Hello again !

Well, we’ve ventured out of Cape Coast a couple of times over the last few weeks, exploring further a field. A couple of weeks ago we travelled along the coast road to the twin cities of Takoradi and Sekondi in the Western region.
We caught a ‘Tro-tro’ (a small minibus) which took around 1 ½ hours.
Takoradi is a very busy place with a large market and industrial port. The most noteable feature that we discovered there was the old colonial railway station.

Sekondi in contrast is a small fishing town (rarely visited by tourists, we understand). We visited a small fort (Fort Orange) and had a guided tour by one of the family who now live in there. The fort now contains a solar powered lighthouse which we were able to climb up inside and have a great view of the surroundings and the nearby naval base.

The previous weekend we travelled to the 'Baobab Children’s Foundation' which is a project set up for children in the local area there who, for one reason or another, would otherwise not be able to attend school. In addition to schooling, the foundation provides training in various crafts and practical skills, and has a number of it’s own agricultural projects. There is also accommodation for around half of the 50 students there, whilst the other half are day students. The project was set up by a German lady who runs it along with a number of volunteers.

Steve was particularly interested in the environmentally sustainable projects which they have developed including landcrete bricks (mud bricks), solar panels generating power for the dormitories and the solar cookers.
The website if you want to see more about it is www.baobab-children-foundation.de

Last Sunday we went to see the Cape Coast football team (‘The Dwarves’) play at the
Local Cape Coast stadium. Ghanaians are absolutely mad about their football and all support English premiership teams (well either Man Utd. or Chelsea anyway).

The Dwarves were playing in a division one league match against a relatively local team from Winneba which we think are sponsored by Fianord (spelling?) a dutch team. It was a good game and the Dwarves won 2:0. It was a note-able occasion as it was the first football match that Vicky had ever been to !
The stand was totally packed with spectators, the only other women were there selling goods (snacks, water sachets etc) from containers on their heads. So all in all it was an interesting experience !

We are loving the ‘taking each day as it comes’ way of life, it’s so refreshing.

(However, it makes things more than a little tricky when you don't have chance to plan lessons!)

That’s not to say it’s all easy here! There are times of frustration when things don’t go quite as we hope and relatively simple tasks can become unbelievably complicated and time-consuming !
A classic example being getting our visas extended for the next 3 months. It was a saga to say the least (involving 3 trips to the immigration office, countless phone-calls, a lot of waiting around and a bit of a palava to get copies of the appropriate letters !).


Update from Steve
In the first year at Cape Tech all students have to take 5 core subjects ; English, Maths, Integrated Science, Social Studies and Information Communication Technology.

As one of the house activities they have quizzes in English, Maths and Science. This term it was time for the English quiz. I went along to the quiz dreading that I might be asked to verify an answer on a subject that I am not particularly confident in. However, I think most of the school actually forgot that they had a real English person in the school (strange really as I stick out like a sore thumb!). So I wasn’t called upon at all and just kept as low a profile as possible (sitting on the front row!)

This week I taught a Building Construction theory class to a group of second years. The subject of the lesson was brick and blockwork. As nice sticky red clay is a resource that the school is not short of (this is now the rainy season and we are up to our ankles in it!) we made a couple of moulds from some wood and the students got to get their hands a bit mucky moulding some clay bricks. We hope to fire these once they have dried out a bit more. Then we left the school and went to a nearby builders yard to see how blocks were being made.

Thank you to all those people who have offered to send packages of pencils, rubbers etc. out to the school. All of these things are actually easily available here in Cape Coast, so there’s probably a number of different reasons why not all the students have them (or at least bring them to lessons !). I am finding ways round this, but I need to be careful because there are difficult issues regarding the foreigner turning up and giving out equipment.

Update from Vicky
There are now 6 Optometry students on placement in the eye-centre over their summer vacation. I am enjoying working with them and am finding it really interesting chatting with them and learning from them about their life experiences.
For a change from ‘refracting’ (!) before the students started I spent some time with the visiting Ophthalmologist examining the patients who had had cataract surgery the previous day. The eyes looked quite a mess compared to those that I am used to seeing 4-6 weeks post-op!
Unfortunately the visual outcome for many patients wasn’t as good as it could have been because the equipment which is used to measure the axial length of the eye is broken, therefore the surgeon wasn’t able to calculate the exact power of the required lens implant. Hopefully it will be back in working order soon.

