More Photo's...

Photos...

This is Jo Miles (part owner of Green turtle) back in Ghana with the reason we looked after the place - little Amali Afia Miles. Shes so cute. Completely clucky now - and it's affecting Dave too despite what he says in public!


Me getting into the Ghanaian spirit of holding your baby on the back. This child is not stolen but the small very cute boy who chats along to us in his local language Ewe and we chat in English. Works better than you think.

The husband and other owner of green turlte - Tom and the lovely dog who we fell in love with other the 6 months there Maya. Dave is denying it but think he's really missing playing the sand game and having her given him 100% attention!

Dave's sis - Dianna came to stay which was great. We all had a great time helped along by my birthday celebrations for my 31st. Lots of beer, dancing and generally being idiots - very good fun.

The beach at green turtle. Missing it already as now in the village in the volta region for our last few days. Tan fading already - gutted. Back soon though - big plans for coming back in February to look after the place again and get married on the beach in April!!


Alex also came to stay which was also fun. Generally he didnt have great weather which was a shame. Sorry Al. But had fun anyway. Dave and him had a canoe trip and walks with crazy kids in the village, cigar sessions and generally we all relaced a lot. Until Alex's last few hours trying to get to Accra for his flight which sounded like an interesting journey!

So now we're chiefs! Chief & Mama Dunyo the 1st to be exact

Yes - We're not too sure what happened either but it was brilliant!

The pictures tell you how random the experience was being made development chiefs on our visit back to our village when Dave's folks visited. It was a surprise they had planned for us to thank us for the work done on the IT centre, school roof, library etc. Also, another way for them to help us see ourselves as part of their community and always welcome. It was great and hilarious. The day started at 6am with the women dancing and men setting off very loud gun things carrying knives and drinking strong local gin. Despite the warning of gun sounds, Dave's mum Suzy and I still screamed. Sensitive white folk hey.

The day continued with them bringing us gifts from their farms - yam, pineapples, red oil, rice (from the market actually) etc which was a real touch. We were dressed up as the pictures dictate with new cloth bought for us. We still think we look like we have head injuries with the white head scarves but appreciate the thought. Dave's parents dressed up too and had an ace time. Particularly memorable were the shepp slaughter which they did behind the tree on request, dancing with the community and getting blisters from the chief shoes. Very posh but horrendous for my toots. A very fun day and meant a lot to us as it must have cost the village a fair bit of money for the effort. Oh and apparently we have some land!! Thinking one day of building a house there for visits!

When at the village we also bought more school roof materials to start the replacement of the current one which still has the gaping hole. We plan to go back at the end of June to complete buying so the work can be finished before we head home in October.

Other projects are going ok with the recovery of 2/3rds of the money held up with our UK partner charity Africa Foundation. 6 months later and we have some of the money back - africa time even though in the UK - unique. Currently it is farming season so work is halted until the community can come back to finish the supporting walls and then roof. We are also shortlisted for the british high commission grant to support the project. If we got this, it would complete the whole thing. Exciting stuff.

We continue to seek books for the new library. Suzy and John brought 75 books from the UK with them which is a great start! They managed to get them free for Oxfam when explaining what they wanted them for. Fantastic.

We miss the village but love the new life on the beach too. Having Dave's parents visit was fun and nice to have some homelife here. We look forward to seeing Andy and Nikki coming this Saturday for a couple of week and Alex at the end of the month. Shame its the rainiest month we've had in ghana but still beautiful country so should be fun! Plan to do hikes through rubber plantations, visit the stilt village, waterfall, maybe a monkey santuary and drink shed loads of cocktails at green turtle.

Speaking of which, the owners of green turtle - the lovely Tom and Jo have had a girl - Amali Afia Mile. Congratulations. They are lovely. So pleased all is well.

Best go as are on the weekly visit to town to do shopping and want to get back to the beach soon before the dodgy road to the lodge is a mud slide. Also we have slight hangovers if the truth be told.

Oh - and we are coming back in October!! for a while anyway. Anyone up for a party?? Care to host it at your house that would be great as we'll be skint. Tanned and open minded though from Africa so worth it!

Love to you all, write us a mail - really want to hear from you. Or we can get texts everyday now to 00233 244 893566.

New Address... Green Turtle Lodge, PO Box MC 1258, Takoradi, Ghana

Maria & Dave
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Photo's...

Seaside photos and front garden

Mount Gemi, Ghana's 50th, on the way to work with Maya

Teenage Mutant Ninja Green Turtles

Hello All,

It's been a while, and we have made it to the beach. Our life has changed dramatically from being in the village. There are no more headpans with cement needed to be carried, no more lights out power cuts, and no more cabbage stew every other night! However, there are also no more kids to have a laugh with, no more daily deliveries of 100% fresh fruit and no more of Sinorita's perfect fufu and soup.

