Kuapa Kokoo Kids Tour 2008

In Haworth, my favourite thing was that we were taken on an old steam railway locomotive train. It is run by volunteers but it is a working train. We went on the train with Rita and some local children.

I like the way it moves slowly and the steam engine sound: me ko tarkwa, me ko tarkwa, me ko tarkwa, me ko tarkwa!

We put our heads out the window and looked at the train moving along. Little bits of material from the smoke goes in your eyes!

Last night, it was my first time that I have bath. I’ve never had such a bath before! We ran the bath and put the bubble mixture in it, and I asked myself what is this all about? When I lay down in it, it was strange, but I really liked it.

This morning at the hotel, we had an English fried breakfast. Sometimes I think these people should come to Ghana and we will teach them how to cook!

We visited the village of Haworth today and met Rita, the local Fairtrade campaigner, a very kind woman. We also met Esi, and from her accent we could tell she comes from Ghana, so that was exciting. I don’t think I could have lived there like her though – she was the only black person there. As far as I could see, there were no other black people.

We went to Haworth Primary School – it is a very small school with 230 students but they are all very intelligent. The head teacher is a very hard worker and they have lots of different groups. They have a really nice school garden where they grow food for their school lunch. We have a school garden in New Koforidua but we don’t deal with small vegetables, we deal with crops. We learn to plant agricultural crops like cassava, plantain and maize. We learn how they are geminated, how they are propagated and how they are harvested and how pests and disease can infect the crop.

We went to Rita’s shop, which is very fantastic. It was selling all kinds of Fairtrade products.

When I was presenting in my workshop in Glasgow, some two school children asked me whether I had tasted "IRN BRU" since I had come to the UK. They got us some during the lunch break. We both liked it very much!

Today we presented at the Fairtrade Schools conference in Glasgow. They were all excited to meet us and we were also happy to meet them. I did not feel nervous about presenting, as we have presented before at the Kids Camps in Ghana that were run by Comic Relief, Trading Visions, Divine Chocolate and Kuapa Kokoo. I remember one boy called Johnny Mulligan, when he saw my slide with a picture of my mother, told me: "your mother looks really nice!"

There was a song at the end by the Whitelees School of Rock, all about Fairtrade. Young children had written the song, the words were good, and a nice melody.

Langtree School was very great school. They had a section of the school dedicated to scientists and they have a lot of scientific instruments and also they have a computer laboratory, so each and every student has their own computer to work from. They have more computers than my school. In my school we don’t learn subjects like geography or history, we do have social studies which has some history.

I have noticed that time in the UK is quite different from Ghanaian time. When it is 7pm in Ghana, when you go to my village, if they are not working, then they are asleep, unless they have television. You will not find many people walking along the roads at that time. The people here do everything faster, like walking, or at work, everything is fast!

Today we went to visit our colleagues who came to our school in New Koforidua last year. They are from Langtree school at Woodcote village near Reading , and when we reached them they welcomed us nicely, as we did when they came to our school.

After the welcome, we met the students in the school hall and gave them our presentation, it was quite good because this was the first school which has heard our presentation. After our presentation some of the students asked us some questions about how fair trade has impact on our lives and our community. Then we joined up with lots of friends and had a tour of the Woodcote village.

Next we had our lunch with two teachers and our colleagues , then played some football with the boys, before going back to Reading and back on the train to London.

Today the weather was warm, 28 degrees, although in Ghana it is normally 35 degrees, I would prefer it to be a little hotter!

We went to Victoria to a newsagent for the launch of MISSION:POSSIBLE in London. We had our pictures taken with a giant Dubble bar, and with three Dubble Agents from Deptford Green School: Tracy, Marcus and Christopher. It was my first time meeting other young people in the UK and I preferred spending time with them because their ages are likewise to me!

We had a lunch at Nandos and the food which was given to us was so delicious and it was the kind of food we have searched for but we don’t always get.

Today we went to mass at a Catholic church in Balham. The church is nice but in Ghana I haven’t seen a Christian woman wearing trousers before – at home they would wear a dress to church. And the boys, the mass servants, were wearing earrings! But everything went well, all the songs were good.

Lots of young people were there receiving First Communion. I actually received First Communion at the last mass I attended in Ghana two weeks ago, so this was special for me to see.

We were invited to church by a nice local Fairtrader called Dorothy, and after that we went to lunch at the house of a lady from Guyana called Thelma. She made us African food that we know and like, she used the small hot peppers that are called kpakpo shito!

We took the Underground from Heathrow to London. I thought it would be dangerous taking a train underground – I thought you would die! no light and no air – but actually it is very safe.

After a rest at the hotel, we went to the offices of Trading Visions and Dubble HQ, by Tower Bridge. This is a very interesting bridge. I have never seen a bridge with so much decoration.

London is a beautiful city, because of the buildings and the roads and the cars. But it is very cold. We need some gloves as well as a jumper.

In the afternoon, we visited a shop nearby to ask them to stock Dubble Fairtrade chocolate. The shopkeeper was very friendly and agreed to put Dubble chocolate on his shelves.

The food on the plane was nice. They gave us jollof rice with chicken and fried plaintain – my favourite food! They gave us drinks too – I had orange juice.

I watched a little bit of the film they were showing, called Fool’s Gold, then I fell asleep.
I woke up before breakfast, which was tea, bread and cake.

When we stepped off the plane, the weather was too cold! I did expect it, I know that in London it is always very cold, so I had to expect it.

The first thing I noticed was that all the people who were looking at our papers were white people – quite different from Accra. After that, we waited for over an hour for our luggage, they had to apologise because people started to complain.

I went on the escalator for the first time at Heathrow – we had to be careful as it is quite hard at first getting on and off.

Our last day in Ghana was busy! We were travelling to too many places, like from Kumasi to Accra, four hours drive. The roads into Accra were blocked, so we spent about two hours just trying to get into the city. We were lucky because someone helped us by showing us a certain route from where we were to get to the airport.

It was my first time at an airport and my first time to be in a plane. I expected a plane to be much smaller, but it was very big! As it ran along the runway, I panicked. It took off into the sky so quickly, all at once!

Once we were up in the sky, they gave us a pack to keep us busy, like pens, a book, a game and a bag.