This place is just awesome, I'm not even sure I can do it justice with my clumsy words.

AND not feeling rough as a badger's arse helped a LOT!

The 5 hour drive was much better this time, being that we were in a much more comfortable tro tro and there were only 8 of us (as opposed to 13 last time) so we had plenty of room to stretch out. I hung my head out the window like a dog all the way there and all the way back, I just cannot get enough of looking out at this country, it's just so bizzare. The things you see people selling at the side of the road (ie. every item imaginable and some you've never even imagined), the constant waving and shouted greetings as we pass and the strangeness of the roadsigns are more than enough to keep me entertained for hours on end.

We secured the 'treehouse' table in the complex on Friday night, so called because it's a round table with a wooden canopy sitting up some rickety stairs and has a great view of the dancefloor on one side and the beach on the other. We soon had a cracking game of Ring of Fire underway when a random American dude passed on the steps and asked if he and his friends could join us, naturally we said yes welcome, come on in, and then about a hundred rowdy Americans descended on us and proceeded to be all shouty and American until they really started to annoy us. Part way through a game of Never have I ever (which as you know, always leads to some kind of drama...!) one of them who we'd quickly named 'Steroid' started having a go at one of our number because he misheard something she'd said and then chaos ensued. Some personal insults were thrown and returned, offense was taken and the atmosphere became distinctly uncomfortable. At which point we decided on a change of scenery and hit the dancefloor.

The Saturday night was again Reggae night, and the moment the band started playing Peter Andre's 'Mysterious Girl' we all went mental and threw ourselves into the melee with careless/ drunken abandon. The locals were loving our antics, no doubt because of how truly ridiculous we looked in our attempts to find some rhythm. Some attention was more welcome than others, the rasta guys who tried to dance with us and teach us some moves were awesome, but there were more than just a few who took it too far and went in for the grope over and over. These people are weird to be honest, they find it difficult to understand WHY a white girl would not want to be the subject of his groping, and when you ask them to back off they often get defensive and offended, which in turn pissed me off, and by midnight we all just wanted to stick together in our group rather than being pawed over left right and centre.

The evening ended with Dan and both Megan's having a casual dip in the sea to cool off (and avoid the pervs), so that was nice.

The next day I bought some souvenirs, a bangle, a painting and a throw made of patchwork African materials which is dead pretty. I'm going to have to throw away some clothes to be able to pack it all.

The beach is ok at Kokrabite, but there's a fair bit of crap laying around - water bottles and wrapper and such. I had a paddle on Sunday and as the wave went out I thought my foot was being attacked by some rogue African sea creature, but it turned out to be an old sock.

Ghanaian hospitals are wonderful. Well, when you know someone who knows the doctor who writes you out a prescription for some pretty knock-out drugs no questions asked at only 4 Cedi (just over a quid) it's pretty wonderful. And although I hot-footed it down to the internet cafe imnmediately to google the name of the stuff I ended up taking it and 24 hours later I am tonsillitis-free, at last!! It's the first time in almost 3 weeks that I haven't felt totally wretched, and it's almost the end of my time on the Ghana project.

It's also just stopped raining for the first time in 3 days, which is a blessed relief as all my other clothes are hung out on the washing line and have been going through a real battering in the Ghanaian rain, I bet I'll get back to the house to find that all my pants have disintegrated. We're told that now isn't even the rainy season anymore as it officially finished in August, but Mpraeso (the town I'm living in) is in a pretty mountainous region and it has some quite extreme weather sometimes. The constant rain, the damp in the volunteer house, the bucket showers and cold water, combined with humidity and weird food is a recipe for sickness in us British weaklings! Almost without exception, all of us in the house have been struck down with something or other. The luckiest amongst us have reacted badly to our anti-malarials and had a few days of dizziness and nausea, others swapped colds and flu like pokemon cards, and the truly unlucky were party to Montezuma's revenge (aka Ghana belly...) and considering the surroundings we're living in I have nothing but sympathy for them (and am infinitely glad to not be part of that group - yet!). When you get used to seeing it you can recognise when someone is about to have an attack of brown rain - be in on the dancefloor in Kokrabite or sitting round in the lounge of an evening, it's like suddently hearing the call of the wild, with a head movement out of the blue, a panicked look in the eyes and then a hasty 'excuse me just a moment' before the awkward gait that's somewhere in between a hop and a full blown run in the direction of the nearest latrine. If you remember your bog roll you're lucky, more than a few people have been caught short with no paper, no shoes and no water bucket for 'after'...

Not good.

1. Always drive on the right hand side of the road

2. Unless you fancy driving on the left

3. Or in the middle

4. Always try and avoid the cavernous pot holes

5. Unless you have no regard for the health or wellbeing of your vehicle or passengers, then just aim straight for them

6. When you see a goat wandering across the road, aim for it - if you hit and kill it you can take it home for dinner

7. If you kill it and dont fancy eating it, then stand at the side of the road holding it up - sooner or later someone will come past and buy it off you

8. If you are a taxi driver then never charge more than 1.5 Cedi for a journey (50p)

9. Unless your passengers are white, in which case quadruple it first and try your luck

10. Disregard these rules and do whatever you like really

Um, can somone from work fill in my Xytech for me please? From 30/09 to 04/10 is regular annual leave, but it wouldn't let me go that far ahead before I left.

