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.

University of Cape Coast

Yesterday we had the opportunity to make a trip to Cape Coast, a city about two hours away along the coastal highway. The highway is very modern and very recent, paved sometime in the past 8 years because the current government is taking credit for it. Long trips give us a chance to hear about all sorts of things including the elections which are in December.

Fred Asare arranged for us to be met by Kojo Acquah Beenyi, the minister at the Chapel Hill Church of Christ in Cape Coast. He took us to the university where we met Benjamin, an elder from church, who lectures in Mathematics. Together we went to see John Kwame Eduafo Edumadze who I have been coresponding with about taking a sabbatical from ACU to teach at UCC. We toured the labs, classrooms and offices. The science building is several floors and they have about 1000 computers at the school, tho somewhat limited Internet access (but much better than VOH). UCC offers several different undergraduate degrees in technology fields including Computer Science. They are interested in working with other universities and outside faculty to improve their programs and to design graduate degrees (possibly offered in cooperation with other universites).

As we were about to leave we were introduced to Paul Nyagorme who took us on another tour of the MEd labs. He is chiefly responsible for the MEd ICT degree (Masters of Education in Information Computer Technology, I think) which is currently housed in the distance education program since it is primarily targeted at improving Ghanaian teaching.

We are considering/planning toward spending a year in Ghana if all the right pieces come together. In addition to meeting whoever was available and seeing the campus I wanted to arrange to get a letter of invitation to help in attaining a scholarship for my sabbatical. John will be able to sent one soon.

Everyone here is looking forward to us having an opportunity to be in the country for a year. Of course they would rather we were closer, such as in Accra, but the traffic and roads in Accra make the trip about as long as to Cape Coast, which was a very nice drive.

Dwayne

Day 11

Last night Tommy was "making dinner" for us, but he was still in accra getting ingreadiance for pizza. We went down to the house at 6 and he was still not back so we had some snacks.

After we had our snacks daddy went to prepare for church since he was teaching. I went up to the church. His lesson was very good. At the end of church they had us come up to the front because we would be leaving then Saturday. They sang to us and prayed over us.

Last night I woke up at 2:30 to rain. It was very loud, and the roofs are tin. I'm not so sure how much sleep I got but this morning I got up for the devo. It was at 6 too.

Last night I had put clothes in the wash before church, so after church we hung up the clothes on the clothesline. It was still raining this morning. So I went to the guest house to take the clothes off the line and wring them out some. I was going to lay them out on the porch to hopefully dry out some of the water and then I would hang them up if it stopped raining or put them in the dryer. But Latisha came then and said I should put them in the washer on the wring cycle. It's still very over cast.

After breakfast we went up to the lab. I did some odd jobs and then I went down to the house to fold our clothes. I folded clothes and then took daddy's to his house. I had forgotten my key so I left my clothes at the house. When I put daddy's clothes in his room I put anti-biotic ointment on my legs since so many people were concerned about it. When the kids see my scrapes they ask me if I'm hurt and whant to know what happened. It's really a stupid story. Maybe I'll start saying ... nevermind.

I then went back up to the lab and a few minutes later some boys brought in a computer. They knew nothing about it. We turned it on but the moniter didn't come on. Daddy took out a memory stick and did some other things and then it worked. It only is 500 HHz, 32 Mb of RAM, and 4 Mb on the hard drive. Daddy is suprised it's even running. This is a sticker that was on it. ...yea right. lol.

I've been making a map of VOH and this is vaguely what it looks like. I know it doesn't look so great, but you get the idea. And yes, North is down because it is lower. I drew the map from lowest to highest. I think in terms of up and down instead of North to South.

I added pictures to the last post.

Oh, yea. It was a great day yesterday Uncle Rusty.

Day 10

This morning I woke up at 5:30 again. I think tomorrow I'm going to get up and go to the devo. After I got everything together I went to the guest house and did a puzzle till breakfast was ready. Everyone was getting their suitcases together because they were leaving this morning. After breakfast there was going to be a dedication of a house at 9. So everyone went over there. I sat down and daddy said that we might go to Cape Coast soon.

It was past 9 and we had no idea when the dedication was going to start or how long it would last so we decided to leave now instead of waiting till afterwards. We told all the Americans good bye, since we wouldn't get to "see them off."

