Last Trip to the West – July 31

We started the day early with a 6:30 departure for Kwame Yebohakrom in one of the FORIG trucks, with what we hoped would be the last of the parts for the Lister engine project. With Govina at the wheel of the truck and Peter as co-captain we made quick time to the village arriving somewhere after 10, even with a quick stop for fufuo. The building for the engine was still unfinished but was complete enough to hopefully finish the project. After quickly bolting the generator up, tightening the belt in place we were ready to test our system. The engine was fired up, running as well as ever and the generator was spinning without vibrating out of place or throwing the belt. Everything seemed okay until Peter went to test the generators voltage with a standard light bulb, which was immediately popped. Concerned, we called the man we had purchased the generator from to learn that he misspoke when we told us the generator operating speed, and we were operating it at over twice what it should be running.

A man in Duasidan next to the covered Lister engine

Determined to finish the project, we decided after a bit of head scratching to try the second smaller pulley on the machine that was shipped with it to see if we could match the desired speed.  After a quick run to Nkran Kwanta to grab another belt and relocating the generator we fired the Lister engine up again for another test. Sadly, even though the generator was spinning at what should be the correct speed, the test light bulb was popped again. Even after turning the generator around to spin it in the opposite direction we were unable to get the correct voltage. Running out of time in the day, we decided to take the generator back to Kumasi to see if it had become damaged on its way to the project site. It was upsetting to leave the village with all our hard work unfinished, but we knew if the generator could be revived, our friend Peter would have no problem finishing the project after our departure.

Meanwhile the girls were dropped off at Duasidan in the morning to have one last meeting with community members regarding the monkey sanctuary advertisements and future work in the community.  We arranged with the printer in Kumasi for the road sign advertisements to be printed before our departure from Ghana and arranged for the Duasidan Assemblyman, Jacob, to post them at appropriate intersections en route to Duasidan.  The community expressed interest in forming a community center if future Pavlis students could provide supplies for it.  They even showed us which room in an old school building they could renovate for community use. 

After our formal meeting we requested that we could have a taxi called to pick us up.  It took three hours to actually get the taxi, but we passed the time playing with the huge crowd of kids that showed up.  Finally, the taxi arrived, driven by a nice guy called German, who dropped us off in Babianeha. 

Mollie and Helena with kids in Duasidan

In Babianeha, Mollie went with Victoria, Emmanuel’s cousin who will start University in September, to interview families in the village about their cooking habits.  It was really interesting to see the range of cooking methods used in the village all the way from very modern gas ranges in kitchens to open fires outside the house.  Meanwhile, Helena and Chelsea ran a few final errands around town, including dropping off a bag of biochar for the school garden. 

A typical outdoor fire for cooking

In the afternoon the girls traveled to Dormaa to speak with the MCE there.  However, because it was the one-week celebration of the president’s death, both the MCE and the Director were busy and so we got to meet the assistant director.  He was very enthusiastic about our efforts to advertize the Duasidan Monkey Sanctuary and he was especially excited about the website we hope to develop.  He was very optimistic about future development of the site by the Dormaa Assembly in collaboration with Pavlis!

After a long day of work everyone was ready to head home to Sunyani to have dinner with a delegation of people from the Sunyani MCE’s office as well as some other friends from Sunyani.  Just as Mike and Clayton were beginning to arrive in Dormaa to pick up the girls, their truck overheated, stalling on the road. The girls were sent on ahead to finish the journey by bus, just before realizing that Mike and Clayton had the only sets of keys to the dorm. Running quite a bit behind, the truck was quickly fixed and the guys quickly rushed home to change with the waiting girls and head to the dinner.

Despite being one hour late, we were still able to meet everyone for a wonderful dinner. The meal was a fancy buffet with two courses.  We all looked quite dashing in our newly tailored Ghanaian outfits if we do say so ourselves! 

The group with our friend Govina after the dinner (note his black clothing and red scarf worn in honor of the one week celebration of the president's death) 

Written by Mollie and Mike

Biochar at Babianeha and Meeting Dr. Jacob -July 16

Today, Helena, Mike, and Clayton went to teach some science lessons at the school in Babianeha near Emmanuel’s family’s house.  The students we were teaching were junior high-aged kids, and we had a class of about 40-50 Form 3 students (similar to 8^th grade). First, we met with the headmaster, Watuza, to explain what we were interested in doing with the students. Since both we and the headmaster want to have the students carry out a biochar garden experiment (where they will measure the growth of plants with and without biochar in the soil in order to see the effects biochar should have on increasing crop yield), our plan was to start them with a lesson on the scientific method, and then we would have them discuss the different aspects of the experiment in groups in order to develop their experimental plan.  After Helena gave a brief explanation on how to form a hypothesis, how to determine variables, and how to measure and observe data, Watuza divided the class into three groups (with Mike, Clayton, and Helena each leading one group) and we headed out to the garden plot that the school had fenced in for the students’ use.

