Happy Birthday Ma!

Soooo…. It’s been two weeks since I’ve written. Lets just say that last week was not eventful. We were just working on business plans and didn’t do much else. We did find a nasty huge spider in the house, but apparently, spiders are not poisonous or dangerous no matter if they are bigger than your hand and could eat you whole. We killed it anyway because we didn’t really want to share the house. I also bathed with a spider, but it was dead, so don’t you worry.

This last week, though, was really fun.

After church on Sunday, I offered to make chicken noodle soup. I love it, and so do the others. It took about two hours do cook, but it is really worth it. Just so everybody knows, I make really good homemade chicken noodle soup.

Stephen was going to go to the farm by the house where he grew up, so he offered to take us to the place. It sounded cool, so Monday morning Beverly and I trekked with Stephen out to the farm. It sure is a long walk. When we went to the farm last (it was a different farm, but almost as far away), we rode in the rhino and walked back, and walking back seemed to take forever. Today, the trip really did take forever. It took us three hours to get to his place, but the trip was really beautiful. We started in town, admiring the sunrise. Once out of town, we weaved through the acres of farmland, crossing temporary bridges, aweing at strange and beautiful plants and trees, and sweating out of every pore. Usually, in the mornings, it is overcast, although it hardly rains in the morning. This morning the sky decided to be clear, so the sun beat on us the whole trip. It was always nice when we found ourselves in a palm farm because the shade was really nice under the palm trees.

The place where Stephen was born and raised looks just like the houses in town, but it is not surrounded by other houses. It has a thatched roof with adobe walls, just like many Ghanaian houses. It really wasn’t anything special to see, except to see where Stephen came from. He started like any other Ghanaian, probably worse than most. Today, he is well known, well respected, and even well liked. He has one of the most advanced houses in Abomosu, complete with running water, electricity, a television, an oven (so rare!), sinks, toilets, a refrigerator, pretty much all of the basic commodities we so freely have back home. The contrast of the two places really shows Stephen’s work ethic and determination. He worked hard as a teacher and administrator, and still works hard as a farmer after retiring from education.

He showed us some of his cocoa piles, which were ‘uge, and took us to the end of his property, where the jungle begins. The government created a wildlife reserve with a small creek as the boarder, and that creek is finally where we turned around and walked back to town.

Sadly, I was not even close to prepared for the streneous trip. I had expected two hours, in and out, not three hours in and three hours out, so I did not bring sunscreen and I did not bring water. I drank a bag of water right before we left. I thought that would be enough, but I was wrong. I sweated out the sole bag of water within the first hour of walking.

Stephen took a different way home to check on other plots of land, so it felt like the walk back was significantly longer than the walk there. I was getting tired and a little sick, so I was getting desperate to get home. We stopped at a river crossing where it was shady so Stephen could check some traps a short ways off. Bev and I sat in the shade for a while, commiserating and regretting our lack of preparedness. I got some cool pics, though! Thank you, Elder Bay, for the quick camera lesson! Stephen returned and reported that he had caught a cobra in one trap and was glad we didn’t tag along. Snakes are really dangerous here, and it surprised Stephen to see the snake in his trap. It was still alive, so he left it to die so he could take care of it later. He said he had hoped for a grass cutter so we could have some bush meat, and I really wanted to try some bush meat, but we got a serpent.

We reached the main road, and I picked up the pace to get home. Stephen said he wanted to make one last stop to another farm to get some limes, but I really wanted to get home, so I kept going relying on my instincts to get there. When I arrived at a wood bridge we had crossed earlier, I found that two backhoes and a gaping hole in the road had taken its place. I noticed some chinese people in nice cars and directing the workers. There were some other farmers wanting to cross the bridge that were congregated in the shade. I stood by them for a bit, but realized that the work was not getting any closer to us being able to cross. I also felt I may or may not be in a little danger because the only reason obronis are out this farm in the bush is for gold, and with out Stephen, I may be targeted as somebody who was gold digging (goldies ruin the land and destroy the environment, and Ghanaians don’t especially appreciate others coming and ruining their land). I don’t think they would do anything, but this was the most insecure I felt even in Ghana. I turned around to find Stephen, and luckily he wasn’t that far behind.

The hike would have been bearable had the sun not scorched us all day, but with out the shade and sunscreen, I fried. I was so beat when I got home (Bev had to stop in town because she needed to rest, but I kept going). I drank two or three satchels of water, rinsed off in the shower, and took to bed without lunch. I woke up two hours later feeling much better, and Bev let me use some of her awesome salve for my sunburn. I don’t tan when I burn, but this time I did. I’m almost the color of an African! Maybe an albino African…….. But thankfully, the burn did not progress and was feeling good the next day.

Douglas paid a visit after not seeing him for a week, it seems. The Elders also came over after a FHE appointment fell through, and they shared a quick thought with us. We kind of like the Elders, and they like to have other obronis to hang out with. Elder Bay is from Riverton and is companions with Elder Murray, from Wellsville. Elder Rane is from Alabama and is companions with Elder Nyarko, who is from Cape Coast, Ghana. They are in charge of Abomosu and Sankubenase, respectively. Past Elders were Elder Jones (E. Bay’s first companion) and Elder Pearson and Elder John (the zone leaders before Rane and Nyarko). Other Elders we met are Elder Osumbo, from Nigeria, Elder Bills from Utah, Elder Metivier from New Hampshire, and Elder Bigley from Blackfoot, Idaho. We also live right down the road from Elder and Sister Dalton, the missionary couple for Abomosu. I’m just writing down the names so I can remember. Elder Bay has been here the whole time we have been, so we know him pretty well. He crashed on his bike in tore up his face; luckily, Beverly brought a bunch of bandage stuff so he was looking pretty good when he dropped by after his wreck.

