Five Weeks To Departure

I woke up. It was 1am. And a ladybird had pooed on my face.

I don't get what it is with these ladybirds. For some reason, whenever the first cold snap strikes in October, every single ladybird in the UK performs a mass migration into my bedroom, where they remain until spring of the next year. I came upstairs one day a couple of months ago and counted thirty-six marching in a circle around my windowpane. I have nothing against them as a general rule, they are by no means the ugliest or most irritating of insects, but seriously, why my bedroom?

So, five weeks to go, and now the nerves are really starting to kick in. It transpires there is no medium between needing to get away right NOW and no no no far too soon.... A week or so more and I'll be in full-blown panic mode. Finding myself talking to people, I can hear my voice going "Yes, I'm going to travel to the coast and I'm really ex-cii-tedd..."- and that crack, right in the middle of the sentence, translates as What the hell am I doing? Africa? SIX MONTHS in Africa??? Can't I just stay in my bedroom and eat Malteasers?

The thing is, I still can't make soup without burning the pan. And in five weeks people are going to be expecting me to stand up in front of a classroom of kids, on the other side of the world, and teach them things. Just thinking about it turns my stomach into a snake pit. Now we're on the wrong side of Christmas, six months seems like an awfully long time, and it doesn't help that I keep saying goodbye to family and friends with the line "And I'll see you... ah, well, in July. Hah."

Time to freak out? I rather think so.

Six Weeks to Departure.

An evening with The Stud;

"You are absolutely mental." he said, shaking his head. "You're going to live in Ghana for six months, with a christian reverend, and you can't drink, and you are actually paying to do this. Seriously, what are you thinking?"

"It's going to help me grow, as a person..." I protested.

"Bullshit. Now I'm going to Japan. To be in a band." He coughed and raised his voice slightly, to make sure everyone could hear him. "that's Japan. Playing with my BAND."

Ice skating with The Raconteur; a gift of priscilla, queen of the desert and a blow-by-blow account of why Star Wars Episode I is a totally implausible film.

An emotionally fraught hour on Christmas Eve sobbing in The Actors house. His kitchen is being ripped out, and we sit on the floor of the sitting room with boxes piled high around us. He brings me a small glass of rum, tea and ginger biscuits and tells me it takes time. It has been snowing, but the rain washes it away, leaving small, sad piles of ice sitting around going now what? Tomorrow it will be Christmas Day, and then the new year and I will be gone.

My passport returns to me in the post, a brand new stamp across its page; Republic Of Ghana- Ghana Immigration Service VISAS, endorsed for six months from said date. I keep waking in the middle of the night thinking What The Hell Have I Let Myself In For?? Six weeks is far too close, no time at all. What will I do without my labradoodle?

Christmas Day- a freh start. Rip down all the photos on my bedroom wall and pin up an enormous map in their place. Soon I will start sticking pins in all the places I want to go. Presents of Ultra-lightweight towels, a mosquito net, sheets of soap and washing powder. A silver harmonica- considerably more portable than a grand piano. I plan a road trip from Oda to Busua, via the Kakum National Park, through Cape Coast, Sekondi and Takoradi. More whirling around on ice. Yes, I muse, I am queen of my destiny and full of poise. At least until several small children come ploughing into the back of my legs and send me flying.

Seven weeks to Departure

...Christmas is just around the corner. You can tell through the cold bite of the air, the drunken revelling of that extraordinary work Christmas party, The Medic cringing with embarrassment about her work Christmas party, finally making good the endless ice skating battle with The Raconteur, the return of UniGal from the cold, cold North. And I haven't even begun shopping.

I have sat down and penned a letter to The Reverend. I have done my best to cheerfully introduce myself, without being too desperately friendly. In point of fact, I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to say to a pastor. Will he, I wonder, stare down at my scribbled words and immediately know I am a non-believer? Will he denounce the heading of 'dear sir'? Perhaps I should have written 'Dear Reverend', or 'Dear Vicar'...

Or 'Messenger of God'???

I stared blankly at the sheet, trying to think of some way of fitting Do you have a piano??? into the message. We were advised to send a photograph of ourselves- the instant I was told, I could only think of the prints of myself in a corset and hotpants, with false eyelashes out to here. In the end I simply sprint out of my house, tear down the road and ram the letter into a postbox before I lose my nerve and take a match to it instead. I decided not to include a photo.

