New Places!

I've been here since Monday. 'Here' is about 45mins North of Accra (the capital) in the hills. Its nice and cool. The people Im staying with are a couple who used to live in the UK (and sweden and the US) who came back to live in Ghana. They started off with their kids in a government school, saw how bad it was, and then started homeschooling. A couple of years later they have a school with 60 children from 5-11 in. Its incredible compared to Ghanain school standards - the ethos and atmosphere is like a modern primary school. This is in stark contrast to the Ghanain norm, which is closest to a Victorian school with rows of desks and a cane sitting in the corner. Its a joy to teach in, everything is incredibally smooth compared to the government school I was in.

I've spent this afternoon exploring the local town - Aburi - and the Botanical gardens there. They are lovely...and somewhat unique. On the edge of the center lawn, in amoungst a clump of trees sits a helicopter. One blade is intact; one bends slowly down to the grass, and the other two are broken at the stem. Its rusty, falling apart, and generally dilapidated. The two sections of the nose are held together with wire. The rest of the park matches the feel - nice, pretty, but the wooden benches sag as you sit on them and the flowerbeds are starting to spill over their borders. Aburi iself is nice - a fairly quiet largish town. Most of the facilities are based around one circular road, which can just squeeze two cars past each other. There is a small interent cafe which seems to work and let me listen to BBC world over the net. Im going to run out of tie soon, so Im going to leave. I have a couple of groceries to run; picking up mail from the PO box etc...I'll see a little more of the town, and then catch a tro tro or shared cab back home.