Thankfully, after resting all Monday afternoon, Tuesday was a quiet day. Beverly and Allan had spent most of the weekend working on their business plans and occupying my computer to do so. Garrett and I were already almost finished before they even started, but we finally got to work on our plans on Tuesday. We had so many little things to do that it seemed to take forever. We hit a wall where we had to get more information before we could proceed, an annoying wall where we are so close to finishing we could taste it but couldn’t finish until we did some more investigating. Douglas came over again and helped us set up our Abomosu class loans, which we have been meaning to do for about a month now. We are pushing the timing of the loans because this is our last week here, Amy (our coordinator back home) is on vacation in India, and we want to fund all our classes!! I’m pretty sure we will get to fund them before we leave, but I am getting anxious!

On Wednesday, we finished the Abomosu loan requests and got them ready to send off. Garrett and Zandra held intramurals again, so I took some more pictures and film. The kids are so funny, and its cool to see how much Zandra and Garrett love them. We taught them the good ol’ Joseph Smith stick pull.

After reading our orientation packet again, I found that we have been neglecting our responsibility to mentor past and current recipients. I feel really bad about not doing it. I have tons of excuses for not doing it, the best one being that I never really realized it until I reread the packet, and the worst one being that I wasn’t sure how it would work because of the language barrier. I had an idea to meet with all of the villages as interns in a big meeting to have a lesson out of the Phase 3 manual and to talk about why paying back loans is so important to the growth of the program. Wednesday evening, we walked the familiar path at the familiar time of evening to host the mentoring class for Abomosu. We hadn’t taught for several weeks, and I was pretty excited to see everybody. I imagined that several rows would be full of people; when class was supposed to start, we had three. We had a few show up, them we started class late, then a few more showed up. I had a great time teaching, but I definitely took it over. It was my idea and my efforts, so I kind of made it my show. Everybody let me, too:). I had a really good time teaching, though. Olivia, our favorite seamstress, currently and has a loan with us, so she was there. We walked with her after the meeting, and she is just great.

The Elders had told me that the branch in Kwabeng was hosting an open house to celebrate their brand new building, so I decided that I would attend and see the building. The church building in Asunafo was built in 2004, and it is beautiful, so I was excited to see a brand new African church. I grabbed a tro tro to Kwabeng, forgetting that the ride takes almost an hour. I got a little car sick, but just enough for discomfort and not enough to throw up. I was grateful to get out of the car, though. I thought I knew where the branch building was, so I got off at the junction, but I had seen another sign for a church, so I was worried I really didn’t know where it was. I went to where I thought it was, discovered I was wrong, and had to walk another 15 minutes the same way I just came to get to the sign. I followed the direction of the sign and found the most beautiful church building I have seen in Africa (besides the temple). There was beautiful stonework and tile work, and the chapel even had pews! The woodwork was gorgeous, and even the courtyard was cool.

An open house under President Hill is a missionary occasion. President and Sister Hill, the mission president and wife for the Ghana Accra West Mission, coordinates with the district and branch presidents to set up a walk through of the meetinghouse for members of the community to walk through. The missionaries serving in areas close spread out in the community and invite people to go take the tour. The people leave with pamphlets and Books of Mormon, and hopefully some new investigators are found.

The meeting began with a short intro by President Hill and President Oppong, then the Kwabeng Elder (not missionary Elder but community Elder) addressed the congregation. He was very gracious and basically said he would be baptized, but Elder Dalton said that happens a lot. After the opening exercises, the members stayed to give the tours and the missionaries headed out into the community. I decided to help because I was a member, and I was paired with Elder Rane whose companion, Elder Nyarko, was stolen by President Hill because he is the only Ghanian Elder in the zone. It was super fun going out with Rane. He knows a lot of Twi, and it put to shame all of the Twi I thought I knew. He was very stubborn about bringing people, and probably had the most success out of all of the other Elders, even with the inexperienced intern who basically tagged along and almost got sun stroke again. He is super dedicated to the work, loves the people, and is just an awesome missionary. I rode back to Abomosu with Elder Bay and Elder Murray, but we got caught in a ‘uge rain storm walking back to our places. They made a contact in the rain, and when the storm let up, we hurried back before it started raining again. It was fun to be a missionary for a day.

The next most interesting thing that happened was Sunday during Sacrament meeting. Stephen asked us to sing for church, so we shamelessly picked a Christmas song to sing because we want to have a little Christmas with the people before we leave. We practiced once Saturday night, but Sunday morning, Zandra woke up sick and didn’t go to church. We adjusted our singing plans, but it only worked in our brains and not in the performance. WE SOUNDED TERRIBLE. It was only kind of embarrassing, but it was sad. We are going to sing next week, and I hope that it goes a lot better. It was a lesson for me that you should always practice before you perform. It never works out like you imagine it should, so you should do a pre-run especially with inexperienced performers.  The rest of Sunday was uneventful except that Ike Ferguson, the CEO or somebody of World Joy, arrived with some of his family and will be staying for a couple days. The boys were playing football with some local kids, and the girls were listening to Beverly gab. I hope they get a real Ghana experience and not a fabricated one, because it is easy to just stay in the safety of the house (they are staying in the World Joy building, and it is the most American house I’ve seen here). We’re supposed to be cleaning the health clinic tomorrow, but I also should be starting to film the dance shots for the music video!

I am so glad I realized I am going to miss this place; the past week has been reflective because I have been thinking about leaving. I have been appreciating everything we get to do while we are out here so I can leave fulfilled. The coming week is our last in Abomosu, then we spend our vacation time in Accra. I will definitely leave a part of my heart in Ghana, and especially Abomosu, but Stephen said we can visit anytime. And I think I will.