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.
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| 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).
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| 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.
