school, without local help. Ghana does not have street names or road signs. Finding places without local knowledge is difficult, you need a good sense of direction and the ability to ask people. The postal address is a PO Box number and mail is collected not delivered. Ghanaians love football. Since Michael Essien joined Chelsea, blue shirts are evident wherever you go. Access to premiership football is easy, with South African satellite channels beaming throughout West Africa and many town bars display signs that they are showing the next big games for one cedi, around 40p. The school organised two games in honour of our visit. The girls played against their town rivals and dominated the game, but lost 1-0, the boys played what seemed forever and drew 0-0. It was a full sized pitch, some boys played in bare feet and the temperature nudged 3o Degrees Celcius.. The girls kit was Arsenal ladies.

We managed to stay healthy through our stay thanks to the help from the teachers at Gifpraise and some sound advice. Our diet composed of chicken and rice and then chicken and fried rice. We were not too adventurous regarding food, but enjoyed a traditional meal at a teacher's house. This composed of fried yam, Kaipei, a spicey bean and redfish, which is a freshwater fish. our pupils response to the following picture? well you can imagine.

Our teachers loved palm wine. This is a local drink that tastes nice for the first couple of glasses! It is about 2% alcohol, but once fermented can send rockets into space. They added Guinness to it to add to the taste. There are two guinness breweries in Ghana, they love the stuff! Ben the ICT teacher had his own palm and cocoa plantation which supplemented his income and allowed the other teachers to taste quite regularly his palm wine.

This farm was a good 20 minute walk into the rainforest through narrow paths and dense vegetation. Ghanaian men have a special time keeping, which they call GMT or Ghanaian Men Time. If they say they are going to pick you up at 6, then prepare to be picked up at 7, Ben had said a two minute walk. It was on this walk we came across a black cobra which sped very quickly under a pile of logs. Ben said he always wears wellies in the forest because of the snakes. Rick and I both looked at our feet and our sandles, we moved very quickly to his farm and at the farm we sampled rather more palm wine in honour of the cobra.

New Tafo Akim was quite small, but had a population of over 50,000. There was only one main road and on either side of the road were small dwellings made from wood with corrugated iron roofs. Each dwelling was a shop of some description selling items such as bread, clothes shoes, or provided a service such as hairdressing, beautician or carpenter. Everyone tried to make a living somehow. During the football match women appeared selling to the school children, such as hard boiled eggs of water packets. Even out of town small stalls were evident along the side of the road, selling products. Whole families would be sat by them chatting the day away not seeming to make much money, as few customers stopped in their car to buy usually food. Foods such as pineapples, lemons and some fried bananas to sell.

One of the many highlights of the trip was the excursion to the Cape Coast. Having been told to wake up at 4.30am, we should have known that we would'nt be picked up until 5.30am. In the town centre many shops were already open and music blaring from them. The pupils were to be taken by two small minibuses on a four hour trip. Both Rick and I looked at each other as we saw the number of pupils and the size of the buses. No way would we all fit into these and Rick suggested he would get his car. "No problem" said Precious, "do not worry" as the pupils began sitting three on a seat, six on the back row and plastic stools appeared for some to sit down the aisle. There was still space for three adults to sit near the driver. With music and smiles we set off with the pupils bouncing and dancing to the music as we went, joined intermittingly by their teachers. We passed through many settlements and realised why a journey of about 120 miles would take four hours. Good roads would merge into dirt roads and then into roads with huge potholes. The minibus driver using his horn to overtake and venturing onto the other side of the road facing oncoming traffic. We stopped off at several locations to get water and once again were joined by street sellers, some getting onto the bus to sell pineapple and octopus.

Our first sight of the Atlantic Ocean had been met with loud wows and beaming smiles as some had seen the sea for the first time..

Our first real stop was the national park. Entrance to the park was double for non-Ghanaians being 30 Cedis. Here we strolled through the rainforest seeing canopies, buttress roots and lianas. The highlight being a 200m rope walkway like on "I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here." Some pupils refused to do this.

The way back to the entrance and we encountered a 20 metre army of tiger ants. These can give you a nasty bite and devour a cobra. Note to brain, don't fall asleep near an army of tiger ants whilst in Ghana.

We set off for Cape Castle and arrived at 4. We were once again mobbed coming out of the bus by the street sellers. One became my long lost brother and had supported Carlisle United when he was a boy, yeah right! I tested him on who Jimmy Glass was and as he didn't know, lost my business straight away. I didn't need any conch shells anyway.

Cape Castle was where thousands of Gold Coast inhabitants were shipped to the plantations of Brazil, Caribbean and the USA, often via the UK. The conditions in which they were kept, was very disturbing and going around the castle with 60 Ghanaian school children was very humbling. Some of the children took it on themselves to take notes and were tested quite regularly by the guide on certain facts, such as the date of the abolition of slavery. In unison they chanted 1807.

The bus trip home proved long, noisey and bumpy. The driver to keep him awake, as he had now driven for 7 hours and had another four hours to go, played his music loud, the children danced and sang and the road littered with pot holes. The journey and what was an exciting day, had started at 5 in the morning and ended at 11 at night. As you can see by the photos, we had a fantastic experience that hopefully other staff will be able to enjoy in the future as we build our Partnership. We would like to thank the staff and pupils of Gifpraise, our guards at the Cocoa Reaserach Institute and Yaol our taxi driver.