I am rather worried about the total absence of my passport. I packaged it up with my Visa application and sent it away at the Briefing. Since then, there has been neither hide nor hair of it. It's hard to know when is the fitting time to start panicking about ordering a new one. Perhaps I am being overly anxious- but then, the idea of trying to talk my way into Ghana without it seems altogether too much work.

Cheerful Christmas drinks with The Actor.

"I'm going away in seven weeks! It's so exciting!"

"I'm doomed to suffer a life alone, forever...."

'Tis the season to be jolly indeed.

Eight Weeks to Departure

My Mother calls from the United States of America, where she and the Chatterback are having a luxury weekend away.

"I've bought you a huge Mosquito Net! And a sort of ultraviolet zappy type thing you can neutralise nasty water with!"

"Aaahh... Joy. Thanks very much."

Perhaps it's a sonic screwdriver.

I've seen an awful lot of family members, and repeated again and again where I'm going, what I'm doing, and how excited I am about it. In fact, the date of departure seems to be coming worryingly near. I know I'm going to Africa, but I still feel in the sort of mental state where my brain is thinking "Well I'm going to Africa, but I'm not really going to Africa, not really really." I shall probably step onto the plane and have a complete meltdown. Now I must turn my attentions to my last Hep B jab, and my typhoid and yellow fever.

Ten weeks to departure

THIS IS SO EXCITING!!!

I have been placed in a small, fairly rural community in Ghana. I will be living with the local pastor, and teaching at a small church school of about 120 students. The youngest will be toddling, the oldest about twelve years old. I attended my briefing yesterday, in Reading, after an incredibly arduous train journey. Sat on the train to London bridge- that voice came over the intercom.

"Yars, hello.... We're going to delay the train for about ten minutes cause... well, cause we can't really be bothered. Haha, suckers."

Huh. Never mind, I still had an hour to get to Paddington. The train pulled into London Bridge. I then made the terrible mistake of having one of my Special Ideas. I know what I'll do, I'll jump on the underground to get to Charing Cross, that way I can transfer easily onto the bakerloo line, and it will all be so terribly, terribly simple!

My Special Ideas never work out.

Went happily down several escalators, jumped on the tube and took the Northern line. The tube however, did not take me to Charing Cross, it took me to Bank. What? What?? Jumped off the tube. Shit. Ah, okay, don't panic. Right, it transpires the northern line goes nowhere near Charing Cross. Does Bank have the Bakerloo line? No. I could go south to Elephant and Castle? No, that'll take to long, I'll go and get an overhead train to Charing Cross. Got on an escalator going up, glancing anxiously at my watch, now starting to get a bit stressy about time. Get to the top of the escalator- Trains? Trains? Only the Circle and District Lines. Do they go anywhere near Charing Cross? No. Damn! Turn to go back down the escalator- no! It's only a one way escalator! Shit- run round, go out the exit, then back in, have to go back down and get on the Southern line to get to Elephant and Castle and change onto the bakerloo line there.. Escalator is broken. Run down the stairs, follow sign for the Northern Line. Run down several corridors, accidentally bulldoze a small muslim lady- sign for the Northern line going- up the stairs??? What??? But I've only just come down the stairs, why am I going up more stairs?? Run up the stairs, along more corridors, then down another set of stairs- How I hate all these stairs! Eventually arrive back on the Northern line platform, slightly tearful and screaming I HATE LONDON! I HATE THE TUBE! at unsuspecting tourists. After sixteen years living in this city you would think I had at least a basic grasp of how these things work... Jump on the tube and eventually get to Elephant and Castle, get to the Bakerloo line and reach paddington about half an hour later. Am half an hour behind schedule, have missed the train I wanted to catch, wish I was in Ghana RIGHT NOW, because trains don't exist out there.

I got to Reading at about half eleven, and fell onto a bus. Had to go through the whole debacle of finding exact change to pay the driver, and then as I wandered up the aisle, someone said my name. Tall guy, with dark hair, a long black coat and a trilby. Ah- it was The Scientist.

