Frankadua, Ghana
Volunteer abroad in Frankadua, Ghana
Trip Info
- Arrival: Tuesday, January 31st, 2017
- Departure: Thursday, February 23, 2017
- Purple Program in Frankadua, Ghana (2 hours from the capital, Accra)
- Program: Sports Teaching
Blog Posts
- I attempted to write blog posts on my volunteer experience in Africa, and although I only ended up writing 4 due to my laziness, here they are:
- Why Africa
- Preparation – Getting a Visa
- Preparation – Vaccination
- Frankadua Story – Volunteer House
Timeline
- 01/31/17 Tue.: Arrived in Accra, Ghana. Went on a tour of the city with a few other volunteers and a volunteer coordinator.
- 02/01/17 Wed.: Orientation in the morning with other volunteers in the main volunteer house in Accra, then the volunteers split into different private trotros to go to the assigned program.
- 02/03/17 – 02/05/17: First weekend trip to Cape Coast (More on the weekend trips in a separate post)
- 02/06/17 – 02/10/17: Tournament week
- 02/10/17 – 02/12/17: Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary, then weekend trip to Wli
- 02/13/17 – 02/17/17: Regular school week
- 02/17/17 – 02/19/17: Weekend trip to Big Milly’s
- 02/20/17 – 02/23/17: Regular school week
- 02/23/17 – My last day in Ghana 🙁
Random Happenings
- When I got to my layover in Washington D.C., I realized that I had left my wallet at home. I had my passport and some cash that I was bringing to exchange, but my credit and and debit card were still sitting on top of my desk. I had enough cash to last me through the volunteer program and the weekend trips, but if I wanted to anything extra during the safari trip after the program, I would need my cards. If I ask my boyfriend to ship them to Ghana, there was no guarantee that I would be getting them before my program finished, as I was told that the courier service is unreliable over there. Luckily, I was able to FB message a future volunteer that was flying in on the 15th of February from the states, and had my boyfriend ship my cards to her to bring it with her. Phew!
A Typical Day
The week after I arrived happened to be a soccer tournament week in the area, so there were no classes during the week. That week was mostly spent watching the games with other kids, playing with them, and getting some errands done. Things were back to normal after the tournament finished, and here is the schedule for a typical day:
9:00am
Physical Education Class
Each grade had their PE on a different day (i.e. Monday mornings would be 5th graders, Tuesday mornings 3rd, and so on). My role was to have them warm up and run around. Older students (5th and 6th graders) always wanted to play soccer, so I just gave them a ball and watched them play, and did smaller exercises with the younger students.
10:00am
P3 Class
Went to the P3 (3rd graders) class and helped the teacher – collecting and marking homework and tests, and helping out with homework and class materials. Also taught math to the students once.
12:00Pm
Lunch
Lunch back at the volunteer house prepared by our cook.
1:00Pm
P3 Class
Continue helping out with the P3 class.
3:00Pm
Chilling
Go back to volunteer house, chill, write diaries, play with the kids outside.
6:00Pm
Dinner
Dinner at the volunteer house.
After Dinner
Hangout With Other Volunteers
Drink at a small bar in town with other volunteers
Random Info & Thoughts
- Language – The official language of Ghana is English, but there are a ton of other local languages being used across the country, and there are around ten government-sponsored languages. Twi, a dialect of the Akan language is the most widely-spoken language, and we got an intro to Twi during orientation. Then it turns out that in Frankadua where I was assigned to, they mostly speak Ewe instead of Twi.
- Climate – It was very warm and humid day and night. I was planning on doing simple exercises there so that I don’t lose my muscle, but it was way too warm for that (I know, excuses)
- Power outage – Power outage happened very frequently while I was there. Power outage + extremely warm weather = you tell me.