Akwaaba Cadbury

Monday was big day in the cocoa growing community of Kromameng, near Suhum. A team from the London end of the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership arrived in the Eastern Region to see the progress being made with the project. We, the VSO volunteers, joined our Country Director and the representatives from CARE, the United Nations Development Programme and Cadbury to visit Kromameng. I have visited twenty of the thirty communities in VSO’s part of the project. I have always been welcomed and often fed, but this was a special occasion and the community had pulled out all the stops. There was an audience with the chief and elders, an exchange of gifts involving schnapps and boxes of Cadbury produce, the circulation of calabashes of sweet, fresh palm wine, there were drummers and painted ladies and a danced procession to the village school. While the majority of the group went to visit a neighbouring cocoa farm (old hat for seasoned volunteers) the rest of the village danced for Danielle and me. The children from the school were in a frenzy of excitement at all the activity, apart from the seven tots unlucky enough to be selected to recite verses for the visitors. To say they were terrified would be an understatement.

It was certainly one of those days to remember what a privilege it is to be working with the Ghanaian cocoa farmers.