Explaining how to set up an experiment

The teaching method in Ghana is mostly a lecture and memorization style where the answer to a question is just regurgitated, so during the classroom lesson, the students seemed to have difficulty understanding what were trying to tell them; much of the time they couldn’t answer quiz questions without looking at their notes, and our American accents didn’t do anything to help them understand either.  However once we got out to the garden and began asking them how they would plan their experimental garden, they were bursting with ideas about weeding, crop variety, planting etc.  They clearly knew a lot about growing and farming, a lot more than any of us did. 

We all had a lot of fun interacting with the students in our respective groups. Clayton had a little bit of a smaller group and tried to make a game out remembering all of their names, some of which were easy (one kid went by the memorable nickname “Noble Rasta”) and some of which were a little harder to say right (Adymaya). In Mike’s group, his students offered him a red pepper to eat. It was lucky that Mike declined the offer, though, because the students then told him that this pepper was so strong, that if he ate it, it would make his throat swell up. Helena was amused by her group when they got into a heated five-minute argument about whether or not it was possible to count all the okras on an okra plant, and how some students would help her out by keeping the rowdier ones in line.

Clayton's group

Helena's group

Mike's group

At the end of the discussion session, all the students wanted pictures with us, so we obliged. Watuza wrapped up by letting us know that the garden would be cleared and prepared in a few weeks’ time in order to start the garden, and that they would also like us to come back sometime so we could be there when they make biochar in the community. We said we would do our best, and then as a parting gift, we gave the junior high a digital camera with which they could take pictures to further document their garden.

We then stuck around the school another hour or so to do science demonstrations with the other classes at the junior high, and Clayton and Mike did a great job explaining and demonstrating how molecular interactions allow a skewer to be poked through a balloon without popping it. This demonstration was made difficult though, by the fact that Ghanaian balloons appear to be a bit different in material from American ones, but we were still able to get the demonstration to work, and the students enjoyed it. Lastly, we were led into some other classrooms just to say hi to a few groups of students who had been displaced from their regular school building due to damage from a storm.

Clayton and Mike demonstrating some polymer science

It was then time for us to travel back to Sunyani to meet up with Chelsea and Mollie. We waited at the taxi station in Babianeha for a while (the taxis don’t leave until there are enough people to fill them) before riding to Dormaa, where we had a pleasant journey on the bus ride to Sunyani. A group of school kids snuck up and sat by us on the bus, giggling about having had the nerve to come sit next to the obronis (white people/foreigners). We had some fun conversation with them about snow, each others’ names, and whether the trees in Michigan have leaves like they do here in Ghana.

When we arrived in Sunyani, Clayton, Helena, and Mike joined Chelsea to meet with Dr. Jacob Abrebese, the Medical Director of Sunyani Regional Hospital as well as an assemblyman for the village of Nsawkaw.  Dr. Jacob, or Jacob, as he insists on being called, has been extremely instrumental to groups in the past and his ideas and interest in the Pavlis program are as strong as ever.  Some of the first words out of his mouth upon introduction to our group were an emphatic, “When will you come to our village?” Chelsea explained to him the efforts we made to collect information in order to ship re-purposed medical equipment to the Tain (pronounced Tine) District Hospital throughout the past fall and spring semesters.  However, due to an inability to sustain adequate communication with our medical contact there, efforts were put on hold until further communication could be achieved. 

In discussing the proposed project with Jacob, however, it became very clear that the Nsawkaw community would be perhaps more interested in a joint shipment of supplies involving collaboration between their education and health boards.  That is, while they think medical equipment may serve good purpose, books and educational (especially related to Information, Communication, and Technology—or ICT, as they commonly refer to it) support are of equal or greater need.  Jacob insisted that the time to act should be soon, as upcoming political elections may drive politician financial support in shipping items.  Further, he was especially intent on Pavlis having more direct interaction (i.e. doing lessons in schools, etc) with the community.  While we were unsure to what end we would be able to facilitate Jacob’s high hopes (as from here on out, our schedule was filling up pretty quickly), we did already have plans to visit Nsawkaw on the upcoming weekend to get a better idea of how future Pavlis cohorts can have a positive impact there. 

