Water Bags

In Europe the drinking water is either in bottles or from the tap. Here there are bottles and the tap water as well (but only Africans drink from the tap since it is not safe for us foreigners to drink), but here they have something we don’t have ins Switzerland: water bags! A water bag is a square thick plastic bag that has half a liter of water in it!
So how do you drink it? You bite a small whole into the corner of the bag and then drink the water in the bag. It sounds really easy, but it actually really hard to bite a small whole into the bag with your teeth and not spill any water (we have spill water on ourself (and the floor) dozens of times!). The water bags are really cheap (about 3 rappen a piece) and you can find them everywhere! So you are you can always drink fresh (and usually cold) water where ever you are.
However, there is one major problem with the water bags: if your drop or rip them, you have water everywhere! We have accidentally dropped a water bag on the floor, where it then burst like a water balloon. So you have to be very careful not to drop or squash them! You also have to be careful not to spill your water bag once you have opened it (since you cannot close it) . But in a whole, water bags are a really cool and practical way to keep/drink water! Also they are really fun to drink from :-) . We will miss them when we come back to Switzerland!

Cape Coast

On the 1st of March we headed to the ocean to a place called Cape Coast. Since both of us don’t drive here we had to take a bus. There is a service here in Ghana called Intercity STC (bus company). We drove to the bus terminal with a taxi. After we bought our tickets (which were about 8 Sfr for a 4 hour drive!) we got on to a nice airconditioned bus. We drove for about 4 hours until we reached Cape Cost bus terminal. From the bus terminal we took a taxi to the hotel.
The hotel was located in Elmina which is a small fishing village by the sea. Only 25,000 people live in Elmina, but it is the oldest settlement (a village) in Ghana. Also, Elmina was first area of Ghana which was colonized by the Europeans in the year 1421. It was the center for the trade of gold, ivory and later slaves during that time. Under Portuguese rule in 1482 it became the center for slave trade in Ghana. Elmina Castle was where the slave trade took place. It was also a important supply point for explorations. Bartholomeus Diaz and Christopher Columbus both used the castle to stay at on their journeys and for getting new supplies. You can still see and visit the castle’s museum.
But now Elmina is a fishing village. You can buy everything from fish to lobster to squids on the market. This market was extremely busy! The market was packed with people selling, trading and buying fish (also there was A LOT of fish at the market! It smelt great…). The harbor in the lagoon was full of boats going in and out all day and night.
Elmina is also really close to a rain forest national park called Kankum National Park. We did not go there on our trip to Cape Coast, but we heard it is really nice! There you can see elephants, buffalos, wild pigs, antelopes and other African animals if you’re lucky. This park also has a Canopy Walk which is a bridge that is in the tree tops! So you are walking up in the tree tops looking down through the rainforest! Cool! After staying 3 days in Elmina we travelled back to Kumasi. We took the bus (which was an hour late!) back to Kumasi. We got back to our place exhausted after that very busy and long day!

Washing our Clothes by Hand

Back home in Switzerland it’s rare to find a household without a washing machine. Here in Ghana it’s the opposite: it’s rare to find a household with a washing machine. The reason being the cost of the machine itself; however, more importantly it’s more effective to wash out the dirt when washing by hand. The surrounding we live in has a lot of sand and wind, therefore the sand/dirt tends to stick to the clothes like glue. In order to keep the clothes clean and wash out all the sand/dirt, it’s easier to wash the clothes by hand. It’s not as easy though as it might seem. Ibi’s sister Samira showed us how the wash by hand. When she does it looks really easy since she has been doing it for years! But when we tried we struggled at first. However, after practicing it a couple times we are slowly but truly getting the hang of it.
Here, Asia (Ibi’s niece) does the washing for most of the house. It’s quiet impressive watching her do it. She does it fast and effective. She is 18 years old and still goes to school, however, she washes the clothes every Sunday and cooks for the whole house sometimes. It’s admirable how she manages to do all of this, while still going to school.
It takes us a lot longer than her, but we will continue practicing until we will perfect our washing skills!

