Update no. 2!

Hey guys, so i think i left you on my first day working for Peter at Africa Change International last monday...

That very same night i went to the gym with Peter, this man is an animal! We were training back and he was just lifting double everything i was and he doesnt believe in breaks so we had like 30 seconds rest in between sets. Hating life....so straight after the gym Eoghan picked me up and we were feeling kinda peckish so stopped off at a stool on the street which was selling nuts. We got some kashew nuts and i pretty much necked my bag and immediately thought something wasn't right...anyway we went to go play football for an hour or so with some other people from the British High Commision and friends. It was around 10 minutes in and i started feeling really weird, didn't know whether it was the heat and thought i was just dehydrated but then i got worse so we stopped playing football and went home.

It was planned that we were gonna go out for pizza with some of Helens friends but i was feeling so shit i did what had to be done and went upstairs for a tactical chunder. Worked a treat and felt fantastic after that so i went out with them, we went to four different restraunts but they were all closed, theres a weird thing about restraunts being closed on a monday here, guess its as they are all open sundays too. We finally found a place that was open but it was a curry house, and i was starting to feel rough again, as soon as i walked in there was that filthy smell of curry and i was really struggling. I put a brave face on for about 10 minutes but then it came back and i basically threw up half my bodyweight which isn't a lot to be fair since coming out here !

I felt awful for a couple of days so went to the doctor at my sisters work and they gave me so antibiotics so ive been taking them ever since. I spent the week contacting organisations and arranging interviews regarding sport development in Ghana as i have been really considering doing my dissertation on it so thought i'd gather some research since im out here. I also went to a few meetings on behalf of ACI to help establish some partnerships and good contacts. I felt good again by the weekend so happy days again.

Saturday morning was spent shopping and preparing for lunch we were having people over for bbq and banana cake which we were making. We were inspired as i was telling H & E about when me and Luke made it in Southampton and was a bit of a revelation so we got the Ghana cook book my sis had and banged one out from an age old recepie, except we used 3 times the amount of bananas they told us to.....damn that was a good shout it was amaaaazing so we made one big cake and about 30 little ones which pretty much all got eaten up when the people came over. We then went swimming and played tennis with everyone until about 5 or 6. That night H & E had arranged wine tasting followed by a performance by the Ghana's National Symphony Orchestra haha! In England its a pretty big deal but the equivelant here was not so special. I think the average age of the people there was about 50 so it was quite sweet to watch them all, unfortunately the performance wasn't anything to write home about and it was about 6 thousand degrees in the hall but it was funny all the same...

We had to get an early night in as we had an amazing trip planned for sunday. Shai Hills nature reserve followed by Akosombo - Lake Volta, the largest man made lake in the world! Shai hills was amazing, we didnt get there until about half 10 or something so i wasn't sure we would see much but we saw antelope, baboons, lizards and thousands of bats in this cave which stunk of bat piss so bad i put my shirt over my nose but i had just climbed a huge mountain so wasn't sure whether i smelt better or worse than the cave...After the bat cave we were taken by our guide to the highest part of Shai Hills, 290m above sea levels where the views were incredible...i took loads of pictures so you can see them soon!

After Shai Hills we drove straight to Akosombo where we had lunch on lake Volta. Lunch was shit but the place was stunning. We then took a boat out on the rive and rowed for an hour or so which was tiring but really cool. Then to finish we went to the dam out of hours so we werent expecting to go on the dam however the guards there seemed to take a liking to Eoghan and basically took us on a private tour in which we were allowed to drive and park on the dam (this is never normally allowed) and got to see and learn all about the dam which is Ghanas biggest electricity provider which seems to work in silence. It was amazing.

Yesterday i started to make progress with Peter, we've arranged lots of meetings this week with potential partnerships and plans are in progress to build apartments for future volunteers to stay in when working for ACI in the future. We went to the gym again last night and Peter showed me and his brother up again on chest - for anyone that knows anything about gym he was doing 95kg on decline press for 8 reps and like 4 sets! My chest is hurting in a big way today, but havent noticed it too much as i had the best morning ever...Peter took me to the art centre in the centre of town and behind loads of shanty buildings there was this organisation run by a group of people from Edinburgh Uni...they basically run a sort of summer camp for kids where they get kids to create a film - the kids are given these child friendly video cameras and shoot film and they are split into three sections i think like one is film production and one is script writing but i cant remember the other one. After its filmed they have a special screening at the end and get the community to come and watch it too. They provide all this along with schooling, provide films for them to watch, play games and sing songs as well as eat twice a day. As we were 'special guests' all the kids sung 'The Lion Sleeps tonight' from the Lion king whilst one of the volunteers played the guitar which was so cool and then we all sung an Akon song together and now i cant get it out of my head!...

So theres the update, ill probably do another one at the end of this week

Missing home but not too much!