Here we are!

The bus outside our friends Mike & Marion’s house, Norfolk.

I can’t believe that two months have passed since I last wrote, or actually I can!

We are now well into our bus/motorhome trip around the UK and there is so much to tell; from amazing friends who’ve entertained us at a moments notice (saying we’ll spend a night only to spend a few) to beautiful castles, gorgeous parks (the kids will be experts on playgrounds by the end of it!), white knuckle rides, cricket on the village green, homes of Darwin & Churchill, Nelson’s local and an insight into the history and just how much there is to see and do on this small island.

The children have, of course, adapted well to being back in the UK. We had snow on the first week of our arrival which delighted them, as, if you’d asked them in Ghana what it was that they liked about England they would have said the snow!

I am, though, wondering if they will think a ‘normal’ life of home, school, weekends etc is going to be a bit dull once we settle down. Every day now is a journey of discovery; where we’ll stay, what we’ll do, who we’ll see. It’s not even something we know in advance most days.

Tonight we’re parked at a pub called The Lifeboat Inn, which is in a village called Thornham right on the north coast of Norfolk. We have a great little book called Brit Stops which lists pubs and other places like farms, which are happy to have motorhomes parked up outside for a night, so we’re settling in for the evening, with some good local ale for Aubrey and some rum (we are, after all near the sea) for me. It’s a beautiful area. The only problem with travelling around is that we keep finding places we’d like to live!! Norfolk is now high on the list, with Cornwall, Dorset, Devon, Kent (almost everywhere we’ve been!) Not as flat as I’d been led to believe, Norfolk has beautiful villages, houses and countryside all at prices cheaper than anywhere we’ve been so far. Who knows!

I’m running low on battery so will end here. Many more stories to follow and now that I’m not only back on line but also back in the swing of writing again it shouldn’t be too long until the next instalment.

Only problem is I can’t download my photos to the iPad which is what I’ll mostly be writing on, so photos will be what I can manage to take on this at the moment, until I can work out how I can do it!

And finally…
Barnaby learning how to shoot an air rifle at Mike & Marion’s

Ochina! X

The Final Countdown

Well we are into the final countdown and I have very mixed emotions.  There is so much I will miss about our life here but when I think about it most of it is objective.  It is the subjective reasons that are the ones that are more important and that I remind myself of when I start to wonder if we are doing the right thing.  I know we are, I just think it’s hard to leave a life that we have grown as a family in.  After all the children have all lived most of their lives here.

The party gets started

We had our leaving party at the house last night.  A great friend of ours, Davina, organised it.  Everyone who meant something to us was there, from Ama, who was one of the first Ghanaians to work for Sabre taking care of the volunteers, to some of the workmen who work on building the schools to Christina, the owner of Seatop, to current interns and volunteers here with Sabre, to friends of ours we’ve met since here.

The lovely Ama

It was great fun; we had a barbecue cooking sausage and goat kebabs, palm wine, kelewele (a delicious plantain snack), food (curry, red red), punch and plenty of beers!  The music blared with sounds of Azunto (a very popular song that has a specific dance) as well as other tunes and the fire crackled.  Unbelievably it rained half way through but this didn’t put anyone off.

I must admit though I had mixed emotions during it.  I still can’t really believe that we are leaving for good and I also know how much I’m going to miss it; the sense of community, the friendliness of the Ghanaians, the freedom we get here. My warm evenings of sitting out under the stars with a cool breeze and cooler drink are now numbered.

And finally…..

What’s a party without a little competition?  I think he was just relieved he didn’t have to dance!

Ochina! x

The perfect employee?

Another wonderful letter to Aubrey, nothing changed, omitted or added:

Dear Sir
Application for Job As a driver

I would be very grateful if you could permit me as a driver in your company. The main fact in this Application is all about your advertising in which I heared you are looking for a driver.
I therefore seeking for your permission and your grateful respect to allowed me as a driver in your company.
interm of justification I can say am perfect.
please permit my letter as a driver in your company. I shall be in possition of everything you will askes from me.
I will be very gratful if my letter is considered.

Yours Faithfully
AM

All applications for jobs are considered, no less this one. Who could say no to the ‘perfect’ employee anyway?!

