Linas report from the street children project in Ghana

The arrival in Accra

It was the middle of the night when I landed at Accra airport. This sultry and dirty air came straight at me, so that I realized that I was actually in Africa now. I was picked up at the airport by Game, an employee of the organization, and he took me to the student house, where he assigned me one of the 8 beds in a room.

The orientation program took place over the next two days: Game did a little city tour with me and another one who had also just arrived, where he showed us the most important sights in Accra and told us a bit about the history of Ghana. The day after we were explained something about the culture and geography of the country and we were given some tips for trips.

My accommodation

After completing the program, I moved from the studenthouse to Mama Mina. There were also two other girls with whom I shared a room. At first I didn't like that it was so isolated from all the other volunteers, but in the end I was quite happy with it because Mama Mina had a huge garden that was nice to sit in and the food was good too, sometimes though a bit spicy, but that's part of it. The nice thing was that other young people from Ghana lived on the property with Mama Mina. So you could get in touch with local people of the same age and we could also do something together in the evenings. We also had the opportunity to accompany Mama Mina twice to a party. It was really interesting how, for example, a birthday is celebrated in Ghana.

The work in the street children project

I did the volunteer work in the street children's project right in Mama Mina's garden. My tasks were to take care of the children, to help with the meals and to support the children in learning. There were good and sad moments when I was working on the project, but it all brought me really great and interesting experiences.

The street children project is a kind of mixture of kindergarten and school. There are just over 20 children between the ages of two and eight who play, eat and learn there. The children only have a few toys, but it was nice to see how creatively the children dealt with what little they had. Every day there was a morning circle where they prayed, sang and danced. After breakfast the older children were taught. It was often not easy to help the children with their homework because their concentration dropped very quickly and the children were not really receptive.

Excursions and weekend trips

Since I only had to work in the mornings from Monday to Thursday, I had the opportunity to discover many different regions in Ghana. During the week, I went to the beach with other volunteers in the afternoon, we visited colorful markets, went shopping in a mall or just enjoyed the sun in the garden.

Accra is a very big city, quite modern and always busy. That's why it was very interesting to travel to other regions of Ghana on the weekends. With Trotros, these are small buses, it is quite easy to get from Accra to other parts of the country and if you do not know where to go, a local always came to your aid.
On our first weekend we made a strenuous but beautiful hike through the green landscape of the Volta region to waterfalls. On the other weekends we drove to a beautiful beach, looked at a former slave castle, where we learned a lot about the interesting history of Ghana and walked through the rainforest over suspension bridges. In a national park in the far north of Ghana I saw elephants, monkeys, antelopes and warthogs in the wild. We stayed there in simple mud huts without running water in the middle of nowhere. Before I traveled to Ghana, I could never have imagined getting by with so little, but somehow it was quite interesting and really not bad. The trips gave me the opportunity to get to know the many different sides of Ghana outside of the big city of Accra.

My conclusion

Before my trip to Ghana started, I had many doubts as to whether I wasn't totally overwhelmed in such a foreign country, but I noticed right away in the first week that you get along really well, especially because you get to know a lot from the other volunteers who have been there for a while and the Ghanaians are really very helpful. In Ghana I learned to appreciate the smallest things and to get by with little. There was also frequent water failure, but a bucket shower is not as bad as you would imagine.

I was there for four weeks and the time flew by. It was long enough to gain a lot of experience and impressions, but it wasn't until a few days before my return flight that I had the feeling that I had really arrived.
In any case, I will keep the people, the nature, the everyday life in Ghana and all the other things that I experienced there, in good memory.

Lina's report from the street children's project in Ghana, by Lina F., October 2018