Appreciating and Acclimatising to Ghana

Accra, a Capital City of contrasts
We are still in Accra but due to leave for Lawra tomorrow – sometime. How quickly one slips into the Ghanaian attitude to time. At present we are in the middle of a most refreshing rain storm. For the past hour and a half the heavens have opened and rain lashed down, settling the dust and clearing the air. It is blessedly cool and refreshing after our first week of high temperatures and even higher humidity and gives us a little time to reflect on our past week’s activities and experiences –and boy have they been varied!!

Our first week with VSO in Ghana has concentrated around meeting the VSO staff, local volunteers and gaining first- hand experience of shopping in the local area and markets, trying to find many of the things that we will need for our house in Lawra.
A visit to Makola market by ‘tro-tro’ is an experience that you never forget. It is a huge labyrinth of passages between open and covered stalls selling just about everything you could think of - beans and pulses, dried fish, pigs trotters , garden eggs!, plantain bananas, pot and pans, electrical goods, materials and second-hand clothes But to name a few. Sometimes it is best not to look down to the floor at what you are walking on or stepping over! Hygiene and sanitation are not at their best in the marketplaces. At the opposite end of the scale is Koala supermarket, just round the corner from our hotel on ‘Oxford Street’. There you can get just about anything European – We have succumbed and bought a box of Scots Porage Oats, and stocked up on spices to take with us to Lawra hopefully to enhance our cooking.
Cooking Ghanaian style
We had a very interesting cookery session with Comfort in the VSO office on Saturday morning. She introduced us to preparing and cooking yams, plantain bananas, bean stew and egg stew – all staples of the Ghanaian diet. Fried plantain banana is a particular favourite. The locals call it ‘red-red’ and it is delicious eaten with a black-eyed bean stew. Most of their cooking is done in loads of red palm oil. We will not go hungry. Needless to say regaining a waistline might be more difficult than we anticipated.
Travel by tro-tro is something that we will have to get used to. These are minibuses that travel around the cities and between villages and you get on and off wherever you can! The fares are set and once you know the cost they are a cheap and ‘interesting’ way of getting about. We have made one foray into the town this way. The driver’s assistant continually shouts out something vaguely resembling the destination you want and makes an appropriate gesture with his hand, like ‘circle’ and circles his hand in the air.
The FA Cup-Final with atmosphere!
On Saturday afternoon after our cookery session, we went off to Frankies, a local restaurant/bar on the busy high street, and watched the second half of the Man U -v- Chelsea match on their big screen. Ghanaians are mad about football, the place was packed and with a 50/50 mix of supporters there was a great atmosphere.
Our last bit of luxury
Yesterday, Sunday, along with Marieke, a Dutch volunteer, we decided to go in for a bit of luxury and took a taxi to the Labadi Beach Hotel, just east of Accra – to see how the other half live. It was really good to go for a cooling swim. The local beaches are quite polluted, especially those near to Accra and there is a very strong undertow which makes swimming locally pretty dangerous. We will have to explore further down the coast, near to Cape Coast when we next have some leave.
Sundays are special!
It was bliss to find that on Sundays the traffic is 75% less and travelling much easier. Taxis are still available and toot their horns all the time to attract customers or to tell other drivers to beware. They also drive fast when they manage to find a bit of open road – bit like Romans!! The majority of people go to church and all the ladies get dressed up in their finery - beautiful elegant Ghanaian clothes with headdresses and jewellery. It has made me determined to buy some local materials and have them made up for me, especially when we get to Lawra.
That’s all for now, we now await our 6.30 am start on Tuesday to commence our 14 hour drive north to Lawra, hopefully with an overnight stop, possibly at Wa.

First Steps in Ghana

In the Heat of the Night
Kotoka Airport, Accra, Ghana - as the aeroplane doors opened a blast of hot humid air and heavy rain greeted us. We had at last arrived in Ghana in the rainy season. It felt as if we had had a bucket of hot water thrown over us. 8pm and it was hotter than any day in the UK. Bags were unloaded pretty quickly and we were soon outside the building searching for that comforting sign - VSO. Patience was there to collect us and take us to our accommodation for the next week, Comfort Villa Lodge, a reasonable downtown guest house in the OSU district of Accra. A good night's sleep was required and thankfully our rooms had both ceiling fans and airconditioning. What a luxury - as we were to find out the next day. Power cuts have been frequent over the last three days and without air con the full blast of the heat and humidity - 30 degrees C at 10 o'clock at night!! is pretty sweaty. Under the circumstances we have slept pretty well, with the ceiling fan whirring its way through the night.

