Visiting the school in Motigu

Today is what the whole trip was about, and we were all raring to go. The first port of call was the local Plan office just round the corner from our hotel, where we got the opportunity to meet the people who had actually been in charge of running not just our project,but all the other ones in the region. The dedication and commitment shown by everyone was fantastic, and a
presentation from Richard the manager for the Upper West region about all the other types of work that Plan do in the region was fascinating - even being fairly familiar with how they operate, the range of good and innovative work they do seemed mind boggling.

We left Wa along a road that quickly turned into a dirt track, which was a brilliant red against the lush green of the vegetation on either side. This was deceptive however, as there is very little topsoil, so whenever there is a flood, a brush fire or simply not enough rain, the arable soil simply dries up, and any crops planted will wither and die, making nothing other than the most basic of farming impossible, and even then whole communities are sometimes forced to move if their crops fail.

We entered the Motigu school to find all of the students sat out on chairs in the partial shade to meet us, and for all the men in the community to be under one tree, and all the women under another. Some of the female students were doing an awesome welcome dance for us, which involved them doing some complicated shuffle-steps and then charging their hips into one another - it was quite a welcome! We then went to meet the village Chief, Elder and Imam, who welcomed us warmly, despite some confusion about which was which. The women of the village were dressed in beautiful colours and fabrics, and many had some striking blue eye shadow, formed almost into tear drops under their eyes. They seemed very happy to meet us, especially Arielle after she explained that she'd spent the last 4 days trapped with men and was missing the company of women! They even got her dancing with them, which can sometimes be a cause for embarrassment, but she handled herself brilliantly.

We then all sat down and their a group of students made their way towards us singing an incredible song, with one of the girls in particular having a truly staggering voice.

We then had a blessing from the Imam and a round of introductions from Plan, Teneo and the local school, with Adams translating everything that was going on. The speeches were fairly formal, but were nonetheless fascinating. It's not that often that the whole community will get together in one place, so Plan always take the opportunity to reinforce their key messages of the importance of sending youths to school and all the rights they should be entitled to, as well as core messages about hygiene etc. Adams turned out to be a particularly fine public speaker, who was totally captivating even though we didn't understand a single word he was saying.

The next step was to take a look at the actual pre-school block, and for Piers and the Minister For Education for the area to cut the ribbon, opening it officially. You could tell that the thing ths kids were most excited about was finally getting to use the play equipment that had also been provided, but a good proportion were also fascinated by us and our strange skin colour. Once we started high-fiving everyone then the fascination seemed to overwhelm them and we were getting pinched and squeezed to see if we were real. It's the sort of thing you can imagine happening to the original colonialists but I really didn't expect in 2012. I suppose that's one of the wonders of them not having electricity - according to Adams we were almost certainly the first white people they had ever seen.

We started handing out the many, many gifts we had bought along. They were intended for the whole school rather than individuals, so we decided that the best thing was to only hand out a couple of footballs and let the school take care of the rest. They were blown away by how much stuff we'd bought with us, and it was painfully obvious what an enormous difference it would make. The footballs we got from Fair Corp  were particularly in demand, and the school headmaster said that they'd have to be very careful with them, becuase if word gout that Motigu had 50 brand new footballs, other communities would turn up and try to raid them!

We got to spend quite a long time playing with kids - football, a few rounds of 'Heads, Shoulders, Knees & Toes' and, best of all, The Hokey Cokey. You haven't lived until you've done The Hokey Cokey with a hundred or so screaming kids with literally NO cultural understanding of what is happening. It was wonderful.

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Location:Motigu Community, Ghana

The drive from Accra to Wa

We set off from our hotel in Accra at about 06:15 (which was a fair bit later than intended) with our mystery breakfast packed up for us in the hotel. The volume of rush-hour traffic going the other way was pretty staggering and we were glad to be headed in the out of town instead. The road out of the city was pretty poor - very little Tarmac, large potholes, unmarked contra flows and stray goats, that sort of thing, so it felt like it took us an age until we started climbing the hills outside the city. The road up was steep and very winding, and those of us who chose to sample our breakfast were surprised to find it was made up of some smoked salmon, a finger of sweaty cheese, some ham and a few pastries. Eating them probably wasn't wise as it meant we all felt sick as dogs before long.
Luckily by the time we'd got to the first scheduled break most of us were feeling better, and some fresh air did us the power of good. The toilets surprised us all by being in good condition and we set off again full of beans.
The road was now consistently tarmaced and smooth, and our driver showed great skill and patience despite the eccentricities of the other drivers. Our road is one of the main arteries into the interior of the country, so there were often communities grouped along it, allowing you to get quite intimate glimpses of people's lives, if only for a second.