"Nice to meet you..." I said warily, shaking his hand and wondering whether he was about to stab me for my previous comment about his living in the backarse of nowhere. But no, he didn't seem to bear a grudge, and I was relieved. Even more of a miracle was that I wasn't late for the briefing.

A very busy afternoon ensued, covering all the basic information. And I have a real problem. In Ghana, doing anything with your left hand is seen as a serious breach of manners. You can't shake hands with your left hand, you can't point at things with your left hand, you cant EAT anything with your left hand... It's all tantamount to wandering into the country and going HULLO. **** YOU ALL!

....I am very, very left-handed. I am now worried that I'm going to have absolutely no friends. My Mother has suggested tying my left hand behind my back between now and January, Victorian-style. I'm going to have to work something out...

At the end of the day an ex-volunteer who went to Ghana last year came to chat to us and show us all of his photos. We all got the opportunity to ask him any questions we wanted, the adults had to leave the room in case anything 'personal' snigger snigger came up. He was a very friendly guy, and at the end of his talk, he put his hands on the desk and said

"I just have one thing to say to you.."

What? What? We all leaned forwards intrigued.

"... You get worms. Living in your feet."

...WHAT?

"Yeah, these parasites, you pick them up from the sand. Don't worry about it, just take some pills and it kills them off. Doesn't hurt, s'just a bit itchy..."

Amazing. I'm going to stay in a country where worms live in my feet and I write with THE HAND OF THE DEVIL.

....I absolutely can't wait.

Eleven Weeks to Departure

My briefing is due to occur this Sunday, in Reading. I wonder how one gets to Reading. To be honest, all I know about Reading is that the Chatterback absolutely hates it there. Still, by the end of the week I will know where I've been placed, who I shall be working with, who my adopted family for six months will be...

The tension is killing me. Fortunately, I have things to do in the interim. Like staggering through gale-force winds to get to the post office, which for once, is not on strike.

"I need a special delivery envelope for my visa application, I think."

"You talk very fast." she says cheerfully.

"...Oh-kay. Um, the envelope?"

"Are you sure you need it?"

Stagger home again ten minutes later, nothing achieved. And now, sitting at the kitchen table with visa application forms, police disclosures, banking statements, multiple invoices, and a hugely long-winded travel insurance policy, I realise that yes, I do need the special envelope after all. I will now have to go back to the post office, and my luck is such that it will be exactly the same woman I have to talk to.

I do wonder sometimes whether I'm actually fit to be a teacher. You certainly wouldn't think so looking at my passport photographs, which are going to go on my Visa application. In short, I have the cold, dead eyes of a killer. I'd like to think that this was because of the 'NO smiling, NO expression, NO movement, NO bodily hair' attitude towards passport photographs these days, but you never know... I have to keep checking the list of things needed for the briefing- no doubt the one thing I will forget shall be the most vital component of all. Ah- valid certificate for yellow fever inoculation, goody goody. More needles. Still have about three jabs to go, and now work is threatening to administer the Swine Flu vaccine on me because I'll be helping out at the flu clinics... Perhaps I should point out that if they give me the vaccine it will actually render my helping out redundant, I'll only be fit for sitting in the corner and twitching...

I am slightly angsty about meeting all my volunteer companions face to face, feel I'm bound to do something memorably stupid if I get nervous enough. During an online conversation with another volunteer a couple of weeks ago I got swiftly through the topics of agas, gas marks, and elderflower champagne before implying that he lived in the backarse of nowhere, and lost his love forever. I couldn't help it, he did Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Biology at A-Level, and I've never been able to deal with scientists. I'm just anxious that he'll remember our exchange and hit me with a croquet mallet before I've had a chance to introduce myself to anyone else.

Still, I heard from The Stud yesterday, and there's a party on Saturday night- so at least I can wear the dress that's just sitting in my wardrobe, crying "you don't love me..."

Epiphany

I wake up at half past five in the morning, in the cellar. There is a dull thumping at the very base of my skull, which promises to develop into a truly incredible hangover within a few hours. Throw off several layers of blanket, struggle to sit up, and look over at the two motionless forms of The Medic and The Actor, who are occupying two thirds of the one mattress we are all crammed on. I must have fallen asleep roughly two and a half hours ago. Suddenly need to lie down again rather fast.

