Well, school's winding down, and it's nearly exam week. There's only 3 of us volunteers left, since Caro and Erin left last weekend for home. I couldn't go to the wedding in Kumasi that Jack and Danielle attended as I was stuck in bed with EITHER rampant yellow fever OR the flu. Either way it was enough to make me miss the chance to see the wedding which was a shame. It prompted my first visit to the Ghanaian doctor. There I was asked to give a sample for a blood test, the result of which seemed to be that I didn't have any blood, so after some amateur dramatics with Jack having to rush in to prop me up, and me dashing about shouting "I'm going to faint!" they gave up, and sent me home with a carrier bag full of drugs. But it's all good now.

So, seeing as I've spent most of my time in Ejura the last few weeks, my main entertainment is food. The street food here is AMAZING! It starts at 5 pesewas, which is about 2 pence, for which you can get a sachet of ice water or a bag of fresh popcorn. Everything liquid here is taken in sachets or plastic bags, there's a kind of sour, gingery porridge which the kids all squeeze into their mouths in the morning at school, and little bags of red juice, made from bisep leaves, which tastes like very sweet, very gingery ribena. The best thing is probably Fan Ice, ice-cream in a sachet that we usually eat sitting on the hot tro-tros waiting to get somewhere. One of the most surprising snacks are tofu kebabs, which you can get quite easily for 20 pesewas and the sweet balls, which are big balls of doughnut type stuff all sugary and incredibly greasy. Mmm. Mondays are the best days for street food, because people come to Ejura for market day, and that's when you can find fried goats cheese and little sticks made of mashed together peanuts. The texture of lots of things is very sticky and gloopy. My favourite nights at the house are when Annabelle, our new cook, makes banku or fufu or something similar. These are different combinations of mashed cassava, corn, plantain or yam that we eat with soup with our fingers. It's very soft and messy and is such a comfort food - on those nights I usually eat until I'm just a solid mass of mash and soup. The other food that Ghanaians have got down to an art is egg. For 20 pesewas, a lady outside the school or on the main street will peel a hard boiled egg, split it, and fill it with a chilli pepper and onion sauce. There are different snacks for different times of day, so when the sun goes down and the Ejurans head out to have a beer at a drinking spot, ladies set up stalls selling omelettes of egg, tomato and onion which they set in softly fried hunks of sweet bread.

I'm a bit worried about how I'll fair when we set off in 2 weeks. I've been living quite a sheltered life in the house with all our vegetarian meals being made for us. I don't really think the idea of vegetarianism holds any weight in Ghana, if you say "no meat", it often turns out to be something with no chicken legs balanced on top, but with small pieces of meat in the sauce or rice. I think I'll have to just go with it for a while, get a veggie dinner when I can and when I can't, grin and bear it. However, in my meat-eating days I did always regret never trying goat stew, so maybe one of these days I'll just have to do as the Ghanaians do and try some. I can just pretend its a nice tasty Quorn burger!

Travelling in taxis and tro-tros, we hear a lot of music. One of my personal favourites was the song that went "Shake that booty that Jesus gave ya, Shake that booty in the name of the Lord", and the reggae version of Take That's 'Back for Good'. Michael Jackson has recently become far more popular, even though there didn't seem to be that much interest before he died. There's not much white music, all the American stuff is the Akon and Rihanna that the boys at home listen to. Surprisingly enough, what's really really popular here is Celine Dion. One of the boys' friends was playing it on his mobile the other week, and even when Jacko died, the radio station played Celine Dion's "Goodbye's the Hardest Word I Know" as his tribute song. They liked it so much in fact they played it three times, on a loop.

We've discovered that one of the reasons people follow Jack shouting his name in a really excited fashion is that there's a local soap opera character called Jack who's a soldier. Add this to Jackie Chan and various other connotations, and everyone's convinced that Jack's a killer. I've even seen some of my P1s having play fights and shouting "I am JACK". They'd love for him to have a play fight with them - but of course he can't, because the moment he does, his reputation will be ruined. Being in a country where Christianity is strongly apparent, everyone is convinced my name is Holy. The boys call me Holy Man, Holy Bible and Holy Ghost Fire. When I was ill last week they chastised me, "Holy Woman, you cannot be ill, you have to heal yourself". Applying for my visa was made all the more interesting because my middle name is Marie. The burly immigration officer looked at my application and said "Holy Mary? Are you Catholic?" I laughed, no, and his deadpan response was "I am." I don't know if my name helped me or hindered me there. Picking my visa up again 2 weeks later, a different officer said "Can I ask why you're called Thomas?"
"Oh, it's my surname," I said.
"So you were named after St. Thomas?"
"No, no, it's just my family name."
"Ok. So what can you tell me about St. Thomas?"
"Umm, I don't know who he is!"

