Mole National Park

Written on the 24th of July
Summary:
I've had an awesome week! All my kids have done their exams and 11 out of 12 got over 70% in them. The teacher I taught alongside with for a while had been ill for a week so I did loads of revision with them and the teacher saw the results and she was absolutely shocked! She said it was because of me that they got these as she didn't think all of them would pass and with such high grades, so I was so happy! They were so grateful as well, so it definitely made my week amazing! We went to Mole National Park on Friday till Sunday. We went on a walking safari and went canoeing. On the walking safari, we got to see elephants, baboons and many other animals. It was surreal to be standing about 30 metres away from them. There were a lot of dutch people at the resort we stayed at and everyone was white there, which felt really strange as we're used to being surrounded by Ghanaians. Monday and Tuesday will be normal work days for us and will be Matt, Anna and Frank’s last two days in Tamale. On Wednesday us four will leave to Cape Coast to enjoy the coast and do some excursions there and lie on the beach. Anna will be staying until Friday, Frank until Saturday and Matt and I until Sunday. Can’t wait!

Detailed:

I’ve had such a good week! On Wednesday and Thursday the girls from my class had to do their exams, which was 45 minutes each day, maths on Wednesday and English on Thursday. I knew what was in the exams so I prepared them to the best of my ability. Went over and over and over things at least 5 times as they don’t have time to study when they’re at home. They probably thought at times I was going over the top a bit when I kept asking them to do it again, but it helped! As when I marked the papers, 11 out of 12 girls passed their exams all having over 70%! I was so proud of them. One of the girls got 27%,but I found out afterwards that she’s just in the wrong class as she’s 4 years younger than the other girls. Their teacher that I usually teach alongside with had been ill for a week, so I was teaching them every morning. When I showed her the results on Friday, she couldn’t believe it! She was amazed by the results and she says they got me to thank for it. That was so nice to hear! So this means that all those 11 girls get to go to state school, so a school where they’ll actually get a qualification! However, education costs money in Ghana and only 4 of those girls have sponsors. So please please please if anyone is interested in sponsoring a girl, let me know! It’s about 80 pounds a year.
After school, I walked home with some of the girls from Maltiti School and one of them was in my class, Nihad, the girl that had written the letter. She said she needed to buy something from the shop but that I could continue walking. She ended up catching me up and gave me a lollipop! This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it really is! Kids never have any or much money and so the little money she had she spent on me, it was so sweet!
For Friday we needed bus tickets for Mole National Park and the boys from Fred’s house said that the best way to buy them is that they buy them at like 5am on Friday morning. I reminded Bwocke again on Thursday night and his reply was: ‘Yeah if I wake up on time...’ That really frustrated me as it’s a big deal for us because if we don’t have bus tickets we’re not going, so I said I’d call him to wake him up. At 4.30am I called him and he woke up, but 10 minutes later I got a phone call saying that he didn’t have fuel, so we all needed to pay him 1 cedi. I got so annoyed as fuel is probably about 1 cedi to get where he needed to get and because he was obviously unprepared to get those tickets. He then also made me walk over to Fred’s house at that time to give him that money. I argued with him for about 10 minutes about why he needed 8 cedis and he never gave a good reason, so I ended up pressing it into his hand while saying ‘There you go, but I’m seriously pissed off’. It just infuriated me as he doesn’t need that money for going over there and Ghanaian people always try and get more money off us. The next morning he returned with the tickets and the 8 cedis back as he obviously ended up feeling bad.
We went to school that morning and after that grabbed a taxi to the bus station. The taxi to town is 50 peswas, which is 20p, so absolutely nothing! When we got to the bus station there were suddenly white people everywhere! They were all going to Mole National Park. We hadn’t seen that many white people together in so long and at least half of them were Dutch. At the bus station there were Ghanaians everywhere selling literally anything you could possibly need. They all carry it on their head and just walk around waiting for people to come to them. You could buy biscuits, bread, fish, chicken, extension leads, perfume etc. The bus ended up being 1.5 hours late, which is apparently not a lot at all as Matt, one of the volunteers, went two weeks ago and waited for 4 hours. The bus had 60 seats which were all filled up and about another 20 people standing. This meant that those people standing, stood for 4 hours! The bus cost us 4 cedis (1.60 pounds), once again absolutely no money for a trip that long. All the Ghanaian people on the bus got off about half an hour before us and we ended up being with only white people when we arrived. We got there at about 7pm and walked into the restaurant and about 100 white people were sat there having dinner. That just felt so strange as there was not a Ghanaian to be seen anywhere except for the waiters. The pool closed at 7pm, but we all really wanted to go for a swim. We ended up paying a cedi each to the night guard to let us swim. It was such a laugh!
The next morning we had to meet at 6.45am for the walking safari. Everyone went in groups of about 10 and a guide (with a massive gun) went up front. The walk was for about 2 hours and we ended up seeing elephants, baboons and many other animals I’ve forgotten the name of haha. We were able to get 30 metres away from the animals, it felt so surreal! It was amazing to see. When we got back we had some breakfast and then got a van into a village nearby to go canoeing. I fell over just before we got into the canoe, full on grazing up one of my legs. I’m really clever like that. A Ghanaian rushed over to help me clean dirt from the cuts which was really nice. The canoe ride was for about an hour and was really nice and relaxing. The rest of the day we just relaxed by the pool. The pool had a beautiful view over the national park. Often baboons came and stole food from the people which was quite hilarious, but obviously not good for them. Once a baboon got a whole cup of sugar and literally looked so cheeky walking off with it. He returned the cup when he’d finished with it, which was nice on him haha.
This morning we got up at 3.30am (beautiful time) for the bus back to Tamale. We got back at about 9am and just have been relaxing since. Monday and Tuesday will be normal work days for us and will be Matt, Anna and Frank’s last two days in Tamale. On Wednesday us four will leave to Cape Coast to enjoy the coast and do some excursions there and lie on the beach. Anna will be staying until Friday, Frank until Saturday and Matt and I until Sunday. Can’t wait!
Oh also what you’ll be interested to hear is that I have two Ghanaian admirers. They were both my friends and one of them about a week in, sent me a text confessing his love for me. It said things like “you are so beautiful”, “i fell in love with you the moment i saw you” etc. I told him I have a boyfriend, which was the easiest way to show him that there’s no way anything is going to happen between us. A week ago another one, who I see every day, also sent me a text confessing his love. His text said things like “i’ve never had someone in my heart like you”, “to tell the truth I always find it hard to tell someone how much I love her” and “I dream of you almost every day” etc.
Interesting...

The group we're going to Cape Coast with.