Hello again.
Sorry it’s been so long since the last update…..

Well the big news since the last time we wrote is that President Barack Obama (he’s the new guy in the USA for anyone who knows even less about politics than us!) came to Cape Coast a few weeks ago.

Cape Coast had been buzzing for about a month before the visit and everyone was very excited that the new president would be coming to visit Cape Coast Castle. T-shirts and shirts were printed with his picture on them (alongside the Ghana president). There was also a special celebratory fabric printed with Obama’s picture on it ! Many people were wearing outfits made of it on the day. US and Ghana flags were being sold along with other Obama merchandise and some of the street sellers were even selling ‘Obama’ biscuits ! The castle was painted and generally everywhere was given a spruce up.

We heard on the grape vine that Mr Obama was going to be landing by helicopter in the Dwarves football stadium at 11:00am so we made sure we were there just in time. We were more interested in seeing how excited the local Ghanaians were and experiencing the atmosphere than actually seeing Mr Obama himself (sorry Barack !).

Just in case some of you haven't realized you can click on the pictures opposite to see them a bit bigger. (Sorry the American spelling is especially for Mr Obama).

At 3:00pm (after a long, hot 4 hours of waiting) two huge military helicopters turned up followed shortly afterwards by two more ‘executive’ helicopters, presumably with the man himself in one of them.
During this time one of the trees behind us that many people (several people too many!) were using as a vantage point, made a rather loud cracking sound as the branches broke off and several people made their way rather quickly and unexpectedly back down to ground level.

Shortly after this, a procession of large black 4x4 vehicles with blacked out windows emerged from the football ground and drove away at speed towards the castle.
Sadly no one actually got to see the man himself, at least not from where we were.
The build up of the atmosphere of anticipation was quite something though, and there was so much excitement and cheering when the helicopters finally arrived. Huge crowds had gathered all around the stadium and all along the 2 mile stretch of road to the castle as well as all around the castle. In fact people were standing on roof tops, shelters, church verandas (in fact anywhere high up) to get a view.

All in all, the US President was in Ghana for just under 24 hours and in Cape Coast for less than 3 hours. We’re not sure what this visit will mean for Ghana in the future but we hope it’s worth all the carbon!

Last weekend we headed north out of Cape Coast to Kumasi (the second largest city in Ghana) 4 hours North of Cape Coast. We had wanted to have a weekend away to visit Kusami for a while, but whenever we were free to go the road to that area was flooded. We travelled up to Kumasi, by bus on a variety of new tarmac roads, old tarmac roads, tarmac roads with pot holes, dirt roads with pot holes and just pot holes. Signs of the recent flooding were clear to see.

Kumasi is a very bustling hectic city centred on a huge open air market said to be the biggest in West Africa. As soon as we stepped off the bus it felt like we had been living in some sleepy back water for the last 3 months and now we were in the big city.

We started our Kumasi experience by visiting The Cultural Centre where there is a small interesting museum of historical artefacts. Kumasi is the capital of the ancient Ashanti region and there is a lot of history and several famous legends centred on the area.
We also visited the King’s palace where the Ashanti King still lives. It was nice to see an old building beautifully preserved. Sorry but pictures in the palace were not allowed!

Whilst in Kumasi we met up with our friend Morgan, a student dispensing optician who had been on placement at the eye centre when Vicky first started. Morgan showed us round some more of the sights of Kumasi and took us into the heart of the Kejetia market (which was an experience and a half !) and on a taxi tour of the University campus where he has just finished studying.

Morgan (in the red T-shirt in the foreground) also took us to an ‘optical shop’ within the market which operates from the most compact premises we have ever seen. It’s a dispensing practice only, which is fortunate as to get the standard 6m testing distance the patient would have to sit on the market stall opposite!

We also saw some interesting building practices whilst walking round the city. The men in the picture were moving all the stone up to the first floor. The man at the bottom would throw a head pan full of stone to the first guy on the ladder who would lift it on to his head ready for the second man up to lift it off and place it on his own head and so on. We did pass by again later in the weekend and it was surprising how much progress they had made.

I (Steve !) have now finished at Cape Tech for the summer vacation. Term ended with exams (which we are still to hear the results of) and the usual end of term assembly. As you can see from the photo, like many school assemblies I’ve been to in the past, some of the students were happier to be there than others !

But the school band did their best to liven things up and make it another memorable occasion.

We’ve heard the UK Summer has been a ‘wash out’. Oh dear.
It’s reaching the end of the rainy season here, so lets hope your weather follows the same pattern….