Three Months in Ghana!

Akwaaba!  Things are going well.  I have officially completed three of my four months here.  My how time flies.....

Been busy trying to wrap things up before it's time to go back to the real world.  The past couple of weeks have been crazy at school.  The schools have been out for spring break, so all the kids came to the music center!  It's pretty crazy with 15-20 kids in two rooms, with only 6 working keyboards, but we're figuring it out.  Luckily most of them are back in school, so things are calming down a bit...

A couple of weeks ago we went to Jessie's (our house mother) mother's birthday dinner.  These are the grandchildren fighting over who is going to pound the fufu.  Jessie, ever the Kindergarten teacher, told them to get in a line.  As you can see, they are very much cousins, and bickered over placement.  I wrote a little about fufu last time.  It's a thick, sticky dough made out of plantain (kind of like banana) and cassava (like potato). You boil them, them pound them with the big stick. It's eaten in a bowl of soup with your fingers.  It's by far my favorite food in Ghana, mostly cause you get to play with it!  We eat it with ground nut soup.  Ground nuts are a lot like peanuts, and it sounds weird, but are super delicious in a spicy soup with chicken!

More cousin pictures at grandma's house.  Silly face contest....

We went to Nzulezu, which is a village in the middle of a swamp built on stilts.  We walked across this field to get to the creek, and this whole field is usually a lake!  There are about 3 months out of the year, towards the end of the dry season, where this isn't swamp.  It was huge and flat... reminded me of North Dakota!  

The cows got a new grazing spot in the field too!

It's kind of hard to tell, but there are sticks in between the cows.  These are the start of a fence built by local fishermen.  They weave palm branches into a mat, then build a sort of fence, wall thing in the water.  Every few feet there is a hole in the wall, and the fish swim through into a trap.  Pretty neat.  They get a head start on it during the dry season, and by the time the rains come, they are ready to go!

This is the head of the creek that leads to the lake where the village is.  There is a parking lot of dug out canoes.  Everyone in the village has one... it's the only way to get around!  There is a primary (elementary) school in the village, so older kids have to canoe to Beyin, the nearest land village, to go to school.

This is the creek on our way to the lake.  Ahead you can see the gates.

Most of the creek was in the forest, but this is where it opened up.

Lake Nzulezu.

Kind of hard to see, but there are sticks poking up from the water. That's one of the fence traps in action!

This is the village.  The entire thing, pop. 500, is connected.  There are logs sunk into the mud, and pathways, houses, churches, school, etc built on top.  

There is one main "road" through the center of town.  (we couldn't take pictures in the village...)  Each alley off of it belongs to a family.  There they had a couple of rooms, a kitchen, etc.  The even had fireplaces built!   They are mud structures on wooden platforms, over which they cook food.  They just got electricity nine months ago.

It's the dry season now, but in the middle of the wet season this whole thing is in the middle of the lake.  They have been here for over 600 years, and were originally from Mali, they believe.  They were being constantly attacked, and a spirit, in the form of a giant snail, led them south to find safety.  They continued to be attacked, until eventually the spirit said the only safe place was on the water.  They have been here since, and perform an annual sacrifice to the spirit, which continues to protect the village and it's people.

This is the woodsy part of the creek headed back to town.

This rickety bridge crosses over the last remaining bit of swamp in the big field.  It's nearly dry, just in time for the rainy season to start up in a few weeks and flood it back again!  By that time, they'll be able to paddle right up to town, rather than paddle and walk 2 miles!

We went for another village to the orphanage we are associated with.  The kids are really interested in the guitar and banjo, so we had a grand time jamming and playing popular Ghanaian hits, like Chop My Money!

This is Malik.  Don't be fooled by his angel face... he's a terror!  Oh, ok... maybe he's just a four year old.... but definitely full of energy!

This is Abba.  She was very interested in the camera.  She eventually took my camera for the next two hours and took about 300 pictures!  Then she discovered the video button, and interviewed everyone on their favorite food, color, etc.  

This is Blessing.  She has a heart wrenching story. She was left at a bus stop a year ago, and was a bit of a mess when she first got here.  But even in the couple of months that we've been going she's been much improved.  I have a stamp and pad, one of a music note, the other a soccer ball.  And as you can tell, they are quite entertaining!

We all gave our cameras to the kids, and they spent the whole time taking hundreds of pictures.  Some were quite good, but there were lots of blurred pictures of rocks and ears!  

I also brought stickers which, clearly, where also a lot of fun.

They discovered recorders in my bag, which led to lots of squeaks and sticker covered recorders!

This is at Josephine's Spot, a little bar right around the corner.  The woman in the red is Auntie Jo (Josephine), and the one in black is Auntie Do (Doris).  We go in every once in a while and visit.  The man in the purple was there that night and I asked him to take our picture, but he got in instead!  :)

This is the picture he took of us!  That's me, Jon, Jo, Katie, Do and Becky.  Jon and Becky left for home last week.  It's just me and Katie for the next week, until Nicola comes for our last week before we head home!

This is at the Harbor View Cafe, which looks out over, you guessed it, the harbor!  It's one of, if not the biggest harbor in Ghana.  (We've had conflicting facts about this... some have even said it's the biggest in West Africa... not really sure)  The rainy season is just in it's baby steps, and there was a storm rolling in. Apparently, every couple of days, in the afternoon, a storm rolls in.  It rains for an hour or so, and is back to sun shine!  Pretty neat.  We haven't really seen it yet.  It's only rained like 6 times since I've been here!  

Pretty crazy that I'm nearly done with my trip!  As of today I have 28 days left....wild.  Looking forward to coming home, but I'll sure miss fufu!

Sending my love and best wishes to everyone!

Briana