It was a two hour drive to the University. We talked to lots of people. The guy that was most in charge that we talked to seems totally ready for daddy to come. He had already talked with other people in charge and gotten it approved that daddy could come. We were then shown around the University. It's so nice. Very open and shady and cool. We then went to lunch with a minister who was a "guide" for us through out this whole thing. After lunch we went to his house and met his wife and bought some honey. Then we went to the church , Chapel on the Hill, of which his is minister. It was so pretty.

And then we drove back to VOH. We bought subaru (a weird shaped potato) and pineapple on the way home. At a couple of spots there were speed traps. Cars that had passed the trap would blink their lights and we would slow down to pass the police and then speed up later. The driver signaled others of the trap too. This happened at just the time when I was wondering why there were speed limits. The speed limit would be 50 km/hr and we would be going 100 km/hr, then the limit would increase to 80 km/hr and we would go 120 km/hr. And it wasn't just us; everyone goes that fast or close to it. There were still the occasional car that we passed or that passed us.

When we got back daddy talked with his house parents and I watched two kids play football with a rock and Sequence tokens. It took me a while to figure out what they were playing because the rock was the same color as the floor. I watched a while and then they had to do chores. There were a couple of kids playing basketball so I changed into some shorts and played with them some. Daddy came out, but I played a little bit longer and then went and got my backpack and then up to the lab. Going to get my backpack my shoes came off and I slipped on a little wall and scraped my legs. It looks horrible, but that's just because they're bleeding a bunch. They're really only scrapes. On the way up to the lab, a guy had a snake on a stick. There's you snake Ray.

I've got lots of pictures to add but the camera batteries died. Check back later.

Day 9

Last night after supper we went to the lab and worked on the computers for a while and then the power went out. We packed up and went home. It's really dark at night with no moon and no lights. It was only 8:20 too. I went to bed at 8:30 but I woke up at 5 today.

In my room there are two windows one to the outside and one on the opposite wall that opens to the hallway. Some one turned the light on it the hall, and the kids were sweeping. I got up and went over to the guest house. I worked on a puzzle for a while. Then all of the kids came up to the house. we all came out and they told us, "Thank you for all the work you have done. Thank you for the shoes. May God bless you." and then they sang two songs to us. It was so sweet.

After breakfast I went up to the lab we worked on the computers some but then the power went out. We used that time to cut all the little zip ties off the Ethernet cables and unplugged them. There were zip ties like every 6". We coiled them up and set them on to the side. Then we talked about getting some kids to sweep the floor.

A girl opened the door to see what we were doing and daddy asked her who he should ask about getting the floor swept. She said anybody, and that she would sweep. Daddy really meant who was in charge of cleaning, but it worked she and an other girl swept. Well...daddy wouldn't call in sweeping. They use stiff, weeds or maybe thin sticks tied together. So when they sweep they are bent close to the ground. While they were sweeping I went up stairs to an empty hallway and spread out the cables and organised them by size.

After they were organized I brought one size down to the lab to test them and make sure they still work. I got Edmund to help me. I think he's 12 or so. He brought me down the cables while I tested them. Once the cable was tested I plugged it back to a computer.

When that was all done daddy wanted me to find Ethernet cable ends and the crimper, from the closet. That closet has all kinds of weird things. Computer parts, jerseys, crayons, posters, balls, clothes pins, ping pong paddles and lots of other miscellaneous things all jumbles up in there. I went through it and found the crimper and a lot of other useful things. Like a real broom but the wooden handle was only a foot long. Daddy said I should sweep the floor. I did some and then daddy started laughing at me so I stopped. I said he could do it then. He did some but the the fans blew dust into his face so he quit.

I looked again for the ends but could not find them so I started writing my blog but daddy told me to look again. I wasn't going to get anywhere in that mess so I started sorting things. I made a pill of computer parts, a pile of school things, a stack of books and a stack of papers. I got maybe half way done and found about 8 ends. they were in a tiny bag in between two boxes.

Somewhere in there we had lunch. I don't remember where it was. But I do remember that I gave out stickers before lunch. I was surrounded bye kids wanting one. Tommy says I'm a rock star. Daddy had to come and rescue me "lunch time". It was fun though.

After I found the cable ends I tied up all the Ethernet cables nice and neatly. When I finished it was time for supper. It was just me and daddy for supper since everyone else was going to the restaurant on the beach. We thought about going but they said it would probably be 3 hours. So we stayed here to work on the computers but the power went out after supper.

Daddy went up to his house, and I stayed and talked with people. They left at 6:30 so I walked over to my house to wait for daddy but some kids wanted me to come play with them at the other house on the back porch; so I did. We played 2,4,6,1,1 a lot and then the power came back on. Daddy showed up a little after that and watched and then we went up to the lab.