*Note: This post was written by Clayton, Helena, and Chelsea

Duasidan with a bit of Babianeha - July 14 and 15

When the girls’ second morning in Babianeha dawned, the Opuni household had once again prepared us a generous breakfast. Mollie wasn’t feeling too well that morning though, so to be safe, Chelsea and Helena (as well as our friend Lawrence from the Opuni house) accompanied her to the hospital in Dormaa in the afternoon. They just missed Clayton and Mike, who arrived in Babianeha shortly after the girls left, so unfortunately we weren’t able to be reunited that day.

On Sunday the 15^th, Mollie was doing fine, but Chelsea and Emmanuel went with her to the hospital in Sunyani where she could be more comfortable. Meanwhile, Helena, Mike, and Clayton went to the village of Duasidan to talk to the community about the monkey sanctuary. Kwadwo, one of Emmanuel’s brothers and the assembly man for Babianeha, had contacted Jacob Obiri, the assembly man at Duasidan, to set up this meeting for us. We had actually been expecting to just meet with a handful of people, but when we arrived, we were ushered into a courtyard where about thirty community members sat all the way around the square. Formalities in Ghana are all about hand-shaking, so we shook all their hands, and vice versa. Then we (along with Kwadwo, who translated for us) sat on the elevated side of the courtyard, and our discussion with the community could begin.

First, we explained our purpose for being in Duasidan: to help further the mission of the monkey sanctuary, that is, to promote the protection of this habitat for the monkeys and the biodiversity of both the plants and animals in the area. We would like to help by providing the community with resources for advertisement, but we need the community’s opinions and input. We showed the community members the draft of the brochure for the sanctuary, which had been designed by the marketing department at FORIG. Everyone around the room was nodding in satisfaction as they saw the design, and seemed to agree with our idea of distributing the brochures to hotels and other locations in Sunyani, as well as keeping copies at the visitor’s office. We also explained that we planned to design a poster for the visitor’s office, as well as a few road signs to be posted at convenient intersections near Duasidan. The community gave us a few suggestions for places where the signs should be located.

We then established that Jacob, the Duasidan assembly man, would be the English-speaking phone contact for the sanctuary, and the community also decided on which days of the week and during what hours the sanctuary would be open for tours. Our entire interaction with the community was very interesting for us, because we would start by telling Kwadwo what we wanted to ask, then Kwadwo would approximately translate our question for the community, and then the community members would debate heatedly, back and forth, for up to ten minutes, and then Kwadwo would again translate the verdict for us. People were especially passionate about the question of what the open hours for the sanctuary would be, since they are a farming community, so it is important to work around the schedule of the sanctuary guides who farm to earn a living. The discussions were interesting in that people would always say times and numbers in English, but the rest would be in Twi. So we would hear “somethingsomething 10am somethingsomething” and so on. Needless to say, it was a great experience to be able to sit in on this community meeting which was so different from how these things work in our hometowns.

Eventually, the community was hesitant to discuss more, due to the fact that the Duasidan chief (who actually resides in Dormaa) was not yet aware of our presence, so we said we would make plans to contact the chief and come back another day in the coming weeks to wrap up our questions for the community. We also needed to get information from the chief about the history of the monkeys in Duasidan, because the chief has a document, which details a study done by the Ghana Forestry Commission about ten years ago, which has the monkeys’ history in written form (so far we have only heard it orally, so we want to make sure we have a consistent story before it is printed in the brochures).

As the meeting wrapped up, we asked the community if they had any other needs they wanted to address. The main issue which came up centered around education. Like many rural communities, Duasidan schools lack books, computers, and other resources for students as well as the greater community. The community members expressed interest in next year’s Pavlis students working with Duasidan to bring in supplies for a community center, similar to how Pavlis worked with the community in Babianeha two years ago. At the very end of the discussion, the lone woman in the room stood up to say that if possible, we should return to Duasidan before school lets out on July 26, so that we can visit the school and meet the students. We said we would certainly try, and with that, the meeting ended with us going around and shaking hands with everyone twice (again), and then we rode back to Babianeha. The driver who drove us and Kwadwo was a very assertive driver who sure got going pretty fast down those dirt roads!

