At last, we’re in Ghana!

What a day, and a day of contrasts.

Jose-Luis and I landed in Accra last night, and were met by Robbie and some of the Basic Needs team (Robbie arrived about an hour before us). We were taken to our apartment but, given it was at night, didn’t get much of an appreciation of the area.

This appreciation started this morning as I woke up to the noise of screaming kids at the school next to our block – you can watch them in the classroom from my window! The apartment is ok, at least it’s air conditioned, you just need to remember that you’re living in a developing country. And it isn’t a mud hut, as many people have asked me…

We went to the Basic Needs office this morning and got a very warm welcome. These people have put so much effort into our stay and have planned a day-by-day itinerary for the next 60 days! This was music to Jose-Luis’ ears, as someone who is very organised, but for me it felt quite daunting. We will be meeting so many people, from the Minister of Health, to heads of hospitals, doctors, traditional healers, to the mentally ill themselves. The schedule appears pretty demanding at times, and seems to cover the whole of the country.




I’m conscious that I haven’t talked about what we are here to do. After a week of listening to people and understanding the issues, we will re-visit our terms of reference next Monday, but the essence of it at present is
(a) Basic Needs has a worldwide plan and an African plan, but we are to develop a Ghana country plan which tries to raise awareness of mental illness amongst the donor community to attract greater funding; and
(b) there is a draft piece of legislation on disability, which the organisation needs to lobby government, policymakers and other NGO’s to ensure it best reflects the needs of the mentally ill.

Whether this is the right terms of reference we will re-visit in a week, but at least there is something to aim for. I am conscious that it is an ambitious objective in two months.

This afternoon we had to pay for much of our costs, such as accommodation. We didn’t want Basic Needs to fund our working capital so we paid for most of our Accra costs up front. As I didn’t have enough US dollars, I had to go to the bank and withdraw the maximum cash I could (about £50 equivalent) seven times from my VISA card! The only problem was that the largest denomination of note in Ghana is 20,000 Cidi (equivalent to about £1.50) which meant that I had over 350 notes in my pockets! The bizarre thing about this country is that the largest note only buys about 1-2 beers – how the country operates without credit cards is beyond me…



We drove through a number of parts of the city which were very deprived, and this was upsetting. It reminded me of some of the townships I’ve been past in South Africa.

This evening we went out for dinner with Monica, the cook/housekeeper, and her cousin Max. We asked them to take us to a traditional Ghanaian restaurant, so first stop they took us to was a 4 star hotel with a Western buffet. We said ‘no thanks!’. Second stop was the equivalent of a KFC, but they had run out of grilled chicken. We had a beer and moved on. Last stop was a Nandos – by this time we were so hungry we just ate it!

A very mixed day, lots of laughter and warmth from the locals, and a few difficult sights. Tomorrow Ghana plays Brazil in the World Cup; I sense it is either going to be a day of mad frenzy and excitement, or a very morose day. Your bets please?