The power just flicked off. We were re-imaging a computer and it was up to 98%when the power flickered. That was the second time today!


Replies:

Uncle Darryl, Yes the beach was great fun. It was clean this time! Thanks.

Drink your water Ray. No, it's just you. No garbage, no snakes and no machete accidents.

Oh, and I got bitten by a mosquito tonight. yea it was trying to get me to buy an OPC. =]

Day 8

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ATTENTION: We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to the following announcement. This is a warning for all the women reading this blog. This post has things you might not want to think about, you might be too grossed out by it. You might want to skip over the first paragraph.
- The author of the blog is not responsible for any nausea, stomach aces, chills, hebey-geebies, or sickness of any kind. If you become sick please contact your local doctor and ask about ginger pills.
Thank you for your time. And now back to your regularly scheduled program.

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That being said, Last night a lady came up to the lab to check her e-mail. She didn't want to walk back back alone so I walked her to the guest house and picked up a couple of things I had left and walked to my house. (I should draw you guys a map, so that you will know where everything is.) I was greeted by my two night time friends. I have a gecko and a cockroach living in my bathroom. And Sunday morning I found a cockroach in my clothes. I watched part of "Touched by and Angle" with the kids. At 9 I went to bed.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 again. The kids didn't sing a whole lot this morning. It rained a Texas rain this morning; a hard, loud, short rain. I went down to breakfast, it was omelets. After breakfast I went up to the lab.

We were supposed to start class at 9, but no one showed up. Daddy got pretty frustrated, since we came here to teach the teachers but they didn't care.

Insert: While we were waiting I was going to test some of the CD drives and I needed a power supply. We had brought a power supply so I was going to use that. I plugged everything in and was plugging the power cord into the power supply box and it exploded! Well it *Popped* and a spark came out. It scared me half to death. Apparently it was set to 110.

They finally showed up at 10. Daddy talked for a little bit but we just wanted to show them what games would be good for their classes. We went around to all the people and asked them what classes they taught and what grade, and then showed them the appropriate games. A couple of the teachers glanced at the game we showed them and then googled, and checked e-mail. The ones that did this were from the first class. That was a bit discouraging. But one teacher was so glad the games were there that he wanted a copy of one to put on his laptop so he could test it out and learn about it.

After class we went to lunch. It was spaghetti, but the sauce was different. A brown, meat and carrot sauce. Between daddy and me we eat about every thing. One of the Preston Crest people gave me stickers to give out to the kids. I gave out a few on the way to the lab. I might go out later today and hand out stickers and see if anyone is playing basketball.

Replies:

No I did not get to play a game of basketball. I think they might play some this afternoon. I just have to remember to go check. Being in the lab all day, the day kind of gets away from me. Thanks for reading Uncle Rusty. Tell every one hi for me.

Thanks so much Heather! Yes I'm having a great time. The kids are so fun.

Well you never know... I might just be stuck here. Thanks Ashley. Yea, I am so looking forward to talking to you about it, and hearing about your summer too. =] Well yes I know. 6:30 is not happy, but I normally wake up at 5:30 to the kids singing. So sleeping in that extra hour is gladly welcomed. If I could I would sleep till 7:30 here too, but the kids are too loud.

Day 7

Last night I asked Tommy if anyone had beaten my record for longest lost luggage. He said no. He uses my story as a worst case scenario for people on their first trip here. lol. Tommy hopes that one year we arrive with no story of our luggage, except that we got them.

This morning I also slept in till 6:30. That sounds funny to say I slept in that early, when I normally get up at 7:30. I got up and went over to the guest house. Daddy and I did a puzzle and then breakfast was ready. It was cereal and pineapple.

After breakfast we went up to the church for class which started at 9. It was kind of hard to understand the teacher but I got most of it. There was a little break, and I moved to a different chair. I picked one not directly under a fan this time. They had turned the fan on full blast. I still got a breeze, just not the chill. Church started at 10:30. Tommy preached. We sang a lot of songs today. I was so glad, because at all the other things we've gone to we haven't sung very much.

After church we had lunch, it was sandwiches. And then we headed over to the lab to start working on things. We're down to five computers to be re-imaged. (I should probably tell you what re-imaging is. Re-imaging is pretty much restarting the computer. But we're restarting them from the same CD so that all the computers are all the same.) Four of the computers CD drives don't work, so daddy it testing their floppy drives to see if we could re-image them that way. The other computer might have a bad hard drive or a dead battery or maybe something entirely different, we're not sure.

