Friday 14 August 2009

Goodbye Ghana

Thursday 30th July

Today we were filming our Global Mamas mini-documentary, so after meeting at the TV station Barbara and I caught a taxi into town. When we were just around the corner from the Global Mamas shop another taxi decided that looking before pulling out was a little bit too safety conscious for his liking and so crashed into the back of us. Luckily we escaped unscathed.
Eventually we made it to Global Mamas where we met Lynette and proceeded to the office to film our interviews. Global Mamas is an organisation which gives women a much better wage than they would earn elsewhere, with Global Mamas employees earning ten times the average Ghanaian daily wage. The women who work for the organisation are also offered training in areas such as finance and computing to enable them to effectively expand their business. I really enjoyed conducting the interviews and talking to everyone at Global Mamas, and think it was definitely one of my favourite days with Coastal TV. After buying out the Global Mamas shop and briefly venturing to Panafest for some souvenir shopping I returned to the station. After discussing the script for the documentary and planning what we would do tomorrow there wasn't much else to do so I headed off to the police station in an attempt to get hold of my police report.
Naively, I thought that having been told the report would be ready by Monday I would probably be able to collect the report by Thursday, especially as this was a whole week since I had been mugged. How naive I was! It took twenty minutes just for the police to establish that I was actually there as a victim of crime; one of the policemen recognised me from when I had come on a Daily Guide assignment and had tried to take me to the office of the woman I had been meant to interview, despite me clearly stating that I had been there the previous week to report my mugging and was here to collect my report.
After it was finally established that I was there to collect my police report, I then faced the battle of actually getting it. Once I had told them my full name, they figured a report for some one sharing part of my name would be adequate and so I was handed the report of someone called Charlotte Graham. Although surprised that I was not happy with this, they dutifully started to write a new report for a certain Daniel Graham. It was at this point that I started to get a little angry. After a total of two hours at the police station I was given the mobile number of Sgt Senoo, the man who had taken my statement, and told to ring him to find out when I could get the report.
I was feeling pretty pissed off after all of this, so was quite pleased that we had chips for dinner. That evening we watched my pirate DVD of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince; a relaxed night in before my final day of placement.

Friday 31st July

The last day at the station was fairly uneventful, as we just editing the Global Mamas footage and I was recording the voiceover. After several phone calls to various people, (quelle surprise, the number I was given for Sgt. Senoo didn't work) Salem eventually rang me to tell me to go to the station I left the station three and a half hours later, still without my report. Highlights of the long 210 minutes at Central Regional Headquarters included being told that I shouldn't have had an expensive camera if I didn't want it to get stolen, being prepositioned yet again by the delightful Sgt. Senoo and being met with hysterical laughter when I asked for the report to be changed so it was actually spelt correctly. I then rang Salem, who took me to a different police station where he knew the district commissioner, and within 20 minutes I had a police extract with details of all the items that had been stolen. Admittedly the experience had not been without its negatives- the whole time I had been next to the cell so had to talk to the policeman whilst ten prisoners waved and gestured at me- but at least I had something to use for my insurance claim. That evening Salem also presented me with the final police report from the first police station. Here are the 'brief facts' from the police report. All spellings, grammar etc is copied from the actual report:
BRIEF FACTS: Complainant is a British National in Ghana working as a journalist at Coastal Television in Cape Coast with global volunteer projects. On 23 July 2009 at 1200am complainant and her four British nationals were retuning from Oasis Restaurant going to board a vehicle to their residence at Abura a suburb of Cape Coast. On the castle road the complainant had her hand bag stolen containing the above mentioned items stolen by unknown person.
My favourite bit is where I am retuning from Oasis with my nationals.
After leaving the second police station I went back to Coastal TV to say my goodbyes. Whilst I had not originally wanted to work at the TV station, I had ended up really enjoying my time there and was genuinely sad to leave.
I went back to the house to receive my final items from Lydia and say goodbye. I did actually get a bit tearful as I knew that I was unlikely to see her again. We then went out to Oasis to see some African drumming and dancing then went home to bed. Last full day in Cape Coast tomorrow!

Saturday 1st August

I got up early and did most of my packing before everyone else was up, then after having some breakfast we set off for Elmina Castle. Used by the Dutch as a slave castle, our tour was very interesting to start with but ended up being excessively long. In total, our tour took about 90 minutes, which was quite impressive considering it took 15 minutes to walk around the entire castle.
After some purchases in the gift shop we headed to Coconut Grove for what was for me the final time. After an afternoon attempting to get a tan (ultimately I failed) we had the now expected hour's wait for the taxi driver before giving up and getting one of the resort's plush cars back to the house.
The evening was an alcohol-fuelled event at Oasis, at the end of which I discovered that vast quantities of punch+ movement= sick Daniella.

Sunday 2nd August

Quite a few of us woke up feeling rather worse for wear, especially Kirsty and I. Feeling rather delicate we headed off to Hans Cottage. Partly because I had been before, but mainly because I was afraid that if I moved I would either pass out or be violently sick, I decided to sit down whilst the others went crocodile spotting. I almost found it funny that I was experiencing the worst hangover of my life whilst about to embark on a 24 hour journey from Cape Coast to Poole.
After a couple of hours at the house doing last minute packing and lounging around, the taxi arrived to take me to the airport and it was time to say goodbye.
After a mildly terrifying taxi journey to the airport- we often travelled on the wrong side of the road to overtake up to eight cars/minibuses/lorries at a time- we made it to the airport. The taxi driver tried to charge me over the agreed price, which I felt was an appropriate end to my final Ghanaian taxi driver.
After a couple of hours milling around the airport, it was time to board my plane to Heathrow.
Goodbye Ghana!

People in Ghana that I will miss:
  • The other volunteers living in the house who I made friends with over the course of the four weeks, and hope to keep in touch with.
  • Everyone at Coastal TV who made me feel very welcome.
  • Lydia, the amazing seamstress who was definitely the nicest and most genuine person I met in Ghana.
  • Arthur, the only taxi driver that didn't try to either rip me off, come on to me or both.
People in Ghana that I will not miss:
  • Allan, who thought that the British were to blame for everything going wrong in Africa.
  • George, the employee of Global Volunteer Projects that liked to steal our money.
  • The rude woman at the shop by our house who looked at me as though I had just killed her grandmother when I was in fact just buying a bottle of coke.
  • Every employee of Ghana Police.
  • Every taxi driver in Ghana apart from Arthur.
Things about Ghana that I will miss:
  • The sun.
  • The fact that I could get drunk for about £3.
  • Shared taxis into town that cost 40p.
  • The fact that when you walk down a street, not everything is grey.
Things about Ghana that I will not miss:
  • Cold showers.
  • Being constantly covered in a layer of dust.
  • Toilets that don't flush, have no toilet roll or seat and smell like someone has died in them.
  • Having to wait at least an hour for food to arrive. On a good day.
  • Having people shout 'Obruni!' (white man) at me all day, everyday for four and a half weeks. Most of the time also followed by the person asking me for money.
  • The smell of sewage in the streets.
  • Being constantly ripped off by taxi drivers.
  • Food that is total crap.
  • Being harrassed to buy really awful paintings.
  • Being proposed to at least once a day.
  • Being called a racist everytime I turn down a marriage proposal.
And that is the end of my tales of my Ghana adventure.

Au revoir,

Daniella xxx