Summing up the trip

Village of Hope (VOH) is a medical center, an orphanage and a school. But it's also more than that. It is a christian environment for the kids to grow up in. They have devos every morning. There are Bible classes 3 nights a week and church on Sunday. It is a great place to grow in the Christian faith.

VOH has come a long way since last year. The school is now finished; it has three floors and is painted. They have added several new buildings. There is a new library/study. They just finished a staff house. Another children's home is almost finished too. The school now has over 500 kids; almost twice as many as last year. There are two dorms for kids who live farther away than walking distance. A new church building is under construction. It's a great place.

We worked on computers because we believe in what VOH is doing and wanted our time to be spent for a good cause. We fixed the computers at Village of Hope and taught the teachers some new things about computers. We wanted the teachers to use them as part of their class and for research. I think some of them will start to use the computers as part of their class. In working at VOH we are improving the learning for the next generation of Ghanaians. We're doing our small part of making VOH a better place.

This year we got to spend more time visiting with people. We got to meet new people, and spend time with friends from last year. Even though we spent more time in Ghana last year, we were always working in the labs. This year we got to spend more than one day with the kids. We stayed in their house and I learned their games. We made new friends and worked alongside acquaintances. We were also helped out by a stranger. We got to stay with a friend at his house in Amasaman. We got to experience their life style, so we better understand the people in Ghana. We worshiped alongside fellow believers half way around the world. They put their all into worship; it was such a blessing to worship with them.

This trip was a great experience, and a blessing. The people are so wonderful to talk to, and the kids were so fun to play with. This is a trip I will remember for a long time.

Coming home

We left Lawrence's house at 5:40 am Ghanaian time on August the 5th.

• 57 min driving to the airport


• 7 hr 26 min waiting at the airport


• 40 min waiting on the plane


• 10 hr 30 min flying to NY


• 14 min waiting in the airplane


• 2 hr 2 min at the airport


• 7 hr 13 min at a hotel


• 5 min riving to the airport


• 2 hr 6 min waiting at the airport


• 1 hr 16 min waiting on the plane


• 3 hr 21 min flying to Dallas


• 12 min waiting in the plane


• 20 min at the airport


• 17 min driving to a restaurant


• 37 min eating at the restaurant


• 24 min at our friends house


• 3 hr 4 min driving to Uncle Darryl's house


• 1 hr 9 min at Uncle Darryl's house


• 12 min driving home

We Arrived home at 6:36 pm Texas time on August the 6th, for a total of 41 hr 55 min travel time.

Our flight out of Accra was delayed 4 or 5 hours due to a fueling problem. It was pretty sad to watch 4 other flights leave that were supposed to leave after us. During the delay we met some interesting people. First we met two girls. They had been in Ghana for three weeks. One of the girls was normal and the other one would be normal and then you would say something and she would get all wound up about it. Not mad at you, just...annoyed at the subject. She made some pretty strange faces too.

We talked a little bit and then another white guy came up and talked with us. He was a strange character. We started playing some card games. Ucker, crazy eights, uno with regular cards, spoons and BS. He only knew of BS but still didn't really know how to play. While we were playing he left like 4 times and "went to the bathroom" and was gone for half an hour each time. The first time we thought he didn't want to play and ditched us, but he had left his bag. This guy came to Ghana to "get away from his mom" but was going home a couple of week early because he didn't feel good. Daddy seriously wondered how he got to the airport ok.

While we waited for the plane two kids cried at two different times but on the plane I didn't hear either of them. Instead there was this lady with a stupid dog!!! She sat right in front of us on the window side. That dog didn't bark; it yipped. It was the most annoying dog ever. The lady would sit for about five minutes and then it would start yipping, so she'd bother the lady next to her to get out and walk around some. Then she'd come back again, and it would start again. On the plane we watched Maid of Honor, Nim's Island and something else which I can't remember right now.

Considering that we had several hours of layover and the flight was so long the airport should have known that we were all going to miss our connections. But when we got to New York they were so surprised and unprepared for a whole airplane of people who had missed their connections. That was pretty frustrating.