A bunch of people came in now and are checking there e-mail. But they are all getting called out to go to work. That was great timing.


I walked down to the guest house to get daddy a water bottle and on the way back I stooped to talk to the kids. I watched the kids play basketball and talked with some kids. I thought it would be neat to play with them so I walked up to the lab to get my house key so I could change into some shorts. My church skirt is restricting, other wise I would have just played in my skirt. I got my key and started walking back and meet Darrell, who had been playing with them. He said the kids had to stop to get their shoes. (The Preston Crest group brought a ton of shoes for the kids here.) So I came back to the lab and wrote my post.

I didn't get to post it though becauese the internet stopped adn we had to go to dinner. We had french fries, meatballs and colslaw. After dinner we went to church. One of the Americans preached. Then we came up to the lab.

I added pictures to the last post.

Replies:
Grandma, thanks a bunch. I'm glad you were able to finally comment. =] sorry it was such a trouble. Yes I am making sure that I spent more time with the kids this year.

Lucas, thanks so much for reading!! =] If you haven't already you should go back and read last years posts. I refer to things a lot. I'm glad you're liking it. I am having a blast! It is so great to be back here.

Replies to comments

Thank you Ray and Uncle Darryl for your inthuseasum in my blog.

Thanks! Yes the camera is working great, it's so nice to have it. Thanks a bunch Uncle Darryl and Aunt Karyl. Sorry about the memory card problem though.

Thanks Aunt Sheila, me too. The kids get up early becasue of two things. 1) the sun comes up earlier here. I'm not exactly sure when it is but at 6:30 it's pretty light. and 2) they have a devo, breakfast, clean house, and cook lunch all before school, which starts at 8-ish mabey 9. Sorry for not putting this in.

Haha Uncle Darryl. Yea I told him I had an Uncle d-a-r-r-y-l and a cousin d-a-r-y-l. I had not heard of a "daryl" with two l's.

Thanks Uncle Lester. Thanks Uncle Lester. I will be sure to have fun. =]

Thanks so much guys for your comments. I was getting worried that no one was reading it. :(

Day 6

Last night after supper we went up to the lab and re-imaged a computer and then went to the house early. I watched some of a movie with the kids. It was cool to see a Ghanaian movie. Then I went to bed at 9.

This morning I woke up at 6:30. I was so happy, and well rested. I got up and went with daddy to the lab because he forgot his power cord for his laptop. He worked a little bit and then he left with some other people to go to Accra. Daddy taught a seminar on the impact of technology in the church. (See post below)

I then went to breakfast. It was pancakes, they were so.....good. After breakfast I went up to the computer lab. Some one wanted to use a computer but the Internet didn't work. None of the computers got Internet, my laptop worked though. I let him use it and tried to figure out why it wasn't working. Darrell came in and worked some on the kids games. I looked at some of the ones we brought, to see if they would be good. I then went to the houses to gather up clothes to do laundry. A lady was already doing laundry, and said she would do mine. It was so nice of her.

We had been planing on going to the beach today. I found out that it would be at 11, 5 minutes from when I found out. I went up to the lab to get Darrell because he said he wanted to go. When I got there he said he had fixed the network, the computers were connected to the Internet.

A bunch of people from the big church here had come to visit, play with the kids and cut the grass. There were lots of people. The kids brought out a bunch of chairs and set them in the grassy, open space. When Darrell and I walked to the guest house to meet with everyone, we saw that no one was there. Everyone was talking with the Ghanaians. We talked with them till lunch.

We had red red and fried plantains for lunch. After lunch I went up to the lab to put a new CD drive in a computer. It didn't work though. That was frustrating, especially because I had tested it at home and it worked. I locked the lab and went back down to the guest house to find people because there was going to be a dedication of a new house today. I was only a few minutes after the "scheduled" time but I couldn't find anyone, at the guest house or at the new house. So I walked up to the lab, and found people walking there too.

The new plan for going to the beach was 2:30, 30min from finding out. We went in to the computer lab, a couple of ladies wanted to check their e-mail. We then walked down to the guest house to meet everyone. I road in the back of the truck with a munch of other people, it was fun.

I didn't bring my swim suit this year, but I wore shorts this time. It was a lot of fun. I got all wet and I road some waves. You didn't have to go very far to get to big waves. The undertow is very strong. I didn't see any crabs this time. We got back at 4:30. I rinsed off and changed clothes and went to supper. It was a yellow chicken curry.

