GHANA – Building Healthy Villages – August 1 – August 14, 2016

Today was an amazing day overall. For breakfast, Mamarita cooked up some lovely french toast with fruit. After the meal we headed out the door and left for our projects. We all worked longer today since we had a lot to get done, like building up 3 more layers of blocks on our stalls for the compost toilet. When we got back, Boots took us to the ‘Monkey Man’ who works as an herbal medicine man and he showed us the different natural remedies that Ghanaians use instead of modern medicine. After that we walked to the seamstress with our fabrics that we picked out earlier this week and got fitted for our special items we ordered. Later in the night we had Rice, Ghanaian pasta. The other night we had won a game against the mentors, so as a treat we watched a movie and ate ice cream and popcorn. We’re excited for what this next week brings to us! Miss you all!

-Anna and Julia

Today was an exciting day for our group! We began the day with one of our favorite breakfasts (crepes!) and then headed to our sites to continue our service. The toilets are getting taller, and we are all amazed at how much has gotten done in such little time. When we got back to the home base, we had lunch before starting our “School Prep” activity. We split into 3 groups and planned out different activities to present to the students we will be visiting and interacting with next week! The groups then presented their activities to our panel of judges, Dougal, Boots, Meghan and Caroline (aka Simon, Randy, Paula, and JLo) who gave critical but helpful feedback. Once our activities were ready to go, we headed to the Summer House for our group activity of the day, a Compliment Circle!

Everyone received a sheet with their name on it which was passed around the circle and written on by every member! Every member wrote their favorite things about each other, until the circle ended and everyone received a sheet with lovely compliments! After dinner, we ended the day with 2 funny videos showing the stereotypical view of Africa, and laughed about how different the perception is from reality, and then ended with a Ted Talk, which discussed the danger of a “Single Story”.

We left the day with many different thoughts and questions, keeping our minds and hearts open for the days to come 🙂

xoxo Maddie and Nidal

8/7

The day started earlier than usual for most of us with the promise of getting to help fishermen pull their nets in from the ocean under the African sun. It was strenuous work but the chants the fishermen called out were a good distraction from the reeking scent of fish and stinging hand pain. After returning to eat breakfast the entire group joined together to leave for a tour of the Keta Slave Fort, located 45 minutes away from the lodge. During that 45 minute drive we got to engage with the people simply through a passing by wave and smile. The people here are all very friendly so getting the opportunity to learn about their difficult past and struggles at the fort only made me appreciate the Ghanaian people even more. On our way back home we made a pit stop at this beautiful resort/spa for drinks and conversation. The view was so amazing that we could have easily stayed there for the rest of the night. However if we would have stayed we would’ve missed out on some very intense games of soccer with not only the mentors and staff joining in but the village children as well. We spent most of the afternoon there playing with the kids, primarily losing to the kids, until it was time to go home to another one of Mama Rita’s delicious dinners. Stuffed with food we ended the night with a wonderfully energetic group who introduced us to some traditional songs and dances. They got us involved pulling us up from our chairs to dance until finally everyone joined into one big circle where we walked and clapped keeping the rhythm of the drums. Dancing under the Ghanian moon was a wonderful way to end such a memorable day.

-Amanda & Daniel

August 8, 2016

The day began with the African sun rising upon the Meet Me There Lodge, our leaders of the day Joshua and David then arose to wake the rest. Everything from reminding the team to take their anti-malaria pills to getting everyone together for breakfast, were their responsibilities. As usual we left for service at 8:45, building the compost toilets in the fight against open defecation. Working hard we finished plastering the structure making a huge stepping stone in finishing our project. We then proceeded back to the lodge for lunch. For our afternoon activity, we made our way to the local vocational school to make tie-dye shirts and batiking fabrics. Batiking is a form of stamping different designs with wax, which then were dyed into a color of our choice. Returning back to the Lodge, we proceeded with our Leader of the Day activity of ” Heads Up” ( paper version ). We ended the night with dinner and an appreciation circle where we opened our hearts to show how we felt about the program. With a general consensus from everyone, we’d agreed that we had become a family within our first week and that there were more memories to make along the way here in Ghana in the coming days.

– Joshua and David

August 9, 2016

Everyone’s day began with a military wake up call from Elon. After breakfast we made our way to the site where we began plastering walls and building the steps for our compost toilets. After service we returned back to the lodge for lunch. For our afternoon activity, the local chief came to visit us and speak about local traditions and beliefs. The evening activities included a relay race and salsa dancing before the day concluded with our evening discussions.

– Kourtney and Elon

Wednesday August 10, 2016

Dear Parents,

Ghana is gorgeous. We’re absolutely in love with the culture, people, food and atmosphere of this beautiful place. Today was quite a busy day. First, we had service like always; most of us were building steps at this point. We then came back to home base to get ready for our afternoon adventures. We went to the market to buy bracelets, clothes, and snacks. Joshua even bought a melon that we learned healed paralysis when we met the Medicine Man last Friday. After the market, we all squished into the van to go see the clinic. The clinic is where Rose, the nurse who came to home base earlier in the trip, works. It was different from what a lot of us expected. They specialized in women and children, and public health. There were two beds for labor and delivery, then two beds for recovery. They had multiple rooms for different patient needs. Their records were all kept on paper, so everyone in the area had a hand written medical history. Most of the nurses lived on site, in houses behind the clinic for 24 hour service to their patients. After the clinic, we got ready to go play some games with the local kids. We played a name game, a couple group games, and ended with soccer. Those kids are so much fun; going Sahara park (where we play) is definitely one of our favorite things. We came home and ended our day with an appreciation game. We all sat in a circle facing away from the center with our eyes closed. Meghan would say something along the lines of, “Tap someone on the shoulder that has a trait you admire,” and two people in the middle would do as directed. It was a really cool way to see how meaningful every single person on this trip really is. We can’t believe that our little family of 14 and all the staff are so close. We’re so thankful to have had this incredible opportunity in Ghana. So, here’s to four more days in the most beautiful place on earth.

We love and miss you,

Katie and Emmanuel

After starting the morning off at the breakfast table, we headed to our last day at the work site. Our three groups worked on painting the compost toilets and adding the finishing touches. After a long work day we headed to home base and had delicious fried fish! Kilele Dance Africa, a well known drumming and dancing group taught us Palongo dance and drumming rhythms. Later that night they performed for us and we joined them in dancing and singing. It’s hard to communicate how wonderful Ghana is, and the depth of our experiences unless you are here with us, we sure all wish you were. See you all soon!

-Daniel and Grace