Meet the familly

Host Family of the Month - Samuel Adzivor and family.

All Projects Abroad Ghana volunteers live with a local family in order to gain a richer and more varied experience of Ghanaian life. This months featured Host family comes in the form of the smiling faces of the Adzivor family and honorary members, volunteers Nina Parker and Rebecca Black (See photo below).

Samuel and his family have been hosting volunteers for just over a year now and he took some time out of his busy day to talk to us at the Gateway about hosting volunteers.

"I have been hosting volunteers now for over a year and can remember well the first volunteers Katie Pendleton and Genvieve Digby and since then we have had many volunteers and everything has been very nice and fine. The volunteers live with my family which include my wife and three children; Samantha (aged 2 years), Shawn (aged 8) and Selma (aged 12).

With our volunteers we like to get them to experience Ghanaian life so we will offer them Ghanaian food depending on what they prefer. We try to introduce them to dishes like fufu but often they prefer rice.They often like the fried plantain and coco yam leave stew. Sometimes we also pluck coconuts from the trees and volunteers usually enjoy the milk. Often however, they prefer pancakes, cakes and more western dishes like spaghetti so we provide those options as well.

We often take them to visit the Coco farm to see the coco trees and to see paw paw and see some of the things they would not get the chance to see back home. We also offer them the chance to go to go to Church. We either take them to an English speaking church or one in the local language of Twi and then I will translate. At these events they witness the singing, dancing, prophetic messages and deliverances. The Pastor is our friend and understands that it is often the volunteers first time of seeing such events. On public holidays the volunteers will often come with my family to the pool and help my children with swimming."

The volunteers have certainly been made to feel at home by Samuel and his family. Rebecca Black recalls how Ama (Samuel's wife) and Aunty Jane provided her with a surprise birthday party, with a table set up with all sorts of special foods and with all the other Kumasi volunteers invited without her knowing. "It was definitely the best birthday. I was given a proper Ghanaian birthday." Nina Parker summed up her time with her host family by stating that "they have been incredibly welcoming and we have been made to feel like members of the family ourselves."