After supper Daddy and I went to our houses to be at the devos they had. It was short and sweet. I went outside to wait for daddy since he had the lab key. I talked with a girl named Victoria. She is so sweet. I we walked around and talked. We got to watch some kids practice a skit for tomorrow. We walked around for a long time. At 7 I went up to the lab to write my blog. We are going to go to bed early tonight.

I'll put pictures on tomorrow, so check back later. I left my camera at the house.

ICT in Ghana

One of the requests this trip was for a seminar for church leaders and ministers about ICT (Information Computer Technology). It seems "progress" is coming to Ghana. For example, the government has added ICT to the curriculum at all grade levels in Ghana. And, there are now several broadband providers in Accra, but still no other option better than satelite for VOH. I also noticed other changes on the ride into town this morning. There seem to be considerably fewer partially-completed buildings visible. Everyone seems to think things are improving, tho slowly. So today I spoke at Nsawam Road church of Christ in Accra on "Information Computer Technology and its Impact on the Ghanaian Church".

I was donated a set of infrayed "clickers" this trip. So, after introducing myself, I asked a few questions and "polled the audience". It seemed to be a new experience for all of them and that allowed me to use it as an example in several places. We then talked about what computers are and what the internet is and how it works. I showed examples of email, web pages, blogs, chat, etc. Then talked about what you need and how to get started it you want. We took a short break and started in again. This session was on how IT changes its environment and how the environment changes IT. Then I tried to give them some idea of how things have been changed in the US and made a guess at what might happen in Ghana. Then I spent some time talking about how technology suggests morale values in very subtle ways. Finally, I wrapped up talking about conflict resolution based on some material I "stole" from Joey Cope and then answered questions. Thank you to everyone praying about that talk; I think it went quite well.

As with all Ghanaian plans, ours are changing as we go. A bit more of some things and bit less of others. I will teach the last of our "Integrating ICT" lessons to teachers at VOH on Monday. I plan to make sure every teacher has one lesson that uses a computer in some way. If half of them use it, it will be much more than is happening now.

In other news, the computers here are on their last legs; I don't know how much longer they will last. Tommy says they are at least 6 years old. Based on licensing stickers, I am pretty sure they were not new when they arrived here. So I have been thinking about finding a way to replace them. More on that later after I talk to Director Fred Asare next week.

Thank you for your support and remember to post comments so that we know you are listening.

Day 5

Last night after dinner we had a devotional, just the Americans, in the guest house. It was very good, I liked it. I was palling to go to bed after the devo, but ended up talking to one of the girls till 9. There were still people up this time in my house though.

This morning I hear the call for devotion, but I must have fallen back asleep because I did not hear them sing. Before I had totally decided to get up a girl came to my door to sweep my room. I went over to the guest house for breakfast and no one was up. I had oatmeal, it's very good here. After breakfast I went up to the lab to tell daddy that the devotional that was to start off the teacher work shop was going to be at the church; that's what someone said. We gathered up thing and walked over to the church but it was locked, and no one was there. We walked back to the school. There was a big meeting with all the students there. We had to introduce ourselves. I guess that was the devo thing.

After the "devo" we went into the lab and turned on the computers and waited for the teachers to get here. Darrell, one of the Preston Crest group, had offered to help us with the computers because he is a computer guy. So he came in to help. The teachers slowly trickled in, we had 4 maybe 5 people. Daddy started with a discussion part, not using the computers. People kept coming in and out of the lab looking for some one or to use their laptops. It was quite distracting. Then we showed them Google, wikipidea, and let them play a grammar game to show how they might help.

We had a break till the next class so I walked down to get us new water bottles. The second class had about 9 people in it. A few of those had never touched a computer before so Darrell and I helped them navigate the computers. After that class we had lunch. It was tuna pasta. I had a little and then made myself a PB&J sandwich.

After lunch we came back to the lab. I'm writing my blog and re-imaging the computers, daddy is working on his computer and Darrell is making a list of the games and their functions so on Monday we can give each teacher a list of programs that will suit their class.

Day 4

This morning I woke up at 5:30. The kids had were singing. It sounded very nice, but I wasn't too happy about waking up that early. I laid in bed for a while and then got ready for the day. I went to the guest house to wait for breakfast. We had pineapple and cereal for breakfast. The Preston Crest group got in last night around 1, so they got up slowly. One of the girls who had come before asked Latisha, our cook, if the kids were up because, "I didn't hear them this morning." I wanted to say, "oh yes they're up." The Preston Crest group is here to do a teacher workshop and also to do construction on a building here.

