Ghana Trip - 4 - 27th December 2008.

hello.
sorry i haven't updated my blog in a while as I haven't had a chance.

I'm in Accra just now for the weekend to watch the Celtic-Rangers game (in about 2 hours from now). I went out last night, the club we went to was terrible, but anyway....

So we started working as volunteers. Digging holes, cutting grass (with a machete, yes, not using any machines) and other stuff. Also, interacting with local people, learning the language etc.
It has been weird in the past 2 weeks. A lot of (stupid) drama within the group (which we all sorted out like Adults). I sometimes forget that I'm in Ghana, I think I passed the stage of being merry being in a foreign country. To sum up, I've been feeling weird being here, but I'm managing. Last night, me & joshua was talking to this German girl (who happens to be beautiful) who has been here for 9 months. And I've only been here for 3 weeks, wake up jamie.

So... we had our special christmas, or was it. Christmas Eve was a riot. We went to the local church to perform few things. I had to sing 2 songs but the microphone broke, so I had to sing it louder, in front of about 100 or 200 people, with kids talking & grannies falling asleep. Yes...
I managed it as people liked my harmonica! After that we had to do a play, on "Xmas in the UK". I played granma! I had to dress up in a dress, yes, and wore a pair of specs & had a walking stick. About 50 kids were right in front of me, laughing their heads off, so I guess we done well!!!
After that we went to the bar in our village to celebrate. Because it was xmas eve, people were going mental. All the kids were playing with fireworks, throwing it at each other. crazy...
Christmas day was pretty uneventful.... That day I listened to "River" by Joni Mitchell, I think it summed up how i was feeling.

Another thing I learned about my villege.
Anyone who has a scar on their left cheek is a Togolese. (incase you are not sure what that means, Togolese are peopel from Togo). We live right on the border so it's quite interesting.
Another thing I learned about Ghana in general.
People are either the nicest people you have ever met, or they are a scamming bastards, it's true.
Unfoirtunately, most people only earn about 2 or 3 pounds a week, so that leads to them doing anything for money.

Last week in my village, I made 2 little girls cry. I don't know why, probably they've never seen a white person, but they were shitting themselves, crying & running away from me. All the other kids thought that was funny. I didn't think that was funny...

When we arrived in Accra yesterday, the taxi driver tried to charge us 40 cidies (about 20 pounds) for a 10 minute ride. He delibalately went to the wrong place and tried to charge us 20 cidies (10 was what we agreed on). Then he started shouting at one of us. That was pretty scary. We are staying in Osu, posh part of the city. Many asian & chinese people live here. Fancy cars like Mercediez Benz drive by us every 5 minutes and a lot of posh looking people. Theres a posh suparmarket where they sell things that only these people can afford. After that, we were at this bar where this little boy, who looked like he's from morroco, started following me asking me for money. The girl at the bar chased him away with a whip. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, beating or whipping kids is acceptable here, crazy. Anyway, I obviously didn't agree with all this devide between the rich and the poor. I've seen this guy walking around with hardly any clothes, dirty & he looked skinny. And last night, I've seen alot of Ghanaians who are probably Millionaires ($). Jesus....

Anyway, enough of that.
I'm loving every minute of being here. Beautiful people, amazing food & amazing weather.
I wrote 1 song which is probably the best song I've ever written (about what happened to me 2 weeks ago). I've photographed about 600 photos, I think few of them are the best images I've ever taken in my life.

I'm sorry I'm missing the xmas & new year, but... oh well!
Celtic is going to win today, I know it.

jamie