Christmas time again!

I just looked at my blog, which I haven't maintained this year, and realised that last entry was Christmas last year! I thought that once I retired time would drag but this year seems to have gone more quickly than ever.

As I look back I don't seem to have done that much. I did begin the year by tutoring a Bangladeshi boy who had come to Ghana with his parents and was starting at a school which had British based curriculum. I enjoyed the sessions but not the driving! It usually took me an hour -on a good day- to get to where he lived and an hour to get back. I am not a person who drives for fun and the effort of driving to the tutoring sessions 4 times a week proved too much and so I stopped in March but I hope I gave him a good start so that he could benefit from the things he was learning at school.

Since then I have worked with an Argentinian guy who wants to improve his written English and this is proving much more interesting and as it is only once a week, can face the battle with the Accra traffic.

Apart from the work, we hosted a Canadian girl who is volunteering here in Ghana. As this was the first time for us to open our home to a stranger we were a bit apprehensive about how it might affect our home life but she was the perfect person to host as she didn't intrude into our lives at all and was very self-sufficient and most of all she ate all the food we prepared! As we eat our variation of Ghanaian food with lots of pepper (chilli) that was amazing. At least that was a good preparation for her move to live with a Ghanaian family in the 'bush'! Not sure that living in our house with all its mod cons would prepare her for that though! She'll be staying with us over Christmas so we'll find out how she coped.

The biggest drama of the year was returning from a trip overseas to find that the guy who looked after the house while we were away had crashed our car into the gate post! He had asked the mechanic who had repaired the car if he could drive it back to the house after he had taken if for a test drive - not mentioning that he didn't know how to drive. He must have thought that, because it was automatic, he knew what to do! Of course he couldn't negotiate the entrance to the house and crashed, hurting his own chest and causing the mechanic to break the windscreen with his head!! Neither were wearing seat belts!

It meant that not only did we have to spend quite a lot on repairs we also had to get another person to work around the house - which was a trial in itself!

Here is a picture showing the damage to the car. I think in the UK it would have been a write-off but here the mechanics are able to perform magic and now it looks as good as new - almost!!

However, the saddest part of the year revolves around the poor medical care in this country and the lack of professionalism of the medical profession. My husband's brother contracted hepatitis. Apparently it is prevalent in the village where he lives. In fact, the health department conducted a survey and discovered that about 14% of the population of the village had it. Unfortunately it seems it was only a statistical survey and the people they tested were not informed as to the results of the tests. As a result his brother only found out he had chronic hepatitis when it was in an advanced stage. Then the doctors prescribed a dose of medicine that was designed for people in the first stages of hepatitis and at the end of two months of treatment he was worse than when he started it.

He is staying with us at the moment and it is so sad to see such a young man suffering as a result of such inept treatment. My husband is now doing everything to try and get him well again and we have our fingers crossed that with the correct medication and a good diet and rest, his brother will make a good recovery.

Looking back on the year, there has been a lot of joy and happiness but the worry related to his brother's illness is going to affect our Christmas this year but we can only hope that a New Year will bring renewed hope.