While dozing, it occurs to me with crystal clarity that I won't see my friends at all- not even once- when I am in Africa. Perhaps it is the remnants of the alcohol still in my system that makes me want to suddenly wake them up, hug them and tell them I love them.

I refrain. I know neither of them would really appreciate my sentiments at this moment in time.

I close my eyes and drift off again. Outside, the rain has stopped at last.

Nothing like a friend.

I made a slight exaggeration when I said that I had been totally abandoned by all my friends for the sunny pastures of University. In fact I am not alone in this world. There are several highly entertaining and delightful people who share my university-less predicament, who I shall now briefly outline in case I ever need to refer to them in the future.

I've always been very frank about the fact that I find boys a lot easier to get on with than other girls, and there are three individuals in particular who sustain my faith in men. The Raconteur, The Actor, and The Stud.

There is no one quite like The Raconteur. I don't think there's any other way to put it. He is eccentric, highly opinionated, incredibly noisy, and incredibly fucking funny. We met over two years ago on an acting course, and we still haven't run out of things to talk about. As Chatterback puts it, "You really have to meet the guy to get it..." He makes me laugh so hard I start crying, without even knowing what he's talking about. The two of us trek around London doing everything we can think of; rowing in Regents Park, small scale cinema trips, aquariums, pubs with skeletons in the window, and between our days out we have long phone conversations, picking the universe to pieces. He studies Latin and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the archaic sci-fi films to have ever been created; he very patiently talks me through highly complex plots, and has the grace not to complain when I can't remember a single detail of any of them.


The Actor is an old friend from primary school, who is pursuing a career in the dramatic arts. We get incredibly drunk together and have mawkish conversations about the cruel nature of love, only pausing to jive energetically around his kitchen. When we were nine years old I dropped a chair on his head from the top of a climbing frame, and he never lets me forget it. In fact, I sometimes wonder whether his Mongoose Thai Kickboxing is all part of some complicated get-you-back plot. The two of us are avid Black Books fans, and spend many evenings sprawled on the sofa watching the episodes and quoting them word for word.


The Stud is technically the guy I've known longest- since we were four years old in reception together- but we lost contact for about eight years. A couple of years ago he reappeared, and now joins me as I go ploughing through the London bar&club scene. We waste hours of valuable time happily insulting each other over social networking sites, and I listen to his stories of all the many, many ladies he has 'conquered'. The guy looks like, I quote My Mother here; 'A Gap Advert model', and he's in a band so he's basically sorted in that department. Lucky bastard is also living in his own place as of a few weeks ago, with three other girls. Haven't heard much from him recently, but I'm given to believe he's having fun.

And finally, there is The Medic, my token 'gal-pal'- incredibly bright, ceaselessly cheerful, and full of worldly wisdom. We both work as receptionists in GP surgeries and meet up to have long, enjoyable moans about how bad we are at our jobs. She advises me on what to do with my love life, promises me that eating sushi really isn't that difficult, and never misses an opportunity to tell me that I should definately marry The Raconteur. We go shopping for sparkly things and killer shoes, and I'd be at a loose end without her.

There are other people, and I love them all dearly, but these are the four I see the most of, and I love them best. Only joking. Or am I?

This morning at work, the computer system crashed, incapacitating the entire practice. Everyone was stressed out by this, except for one doctor who seemed to enjoy ringing the reception desk to drawl "send the next one in", in the manner of a sadistic KGB officer. When I am released for the afternoon it is cold and chucking down with rain outside. As I walk, fat men in heavyweight vehicles amuse themselves by driving close to the kerb and drenching me with sheets of filthy water. Soon I am soaked through, and my shoes are filled to the brim. I squelch home, dreaming of a blazing African sun and heat-blasted trees...

GOM has a Bentley in his posession for the weekend. He is like an overexcited child with a new toy.

Perhaps I should take advantage of his good mood and give him the final invoice for my trip.

Twelve weeks to departure

...And I resemble a human pincushion.





