Experiences: Tafo

Charlotte Spring, a volunteer from the UK spent January-July 2004 in Kwahu Tafo.

I could spend all day chattering about my time in Ghana, and there is so much more to be discovered about this wonderful country and its varied people. I have no regrets about having chosen to go to Tafo - I had a life-changing six months that made me look at my life back home in a new light.

I stayed in a beautiful yet impoverished town perched on the Kwahu plateau, where I spent three months teaching English, French and maths in a primary school with mud floors and rough half-height walls, but knowing that some pupils had walked as far as 7 km to learn was humbling and helped me overcome challenges.

I spent the next three months organising and running an HIV awareness campaign in schools, churches and youth groups, this region having the highest infection rate in the country. My project co-ordinator, Charles, translated my talks into the local Twi language (his weekly lessons were fun but I was not the best learner of Twi!) and we answered lots of questions people had. Some people wanted to challenge us and it was a matter of understanding the different attitudes of different groups of the community and trying to improve communication between them to try and break down the taboos and silences around the AIDS crisis.

Despite my best intentions, I came to realise my limits in helping out in the community - volunteers cannot radically alter the deep-rooted local and global causes of poverty and as an outsider one cannot hope to fully understand or penetrate the complex culture. What they can do is provide new perspectives, enthusiasm in helping kids and adults envisage their future, and take important lessons home. My host ‘mother’ Anna Sawiri worked 12 hour shifts as a midwife before coming home to care for the 9 kids she cares for - people like her are the real gems of society, and I was constantly warmed by the ways families and friends care for each other how ever much they have materially.

The new drama and cultural centre in planning sounds like a brilliant way for the town’s many young people to express their ideas, hopes and fears. There are lots of opportunities to take part in daily life - I helped to set up a football team, ran a creative writing contest and did story-telling sessions in the little library. In my spare weekends I travelled all over the country, as far as the very different but fascinating North and the slave castles and forest parks of the East Coast. Ghana is vibrant and changing, but many people still lack opportunities for a decent education, health and leisure time, which is where volunteers can lend a small but vital hand.