Ghana (part 2)

For the second half of our trip we met up with a bigger group that was there with the Forever Young Foundation (Bob Gay and Steve Young's charity). The singer Alex Boye was also there as part of the group. We spent the rest of our time with them doing humanitarian work and traveling around a little more. The group was pretty diverse and everyone was really nice.
WEDNESDAY:
-We drove to another village, Nkawkaw (pronounced: en-coco). Taylor served during his mission here and this is where African Equity (the charity that Paul and Taylor are on the board of) owns the school. They bought it 3 years ago and now were doing some additional work on it.  We helped mostly finish painting the school and it looks awesome. It's bright green and yellow and all the kids were there playing and being outside. The kids were all really energetic and super outgoing. Apparently there wasn't even school that day but they had all come anyways in their uniforms to be with us. They all wanted to talk to us and we even got them to help paint by the end! During dinner that evening all the lights went off. When the power grid for the area gets overused all the electricity in the whole town goes off and you never know when it will go back on-- maybe an hour maybe a day. The boys said this used to happen at least once a week during their mission. The hotel we were staying at had a generator they tried to turn on for us but we all left to go to a fireside that had been set up by the local members.
-It got HOT this day. I was so surprised to find that Africa was not as hot as i thought it would be, but only because we went during "the rainy season" so it was not as hot but still super humid.
-When we got to the church we found all the members there in the darkness, singing hymns using their flashlights. I admired their dedication. They found a few more lights to use and it got to be semi light in there for us to start. The fireside was nice,  and the main lights stayed off the whole time but I liked what one of the speakers said: he talked about when he was little growing up and the power went out all the kids would meet under a big tree and play games by the light of the moon so he said he was thankful for the power outage because it reminded him of good times playing. He said we should always be grateful for what comes to us in life and I thought this was such a poignant story: this man in Ghana that has far less in his regular life (let alone no light) than I have ever had is teaching me to be grateful for even less.
- One of the big lessons I that was re-iterated to me on this trip is something that I am constantly working on: learning to savor the moment and enjoy pieces of life and recognize the special moments no matter how mundane. We all get so caught up with things so it's easy to let things pass by on our search for the next moment but it's important to savor.




THURSDAY:
-We attended a  "celebration" hosted by the school to thank us for our work. They had some cultural presentations. They had songs and some dances with drummers. All the moves in their dancing are different symbols to mean something so they tell a story. One boy came out and did a dance and turns out the moves meant he was asking for money so sure enough a few people got out of their seats and gave him some!
-They had also asked Alex to do a song and he asked all of us volunteers to come up with him and it was one of my favorite moments of the trip. He sang R. Kelly's "world's greatest" (which I LOVE to begin with) and we all clapped and danced and started bringing the kids up and dancing with them. We were all so happy and having so much fun I loved it.
-We headed back to Accra to go to the Mission Reunion that the boys had set up but because of traffic we got to the mission reunion 2 hours late. The people there are seriously the most patient people ever.. They all just stayed and waited and sang hymns and then when everyone was settled we started. A few missionaries bore their testimony and told a few mission stories and then Sister Gay spoke and then Pres Gay. He told a few really touching stories from people he had visited with as a general authority and then he told a story from the mission: He and Sister Gay were traveling to a town called Bo in Sierra Leone and the road was horrible and they got in a car accident in which their car rolled 3 times. When he stopped rolling thankfully everyone was still alive but the window glass had shattered on Pres. Gay and he looked down to find his arm with a huge open cut and bleeding a ton. They made a tourniquet to try to tame the bleeding and then they had to wait for the next car to pass because they were completely in the middle of nowhere. A car came after about 10 minutes and gave them a ride to Bo. At the small hospital, they said they could not give him stitches because it was such an open wound but they could at least try to disinfect it. They took him into the "operating theater" (as they call it) and the doctor started disinfecting with shots. It was at this point that he noticed his missionary tag and said "Are you from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?" he said "Yes I am" "Well then can I tell you a story?" "Yes" He told him that awhile ago, an elderly couple from that church came to this hospital and donated all of these supplies to us. He said that he wouldn't have had the gauze or bandages or disinfectant to treat him with if not for them. President Gay said that story reminds him that everything he has in his life came through the service of someone else and the scar on his arm is his constant reminder to always serve and bless other people's lives.
-After the mission reunion we were able to meet up with Anderson Oule and his wife Justine. What a beautiful couple. They are from Ivory Coast and they were the couple that helped keep Paul alive on his mission during the war there. They would bring them food and helped them escape. Such sweet people. When they heard Paul was coming back they knew they had to come see him so they traveled 9 hours by bus just to come spend the afternoon with us. They were so sweet and special and Paul was so happy to see them. It was a neat reunion and one that we won't soon forget. Paul is forever grateful to them.
-Alex Boye did his concert that night and it was rockin! Alex did a great job of talking to the people and making jokes and obviously singing. Everyone loved it! He really is an amazing singer and so energetic all the time. He is a great person it was super fun to get to know him.

