Blogs from Ghana, Africa - page 7

August 25, 2014 I spent an interesting afternoon at the orphanage. When I got there I found most of the children behind the orphanage cracking palm nuts. I found out that they have two different uses for them. The first is cooking them to make palm nut soup and the second is to get the oil to add to salve which they use after they bathe. I then asked if I could help them with the nuts. I stayed outside with them for about an hour and a half crack and shelling palm nuts. Of course my little Ema wouldn’t leave my side and eventually fell asleep on my lap while I was working. It felt like a very African experience. When I brought the big basket inside with the harvested palm nuts on my head. ... read more

August 24, 2014 Yesterday afternoon we went to a street art festival in Jamestown, which was one of the local festivals for Homowo. Homowo literally means hooting at hunger, and it’s a festival that is done every year to satisfy the gods to prevent famine from happening. This is specifically a Ga festival, so the different areas in the Greater Accra region have their own small festivals, and at the end they all come together for one grand festival. Technically Homowo starts in May before the rainy season when they plant the millet. After they plant the millet they have a month of silence where it’s forbidden to drum. The festivals happen at the end of August to the beginning of September when they harvest the millet, which they use to make kpokpoi (the festival dish). ... read more

August 20, 2014 I’ve been in Ghana for over 10 weeks now. I’ve seen so many people come and go, and I’ve made friends from all around the world. There have been so many different languages spoken in the house. Most recently the house has been filled with Spanish since there have been so many volunteers from Spain. Even when it’s just English being spoken the accents tell the representation of the different nationalities. The Americans especially like to tease the British about the different terms for things. One of the strangest terms for me is that they call their evening meal tea. However, because of hearing all of those terms I’ve started to use terms like cutlery instead of silverware or half three instead of three thirty. Most importantly though is that I call soccer ... read more

July 28, 2014 Yesterday was a crazy day. Some of the volunteers took the kids from the new orphanage to a beach. We cooked food for about 6 hours and then we packed it all up in 2 taxis and met the kids at Sango Beach. We cooked them spaghetti (with extra vegetables) and fried chicken. We also cut up a ton of fruit. In all we served food to 44 people. Despite all the work that went into the crazy morning and early afternoon seeing the children enjoying the food was so worth it. They don’t always get complete meals like that, so whenever we cook them food we try to have protein, carbs, and lots of nutrient filled fruits and vegetables. The kids had a blast at the beach! Some of them got covered ... read more

July 21, 2014 I know it’s been a couple weeks since my last entry. These last couple weeks have been insane at the house with people constantly coming and going. The house is literally overflowing with people. Currently there are 33 volunteers with Dream Africa. Jamal finally moved out of the house to his own apartment where he finally has some privacy. That gave us another room with beds and another room was just finished outside, but even with those two rooms (eight more beds) we’re still struggling to find enough beds for people. There are so many nationalities represented. There are 4 Americans right now, quite a few English, a group of Northern Irish, 6 Spanish, French, Japanese, Swedish, Ethiopian, Greek, Italian, Austrian, Swiss, Italian, and even a Nigerian. Most people aren’t staying very long ... read more