Different Regions in Ghana

There are 10 regions in Ghana. Regions are similar to a kantons in Switzerland, but they are a lot bigger!
Here are the different regions:
- Upper West Region
- Upper East Region
- Northern Region
- Brong Ahafo Region
- Ashanti Region (Kumasi)
- Eastern Region
- Western Region
- Central Region
- Greater Accra Region
- Volta Region

Fufu

One traditional food that is served throughout the country is fufu. It is a dough type food served with a soup. It is a food that can be found almost everywhere at every chop bar. It is called a chop bar because the way to properly eat fufu is to “chop” it with the thumb and the two forefingers and then place into the mouth and swallow. How is fufu made? Lets first take a look at the ingredients. In the southern parts of Ghana it is commonly made with cassava (roots from a plant found in Africa and South America) and plantain (large banana) while in the north it is made with yam.
Now lets look at how they prepare it. All of the ingredients are peeled and cut into small pieces and then boiled until fully cooked. After that all ingredients are placed into a huge wooden bowl and then pounded with a huge wooden stick until it forms a starchy ball. Next the soup has to be made.
The soup can be made using many different ingredients. The most common ones are tomatoes, garden eggs (aubergines, egg plant) and onions. Also, every soup contains one type of protein. The choices are: fish (fresh or dried), chicken and in special occasions they add dabodabo (duck), goat, cow or even antelope. So fufu can be made in a variety of ways!

The Central Market: buying clothes

Buying clothes at the central market is very different from buying clothes in Switzerland. There are no clothes shops like H&M, C&A or any shop we have in Switzerland! In the Central Market in Kumasi there is only one street to buy clothes from and there is a junction in the middle. And if you stand on the junctions and walk left, you only find place which sell clothes for boys, but if you turn right, you will only find clothes for girls! Also many of the clothes you buy, are not from stores or shops, but by people how have a stand (usually a table) by the side of the road. So every morning they bring all their clothes to sell to their stand and take home all the clothes they did not sell at the end of the day. There are stores as well, but they are usually really small and filled to the top with clothes! And you can find almost everything on the market if you know where to look.
Also there are not fixed prices! Meaning the seller can charge you any price! But if you’re smart you will argue with the seller until you find a price you both agree on (this can take really long sometimes!). For example, I wanted to buy a soccer shirt. The man selling the shirt wanted to charge me 20 cedi (about 16 Sfr.), but I don’t want to pay so much, so after much talking we agreed on a price of 14 cedis (about 11 Sfr.)! But not all sellers want to drop their prices. With some it is easier to bargain with then others! Buying clothes always takes a long time.

Life in Ghana

Ghana does not have winter, spring, summer or fall. Instead they have rainy season and dry season. Meaning, that for one part of year it rains very very much (rainy season) or they have no rain (dry season). Right now, we are in between dry season and rainy season. However, we have so far experienced a few rain storms!
The rain storms are really fun and cool (well, at least we think so!) When it rains here, it really rains hard! The water comes down in buckets! Everything is soaked within a 1 minute. And the rain is warm; so it is like having a really big warm shower! So Alicia and I sometimes just stand in the rain for fun!
But when we have a rain storm, the electricity sometimes (usually) goes out. That means blackout! So no more lights, no TV and no more refrigerator! This is a problem when we want to cook dinner; since we have no lights, we use candlelight! We can still cook with a stove, because we have a gas stove. Cooking by candlelight can be really fun, but its not easy since you can't see very much…so the food we cook during a blackout is usually not very good (too salty fried eggs, burnt potatoes, and overcooked fish ...)…. But at least we have fun!
Rain storms are really fun, but not great when you want to cook!

Teachers at school

There are 5 teachers at the Bosomtwe Community School. They are Madam Patricia, Madam Mercy, Madam Ramatu, Master Amankwah and Master Sarkopie.
Madam Patricia teaches Kindergarten 2 she has been teaching for 3 months. Master Amankwah teaches the 3rd grade student (he is only 20 years old!). He has been teaching for 4 months. He also loves to play soccer and plays for a local team. Both Madam Patricia and Master Amankwah live in the same village.
Madam Ramatu lives in the village right next to school. She walks only 2 minutes to get from her house to school every day! She is teaching the 1st and 2nd grade classes. She has been teaching for 3 years.
Madam Mercy teaches the Kindergarten 1 class. She loves to teach and gets along very well with all the students at school. She has been teaching here for 3 years. She takes the school bus every morning with Master Sarkopie to school.
Master Sarkopie has been teaching for a very long time. He has been teaching at this school for 4 years. He helps teach the 1st and 2nd grade class, but he mainly does the finance and accounting for the school.
Mr. Joshua is the principle of the school. He, with help from Ibi and Maud, founded the school. He has two sons (Emmanuel and Isaac) which attend school here. He loves the school, cares for the children and tries very hard to give the students the best education he can with the resources available.