Getting paid will mean a lot to this stinky homeless volunteer - fanks!!

One of the first things I learned out here was that there are no rules, no structure and nothing resembling what we would call common sense. So naturally I've ended up doing totally different work to what I was told I'd be doing, but hey, I'm trying to get used to going with the flow so it's all good.

Today and yesterday I was teaching in a nearby school, it's a private school so hearing that I thought well what on earth are we going to do there then, surely they're ok if the families can afford to pay for a school it must be good. But that was my western mind making western comparisons, as even the private schools out here are woefully lacking in materials, resources and trained teachers. I thought we might be watching the teacher for a bit at first but noooooo the moment they see a white person wander in they down chalk and give you the floor - no pressure! I bombed yesterday, I don't know how to communicate edicational concepts to 10 year olds and could hardly teach them about user experience right?! So last night me and one of the other volunteers drew out a massive map of Africa and labelled all the countries in preparation for tomorrows lesson - fair to say we leared a lot ourselves - and this afternoon I drew out smaller versions with the labels missing. I'm planning to photocopy that here in the internet cafe and use it as a handout after talking round the map. Or something. The kids are so eager to learn ANYTHING they'll lap it up no matter how terrible their teacher (me) is, so I'm lucky in that sense.

The eagerness to learn is such a stereotype but it's just so true, and when you think about kids attitudes to school back home in the UK it's very humbling. I was handing out paper yesterday and they are all so polite with their 'Thank you madame', and one little girl said 'God bless you' - it was so sweet I swear, I almost wept.

I'm looking forward to going back tomorrow :D

I'd read about it, and decided that the Rastafaria community on the beach was DEFINITELY going to be on the cards, and the whole volunteer group went there this weekend.

There were 11 of us on Friday, 5 girls 6 guys, ranging from 18 to 47 so a fairly mixed bag but mostly early 20s studenty types (ohhh the flashbacks....), and we all hired a tro tro to take us the 3 hour drive to the coast. Of course this estimation was provided in GMT (Ghana Maybe Time) which meant it actually took 5.5 hours, and cooped up in a stuffy minivan where there is no air conditioning and you cant see out of the windows is no laughing matter. I was hoping it would be well worth the journey.

Note: I've been feeling SO ill ever since I got here, be it a combination of malaria pills, humidity, the cold I picked up from my roommates and sheer knackered-ness, so the first thing I wanted to do when we got there was nap. The last thing I wanted was to drink.

The place we stayed at was called Big Milly's Backyard (google it, it's awesome), and there were 30 or so huts of varying sizes dotted around a central bar and sandy dancefloor type area, and it was full of people from all over - Australia, USA, Sweden, UK, Germany, as well as loads of locals. Actually, it was the first time I haven't felt aware of my ethnicity since I've been here, the atmosphere was very relaxing and accepting. And most importantly the rooms had air conditioning and, wait for it.... RUNNING WATER!! We were having 3 or 4 showers a day just because we could, and those of the group not totally bunged up were pooing to their hearts content knowing that they didn't have to look it in the eye during the bucket-flush moments later.

The rest of the weekend was a bit quiet for me as I felt so ill, I went out with the rest of the group on Friday night and got talking to a load of locals, some of them are more interesting than others - the ones who launch into 'I come visit you in London?' within the first 10 seconds didn't get change to say any more than that, but others had some good chat about Ghanaian culture and life out here. But they all, without fail, wanted something other than a natter - be it a visit to England, marriage, money, sponsorship, business tips etc etc, so it got tedious after a while.

I have to interrupt myself here, as I'm in the internet cafe and can barely hear myself think for the noise of the rain outside - it's SO HEAVY!! One of the other volunteer girls was telling me that as soon as it happens like this everyone runs out of our house with their shampoo and has a proper shower, but I don't quite think I should do that here in the street. I'll have to make do with a bucket when I get back.

Anyway yeah, so the second night everyone was so hungover and knackered that it wasn't as rowdy, and I continued to feel sick as a dog all the way back yesterday.

Four new people arrived when we were away and they all seem lovely, and there are two more newbies tomorrow so I think we're going to go back for Kokrabite round 2 this weekend coming, for me it'll be nice to appreciate it without constantly having to run back to my room for more tissues and paracetamol, hopefully this cold will have gone by then :S

The one thing I've decided I'm not going to miss is constantly being poked and stared at.

The kids are usually really curious and that's ok, you'd expect that in a region where most of them have never seen a white person before, and most of them smile and wave with it. A small minority of the adults are no less curious but significantly less friendly, and there are times when it makes me feel pretty uncomfortable.