All in all we are coping well and enjoying our first few days; we know a little more about our future home in Lawra which we understand to be a quite reasonable house, with some electricity and borehole supplied water - should keep Jenny fit fetching and carrying! (No chance). We also learnt our first few basic greetings in Dagaare, our local language when we get to Lawra.

D-Day minus One

This is the final blog to be sent from home ground.
What a fortnight this has been. I must have climbed the height of Snowdon just going up and down the ladder to the loft, putting things away. Worse than moving house. You have actually got to find a secure home for all the possessions you have amassed over the years. But we did it and on Thursday finally moved out of our house and in with our long-suffering friends Trin and Cemlyn for the remaining few days. We seem to have packed and re-packed our bags on a daily basis finding things to remove and be replaced by fresh ones we want to take. We have now decided "enough is enough"!! both in terms of re-packing and baggage.

Tough times and a little TLC
Strange emotions have been occurring over the past week or so, probably because I have been getting so tired with everything that has had to be done. On Tuesday night, if asked, I would have declared that I wasn't going through with it, that I couldn't leave my family and friends. However, after a good night's sleep and a bit of Trin's (and Nigel's) TLC I was ready once more to face the challenge. There are still very mixed emotions within me. At the same time I am both excited and nervous about the unknown situations soon to face us and the million and one questions yet to be answered.

Penultimate Goodbye
Last night (Friday) we gathered with a few friends for a meal at the local pub, 'The Three Pigeons'.
The evening ended up with a farewell musical rendering to the Horrockses, words kindly penned by Hilary Clare - a four part harmony to the tune of G & S's "Hail Poetry" from 'The Pirates of Penzance'. We apologise to David and Beth for embarrasing them but you can't get a group of Amateur Operatics folk together and not sing at least one song (often out of tune due to the effects of alcohol!!)
We know that we have been fortunate to experience the company and camaraderie of a truly diverse group of friends who have sufficiently enjoyed, endured! and respected each other's whims and idiosynchrosies to enable us to have had some great times together; we hope to rendezvous with as many of you as possible in the non too distant future, in Ghana, or somewhere in Africa!

Final Check-out and Check-in
Most of our goodbyes have now been said. We have checked in with British Airways online and booked our seats to save time and hassle at the airport tomorrow morning. A 'Last Supper' at Judy & John's house tonight before departure day arrives. We fly out from Manchester to Heathrow at 10.00am, then on to Accra at 2.15pm, arriving in Ghana at around 8pm.

I do hope I shall be able to sleep tonight!!!

Our £1000 Fundraising Target Reached!

After a generous donation of £250 from Ifor Williams Trailers Ltd we have finally reached our target of £1000.

Curry and Ceilidh: Kwaheri* and Fundraising

That's what friends are for!

On Saturday April 28th we had a really enjoyable knees up at Llanfair Village Hall dancing to the Angels' Share Ceilidh Band and enjoying curries, conversation and camaraderie to its full. Thanks to everyone for mucking in with the cooking, preparation, washing up, clearing up and fund raising, and for making it a great evening.
You can view a photo album of the evening by clicking on this link: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Horrockses/280407CurryAndCeilidh

You can view the resulting donation to VSO of £500 at: http://www.justgiving.com/nigelandJenny

Well done everyone - what a great bunch of friends and acquaintances, keep in touch after we depart on Sunday May 13th.

* Kwaheri is the Swahili word for Goodbye

SKWID 2007 April 10 -14

A Brilliant Team
We have just completed an intensive 5 day Health and Skills for Working In Development (SKWID)Programme at Harborne Hall in Birmingham; a tough but enjoyable and really useful course with a great crowd of people who are heading to Ghana, China, Namibia, Malawi, Nigeria, Gambia and Thailand. We hope to keep in touch. Jenny also stayed on for an additional days's training for Teacher Trainers.

Ali, Carol, O, Bernie, Tessa, Martina, Scott, Emma, Pete, Stuart, Dorothy, Claire, Nigel, Jenny, Beth, Serita, Kate.

Budding Hell's Angels!

Motorcycle Training for Ghana

Well, much to my amazement we have now both joined the ranks of 'competent' bikers. I use that word advisedly as after the last four traumatic days I have managed to trash a couple of rows of traffic cones, dropped the bike on my leg, nearly run the instructor over, burst into tears countless times with frustration ~ (all this fortunately in the safety of a large car park training area) and eventually, successfully, clocked 190 miles of road biking around the glorious Shropshire and Worcestershire countryside in beautiful sunshine. I must point out that the above frustrations only apply to me, as Nigel had already had some biking experience (from a misspent youth I expect) and picked up the techniques with no problem at all. And I must thank our instructor, Trevor who had infinite patience thoughout the whole of what was to me both a terrifying and amazing experience.