Soccer Tournament

A few weekends ago there was a soccer tournament held by the local chief between the villages in his district. The chief governs the area of land given to him (he is the head of the ‘Gemeinde’ of this area). He wants the villages to have more contact with each other, so he holds a soccer game every year. This year there were four villages competing. They are called: Behenase, Abidjan Nkwanta, Nnuaso and Abuotem!
The tournament lasted all day! The style the soccer players play is very different from how we play in Switzerland. They play on a dirt field (there is no grass) and the ground is very lose, so they had to be careful not to fall! The teams played really rough and were not afraid to body tackle another player. It did not look very friendly… also some of the players did not wear shoes! They played only in their socks! But the people watching the game were all very happy, friendly and all enjoyed the games very much!
After a hard and tough games at the end of the day, one team (Behenase) had won the tournament! Mr. Amankwah, a teacher at our school, plays for one of the teams (but he could not play that day, because he had to teach). His team came 3rd.

Akwaaba 9th Graders

Last week the 9th graders from ZIS, Ibi and Maud visited our school in Ghana! The children and the teachers at school were very excited (Mr Joshua got a Welcome poster made)! When students and teachers from ZIS came , they brought a lot of school supplies and toys to play with!

The children of BCS wanted to show the students from ZIS how they have school so, first they showed them their morning routine: we had assembly, sang the national Anthem and other songs. In return the 9^th graders them showed us some other their songs they had prepared (such as old McDonald). After Assembly all the children marched to class.

Now the 9^th graders split into 3 group:

Group one: This group helped the workers continue to build the new dinning hall. They mixed cement, dug and shovel, cement the walls and move earth with the wheelbarrows.

Group two: went to teach and play games with the children- They showed the 2^nd and 3^rd graders some games to play (such as Duck Duck Goose and What Time is it Mr. Wolf). Some of the 9^th grade student went to help in the Kindergarten class.

Group three: This group went to see the village which is right next to the school. In the village they got to visit Clements families house and help them cook a meal , they carried water from the water pump, wash clothes by hand. After visiting Clements family, they went to watch basket weaving.

The 9th graders took turned doing each activity. The children at school really enjoyed the time they could spend with the 9^th graders.

During the 9^th graders visit, they also made a mural on the dinning hall wall! All of the children put their hand print on the wall in different color paint. The 9^th graders and the teachers also put their hand prints on the wall!

One evening the 9^th graders played a soccer tournament with the local children! Its was boys against boys and girls against girls! The ZIS Boys won 2:0 (yay! Go ZIS) and the girls tied. The children at school were really happy to be able to play with the students and teachers from ZIS. That evening there was also drums and a bonfire at school.

The students of BCS were sad to see the ZIS students and teachers go, but want to thank them very much for visiting and bring them a lot of toys to play with and school supplies to work with! After the ZIS students and teachers left the children and teachers of BCS prayed for their safe travel home back to Switzerland. They hope to see them all again!

A Day in the Life of Clement

This is Clement. He is 8 years old and is in 3^rd grade . Clements favorite subject is math and he really likes to play soccer.

Clement will show you what he does on a school day:

After getting up in the morning and putting on his school clothes, Clement walks to school.

At school he will talk and hang out with his friends and eat breakfast. This morning he is having rice for breakfast.

When school starts at 8:00, everyone lines up for assembly. First they pray and then sing the Ghana Anthem and other songs. After the singing there are announcement. When these are done, they walk (or sometimes march) to class.

Now Clement and his fellow classmates will have class with their teacher Mr. Amankwah

At 10:15 he has a 30 min break for out door games. Usually they play soccer or play with the hula-hoops

Then it’s back to class!

At 12:30 it is lunchtime! Now everyone lines up in front of the kitchen and receives a bowl of Jollof rice (rice with tomato sauce and fish (its very good! J)). Clement and his fellow student have Jollof rice every day. But sometimes they have other food (like Fufu).

