Wow! Has this ever been an experience going to Bamboi, Ghana on a 14 day mission trip. I will probably end up writing several posts about our experiences in Ghana because it will be difficult to include all that I would want to tell you in one post.
It is hard to even know where to begin. I think I will start out by giving an overview of what we did. We left Seattle on March 30th at 3:15pm and flew to Minneapolis, then to Amsterdam, and finally to Accra. We landed in Accra on March 31st at 6pm. Realize that there is a 7 hour time change in there, so it took 23-24 hours to fly.
Nana (which means “Chief”) Kwaku Dapaah II, who is Paramount Chief of the Northern Region (which I will refer to as “Nana” from now on), met us at the airport and helped us get through immigrations and customs. It was very nice having him there to help us. He got us through pretty quickly. We had a bus there waiting for us and the driver was hired to stay with us the entire trip. After getting the bus packed with all of our supplies, we headed over to the hotel, unpacked, and had a late dinner outside.
That first night in Accra was so nice! The weather was comfortable (82 degrees) and the humidity was actually refreshing after being on an airplane for 23 or 24 hours. We had air conditioning in our rooms that night so it made sleeping really easy. I woke up the next morning very refreshed. I had to take a very cold shower in an air conditioned room which was a bit shocking, but it definitely woke me up.
( Tues. 4/1/08 )
After breakfast we loaded up in the bus and while the Missions Director (Clark Davis) and some of Nana’s helpers went to collect the supplies that we needed for our trip, we toured Accra with Nana. He took us to the Ghanaian National Museum where we got an overview of the history of Ghana. They showed us replicas of the Slave Castles and talked about them a little. We also saw different attire that they might wear for war or ceremonies. They showed us what a “kitchen” might look like in a village and the utensils that they might use. They talked about some of the tribal celebrations and the dances. The tour was well done, unfortunately, it was so hot in the building that one of our girls actually fainted and it was hard to concentrate on what they were telling us.
After the museum, Nana took us to the University of Ghana. We had lunch in a restaurant on campus where we were able to try Fufu (which is mushed up yams which they eat for most meals) and Goat meat. We had some other things as well, but those were the unusual foods. They were both very good, though the peanut sauce that they served with the Fufu was a bit spicy for my tastes. After eating we got a tour of the University. The University sits on a hill overlooking Accra, so it was neat to get a chance to see Accra from above. They had some very beautiful trees and flowers planted around the University. I also noticed that most of the students were dressed up to go to classes. You could tell that they have a respect for their teachers and for being in the University.
Upon leaving the University of Ghana, we were brought to the Atlantic Ocean. As soon as we got out of the bus, we were swarmed with vendors trying to sell us their wares. Thankfully we were able to tell them truthfully that we didn’t have any of our money yet. They were also trying to get us to swap our possessions for their ware. They were very persistent. Once we got past them, we joyfully played in the water. It was so warm and felt so good to get cooled off by the water. We didn’t care that we were in our clothes. I was in a long skirt, so I just removed my sandals and pulled my skirt up to my knees. Vanessa, Monica, Cameron, and Ron were all soaked! It was quite hot out so none of them minded being wet. Unfortunately, the Atlantic Ocean was so dirty; it was really sad! There was so much garbage in it. Ghana doesn’t have any garbage plan (that I could tell), so people just through their garbage on the ground. I saw one playground in Accra that was completely covered in garbage.
Once we were done at the ocean, we headed back to our hotel. It took us quite a while to get back there! We ate our dinner again outside and finished up around 10:45pm. We were informed at that time that we needed to have breakfast and be packed and ready to go by 4am the next morning! OUCH!
( Wed 4/2/08 )
Well, we were all ready to go, but the bus was no where to be found! ”TIA” (This is Africa). That became our favorite saying. I think we finally left around 8am. We traveled from Accra to Bamboi that day. It took the entire day to travel there. The scenery was amazing. It was so beautiful that I never wanted to close my eyes and rest because I didn’t want to miss a thing! I loved when we would drive through a village, the people would be in the middle of the road selling there goods to the people driving by. You would see the women and children carrying anything imaginable on their heads in bowls selling stuff in the middle of the roads! I loved how industrious everyone seemed to be. The main things that we saw people selling were: white bread, oranges, dried fish steaks, bananas, bags of water, snails, and these little nuts that taste like coconuts. I know that there were many other things, but those are the main things that I remembered in the villages.