So many needles are being stuck into me at the moment, my upper arms are in a perpetual state of numbness. And I hate needles. I had a terrible incident with one a couple of years ago, which left a lasting impression on me. On the last day of a weeks holiday in the carribean, I got a huge splinter of rotting wood embedded into my right heel. It was absolute agony- I limped to the hotel room and spent half an hour attempting DIY surgery, which was highly painful and achieved nothing. My Mother wandered in and saw me cutting through my own skin with a pair of nail scissors, made some caustic comment about self-harm, and examined my heel. The splinter had gone straight upwards, and there was no way of getting it out.


"Good thing you had your tetanus really." My Mother remarked, yanking my leg over my head to look at the wound in a better light. She is a nurse, and very clinical about injury. "Well, I can't do anything about it now."

A sleepless ten-hour flight later and I was hobbling into Guys hospital, exhausted and whimpering in pain. When it was my turn to be seen, I was taken aside by a large nurse and thrown onto my front on a bed. My Mother sat beside me and started filing her nails.

"Oof, this is nasty." The nurse said cheerily. You know it's bad news when they sound cheery. That means they're going to hurt you. She pulled out an evil-looking pair of pliers and started scrutinising my foot. "Okay.... I'm going to put some numbing spray on the back of your heel, which should dull the pain..."


She got out a can of what looked like Febreeze, and sprayed the back of my heel. It was very cold. Then she stuck a knife in my foot.

"Does that hurt?"

"YES."


"It keeps breaking off..." She said thoughtfully, tapping her cheek with the pliers. "I'm afraid we're going to have to give you a local anaesthetic."

A local anaesthetic.

I had never had one before, and I didn't want to start now. "Can't we- can't I- I mean- it doesn't hurt really, I can just go home and wait for it to come out-" I gabbled. She smiled at me, and produced a vicious-looking needle.

"Here we go!"

OH MY GOD. OH GOD IT HURT IT HURT- WAS THAT NEEDLE BLUNT???

The problem with a local anaesthetic is it isn't quick compared to most injections. To add to this, the skin on my heel was really tough. The nurse got a happy little gouging session, while I shrieked in pain, clutching a sterile hospital pillow. She was killing me, I was certain of it. Blinking tears out of my eyes, I turned to My Mother for comfort and support. She was rolling her eyes.

"I am never going to sit with you through childbirth." She muttered.

My foot did go completely numb and they got the splinter out, but ever since then I have been completely unable to deal with needles or anything needle-related. If faced with the prospect of an injection, I start shaking, and then- (and this is the really scary bit) I start to either cry or laugh hysterically, and often carry on laughing right the way through the whole thing. The poor nurse often leaves the room looking worse than I do. On one occasion a close friend was rushed into hospital in an ambulance, and I had volounteered to ride alongside her. The paramedics stuck a drip into her arm, and when she turned round to look at me I was cowering in the far corner of the vehicle, mumbling "sorry, I'm really not very good at this...."


Currently I'm on a course of Hepatitis B injections, and awaiting my Typhoid and Yellow Fever. I'm hoping that maybe having so many jabs in a concentrated period of time might snap me out of my pathological fear, but at this stage I'm still sitting in the chair cackling with uncontrollable laughter as the nurse warily approaches.



At least I'll never be a heroin addict.

those quiet moments.

Very occasionally at work, for a few minutes, the reception becomes an empty oasis of calm. It's at moments like these that I can sit and quietly appreciate the sound of my brain going *kuh-dung* as it falls gracelessly out of my left ear.

Thus robbed of any rational thoughts, I am at liberty for a few moments to sit and aimlessly wonder about That Guy, and why he hasn't called. Then my brain jumpstarts again, and I go *Right. Now, what the **** was I just doing?*, and carry on.

When being interviewed by the project manager a few months ago, she explained to me that I could feel frustrated during my placement, because the pace of life in Ghana moves a lot slower than it does in London.

...Frankly, I don't think I'm going to have a problem with that at all.

Thirteen Weeks To Departure

I did not expect to have a Gap Year.

At this point in my life, I had hoped I would be flinging myself around a University Campus, getting irresponsibly drunk on dangerous substances and sleeping through the best part of the day. It's a sad state of affairs when an A and Two B's at A Level amount to a failure and the university won't take you. Of course, that's Gordon Brown's fault, as is everything these days.

