Over the summer, a team of 14 Year 11 and 12s, Mr Mitchell and Miss Higgins spent just over three weeks in Ghana, at our partner school in Ankwanda village.

Daily Life
The entire trip was unforgettable, but a major part was camp life. For the majority of the trip, we lived in a disused school building, sleeping on camp beds under mosquito nets. A lot of time was spent forcefully discussing who was  going to shower when. With only one temperamental cold tap between all of us, cleanliness was a commodity and, when the water was off, we had to be inventive with a few bucket washes.
Food played a big part in our daily life, and, once discovered, ‘Chicken in a bowl’ rapidly became our favourite meal. We enjoyed tasting the local specialty dishes, which really helped us to understand the culture better.
A lot of our downtime was spent with our buddies, who were pupils at Ankwanda School.
In the evenings, we had time to relax. We tried and failed to teach Uno to our buddies, so most evenings were spent playing football, singing and chatting with our buddies, playing Ghanaian games and trying to avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes.
The local children were fascinated by us, and we frequently woke up with several crouching by our beds. We attempted to master some key phrases in Fante, the local language, with mixed results. When they weren’t clinging onto our legs as we tried to walk, the children spent most of their time laughing at our pronunciation. Towards the end of our time in the village, we were able to organise a Sports Day for the Kindergarten, which was hard work but very rewarding. We will all remember the friendships we made in Ghana for a long time.

The Project
One of our main reasons for the Ghana Expedition was to be useful to the school, by helping them to update their facilities. We started by getting rid of the damaged floors in the corridors, which involved some of us breaking up the old cement with a pickaxe, others smashing away with sledgehammers to create a level surface to lay cement, and a separate team removing the masses of rubble that accumulated. Once the corridor floors were cleared, we covered the area with water in order to keep the dust down and prepare the surface for the new cement, which we mixed (tiring work) and laid to create a smooth new floor.
Whilst this was going on, another group was scrubbing the kindergarten walls to remove the built-up dust and dirt. There were also plenty of hornets’ nests to get rid of and more than a few rather large spiders’ webs. Once the walls were clear, we began the process of painting, using green oil paint and white emulsion, to revitalise the classrooms, corridors and bathroom.
Work then began on replacing the path down to the kindergarten that had been swept away by the rain. We mixed up concrete – which is very similar to cement except it has stones in it and therefore weighs more and is harder to mix. We built a small arch under the path to allow the rain to run through, and then concreted the path.
Our final task was painting the outside of the kindergarten with yellow emulsion and brown oil paint so that it matched the rest of the school. By the time we were finished, we had smashed and cemented four floors, cleaned and painted seven rooms and the kindergarten’s foyer, fixed the path to the kindergarten and painted the kindergarten’s outside walls.

The Tour
After our fantastic experience in Ankwanda, we were able to take a tour around some of Ghana’s many highlights.
Our first destination was Stumble Inn, for a day of rest and recuperation, and then we set off for Aylos Bay, a beautiful man-made lake set in beautiful surroundings just 90km from Accra.  After a refreshing dip in the lake, we set up our tents for the night and shared a delicious meal of traditional Ghanaian foods such as burgers and spaghetti bolognaise!
After a night that was disturbed by thousands of croaking frogs, we set off on a bumpy journey to visit the monkey  sanctuary, where we were given bananas and sent into the trees to try to woo the monkeys. The monkeys were mostly unimpressed and only some of us managed to get a monkey to grab a banana and run, but Tom Wilkinson made a new friend with a monkey that sat on his arm.
Next stop: Big Foot Lodge at Wli Falls, where were able to have our first hot shower of the trip. In the morning, some of us set off for a challenging hike up to the top of the of the falls, whilst the others had a competitive game of monopoly. Later in the morning the team met up and ventured into the water at the base of the waterfall, which proved to be both difficult and an amazing experience. The day ended with the team favourite, chicken in a bowl, and an awards ceremony, where Harry Hoare took home the main prize of Hardest Worker and Rob Gray, who was inseparable from his crocs, won the Most Aggressive and Worst Shoes awards.
The last day of the expedition was full of sad goodbyes to Judith, Sammy, and our driver Osmanu and, early the next morning, we left to return to England.
After a tough but thoroughly rewarding three weeks I am sure all the team would agree that they were excited to get home and back to normal life again. The expedition was an incredible journey, making friendships and memories that will last a lifetime.
The team would like to thank Mr Mitchell and Miss Higgins for organising and making possible such a trip.
It is difficult to understand how much time, trust and effort goes into creating the relationship that we have with Ankwanda, and we must do all we can to preserve it.
– Project participants Katy Lillie, Henry Heath, Harry Hoare, Tom Wilkinson, James Kirkwood