Ghana Tech-support

Summing up the trip

2008-08-07T17:00:00.003-05:00

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

2008-08-07T10:20:00.002-05:00

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

2008-08-07T09:29:00.002-05:00

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

2008-08-03T16:39:00.001-05:00

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

2008-08-02T09:46:00.003-05:00

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

2008-08-01T15:34:00.003-05:00

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

2008-07-31T14:53:00.004-05:00

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

2008-07-31T10:28:00.004-05:00

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

2008-07-31T03:24:00.002-05:00

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

2008-07-30T11:44:00.003-05:00

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

2008-07-29T03:31:00.004-05:00

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

2008-07-28T03:20:00.013-05:00

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.

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

2008-07-27T08:49:00.003-05:00

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

2008-07-26T15:17:00.003-05:00

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

2008-07-26T14:16:00.004-05:00

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

2008-07-26T13:53:00.011-05:00

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

2008-07-25T08:16:00.002-05:00

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

2008-07-24T08:36:00.002-05:00

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

2008-07-23T13:05:00.003-05:00

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

2008-07-22T08:59:00.005-05:00

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

2008-07-21T09:29:00.005-05:00

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

2008-07-18T09:13:00.008-05:00

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

2008-07-01T16:56:00.003-05:00

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.

Our Last Day in Ghana

2007-07-24T14:52:00.000-05:00

Sunday we had breakfast and then worked on the computers till church time. We went to church at the collage again. Daddy volunteered me to help the kids do origami. So I sat in church for a while and then helped the kids. I missed daddy preaching but had lots of fun with the kids. After church we had lunch and said good bye to the caterers. We then rushed around the lab trying to clean it up and do lots of last minute updates and thing. We didn't get all the little things done that we wanted to because of the time crunch.

The trip home took us 30 hours and 46 minutes. Yes it was shorter but we had a red eye flight which made it seam worse. We ended up being awake for 44 hours. We got home with all our bags!! We were quite shocked. We left HCC Sunday night at 5:27 Ghanaian time and we got home Monday night at 7:13 Texas time. It was shorter for both Ray and Robert because Robert was staying in Dallas and Ray's family picked up something to go where as we stopped at a sit down Mexican restaurant. It seams like a life time ago that I went to Mexico.

1 hr 5 min driving to the airport
3 hr 35 min waiting at the airport
5 min bus ride to the plane
30 min waiting on the plane to take off
6 hr 45 min flying to London
9 min waiting to get off the plane
5 min bus ride to the airport
1 hr 45 min getting our luggage and waiting for a bus
1hr 5 min bus ride to the airport
37 min checking our bags, going through security and getting on the plane!!!
52 min sitting on the plane waiting to take off
9 hr 7 min flying to Dallas
11 min sitting on the plane waiting to get off
45 min at the airport
4 hr 10 min driving to Abilene with a stop for supper

Day Twenty-four

2007-07-22T09:40:00.000-05:00

Today after breakfast we loaded up to go sight seeing. We were going to see the Monkey Reserve and walk through some caves there. When we got to the reserve the people there said that the roads were too muddy to drive on so we couldn't see the caves and that the monkeys hadn't come out. We drove to some water falls since we couldn't see the monkeys. On the drive to the water falls it felt like we were back in Oregon. The trees weren't pines but they were actually green. On the way back from the falls we stopped on the side of the road to take pictures of Accra. We stopped at a restaurant to eat lunch. We had pizza and ice cream. After lunch we went to the airport to get my bag. My bag was still there!!! It was only 25 days late. Tommy keeps a record of things like this. The longest for lost bag(s) was 10 days. We beet that no sweat. It's been like Christmas in July because of all the things that have come out of my suitcase that I have missed. A bag of baby wipes got opened and leaked on to some things. One of the things it leaked on was the corner of my Bible. It didn't hurt it too bad and I was too glad at having it back to really care that much. I'm taking my Bible home in my back pack so it won't get lost again. I never actually realized how attached I am to my Bible until I might not have gotten it back.

On the way home from the airport we stopped at a computer shop to exchange a mouse we had gotten yesterday that didn't work. When we got back to the school we worked on the computers and then had supper. It was during supper that I got my answer. It turns out Ray's not actually the Evil Overlord he's the evil underlord. That fits him better anyway he wasn't quite up to the standards of EO. Daddy is the Evil Overlord. dun dun duhn...So daddy is the EO, Ray's the evil underlord and I'm his minion which leaves Robert left out. But at the rate we're going we'll probably have something by the time we get home. Also on a miniony note: I think I'm going to go home without being pushed off the edge! We only have one day left and the construction workers have been putting up railing on the first floor.

Day Twenty-three

2007-07-20T14:44:00.000-05:00

Today we had breakfast and then made sandwiches to take in the car. After breakfast we, Ray, Robert, daddy, Peter, Lawrence, and one other students, loaded up into a roomy 8 passenger van. We went to a small version of the art market. As we drove there I fell asleep and because of the dumps in the road I ended up leaning on Ray's shoulder. While I was sleeping daddy got Robert's camera out to take a picture. The flash was so bright and sudden that it woke me. Those guys are so mean! I woke up in enough time to hear Ray say that I would fall if he moved and that daddy should get ready to take a picture. I quickly changed positions and leaned against the window. Out of my being called Ray's minion he became the "evil overlord" alright, an EO want-to-be. I guess Ray is qualified to be mean, after all he is the evil overlord. But what about daddy? If Ray's the EO and I'm his minion what would that make daddy be to join in on his evil plots? ....hm.... Anyway back to the mini art market.

The small art market was about 2 or 3 shops deep and about 15 shops wide. One of the students went shopping for HCC and had to be back earlier than we would get home so he took the bus back. Daddy and Ray like the small art market batter that the firs one we went to so we spent several hours there and got many things. I think we all got most of what we wanted. When we finish shopping we got back in the car and had sandwiches, plantain chips and bananas for lunch.

After the art market we drove to the airport to check on my luggage. It was supposed to have come late yesterday night so we were hoping it would be there. On the way there daddy realized that he had left the paper work at HCC. We still went in to look for my bag. We found my bag!!!! It was actually there!!! I was so happy I was grinning from ear to ear. We took my bag to the desk and the lady asked me why I was laughing and I told her I finaly got my bag. But because we didn't have the paper work she wouldn't let us have it. I was too over joyed at finding it that I wasn't too disappointed. I just hoped it didn't leave.

After the airport we went to Rowling's Park and got a few things. On the way home I rolled myself up and laid down on two seats in the back and slept for most of the way home. We got home and had show and tell of the things we got. After we finished we had supper. After supper Victoria, one of the caterers, gave me a necklace made out of palm nuts. We worked on the computers after supper and then went to bed.

Day Twenty-two

2007-07-19T07:00:00.001-05:00

Today we had breakfast and Ray did NOT teach class. A change for once! After breakfast Lawrence took me to his wife, Faustina's shop to get my hair braided. Two other ladies from neighboring shops helped braid my hair. After a while it started raining so we went inside one of the ladies beauty shop. One of the ladies stayed outside to watch the shops. The lady who owned the beauty shop could braid really fast so she would start them and then pass them onto Faustina who would finish them. When they got them all braided the put rubber bands on both ends of the braids. That hurt more than having my hair braided, but they were very gentle. After they finished we walked back to the school in enough time for me to show off my hair to everyone before lunch. It took two and a half hours of three hours to walk there and back and get my hair braided. After lunch daddy and Ray taught a class for anyone who wanted to come. They taught about technology and its effects on people. After class I went a visited the caterers in the kitchen. Then came back to the lab to help work on the computers. We had supper, worked on the computers and then went to bed.