After breakfast we went up to the lab to wait for the meeting of what the teacher work shop is going to be like. We worked for a while and them went back for the meeting. After the meeting Tommy, he came with the Preston Crest group, took the people around to show them VOH. Daddy and I went back up to the lab. we worked some on the computers and then daddy went to a meeting to organize the workshop, and figure out what's happening. I worked some and then went outside to see what the kids were doing. I talked with them some and then read to them. I also played some hand clapping games. One is called 2,4,6,8,1,1 because you clap in that pattern.

I then walked down to the guest house for lunch, we had spaghetti again. Daddy came after I had finished eating. We talked and then walked up to the lab. I went around to all the computers and wrote down how much RAM there was, how big the hard drive was and the speed of the computer. They're pretty wimpy. All the hard drives are 9.31GB, half of them have 320MB of RAM, some have 256MB, and a few have 128MB. The server has 512MB. And the computer processor's runs at 797MHz.

This afternoon I went to the guest house to get a water bottle from the refrigerator, and there were three already labeled and partly drunk. When you take out a water bottle you are supposed to put in one, or even two more so that when someone comes in at three and it's very hot they can have cold water. I thought about just labeling one for me and daddy only, but I ended up filling up the refrigerator too. Latisha found a water bottle in the freezer and it was not labeled so she said I could have it. Bummer for whoever put it in there, but maybe now they will start filling up the refrigerator.

Day 3

This morning I woke up at 6, the kids were loud. I finally got up at 6:45 and bathed and got ready for the day. I walked over to the guest house for breakfast and there was a white person there (until then daddy and I had been the only white people). I thought that was odd since the Preston crest group wasn't supposed to get here till tonight. A Bible teacher from ACU, his wife and two students came over this summer. The teacher taught a class at Heritage Christian College, the students were taking the class. One of the students was here last year. They had been in Ghana for a while now and came to VOH because their host lives here. They left after breakfast to go the the canopy, and the slave castle.

After breakfast we went up to the lab to start working on something. Daddy found a virus that clogs up the Internet. It's probably on most of the computers. We were going to work on that and start testing the server/proxy thing but the power went off before lunch.

We waited around a little bit to see if the power would come back on. It didn't so we packed up a left. Daddy worked on his presentation for Saturday and I did some government. Then we had lunch. After lunch the power was still out so we did a puzzle. Then daddy worked on his presentation again, and I walked around a took pictures, played games and talked with the kids.

I learned some new games. One, called ampe, was a speed game. You clap twice and then jump twice and on the second jump put a foot out. Whoever puts their foot out first wins. They play it kind of like 4 square. Lining up at one spot and another spot being the "head". I leaned a couple of hand clapping games, like "down by the banks", some singing dance games like "little sally walker".

The kids loved getting their picture taken, they would crowd around to be in the picture and afterwords to see the picture. I spent a long time out there. Eventually I made my way to the guest house where I worked on a puzzle and talked with daddy. We had supper, and then daddy went to his house. I sat out on the pork and did a puzzle. I heard the radio, and it took a while for it so sink in that the radio takes electricity. I look inside and the lights were on. So I gathered up my things and walked over to daddy's house to tell him "the light was on".

We are now at the lab, catching up on things. In a little while we will go to church. Then we'll come back to the lab and try to fix the viruses.

Second day

This morning the kids got up at 5:30. Being in their house I heard them and woke up. I dosed in bed till 7. I got up and went to one of the guest houses to have breakfast. When I got the to house breakfast was not ready so I sat in a chair and drank my water. The cook asked me, "Do you drink often?" I said "Yes, I drink often." I thought she was just talking about staying hydrated. But then she started setting out stuff for coffee. I realized I had heard her wrong. She had asked "Do you drink coffee?" Well now I was in a pinch.

The cook had walked out to get something, so while she was out I poured a couple of sips of hot water into the mug, added a tiny amount of instant coffee and two spoon fulls of sugar. I was sipping my "coffee" when she came back in. Even with such a tiny amount of coffee in it I could still taste it. And it was nasty. You're not getting me to drink coffee. Breakfast was eggs and pineapple. I ate allot of pineapple and had a few eggs. The eggs tasted like kiesh, which is the only way I ate so many.

After breakfast I walked up with a bunch of the kids to the school, the lab is up there. Daddy had the key to the lab and doesn't eat breakfast so he was going to go up to the lab before I got there. He wasn't there though. He woke up early, like 1-ish, and was up for a while so he slept till 8. I walked back to the house to wait for daddy and talked with kids as they walked to school.