Anyway, next time we write I suppose we'll be all ready for the next leg of our adventures. Caro, who's returned has put some good photos of the house and school up on Facebook, so take a look. Until then, miss you all, love you all,

The Blessed Holy Mary

The weather has not been at all like I'd imagined so far. From everything I'd read and heard I was expecting a relentless and draining heat all day long, but for the last month its been mostly cloudy and cool, it even verges on cold during the heavy down pours! When the sun does emerge it is still hot, but as long as your not going on long treks during the mid-day its very bearable. Also I'm surprised that I haven't really needed any sun cream so far, normally I get burnt just opening the fridge door but here I've been fine. I think its because you can really feel the sun when it is beating down on your skin so you are very conscious of covering up or finding shade.

A while back Annabelle arrived at the house as the new cook, she's a very welcome addition to the group not only because of her excellent cooking but because of her friendly and chatty presence. On Sunday she had very kindly invited us to Kumasi for her cousins wedding. Holly was not feeling too good, but Danielle (another volunteer) and I were fit to go. We didn't see the ceremony as this was done in private but we did get involved in the party afterwards. There were over a hundred people there singing and dancing and taking part in various well wishing customs and rituals that mainly seem to involve smearing money on the faces of the happy couple. After this we went to Annabelle’s home in Kumasi for a delicious (meaty) meal, and then off on the now very familiar tro-tro ride home.

The big news of the last few weeks has been the visit of Mr B H Obama to Ghana. I doubt it has made much of a splash back home but here its been unavoidable news, mainly because radio stations have been playing an infectious song on loop which goes "Barrack, Barrack. Barrack Obama! [something something] is coming to Ghana!" Also the one nationwide channel had been repeating a documentary about his early life for several days.

When he did finally land in Ghana the same channel was entirely devoted to covering the event - although this consisted mainly of long silent shots of people waiting for his arrival at various locations. It was all worth it though when he made his address to the Ghanaian Parliament. Although I'd read a lot about last year's election and heard a lot of sound bites, I'd never seen him make a speech in full before. It was very impressive - the speech itself was very well written, talking objectively about the history of the African continent and then linking it with his own family background. Moving from there to the early hope of independence, and on to the present day where people must now forge their own legacy (he loves the "make your own history" line!). He implored Ghanaians and Africans to not use the colonial past as an excuse for the problems of today, and to take control of their own situation as individuals and as governments. To be democratically responsible and to create the institutions needed for a truly independent Africa not so reliant on foreign aid and NGOs. This main thrust of the speech could have sounded chastising (and I don't think it could have come from a white president) but it was delivered with such eloquence and charisma that it was inspiring.

From time to time I have picked up a sense of helplessness from people here, and it’s good to see Obama challenging it. This fatalism must come in part from the very real lack of opportunities here, but it also seems to me to stem from the powerful religious beliefs most people hold. For example at the tro-tro park a big things one notices is that all the trucks and taxis have some religious slogan daubed on the front windscreen. Things like "in God we trust", "Jesus Power!" and "God is in control" I'm sure this last one is very reassuring for the devout but I'd much rather feel the driver was taking full responsibility for the vehicle.

Also I was talking to one person about jobs and the economy and they were pessimistic, but then calmly announced that it didn't matter too much because the world was going to end soon anyway. Still I suppose these attitudes can be encountered the world over, and I any case it certainly makes for a more relaxed society.

Greetings avid blog readers. Two weeks have passed and we're back in Kumasi once again to pick up our renewed visas and update this page.

The highlight of the fortnight came this Saturday when we brought all the boys from the house for a day out at a swimming pool here in Kumasi. Everyone was so excited! The boys put on their bestest clothes and we set off straight after breakfast so as to get a full day out. The pool was at a swanky hotel but luckily it was very quiet so we had it all to ourselves, which meant we could do all the shouting, splashing and bombing we wanted. At the beginning of the day some of the boys were less confident with swimming so they stayed mainly in the shallow end, but by the end they had all perfected the flailing limb stroke and were roaming all over.

After hours at the pool we headed to another hotel closer to the station which has a good restaurant. The boys all had egg fried rice and CHICKEN! Meat is a no no in the Namaskar house, but none of the boys are vegetarian so they take any opportunity to eat as much meat as possible, even the bones were demolished. Holly and I had pizza which was an equally significant treat for us. Then to top it all off we got ice cream on the tro-tro home - days don't come much better than that.

Since the last entry school has been ticking along nicely. There was another holiday out of the blue on Wednesday of last week, but we've got used to these days off springing up every now and then so it was less of a surprise. What was a bit of a shock was the realisation that we only have two weeks of teaching left! The last two weeks of term will be devoted to revision and then the end of year exams, so it feels as if we're starting to wind down just as we've got going. There won't now be much chance for me to introduce new topics and programs in the remaining classes, but still, I feel we've already been able to give all the classes a good grounding in computer use.

Just a brief entry from me this time, but I'm sure Holly "touch-type" Thomas will be able to give a fuller account. Hope everyone at home is well, and enjoying the summer time!

Love Jack