Day Twenty-one

2007-07-18T07:37:00.000-05:00

Today we had breakfast and Ray taught class. After a while I went to the bush canteen to talk with the ladies there. They were making Banku. They got me to stir the Banku. It was hard, they make it look so easy. Eric walked by and saw me sitting and talking with the ladies and asked me if I wanted to help make the Banku. When I said I had he was so surprised. Then he asked where Robert's camera was. He went and told daddy and Ray to come with the camera and get a picture. The power had gone out and Ray had stopped teaching so they both came. I sat back down at the fire and stirred the Banku. I think I did better the second time but it was still hard. Some of the students got the generator going so we all went back to the lab. Ray taught some more and then we had lunch. After lunch daddy had us all take a nap. After our nap we worked on the computers. After dinner Ray tried to promote me from minion to yeoman but I refused. I didn't want to be a navy man. We spent the night looking up yeoman and synonyms of minion.

Day Twenty

2007-07-18T06:15:00.000-05:00

Yesterday we had Breakfast, and Ray taught class. While Ray taught I wrote posts and visited the bush canteen. Talking with the cooks was very enjoyable. After a while daddy came and found me to help him. I had to help him test an Ethernet cable because we couldn't get it to work. We tested it and it worked. So we thought about what could be wrong. It turns out that we had put the wires in the wrong order. We had lunch and then worked on the computers. While we were working on computers Ray said that I was like a minion. He said that because I had enough servitude with just a little bit of annoyance that I'm not a brainless robot. Now it has stuck as my nickname for this trip. We spent a considerable time looking up minion to see if it did fit and to see if it exclusively had to do with villainous people. It doesn't which daddy was surprised to find out.

HCC is still being built so the walk way doesn't have rains yet. The walk ways are wide enough for two people to walk abreast. When we first got here Ray threatened to push me off since I was walking on the outside. Some time last week I was walking again by Ray but this time I was on the inside so I pushed him. I didn't actually expect him to fall off but just in case I pushed him off where there were stairs down so there wouldn't just be a huge drop. He stumbled a little when I pushed him and stepped down a step. Since then he keeps threatening to push me off but hasn't pushed me yet. He says it's more fun to threaten me then to get revenge now and not have any leverage. Still I always walk on the inside or behind Ray. Going around corners is almost comical, we race around the bend to see who can get to the inside first. It's about 50-50. We're getting down to the last few days so I'm even more cautious. Yesterday on the way to dinner I confidently walked on the outside and Ray threatened to push me but I had my response. "You wouldn't push your minion would you?" That made him laugh and he didn't push me. After supper we played spades and then went to bed.

Day Nineteen

2007-07-18T03:32:00.000-05:00

Monday we had breakfast at HCC, Ray taught and then we had lunch. After lunch we went back to Samuel's house to pack up our things again because we were going to move to HCC. We also had to go by the empty house to get mattresses since HCC didn't have any extra beds. I had been thinking it would be cool to get my hair braided while we were here. When we went to get things from the houses one of the students went with us. I asked him how much it would cost to get my hair braided and he said his wife would do it for me. We made plans to get my hair braided Thursday morning because Ray won't be teaching till the afternoon that day. I also wanted to do it closer to when we leave so I could wear it home. It's only like $2 or $3 to get my hair done! There are three American students staying here and we roomed with them. One girl and two guys so one room for the guys and one room for the girls. It was nice to have a room mate. We got settled in and then had supper. We all went to bed early.

Day Eighteen

2007-07-17T07:37:00.000-05:00

Sunday we went to church at a big church on Accra. It is the biggest church of Christ outside of America. Church was great. One of the professors from ACU preached. We wanted to eat lunch with Samuel and the professor but they were staying for second service. While they were at church we went by the airport. The lady let us go back and look at the bags. While we were looking through the bags a worker came up to try and help us. He showed us new bags that had come in. It was very nice of him and it defiantly beats BA attitude toward my bag but it felt like he was rushing us through the bags. I would have rather looked through the bags myself and looked through old bags too. We only spent 15 minutes total in the whole airport. We drove back to the church and walked around by shops. After a while it got too hot so we walked back to the church. First service was in English but second service was in Twi, the native language.

When we got back from walking around we sat in one of the children's classes. It was very impressive. There were about 50 kids and one teacher. The class was a little over 2 hours and stayed well behaved the whole time. The kids were 3-5 years old. The class was also outside under a covering. The class we sat in shared the covering with two other classes of older kids. The kids do a lot of singing and there were times when the different classes would be singing different songs at the same time. The kids were still able to pay attention and not get confused. After church we ate lunch at a restaurant called Champs. It was inside a hotel and felt very American.

After lunch we went to the school and worked on the computers. We stayed at the school to have supper. After supper we went back to our house to get our stuff because we were moving to Samuel's house. Two of the professors that were staying there had left so there was space for us. When we got our stuff organized and put away we sat around and talked for a while and then went to bed.

Day Seventeen

2007-07-17T03:48:00.000-05:00

Saturday we were at the school all day. We worked on the computers but we were having some networking problems so it was hard to get things done. We worked on the computers till the generator ran out of fuel in the afternoon. We cleaned up the lab and then one of the students showed us around. We walked to his house and met his Grandparents. They were so kind. His grandfather got us drinks to be a hospitable christian. While we were walking around the town we stopped at a pharmacy where Ray bought a huge bottle of Pepto-bismal. It was good to walk through the town because we had always driven by. We saw Village of Hope and we're seeing a collage but we hadn't seen were people lived.

Day Sixteen

2007-07-16T07:28:00.000-05:00

Friday Ray taught class and then we had lunch. After lunch Peter and Frank, the computer guy here, drove all of us to Rollin's Park. It was kind of like the art market but not as neatly laid out. The shops also sold things that were not hand made. We spent an hour looking for a good deal on power strips and then told Frank we'll pay extra to have some time to do other shopping. We bought the electric things we needed and then spent time shopping for ourselves. We all ended up buying something.

Day Fiveteen

2007-07-14T07:05:00.000-05:00

Thursday while Ray taught class daddy and I went on errands. We went by the house to pick up some things for VOH. Daddy was planning to go the VOH that night and come back Friday. After we picked up thins we went to the airport to see if my bag had come in. The lady at the desk was so nice! We told her we were looking for our bag and she said to go on back to the baggage room and take our time to look through the bags. They had just gotten 64 new bags but none of them were mine. We did find one bag that looked just like mine but it had a lock on the zipper and it had several bars of used soap in the outside pocket. That made it even more disappointing than not finding my bag at all. And the bag that was rotting was gone. Daddy said that he would be embarrassed to pick it up if it were his. We asked the lady to look on the computer to see where our bag was but she said that BA had stopped using the computers and were just putting the bags on airplanes.

On the way back from the airport the driver, Peter, stopped at a couple of shops to get some medicine. At one of the shops Peter stopped at daddy and I got out to look. We got some chocolate. We thought the driver had been told that we wanted to go by an electronic shop to get some adapters but he hadn't. We didn't realize till we were almost back to HCC so we stopped at some shops. None of them had what we were looking for but they would tell us of some other shop that might have it. We tried four places and then gave up.

Here when the is the roads are backed up vendors walk by the cars to sell just about everything; cokes, food, books and more. On the way to the are market one of the interns introduced us to plantains. Plantains are like bananas but the y are longer and fatter. The plantains they sell on the street are thin sliced and fried to make chips. They come in two flavors, yellow salty ones and brown sweater ones. While we were out looking for electronics we got some plantains to munch on.

Peter got a call from someone at HCC wondering where we were. Daddy told them that they should go on to VOH without him because he wouldn't be able to work at VOH without the electrical stuff. We got back to the school at 2 and had a late supper. We didn't get anything done. The only productive thing that we did was we got some chocolate.

