Wow. I have made it! Past the madness that carried me here, over the terrifying threshold of mastering the moto, through the weeks of cultural confusion and fuzzy heat-induced light-headedness, and beyond the 'What am I doing? Why on earth am I here?' bouts of confusion, I can happily say I am well and truly settled in. Hurrah! So I am celebrating.... By cleaning! Now, this is not how I planned to spend my Saturday...but when I got up this morning some...

I am just back from what has got to be the highlight of the week - distributing toys to two World Vision schools. My 5 year old nephew had recently asked me in an email "Aunty Emma Do they go to a school? What kind of equipment is there? Because in my school there are lots of learning toys like magnets, bricks, and toy dinosaurs." My response was to tell him... "Some of the children do go to school. They go after all the chores they have to do such as ...

Whenever I get bored at our offices (which can be very work-focused and stressed sometimes, or can be virtually dead with no one around) I sometimes take trips over to see some colleagues at the GES - the offices for the Ghana Education Service in this district. They may not always be seen to be working quite as hard as their INGO counterparts, but they certainly know how to have fun and a giggle. One of the first times I went to see the Gender Officer there, I...

Sunday evening reflections over what life is like since John and Bev left - I miss them dearly, but I have not had time to even worry that I might get even a little bit lonely here...in true Ghanaian style there is really not much chance of that! Since it became known that I was living alone in the house, I have had a never ending stream of visitors; it seems everyone and their dog wants to come and greet me and be friends and 'talk a while'! As soon as one lea...

I've had such a lovely end to the week this week, yesterday I even had one of those moments where it once again dawned on me ... 'I live in West Africa!'. After I wrote my last blog on Friday, some really exciting things came up at work that I have been asked to work on, including supporting some school appraisal meetings where advocacy is key, and supporting World Vision's programmes on raising awareness of child rights and educating communities on the in...