Working in an African orphanage
I realise this isn’t the usual topic we blog about on the NM site, but I had a wonderful experience doing some overseas work earlier in the year in Africa and I wanted to share my story with the world and I thought a blog would be a great way to do this.
Back in February I had the opportunity to spend 2 weeks at an orphanage in rural Ghana, West Africa.
Rather than tell a deep story about my trip, I thought I would highlight the main observations I made during the trip, documenting a little of what I was able to experience. I hope it provides an enjoyable read..
Travelling there
It took a 7 hour flight to get to Ghana, then a days travelling to get from Accra (the capital) up to Sekyere. A long old trip! From Accra we caught a coach to Kumasi, and from Kumasi had to catch a ‘tro tro’ to get to
the village. A ‘tro tro’ is essentially a ragged out old vehicle with too many people squeezed in, often with no doors and little of a windscreen, quite often with an individual hanging off the side. Quite a hair raising experience on those roads I tell you.
Location
I was staying at an orphanage based in Sekyere, a medium size farming village in Rural Ghana, about an hour or so’s drive from Kumasi, which is Ghana’s second largest city. The village consists of one main road (or dirt track) that
stretches the length of the village, with shacks, huts and the early stages of brick structures strewn out to the left and right of the main road. Running water and electricity are present for some, but are limited and the reliability varies.
The orphanage
The name of the orphanage is Revelelation’s Children’s Home. It is a small orphanage, run by a man, Nana, and his wife, Margaret. There are 15 children, half of them disabled and the orphanage is run very much as an extended family as opposed to an institute. What this essentially means is that all children at the orphanage have their names registered as children of Nana and Margaret and all are treated equal, as family. The orphanage is essentially a largish, old building, with 5 rooms: 4 bedrooms and one main living area. Bedrooms are sparse, with an old bed and a sheet per child, and the living area consists of an old wooden couch/chair and a coffee table.
Outside the orphanage the grounds are used to grow food such as casava or coco-yam and chickens run free until a
time comes that they are to be used (for celebrations, or sale). The toilet is outside the orphanage and up a little track and is essentially a toilet sitting over a deep hole in the ground. You do need to watch out for the bugs hitting your bum cheeks.
The villagers
Upon first arrival I was very nervous. Everyone looks (well, stares) at you and are very, very intrigued. After all, my friend and I where the only white people for miles around, certainly only in the village. Indeed, we had one little girl run away crying and it’s only after we found out it was because she had never seen a white man before.
The locals call you ‘Bruni’ which means ‘white person’ – and the children in particular like to sing ‘oh bruni, oh boobuni’ – which means white man amongst black man. They are very sweet and call out Bruni and jump around as soon as they spot you, even from a distance..
We had to meet the local village chief on arrival, who, even though he speaks English, had to have a translator present – it’s tradition apparently that he speaks in his local tongue when greeting visitors.
We also met the local police chief, which left some to be desired I have to say. A glass eyed, scarred man, working out of a shack and spending the most of day sitting on a bench. Not sure how quick to the mark he would be if there was a crisis, but he was friendly all the same.
After a few days, word had quickly spread that there was 2 bruni’s in the village, and before we knew it people left right and centre were telling us ‘I like you’ and wanting to shake our hands. Very endearing, though also somewhat nerve-racking when most of the time they have a bush knife in the other hand.
Local cuisine
The food is probably the strangest I have eaten anywhere. It’s quite a stodgy diet, usually of rice or yam (which is a kind of peanut mush ball) accompanied with ground plantain leaves mixed with a fiery chilli and lots of oil to dip it in. Plantain, cassava, coco yam and rice are typical daily food, most of which are farmed from the surrounding lands.
The food doesn’t stop there though. One evening, on a foggy night driving back from the medical centre through the bush we felt a thud beneath the car. Nana ran out of the car and came back a moment later with a huge grin on his face and a large animal in his hands. He had run over a huge bush rat which he exclaimed is a delicacy and is worth more than a live chicken locally. I then spent the rest of the evening watching Junior and Sarfu (the two older boys) skin and prepare this rat. The following day I had it in a hot stew – it was delicious!
The children
The children are, quite simply, adorable. They are a real mix of ages, from different backgrounds with different reasons for being at the orphanage. Some simply have parents that have passed away, other have a more worrying background of being cast out due to beliefs in witchcraft and other tribal beliefs. A shame.
One thing that was clear and apparent was the generosity, willingness to learn, and sheer playfulness of the children. They all want to go to school, they all want to learn and they all work – very, very hard. Outside of school, the older children cook and wash the clothes for the household as well as farming and tilling the grounds. They support each other as a family unit. The other obvious thing is that children are children – wherever in the world you are. They love to play, tease and have fun. I was gobsmacked at how happy these children are given the fact they don’t have an ounce of what children have here in the western world – a leaf could be taken out of their books when it comes to acceptance, humility and happiness.
The local schools and children’s approach to schooling
I spent a couple of days at the local school (we had to walk the children each day) and met the teachers. It’s amazing! The response you get saying good morning to a class of 60 children is quite impressive. They leave early for school, usually before 7.30 and are back for 3pm. The day is similar to ours, lessons, lunch, lessons, home. The main difference is the infrastructure they are taught in and the subjects. I have to say when helping some children with maths homework I was struggling myself.
The culture/religion/social observations
In my eyes, the culture was one of a very old, developing country, though on the brink of change. Ghana is a model country by African terms, with peaceful, democratic elections taking place and (recently) free schooling for all primary age children (the problem is access to it).
Late one night we heard lots of chanting and drums – this went on for hours and hours. We found out later it was a religious (Christian) ceremony. It’s an interesting combination of Christian beliefs and traditional African rituals.