I was happy to discover that we always had bathrooms available. I was told by people that had gone before us that they would have to stop the bus and just go in the road when they had to go to the bathroom! We decided to have fun with the bathrooms that we had to use instead of being “disgusted” and we made a documentary of all of the different bathrooms we encountered on the trip. Not all of them would count as “bathrooms” to you. In fact, once I had to walk out and ask one of our helpers what I was suppose to do!!! I am sure that he was a little embarrassed, but he was very gracious. I was thankful that I asked. It was simply a concrete floor and you were suppose to just go on the floor. I will spare you all of the details of the others.
I lied….I have to tell you about one of the last bathrooms that we used. It was very late at night and we were in the middle of nowhere but several people needed to go to the bathroom. The bus driver stopped at the first house that he came to. Our helper went up to the house and asked if we could use their bathroom, which is outside. They agreed and even gave us a bucket of water to wash our hands with. We had to walk about the length of the short side of a soccer field through long grass to get to the bathroom. The bathroom had two sides and it was basically just concrete walls. On one side was the concrete floor to go potty on. I was holding the flashlight for the girls to go potty. We had a huge cockroach on the floor and I had to convince the girls that it wouldn’t hurt them, it just looked really ugly! As we are going to the bathroom, Ron is on the other side of the wall and yells over “Hey guys, come look at this Cobra!!!” I just went to the bathroom on him! The other side of the bathroom was more like a port-a-potty and had a place to sit down and go to the bathroom. I was so thankful that we didn’t discover that we could sit down to go potty!!! We may have been bitten by the Cobra!!! Ron was ignorant of Cobra’s as well and didn’t realize that they can shoot their venom 15 feet into the eyes of their prey. After discovering that, we still had to walk back to the bus through the tall grass. Needless to say, we stayed very close to our helper, who was the only one who had a flashlight. Thankfully God protected us in that situation!
OK…..back to Wed.
When we pulled into Bamboi, we were planning on going to the Catholic Mission where we were going to stay and get unpacked while it was still light out. As we were passing Nana’s “Palace”, we discovered that we had quite a welcome party waiting for us, so we went straight to the Palace. We stayed on the bus until they were ready for us. Then Nana and Pastor Steve got off the bus first. We were told to follow them and do what they did. They got a huge fancy umbrella and put it over Nana to shade him from the sun. Then Nana went around and shook all of the elders hands, we followed behind doing the same thing. Nana then sat on his throne and we sat down in a row next to him. His people sang and danced for us. The school children came and sang and danced. It was really neat because they were singing about getting immunized against malaria, typhoid, and yellow fever and how they were going to be a malaria free zone. I thought it was really neat how they were training up their children about the importance of getting vaccinated.
At different times, they pulled up different team members and had them dance with them. Vanessa was able to dance several times. I never would have imagined that I would ever be involved in an African Tribal Celebration, let alone an honored guest at one. It was truly amazing! We were there for a couple of hours.
When it was over, we got back on the bus and went to the mission to unpack. Several of the children followed the bus over and helped us. A little boy about 5 years old, grabbed my 50 pound suitcase and put it on his head and carried it to my room! I was so shocked that such a little boy could even lift it at all. I wished that I had my camera out for that one. No one would have believed the picture.
We had to set up our mosquito netting in the dark that night. It was a little challenging, but we got it done. As we were finishing up, a few of the girls in my room yelled out that they saw a huge poisonous spider and a scorpion. I was not excited! Ron, one of the guys from next door came over and helped the two girls (Ashley and Monica) look for the spider and scorpion. Our room has no light, except for flashlights and it is full of luggage from 4 ladies. They were not able to find either one again, but they looked for quite a while. We decided to just pray and ask God to protect us. The next day, we had a scorpion outside our door, so we killed it and assumed (wrong) that it was the one from the night before. At the end of our trip, when we were taking down our mosquito netting, Monica found a scorpion trapped in her netting. It most likely was the one we couldn’t find the first night! She killed it and took it home in a plastic case as a treasure.
TO BE CONTINUED……