On our way down from the Volta Region to the Western Region with Michelle, Maria's old workmate, we stopped off in Accra to stay with Brother Ben. Seeing a rich Ghanaian house was a first for us and it's no wonder everyone wants to go to Accra! Ben is originally from Tsyome but studied in Hungary and now lives in Accra. He built the house we stayed at and is called by the village one of the 'sons of Tsyome'. Being a wealthy son of the village means that whenever he returns home he spends most of his time acting in a kind of godfather way. It is the way that the village can get community money for projects and also so that problems like teenage pregnancies and land disputes are settled, by having a figure of authority in the family to go to. He will then decide what should be done.

One of these issues started about 10 years ago with the birth of Essinam. She was one of the kids we got to know really well, and she lives in the compound we stayed at with Ben's sister Peace. She is a cousin once removed (or something like that) who was the first child to a very young mum. She now has many sisters and brothers, but as far as we could make out she has been left with Peace and is in effect a house servant. She is treated well in that she gets food and goes to school, but she doesn't get a lot of love. Back to the bit where Ben is involved - basically now that a teenager in his family has managed to get up duff, he is going to have the unwanted baby sent to Essinam's family as tit for tat.

It can get a bit complicated.

Arrival at Green Turtle Lodge

We were met with our packs and bags of fast rotting fruit in Takoradi by Tom, the owner of Green Turtle with his wife Jo. We have been here for a few weeks now and have pretty much got the hang of things. The staff like us too (I think) so it's going well. The key thing I was told by Tom is not to let the beers run out. He casually mentioned that he would close the place down if such a catastrophe ever happened. So far so good.

Some of the highlights so far chosen at random and in no particular order...

Tom and Jo's beachfront property as our new home

Acrobat/fireeater and bonfire evening fuelled by my new favorite shooter called 'Mini Guinness', and Maria guzzling more white wine than she’s had for months!

Driving on African dirt roads in a mini van!

Unlimited beach volleyball – shame I’m so bad

Inheriting a small army of ex-pat friends - dinner with Rob and Linda was on top of their 'fort' with Tom Tomatoes their sons pet monkey and then a quick midnight dip in their seawater swimming pool. A bit of a contrast to Tsyome...

Chasing foot long lizards out of the house

Counting a million daily - these fun effects of inflation are soon to change with the new currency coming in

Having our own dog, Maya, a massive dopey German Shepherd

Pre dinner cocktails at Goldie's house, one of the duty managers, with his friends was a mix of beer, peach schnapps and a local favourite spirit called gin bitters - Oh lovely ;-)

The next big event for us is meeting my parents at Accra and going on to show them the projects we have been working on and then some tourist stuff down around here. I am writing this on the laptop outside our house so that I don't have to spend hours in Takoradi's sweatshop internet cafes - so I hope we get some photos up tomorrow when I post this!

As ever, feel free to drop either of us a line if you are interested in visiting,

Take care all
Dave and Meme

Our days at the village are numbered

Hi all, finally blogger is playing the game and I think this message should get to you. Hope I'm not speaking too soon and it all crashes again!

As the title suggests we are preparing for our move to the beach and our new roles as managing the eco-lodge - Green Turtle Lodge. We are looking forward to it, learning something new, beach views every morning and tanning heaven but are really going to miss our village, the people and the project. We intend to stay working on the project which will entail going back every 6 weeks or so to see how the building is going. I'm not too sure if they will miss our carrying mortar on our heads or cracking stone ability as we have a quarter the muscle of Ghanaian men, women and in some cases children. No worries, we know we're here to raise the money and keep people motivated!

As you can see from the above piccie, we don't work all the time. This is us visiting a palm wine tapping site in the bush and having the local drink. I can't believe we like it considering it looks like dirty dish water, possibly gives us the runs (not sure if is actually our cooking, the water, heat or this) and is warm like urine. Nice. It does come from palm trees

A friend from home - Michelle Mew-Sum is currently visiting us for 3 weeks which is great. She is getting used to the way of life - has experienced the palm wine and survived and this morning kind of had an offer of marriage - although it was in the local language Ewe so we're not entirely sure but sure we could have sold her off already. We are heading to Ho Hoe today to see the largest waterfall in Ghana tomorrow which should also be fun. Then, back to the village on the new direct bus link (hurray!) for the last few days before leaving on Tuesday. So far, my favourite quote from Michelle is "burning the used toilet papers is my favourite job". Well its not saying much about the washing up and cooking is it.