Because of how busy the road is, it is of course important for commerce, and we saw people selling all sorts of things, from sofas and wardrobes to hair extensions and coconuts. The most shocking of all though were the people we saw selling "Bush Meat". I know that monkeys are a traditional food-stuff across Africa, but that still cant prepare you for actually seeing it...

We finally got to our hotel in Wa at about 8pm, which was later than we'd planned and meant we'd spent a full twelve hours cooped up in a vehicle together, but we were still in great spirits and were hugely excited about what the next day would have in store, as we would be visiting the school and were hugely excited.
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Location:Wa, Ghana

The first day in Accra

We woke up to a hotel that seemed far too lavish for Africa but was hugely appreciated nonetheless, and went for breakfast and a chat about what we anated to do that day - luckily we all agreed that the best plan was to have a stroll right down through the city to the beach. After a few wrong turns we headed to a market which turned out to be a real shock. There were people asleep everywhere, taking a siesta in the tropical rain, and the stalls that were open we're selling a baffling array of goods, from fake Premiership tops to pig trotters, aswell as a number of things that we simply couldn't identify, and some tasty looking chillis. Thankfully they also sold umbrellas.

Suitably armed, we made our way past people getting pedicures by the roadside, men weeing in the open sewers next to them and kids playing football everywhere. We were all struck by how unusual it was to walk through areas as poor as these and yet to not only not get hassled, but to get smiles and waves off everyone as you go along. It was unique in my experience and a great indicator of what a fantastic bunch the Ghanaians are.

The beach wasn't as clean or organised as the guide book promised, and in fact there was nowhere to get so much as a bottle of water. Richard had a bit of a kickabout with some kids but we soon decided to head off for lunch to a place where we could have goat stew and grilled chicken, along with mounds of mouth-melting chilli sauce. After we lunch we stocked up on bottled water and snacks for the mammoth drive tomorrow, and headed back to the hotel for a gym and a swim before dinner and bed.
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Location:Accra, Ghana

From Theale to Ghana

So last year the company I work for, Teneo Ltd, decided that, as we had been successful, it was time we gave something back and contributed in a formal way towards something GOOD.

Piers chose Plan International after seeing their good work whilst hiking in Ethiopia, and we were already a technology partner of theirs so it made a great deal of sense. We approached them and asked if they had any projects Teneo could help them with and contribute towards, and they came back with 3 options. We put them out to a vote amongst the Teneo staff, who would be expected to raise 10% of the money necessary to fund the project. We voted overwhelmingly for the Ghana Motigu preschool project, which involves building a new block with three classrooms and some latrines for children aged between 3 and 8, who currently have to take their lessons under a tree, in both the heat of a sub-Saharan summer and the rainy season. Inevitably attendance is low and sickness is high, so this really seemed like somewhere we could have a positive impact.

The staff raised money from a huge variety of activities, including triathlons, long bike rides, IT support, dress-down days and even a benefit gig, and Teneo ltd provided the main bulk of the funding.

The idea was that the CEO Piers Carey would travel to the school with the 2 people who had been most active in fundraising, Jonathan Campbell and Seth Cornwall but unfortunately JC had prior commitments, so instead 2 of the company directors, Richard Jones and James Hall went in his place.

Seth spent a great deal of time liaising with Plan and organising hotels, and also getting together donations of school stationary and equipment/goodies that we would take with us. We even managed to secure a baggage waiver from the lovely people at British Airways so that we could take over an enormous amount of stuff.

The flight to Accra, the capital city of Ghana, was as uneventful ad you could hope for, and we were met at the airport by Arielle and Adams from Plan, who would be our guides, interpreters, advisers and friends over the next week and (hopefully) beyond. They took us to our hotel which was bafflingly luxurious and felt totally out of place, but you can't complain! We had a few drinks and got to know Arielle, but went for a fairly early night, as we knew the next day would be a bit of a culture shock.

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Location:30,000 feet