You might be asking why have we suddenly gone totally insane and learned to ride motorbikes at our age - dedication to VSO. The CBT Certificate (Compulsory Basic Training for motorcycle riders) ~ we can't go to Ghana without them as motorbikes are the form of transport provided for us out there. We are both so pleased that this major hurdle is now over.

Biking is certainly not something I would initially have chosen to do, but then in life there are many challenges which seem impossible that you are pushed into and find that you actually can do them if you don't give up at the first hurdle.

Day 1: Initiation - Desperation

Car park - coned off and marked out with a road junction with white lines etc. First half of the morning/day - get to know the bike, safety checks, gears, clutch, throttle, Highway Code etc. Start bike and ride up and down. No problem except I can't turn the corner and go careering out of the coned area!! Ooops. Don't seem to be able to slow down, speed up without behaving like a kangaroo. This is not supposed to be happening.

End of day - Me - worried, frustrated, feeling sick - 'Nigel, do you mind going to Ghana without me!! I can't do this'

Day 2: Frustration - Palpitations

Still in the Car Park a.m. Petrified, still can't do a U turn, can't get from 1st into 2nd gear, demolish the cones (again) and make a complete hash of turning right out of a mock up junction. Need more practice (on everything)

p.m. this can't be right - we're going out of the gate and into the local housing estate. Follow Trevor round in a complete trance, doing all the right things (just) but only because he keeps telling me what to do. 4 times round the estate and we get back to the car park, still in one piece and feeling a little exhilarated that I'm back in one piece, confidence growing.

Day 3: Anticipation - Satisfaction

Arrive at the car park and no cones!! this means business. Off out onto the open road towards Ludlow. Cups of tea en route - now this is more like it. Arrived at our destination - not without minor hiccups on the way but nothing major.

3.00pm Arrive back at the training centre exhausted but feeling much more cheerful having done 90 miles in lovely countryside.

Day 4 - Exhilaration

Another glorious day out in the Shropshire/Worcestershire coutryside (confidence growing - actually reached 60 mph) exploring the Clee hills and as many back country lanes as possible with Trevor finding a few challenges for us like fording a river and vertically steep hills, both up and down!! Lunch on the top of the hills was just glorious.

After 4 days of intensive concentration I was pretty tired and glad when we got back to the training centre at Kidderminster and even more delighted when Trevor pronounced us competent enough to be signed off and ready for the Ghanaian dirt roads that we will no doubt encounter in the very near future.

Thanks Trevor and VSO, another skill under our belts that we never envisaged acquiring at the age of 59/60.

Flights are booked we're on way!

It's confirmed, our flights are booked and we will be leaving Manchester for Accra at 10.00 on Sunday May 13th

It's a Good News Week !

A Cornish Pastiche
It started with us celebrating my first day of a new phase in life (having finished paid employment on Friday March 23rd) by visiting Mike, Ali and Safi, in Cornwall; we also celebrated a new arrival into the world, grandchild number two, Raif, a strapping 11.5lbs boy - wow, poor Ali (mum)! A bit of grandparenting for the next couple of days and then we skidaddle off back to Ruthin and then on to our five days of motorbike training, beginning in Kidderminster and ending in Birmingham. More news when we become certified bikers!

Farewell and Fundraising Evening on April 28th

Curry and Ceilidh in Llanfair Village Hall - Ruthin

As a way of both saying cheerio to our friends and of raising funds for VSO, we are planning a Curry and Ceilidh evening in our local village hall. Friends and acquaintances are invited to come along and enjoy some of the many different curries that some of our gastronomic friends are helping us to prepare (there will be vegge and non-spicy too!) why not come along and enjoy a good evening's dancing and merriment!

We'll be dining at 8.00, dancing 'til late and drinking - 'til we abate! (bring your own tipple - glasses provided!)

'The Angels' Share' have generously offered to lead the Ceilidh at a knock down VSO price!

There is a limited number of tickets @ £10 p.p. available from Nigel & Jenny (all proceeds to VSO) but you'll need to be sharp as demand is high - see you there!

Raffle prizes gratefully received and other fundraising wheezes for the night willingly entertained.

