Blogs from Ashanti, Ghana, Africa

Soon after crossing the border from Togo into Ghana, we headed for Kumasi, Ghana’s second city and the ancestral home of the old Ashanti Kingdom. By way of background, the Ashanti people were one of the most powerful nations in Africa until the end of the 19th century, when the British annexed Ashanti country, bringing it into their Gold Coast colony. Originally from the northern savannah regions, the Ashanti people migrated south, carving farms out of the wild rainforest. The region was rich in gold, and trade in this precious metal developed quickly, with small tribal states developing and vying for control of resources. In the late 17th century, the Ashanti ruler had brought these states together in a loose confederation and the Ashanti Kingdom was born. Their social organisation is still very much centred on ... read more

Oh Dear ... It seems I have forgotten how to use this blog! It use to be so easy. I have several photos to show you ... but how I get them from the upload area to the post is a mystery to me. I actually have no idea how I got the two of these posted. :) So I figure it's better I get this entry out to you now and fiddle around with this site later. We are excited to partner with the leaders of YWAM Ghana! We are working closely with Lewis & Becky Roberts, a Ghanaian couple we have known for several years. Kirk oversees students in their afternoon work duties and is a well loved lecturer in the discipleship school. Christine’s time is spent home schooling Praise, assisting students on a ... read more

(26 Mar -- We are back in Teshie-Nungua after a GREAT trip to the north. There is internet available to us here, but the power is only on intermittently. As possible, we will post news of our travels throughout Ghana over the past 10 days.) (by guest bloggers Kit Rawson and Kathy Thornburgh) Our journey to the north started at Cape Coast. We are headed for Larabanga to stay at the Savannah Lodge where Laurel spent a month last October. But, we have a number of things to see on the way. Our first excursion north was a half day trip to Kaukum National Park, where we traversed Ghana's first canopy walk and had an informative forest tour from a knowledgeable and friendly ranger. We returned to ou hut at the Oasis Lodge for one more ... read more

What a time I've been having so far, done so much in so little time and looking forward to seeing and doing loads more! On Tuesday 12th there was no outreach work, instead Anambe taught the new volunteers how to carry out the different tasks such as the manual blood pressure checks and the hepatitis B tests. We met at the Projects Abroad office in Patase, (about 20 minutes by tro) where we spent an hour discussing our personal reasons for choosing public health and what we thought were the main benefits to conducting community outreach work such as this. It was agreed that just allowing people to make an informed choice about their health situation was one of the most important things we could do. According to Anambe, the majority of people in Ghana are ... read more

We got up early and were out of the house around 8. (That’s about 4 hours earlier than usual!) Today was the day to go to Kumasi. Kumasi is in the Asante Empire. The seat of the kingdom. (Ghana has a parliament and elected government, but it still relies heavily on the chiefs and village traditions to govern the people. Looks like they have a fairly good way of incorporating the two to me.) There are some pretty cool historical and tourist sites, so it was a place Frank wanted to make sure we didn’t miss. It’s about 4-5 hours away from us if we drive. Originally, we had planned to go, stay the night, and come back the next day. As we started to run out of time, we decided a day trip would be ... read more