I've had several locals tell me the story about how Ghana got its independence from Britain (which was really not long ago back in the 50's), so I know there might be a lingering resentment towards us for all the history there.

When we're rolling through a village in the tro tro (minibus) or walking round we're constantly hearing 'Obruni! Obruni!' which can mean many things but basically means 'person from outside Africa'. When you hear it often enough though it starts to sound like they're referring simply to the colour of your skin, and can you imagine if we did that the other way round back home...?!

The most annoying thing is people trying to mug you off just because you're white - a taxi driver will offer a lift to a local for 1 cedi (33p) but he will try and charge us 3 cedi for the same journey, so you have to argue with him until he agrees to give you the local price. During which time you may as well have walked it.

There's a certain level of acceptance that I'm trying to arrive at, I'll never blend in here, but also it's difficult to constantly feel like a walking zoo exhibit. It's only been a week so I'm hoping that I'll get used to it as time goes by.

On my first full day I got sent with another volunteer (who is a paramedic) to meet some nurses who were running a vaccination program in the surrounding villages. TWO HOURS of hair raising driving down INSANE roads saw us arrive at the village where we were stared at by every single person there. I knew it would be a novelty for them to see a white person wandering round, but it was a bit odd. The kids were all just really curious and seemed surprised and amused when we smiled at them, some of the adults were less friendly or so it seemed, but the majority shook our hands and said we were welcome there. Eventually, the nurse rocked up on the back of a motorbike carrying a box of the drug and syringes. It was the MMR vaccine, and soon the kids started turning up en masse, usually 4 or 5 kids to each mother. Given that I'm not even remotely medically trained I wasn't sure what my job was going to be, so I decided to improvise and just let the kids poke me. It seemed to amuse them and keep them occupied whilst the nurse faffed about. There is no sense of urgency or even efficiency here, it's enough to drive you to distraction coming from a place where everything needs to have happened yesterday.

After a while I got bored of the poking and despite there being a 100% language barrier between us the kids were getting more comforatble around me so I took a few photos and they squealed with laughter when they saw themselves on the camera, after that they were hooked and kept demanding more and more. One took a liking to me despite my natural discomfort around kids, and dragged me outside the hut thing to teach me some kind of dance - I just know you can imagine what a right pillock I looked prancing about in the dust and stamping my feet with about 30 little African kids, and by their laughter that idiocy crossed all language boundaries. It was fun but the sun was starting to come out (oh hadn't i mentioned that it's been pissing it down ever since I got here?) and it was getting really hot so I went back inside to try and be useful. I sat with a lady who was watching her eldest son getting the vaccine, and the way they were so scared but the mothers were sort of laughing it off made me realise that human nature it the same everywhere you know. We'd be acting in just the same way back home, and that was comforting and made me feel even more at home. The woman then happily handed me her baby and wandered off nattering to her mates, whilst I'm holding this baby like as if it's a dangerous bomb about to explode. It was looking at me like i was some kind of fascinating alien. I warmed to him after a while and just as I was thinking that babies are not so bad, he peed on me.

Well, I've been here for 2 nights now, so the shock has work off a little...

I got picked up at the airport by some dude named Ebeneezer who within 10 minutes of getting into his cab had told me his entire life history and asked me to marry him. Great start. I politely declined, and hoped he would still take me to the house. Oh and the house is 3 hours drive away he says. He didn't mention that it would be 3 hours of bone shattering pain and discomfort on The Worst Roads I have ever experienced. I couldn't believe the car was still in one piece by the end of the first hour.

We eventually got to the house and one of the locals who works for the project showed me round. Dear god. I knew it was going to be a little rough around the edges but honestly - how do you shower in a bucket?? I made a mental note to check and see if they mentioned the house as having running water on the website, cos I'm pretty sure my human rights are about to be violated.

All the other volunteers were either out in town or napping, so I didn't get to speak to too many people right away.

Wandered around for ages trying to find a comfy seat for the next 7 hours. The airport is very shiny and hard and cold. Eventually saw a bloke packing up his things and made a beeline for his lounger. When I sat down it was still warm. I think he was a bit startled.

Two blond lasses come sit in the lounge chairs next to me, I'm trying to work out what language they're yakking away in. I know I'm tired by now (2am) but it takes me a full 20 minutes of eavesdropping before I realise they're from Newcastle.

Finally went to check the boards to see I need to be at a gate about 5 million miles away, so figure I'd have a wander over early. Ended up being a bit confused as the flight to Accra wasn't on the board but the same flight number said it was going to Abidjan or some place. Turns out the plane was just popping in to Accra to drop a few of us off and then carrying on its merry way.

For the 8 hour flight I was expecting more great things, and sadly I was utterly disappointed - this plane was a shithole. I'd have mistaken it for easyjet if it'd been orange. So follow the most uncomfortable 8 hours of my life so far.

It wouldnt be long before that record was blown out the water...!