When Helena, Mike, and Clayton got back to the Opuni house, dinner was waiting for us, and we happily dug in. We were also able to check in (over the phone) with Mollie and Chelsea (who were in Sunyani by evening) before turning in for the night.

(Written by Helena)

Generators and Funerals (Not Ours!) – July 13

 This morning Chelsea, Helena and Mollie woke up early and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of scrambled eggs and veggies with toast prepared for us by Emmanuel’s family, specifically Lawrence, a very nice and helpful guy around our age.  After breakfast we went to visit the junior high school, where they were in the middle of their normal Friday worship. 

The students were joyfully singing and dancing in the classroom when we went to greet them.  The teacher asked us to say a few words to the class, so Helena told the students how happy we were to hear their beautiful singing this morning, and how we are looking forward to starting the biochar garden with them. The students, however, just looked blankly at us, so the teacher repeated everything that Helena had just said, because he realized that the students simply hadn’t understood the American accent. We found out that we wouldn’t be able to teach at the school that day, so we would have to come back on Monday to do our biochar garden lesson.

The headmaster took us to see the bounteous garden that the school maintains, full of onions, maize (corn), cabbage, okra, ripe hot peppers, cowpeas, cocoyams, and more!  He plans to use the garden next year to teach about crop rotation and we hope to also incorporate a section of the garden using biochar, to increase yield.  There is a sawmill next door to the school where they can source sawdust to make into biochar. 

Next, we visited the community center established by past cohorts and assessed the state of the computers in use there.  From there, we were accompanied by Lawrence, Reagan, and Adinkra (all guys around our age) to the Cote d’Ivoire border, where we walked along it for a ways, comparing the differences between each country.  Badukrum is the village that is between the Ghana customs border and the Cote d’Ivoire customs border, where the citizens have dual citizenship, share languages and currencies.  We changed about 50 cents into sefa coins, used in Cote d’Ivoire, as souvenirs.  The Ghanaian street lights are poles with four cables strung from each while the Ivorian lights are on cement posts with one cable on each.  There is a path past the village that follows the border all the way north and south.  We walked along it a ways and came across some grave sites, sorted by religion. 

After a mid-day nap we returned to the community center where we met some kids and played a couple jumping games, including jump rope with ropes donated by a previous Pavlis group, as well as a local jumping and clapping game called ampe (pronounced ahm-pee).  There we met Adinkra again and he led us to the one week celebration of a man who had passed away in the village.  In Ghana, funerals are quite celebratory, but this was not the same as a proper funeral, for which they set the date today for August 2. 

At this ceremony, there was traditional drumming and singing, accompanied by a couple traditional dancers at a time.  When we arrived, we greeted everyone (including all the chiefs and elders) in the first row of chairs then sat down to observe the proceedings.  After a short time we were asked to dance, and with varying degrees of apprehension, we did do our best imitation of the crouched, small steps of the other women we had seen dancing.  We were comforted by the fact that we seemed to be well received and the gesture was appreciated.  As we danced, three women gave us their red and black shawls to wear, as these are the traditional colors of death in Ghana and we were not dressed accordingly (as we had not known we would be going to a funeral). 

Traditional musicians and dancing

When we finished dancing, we returned the shawls and sat down again to soak in the call and response singing, the different percussion instruments and the more expert dancing of the local women.  After a time we were invited into the neighboring house for a drink and were offered some pop, which we accepted, as well as traditional palm wine, which we all tasted.  The palm wine was sweet and served traditionally in dried gourds.  The men that drank the wine poured the top off of the very top of the wine onto the ground to share with the ancestors.  Adinkra told us that a practical reason for this is to avoid the impurities that float to the top.  After finishing our drinks we returned and continued watching the celebrations until the ceremony ended. 

Upon returning to our hosts’ (the Opunis) house, we were greeted with a dinner of rice, cocoyam leaves, chicken and spicy fish sauce.  After dinner, we rested and watched some kids playing football (soccer). 

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Meanwhile, Mike and Clayton started the day early and met Peter at 8am to grab a tro-tro into town (Kumasi) where he knew some places that had generators.  We went from place to place, covering a good portion of the city and a greater portion of the day without having any luck finding what we needed.  It turned out that while “all-in-one unit” gas generators are extremely common in Ghana, many people were often at a loss when we explained we were looking for only the generator/alternator part.  We kept traveling and finally found (kind of) what we were looking for at a smaller engineering bay on a street corner.  They had a generator there that would make a decent match for our engine, though it was bolted into a frame with an engine already.  The man said that he would remove the engine for us if we didn’t want it. 

