Wedding bells Ghana style

COUNTRY: Ghana
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching & Orphanage work
WRITTEN BY: Lachlan Walker

Hello once again from Ghana! It's hard to believe that we have almost been here for 1 month already, time is certainly flying by! A lot has happened since the last blog update so I'll do my best to fit everything in. The past two weeks have been full of ups and downs, with most of us experiencing a little bit of home sickness (and for some of us some actual sickness). However, the good times we have had have still far outweighed the few negatives we have experienced, and we are all still having a ball!

We have now all been at our placements for 2 months and we are slowly getting into a day to day routine and figuring out what works and what doesn't when it comes to teaching the children. Katie and I each have our own class at the orphanage, with Katie teaching the younger children (6-9 years) and myself teaching the older children (10+ years). It has been hard at times, especially in the first week trying to keep control of the class, however the kids are now beginning to realise how we like our classes to run and what is and isn't allowed. We have quickly developed some pretty close bonds with a lot of the children and have found it extremely rewarding to be able to sit down with them one on one to help them read, write, or just generally have a chat with them. Katie was lucky enough to be the first of us to be peed on by once of the younger children, however it's hard to be angry when they are so adorable, and I'm sure over the course of the next couple of months she wont be the only one.


Lucy and Somerset are  teaching at a primary school owned by the church of the Reverend (Their host father) they are living with. Their first week they spent teaching a class of about 12 10 year old's because the teacher that usually takes the class was away. They found it quite challenging at first, as the children's English is not really at the level it should be and they were all constantly trying to seek attention, however, after a few days, much like Katie and myself, they started to learn how to control the children and to know what each one of them was capable of and who needed a little extra attention. Unlike Katie and myself, Lucy and Summer are following a syllabus, which has provided a few funny moments, an example of which was when they were trying to teach religious and moral education and asked the question, "According to Christians, who created the world?" and the children just shouted out the first English words that came to their minds (e.g. "Banana! Water!") This week they taught the equivalent of year 6 students because their teacher was away, which they found a lot easier as their English was at a higher level and they could actually understand a lot easier what it was they were saying.

We have already had some amazing weekend adventures together, the first of which seen us Travel to Kokrobite and stay at a place called Big Milly's Backyard (The same place we seen in our orientation week). It was great to have our first warm shower in 2 weeks, relax on the beach in the sun and enjoy some western food (The cinnamon toast was amazing!) This weekend Lucy and Somerset stayed in Swedru for a wedding, while Katie and myself traveled to Cape Coast and Kakum national park with some German volunteers we met in our orientation week. 

Somerset and Lucy's Ghanaian wedding experience started off at 7am on Saturday morning, being invited to the Private marital rights ceremony. They were warned that it was basically just going to be the close family members in a room, and then the bride and groom would show up and be officially married. However they soon learnt that it was a tad bigger... For starters, there were about 80 "family members" crammed into a room of the Bride's house around a table with gifts on it. Although they felt honoured to be there, Lucy felt a  bit bad when the bride's mother gave up her seat for me (a total random) in the front row. So weddings in Ghana seem to place emphasis on the joining of two families, rather than 2 individuals. For about an hour, the groom's family gave gifts of money and Schnapps (what the?) to the Bride's family members. After this ceremony, came the actual wedding in the church which, despite saying "10 am Sharp|on the program, didn't start until 12 midday when the bride turned up (all we can say is... classic Ghana time...) But it was just like church: a lot A LOT of singing and dancing. All in all, a pretty cool experience and really interesting! 
 
Katie and myself spent our first night at Oasis, a resort/bar right on the beach, where we once again enjoyed some western food and also had our first taste of Ghanaian nightlife. Our second night was spent in a tree house (yes a tree house) 20m off the ground in the middle of the jungle, where upon arriving we were confronted by a tarantula which seen Katie quite literally nearly throw herself out of the 20m high tree house to the forest floor below. That night we went on a walk through the national park which would have been great had we not been attacked by biting ants on 4 separate occasions. The following day seen us travel to Hans Cottage where we took the chance to pat a crocodile (Don't worry parents, we survived with all limbs intact) before finally heading home to Swedru.

Anyway, I'm once again running out of time to write, thanks for reading and until next time, good bye!