Visit to Elmina Castle and TV

Saturday 17th October 2009

Hi, Shannon here trying to write the blog, however Oli & Nick are stuffing their faces with the remains of Emily's 16th birthday cake instead of helping.
We've finished now, so we'll take over as Shannon is nattering. Better get started then. This morning we woke up at 6am (GMT...Ghana Maybe time). Fried egg sandwiches for breakfast; lovely. We then set off for our first acclimatisation training. We were all surprised when we turned up & the pitch was more sand than grass. We started training in the heat of the midday sun (this was at 9am!) & after an hour of hard work, acclimatisation & tons of water, we finished up with a catching game with the local children. We all “jumped” (crawled, sloth-like) back onto the bus, everybody red-faced from either the sun or the “huge” amount of exercise that we had done.

Shannon again, Oli has completely failed by:
a) leaving me again to get MORE cake;
b) spending the last ½ hour “writing” (doodling – a tank, person & flag).

Our day continued with our insanely refreshing first adventure into the sea. After lunch we had our first introduction to the surrounding town through our visit to the last slave trade port in Africa. A haunting experience, yet nonetheless interesting.
Rather than driving all the way back we stopped halfway to stroll back along the beach, stopping for a quick drink along the way.

To round off an incredible first full day in Ghana we all celebrated Emily's birthday (hence the cake), bringing us to a welcome early night under our mosquito nets.

With love from Ghana...
Shannon
Oli
Nick
Emily
xxx


A note from Oli Shaw...

To my new friend : Shaw, thanks for ignoring all the advice about giving your first or second name. I've made you a nice shell. There's one for you too T-A-M-S-Y-N.

You're probably thinking that this boy is barking mad, so I shall explain. It was our first day trip to Elmina & Mr. Miles was giving an inspiring talk about what to & what not to do when approached by Ghanaians selling or offering you gifts. Miss Court at this point must have been distracted by the amazing views (or just Mr. Miles' speech wasn't quite as interesting as we first thought) because although Mr. Miles stressed & stressed the point that you DO NOT TELL THEM YOUR NAME, Miss Court stepped off the bus, spied Dan Oliver refusing to give his name, hurries over & persuades him it's a perfectly logical idea to give your name & even introduces herself , spelling her name out for him as well. Dan, stunned into silence, nudges Miss Court on the arm, asking “Were you not listening?!”. Meanwhile I, being a smart ass gave them my “real” name Jamie. I was so pleased with the fact I'd thought of a fake name, I didn't think twice about giving them my second name. Yes Shaw, S-H-A-uh oh. Mr. Miles was standing behind me, shaking his head...”Are you serious?!”. I thought nothing of it, so left for the castle after saying goodbye to my new Ghanaian friend, Joe. We came out from the tour & there was Joe, with identical shells for me & T-A-M-S-Y-N.

TO MY NEW FRIEND : SHAW.

It's taken me far too long to write this so I'm going to stop now. Bye.

Hey guys, Ashling and Luke here,

Whilst we were happily enjoying our lunch, Mrs Maishman summoned both of us to a meeting with Aubrey. We had no clue what it was about, but were about to find out...

We had been chosen by the P.E staff to do a live interview on the regional televison station (Coastal TV). Both excited and scared we grabbed our Sabre t-shirts and trusty anti-bacterial lotion, and heaped ourselves into the land rover. Whilst on this journey, we were prepped for our interview and picked up the TV presenter on the road side (very bizarre). This unique opportunity had only just come up and we were thrilled to be chosen, things in Ghana tend to be unorganised and Aubrey told us it was “GMT - Ghana Maybe Time”, and that we could be on at any time.

We arrived at the television studio about half an hour later, right in the middle of nowhere in what appeared to be a unusually wealthy house compared to the poverty surrounding it. We waited for about 45 minutes in the room next door the studio. Meanwhile getting pasted with foundation to “stop our faces shining”. Which Luke especially did not appreciate. We entered the studio and sat down next to the presenter feeling very nervous. Ashling to start with was out of camera shot, but switched in mid interview. The interview went well, with football being the main focus of the conversation. The Ghanaians as you may have heard have won the under 20's World Cup, and its all they want to talk about. I think they mentioned it about 6 times! Luke responded when asked “Do you think you have a chance when playing the under 20 World Champions of the world? What will the score be?” responded with “well we won the real world cup and will win a comfortable 2-0”. Due to the language barriers the presenter had to speak english (the official national language) and fante (the local language). Over here football is life, and this came across in the interview. Them being interested more in the football than the netball. The interview went really well with no major mistakes and we really enjoyed ourselves. We returned to the castle and had a guided tour then met the others for dinner.
Lots of Love,
Luke and Ashling

P.S Dad can you leave the match of the day, I would love to see the matches! Cheers luke x
P.P.S Eeather is much better than Ireland and Wales, unlucks x
P.P.P.S Happy Birthday Lydia & Maria!!! Love Shan x