My Impressions
of Ghana
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Angela Solomon: Teaching in Ghana
(General Experiences)
I came to Ghana with no concrete expectations. I think I was focusing
more on the things I was leaving behind rather than the new experiences
I should have been anticipating. This, I see now, was a foolish
attitude because it left me totally unprepared for the smell, sights
and sounds of my home for the next three months in Accra. I knew
it would be hot, I didn't realise how hot. I knew I would see poverty,
but had no idea just how poor some people here are. I knew I would
be welcomed but I didn't expect I'd be welcomed to such an extent.
Luckily Teaching Abroad's network of staff and other volunteers
helped me meet other new arrivals who were just as bewildered as
I was and ten days later into my stay, I felt quite at home. Things
that shocked me a week ago now wash over and leave me almost untouched.
I take for granted the open sewers, street vendors and random arrivals
in the street. I am white and, initially, it was also hard to deal
with the attention white people attract in a largely black community
like Accra. My fellow volunteers and I turn heads in the street,
children hide behind their mothers to stare and people look up from
their work to gawp at the abruni (white person). Street vendors
and taxi drivers either try to fleece us or to get us up the aisle.
In many ways I enjoy the celebrity we attract - a small child even
asked my friend for her autograph! Most people we meet in the street
are examples of the hospitality for which Ghanaians are renowned.
I have never come across such genuine smiles and good wishes from
people I hardly know. The UK seems a harsh place when everyone here
stops strangers to chat in the street, and wishes all and sundry
a "good morning".
Yesterday, I was alone and lost in the bustle of Accra town centre.
It was 4:00pm but still hot and humid. The clasp on my handbag was
broken and I'd been chucked off my first tro tro (bus) after getting
snarled up in stationary traffic, so I tried to attract the attention
of a bus driver, to find out which stop to go to. Everyone was busy
and harassed and my pleas for directions yielded me only the vaguest
point of a finger. I was standing on the edge of the pavement stressed
and confused when a quiet looking man stepped up to me and told
me the way to go. As he repeated back his directions he stopped
me to say, "It's OK, I'll take you there" - he went out of his way
to show me to the bus stop. There I found a self-appointed worker
for the common good, calling out the destinations of the buses as
they arrived.
"Where you going' sister?" He shouted to me."Teshie Nungua" "There
- take a seat", came the grinning reply. I boarded the tro tro (a
dilapidated minibus unlikely to pass a British MOT) and half-way
through my journey, a group of middle aged Ghanaian women dressed
in traditional garb sat down next to me. We spent the journey laughing
raucously together and I arrived home with a new found faith in
humanity and affection for this open minded, open hearted country.
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