This is me washing with our lovely helpers - Patterson and Essinam. They make hand washing more fun but I am currently sitting here in the washed skirt and top with dirty marks on still so not sure on the quality control part. Dave's fault I think as he does the final rinse.

The kids are still very cute and make up a large part of us having fun by watching their favourite game - karate, teaching them how to do dot to dot, ensuring they wash their hands before plunging into the washing up and cooking, watching then dance in the middle of the street, feeding them and watching the whole plate taken within 3 seconds etc etc.

This picture is of us during the funeral hence his and her matching outfits as the family bought us this material to match them. We are with David Sinorita who cooks for us everyday and is lovely. She is next to me holding her sister's baby - aptly names Suzy-Maria after Dave's mum and yours truly. She was born on the same day as Dave's mum's birthday so its perfect.

Talking of Dave's parents - great news. They are coming to visit us at the lodge at the end of April. We are very excited to see them as have missed you all a lot. The village are very keen to meet them and for us to come back to visit.

Remember - an open invite to all who would like some time away on the beach. Our spare room is there so a cheap holiday and you get to live with us on the beach.

I think I should sign off before the connection goes. Before doing so though an update on our projects...

IT centre - looking good with pillars and walls built. Working on the supporting part of the walls - the lintel which entails bending steel, chain-sawing and retrieving wood from the farms, making boxes and filling with mortar and the stones. We have a problem with funding in that our UK charity will not release the 6000 pounds they have of ours. We need free legal advice. Can anyone help please???? This is severely affecting the speed of the work and to be honest mine and Dave's stress levels.

School Roof - good news - all 7 volunteers raised the money needed originally for the replacing of the roof. However, since then we with the village have reevaluated the need and discovered more than just the roof is needed so we need to raise another 500 pounds. Any donations welcome please!! We are appealing also to the relations of the village who have good jobs to help support. We cannot start the building until these funds are raised so we can complete buying the materials. The 1st half of materials were bought by us in Ho and journeyed back with Dave in the back of a pick up. Fun if not a bit dusty and open to the elements!

Library - we have made an application to a UK charity to get books for the new library for the village. We hope for a good reply but in the meantime are appealing to people to send over any used books. Anything in English is good - reference, fiction etc. Currently there is no access for villagers to books and text books are limited.

We are still receiving donations for the village to our DIVOG address which is on the Xmas appeal blog. Please dont hesitate to send anything at all as the village really appreciate it.

So - thats all for now. Next time we post a blog we should be in our new home at the beach - awesome!

Take care, remember - we still need more news from your side. Hope to hear from you soon,
All our love
Maria & Dave
xxx

Funeral and Green Turtle

Hello to all,
Been a while since we have added to this so it's about time. Pics below after you wade through the boring stuff! No cheating!!

Village life - It's just us now. A second group of Danes has been and gone, and now we have an end date for our time in Tsyome too. We will be supporting the projects for a while yet, but just from a little further away on the coast. We spent Xmas at Green Turtle Lodge (www.greenturtlelodge.com) and after a random chat with Tom the owner about his and Jo, his wife's expected baby, we volunteered our services to help them out by managing the lodge while they give birth back home. We are here for charitable purposes after all. So in mid March we'll be moving a day's journey away to learn a new job and spend 5 months with white people on the beach. A little strange as currently we are in a minority of 2 most of the time. But it won't stop us working on the other things we have started, and there are plenty of ways to make ourselves useful in the new place. (We will have a free spare room from April and it's an open invitation for a cheap exotic hol. Food and drink is very very cheap so all are welcome. Bookings required!)

Back to Tsyome: Susie Maria was born on New Year's day to Evelyn (the sister of our ever present culinary support officer Sinorita). My mum was born on the same day a couple of years back and Maria was insistent on being in on the act, hence the striking name... maybe the story is a little different... Maria has just reminded me as I write that I was the insistent one and she was persuaded by the family that they would love to call her Maria. Either way, everyone seems happy about it now!

The computer centre is coming along nicely in spite of some cash flow issues and we are nearly up to roof level. The community are really supporting the project (as with all the other ones too) and have just raised money of their own to buy the fuel to cut the trees (donated by family heads) needed for wood.

The school roof funding is almost complete and we are going to buy most of the materials needed with Tobacco (one of the main elders in the village) in Ho next week. Hopefully we can finish this before we leave. Things can take so long to do with all the annoying little setbacks to deal with that to finish just one project would be a blessed relief! This will be plastered and painted thanks to donations by the rich 'sons of Tsyome' who have made good in Accra.


