We’re on the road now, and our last week in Ejura was mostly just Jack and I as Danielle left to go on her travels and head home. The last week was spent trying to entertain the kids who had finished exams, and running IT assessments. Last Friday was the Our Day celebration, all the kids were very excited, the lead up started on Thursday, when the children started up the chorus of ‘Madam, tomorrow is Our Day!’

On Friday morning, the school was decked out with canopies and a big sound system and all the benches were turned around so that the classrooms could serve as banqueting halls. The teachers were busy stewing a goat that they’d slaughtered on Thursday. When the party began, Mr. Musah the Primary 6 teacher led the classes in going up to the dancefloor in turn with their teachers and dancing. Jack and I danced with Madame Paulina and the enthusiastic P1s, but by the time the dancing duties had reached the teenagers in Junior Secondary School , the dancing seemed to have waned slightly.

Everyone had been sent to school in their best clothes, boys had freshly shaved heads, and girls had new braids and cornrows in fancier styles than they’d worn during term. The most popular sartorial choice for young men was a denim jeans and denim jacket combination, although one or two were in full suits. They all looked very smart. The girls mostly wore frilly frocks, and it was quite enjoyable to see some of my tomboy P1s stomping about, arguing and roughhousing as usual but in their pink lace and best earrings.

All the children came with a basket of food on their heads, usually rice and meat, which they tucked into eagerly at lunchtime, and also shared with their teachers. By the time everyone had finished eating, Jack and I were called upon to hand out prizes to all the children, who were also receiving their report cards. The first, second and third in the class examinations for each level received a small gift of a notebook or coloured pen, and all the children got toffee and pencils.

It was a lovely send off, and felt like a good end to our time at Namaskar House. We got the chance to say goodbye to all the teachers, who we’ve come to love working with, and the boys were all in good spirits because they were looking forward to traveling home to their families’ villages for the summer.

On Saturday we arrived in Kumasi . One of the friends we’d met at Namaskar House, Eric, lives in Kumasi . We had a great weekend with Eric’s knowledge of Kumasi . The first place we visited was the military museum. The building was on the site of an old Ashanti fort, that was destroyed by the British in the late 19th century and reconstructed shortly afterwards. It was used by the British against the Ashanti people until it was finally handed back to them and made into a museum after the 2nd World War. The museum was mostly artifacts from the various places that the West African Frontier Force had been on duty, guns, ammo and a few ritualistic pieces from other African countries. The most striking part of the tour was the Condemned Prisoners Cell. This was where the British army put the Ashanti men and women they captured. There were in fact two cells, one for 10 women and the other for 20 men. We saw inside the women’s cell, it was a six foot square stone room with a large pillar in the middle. The room was painted entirely black. The only light and air came through a tiny grille on the front of the cell door which was behind another main door, itself with only a tiny grille. The prisoners were beaten to subdue them and put inside the cells with no food and no water. They urinated where they stood, they defecated where they stood, and the door was not opened until the last of the ten (or twenty) people had died. Only one person ever survived this horror – an Ashanti woman who was too important to keep at the fort in case the Ashanti people stormed the fort to retrieve her.

On Sunday we met with Eric again, and went to visit his church, the Lighthouse Chapel International. It was quite an experience for Jack and I, neither of us having been to a Church for many years. The congregation was very different from our usual Ejuran friends and acquaintances. We met no-one in Ejura who had their own car, but in the city we found young affluent families who came to Church in their Sunday best and put us scraggly travellers to shame! Church is an all day affair for Eric and the rest of the congregation. We first attended the youth service, and we got a chance to see Eric drumming along with the choir. In the larger, main Church we saw the English language service, where Eric was playing guitar and also singing in a chamber choir called Exodus. The music was a lot more cheerful than our usual ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ at home, and the massive church was packed out with people who all got up to dance in front of the altar. It really seemed like a celebration, rather than a duty. The Ghanaians didn’t just watch the sermons, everyone brought their Bible, pen and notebook to take notes on what the pastors and fathers were saying. At one point, a newly-wed couple, beautifully dressed in matching blue and red outfits (the Church’s colours) were invited to stand in front of the whole congregation and regale us with stories of how life had been “on the moon”. It was a really interesting morning, although with each service having two collections, and at one point the pastor calling people up in groups of ‘those giving 20 Ghana cedis’ down to ‘those giving less than one cedi’, we did wonder how anyone less affluent would be able to access it, Jack and I certainly didn’t find it all that easy!

We’ve moved on now to the more northerly parts of Ghana . We stayed for a few days in Bolgatanga, very near to the border with Burkina Faso , and had some trips around. We went one day to a village called Tongo, where we met the chief and climbed the impressive rock formations to their traditional shrines. However, as visitors have to enter the shrine topless, I opted to let Jack explore it on his own. We also had a beautiful day at Sirigu, where we found SWOPA – Sirigu Women’s Organisation of Pottery and Art. The village is heavily decorated with traditional paintings of geometrical shapes and stylized animal likenesses in black, white and brown. We had a go at pottery (which I was rubbish at) and painting. We also walked to some traditional houses, where the architecture was very smooth and circular, and very reminiscent of the pottery that the women produce. We heard how the houses in Sirigu were first built by people who were defending themselves against slave traders. With very small doors and defence walls inside, the houses have to be entered on your belly, so only a friend of the family could make it through without being speared by those waiting inside.

We've now also visited Tamale, and Mole National Park, where we saw elephants! But that's a story for next time. For those of you who didn’t believe their eyes, I DID attend a football match with Jack the other week, and no, I didn’t fall asleep. And although it’s true that 95% of the Ghanaian television we’ve seen has been football matches and football documentaries it’s not true that I’m enjoying it, and rumours about me becoming a fully fledged Aston Villa fan when I get home are entirely unfounded.

Love you all and miss you,

Holly