We are preparing to go to Ghana

Destination Ghana
It has been confirmed that we are going to Ghana for 2 years on May 13th (predicted date - subject to flights). We are still going through the VSO processes but it looks as though my role (Nigel) will be to support the managers at the District Education Office in Lawra, working with staff to enable them to manage better; also to identify the continuing professional development needs and develop an appropriate CPD programme with Head teachers in the area . Jenny's role will be to support primary school teachers with Basic Skills and 'phonics' (a way of learning to read). Lawra is in the (Upper Western District of Ghana), right on the border with Burkina Faso, hot and tough, no hills!

On our bikes!
We have just fixed up our motorcycle training: April 2nd - 6th (5 days!). I aim to finish on March 23rd when we will visit my son and daughter in law in Cornwall for the birth of our second grandchild. We then have a further week's VSO training later in April on a 'Skills for Working in Development' programme in Birmingham.

We have a massive amount of preparation to do, thankfully Jenny finished work in December and is handling it all really well - there's no stopping her, she can't wait to go!

Training for Volunteering and Development

Preparing for Volunteering - VSO training for beginners
Four days of intensive training at Harborne Hall in Birmingham, at the end of January, proved to be really useful in a number of respects.

We met a host of other volunteers who were at different stages: some had been on VSO and since returned as Trainers, others were in the final stages of preparing to leave for their placements and were busy arranging their 'motorcycle training' (Cambodia), others, such as ourselves were waiting to receive their first offer of a placement. A good diverse mix of people from all walks of life, ages, shapes and sizes!

A great team of tutors - a class act!
Background information and discussion on areas such as Development, The Cycle of Disadvantage, Debt Crisis, IMF and the World Bank, HIV and AIDS, were cleverly interspersed with role play and games which effectively and practically brought home the immense problems some countries face and the approach VSO takes within these countries ~ heavy stuff!! Well, it could have been had Nicky, Pamela and Emma, all returned volunteers with brilliant group work skills and an equally good sense of humour, not been our tutors for the weekend. They constantly illustrated the various sessions with real life anecdotes from their own and other volunteers' experiences abroad making us both laugh and think at the same time.

Cultural consciousness:
The second part of the weekend revolved around Personal Preparation to help cope with and settle into working in a different culure - all extremely interesting stuff. I just hope I can keep it in sight when I start to panic !!!

We wound down at the end of each day either in the Hall bar or round the corner at The Bell for a well earned drink. We have just a couple of words for our group tutor Nicky - Farah Fawcett Major!! We so nearly won the pub quiz ~ we should have listened to her!

Keeping in touch:
Having swopped email addresses within the group and pleas of 'Keep in touch, we want to know where you are going', we left on a high, feeling that we had the full support of VSO and Harborne Hall as an information and training centre which would fill in the gaps in our skills. For some, HH was beginning to feel like a second home, they were there so often, cramming in the last of their training before going overseas.

Let's hope that our next visit will see us with a country to go to and specific training goals to achieve.

Feeling in Limbo!

Time goes by
Well time is marching on, Jenny finished work at the end of December, I'll continue to soldier on until the end of March. This is a very tricky phase, Jenny just doesn't know what to do with herself, she's had a quick blast at outstanding jobs in the house and she's feeling quite uncertain about what she will be doing on VSO and consequently is in a quandary about what to do to upskill/prepare herself.

Family affairs
We have now started to prepare ourselves for the reality of VSO, hoping that we can go in May and not September. We are getting sorted on house rental arrangements and trying to work out how we will manage our finances and affairs whilst we are away.

We had a wonderful fortnight in Capetown over Xmas with Philip and David (two of our sons) and with my brother and his family; I think our fabulous Capetown experience and the return to the short days and British weather has added to our current sense of frustration and impotence.

The die is cast - but when and where?
We know that the recruitment/matching process doesn't commence properly until February but having made the decision to proceed, having both committed ourselves to giving up our jobs, we just want to get on with it now. We are also keen to get on with some fundraising but we feel that we cannot begin to do that until we know where and when we are going.

VSO: Volunteers and Development Training
We have a VSO training programme (4 days) coming up next week; maybe that will give us the lift we need. It looks like a pretty intensive four days and I am sure that it will re-fix our minds on our intentions and help us to make good use of the period until February when potential placements become available.

