Football, society and rainforest

It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, until you have gone to the rainforest and played football, you haven't played football in the rain. When you struggle to see 5 metres in front of you, that's when you know you're cool.

In all honesty, I was so hot and sweaty, the rain was a very welcome change. I apologise if you're not into football but I'd like to mention the discrepancies between the English and Ghanian game.

The first thing that really struck me as different and oddly different at that, is the way Ghanian people deal with time. Or rather how they don't deal. They have no conception of time. None whatsoever. This means when asking the referee how long left is in the game, the reply is simply a shrug of the shoulders.

Moving on to the pitch. In the Premier League there are a set of dimensions that pitches have to comply with. While obviously the pitches here aren't measured with the precision of the professional teams, I have never played on a pitch so long or wide (there were no lines) in my life. It was maybe a quarter longer than it should have been. My fitness is already poor and the unlimited time paired with the lengthy pitch really did not aid my performance.

Oddly enough these two characteristics reflect Ghanaian society quite well. Here they don't need to have a conception of time as they don't stress in the same way that we do. As a result it is easy to see why the economy is not at the same level as that of the UK or any western economy. However that may be because they're an African nation basing their economy on a western ideal. Either way everyone is laid back all the time, for some people going on holiday and not having to worry about the time is a luxury. By this logic, they're on holiday everyday and I'd argue that for the average person their quality of life is very high even compared to many Europeans. Furthermore everything is also done by eye and to the best of human capability. If it works well, nothing else really matters. It's refreshing to say the least.

I have really got to know some of the boys and girls in my teaching class over the past few days which has been rewarding. I have been helping them calculating interest on loans and with their basic conversational English. I feel like they've actually learnt a set of useful things from me so far which is slowly edging towards achieving my goal.

My trip to the beach on the weekend was very relaxing, hot and fun. I'd wager that most people don't know more than 5 Sub Saharan beaches but here in Ghana the beach was everything a beach should be. There was lots of sand in the day until the tide came in. At this point everyone moves on to the bars or into the sea. I can attest to the fact that both of these were fantastic activities. Maybe more people should come to African beaches?

Yesterday one of the boys who has been here for a while took the rest of the house (that wanted to go) to a cave in the mountain next to us. This involved traipsing through the rainforest as a group. It was amazing. The rainforest is like Jurassic park. It actually looks like the nature programmes that I have spent countless hours watching. I was like a kid in a sweet shop. So cool. The views were also stunning. My infatuation with biology doesn't inspire the greatest confidence in my degree choice...

I still haven't got ill which I'm considering 1-0 to Rohin against Ghana although the sachets of water and bucket showers are slowly getting to me.

See you later alligator,