Alice Ling - 2014

Finding out about UVO

I first found out about UVO through a careers centre e-mail. I love to travel and experience new cultures so I applied for it straight away. I got through to the phone interview and although Alex was very re-assuring I did have a few concerns, not to mention the lack of running water. However I decided that what doesn’t kill you make you stronger, and that this opportunity was not one to be passed up for the sake of first-world comforts.

Arrival

To say I was nervous upon arrival at Gatwick airport would be an understatement. I had already messed up my flight dates and Christian, the director of UVO, had been waiting for me at Accra airport a day early. These worries proved unfounded as Christian proved extremely understanding, and even bought me Ghanian chocolate to eat on the bus ride to the village. After an 8-hour plane journey and a rather intense 4-hour journey to the village we arrived at Christian’s house in Kwahu-Tafo. When I arrived I was happy to see that there were 2 other volunteers, Mark, another St Andrews student, and Julien, a French volunteer, there to improve his English. At the house I shared a room with Mavis, a 15-year old girl that was one of Christian’s pupils, but lived with the family. She did not have very good English, but it significantly improved throughout the month I was there. On my first day we went to Butuasi falls, and I had my first taste of red-red, the tomato and mackerel sauce that I was to eat most of the days I was there.

The School

The next day I went along to the school and was thrown straight in to teaching. For the first two weeks I taught maths, English and science to all of the classes. I took the children a foam cricket bat and ball, which they loved to play with at break time, as they weren’t allowed football during school hours. After my second week I was allocated my own class, basic 3, whom I was to teach from 8-3 every weekday. Basic 3 were a mixture of ages from 9-15. Basic 3 was comprised of 1 local girl and 9 boys who lived in the hostel, aged between 9 and 14. They had been bought to the hostel because they were very good at football, but they were skipping school so they could play it. At the hostel they were coached and allowed to played football at a high level, in exchange for them attending school every day. Basic 3 were a challenge as the majority of the children had very bad English, and were at the level of learning basic addition and subtraction. Classes lasted 2 hours, which proved a long time to keep children entertained.

Needless to say it was massive relief when Ana, a Croatian volunteer who also fortunately was a teacher, came in my second week and split Basic 3’s teaching with me. Ana taught Science in the morning, then I taught maths after break, and we both taught English in the afternoon. The children were very excitable; Ana even struggled teaching them as they had so much energy! They were all very sweet, and we definitely developed favourites. We are both very proud to say that 9/10 children passed Maths and Science and 8/10 passed English.

Culture

Towards the end of my trip, a couple of families invited us along to their houses, where we learnt how to make traditional Ghanian food. We also went along to the cultural centre and learnt Ghanian dance; Ana even got a chance to teach the kids some Croatian dances in exchange! Just before I left, the children at the cultural centre performed a traditional dance to say goodbye to me, and needless to say, a few tears were shed on my departure from Accra.

Exploring Ghana

During my time at Kwahu-Tafo we went on many trips. The first weekend of my visit Julien, Mark and I went to Elmina, where we stayed on the beach and went to visit Elmina castle, the centre of the slave trade, before spending a night in the jungle at Kakum national park, where we made the mistake of enraging army ants. The second weekend Ana, Julien and I went to Boti falls, then to Lake Volta were we went swimming, took a traditional boat trip and hired a pedalo. Then on my last weekend Julien and I went to Kumasi, where we went to Kejetia market, the largest open market in East Africa, and then on to Lake Bosumtwi, Bomfobiri wildlife reserve, and the Kente weaving town of Bonwire.