I’m on day 7, What day are you on?

2007-07-12T10:17:00.000-05:00

(No, it’s not about Prilosec OTC, it's about needing lots of Imodium and always knowing the location of the closest restroom)

So this is the entry where I lose my faithful readers (…both of them). I really didn’t want to write this entry. I expected these kinds of problems on the trip, but 7 days is a long time. I’ve become so increasingly frustrated that I need to vent to someone besides my traveling companions.

So here goes:

Will this ailment ever go away?
Why doesn’t the medicine work?
Do people just live with this long term?
Why are the bathrooms so far away?
Why are the bathrooms so dark when the electricity is off?
Who says candlelight always makes things romantic?
Can someone send me softer toilet tissue?

Day Fourteen

2007-07-12T09:41:00.000-05:00

Wednesday we had breakfast at the collage. After breakfast Ray refreshed the students on what they had learned the previous day. Daddy taught them about Microsoft Word. Robert taught the students about Google Documents. We had lunch after class. The lab and the dinning room are in different buildings. On the way to the dinning room there in a place where the caterers, not chefs, cook. After lunch we were invited to the place. They called in the bush canteen. We talked to the students about America. They were so interested in every thing we had to say. At one time the students were telling me about the plants they grow and made fun of me for mistaking tall grass for corn. I enjoyed talking with them very much. After they had all left I got a chance to talk to Robert. It was good to get to know him better. After supper we went home and played spades again. Ray is obviously the dominating player. When Ray and daddy were a team they won, and when Ray and Robert were a team they won.

File Closed

2007-07-11T07:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon we got on the bus with some other people to run errands. After we dropped all of the people off at their various places we went to the airport to see if my bag had arrived. The lady at the desk couldn't find it so she let us look in their room with lost and found bags. The bags were in such a mess. The shelves that were holding the bags sagged a little under the weight of all the bags. There was a bag or two that I was pretty sure had food that had spoiled or very dirty clothes in them. There were some bags that the handle had been broken off and some that were saran wrapped and some were duck taped. The bags were piled high but none of them were mine.

We went out of the luggage room and asked the lady to look on her computer and tell us where the bag was. She said it was still in Dallas! She asked us what was in it and we told her. She said that file had been closed because it wasn't my bag! The file for my missing bag was still open but the file for that bag was closed. She said that the contents were similar but that it was not my bag. How possible is it that someone would have computer things and have a swimsuit and jewelry and shoes? She said we only matched 82% of what was in the bag. I packed that bag 2 weeks ago, and that was also the bag I had to repack. But what was even more frustrating was that I said there were clothes and computer stuff in the bag instead of underwear and pajama's, and CD's and electronic stuff! That bag has my address on it. I even recited our address to her while she was looking at what the computer said it was. It was our address but apparently that wasn't enough. So she asked me for our phone number, I told her our house number but she said that was wrong. So I told her our cell phone numbers. It had my name and address on it but it only matched 82% so she was convinced that it wasn't my bag. I almost broke down into tears with frustration at not getting my bag. I wasn't disappointed just frustrated at the airline. It was always supposed to be here tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. And it was still in Dallas after they said they would have it sent here. And now the lady said it wasn't even mine! We finally convinced the lady to request the bag and ask for it immediately but before she did so she said, almost warningly, "I just hope it's yours."

While we were talking to the lady at the desk another lady who was missing her luggage was talking to one of the workers there. The worker could not find it in their papers so he asked her if she wanted to go back and look for them. She said no she knew it wasn't there she just wanted them to look on their computer to see where it was. She said "I just want to know if someone on this planet knows were my luggage is. And that it would make me feel much more better." Honestly, I have to agree with her. She knows exactly what she's talking about.

The service on the plane and the service for the luggage do not match at all. Sure the service on the plane is good and they have good food and movies but that still does not come close to covering the missing bag for two weeks. If you ever fly overseas make sure to not use British Airways. I lost my bag for two weeks and someone took another one thinking it was theirs. And Tommy says that was good for BA! He said normally people who fly BA lose half their luggage.

Tonight my suitcase should be there assuming they did send it. Tomorrow we are going to go to the airport to see if it did come in. We've reached the point where we just hope it gets here before we leave. Because it's taken so long to get the bag we've started saying "As soon as the bag gets here..." almost like "when pigs fly".

Accomplishments at Village of Hope

2007-07-11T03:47:00.001-05:00

We finished our report to the director of Village of Hope yesterday. We thot others might appreciate knowing what we managed to do as well, so listed below is a summary of what we accomplished while we were there.

inventoried existing hardward and software
added memory to all computers, on average doubled the RAM
replaced many headphones
replaced many broken CD-ROM drives
created a file/print server from one of the computers
added a harddrive to the server
added a scanner to the server
instituted a cleaning policy to increase the life of the computers
instituted a cloning process to allow restoring computers to a known and working configuration
installed anti-virus software
performed updates to all software
added firewall for additional security
added NAT to allow many computers on the network
added DHCP to allow laptops to be easily used
added wireless access point to allow laptops to be used easily
added DNS cache to slightly reduce network traffic
installed Ethernet cabling to second floor for teachers and administrators
installed switch upstairs to allow multiple computers to be used upstairs
added a wireless access point allowing Fred and Tommy to use laptops from their homes and potentially access to the medical clinic
installed approximately 19 educational programs
installed various useful applications such as GoogleTalk and eSword
optimized Windows' settings to improve performance for older computers
sorted old equipment and disposed of equipment that will never be useful
configured and optimized several laptops for various staff members
trained local administrator to install networking and re-image computers
trained Faculty, staff and college students in the use of computers, the Internet, chatting, GMail, Google, Wikipedia, etc.
instituted a policy to "pair up" volunteers with Faculty and staff for individual tutoring and relationship building

So, we feel the visit was very successful and the local directors agree our time there was well spent. We, of course, have a long list of other things that could be done. We plan to remain in contact with Village of Hope and are considering a return visit.

Day Twelve

2007-07-11T03:40:00.000-05:00

Monday we had breakfast at the house. We got picked up and driven to the school. When we got there we had a meeting with Samuel. He told us about the school, the direction they are heading, the people who are at the school and how we were helping them. Samuel also took us on a tour of the school. Right now the school is in progress. They have two stories of the class room building built and are working on the third. They also have two stories of the dorms built. They plan to built two class room buildings, two dorms, an office building, a chapel, and faclty housing. After the tour we checked our e-mail and worked on the computers. We had lunch and then went back to the lab. We discovered a new amount of time: a ghanain hour. Supper was "scedualed" to be at 7 but at 5 Eric came and told us that it could be ready any minute from now. Supper was ready at 6. After supper we went home and went to sleep.

Day Eleven

2007-07-11T03:30:00.000-05:00

Sunday we all woke up early because the sun comes up so fast near the equator. Eric came and picked us up and took us to the school where we had breakfast and went to church. Church was so amazing! The song leader was really getting into the songs. The service was in English and Twi, pronounced tree. Twi is one of the many languages spoken here. None of us had ever been to a bi-lingual church service before so that was cool. After church we had lunch and and then looked at the computers. We stayed at the lab for a while and then we left to go back to the house. The cooks had finished preparing supper early so we took it home with us. The power went out at 6 so we had supper in the dark. After supper since we didn't know what to do Ray read us his huge story about the market. While Ray was still reading to us Samuel and his house guests came to great us. He brought us a flash light since the power was off. They left and Ray continued to read to us but we were again interrupted by Emanuel, the grounds keeper. He brought us candles and matches. When Ray finished reading us his story we decided to play spades. Playing cards by candle light was very enjoyable. When the power came back on at 10:30 we were glad for the fan but playing with the lights on wasn't as elegant. We went to bed at 11.