We went up to the lab and I did a couple of things to the computers in preparation for putting in a proxy. Daddy talked with Herbert, the computer guy here, about adding this system. The proxy is a great idea for VOH because it will limit the total amount of Internet you can use. So everyone will go at the same speed, and you don't use up my share of the Internet. It will also do some copying so that there is an little direct Internet connection as possible.

On the way to lunch it started to rain, it rained harder than it did last time we were here. After a great lunch of pizza, we walked back to the lab. I tried, and tried to get a connection to blogger to start writing. Finally I got blogger working a wrote some but then the power went out at 2:20. WAWA. (West Africa Wins Again) Of course we weren't going to have power the whole time...

I stepped outside to talk with the kids. They were having a break. I talked for a long time with them. I also read with some of the kids in the library, that was fun. Then they had to go, so I packed up my things and walked to the guest house and saw a snail. It was really big. Some of the kids came to see what we were looking at. They said that snails were good meat, and told us all about how to cook them. They took it home with them, so enjoy the picture.

While we were waiting for dinner, we had left the lad early since there was no power, daddy did some things on his computer and I did some school work. Then we both worked on a sudoku.

Dinner was very good. After dinner there is a teen devo that we went to. They were doing lessons about how to be leaders. During the devo the light came back on. After the devo we walked back to the house to get our things and on the steps there was a frog. There was a frog on the porch, in the grass, almost under my feet, they were everywhere. I talked with some of the girls while I waited for daddy, and now we're up at the lab. And there goes the power....

Traveling to Ghana

This year our fight from Dallas was at 8 am. In stead of waking up at zero in the morning and riving to Dallas we stayed at some friends house. We left Saturday, July 19 at 3:09 pm.

• 3 min driving to HEB for gas


• 10 min getting gas


• 10 min driving to Uncle Darryl's to get a memory card to the camera


• 3 hr 11 min Driving to Dallas


• 33 min eating at El Chico


• 7 min Driving our friends house
  

We got to their house at 7:13 pm. For a total of 4 hr 4 min.

We then left at 6:20 am Sunday, to give ourselves time to check in.

• 15 min driving to the airport


• 27 min checking in and going through security


• 42 min waiting to get on the plane


• 33 min waiting for the plane to take off


• 3 hr 9 min flying to New York City


• 14 min waiting to get off the plane


• 4 hr 8 min at the airport


• 2 hr 24 min waiting for the plane to take off


• 10 hr 7 min flying to Ghana


• 12 min waiting to get off the plane


• 56 min at the airport going through security and getting our luggage


• 1 hr 55 min driving to Village of Hope
  

We arrived at VOH at 10:22 am Ghanaian time (5:22am) Monday. We traveled for 23 hr 2 min on this leg, making a total of 27 hr 6 min total travel time.

The first flight was in a very small plane, daddy could almost touch the roof with his head. That flight was a nice flight. The second flight was not so great. There were TVs in it though so we watched the movies that were on, 21 and some stupid movie about a guy and a girl who are divorced but the guy still loves her. In one of the previews she asks, "where did you learn to fly an airplane?" he says, "PlayStation." I can't remember what it's called. They were both not movies I would have chosen but they took up time. After the second movie we slept some. Daddy slept more than me. My stomach started feeling weird. I thought it was just the cokes I had so I drank a bunch of water. About two hours before we landed I started feeling nauseous. I got this squirty stuff and put it on my wrists and rubber them together. It's supposed to make you not nauseous, but I think I took it too late. I started looking in the pockets of the seats for a bag but there wasn't one. So I through up in my mouth, and went to the bathroom but there was a line, so I went to the other end and they were full and I couldn't ask the flight attendant for a bag because I had my mouth full. He sent me back to the other bathrooms and a lady came out. I went for it, she was trying to tell me that there was some one on the other side, but I made some motions and she understood. I felt much better after that. Breakfast came, there was a banana in it. I thought that would be good so I nibbled on it some. I realized that wasn't a good idea, but too late, the attendant is cutting off my row. The food came in a box so I used that. Also once more before we landed. I normally don't get motion sickness but 10 hours is way too long to be on a plane and I had been up way too long. I'd much rather do the switching airports in London than a 10 hr flight again.

Wednesday a church group of 25 will come to VOH so daddy and I are staying in the guest room at the kids homes. Daddy's in one house and I'm in the other. We moved all our luggage to daddy's room and then went to see people. Lunch was to be an hour later so we went to sort out our luggage.