Preparations begin with a vengeance

On the VSO front:
We are now officially destined to be volunteers overseas, but that's only the beginning. Last weekend we spent hours obtaining additional passport photos, copies of passports, filling in CV's, personal profiles, competency checklists, personal preference details etc; all to enhance and trigger the process of matching us, with our skills, to the needs of host countries.
We have also booked in on an essential Personal Preparation Programme for four days in January to help us to gain a better understanding of development issues, meet others who have been on VSO and generally sensitise us to the do's and don'ts of volunteering overseas. We are also due to begin extended discussions with our Placement Adviser who will help steer us through the various options until we eventually agree a placement.

On the domestic front:
Preparations begin so what do we do? we start doing all of the the things in the house that we have been promising to do for ourselves for years, just so that we can leave it in good condition for someone else to live in! The lights and flooring in the loft that we have always wanted, probably a new stair carpet, even a new loo seat, which is really taking things a bit too far.
We have also started the inevitable check list of arrangements that will have to be sorted both before we go and taken care of whilst we are away it's amazing how much there is. What do we do with the cars, the furniture etc?

Finishing work and going on holiday:
Most important Jenny finishes work at Ifor Williams Trailers after 5yrs so though we have a diminution in income to look forward to we have the added bonus of Jenny being available to help organise things to smooth our eventual departure. We are also having a treat; we have arranged to meet up with my brother Martin and family and two of our sons and friends in Capetown over Christmas, a special celebration before the dawn of a new era.

It's Good News Week - accepted as Volunteers

Great news, we received confirmation from VSO, on Saturday November 4th, that they would like us to become volunteers overseas. We received the 'volunteers pack' and promptly exchanged our bedtime reading for something much more serious; as Jenny said, it's almost like preparing to die! There is so much to do in the way of arranging one's affairs to operate whilst you are abroad, it's definiteley not for the faint hearted. So at least it's one of many more milestones passed. It's now down to finding out when we can go on the compulsory 'Personal Preparation' training events and to liaising with our VSO link officers to begin to discuss possible placements.

So why are we volunteering?

Second thoughts? - just for a milli-second only!
Two days to go before VSO let us know if they will accept us as volunteers. It's only 5 days since our VSO assessment but it's long enough to make you think again and ask yourself, what are you doing and why are you doing it? The questioning phase lasted only until I went to the hospital today. I was successfully treated for early stage prostate cancer three and a half years ago; today was a routine check and all is well. However, when I saw some of the other patients in the waiting room, grey, gaunt, but bravely cheerful I knew just why we were volunteering. You are only here once - make the most of it!

Getting all philosophical!
I'm not a religious person, and I really respect people who have made the leap of faith to believe; but ever since my first years in school I have questioned the existence of a God. I have generally been disposed to scientific explanations of how we came to be who we are and Charles Darwin, and of all people Bill Bryson, in his brilliant 'a Short History of Nearly Everything' have enabled me to happily come to terms with the fact that my atoms will one day be dispersed into who knows what and at some stage in the future will re-combine with other atoms to create who knows what again! I can only hope that 'it' is another me because I (we) have really enjoyed life thus far; but I don't mind if it's a worm, an elephant, or a rock; this part of existence has been fantastic on its own and I am very grateful!
At this stage I am comfortable with not having a clue as to how the whole shebang came into existence and I am happy to remain as excited and curious as anybody else to receive an explanation, but I think we will be still searching by the time I 'pop off', so here's to the future, for now!
So my brief hospital reminder of how valuable life is, served to reinforce how important it is to me to make the most of what we have whilst we have it.

I am not a material (girl) man and I don't do:
...cars, clothes, swimming (because Jenny is better than me!) and material things generally;

But I do do: the great outdoors, good tennis, mountain tops, trying to sing tenor in the chorus of our local Operatic Society, good friends - they know who they are! (Jenny being my best), three great sons, travel (especially Africa), and social justice within the context of equal opportunity. Which basically accounts for why volunteering overseas is our chosen next pathway. Compared with some other countries people in the UK have all the opportunity that they need, to get on and lead a decent life; not so in much of the developing world and we know, from our several vists to Malawi, that we have skills, experience, and a certain degree of humility and humanity that might enable us to make a difference to the lives of others, should we be invited to volunteer. Phew - that was hard work but I felt that I wanted to say it!

Making the Decision to go on VSO

At 58 (Jenny) and 60 (me - Nigel), a window of opportunity has appeared in our lives; we no longer have dependent parents, our three sons are independent and are of an international and adventurous disposition, and we have the vigour, verve and curiousity to step out into the unknown to see where this next episode in our lives will take us.

We looked up the VSO web site, registered online as potential volunteers, submitted our applications, and after some initial communications we were accepted into the VSO recruitment process.