Sadly we found out the other day that the smallest one of the four puppies which we unofficially named ‘Anan’ (fourth born) has died. He seemed to be doing well despite being the smallest of the litter but we think the recent wet and cooler weather weakened him. The other three ‘Kor, Ebien and Ebiasa’ (guess what their names are in English?!) are all getting bigger and we regularly see them following Parkwasi (the ‘houseboy’ of the owners here) around the garden.

Well, that’s all for now. We’ll be back again for another update in a few weeks ….

Guess you’ll be enjoying the rainy season too in the UK now it’s Wimbledon time again!

Where is the time going ?

Wow, the weeks are really flying by, it only feels like a couple of days since our last ‘posting’ …!

So, what’s new ….?

Steve’s update :
I am starting to finding my feet more at ‘Cape Tech’ (Cape Coast Technical Institute) where I have started teaching lessons in ‘Design and Making’ and ‘Bench Fitting’.
This is a bit of a challenge as the school has very few resources and so most of the teaching (even some practical skills) end up being taught as theory on the board rather than practically. Many of the students have only a note book and pen (not even a pencil). This makes drawing diagrams etc in class tricky as two or three students end up taking it in turns to use a pencil.

Cape Tech is like a tertiary college (or what ever they call them now in the UK!). Generally students start between the age of 16-18 and are there for 3-4 years. However, in Ghana if a student fails a school year or can’t afford the tuition fees then they just re-sit the year or wait until they can afford to continue (or sadly drop out). This can mean that there are very mixed ages within classes and some students can appear to be older than their teachers!

Corporal punishment in schools is still very common here even for relatively minor issues such as having dirty finger nails or not knowing answers to teachers (sometimes rather baffling) questions. It felt incredibly uncomfortable seeing this although probably not nearly as much as the students being punished.

During the wet bank holiday Monday (some things never change!) I set up my ‘office’ in ‘Atlantic View’, the gazebo in the grounds of where we are staying. The strip of blue just visible in the photo just beyond the line of palm trees is the Atlantic Ocean.
I have started to get involved in a project for the local Mother’s Union who are planning to build a counselling centre for young mothers. This is one of the projects that Anne (the CMS volunteer that we are living with) has been working on. I have been looking at the costings for the project and trying to help move it forwards. The foundations were poured 8 years ago but there has been little physical progress since. Here in Ghana people don’t tend to build buildings from start to finish in one go, instead they build bit by bit as finances become available, sometimes over long periods of time.

The bank holiday rain was actually rather welcome

(for once!), as we were able to fill up our water containers for washing, which were getting a little low. We are now in the wet season here so we can expect many more tropical showers and storms over the next few months, and can enjoy some cooler days.

Vicky’s update
I am enjoying work at the Christian Eye Centre, especially since I have been involved ‘supervising’ some Optometry students (from the local university) that have started working there during their summer vacation.
Last week a small team of us from the Eye Centre carried out an ‘outreach’ clinic at a local radio station. Basically we took out equipment so we could test the eyes of the staff there. All was going well (despite pretty difficult testing conditions in a pitch black small room full of recording equipment) until, with no notice at all, I was taken off to another room with an Ophthalmic nurse and another member of staff to be interviewed in a radio broadcast !
Thankfully I didn’t say anything too ridiculous, neither did I get so nervous that I couldn’t speak, but afterwards felt that I could have answered the questions so much better than I did. Still, it was certainly an experience !


We have been to services at another two different churches, first the University Inter-denominational Church (at Cape Coast University which is very close to where we live) and last week at the Calvary Charismatic Centre. Both services were very lively with some familiar modern worship songs and worship bands and were attended by lots of students.

Just before we arrived in Cape Coast the guard dog at the house in the grounds of which we are staying, had four puppies. At first it looked like they may not all survive but much to our surprise even the weakest of them is now feeding well and looking much healthier. Unfortunately the mother was not in a good way and has had to be put down by the vet, now that the puppies have been weaned. Animals are not kept as ‘pets’ in quite the same way in Ghana. Man’s best friend is only his best friend whilst keeping a watch for intruders, and chickens and goats are kept purely as ingredients!

We’ve heard that Summer has arrived in the UK ! We trust that the BBQs are all out and that you are all enjoying the sun …..