And finally:
Let’s hope he’s not driving this vehicle, which was ‘crabbing’. Looks like they are changing lanes but he was actually going straight. Was exciting to watch!

Ochina! x

Ghana Speak No. 10 – Running

Perhaps the one you least want to get wrong!

Naturally when people told me they had been running or they were running I thought they were obviously in a hurry to get somewhere or do something.

Not the case. No, far from it!

Running here can be used that way however it is also used to mean that you have diarrhoea!

No wonder when I was telling someone how I had been running (to probably catch a child, not for exercise in case you were wondering!), they looked at me both bizarrely and sympathetically!

I was more than a little embarrassed when I found out my mistake! I now phrase what I’m saying very carefully if it involves moving fast at all!

And finally:
Our new outside eating area, where we’ve been enjoying our Sunday brunches. I’ll definitely miss this.

Ochina! x

All Change # 3

Perhaps this is the biggest change of all, certainly for our family.

After over four very busy years here in Ghana we have made the, strangely both difficult and easy, decision to return to the UK.

Difficult because there are great things about being here and easy because it’s also jolly tough.

I’m not sure those who haven’t experienced it can understand how intense it can all be, and compound that by doing everything in the heat and humidity you get here and I’m sometimes surprised that we have survived both as a couple and as a family.

But not straight back into the 9-5 life for us just yet! No, we are off on a ‘tour’ of the UK for a few months in a motorhome/converted bus that we bought (blind) on ebay!

Living here has never been 9-5. More like 5-9. It is constant and never dull. Having said that I’m not sure I’ll miss no water, no light, escaped animals, kids on top of cars, leaking roofs, people walking through my house uninvited, etc.

But I will miss impromptu gatherings, African storms, stargazing at Stumble, sitting around the fire sipping a cold drink with someone playing the guitar, little shops on every street corner/block selling all that you really need, taking the kids with us everywhere, greeting everyone you walk past and the amazing sense of community.

Perhaps living in a motorhome for a bit will be a gentle introduction into being back, as we’ll still have limited water & electricity and we can do lots of stargazing, but we’ll go from what seems like a huge spacious house here to a tiny space to live in thereby making any house in the UK seem larger when we finally move in!

And when is this taking place you may well ask!? Two weeks today! It’s been booked for a couple of months, I’ve just not got around to writing about it. So we’ve not long to pack in as much as possible, both into our time here and into our bags. Already we are in a social whirl (I guess not that much different to normal!). Every night something seems to be happening!

Once back I will still be writing about our time here in Ghana so don’t abandon me just yet as I still have lots to tell! And of course I’ll be writing all about our adventure around the UK on our bus.

Exciting times ahead.

And finally:
A sad farewell to two of our chickens who we gave to Osmanu and William to ‘chop’!

Ochina! x

I could cry!

I hadn’t planned on writing this tonight, but really I could cry.

Not for anything major or serious, sad or tragic. In the great scheme of things this really isn’t a big problem but it just gets to me sometimes!

For the last few weeks we have been suffering from constant ‘light off’ (power cuts) & ‘pipe closed’ (no water) syndrome.

For what seems to be constantly, until today, we’ve had significant periods without electricity. The generator hasn’t been going on so much for one reason or another so we’ve had whole days with no power. Usually up until around 8pm, the other night up until 11.30pm from early afternoon. It can sometimes be quite courteous when it goes off at around 1am to 6am. No light means no fans, no fridge, no freezer, no internet, no oven…. but if I can just stop the kids from opening the fridge and freezer and it didn’t feel like we were sleeping in soup at night it wouldn’t be so much of a problem.

Water has been going on and off for the last month too. You hear all sorts of stories as to why these both happen; power shortages, building new power stations, a broken part of the dam, pre-election fight for votes by giving areas light and water and now having to cut back in other areas. Who knows but all I can say is that we just don’t realise how much we take these things for granted, until we don’t have them.

Today I got up thinking yey, the light is on, the water was on full power yesterday so lets do some washing which has been piling up. I checked the tap in the bathroom, water is running. Get to the kitchen water is off.

So we have had no water since 7am, it is now 9pm and still no water.

We sadly don’t have a reservoir or water tanks to tide us over. We only have a few gerry cans.