Recent Meals

2007-07-10T11:04:00.000-05:00

Last night for supper we had fish served with our choice of either fish or banku. Banku is a fermented cornmeal dough served warm. I chose the rice, but tasted the banku. It was very interesting kind of like sourdough, not the bread, just the warm dough. It is a favorite meal of Ghanaians. The fish was also interesting to me. It was a whole fish with just the head cut off. I heard that many Ghanaians eat the head as well, but it's cut off for foreigners. So to eat the fish, you dig your finger into the side and peel back the meat from the bones. Everyone ends up getting some bones in their mouth, but its not a big deal. When your finish with one side, you just flip it over to the other side; or you can try to pull most of the bones off at that point. At the end of the meal we had watermelon.

Today after lunch our Ghanaian brothers were sharing a drink that looked like grape juice called sooboro. They call it the 'missionary drink' because it is made with lots of herbs and healthy plants and can be used to help traveling missionaries stay healthy. I tried some and it was a bit bitter.

Day Ten

2007-07-09T12:39:00.000-05:00

Saturday we had breakfast and left VOH in a 25 passenger bus. There were only 7 of us. But we had to take two bunk beds with us because where we would be staying where there weren't any beds. The wooden part we put on the roof and the mattresses were up there for a little while but then it started to rain so we had to put them inside. Even with the mattresses in the bus we still had plenty of room. We drove for almost two hours and then had lunch at Frankie's. It was a nice restaurant. After lunch we stopped at an electrical store where Daddy and Ray went in to see if they had Ghanaian power supplies. They didn't find any so we continued driving. We went to an art market where buying things there is all about bartering. Ray had a blast and got a bunch of stuff, Robert and daddy only got a few things. We spent an hour at the market and went on to the airport to meet Tommy and see if my bag got in. My bag was not there they had sent it from London back to Dallas. The guy at the desk said that it would be here tomorrow and Tommy got in a heated discussion about the fact that there was no way that it would be here tomorrow and that everyone had said it would be here tomorrow but we were two weeks with out it. We left the three other people at the airport with Tommy. They were there to great the new arrivals. The bus driver took us to the school where we reloaded the beds onto a smaller bus but only the driver had to fit in it. We had supper and looked at the computer lab. Eric took us to a house where we will be staying at this week. Samuel, the director of the school, is organizing our housing here. We were going to stay at his house but he has other guests this week. A friend of his is letting us stay in their empty house. Next week we'll be at his house though. The electricity in the bed rooms was half on so the fans didn't go very much but in the dining room the fan went very well. Daddy slept in one of the bedrooms but the rest of us moved our mattresses out to the dinning room to sleep under the fan.

Shopping Trip

2007-07-09T08:52:00.001-05:00

The art market in Accra was quite a place. First of all - the layout. It is mostly open air under a giant rectangular roof like you might see at a fairground. Most of the vendors have a single booth that is about 8' by 8'. The whole area is like a giant grid with about 8 long aisles running the long dimension of the shelter and some shorter aisles running the shorter dimension of the building. There were probably 40 boothes or so on each side of the long aisles. There was a brief break every 6 boothes or so for the shorter cross aisles.

Every single shopkeeper that you pass will talk to you. Every single one. Without exception. They will beg you to please come into their 'store' and look around. They can fit a look of products in their 8’ by 8’ space. And they generally have most of the access from the inside of the booth to the aisle blocked off to make it more difficult for you to leave. Most shoppers do their best to not make eye contact and avoid stopping until they are ready to be harassed. Some store owners will stay 6 or 7 boothes away from their own booth so they can talk to you while approaching their ‘shop’. And all of them will offer to escort you to the shop that has exactly what you are looking for, no matter what it is that you say that you are looking for.

There are no prices marked on any items. When you ask for the price, they will always start with a high price than will begin the negotiation. The general rule tends to be that you can usually get an item for half the starting price or less. It varies among the different shopkeepers. So what I ended up doing was starting with an offering price of 25%-40% of what they were asking. From there you negotiate. This almost always involves walking out of their store at least once. But they may come looking for you after a while, to restart the negotiations.

My first purchase of the day went like this: I saw some artwork that I really liked and kind of lazily looked at the items in the store. I tried to not act real interested in anything (I had been coached by some experienced shoppers). As I looked around I saw 5 pieces that I liked, there were 2 small banana leaf pictures, and 3 small original paintings on canvases. They were all about envelope or notebook size. I asked how much for the 5 of them together. He said the price was 950,000 cidis (about $95) total for the group.

I immediately acted greatly offended (as I had been coached). So I started off by offering him 200,000 to which he was greatly offended. He said that he could only give me one of these items for 200,000. We then looked over the 5 items again and went through their various qualities and he came down to 930,000 because he wanted to give me a good deal. I said that was way out of line and he said he would come down a little more, but I should be willing to negotiate. So he came down to 900,000, and I went up to 220,000. To my new offer, he replied, friend, friend, friend, I'm trying to help you out here.... and so on. By this time I was smiling, laughing, and just really having fun. So we kept going. He was telling me this one particular piece was worth more than 220,000 by itself. So I asked him to take that piece out and give me a quote on the other 4. We did several variations on that. I tried to leverage my abilities in Algebra during negotiation as much as possible. He finally came down to 870,000. And it went on, and on, and on. At some point he took one of the canvas pieces and creased it sharply down the middle to show how it made no impact on the picture because it was an original and of the highest quality. Of course, I acted not the least bit impressed and even tried to fake a yawn or two as I glanced at the other stores. In reality, I thought the creasing thing was really cool. After much more negotiation, he finally got down to 600,000 and I had gone up to 350,000. Around this point, we hit a standstill, so I told him I'd look around other shops and come back later. He was very disappointed that his "brother" would leave. So I told him that maybe I would come back and visit my "brother" later. I don't think that he quite knew how to take that. I guess that not many shoppers refer back to him as their brother.

So I went shopping a few booths away with Robert (Robert had been watching this whole ordeal and I think got a bit of entertainment out of it). We had gone down a few booths and around a corner to another booth that we were looking at. The previous shopkeeper had been keeping an eye on us and waited a minute or so to follow us. He came up to me with the 5 items in his hand. He said that if I came back he'll make a deal that I would really like. So we went back for round 2. At this point, I realized that it was going to take some stamina. I also started seeing this as a kind of sport. A sport? After all, what intrinsic value is there in getting a basketball through a hoop or hitting a baseball 400 feet? It's only fun because of the challenge and the competition.

So we got back to his 'store' and I opened with something about taking my offer of 350,000 to which he was greatly offended, but he would give me the best price he could now, 550,000. This, of course, was a terrible hardship for him, but he really wanted to help out his brother (me). He also said that I was a great customer. I told him that I only came back because I thought he had decided to accept the 350,000 and that I was deeply offended to come back all of this way. So we talked about how much we each wanted to make a deal work and help the other one out (being brothers and all), but eventually reached another impasse. As I was leaving the store, he asked me to make him one more offer, my very best price. I told him that I would make him one more offer and that would be the final. He looked happy. So I told him 380,000 - take it or leave it. He said, Oh Brother I can not do that, you must understand.... and so on ... So I left.

I casually checked, but he didn't appear to be watching me, or following us after we made a few turns. I was worried that I was being too difficult; after all, I did really like the items and would have paid more than 380,000 for them. But since it was my first attempted purchase of the day, I decided that I had to leave just to learn more about the whole purchasing system here. And besides, to truly bargain, you can't get too attached to any specific items.

