A visit to the dentist

On Monday night a large chunk of a filling fell out of one of my back teeth while I was eating. As a result I found myself wandering around Tamale Teaching Hospital on Tuesday morning looking for the dentist. Now I’m not sure what sort of reputation dentists have in Ghana but Tamale’s hospital has [...]

My (travel) plans

Two weeks today* I’ll reach the respectable age of 40. This won’t be my first birthday abroad, I’ve celebrated the anniversary in America, Australia (my 30th was in Melbourne), Hong Kong, Outer Mongolia and China, but this year I’m aiming for a birthday in the legendary city of Timbuktoo. Next weekend I’ll travel north with [...]

VSO Ghana’s 50th Anniversary National Volunteers Conference

I spent Wednesday to Friday last week attending the VSO Ghana’s 50th Anniversary National Volunteers Conference. For 50 years brave (or misguided?), well meaning souls have been coming to Ghana to try to share their skills with locals. Every two years most of them get together to learn from each other, share experiences, catch up [...]

An interesting view and my response

I just read a great post describing the hordes of volunteers in Ghana here:
Holli’s ramblings: Giving Back – Volunteers flood into Ghana
 
And I tried to respond there but was unable. Instead I’ll say it here and hope Holi will both read it and forgive me.
I wanted to say: 
A great post and one I feel I should [...]

International List

The VSO Ghana National Volunteers Conference finished yesterday.  I’ll try to write it up a bit more later but I was struck by the sheer number of nationalities represented by the volunteers, so as a quick post I thought I’d list the countries that I’ve met VSO volunteers from while I’ve been here:

The Irish Republic
England
Wales
Finland
Italy
India
Uganda
Kenya
The [...]

Seasonal confusion

I realise that we’ve just passed mid-summer but it doesn’t feel like it. Being so close to the equator means that by 7pm it’s pitch black, and being in the middle of the rainy season means that quite often it’s grey and drizzly too. Now I’ve got used to the heat even mid 20s can feel [...]