What makes it all the worse is that it is over 40 degrees here (105+) at times in the day with humidity at over 90%. You are dripping with sweat (not a nice image, but true), and it is filthy, in that you get dirty here very very quickly. Lets just add children into the mix, one of which is still to register that pants are not nappies, and it can turn into quite an interesting day.

I’m really really hoping that my current habit of shrieking at our children and loosing my patience with them is to do with the fact that it is so hot and I can’t just throw them or myself under a shower to ‘cool’ down.

If we consider what we use water for, it really does become quite stressful:
washing clothes (rinsing underwear!)
cooking
drinking
washing up
wiping surfaces
flushing the loo (six in the house means they can be used quite a bit!)
washing hands

I dare you all to try and put aside a large bucket of water in the morning and only use that all day.

The thing is I know I shouldn’t complain; we are lucky to have water directly to the house. A lot of people in our area and indeed in most of Ghana make do with a stand pipe and collect their water in the morning or evening. They know how to use water carefully, efficiently and without the luxury of flushing toilets, showers, or washing machines.

It’s just that today it got to me – well if I’m honest it gets to me most times the water is off but having it off all day is not good. The tears wanted to come though when at 5pm, yes you got it, the power went off…….

Oh the joy of no light and no water at the same time, so you now have sweat pouring off you but no fans to dry it off!!

So now take your bucket of water and everything you need to do for the day and a few children and shut yourselves in a sauna with a lot of dirty sand on the floor. And don’t forget to have fun!

And finally
I guess this is one way to wash, when of course the water is on…

Ochina! x

Back in time # 2

There was once a time when we had a lot of vehicles parked outside the office/house.

Over time (since our arrival in December 2008) I think I can remember the following, although not all these were there at the same time, nor necessarily in the right order! I’ve highlighted the ones that actually belonged to us, the rest were Sabre’s:

Our original Landrover (bought in Ghana by us as our first vehicle)
Mercedes medium size bus (driven down to Ghana with Aubrey & Kojo the dog)
Bedford truck (driven from UK in convoy with above bus) with donations inside
Green Landrover – donation
White Landrover – donation
Overland Truck – driven from UK
Overland Truck – driven from Morocco
Small Mercedes bus – driven from UK
Jesus One bus – the one that (literally) crushed Aubrey
DAF truck modified to be an overland truck
Lea-Francis – classic car owned by Aubrey’s father and driven down from the UK in a rally – left with us to use for a year!
Ford Ecoline bus
Motorbike
Moped x 3
Nissan ‘trotro’ bus
Renault Scenic – our second car bought to accommodate four children!
Landrover discovery – our spare/investment car
Toyota Land Cruiser – our third and final car
Ford Mondeo Estate

The boys were climbing on top of the Landrovers when Barnaby was still in nappies, much to my distress – we didn’t have a fence/gate/wall then and I would constantly be running outside to get them down! Aubrey, of course, loved this!

They didn’t take long to graduate to climbing the trucks that Sabre had.

Here’s a picture of one of the overland trucks that had not long arrived from it’s journey. We’d love these trucks coming with their mix of punters, especially if from the UK as I’d usually managed to pop a few things on board to be driven down; tinned tomatoes, tinned spaghetti and baked beans, a bike given to the kids by a friend of mine (only to be given away on the journey down by the people on the truck, much to my irritation!) and our hammock, to name but a few.

Aubrey and Steve Cole with the newly arrived truck from Morocco

Finlay 4 & Barnaby 3 doing some mechanics on the same truck

I found a picture of a small line up of vehicles from when we lived in the old house. Also a picture of Aubrey on the motorbike with Finlay, and yes they were going somewhere (up the dirt track behind the house I hasten to add!).

July 2010

July 2010

Currently the vehicles sitting outside are:
Our Land Cruiser
Mercedes overland truck
DAF truck
Our Landrover Discovery
Ford Mondeo

One of the Partner Ghana Teams enjoying the DAF Truck (box on & still white, currently box off and painted green!).

Sounds a lot but I can honestly say it feels like hardly any given what there used to be!

And finally:

Our original Landrover, parked at Stumble Inn when it was being built. The land it is parked on has now all gone as sand ‘winners’ (people/trucks stealing sand – illegal here) have taken so much sand from along the beach that it is eroding at an alarming rate. Very sad as it also took pretty much all the coconut trees you see near the Landy too.

Ochina! x