So, I'm still at home. More to the point; I am at home, alone in the house, it is nearing mid-morning and no one has texted me yet. I may as well be dead.

And I am going to Ghana.



Allow me to explain;

I missed two As and a B at A level this summer by an indescribably small margin of five marks in my History. Because no one is leaving school at sixteen to go to work any more (a beautiful trademark of the recession) there is an influx of students. Universities are handing out more places than they actually have, so if you drop a grade, YOU CAN FORGET GOING THERE.

Results day was filled with frantic phonecalls, begging and many tears. It was about as enjoyable and useful as banging my head against a brick wall with GIVE IT UP graffittied expansively over it.

My parents panicked. I am their eldest child, they had never had to deal with this situation before, what should they do? My father, who goes by the name of GOM; (Grand Old Man or Grumpy Old Moron as the mood takes him), flung the entire family in the car and drove us to the Lake District. My Mother gave herself a neck injury as she spent the first three hours of the journey twisting in her seat to watch me anxiously as I hid behind a pillow, hating the world. The Chatterback rattled on at usual breakneck speed to try and mask the unnering tension. Just to make things even better, we had an overnight stop with the Crumblies, who are My Mother's parents. They are both so short that GOM refers to their house as Liliput. My Grandma, who first told me I was going to be a famous Opera Singer when I was eight years old and has been monitoring my progress ever since, came flying out of the door at two miles per hour and pulled my head downwards so she could hug me. The family then spent the entire evening discussing me while I went to bed and considered a life as a wandering minstrel.

At 8am the next morning, My Mother came haring in and sat on my legs.

"Wake up darling." she prodded me. "GOM and I couldn't sleep for worrying last night, so we got up at one am and made you this."

She held something up, which whent chuggachuggachug as it unfolded repeatedly and eventually hit the floor. I raised my head, and stared through bleary eyes at it. It was a flow chart, drawn across seven or eight pieces of A4 paper taped together, and it was entitled Life Plan.

I hadn't slept for much more than three hours the previous night. I was emotionally exhausted, I was going to be abandoned by all of my friends who did get into University, and I did not want to look at the rest of my life in the form of a flow chart. But My Mother had that slightly crazed look in her eye, which anyone sensible knows not to argue with, so I just nodded and made a neutral can'treallybefuckedwiththisrightnow noise. I had hoped that would be the end of it, and she would leave me alone to wallow in my self-indulgent misery.

Anyone who knows My Mother knows that is not the case. She is shorter than all three of her children, and makes up for it by being one of the most high-maintenance people on the planet. All of my friends are terrified of her. All of my ex-teachers are terrified of her. The entire Lewisham Council is terrified of her. The only person who is not terrified of her is my younger brother Iceman, the only sibling who learnt how to properly rebel at the beginning of adolescence, and now gets away with everything he does.

We spent a cold, wet week in the Lake Districts, staying in what resembled a very damp Youth Hostel with no bed linen, and then returned to London. My Mother started forcing me out of bed at daybreak every morning, and threw large books at me, with titles such as A Comprehensive Guide to Universities, and Volunteering Schemes all Over the UK, and Get up and Get on with it, You Lazy Slob. By the begining of September I had filled out a thousand online forms, and applied for various courses in everything from cookery to beginners spanish to helping elderly people. I went back to my receptionist job in the local GP surgery, I wandered around being envious of all the people who were panicking about buying kitchen utensils and gearing up
for freshers week.

Then, in Mid-September I got a phone call.

"Hello! I'm calling from Lattitude. So, you're coming to Ghana?"

Whaaaaaaaat?

Ah, yes. I had filled out a form for a global volunteering scheme. Teaching English and Music for six months. In Africa.

Whoops.

A blur of telephone interviews and hasty research followed, and then it was official. I am going to leave the UK in January 2010 to stay with a host family close to Accra, the capital of Ghana. I'm very excited, in a slightly panicked but-I-can't-even-make-soup-without-burning-the-pan kind of way. This was not the plan. I thought I'd start off living somewhere slightly more local, say close to Oxford, or Newcastle. Africa is a little extreme. But I figure that after six months off the beaten track, no doubt contracting malaria or some fairly obscure but deadly waterbourne disease, heading out to university shouldn't be too much trouble at all.