When we got our hotel vouchers we had to walk to the buss that would take us to the hotel. The lady who gave us our vouchers didn't even tell us how to get to the bus until we asked. It was "go out and down the ramp, up the elevator. Take the tram to station C, and then get on the bus." And how do you think we were supposed to figure that out??? It was a long way too. Why couldn't the bus just pick us up out side? We already had to walk across the road. By the time we got to the hotel, got checked in and taken a shower (which we were thoroughly grateful for) we had about 5 hours to sleep. By the time we got to sleep it was like 12 NY time, I woke up and checked my watch. It was 2. "Great!!! I have a chance to actually sleep and I'm wasting it by waking up. "

We go up at 6:15 to catch the 6:30 bus. On the way out we met a lady also going down to catch the bus. We rode in the elevator and talked a little bit. We went outside to wait for the bus, and it was already there, along with just about everyone else. A bunch of people were already in front of the bus and the bus was part way full. While the first bus was filling up another smaller bus came. Some people got in and then we were close to the front. The lady that we talked to in the elevator was getting on. There was another lady trying to get on, she had three kids and lots of luggage we were sort of next after the lady with kids. The lady we met on the elevator said, "oh I was with them." and pointed to us. So we got to get on the bus!! We helped her put her suitcases on the bus. After us only one or two more people got on after us. We were so grateful of the lady.

While we were waiting at the airport in NY daddy called a couple of people using a pay phone since we had left our cell phones in the car, because they wouldn't do us much good in Ghana. It was complicated to get change. Anyway daddy called a friend and arranged to have him pick us up and take us to our car since the people who's house it was at were at work. We went to a BBQ place to eat lunch and visit.

Coming home we stopped to visit with Uncle Darryl and Aunt Karyl. Then I did some laundry and went to bed at 8. So in a 44 hour chunk I got about 4 hours of sleep. It's great to be home.

Replies:

Ray, We really missed you. No I didn't touch the snake. It was dead. I didn't think to touch it, but I did get a couple of pictures.

Anonymous, I really can't help you out with the recipe unless I know who you are. lol

April, thanks for reading! It was a great trip.

Lawrence, Thanks for housing us. The food was great! Last year was a good trip as well. Thank you so much.

Day 15

Monday We got up a little late and had breakfast late. After breakfast we got in the taxi and went to town to look for some fabric and possibly to get some clothes. We ended up shopping around for about an hour and a half and only got some fabric. We then took Lawrence's family to Chicken Inn for lunch. We had gone there last year. It's a strange place; we all ways see so many white people there. We saw way more people there than we did on the whole trip. After lunch we drove back home, an hour long drive. We stopped to get some fan ice. When we got back we talked with Lawrence's family, and guests and took pictures. Then we went on a walk around town with Lawrence. We didn't have any idea where we were going or what we were doing. We walked to the church and met some people and then we went to the ministers house to see him. Lawrence then proceeded to tell us how the minister had a large family, and got paid very little. He asked if we could help. Daddy said he would take back the report and tell people about it. It was quite and interesting "stroll around town." After that we packed our bags and went to bed about 9.

Day 14

After going to the Internet cafe we went home to have our meal. It was the same "gravy" that I had the other day. It also has egg in it. Lawrence called it egg sauce. We had rice with it. It was very good. After our meal we went to the church and daddy did his presentation. It went well. It's a 29 minute walk to the church from Lawrence's house. Then we came back and talked a little bit and then we walked around some more. We went to see a street preacher. He was showing a movie and translating maybe?? It was hard to tell, it was pretty loud too. Then we came home and had a devotional and went to sleep.

This morning we got up and got ready for church. Daddy would be preaching so he revised his "lesson" that he gave at VOH. We had breakfast of rice porridge and egg sandwich. We left a little bit late so we took a taxi to the church. Class started at 9. And church was at 10. I got roped into doing origami with the kids so I didn't get to hear daddy this year either.

Church was supposed to end at 11, but they still had a sort of class thing. It was hard to tell what exactly it was but we didn't go to it. Lawrence did and Faustina went to some. During this time a kid was selling candy so I got a 50 pesoa from daddy to get a candy. I picked out a Tom Tom because I had seen adds for it. They were 2 for 5 pesoas so I got 4, on for me, one for daddy, one for Rex, and one for Hiram (Lawrence's kids). It was like a licorice flavored cough drop. I ended up spitting mine out.

After they finished with church we walked home. We talked a bit and played with LEGO and then Faustina braided my hair. She got mostly done and then out meal was ready. Lawrence had fixed it so that Faustina could do my hair. It was yam and the egg sauce with cabbage. That was good. After lunch Faustina finished my hair and then we went to the art market. We got some paintings, a nativity set and some key chains.

