I thought it was about time that I wrote my second journal entry so here goes...

Firstly thanks to all of you who have sent me messages, emails and texts etc. They are much appreciated, I'm just sorry I don't have time to reply to you all individually. Believe it or not the prospect of sitting here in the internet cafe sweating profusely in the sweltering heat isn't too appealing as opposed to sitting in a bar with everyone or being at work!

I thought I should give you an idea of my Ghanaian life on a day to day basis now I've properly settled in, the fact that I've been here 11 days is very odd as it seems like much longer! Ok so my life so far... I get up between half 6 and 7 and have breakfast (fried agg, no yolk tho, frankfurter sausage, bread and a cup of tea!) with Anna at about 7.15 then leave for work about half 7. I normally get to the studio at about 8am and then chat with the other presenters and fairly often this is on air. Here even though English is their official language they don't speak it as their first language, they speak Fante which is very very different so sometimes it's quite hard to know what's going on! Last Wednesday they had the Freedom Flame in Cape Coast so we did live coverage of this which was really exciting. The Freedom Flame is a flame which is normally just lit in Accra (the capital) on Independence day (6th March) but as this year Ghana is 50 the flame did a tour of all the regions in Ghana lighting various flames and there were big celebrations and street parties. There are a couple of pictures in the picture section which you may or may not have seen. Yea so some days I am in the studio and some days we go out to do live coverage of events. As from Monday of this week I have started reading the foreign news at 10, I think you are right Dad I should just tell people that its the 10 oclock news! I normally finish work at about 2pm, yes I know this is early but it's actually not compared to the other volunteers who all seem to finish at about 12 and they don't start until 9!

Normally I then go home or come into town to meet people. We always have dinner (quite often rice or yam and then some meat or fish in a sauce, my favourite though is Red Red which is fried plantain cut like chips and a kind of bean stew) about 5 and then get ready to go out with the other volunteers. All the volunteers are really nice and most of them are from the UK. It's good now there are about 4 people who are newer than me so I am no longer the new girl!! We normally go to a spot bar called Tina's or a bar in town which has a dance floor called Oasis, luckily here they do tend to play a fair amount of western music so I can have a good boogie!!

Right that's a bit about my normal routine now let me fill you in on what I've been doing this past week... As I said last Wednesday was busy with the Freedom Flame coverage then Thursday I was in the studio and Friday I went with the progamme director ODK to a town about 2 hours from here called Asikuma to cover a talent show programme.

On Saturday Anna and I took Sarafina (who is 9 and lives with us) and her two cousins swimming to a place called Hans Cottage. They have a swimming pool which surprisingly is quite rare around here. We were trying to teach her how to swim and it kinda half worked, she had fun though so that's all that matters and it was SO good to cool off as I hadn't been swimming since getting here! In the evening I met up with one of the guys from ATL fm to cover a music programme which was happening in town and then went out with all the other volunteers.

Sunday... I went to church!! Yes you did read it correctly, Anna and I went to church with our host family. What an experience that was!! It went on for 3 hours and was SO hot!! To start off with I thought it was going to be really good as there was lots of dancing and singing and I thought actually this is quite cool. Then they started going on about money a lot and you give 'two offerings' which is a donation of any amount but you HAVE to give something, Anna and I gave a pound each time in case you were wondering. They then gave long talks about how much money they needed to make and how much they needed people to give each week etc etc and it actually really annoyed me as I didn't think that was what church was about but it seemed to occupy most of the service to be honest. The only time I felt like saying halleluja (or however you spell it) was when it ended!! It was an experience though and I just wanted to see how they do it here because EVERYONE goes to church and they find it very very strange that I don't and am not religious. At least I can say I went.

In the afternoon we all went to Coconut Grove which was AMAZING! I love it there! Some of the pictures I have on here are from there. It's in Elmina which is about 20 minutes drive from where we are and it's a hotel but you can pay and use the pool and they give you towels etc. The pool was really nice and clean and then we went swimming in the sea which was brill, this week has been full of firsts for me. My first swim in Africa, my first attempt at drinking water out of a sachet (harder than you would think!), my first African sunset etc etc. It's brilliant!

Yesterday was HUGE here as it was Ghana's 50th Birthday!! Everybody was celebrating all day with a big party at a newly built stadium and in the streets, it was crazy and SO busy! It was definitely very lucky for me to be here at this time and experience everything. Everybody had hats, tshirts (I got one!) scarves (yes scarfs in this weather - mental!) flags etc. I was a bit unsure as to what the reception may have been towards white people especially with me wearing the tshirt what with them celebrating their independence from us but it was actually really welcoming and lots of people actually seemed pleased to see us wearing the various tshirts etc. Last night we all went to Oasis as one of the girls is leaving today, got quite drunk and only had 5 hours sleep then had to get up for work today. Everyone else has the day off as it's a bank holiday but not moi.

After work I met up with some of the other volunteers and we went to Cape Castle Fort which was one of the main slave ports during the slave trade time. It was really good and such a sobering experience. They showed us around the dungeons where the salves were kept and the tunnel they used to walk through to get to the ships, it was awful and roughly about 10 metres squared and used to have about 200 slaves in there at once all chained up without any toilet facilities and the tiniest little windows for ventilation. People dying there wasn't uncommon due to the conditions. There is a museum there which gives you a really good insight into what happened and the guide was really good as well.

Today I am going home to write a story on my experience of yesterdays celebrations for ATL which they may or may not read on air - guess it depends how good is it!! Lol! I should go and let you get back to work, uni work or whatever you are all doing in rainy ol' Blighty!! Ha ha! Keep the messages and emails coming, much love as always! xx