Just another week in Africa...

So this has been an intense and amazing week.

Last weekend, for Kasia's birthday, we travelled west along the coast to a hotel called the Elmina Bay Resort, near the towns of Elmina and Cape Coast.  We decided we wanted a complete break from the hectic hustle and bustle of Accra, and were really looking forward to relaxing by a pool for a couple of days.

The journey from the school to the hotel was pretty epic - a taxi to Kaneshie bus station, then onto a rickety Trotro, 90 minutes trying to get out of Accra amidst the crazy Friday evening traffic, and then a further 2 hours to Elmina, and then an interesting experience finding a bona fide taxi driver (in the end we chose Felix) to take us to the hotel over very rough dirt tracks.
When we finally got there though - wow:

The beach at the hotel at sunset.

The hotel was great, it had clean floors and hot running water and aircon!!  Amazing.  My first hot shower in more than two weeks was just so good I spent ages under the water laughing and laughing.  The pool was beautiful and on Saturday (Kasia's birthday) we had a blissful day walking on the beach, swimming in the pool, relaxing in the sun and eating delicious Ghanaian groundnut soup.

The next day we checked out of the hotel and then walked along the beach, heading east to visit Elmina town.  The walk was full of surreal experiences, such as seeing a team of fishermen pulling on a rope that lead all the way into the sea and seemed to be firmly attached to nothing, a child offering us a snake (not sure if it was alive or dead), iguanas with bright orange tails, another child offering us a bowl full of rotten fish blood and guts, the strongest smelling open sewers yet mixed with an overpowering rotten fish aroma, and everyone shouting 'obruni' ('white person') at us as we walked by.

Fishing boats in Elmina harbour

At Elmina there is a UNESCO world heritage site: Elmina Castle, which was built in 1482 and is one of the oldest European buildings outside of Europe.  It became a centre for the slave trade and was used as a holding station for slaves waiting to be shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas, until the 19th cenury. Our visit was very sobering and sad.  The conditions the slaves were held in were atrocious and the whole place still has a very strong atmosphere.

After seeing the castle we left Elmina and got a shared taxi to nearby Cape Coast, where we were planning to get a minibus back to Accra. It was a super hot day and we had time to kill before the next minibus departed, so we tried to find a place for a cold drink.  We happened upon a place mentioned in the guidebook called 'Peace Ghetto', a 'spot' as bars are called here, which was a tiny room with low wooden tables and chairs with strange cartoonish paintings on the wall and a young woman called Stella who asked our advice about forgetfulness and medicine taking.

Back on the project during the week, this has been a very busy one with all of the filming being done for the the final two films. The children have divided into two groups (the Coconuts and the Mangos) and each group has written a story which they have now filmed.  This week Kasia and I were part of the Mangos group, and were working on production design, costumes and also going on location to help with logistics with all the children.

Kasia and Patrick trying out ghost headdresses

Helping with music for filming of the theme song on location at the beach

Also this week we held a fundraising gig at a local live music venue in Osu, the part of Accra where we are all staying.  A number of the Ghanaian volunteers working on the project are quite well-known musicians, so we put together a show to raise money to help fund the production costs for the film, as well as the final show which is happening on the 30th August where we will have a concert and screening of the finished two films. During the evening Frank and I got the opportunity to get up on stage and have a bit of a sing (and Frank also played the sax!):

 Me, Frank and Kyekyeku on stage

Today Frank, Mr Lartey and I went to the Metro TV station to have a short interview on live TV.  It was another interesting experience and a good opportunity to spread the word about the project.

Another highlight of this week has been visiting markets, and in particular buying beautiful fabric:

 On Friday afternoon we visited Kaneshie market, the second biggest market in Accra.  It was full of everything you can imagine, and the sounds and smells were pretty powerful too.

There's an indoor and an outdoor section, and we added to our burgeoning fabric collection and also bought some lovely traditional beads.

This weekend the editing of the films starts, and we're preparing for the final week of the project building up to the show on Friday.