About 10 minutes later, Robert and I were in a completely different part of the market and the previous shopkeeper found me with the 5 items in his hand. He told me that he really wanted to help me out and that I should come with him back to his shop please, because he wants to help me out. I said sorry, 380,000 was the best I could do. He told me again to come back to his shop. I finally played hardball, pulled out exactly 380,000, and said here it is, take it if you want it. Then I start walking away. He said “brother”, and I turned around. He looked at me with a solemn look, said "OK" in a whisper, took the money, and gave me the 5 small pieces of art. I gave him a hug and said “thank you brother.” He hugged me back and said "yes" in a quite voice. I seriously almost teared up when it was all over. It was like two rival teams finishing a best of seven series that went into overtime in game seven. And I also strangely felt that we had both somehow enjoyed the affair and had made each other better.

I went on to make a few other purchases at the art market. The other purchases were similar, but not quite as intense, although they all involved leaving the store at some point. It was a great day, although I did loose out at one place. I was negotiating on a pair of items, a purse and a woman's dress. I eventually ended up offering 120,000 cidis (about $12) for the pair and the shopkeeper had come all the way down to 160,000. I had walked away and they had followed me. I got out the 120,000 and offered it to them as I was heading to the exit, but they insisted on 160,000. They eventually came down to 140,000, but again I took out the 120,000 and walked towards the exit. They stood firm on 140,000 and I stayed at 120,000. They let me go and never came to find me again. I was shocked. Hopefully that means that I had found the real price.

The coolest thing that I bought was a carved wooden drum. It's about two feet tall and 9 inches in diameter at the top. It is roughly shaped like an hourglass with the body being hollow and the bottom open. I finally talked that shopkeeper down to $16. Later on, Robert was negotiating for a similar drum from another shopkeeper and was stuck at $20 when I noticed. The shopkeeper was holding firm, so I offered to sell mine to Robert for $18. I told Robert that I got mine at another place for $16 and would sell him mine for $18 and buy another for $16 to replace it. The shopkeeper asked where I had bought mine. I told him and he consented to $16 for Robert's drum. But he didn't look real happy about it.

I had asked about how they make the drums, and someone had offered to take me to the place where they are made. I took them up on their offer and was led out of the giant shelter through a maze of dirt paths and small artisan shelters to a small shelter with several men making drums. There were dozens of drums in various stages: carving, weaving, stringing, painting, etc. Oh, and during the entire 5 minute walk back to the drum makers and the return walk, another shopkeeper that I had expressed interest in earlier followed me to continue negotiation for an item that I ended up not getting anyway.

So I ended up with: 3 canvas paintings, 2 banana leaf pictures, a drum, a drum case, a wood carved Ghana symbol wall hanging, a wood carved unity thing, 5 letter openers, and a child’s shirt. And all of this for less than 1,000,000 cidis!

Day Nine

2007-07-09T08:45:00.000-05:00

Friday was an extremely long day. We worked on the computers in the morning and taught the teachers about their e-mail in the afternoon. We had supper and went back up to the lab. Our last class to teach was for the house parents. They knew nothing about computers so we had to constantly help them. There were not enough people who knew about computers. We each had about four people to help with every little thing about computers. We didn't start teaching the house parents until 7 and they stayed till 9. Two hours is a long time to spend with people who have no clue how to work with computers. But they were all eager to learn and were sad that we were leaving and would not be there to help. We told them that with all the interns coming through they should pick out one and ask them to spend some time helping them navigate the computer.

Day Eight

2007-07-09T06:17:00.001-05:00

Thursday we worked on the computers in the morning. Then we had lunch and were planing to have a class for the teachers again. We had made them e-mail addresses and were going to teach them how to send and receive e-mail. But the power went out at 1:30 instead of 6, WAWA. WAWA is an alliteration Tommy made up because of thing like this that make it difficult. West Africa Wins Again. It is very true, and we are learning that it isn't as simple is it would be back home. Since we couldn't have class we went around the school and took pictures of the kid's, the classrooms and the teachers. When we finished touring the school we started walking back to our house and saw that some one had gotten a halter for the horse. Some people were trying to put the halter on the horse but were not having much luck. Robert has had horses so he knew what to do. Within a few minutes he had the halter on the horse. By that time all the kids had gathered around to watch. One of the interns said they had never seen a horse until it wandered in. We got to the house and hung out there. At six the power came back on! We packed up our computers and started walking to the computer lab. Tommy was walking by and told us that if we went up to the lab we'd jinx the power but we said that if we didn't go it would stay on for hours and we'd shoot ourselves for not taking the opportunity. We got up there and worked on the computers and sure enough half an hour later the power went off; WAWA.

The front porch light was on when the power went out so when Tommy turned on the generator the light came on. We were all inside with the door shut so we did not notice the light. Daddy went to bed when the generator came on and the three of us up played Yahtzee. After a round Ray noticed "ant feathers" coming in the house from under the door. It had rained earlier in the day so that night the "ant feathers" came out. We had found a flyswatter that afternoon so Ray got that and went outside to brave the "ant feathers". Robert and I watched through the screen door. It was so funny. Ray would swing at the air and you could hear the thwack of the flyswatter hitting the bugs and the bugs hitting the wall. The bugs flew closer to the light and it was harder for Ray to hit them so he stood on a chair. He had been standing on the chair swinging at the air for a while when the security guard came up to him and said "if you turn off the light the bugs will go away". We sheepishly turned off the light and the bugs went away. It was quite an adventure.

Day Seven

2007-07-08T09:26:00.002-05:00

Wednesday we got up and worked on the computers all morning. After lunch we cleaned up the lab and had a class for the teachers. We taught them about sharing the Internet, using Wikipedia and using Google. Most of the teachers knew some about navigating a computer so that was good. After the one hour class most of the teachers stayed to keep using the computers. At six we went to church. One of the interns preached for us. It was very good. After church we had a class for high school and collage students. We told them about sharing the Internet and using wikipedia and Google too, but we also set up gmail accounts for them. We taught them about e-mail and chat. They were so excited to learn and really enjoyed it.

Day six

2007-07-03T16:27:00.000-05:00

Today we got up and had breakfast and left at 8:40 and drove for 2 and a half hours to the rain forest. The rain forest was really neat. We walked through the rain forest with a guide who told us about the trees. Then we got to the canopy and walked on rope bridges from tree to tree. We were 130 feet above the it seem like the ground was covered in leaves instead of grass. That took about an hour.

We had sandwhiches, I made them before we left, while we drove to St. Georg's Castle. It took us an hour to get there. We had lunch at a resteraunt at the castle. St. Georg's Castle was neat. Slaves were housed in the dongens there. I thought it was cool that our guide told us about the slaves from an African point of view. It was just very memorable. There were seperate cells for the men and women but what was interesting was that there were two differant cells for the men. One for the African men and one for men who got in trouble. The one for the Africans had no ventilation and the door let almost no light in. The one for the people who dissobayed orders was much nicer. It had two windowes and a door that let lots of light in. At the end of the tour our guid showed us a tunle that had lots of bats in it. I walked in first watching the bats and only noticed that the ground was soft because I sunk in a little. Ray Walked in after me also looking at the bats and not the floor. Daddy hadn't come in yet but he could see the floor and told us to look at it. When ever you stepped on the round and then lifted your foot a bunch a cocroches came out of the ground. As soon as Ray relized what was coming out of the ground he freaked out. I could tell he wanted to get out but apparently Robert and Daddy didn't realize that. Eventualy they moved and Ray got out. The drive home was three hours and we thought it would only be an hour. That was a bummer but it was a great day.

