Jordan Warren's (aged 12) diary of the highlights of the trip to Ghana 201 4:
We left England after being with my grandparents and my brother, Peter and his fiance Lottie for two and a half weeks. We had a great time in England! We stayed with our cousins and family who live near Heathrow airport.
On the plane to Ghana i watched 3 movies. Before we disembarked the plane, i felt very sick and vomited. Inside the arrivals hall at Ghana airport, it was night time and very hot and humid. Again i was sick while we were waiting in a long line of passengers queuing for immigration. A nice customs officer let us squeeze into the front of the line because i did not feel well. I think i ate something at the airport in England before we left that made me feel sick.
Finally we were allowed to go out and meet our driver, Mr George Rockson. He had a massive van. He was a kind man. We were taken to the hotel called 'Sams Cottage'. I was sick again in the reception area. Our hotel room was nice, with two long big beds and a bathroom. i went straight to sleep.
In the morning the sun was shining and it was hot even at 7am! We had breakfast before being collected by Mr Rockson who took us to the orphanage. The streets were busy, noisy and there were lots of cars everywhere. People kept coming up to the van wanting us to buy the food or drinks that they were selling by carrying and balancing it on their heads. I don't know how they could balance them. I loved the Plantain chips! One lady even had a large container on her head, selling some sort of bread.There was also a blind man who came to the window wanting money. We gave him some because he looked poor and sick. The government, do not give the sick any money so they have to find their own money to buy food.
When we arrived at the orphanage we met the chief called 'The Captain'.He was nearly blind. The best part was meeting Charity, our sponsor child. We met heaps of children. There are nearly 150!!
Eventually we looked around the orphanage. That night we were given a special dinner prepared by Charity. We were staying at a guesthouse in the village. We went and had a rest before returning to the orphanage for praise and worship in the evening. We sang songs and danced with the children under the stars for hours!
The next morning we had to wake up early and walked to the orphanage to have breakfast. Then we played volley ball with some of the children which was fun! A game of soccer, (which is real football), was being played in the field by the older boys. There was a lot of rubbish scattered on the ground. There was no rubbish collection by government. So we decided to play a game with the younger children to see who could pick up the most rubbish and put it in the bins. The children got stickers as rewards. They thought this was fun! Dad had lots of kids jumping on him! we played with the children for the rest of the day. They looked happy to see us there. At night we had dinner and worshipped then we went home to sleep.
In the morning we played with the kids again and ate yummy food. I remembered some of there names this time. There were lots of hens and goats walking around. At the back of the buildings were some pens with pigs, hens and turkeys. These were selling to get money.
Later on there was a praise and worship service with guitars, drums and singers. Everyone in the orphanage came, we all sang and danced and clapped our hands for hours. It was hot. The tiny children ended up falling asleep on Dad, Mum and Miles! We could not understand the singing but it didn't matter. Mum tried to dance! We were tired that night.
The following day we went out to see the farm that the orphanage owned. It was a bumpy ride. There were lots of cattle that looked different to our cattle. They had big horns and were skinny. There was a shepherd too. The mud hut had lots of lizards on the walls. There were pineapples, sweetcorn and strange vegetables growing in the fields. Everywhere was dry and dusty. We didn't see many mosquitoes.
We woke up at 4am in the morning! We travelled with Pastor Tetteh to the villages. We were squashed on the back of the van with Abigail and Charity. It was fun! In the villages we had lots of children running after the van. At the church we had breakfast then helped with the Sunday-school. The children loved the little Australian Koalas we gave them and stickers saying "Jesus loves you"
At lunchtime the food was prepared by, Gifty, Mrs Tetteh, Abigail and Charity. It was great! I decided to teach all the kids how to play 'Tiggy'. Lots of them had gathered to see us at the church building. The problem was that they could not speak English and I could not speak African. It took a long time before the understood the game. They kept getting it wrong but that didn't matter. We had fun together.
We then travelled to another village that was further away. Pastor always prayed at the start of the journey and at the end. This time I sat in the open back of the van with Miles! As we drove along I could see there were lots of coco beans drying everywhere. In this village I tasted the sticky white stuff inside the coco bean pods. It was delicious!!
Sadly we had to say 'Goodbye' to the children at the orphanage. I wished we could have stayed longer. The children sang a song to us, which made Mum cry. I hope we can come back again.
Charity and Abigail came with us to Pastor Tetteh house. This was in the city of Accra. We had lovely food. His daughters were kind to us.
We spent the next day having a trip looking around a museum and the city of Accra, which was busy and noisy.
The following day a man called Richard drove us in his car along the coast by the sea. We stopped by the sea for breakfast. There were 40 fisherman pulling in a massive fishing net out of the sea. Their houses were on the beach, which was cool. Charity thought it was strange that we wanted to sit on the sand and have breakfast.
It was a long drive to the Cape Coast Castle. This is where the English kept the Africans as slaves in dungeons for months. Lots of them died. The dead bodies were thrown in to the sea. The slave ships came and took the Africans to America. It was quite sad to hear what had happened. Im glad it does not happen now.
We then traveled further inland to the Canopy Ropewalk at Kakum National Park. There were two walks, one short and one long. I said we should do the long one. It was 60 metres high! Abigail screamed a lot! We saw some large lizards there but no animals. It took 4 hours to get back to Accra. We were very tired. Richard the driver was very kind.
On Tuesday we all visitied the Art Centre in Accra with Charity and Abigail. It was hot. We heard about all the witchcraft in Ghana's culture. There was lots of information on the Cape Coast Castle and the history of Ghana.
We went to the market to do some shopping. There were people wanting us to buy everything! Dad hated it. I bought 2 wristbands, one with my name on it and one with a cross on. They were only 2 cedis each. I also brought a Ghanaian football shirt for 15 cedis. We bartered down, which was unusual to do that in Australia.
We visited Pastor Tetteh's garage workshop, where his wife Christine was working. Every body was very kind to us. it made me feel special.
On our last day we all helped clean up the house, before a prayer time and communion together. Pastor Tetteh was always giving me lots of food especially ice cream!
Charity and Abigail had to go to catch the bus to take them back to the orphanage, which was about 2 hours away. It was so sad saying 'goodbye'. The girls and Mum hugged and cried.
We drove from there to a restaurant near the airport to have a meal with Mr George Rockson and his wife who was taking us to the airport. We were very dirty so we had to go to the toilets and wash and get changed to travel home. We met a friend called Matilda who was the cousin of one of Mums friends 'Mimi" in Melbourne. She had dinner with us and gave Mum and Mimi a gold necklace.
It was sad leaving Ghana. I miss it but I am sure I will come back again one day. My best memory is playing with the kids and teaching them different cultural ways of doing things in a western country.
I was so happy to see Charity after all these years.