When we finished at the art market we went to a mall because daddy had said that he wanted a plate. We got some fanice, and walked around. It was like a normal mall. There was a store called shoprite, which was like wal-mart. There was another store called game, totally random, that is like target, or something.

We came home after going to the mall. When we got home we looked at our things and discovered that the paintings were not it the bag!! Lawrence looked but could not find them so he called the taxi driver, who was a member of the church, and asked him to look. He found it, what a relief. He came back so how we have the paintings.

Day 13

Last night we got 12 out of 15 computers working and then I had to go to bed so I wouldn't get locked out of my house. Daddy stayed and fixed two of the computers.

This morning I got up and packed my thing. I took my backpack and one of the kids brought my suitcase down to the guest house. I took some pictures, had breakfast and then went to the devo at my house. I don't know why it was so late. The plan was to leave at 8. Since we had a while daddy had me wait at the house with the suit cases and put them in the car when Alex, the driver, came. Then drive up to daddy's house and get his suitcases and then go up to the lab to get daddy.

I sat on the porch waiting for Alex. After a while some boys brought daddy's suitcases down. Later daddy came down from the lab. it was 8:20 then. Daddy went to talk to Fred about leaving and it turns out that the plan was to leave at 8:30. Fifteen minutes later Alex came and we left at 8:56. We drove for a long time but only saw fan ice (like ice cream) twice but that was in non-busy parts. So we still haven't gotten any.

Time passes so fast here. It was 11:40-ish when we got here. We are staying with Lawrence and his family till we leave on Tuesday. Since they are hosting us we brought presents for them. The laptop that got stolen was supposed to be for Lawrence. We had also brought speakers for the laptop so daddy gave him those. For Faustina we got an eternal threads bag, fingernail polish and perfume. We had also gotten lotion but that was stolen too. For the kids we brought them LEGO. They really enjoy it. We talked and played with LEGO, and then we walked around a bit to see people and the land. Then we looked at a computer and talked some more. It's now 2:15. I can't believe we've been here so long already.

The plan for today is to go to an Internet cafe, come home and have a meal and then go to the church at Heritage for daddy to do a presentation on computers like what he did at the big Accra church.

Day 12

Yesterday afternoon I got to play basketball. At first we just shot the ball around. It was me, a little girl and three guys. One of them is a good 10-12 inches taller than me, and very good. One time when he had the ball a stole it from him. So from then on he would gard me; I scorred a couple of points on him too. Tommy came down and we started a game. It was me, Ernest, and Shiabo, against Tommy, Gerta, and Emanuel. Ernest is the one I stole the ball from. It was a good game. My team was ahead most of the game, but Tommy's team got ahead a couple of times. In the end my team won; I shot the winning basket.

After the game I went up to the lab and worked on the computers some. Then the power went out so, we went to dinner. After dinner the light came back on so daddy went up to the lab. I took my clothes to my house since I had the key with me. I was just going to drop them off and go to the lab but my house parents invited me to eat some with them. They were having yam, and "some thing like gravy". That was tommatoes, onions, oil, fish, and peppers. It was all mashed up, and not too bad. After I ate some and they had finnished I went up to the lab. We didn't get much done last night. We re-imaged two computers, and wrote several posts.

This morning I heard the call for devotion but I was too tired to get up. I laid in bed for a long time. I finally got up at 7. Just as I was coming out of my room daddy walked up to the house to tell me breakfast was ready. He said that Latisha was a little concerned because I am normaly at the house before her. We had a rice sort of oatmeal. Daddy had seen it on the way to the semenar and asked Latisha if she would make it one day. It was pretty good. Daddy thought it was too hot though.

After breakfast I took a shower at the guest house since there was an actual shower. Then I went up to the lab. Daddy had gotten one other computer re-imaged. That made 3 out of 15 done. The graduation seremony for the kindergardeners was supossed to be at 9. We felt compelled to go to that. a little after 9 we walked down to the basketball court since that's where the ceramony would take place. There was a bunch of people milling around so we waited a little bit and then daddy went up to the lab to start some re-imaging. The music was so loud. You could hear the base just fine up at the lab. I stood around where the speaker wasn't pointed and took lots of pictures, played 2,4,6,1,1, and talked with people. There's a picture of me playing 2,4,6,1,1. Daddy came back and said that the re-imeging that we had left before hadn't worked, so we still only had three done. We stood around a bit and then daddy went up to the lab again. He was up there a long time.