FRIDAY:
-We drove to Cape Coast in the group vans. Cape Coast is 100% a fishing village. The smell of fish permeates the air and there are nets and boats and fish everywhere. Their fish nets are amazing: each one is intricately hand sewn and they are huge. All the people dry their nets out over the roof of their house and there are boats everywhere with bright colored flags, it truly is SO beautiful seeing the sights and colors
-First we went on a Canopy walkover the rainforest which was really cool. The bridges were made of rickety wood and suspended high in the air so it was pretty exciting to say the least. And then of course Paul and Taylor had to spice things up by making the group do things like going across backwards with our eyes closed, etc. The scenery was beautiful though, when I wasn't performing with my eyes closed.
-We then drove to the Cape Town slave castle. There are three main slave castles and they are where basically all of the slaves that came from Africa were brought and kept before being shipped to America or parts of Europe. It is a huge white-washed building and actually very beautiful in architecture. It is so sad that a building this pretty could have housed and facilitated such a horrible thing. We took a group tour through and saw the men's and women's dungeons and the tunnels they would take them out through ending with the "door of no return". We also saw where the governor of the castle lived, and then went into the cell and saw the marks made on the floor by chains and it was pitch dark and so stifling hot. They would starve people in there until they died. It was a solemn experience to see slavery from this perspective. It was interesting to think of a slave's journey before even getting on a boat... the whites were finding blacks to work with them to capture slaves. The blacks were turning on their own people and tribes were fighting with one another and trading humans for gold and alcohol and other goods. They would hand their own people over to the whites and then the whites would drive the new slaves all the way to the coast and keep them in the castle. It's horrible to think that their life really ended at the point of capture: captive and betrayed by their own people, forced to walk for miles to the castle, then once they were there put into a small room with up to 200 other people and then forced on a boat and then made a slave in their destination. A horrible and humiliating chain of events.
-After the castles we went to lunch at a restaurant and resort area. The restaurant is out on a dock along a river. At one end the shore come up to the patio and there are alligators than come and sit on the shore! So for a small fee they will take you out and you can go and touch the alligators! They even let us feed them! Only in Africa could you get away with a huge liability like that. I wasn't scared to touch it but i did get scared when i was feeding it and it was coming towards me with mouth open.
 

 

 

 

 

 

SATURDAY:
-We stayed at the "Coconut Grove Resort" and it was really pretty: right on the ocean with tons of palm trees and spread out little buildings with the rooms. We woke up Saturday morning knowing it was our last day in Ghana. Our trip was actually the perfect length: we both felt like we got to do everything we wanted and we were ready to come home. 
-We attended the funeral for William Billy Johnson. He was the pioneer and first member/missionary of the church here on Ghana. Funerals are a very big deal in Ghana and there are a lot of interesting customs and practices that are involved. Missy and I wore our African outfits that Ado's friend made for us. She took our measurements on Sunday and had them made 3 days later! They fit almost perfectly and are so pretty!
-We stayed for only part of the funeral as it was going very long and the sound system unfortunately wasn't working well and we had to get all the way back to Accra for our flight. It took forever to drive back because of traffic and in all the stress of packing and getting ready I had really quickly emptied the backpack that Paul had been using over there to give to Wama and we realized when we got to the airport, now an hour + later that I had accidentally left his phone in the backpack! We had no way of getting a hold of Wama either because we had given back the Ghanaian phone we had been using so Paul had to borrow a phone from a random security guard and called Wama and told him to get off the bus he was on and find the quickest way back to the airport. We waited anxiously for about 40 minutes for him to arrive before we could go through customs and security. We tried calling him along the way and it was super windy and noisy so we couldn't hear him and when he showed up at the airport we found out why: he had found a guy riding a motor bike and offered to pay him if he would take him as fast as he could to the airport! It was hilarious when he pulled up with this random guy with the two of them on the bike!

We boarded our flight a little while later and flew away from Ghana. I have absolutely no regrets about going on the trip and I am so thankful for the opportunity that we had to go. I'm so thankful that Paul and I were able to spend so much time together and make so many memories and that know I more fully understand this important part of his life. I definitely have a new perspective on some things and a deeper appreciation and gratitude for lots of things. The people of Ghana really taught me a lot. I loved our trip so much. I loved all the things we got to do and the people we met. It was priceless.