After a long day of marching here and there we finally came back to FORIG to say goodbye, and Govina took us across the city once again to catch his own bus and help us catch one back to Sunyani.  It was dark by the time we got there (although, it’s only around 6:00 pm when it gets dark here) and finished the night with spaghetti and a rousing two hours of laundry.  The next morning we planned to head off to Babianeha ourselves.  We also called the girls to see how they were doing and how their trip had been.

Meeting the MCE, and Travel- July 12

This week’s tasks required us to split apart once again, but not before we had a meeting with the MCE of Sunyani, more or less the equivalent of a mayor.  We were greeted outside his office at the Municipal Assembly building at 10am by the Director, who we had met the previous day.  He led us inside the office and into the sudden sight of about seventeen of the important ministers and managers of the city.  We were invited to sit for the meeting and did so, a little nervously. First, we went around and shook hands with everyone. Then we sat down, and it was everyone else’s turn to come and shake hands with us. Everyone in the room introduced themselves, and the Director gave an introductory speech about our presence there.  

For the most part, the Director and the MCE did the majority of the talking, explaining their main concerns for their district and how we might be able to help. One of their concerns- which we are already assisting with through our book shipment- is the lack of supplies, especially books and computers, in their schools and communities. The minister of education also spoke up regarding education methods, and proposed that when we visit the local schools, we can observe and learn about their teaching methods, while we teach them about ours. Lastly, the MCE discussed the details of our book shipment, which will be picked up and paid for by his office once it arrives at the port in Tema within the next couple of weeks.

At the end of the meeting, we all shook hands again and exchanged contact information with the MCE as well as the minister of education, who had offered to show us around the local communities next week. After we left the Municipal Assembly, it was time for our group to split up for a while- Mike and Clayton took a taxi to the Sunyani bus station and nabbed the last seat on a bus to Kumasi while the girls expected to stick around Sunyani for a bit and take care of some work before traveling to the Babianeha for the weekend to get the middle school’s biochar experiment started and re-visit the Duasidan Monkey Sanctuary to discuss some advertising ideas with the community. 

The plan for the Mike and Clayton in Kumasi was to meet our electrician friend Peter and spend the day searching for an electric generator/alternator component for the Kwame Yeboahkrom Lister engine. By the time they navigated their way across Kumasi and met up with Peter however, it was too late to go looking that day.  Mike and Clayton spent the night in the FORIG guesthouse on campus, while Emmanuel’s wife was very kind and made them each a mountain of rice and mutton for dinner.

In the meantime, Chelsea, Helena, and Mollie spent much of Thursday afternoon following up on project work. They went to the Ridge Experimental School again to check in on the school’s supplies and computers, and to find a time when our group could come and do some science demonstrations similar to what we did at the CSIR Basic School in Kumasi. They met Jackson, the former headmaster at Ridge, who showed them around and explained that the students have exams next week, so we will not be able to visit until the week after.

Next, a trip to an internet café in Sunyani (a small room with ten or so computers, in which we paid the U.S. equivalent of about 25 cents for a half-hour of internet access), allowed Helena, Mollie, and Chelsea to check on the progress of the Duasidan Monkey Sanctuary marketing documents. They arranged for Mike and Clayton to pick up the documents at the FORIG campus, so that they could bring them to Babianeha on Saturday.

The Ghanaian version of Target.

After a late lunch and some fast packing, the girls took a taxi to the transit station, hopped on a nearly full bus to Dormaa (Note:  In Ghana, busses are less likely to depart at regular times since they usually don’t leave until they are full, so getting on to a crowded bus meant a sooner departure!), and began their journey to Babianeha.  After a comfortable (if bumpy every once in a while) one-and-a-half-hour ride, Mollie, Chelsea, and Helena arrived in the town of Dormaa, where they convinced a taxi driver to take them on the twenty minute drive to the Opuni house in Babianeha (the Opuni house being the home of Emmanuel’s mother and excellent host, Dora Opuni, as well as an assortment of his relatives).  

Chelsea, Mollie, and Helena's bus ride to Dormaa.

