Visiting Babylon

I will admit to gawping, to standing goggle eyed and slack jawed in amazement, I may even have let out a few feeble squeaks of pleasure as I looked upon the opulence of the Accra Mall. Like a small child at Christmas unable to decide what to open first I rushed from luxury outlet to [...]

Celebrating St Patrick in Navrongo

The most charitable thing that can be said about my dancing is that it’s enthusiastic. A more honest appraisal would describe it as arrhythmic spasms that constitute a risk to myself and anyone within 3 metres.  Last Saturday night saw me posing such a risk to a number of my fellow volunteers who had gathered in [...]

The rains have arrived early

Not that I would have suspected while I was feeling smug yesterday morning, with a clear blue sky and burning hot sun here and England ravaged by a storm, but last night there was a big tropical storm with lots of lightning and torrential rain and it’s been raining continuously (although more lightly) since then. [...]

“This is Africa”

“This is Africa”, sometimes shortened to TIA, is a phrase I hate. It is meant to lessen the shock of what you see here, but I don’t want that shock lessened. When spoken by whites you can almost hear the unspoken “and what did you expect from a bunch of savages?” When used by Africans [...]

My Life

I thought I’d have another go at describing an ordinary day, since the two main reasons I blog are to excuse me from having to write individual emails and letters home and to give potential volunteers an idea of what life is like for a serving volunteer. However I’m not sure how to make this [...]

I am here …

Independence Day

Yesterday (March 6th) was Independence Day here in Ghana and I decided to go and watch the march-past near the cultural centre. The march past lasts all morning and includes representatives of schools, hospitals, the Red Cross, scouts etc as well as the military. Since probably most people in Tamale knew someone marching it seemed [...]

OLPC: I can’t make the numbers add up

I wrote before Christmas about OLPC, but didn’t properly respond to some of the comments. Here are some more thoughts:
From what I’ve read OLPC’s XO PC is a nice bit of kit that could have some educational benefits. But if it is to have any real impact on the lives of the poorest children it needs to [...]