After lunch it is quiets time. After 20 min of quiet time, it is recess! During recess, Clement and his friends usually play soccer. After 30 min of recess, they all return to class.

At 2:30 school is finished. But before everyone can go home, there is another assembly time. All students pray and sing songs. After this most of the children wait for the school bus. But Clement and some of the other students walk home to near by village.

The Children

The children here at the school are really nice and very friendly. The older children are able to speak English (1^st to 3^rd grade) and the smaller children are learning to speak English (KG 1 and KG2). All of the children get along amongst each other. They all play with each other even though they are in different grades. The children are very helpful. For example, they help us sweep away the leaves for the schoolyard in the morning. Some thing that we have noticed is that the children help each other without being asked by anyone! Not even the person they are helping.

The students at the school all have to wear a uniform. The boy’s uniform consists of an orange button shirt and a pair of blue shorts. The girls wear an orange dress with a blue ribbon and a blue collar. Also, most of the girls have really short hair!

The students here love to play the same games that most of you probably do. They love soccer, playing with hula-hoops, tag and throwing and catching balls. They also really like to sing and dance.

One other thing that we noticed, that is very different is that most of the children eat breakfast at school! Before school starts they sit on the benches under the trees and eat their breakfast. Most of the children have porridge or rice for breakfast.

The School

The school we are at is called the Bosomtwe Community School. It is outside of the city. It is in the country side (around the school there are a few houses, some fields and mainly trees.) It takes about 40 min to drive from where we live to school. We take the school bus in the morning. Either the children use the school bus or they walk to school.

The school itself is very small. There are about 80 students in total. The school has 5 different classes: KG 1, KG 2, 1^st grade, 2^nd grade and 3^rd grade. The main school building has only 2 classrooms and one storages room. Since there are only 2 classrooms, 3 of the classes are taught outside on the porch. The porch is used by 1^st , 2^nd (which are combined) and 3^rd grade. The school has 5 teachers and one principle.

There is no electricity at the school. So there are no computers, lights or Smart Boards at the school. So the teachers write on black boards (they are like white boards, just instead of using markers they use chalk). The children use mainly slates, as they don’t have much paper. Slates are like mini black boars, so the children use chalk to write on them. One cool thing about slates is that you can use it, then easily erase them and use them again, just like a white board!

The school building does not have taps for water; instead, there is a water pump. However at the moment the pump doesn’t work, so in order to get water the teachers walk to the near by village to get water and bring it back.

The children usually sit outside in the schoolyard before and after school as well as for recess and lunchtime. The schoolyard has 2 big trees, which have benches around them. For most of the time the students sit on those.

The other school building is the dinning hall, but it is not quiet finished yet. It’s brand new and is very big. This is where the children will have their lunch. The dinning hall will include the kitchen. Currently the kitchen is a small single room hut. At the moment it is the place where cook cooks. She cooks using a really big pot and cooks over a fire. The new dinning hall will also have the bathrooms as well as storage room for supplies.

This new building is nearly finished. Here is the progress so far:

Location

On December 26^th 2009 we received a warm welcome from Ibi at the airport in Accra. On December 27^th we then departed on our journey to Kumasi. Kumasi is the second largest city in Ghana and is the home of Ibi’s family. Kumasi has a population of 5 million people. That is nearly as big as entire Switzerland!

Our first challenge that we faced here was the adjustment to the warm climate. The average temperature at this time in the year is about 30° C (that’s like high summer in Switzerland). We are loving the warmth and enjoying the sun, which shines every day!

We have had the joy to meet Ibi’s family. They are friendly and open people and live a typical African lifestyle. First of all, most of Ibi’s family lives in the same house we live in, not only his mother but also one of his aunts, two of his uncles and his nieces. They live very differently then we do back home. For example, they wash all their clothes by hand and not with a washing machine. Also, Ibi’s family doesn’t cook with a stove, but over a fire (they use coal and wood). One other difference is that there is not always electricity and there is not always water coming out of the tap.

Buying food here is also very different. Kumasi barely has any supermarkets (meaning there are no stores like Migros or Coop). All the food we buy comes from the central market. The central market in Kumasi is the biggest market in all of West Africa. It’s huge and very crowded. On this market you can find everything you want. You can buy everything from DVDs to fresh vegetables to soccer shirts to art to food.