In addition to this, our most ambitious project was the creation of the Dunkwa Children’s Library. We opened it on the 17th June, having worked hard for the past few months, painting murals, having furniture made and painting it, making membership cards and buying hundreds of books. Opening the library has been a big success – so much that we would be stopped in the street by children asking us to write their names down to show their interest in becoming members of the library. When we counted over one hundred names, we decided it was time to stop as we only have one room for the library. Having started off with twenty permanent members, we introduced a temporary membership scheme – to try out potential members and to give more children a chance at reading. When we left, we had forty-five members and these were from virtually every school in the area – of every denomination, both primary and secondary. Word had certainly spread throughout the whole town! It is a project that we hope the next volunteers will continue, I know the children at least will make sure of that. Just before we left, we also had a wall erected, to make the library more secure, and we had electricity connected to the kindergarten building where the library is housed. This gives the possibilities of evening classes or later opening hours and the potential for computers to be brought to the library in the future.

From a tourist perspective, Ghana certainly is a beautiful country with idyllic golden, palm tree lined beaches, rainforests and wildlife but the people certainly made it special for me. I have heard it said that Ghanaians are the happiest people on earth and they certainly have cause to be. I just hope that they realise their own worth and that we might have started to dispel the myths they hold that as whites we are superior to them. Returning to England having spent time in Africa certainly made me appreciate the relative ease with which we live in this country, however it is to Ghana that I would look as a model of the truly important aspects of life like family and community, where they can teach us many lessons.