Hello 2007, goodbye Buduburam

On Saturday I left Buduburam refugee camp, my home and workplace for the past two months. It was quite an emotional time for the volunteers – six out of nine were leaving and we’ve been together for months – but I was doing pretty well at taking it in my stride (hardened uber-traveller that I am). Until I said goodbye to Diamond, the 5 year old who lives next door and likes to climb up me and give me hugs. He wouldn’t let go of me and was saying “Take me with you, I want to come with you”. I generally hadn’t got attached to people on camp, but Diamond’s sad little face made leaving quite tough.

I haven’t written in 2 weeks, and although the school has been closed in that time there’s still loads to tell you. I’m going to try and be brief…

The main thing I’ve been working on is getting a “teachers’ lounge”, or staff room, furnished at the school. The staff really need motivating, plus they will benefit from working together more, so I think this is really important. However, like iother volunteers who are trying to get projects sorted during the Christmas period, it’s been incredibly frustrating. I got the OK from the Central Office, then had to chase up the head of the Technical Dept, who was to build the furniture. He was twice about 6 hours late for meetings with me. Then, on my last day – after the work which I had paid for, had started – I was told that the Central Administration wee no longer happy for the room to be used for that purpose. So my last day on camp was partly spent negotiating with the Executive Director. He backed down in the end, and I think the refusal was a tactic to avoid them having to pay for any of it.

The other interesting, and frustrating, project I’ve been working on is trying to get the school librarian fired. Doesn’t sound very nice, especially as he’s a refugee like everyone else, but you don’t want a man in charge of the library whose instinctive reaction to seeing kids in his library, is to chase them out with his stick. Everyone agrees he has to go… but he seems to be a relative or fellow tribesman of the Executive Director. Which complicates things slightly. No one seems to want to take responsibility for the decision; the Central Administration say they need a clear recommendation for dismissal from the Principal (suddenly they respect the school’s opinion!), and he has twice made a recommendation but then backed down both times. He’s scared that he will be painted as the villain of the situation, and that his reputation, community standing, and even his job, are at stake. I think he’s paraniod too weak to run the school effectively (although very well intentioned) – but then if I’d been beaten almost to death by Liberian guerillas because a family member had associated with the wrong politician, I’d probably also be paranoid and choose my friends and enemies carefully. So the school is left with a great resource - the library - that will not realise a fraction of it's potential.

It's rereshing to see that not all organisations on camp are dragged down by politics and greed (actually it seems to be only the big and powerful ones). I went to see the school for prostitutes that I mentioned last time. No, it's not a school to teach prostitution; it teaches them basic maths and English, and wil eventually also teach them vocational skills to help them get out of prostitution. I was shocked by how young some of the girls were - at first I was in denial, telling myself that the 10 year old kids must just be local kids who've tagged along. If only.

It's a great project with great potential, and I'm really impressed with the guy running it. He's just a regular guy - doesn't come across as particularly inspiring or visionary - but his initial motivation for this school was simply when a few girls tried to sell him sex (for about 50p - although that is enough for a cup of rice). It's a part time school, in a courtyard, but he has a vision to build a building for it, make it full time and increase the number of girls. I really want to help it happen, so I'm helping him with the planning, then will hopefully help him fundraise. So expect an email in the not too distant future!

The Christmakah festivities were great. I wasn't expecting Channukah (a Jewish festival) to really happen, but the other volunteers were really keen, which was great. I made a Channukiah out of camera film canisters, and the others bought or made me a present for each night. Possibly the best Channukah I've had. Christmas wa the first Christmas I've had, but was also great. We had a Xmas lunch which we all made something for, and on Christmas eve we went to a Christmas cantata (choir performance) organised by one of the teachers, at the church where he's choir director. It was in aid of the camp's deaf and dumb school, which is a really good cause. It was interesting that some of the language that was used about them would probably be politically incorrect in the West, but for Africa the whole thing was incredibly progressive and just brilliant. I was asked to get up and speak to launch the appeal, which felt like quite an honour.

Walking round camp on Christmas was amazing - everyone was really dressed up, especially the kids (who usually walk around in tatty clothes or even half naked). For the girls it meant fancy clothes and crazy braids or weaves in their hair. For the boys it meant dressing up in full-on gangster rapper style. The disturbing part was that the rapper image inccluded an essential accessory - a fake gun. So the refugee camp, where evreyone has fled to escape from war and violence, was overridden with boys pointing toy/cap/pellet guns at each other. Crazy.

I'm hopefully in Ghana for two more weeks, in which time I want to visit the 'Jewish' community in Western Ghana. I say hopefully, because technically I'm booked to fly to Iran on Tuesday. I'm in the process of changing my ticket, but it's been delayed because the airlie aren't sure whether to charge me. So I have to phone them up when their office reopens... on Tuesday. If I can't change it, there may be a little problem. Iran doesn't want to give me a visa at the moment. The embassy here needs authorisation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Iran, and apparently my application has "caused some sensitivities" there for two reasons. Firstly, because I'm a Brit applying from Africa. And secondly, because my surname "seems Jewish". This is ridiculous because they can't deny me a visa on the grounds of my religion - but also because whenever I go to Israel I have difficulties in passport control as I share a surname with a most wanted Islamic terrorist, Ahmed Jibril. I wonder whether he realises his surname "seems Jewish"?