Finally the graduation started and daddy was still at the lab. There was a prayer, some songs, some speaking and then they called up some people to sit at the front. Daddy was one of them, but he was still at the lab. I didn't know what he was doing or when he would be back or how important it was to have him to sit at the front but some people started looking around for him so I ran up to the lab to tell him and we came back. The graduation started about 10:30 and ended at 1. The kids did some coriography. There were prayers, and speaches. There were awords given out and there was rain.

Being a "photographer" I got to move around a bunch. At one point I just sat on the ground in the front instead of going back to my set and bothering people. The space between chairs is just a little bit more that leg room; almost as close as airplane seats.

After the graduation we went to the other guest house to have lunch. We ate with a lot of the speaker/anouncer/leader people who were part of the graduation. I was perfectly happy to just grab a box of crackers and go up to the lab to work since we only have today left but since we were "invited??" to have lunch with important people we at there. That was the most akward lunch I have ever had. I walked in the door and no one was talking or looking at eachother or doing anything. I didn't know where to sit or if I should sit or if I should say hi. So I stood there for a while and then one of the guys said hi and guestuded to a seat. I sat down and it was still quiet. After a couple of minutes Latisha said that lunch was ready. No one moved. Latisha said that you could serve yourself, the plates where here *gestures* and you could get however much you wanted. Finally some one got up. One side of the table went, we were on the other side. We waited for the Ghanaians on our side to go. When they finally went we got up too. The food was good but there was no talking. Tommy tried starting a couple of conversations, but he ended up talking to the other two Americans. It was so akward.

After lunch we came up to the lab and started two computers re-imaging. They finished. Horay! 5 out of 15 now. We started two more, cross your fingers that they finish... Yay, we've gotten several more re-imaged. We're up to 9, and one going, out of 15. We had left overs for dinner. And are back up at the lab. We're down to the last few hours now, since we'll be leaving VOH tomorrow morning.

We've just found out that it works to take th hard drives out of the computers and hook them up to a diferent computer to get them re-imaged. For some reason or other in their computers they wouldn't read the CD, or boot from the CD-drive, or are being some other problem. I think we'll get them all fixed. Daddy got the key to his house so if need be he'll stay up here till the computers are fixed or he gives up.


Replies:
Silly Marshall, not American football. It was American soccer. One of the boys had green tokens and the other had blue tokens that they used as the "players". The little rock was the soccer ball and some lager rocks made the goals. They "kicked" the "ball" by flicking the tokens. It was very interesting.

Thanks Heather. I hope your stay in Brazil is going well and you are doing good. Thanks for reading.

Rules of the Road

Our recent trip to Cape Coast reminded us that the rules of road are slightly different here. Let me give you a few examples.

First of all what I at first thot was the highway number turned out to be the speed limit sign. You can understand my not knowing it was the speed limit since it had absolutely nothing to do with our speed for most of the trip. Only at one point when I began to wonder if we were having car trouble or something did we actually go the speed limit. And its a good thing too because we soon came upon a speed trap. Who would have thot that Ghana would have speed traps?!? So just for the record they measure speed in km/hr here and we made most of the trip at around 100-120, while the speed limit was 50 or 80.

About those solid white lines that in the US mean "don't cross me", they apparently don't really mean that here. As far as I can tell from examples of driving here, they only provide a means for using up white paint.

I normally think of honking as a way to award a demerit to another driver, and while it may be used that way here. It usually means either "hey, a big fast car is coming, get off the road, stupid" or else "go faster, we have been following you forever". By the way, it seems cars have the right-of-way here and pedestrians just have to fend for themselves.

At one point we heard sirens and I wondered if it was an emergency vehicle, but it turned out to be the Bank of Ghana with an armed escort. They were travelling faster than we were right down the middle of the road. They were given the right of way.

While we saw many things that were similar to the US, we did see one thing that was uniquely Ghanaian--speed bumps. I assume they are intended to help enforce the speed limit but I did not notice that they did that. They are fairly low but come in two groups of five. One set will be very narrow similar to typical US speed bumps, but close together and shorter. The second set will be slightly further apart and much wider. Of course which sets comes first and which is second depends on which direction you are traveling so apparently there isn't a specific rule about which part you meet first. Oh, and if a community feels the speed is too high on a piece of "their" road they will create speed bumps by piling a row of dirt across the road. These can be very steep and are definitely worth slowing for.

If anyone is interested I understand it is much easier to get a Ghanaian license if you have a US license already.