What a palaver

Everyone in Ghana wants to talk to you

Tuesday 25 Jan: Burns Night and not a haggis in sight! But we've just had a meal of rice and fish and spicy sauce and vegetables. It's been a long, and very hot day. Thankfully it is not 'burns' night in another sense, as we have been indoors most of the day at meetings avoiding the sun. 

We began with Morning Prayers at the Headquarters, the talk being given by the Moderator. Then, after breakfast, we met with the Standing Committee, who, surprisingly enough, were all sitting when we went in. The Standing Committee consists of The Moderator, Clerk to the Assembly, and several Directors of Church Programmes probably with a similar remit to our Council of Assembly.

We confirmed with the Moderator all the things we had talked about on the Sunday evening. Yesterday we forgot to let you know about the Sunday evening. We had been taken to the Sky Plus Hotel which, as far as we know is not owned by Rupert Murdoch, but it was definitely HD, that is Highly Delightful. The hotel is set on the top of a hill overlooking Ho. It was night-time. The stars were shining as we sat outside and looked down on the lights of the town, while behind us the illuminated fountain provided a gentle background sound (which was occasionally drowned out by some bizzarely-chosen country music on the sound system.) Food was great. Carol had a bit of a palaver eating hers however, simply because what she chose was boiled yams with palaver sauce (which is made from spinach and fine shreds of beef in a hot chilli sauce.) Iain chose freshly-caught Volta perch. We had an opportunity to talk informally with the Moderator and the members of the Standing Committee (they were sitting then too.) It was lovely to be able to talk at length and in some depth about twinning, volunteers, prison ministries, HIV and climate-change, interspersed with general chat and lots of laughter.

But back to today... The more formal meeting with the Moderator and Standing Committee gave a positive endorsement to all the ideas and suggestions which we had shared on the Sunday evening and the EP Church Executive committed themselves to taking forward our shared work.

We then spent most of the rest of the day in the company of one particular SC member, Mrs. Lydia Adajawah who is the Presbyter Executive of the General Assembly. She is responsible for a number of programmes, including HIV and climate change. She took us first to a project which ministers to 'street children' integrating them back into everyday life, their own families and school or employment. Then we visited a couple of large high schools and met with the Headteachers. We were able to share with them about Professional Volunteers and Books Abroad.

Next stop was the Conference Room of the hotel where an HIV-Counselling Workshop was being delivered to a group of religious leaders, Christian and Muslim. We had an opportunity to speak with them before going back to Lydia's office to meet the Project Co-ordinator for HIV and AIDS work in the EP Church, a young but very able man called Godwin. He explained their vision for setting up a network of 'focus people' trained in HIV issues in each Region, Presbytery, District  and Congregation. As with Scotland, stigma and discrimination are still very real issues here in Ghana.

We had a short break before then meeting with the Climate-Change Desk Officer, Charles (otherwise known as Chas.) That was a very interesting and inspiring conversation, some of which we recorded. We look forward to sharing it with Adrian, the Church of Scotland's climate change officer, when we return. 

We then returned to the HIV conference to meet with the EP ministers, just before they left for home to share a little bit more with them about the Church of Scotland's own HIV Programme.

All in all a very busy schedule but some good work accomplished.

Before supper we had hoped to meet the Woman's Guild at Dela Church but Seth said he had misplaced them (careless.) We think he meant that he had got the wrong night. So instead we visited one of the several choirs. I think probably it was the 'Great Choir.' In any case, they were great and it proved a very enjoyable way to bring our day's work to an end.

Making friends