The photo below of Maria, me and Amalia was taken on the day of Tsiami's (the elder responsible for the IT centre) family funeral for his mother and sister. His sister died a few months ago after a long illness and his mother died about 2 years ago. Funeral customs are very different over here and they can last for over a week if the family is very large and wealthy like Tsiami's. Needless to say, palm wine features heavily and donations of money and food is made by the relatives (goats and yam). The talcum powder thrown over everyone is a symbol of purity and it is oddly all a little festive considering the occasion.

The site and team uniforms (funeral outfits)

Maria and Kids

Happy New Year!

Happy new year! Hope you all had a great xmas and new years celebration. Ours was cool but a little surreal.

We have had a nice long 3 week break from the building site so just been working on stuff behind the scenes - e.g. trying to get more funding for the project, making applications, chasing money etc. Also - I have to admit we have had some relaxing time too having spent just under a week in the South of Ghana at an eco-lodge called Green Turtle Lodge. Compost toilets, designer mud huts and the beach was our christmas. A nice English couple owns the lodge so we even got xmas crackers and a roast dinner of sorts on Christmas day. We were witness to a new method of bbq chicken with beer stuck up it's rear. Sounds strange but they were cooking for 50 people so practical and it tasted great. Funny experience trying to explain crackers and the crappy jokes to a Swedish couple who hadn't seen them before but sure it was a good education.

So - as alluded to, we spent much of our time sunbathing and chilling out. Dave was the energetic one opting for volleyball, football and a small scale body-boarding experience. I on the other hand joined our Danish friend Amalie in trying to obtain the maximum amount of tan in 5 days. This coupled with a rare find of white wine and pringles meant our xmas was complete.

We headed back to our village for new year. The traditional new year is to eat and go to church a lot. We tried our best at both by eating lots of pig which is a new year privilege. The other tradition is for families to slaughter one of their goats which can be hit and miss depending on which part of the animal you eat. We also drank palm wine and beer in a chief party meeting until we felt a little queezy. Levels of alcohol were not to the heights of the good old days thankfully but not sure our kidneys were overjoyed with the hit.

New Years Eve started well as we went to a local drinking spot for a beer with a couple of the elders – Tobacco ad Tsyiame (ala Chief Warrier and Linguist in the chief’s party). At 10pm we headed to church for a couple of hours which included watching a play about a young girl dealing with her family and friends after getting pregnant before finishing school, watching dares which people from the audience had to do. This entailed me doing a local game called Ampe (jumping clapping game) and all whites (Dave, me and Amalie) dancing in front of the congregation. Self-expression here we go! The last 30 minutes were a little hard for us as was preying for the end of 2006 and for a good 2007. Finished after a happy cheer at 12 then in bed asleep by half past. We weren’t too upset with the early night though as was still approx 3 hours after our usual bedtime. We tend to be awake with the light here so early mornings and early to bed.

We are now back to work and really seeing the project develop now. Work this week has consisted of mixing sand, cement and cracked stones, carrying this in pans/bowls on our head to people who throw them down the pillars which are currently bent steel poles with wooden boxes around. Maybe not doing a great job at explaining so will attach pictures on a future blog. We are also learning how to bend steel, carry huge stones or water to assist masons build the walls. We need more funding to be able to reach our target of the shell of the building and roof to be done by the middle of March but are on track chasing old funds raised to get it here from the UK. Following this we will need to raise a lot of money to get the building decked out and completed which we continue to work on which keeps us pretty busy.

Thank you to those who have been able to contribute to the school roof. Dave and I have now reached our personal targets and the group as a whole is doing amazingly well. We plan to start buying the materials in the next couple of weeks for the school and will keep you posted on how it goes. We plan to have all funds needed by the end of Feb to be able to re-roof, plaster and paint the school so will make a large impact in the village. Our aim again is to get this done by mid march again is at all possible but uses the same people who build the IT center who are also full-time farmers and mothers/fathers so pretty busy people.

A potential next project whilst in the village is to see if we can help with their water problem. Of the 6 hand pumps only 1 is working meaning people drink, wash, cook etc with water from a local stream – not the most hygienic. It is still better than next month when we are in the middle of the dry season when villagers will walk 2.5 miles to the next village for water. We just need to fix a large pump which has broken for this not to happen. We are supporting the village on their local efforts. Anyone with any contacts with water companies and think they may be able to help please get in touch!

I best close for now so we can head to the market before we go back in the tro tro (knackered minibus style vehicle seating appox 16 people) to our village. We have the weekend off so plan to collect water and chill in the sun with the 10 or so kids that come and play with us every day. Can’t be bad hey.

Still loving it here but missing you all.

Take care, keep in touch. All our love
Maria (and Dave)
xxx