"Un Dimanche à la Piscine à Kumasi"

So this dimanche I thought it was high time to do nothing. But a relaxing sort of nothing, as opposed to a recovering-from-illness sort of nothing. After spending the majority of last week in bed, I felt that on Friday, when I returned to school, I must have looked like a recently-released hostage: pale, unaccustomed to daylight, desperately in need of a haircut and a little out of touch with the rest of the world. So, first things first, I got myself that much-needed haircut: I had begun to look like Captain Caveman. What's more, it cost the equivalent of 80 pence and, amazingly, it's just what I wanted. My fellow Year Abroaders from this year will, I'm sure, have a deep understanding and knowledge of the all-consuming, unbridled terror that grips you when having your haircut in a foreign country. A select few of you will be all too aware of my infamous "Egg Incident" in France some months ago… But here, there was no such misfortune.

A trip to the nearby swimming pool was, I thought, a good way to make use of the sun again. I had the place to myself for the majority of the day; listening to African hip-hop remixes being blared out at many thousands of decibels, while the two staff members would dance in the shade of the deserted bar. I kidded myself that I was doing exercise when for the most part I was definitely floating around for ages in the middle of the pool. Think the start of The Bourne Identity, but if he hadn't lost his memory and had decided to go on holiday for a bit of respite instead. 

When eventually a family did turn up, I got talking with the children and they asked me if I could help them to learn to swim properly. There's nothing like giving demonstrations, tips and advice on a technique before watching them give it a go -  as they sink like a lead weight. But we made progress as we got on. Funnily enough, they knew of me as a teacher before we spoke - they'd seen me around the area before. This is becoming a common occurrence:  I'll walk around and hear little children, who neither have I spoken to before nor do they go to the school in which I teach, shouting 'Niiiick! Morning-o! [Ghanaian-English for all of you linguistics fans]' everywhere. It's like a glimpse into a celebrity lifestyle. Being an obruni, I rather stand out here. I long ago became accustomed to being stared out wherever I go; whether it's on the minibus, walking home from school or just being around town, 99% of heads turn my way. I can't help but think that I'm not entirely deserving of all this attention, and whether it's all really necessary - yet on the rare occasion that I've seen another obruni here, I guarantee that I was staring at them far more intently than anyone else around. So I'm not one to judge.

I'm really looking forward to getting back to a normal week at school. There's sure to be plenty more incident with the minibus, more Social Studies and English lessons, a token 'practice' on the keyboard and the chance to get back to a favourite book: it's one that I've read before, yet I still can't for the life of me work out how the Ukrainian terrorists are going to get off the world's largest oil-tanker without having to blow it up, causing the Kremlin and possibly the US President to fall in the process. I look forward to finding out though...

Ghanaian Vehicle Moment of the Week: To help fifty to sixty pupils squeeze onto the minibus, I took one for the team and became the luggage rack. This selfless act tragically ended with the lower-most bag leaking what I chose to believe was water, all over my trousers for a good twenty minutes or so before we reached school.

"The Guy Who Came in with a Cold"

Last Friday the inevitable happened: I was ill for the first time here.

'What heinous disease could this be?', I hear you ask. Bilharzia? Lassa fever? Multiple bites from the tsetse fly? No. I had a cold - large and incapacitating - but a cold nonetheless. As a result, Friday and Saturday were a more sedate affair. That said, I went to another wedding on Saturday morning. Another wonderfully flamboyant service that got more and more packed as the ceremony progressed - it seems that the start time of "09.30 prompt" on the invitation was interpreted by some as: "Turn up whenever -  during the vows would be ideal."

So this 'cold' pretty much went by Sunday afternoon, which is what makes what followed a little unexpected. On Monday morning I woke up at 04.00 with just about all the symptoms of any disease you can think of. I'll spare you the details. Thinking I'd play it safe, I popped to the clinic to check out what it could be. Immediately, there was a wonderful moment in the reception where I caught sight of a public health information poster and noticed that I ticked all the right boxes for someone with cholera. A less-than-comfortable wait to see the doctor - and a wonderfully-timed dash to the clinic's toilet - was followed by a blood test. This involved the nurse looking at me gravely, and saying sombrely: 'I'm sorry…' before she jabbed my thumb, multiple times and with much vigour.