Another thing I noticed as I travelled around, was the occasional white marquee being set up for what looked like a wedding. As the time passed I realised these are for post funeral gatherings. They celebrate the life of an individual with a huge party when a person passes away and go to great lengths to advertise the celebration party of a passing person.
Hygiene
Hygiene varies depending on where you are, the plot of land you are given by the chief (that is how homes are allocated) and what your approach as an individual is to personal hygiene. We saw some areas, particularly near the cities that were awful, and others not so bad. One huge problem they have is plastic. All water and packaging comes in either plastic bags or similar – these are sold roadside, and dropped after use. They are everywhere. I spent three whole days clearing up just the plastic bits from around the orphanage grounds – but it comes back so quickly. There is no rubbish collection.
Malaria
Malaria is rife in the area – we spoke to one missionary that said he had caught malaria 3 times in the past 2 months. One evening we noticed that one of the smaller children, Adjunem, was very quiet. He went to sleep very early (whereas normally you can’t keep him quiet) and I was concerned. We checked him, and he was very hot, and we couldn’t wake him. Unfortunately, Margaret and Nana weren’t aware of the severity purely because they aren’t educated enough to spot these problems. We told them something was wrong and insisted on taking him to the next village to get to the medical centre. Upon arrival, a very strict women took two looks at him, confirmed his symptoms and said ‘Malaria’.
A cocktail of 4 types of medicine and a suppository later and the boy was back on his feat saying our names – all in 10 minutes! That must have been some drug cocktail.
The nearest city – Kumasi
Kumasi is the nearest city to Sekyere, it takes an hour or two by tro tro to get to and is a completely different experience. Away from the tranquillity and bush knives of the country side there is a massively overcrowded and busy city. This really was a completely different world.
Kumasi is home to the largest market in West Africa and indeed it is like a labyrinth. Turn after turn of markets stalls, cooking foods, fabrics, rice, bartering and homelessness. Thank goodness we had Nana to guide us else we would have surely got lost. Earlier, we had agreed to purchase the children new school clothes and some much needed covers for the old sofa they had and this was main reason for coming to the city. We walked in and out of dusty alleys, eyes everywhere, past a bush rat outdoor kitchen with literally hundreds of these things being cooked until we came to an opening in a wall where a little fabric workshop was busy bustling away. It was here we selected and placed an order for the school uniforms and for seat covers from a sweet old tailor with purple lips. Within the week the tailor came to the orphanage with everything as requested for the children. Happy days.
What I took from the experience
Sure, a visit to a small orphanage in Ghana isn’t going to change the world, but it gave me an opportunity to experience first hand a lift style that has always fascinated me and provided me with an opportunity to make a small difference to a wonderful set of individuals that I now have ongoing contact with.
There is much, much more I could talk about, perhaps in another blog post. If you’d like to hear more, let me know.
I hope very much Ghana continues to develop as an emerging nation in Africa and I very much look forward to my next visit early next year.
I’m keen to hear of similar experiences others may have had – have you done any overseas volunteer work? How did you find it? Would you go back?
Thanks for reading.
Matt wrote this on 15.09.09 – 6 comments
It's filed in the Blogging, Democracy, Ethics, Interesting, NixonMcInnes, Off topic box
On September 15th, 2009 at 1:22 pm, Tom Nixon responded:
Awesome write-up Matt. Thanks for sharing.
On September 16th, 2009 at 5:27 am, Emma Rachel responded:
I want to volunteer abroad. I have this burning desire to travel the world, as well as help those in need.
I feel as an American we take everything for granted and I feel it would be very enlightening for me to do some work for others. I don’t have any special skills or training, as I was a legal assistant for a few years and before that worked as an office manager in a retirement facility. It seems all the websites I come across require a degree. I am willing to do anything. I am not afraid to get my hands dirty. I am 25 and in good physical shape. Can you make any suggestions? Surely there has got to be something I could be doing??? I know that I would have to come up with money for flight. That is fine. I just need to fulfill my life purpose, which I believe is helping others. I would love any suggestions that you may have. Thank you for your time.
On September 16th, 2009 at 10:22 am, Matt responded:
Hi Emma
Thanks for responding! Sounds like you have the travel bug!
There are plenty of ways you can go about volunteering, through a number of different organisations. Some questions I’d recommend asking yourself could be:
How long do you want to go for
Do you have a preferred location
Do you have a budget in mind to cover costs
Do you want to work, and travel, or just work (or just travel)
Once you’ve thought about those I’d suggest starting to look around online at volunteer organisations that send placements from America.
There are the usual major suspects, like VSO, which operate from the US, but there will be many hundreds of smaller charities and NFP’s that you can apply to as well. Just do a quick google for ‘volunteering overseas’.
Good luck!
Matt
On September 18th, 2009 at 10:52 am, Al Stevens responded:
Thanks for sharing that. If everyone made that small difference, together we could make a big difference indeed! I am currently trying to work out the best way to make a difference to small localised charities. Considering volunteering, and also fiancial support too. Not sure how to best start off the relationship and find the right charity/people. Al
On September 22nd, 2009 at 8:42 pm, Lauren responded:
Hello! I came across your website and was astonished to see you’d been to the same orphanage I visited in Ghana. It’s great to read about another person’s experience in Sekyere and see pictures of the kids I got to know so well! Thanks for sharing!
On September 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 am, Matt Matheson responded:
Wow Lauren – I’ve just taken a look at your blog – that’s an amazing diary and so cool to see another blog about the same orphenage – you’ve put my blogging efforts to shame ;-)
Drop me a mail direct and I’ll be happy to share more photos with you of the children – they’re all a little older and bigger than in you’re pictures now.