Day Five

2007-07-03T15:47:00.000-05:00

Last night five new people came in. It was so weird to answer questions about things here and explain things. It doesn't seem like it has been long enough for us to not be the "newbies". At the same time it feels like we've been here forever. One thing that makes it feel like we've been here so long is that we spend all our time at the computer lab, the days just blend together. Another thing that makes it seem so long is a saying we've had since we first got here. Since it's so humid here our skin is always sticky and when we walk to the lab sometimes we bump into each other. When that happens we say "Hey don't touch me, you're hot." Now we see who remembers to say it and who says it first.

The computers are so slow and of course everyone wants to use them to check their e-mail and stuff. But everyone comes in at once. With 12 people trying to connect to the Internet it slows it down even more. They complain about it and instead of going away and coming back later they stay and wait for the slow Internet to work. Right now we're trying to re-image the computers and that uses the Internet so it's really hard to get it done.

Dirt

2007-07-02T10:15:00.000-05:00

Everything gets so dirty here. There's a lot of wind and breezes so dirt gets moved around fast. For the computer lab it's especially true. Tommy says that he sweeps the floor every Sunday and it's always plenty dirty by next week. The desks are so dirty that it looks like the wood is faded. When we got here the computers were sitting on the floor by the desks. In a house in America a computer will get dusty but with the dirt being blown in the computers here are filthy. When we opened them to work on them they were so full of dirt. We even found a spider in one computer, not just the cobweb. Ray got some good pictures of how filthy they were. We moved the computers up on top of the desks to help prevent them from getting so much dirt in them. We will have people remove their shoes and wipe their feet on a mat. We are also setting up regular mopping of the lab and cleaning the desks.

The Kids

2007-07-02T05:46:00.000-05:00

Yesterday after lunch I went outside and all the kids were "weeding". They were using machetes to cut the weeds and grass. The machetes were about 2 feet long and kids of all ages were using them, boys and girls. They were standing pretty close together swinging their machetes around within inches of their head and each other. And they were fast too. Grass was flying everywhere. Forget lawn mowers just give 30 kids machetes and you're all set. All of the kids here are so strong.

After supper the power went out as planned but the generator in our house didn't work. The house was so hot! Robert got his guitar out and played for the kids. They liked it. After Robert was done we sat on the porch and looked at pictures he had on his computer.

Sunday in Ghana

2007-07-01T08:40:00.000-05:00

Church today was very nice. Class was at 9 and church was at 10-ish. They do some great singing. Tommy preached and taught class. In the building we were in there was a space down the room dividing the section of chairs into two parts. I noticed that the women all sat on the left half and the men sat on the right. We sat on the left because there was a fan over the chairs. When daddy asked if we sat in the right spot the lady said that we were ok. We're not sure if you was being very gracious or if it was unintentional that men and women sat separately. We defiantly stayed up too late last night. We were all about to go to sleep during church. Ray said that he almost fell asleep standing up. The power will be out tonight at 6 so we will get to sleep sooner.

We talked to Tommy this afternoon and made plans to go sight seeing on Tuesday. Tuesday is a power out during the day so it's a great time to go do that. He says we'll go shopping at the market too. He's exchanging our money to cedis, pronounced CD's, tomorrow while he's at Accra. He's also going to check the airport for my bag. Momma called the airport and they found it! She gave them VOH's address and they said they'll bring it to us but we think it would just be easier for us to pick it up. Hopefully I'll get it in the next day or two.

Day Three

2007-06-30T10:09:00.000-05:00

We've all used Robert's camera and taken many pictures. I uploaded pictures here. The children love the camera. They like being photoed and they like taking the pictures.

Today not a lot has happened. We got up late and worked at the computer lab.It's weird to be up at the computer lab during the day. I keep thinking it's late and the sun will be down, but I step outside and the sunlight streames out so bright. And the heat, it's definatly cooler at night. Tommorow we have power out at night, so we'll be working the "day shift" again. Then we had lunch which was great. I did our laundry and now we're working at the lab again. We've got 18 computers working now and we've put more RAM in them. We thought we had found some cans that would work to make cantennas but they ended up being too small.

Ant Feathers

2007-06-30T09:18:00.000-05:00

Day three in Ghana has been good so far. I slept in again after being up late last night working in the computer lab (I didn't even hear Dwayne snore last night - thanks Dwayne). There was a cobra on campus today and one of the American college students here chopped its head off. He was so proud. We had spaghetti for lunch, which turned out to be real tasty. And I found out this morning that all of the climbing on the rocks yesterday left me with a small cut on one of my toes that ends up hurting when I walk because there's always sand and dirt in my sandals. OK, enough whining for now.

Last night around 11:00 there were millions of flying bugs swarming all over the place. We weren't sure what they were, but they were everywhere. You couldn't walk outside without stepping on them. By 1:00 (we left the computer lab late again) they were all gone. But they left there wings behind. This morning, there were clumps of wings all around the campus. Millions of wings.

I picked up a few of these wings and asked a group of local workers here what they were. He told me they were "ant feathers". But not from ants exactly, some other bug similar to ants. Termites? Not exactly. I'm still not sure what they are. He said that when it rains they come up out of the ground and fly until their feathers fall off, then they crawl around and make new holes in the ground. He said that many Nigerians like to eat these bugs, but not the feather part, but Ghanaians don't eat these bugs. Then one of the other workers said that actually he did eat them. I had to take their picture.

Day Two

2007-06-29T19:28:00.000-05:00

Today we went to the beach, which is about a 25 minute walk from VOH. The slope of the beach down to the water was quite steep. Taking each additional step into the water gets you significantly deeper. And the undertow from the retreating waves was significant. But the biggest difference from this beach and other beaches that I've been at was the trash in the water. Most waves would crash around you and retreat leaving part of a black trash bag stuck to your leg. Or maybe a discarded cookie bag or other undesirable item. But it was fun anyway. And on the walk there we went through an extremely poor village. Later we learned that we took a road that is actually more off of the beaten path than we were supposed to go.

Tonight we've been working in the computer lab again. It's now after midnight, but the electricity is on and the room is cool, so we're pretty much in paradise. We came up with a plan today to take wireless internet access from the school building to the other end of campus, which is several hundred yards away. I've been looking at instructions for making our own antennas using used metal cans (i.e. pringles cans or coffee cans). You can look at Cantennas for more details. In this way we can make directional antennas that would carry the signals greater distances. Hopefully we'll get to try that out tomorrow, as long as we can find a couple of cans in trash.

So far in Ghana

2007-06-29T14:45:00.000-05:00

Ghana has an energy and water shortage so they have planned "outages" to save energy. Today was one of the planned outages, it's supposed to be from 6am to 6pm but everyone said that it ends up going till around 11pm. Yesterday since we knew that, we stayed up till 1 working on the computers. There are 16 working computers and 3 more set up but aren't working. There's a closet with dead computers and monitors so Robert and I were going to open the computers and see if there was any memory. The computers were Dell and they always have the weirdest release mechanisms. We looked at the first computer and couldn't figure out how it opened so we were going to pry it open with a flat blade screw driver but we didn't have any. That closet also had other random things in it and we found some spoons. We ended up using the spoons to pry 3 computers open and then we found the release button. We felt pretty silly but got some good laughs out of it.

Today we got up and had breakfast and went back to sleep, then got up again and ate lunch. The cooks here are so nice and they cook great meals. After lunch we walked around VOH to measure the distance from the computer lab to the clinic, the clinic to the directors house, and the directors house to the computer lab. We might direct our wireless antennas to reach all the way to the directors house or we might set up a couple antennas to "leap frog" to the directors house. After we cooled off a little we walked to the beach.
It was about a 30 minute walk. The beach was very nice. My swimsuit was it the bag we lost so I couldn't really play in the water. But I took pictures with Robert's camera. My camera's batteries died yesterday and the batteries and charger are also in the bag we lost. This was the first time Robert has been to the beach!! He had to travel half was around the world just to see the beach. The power came back on at 6:30!! Everyone was amazed. We've been up at the lab since then working on the computers.