Malaria tends to be the default diagnosis here - as indeed it was for me before the test came back negative. Indeed, the majority of people in the waiting room - if they haven't got a tap stuck on their big toe, or an arm recently missing - will be there because they have the symptoms of malaria. They'll be given some pills, and they'll make a fairly quick recovery. In my case, it was decided that I probably had some viral infections (nice and specific), so I've been put on plenty of tablets and should generally take it easy. Fun. So what do you do when you're off school and should spend the day in bed? Write a blog of course. So here you go.

Illness also brings up that universal linguistic problem of how to respond to someone asking: 'How are you?' It's the most natural thing to ask when meeting either friends or strangers - far more so in Africa than in Europe - and more often than not you reply, as standard: 'I'm fine, thank you.' All well and good. It's expected of you. But anything else you say is viewed as deviating from the norm and is therefore suspicious. Sometimes if you get creative with your answer, they'll ask you again. But 'Fine' is not always applicable to the situation! When I was teaching in France and I would ask pupils how they were, I'd always get that standard response. They could have been on their deathbed or hopping around with a bear-trap on their ankle, and they'd still be saying 'I'm fine, thank you'. This is the predicament I found myself in (not the bear-trap incident you understand…). Rant over.

Looking ahead to the rest of this week, I'm aware that tomorrow I'll be hitting the half-way point of my time in Ghana. In fact, my everyday routine at the school will be changing for good in just a few weeks. The school has been kind enough to let me use July as a month to travel around a bit. Having always been one to grab my trusty green backpack (okay, it's my dad's, but it's become something of a companion to me) and do some travelling, I can't wait to see some more of Ghana. My plan is to do three trips, spread out over my last month, to different parts of the country. Popping back to Kumasi at various points in between means that: a) I can go back to school for the days that I'm around; b) I can travel light; c) It also means that I should be able to give a running commentary to my faithful blog followers (I'm going out on a limb with the plural form). Otherwise there's a chance that I'd have to write a War and Peace-esque finale - and those who know me well, know my deep loathing of a 'high' word count. I could try to outline my travel plans here and now, but  - and this can be regarded as a gross generalisation or not - Africa seems to have a way with spontaneity and the unexpected. 

All will be revealed in good time…

Ghanaian Vehicle Moment of the Week: Spending 20 minutes pushing the school minibus around the playground to try and start the thing.

"The Short Good Friday"

So I've been living in Ghana for a month now and it's absolutely flown by. 

School is still going well - the lessons move at a good pace and there's always a very positive atmosphere around the place. Even marking English homework throws up plenty of smiles. Whilst going through exercises where the students had to write a letter to a friend, I came across some wonderful introductions such as : "To set the ball rolling, I hope you are as fit as a fiddle and swimming in the pool of happiness" along with, "I hope you are drinking from the cup of Mr Healthy."

We finish school an hour earlier on Fridays - a point that the students are not unaware of - and generally the final hour is filled with lots of noise, running around and general contagious excitement. This Friday my duties too, it seemed, became suitably relaxed. With marking and teaching over for the week, I ended up with students at the keyboard, trying to remember some of the pieces I play back home, whilst using the excuses: "None of the Es seem to be working on this keyboard" and "it's not long enough" in order to mask my considerable shortcomings. This was immediately followed by a wander into the heaving playground, shaking yet more hands, and ending up doing kick-ups and general ball 'skills'  - greeted with undeserved applause and cheers - surrounded by dozens of baying children. A good end to a week.

On Saturday I was lucky enough to go to a Ghanaian wedding - Moses, a teacher at the school, was getting married in the nearby town of Ejisu. So having dressed up in a suitably Ghanaian way (Eric was kind enough to lend me one of his African design shirts), we hopped on a tro-tro and before we knew it the ceremony was in full swing. The service was all in Twi so perhaps I'm not the best person to give a detailed analysis on the wording of the vows or on the personal relevance of the hymns. But it didn't matter because it was a feast for all the senses. Bright colours everywhere, patterns of every description, microphones (with the compulsory feedback issues), loudspeakers and music galore. At regular intervals guests could and would get up and dance up at the front, waving their handkerchiefs, twirling around and generally doing anything they possibly could to send the temperature and humidity shooting up off the scale. All in all it was a day to remember…

Ghanaian Vehicle Moment of the Week: To add even more excitement to a morning's rounds in the school minibus, someone placed a distressingly large gas canister marked 'Extremely Flammable" underneath my seat.