Monday, 14 July 2014

Overnight at Benyin beach

At dinner time little groups headed to different directions in quest of food. I and two of my friends decided to ask recomendations from the locals. Two little girls waived at us. We asked them where we could find some food and they urged us to follow them. Soon our company became bigger. More kids joined us looking happy with such unusual guests. They assured us that our friends went to a nearby hotel to dine. I thought how strange, but at the same time sensible, it was that five people passed before us and got noticed right away by the curious kids. They looked also very confident that we were all friends. Our little guides escorted us gladly to the end of the village, where a senior instructed them strictly to return back. So they did unwillingly. At the hotel indeed we found our friends.


Later on the night our plans included a beachparty. A very kind local put up a fire for us, which, irrespective of our hard efforts, did  not last long. It seemed that some of us did not feel like sleeping. The youngest girl from our company, eighteen years old, was sitting on the sand gazing at the mighty ocean. She happened to be teaching at the same school as me. I approached her and commenced the most sincere and deep conversation I had in Ghana. That night two girls, a Greek and a Brazilian one, shared the same fears, the same agony and the same unanswered questions. How essential is our help after all? Will our presence at school make any difference to the kids' life? What will happen after we leave? Are we going to continue our lives as if those two months never happened, while at the same time our little students will keep on struggling for a better life? No need to even utter our thoughts after a while. We sighed under the strong moonlight and looked at the endless blackness of the ocean.



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