First day in Ghana

2007-06-28T18:06:00.000-05:00

There are planned power outages here every other day. They are planned for 6am-6pm and 6pm-6am on an alternating schedule (i.e. outage Sunday night, then Tuesday morning, then Thursday night, etc). Apparently, the day outages often continue well beyond 6pm. That makes it a bit difficult to do a lot of work in the lab. So while the power is on and it's cool (late night) we decided to stay in the lab and work. It's currently 11:20pm

We've spent a long time today working in the computer lab. There are 19 older PC's here. Each has anywhere from 128-256 MB of RAM and a 10GB harddrive. We will be updating and optimizing these computers. We also will be trying to add wireless networking in the next several days to span across the campus. A few of the staff members here have laptops and bring them here to the lab to connect to the internet.

Our first whole day in Ghana, and we had two special visitors. Two green mambas (snakes) were found in the two cottages immediately next to ours. The staff members were able to kill them (pictured at right). Fortunately they were small. Apparently a bite from an adult will kill a person in 15 minutes or so. Fortunately the medical clinic here on site has anitvenom available.

Missing Luggage

2007-06-28T13:45:00.001-05:00

Tuesday when we got to the first airport in London one of our suitcases didn't make it. When we looked at the "receipts" that we got for the suitcases there were only 6. We checked ours and Ray's together, he had 2 and we had 5. It might not have been British Airway's fault for losing our suitcase, it might never have gotten a tag. Then Wednesday when we got to London another one of our suitcases, not Ray's, was missing. Some lady took it off the luggage carousel thinking it was hers. She took it back to the airport that night but we had already left. Daddy went this afternoon to get it. Tommy, the directer of the school, was actually amazed that we didn't lose more.

Time Chart

2007-06-28T06:44:00.000-05:00

The whole trip took us 34 hours and 15 minutes. Daddy and I left our house at 8:42 am and we got to Ghana at 11:57 their time. For Ray it was 25 minutes shorter and for Robert it was 5 hours longer. He flew into Dallas from Kentucky.

15 min driving to Ray's hours
10 min packing up and saying good bye
2 hrs and 25 min driving to Dallas
49 min stopped to eat
23 min to drive the rest of the way to the airport
35 min to check the bags and get through security
3 hrs waiting in the airport
47 min sitting in the plane waiting for it to take off
8 hrs 43 min flying to London
20 min waiting to get off the plane
1 hr and 23 min getting our bags and finding a taxi
44 min driving to the next airport
4 hrs and 1 min at the airport
1 hr and 7 min sitting in the plane waiting for it to take off
6 hrs and 12 min flying to Ghana
11 min waiting to get off the plane
5 min bus ride to the place were we got our luggage
1 hr 30 min getting our luggage
1 hr and 45 min driving to Village of Hope

Re-packing

2007-06-25T19:48:00.000-05:00

Well, just this morning we got a message from a current volunteer at Village of Hope expressing the joy the childred had playing with the very simple educational "toys" she brought. Since we had managed to get everything packed in so few suitcases, we decided we couldn't let the opportunity pass to take a more gifts to the children there.

Originally we thot to take educational toys but that soon expanded to group toys as well. And, when a last minute donation came in we were off to the stores for jump ropes, balls, frizbees, and sidewalk chalk. We also found flash cards, and other math drills in our homeschooling supplies that could be put to better use there. To top it off, we included 2100 basic LEGO bricks. They can be used to teach math and sturcture, but basically they are just fun to play with. Hopefully we'll get a chance to enjoy all the toys with the children while we are there.

We expected to pack all the new "loot" in one extra piece of luggage but then we started weighing the already packed ones. The big one wasn't closed yet and it was already to heavy! So, we scratched our heads for a while and then re-organized. After an hour or two we have everything in bag and all the bags are unweight.

This should be our last post from this side of the world. Next time you hear from us, we will be in Ghana. We will also be posting as often as we have internet access and we will include photos.

Keep praying for us.

Packing

2007-06-24T17:09:00.001-05:00

Today daddy and I started packing suitcases for Ghana. We have a lot of computer hardware to take with us and we don't want them to get beat up so we packed daddy's clothes around them. We packed one and a half suitcases and then ran out of daddy's clothes. We started using my clothes to pack more hardware. Now I had been packing my bag over many days, so all of my stuff was nicely in a suitcase. I was a little bummed to have to unpack it all. We got most of the stuff packed, we're just waiting for last minute things like pillows and pj's. It only took us four suitcases to pack everything. Daddy was expecting to use five.

Hi, I'm Robert

2007-06-05T09:23:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm Robert Butts, and I'm going to Ghana with the three you've already met, obviously. Sorry it took so long to introduce myself, I've been extremely busy between finals, and now at home getting everything prepared for the trip and trying to work on a car at the same time. I've never been off the continent, and I am very excited to actually apply my skills in the mission field (I'm a Computer Science major at ACU). The need for technical help is there, but so much more often mission trips are organized around food, shelter, building schools, etc. Personally, I'd rather be doing construction and other manual labor. But it'll be nice to be help how I can, in ways other people aren't able to. And it really does help; providing computer and internet skills and access is a big step in helping a third-world country get on the level of the rest of the world.

I also expect to learn a lot from them. I agree with Professor Pettit, our standard of living shouldn't be higher than our brothers and sisters' and since it is, we should be doing as much as we can to help them, especially those in poverty. Even poverty in America is so much better than the conditions in so many countries.

We need your thumb drives!

2007-05-26T14:05:00.001-05:00

I've been trolling eBay for a while now trying to pick up the various bits of computer hardware we want to take with us. Since the items we want to take are not really on the bleeding edge of technology I have been able to pick them up pretty cheaply. We still have a few bits to test out, but we now almost have everything we need thanks to some fairly good deals and even better donations from ACU and other organizations.

One of the things I just can't bring myself to pay for is USB flash drives. Heritage Christian College would like to provide one to each student using the computer lab, since there is so little disk space available to the students and there is currently no central file server. USB drives solve two problems at once: no need to install and maintain additional hardware, and students can easily move their work between machines and even to the local Internet cafe. While we or they could purchase these, it seems that many folks probably have one or two they aren't using. If you get a chance, please dig thru the back of your junk drawer and send us your unused USB drives so we can help out the Bible students in Accra.

And last we, need any Bible software you are willing to part with. If you bought a concordance program or commentary on CD, but haven't used it lately, let us take it to HCC; they will put it good use.

Thank you for continuing to help with us help these Ghanaian ministries.

Medication

2007-05-24T16:57:00.000-05:00

To go over seas the Yellow Fever vaccination is required for most countries, Ghana is one of them. We all have to get the Yellow Fever vaccination and as proof of getting them we get a yellow card with the clinics signature and special stamp for yellow fever. Also for going over seas there are many suggested medicine to take. We are taking Malaria pills, protection from mosquitoes, Promethazine, Aspirin, Tylenol, cold medicine, etc. We have to take the Malaria pills at least a week before we go, the whole time we're there and three weeks after we get back. We're taking mosquito repellent with lots of deet and stuff you put on your clothes to keep the mosquitoes away to prevent Malaria. The Promethazine is an anti-nauseating drug. It's a medicine that you squirt onto your wrist and rub them together. The medicine then seeps into your blood which makes you not feel nauseated. This we will use only if we get motion sickness or have an upset stomach due to local food or water. We don't expect that we will need any of these but are taking them just in case.

