Welcome Obruni

White people, or foreigners in general are called Obruni over here. It doesn't really have any deeper meaning to it. It is just a term for a person from outside of Africa. Although I had been prepared that I would be called Obruni all the time, it is an odd feeling, when adults shout it out loud when they see you - sometimes from the other side or end of a road. When surrounded by a group of smiling and bouncing kids you can at least read their excitement from their faces.    

   Today was my first day working as a volunteer with BigSteps. I was as excited as a little girl on her first day at school. Sammy collected me at 8 am and we drove about 20 km to the Resource Center in Akoasi. He showed me the ICT (computer) room and the library - which will be my 'kingdom' for the next few months.  

   The library is full of books in shelves (good start) but needs to be organised. Well if that isn't a task for a German! We got right stuck into it. Sammy had already started to mark the books as property of the library by stamping them and then returned them into the shelves. Before continuing with stamping the books I suggested to take all the ones that had already been stamped out of the shelves and sort them by genre. That way we could continue stamping the books and sorting them at the same time. He hadn't thought of this. I felt like a genius. Excellent start :) 

   As is tradition Sammy had organised for me to be formally introduced to the chief and elders of the village. Unfortunately the chief and some of the elders currently aren't in town so that I only met half of them. It was an interesting event. As per Sammy's advise I had bought a bottle of local 'Schnapps' as they call it and put about 20 Cedi in an envelope. Both were handed to the elders at some stage during the formal introduction. There was a lot of sitting, speaking while standing or being talked about, and so on... all in the local language (Twi). I will be fluent soon, I'm sure! ;) Oh yeah and the elders were right away contemplating which good man I should marry. I told them they would have to fight an Irish man over this. It got them laughing.

   Once that was done we had yet to join another official occasion to get my name out there in the village. There was a huge PTA (parent teacher association) meeting that took place in a church. I was introduced to the congregation of parents and some other locally important people. At both occasions the purpose for me staying in the village was explained to them, how I am supporting BigStep and the task of setting up the community library free of charge etc. Sammy says that now it is only a matter of a couple of days and word will have spread and everybody will know me (even if they haven't seen me yet). Old style news distribution.

   Having been introduced officially will also have the added benefit of me being absolutely safe when walking about the village. I was given an African name too. As I was born on a Tuesday, my name is Abena.

   It was a pretty exciting day for me. The resource center is right next to 3 schools. At break time all the kids came to see me and where so excited. So much fun! It's like my own little fan club. Let's see how long I will like the attention.

   On behalf of Sammy and BigStep Foundation Ghana I would like to thank everybody for their generous contributions towards this project. Sammy was handed part of the equipment today and will be given the remainder of the sum that was fundraised. He was absolutely delighted. It was a joy to do this and see how much it means to to him and his organisation.
   I wanted to add more photos but unfortunately it takes hours to upload pictures. Welcome to Ghana!