Just go! I promise it’s worth it.

I truly had an amazing time in Ghana. I gave all of the students a sticker whenever we ended a session of reading as a way acknowledging their hard work. And seeing the students proudly putting these stickers on their books or arms or even on the forehead made me smile. I think maybe they were proud that someone was proud of them. And I was!

To me one of the highlights was being at school and interacting with the children that were more than willing to learn and always ready to play in the breaks. It is always difficult seeing the difference from day to day with this kind of work but I could tell that some of the students I worked with started using the method that I introduced to them by themselves. It was simply spelling out the word they had a hard time pronouncing to learn how it was pronounced. It is a very small but also very important step in learning to read, and I felt so proud of them. Besides that I also really appreciated the chance to experience a bit of the country in the weekends when we for instance went on trips to the Wli Waterfalls and Cape Coast. You get to know the other volunteers in a different way on these trips, and Ghana is just such a beautiful country that it would be a shame missing out on the national parks, castles, busy markets, waterfalls and lakes. My third highlight is probably the community feeling at the volunteer house in Aduamoa. I felt welcome from the very beginning and people always try to involve as many as possible in the week’s activities. It quickly felt like family.