The four of us were going to go to the medical center two Friday's ago but it didn't work out. Robert left town, so the three of us still in town, were going to go last Wednesday. We were planing to go at 9 am but then changed it to 9:30 am. Ray got to the clinic before us and called us. That morning daddy and I were running a little late so when Ray called we thought he was just seeing where we were. But he had called to say that for some reason they don't give vaccines on Wednesday. So we turned around and went home. Each time we were going to get the vaccination I tried to relax myself in preparation for the shot only to have to wait till some other day. By this time I was plenty ready to have the vaccination and get it over with. When we finally got it I was glad it was over with. People say that it hurts to get yellow fever vaccination. It did hurt but not as bad as I had expected. It hurt like a strong pinch. For a couple of hours my arm was sore but then it felt mostly fine.

Thursday the three of us went to the clinic and finally got our shot. In addition to the Yellow Fever, Ray had to get his second shot of hep A. While we were in the waiting room we were all a bit nervous and not sure what to talk about. Then Ray said jokingly, "$110 for two shots. I've been to some pretty expensive bars but I've never payed $110 for two shots." *bu-dum-ching* When they called us to get our shots Ray went first. He got a shot in each arm. Each time someone got a shot we all carefully did not look. I got my shot and daddy went last.

How you can help

2007-05-02T08:36:00.000-05:00

We continue to need help in several areas to make this trip as valuable as possible.

First, we need your prayers as we continue to plan for our trip. As you might expect there are dozens of details to be worked out and the occasional unexpected obstacle to be overcome.

Second, we have developed a list of "computer stuff" VOH and HCC need. We would like to take as many of these things with us as possible since shipping to Ghana is very expensive and slow. If you can provide any of the items in the list below, please contact us so we can arrange to get your items to those who can use them.

256MB/512MB 168-pin PC100 memory
100MB Ethernet switch (24 port if possible)
Ethernet cables
internal IDE DVD/CD burner (2-3)
internal IDE hard drives (many)
USB flash/thumb drives (many)
blank CD-ROM media (hundreds)
scanner (as compact as possible)
wireless networking equipment: bases, receivers, antennas, etc.
power adaptors (simple configuration change)
power adaptors (power converting)
PC blower/vac for cleaning

If you don't have any of these items but want to help, many of these items are available from on-line retails with significant rebate offers.

Third, we continue to need funds for travel, vaccinations, visas, accommodations, and for equipment which is not donated.

Hi, I'm Ray Pettit

2007-04-29T22:25:00.000-05:00

Hi, I'm Ray Pettit and I'll be going to Ghana with Dwayne and Ayrea Towell, and Robert Butts. I've never been to Africa, so I'm very excited about going for the first time. I was able to travel overseas for the first time about 5 months ago and loved it. My wife and I went to India on a mission trip and had a wonderful experience.

As Christians in America, I think it's easy for us to sit back and say that we are brothers and sisters with all Christians the world over. But often we don't treat Christians in third world countries as our brothers and sisters. Should our standard-of-living really be so much higher than that of our brother? This is a question that I'm currently asking myself. Anyway...

While in Ghana, I hope to learn a lot from our Christian brothers and sisters and to help them in various ways. Much of my time spent there will in working with and teaching technology, but I'm sure we'll have plenty of time for more significant interaction with the local people. Hopefully after visiting in person, I can come back to America and be more of an advocate for their needs.

Facts about Ghana

2007-04-17T14:45:00.000-05:00

* The official language of Ghana is English

* The summer climate is mostly warm and dry

* Christianity is the top religion at 63%

* Ghana is slightly smaller than Oregon

* The capital of Ghana is Accra

* The population of Ghana is 18 million

* The population of Accra is 1.8 million

*Lake Volta is the world's largest artificial lake. You can see it on the map

My trip to Ghana

2007-04-06T16:11:00.000-05:00

This summer I am going to go to Ghana, Africa with my dad, Ray and hopefully Robert. I am really excited about going. This will be my first trip overseas. I am looking forward to seeing the people and the culture in Africa. Reading about it is one thing but seeing it is a whole different thing.

Since I don't know much about computers I will be going to taking pictures and keeping you updated through this blog on all the things we do there. I'll take pictures of the people we see, the places we stay, the plant life we see, and the work we'll be doing. I'm hoping that I'll write at least one post every day we're there. I'll try to write down what we do in detail so you will have a close idea of what it will be like for us there. This will be a great learning experience for me because I'll get lots of practice working on my writing.

Getting started

2007-04-06T12:05:00.001-05:00

I am excited about this summer. For the past several years I have been working pretty-much non-stop on my Ph.D. and teaching at ACU. Since I finally completed my Ph.D., I wanted to do something completely different than teach or take classes. For several years I have been meaning to participate in a mission effort but have been unable to. When it became apparent I would be completing my degree, I began looking for a way to use my gifts in a mission effort. When nothing else arose, I decided to organize a trip myself. So, ...

I am leading a trip to Ghana, Africa. The team consists of myself, my daughter, an adjunct faculty member and a student. We will be helping two organizations: Village of Hope and Heritage Christian College. In addition, we will be scouting other organizations and opportunities to help in the future. We plan to leave June 26th and return July 23rd.

Village of Hope is a school, an orphanage and a clinic; it was recently seen on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Our primary purpose for visiting there is to provide computer “tech support” and train local instructors. Recently Village of Hope was donated a computer lab and provided with Internet service, however they have no experience in this area and still need some assistance. We will be installing wireless network connections to other buildings, upgrading computer hardware, and performing a local area network audit. These activities will support the mission there by improving connectivity with the rest of the world, making the best use of the available resources, and providing learning opportunities for the children there. We will also be training the local computer technician so they will be able to maintain the computers and teach others.

Heritage Christian College trains preachers and Sunday school teachers. As with Village of Hope, the college computer lab and Internet access are recent additions. We plan to teach both current students and the local teachers computer literacy and Internet skills. We also plan to perform a network audit, perform some hardware upgrades, and provide whatever assistance or maintenance is needed.

In addition to the specific activities planned for each site, we want to arrange remote monitoring, management and maintenance of the computing facilities. A one-time installation and configure of appropriate software should allow some maintenance and diagnostic tasks to be perform remotely. We envision using ACU Computer Science and Information Technology students to provide this remote assistance.

In addition to providing immediate support, we will investigate other needs and the possibility of future trips. We plan to record the events, places and people we meet in this blog to let others know of the needs we encounter. We will create a list of technology needs, opportunities for others to help, as well as any non-technology needs we encounter.

We are very excited to be able to apply the gifts the Lord has given us alongside Him in these places. But, we cannot do this alone. We need your support in a number of ways. First and most importantly, we ask you to pray for our efforts. Please pray that we will be Christ to those around us and shine for Him. Also, that we will be able to deal with whatever problems, twists, or turns arise. And last, we ask you to pray for our safety; we do not expect to be in harm’s way but anytime you travel half-way around the world things can happen.

The second way you can help us is by your encouragement. You can follow our preparation and our journey via this blog. Please let us know we have your support by posting comments and participating with us in that way.

And finally, we need your financial support. Out best estimate for the cost of the trip is $1800 per person. This includes airfare, airport transfers and a nominal house fee while at Village of Hope. Heritage Christian College has offered to provide room and board while we are there. Each site needs miscellaneous computer upgrades that we would like to take with us and install. The total cost of this software and equipment is expected to be a few hundred dollars. If you can support our effort with hardware, software or donations we would applaud your contribution. Highland Church has a special account for contributions to this effort. For more information please contact Highland or us.