 Upon the girls’ arrival, helpful residents carried their bags and ushered them into their compound, where Emmanuel’s brother, Kwadwo, spent about ten minutes haggling (in Twi) with the taxi driver for us over the price of the ride. The discussion was very interesting to us, because Kwadwo and the taxi driver alternated between raised angry voices and laughing. After the taxi driver was talked down from twelve to seven cedis (7 cedis ~ 3.5 USD). The girls sat down to a meal of cooked yams (plain, so as to please Chelsea) and a vegetarian dish of cocoyam leaves (so as to please Mollie) which had already been prepared by the Opuni household.  The girls then retired for the night in the Opunis’ guesthouse, a beautiful newly constructed home that had not yet been used by the family themselves.

*Note: This post was written by Clayton, Helena, and Chelsea.

Journey – Akwantuo: July 2,3

On our second day in Ghana we were introduced to Sunyani, a city approximately two to three driving hours west of Kumasi.  We settled into rooms at the city’s KNUST satellite dormitory; we will use these rooms as a housing base throughout the rest of our stay in Ghana.  We spent most of the day running errands (i.e. securing plane tickets for our advisor’s departure, exchanging our US dollars for Ghanaian currency, the cedi, and outfitting our new residence with common household items such as hand soap and dish detergent.  On our trip to the Sunyani market, we stocked some of our in-country phones with minutes and we were even able to try a popular local snack, pies (meat and onion filled bread, a seemingly distant relative of the pasty!).  We ended the evening with an even more familiar dinner (pizza!) with our advisors at their local lodging, the Eusbett Hotel.

Beginning the next morning, we had a very full day of traveling around with our advisors.  We were off just after 7 am and on the road to Dormaa, just outside of Sunyani.  The road has many speed bumps/rumble strips with two or three small strips in the road in a row.  After meeting briefly with a representative for the regional minister, we continued on to Kwame Yeboah Krom (Kwame is a common first name, Yeboah is a common last name and Krom means village.) To put it mildly, the road was extremely rough on the way to the village. 

We met a local government representative near Kwame Yeboah Krom and he lead us into the village, where we were visiting the Lister engine, a simple engine that was ordered for the village two years ago and just arrived a few months ago.  Our goal for this trip is to facilitate the building of a housing structure for the engine, to buy a generator, and to try to get the engine up and running.  It was very exciting to practice our small Twi phrases, as most people in the village didn’t speak English.  The kids especially got excited! This was our first time visiting a more rural area, and we had an enjoyable, if short, time.

Mike and Clayton checking out the Lister engine           

After visiting the engine, we visited the local representative’s home in the neighboring village of Okirakrom.  When we visit again to work on the engine for a few days, we can stay at his house.  In the courtyard there were a bunch of orange trees that were heavy with fruit.  In Ghana, oranges are green on the outside, but orange and juicy on the inside.  What a treat!

From there, we continued on to the village of Duasidan to visit the Duasidan Monkey Sanctuary, a relatively unknown location that the locals would like to develop into an ecotourism site.  Here, a large group of kids flocked with us and our two guides a short way into the 40-acre plot of forest.  In a clearing of bamboo, one guide started tapping on the sticks and pretty soon, we were surrounded by monkeys!  We had brought peanuts and small bananas to feed to them and they snatched them right from our hands!  One of our projects is to help advertise the sanctuary to tourists, so we took a lot of photos and videos.  Emmanuel sat down with our two guides to help translate and we taped an interview with them. 

The group with two local guides (left and second from left) and one of our divers, Govina (third from left)

Monkeys!

Chelsea feeding a Monkey

Next, we traveled about 20 minutes to Babianeha, where Emmanuel’s family is from.  Emmanuel’s mother had prepared a huge and delicious lunch of chicken, a cocoyam leaf (like spinach) dish, and jollof rice for us! After a quick meal, we visited the community center that was founded by Pavlis students in the past, interacted with the children who were there reading books and using the laptop computers, and then took a short walk to the Ghana/Ivory Coast border.  We talked to the border officers and then crossed over briefly.  It was pretty much the same as being in Ghana except for a few French phrases.

After our short visit to the Ivory Coast, we headed back into the vehicles for the long drive back to Kumasi.  We finally got in around 8 pm, settled into a guesthouse for temporary lodging in the city, and then concluded the evening for dinner with our advisors at the Royal Basin Hotel.

Places

While we are in Ghana, we will be traveling all around the western part of of the country.  For those of you interested in touching up on your Ghanaian geography, here's a Google Map to help you keep track of the places we'll be writing about!