We got all of our luggage!!!! I was so glad. The first bag we sorted through was fine, everything was there and packed just like we packed it. The second bag had a "this bag was searched" card in it. That was from the US side, and the bag still looked the way we packed it and had everything we put in it. The third bag had obviously been ruffled through and there was a big "hole" where something should have been. The fourth bag was also ruffled through. This year as a precaution for my bag only matching 82% and NOT being my bag, we printed out lists of what was in the suitcases and put in the suit case and carried another one. We used the list to make sure that everything was there. Everything was in the fourth bag but not everything was in the third bag. Some lotion we were going to give Lawrence's wife, and the bag of skittles were gone. There was some random tank top with the tag on that we did not bring, in the bag. But most importantly the laptop we brought over here for a friend was stolen!!! Daddy and I are pretty sure that it got stolen here on this end because the first two bags we opened came around the baggage pick up by each other. But the last two came quite a bit later. We've talked to a couple of people here about what to do about it. Araba, the operations officer, is trying to talk to Delta about it. Daddy think that maybe our travel insurance will pay us for the loss. I was so looking forward to being done with the airport till we left...

We still haven't slept yet, I feel like I'm on a boat now. We're staying up till at least supper so we hopefully will sleep through the night.

I just found out that Ghana is not having anymore power outages! That is going to make it much easier to work on the computers.

Final preparations and packing

Today is packing day. We leave for DFW tomorrow afternoon. We will spend the evening with some friends who will take us to the airport at 6am. From there we fly to New York and then straight to Accra, Ghana. Its an "overnight" flight, of course, so we won't get much sleep. We arrive at 8:20am on Monday and can look forward to a full day before resting. Fortunately we don't begin formal classes until Wednesday.

Here is a list of things we plan to accomplish, want to accomplish, have thot about, or been asked to do while we are there:

• teach the computer track for a 6-day teacher's workshop


• help Herbert, computer lab teacher, with whatever needs he has


• install a network traffic cache (Squid) to improve bandwidth efficiency


• deliver new headphones, splitters, mice, mouse pads, replacement parts, etc.


• hold a Saturday seminar for church leaders on the impact of Western technology and culture on the Ghanaian Church at the largest church in Accra


• visit a minister, who is a graduate student at HCC, and his family for three days


• speak at a multiple-church youth meeting


• preach(!?) for a small church at HCC


• visit the University of Cape Coast to investigate the possibility of teaching there for a year while on sabbatical


• plus the usual: visiting, talking, encouraging, and shopping at the market

This year packing is all about identification and recording. We plan to have written and photographic evidence for all items in all bags. Plus bags will be highly unique from the outside (thanks to artwork by Ayrea and Robert). Hopefully we won't have repeat of the lost bag problem from last year.

Returning to Ghana

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog. This summer I am going back to Ghana. It will only be me and my dad. We're going to miss you Robert and Ray. We will again be going to Village of Hope (VOH). We are going to be in Ghana July 20 through August 5. It's only two weeks this year, last year was four. But I almost didn't get to go this year because plane tickets are so expensive so I'm happy with only two weeks.

This year we'll be doing something a little different. My dad will be teaching the teachers at VOH a one week class about how to use computers, the Internet, e-mail, etc. I will be helping to tutor them and make sure they all keep up with what daddy's teaching. Daddy will also hold a seminar on the impact of western technology and culture on Ghana for church leaders and ministers. That will only be a one time thing. We will meet with Lawrence Lamptey, a minister we help to support and friend. The last few days we will be staying at his house. It is going to be an amazing experience. We will also go visit the university in Accra were daddy will talk to the people there to see if he can take a sabbatical there. That would be so cool! I will also be recording what we do, where we go and the people we meet, by writing in my blog and taking pictures.

We are starting to gather up things to take to Ghana. If you have any flash drives you would like to donate that would be greatly appreciated. I don;t know what else we need so if you would like to donate anything ask my dad. I'm also going to gather up some coloring books, crayons, origami paper, and possibly some LEGO to take to the kids. If you have anything you would like to give to the kids just drop me a line.

I am so excited about going to Ghana. This year we are NOT flying British Airways. Hallelujah! And I will be packing my suitcases differently this time. (For those of you just now joining, last year they lost my suit case. It ended up never leaving Dallas. I got it the day before we left to come home.) We only get two suitcases each this year, but we're staying a shorter amount of time there so I think we'll be able to take all the things we're planning on taking.