Day 3 in Ghana: Finally time to head to Okurase!

The view in the morning at One Africa House... that is the Elmina Castle that you see in the distance.

It is beautiful and peaceful, yet at the same time you see the trash built up on the beach like this. The beach at Asassi Yaa was a bit cleaner, but I think many beaches in the area are very similar with their trash problem.  Especially at high tide time, beach trash gets swept off into the water by the waves, and similarly comes back up on shore with the same waves.  When looking at the water near the shore, you can often see the trash items floating around. I asked our SAGE guide, Sarah, about this and she said that the country does not have the infrastructure or funds in place to clean up trash build up like this. Also, some don’t think twice about throwing trash on the beach beacause usually the tide will pick it up and sweep the trash out to sea, therefore “cleaning it up” naturally and “fixing” the trashed beach problem. You can see the obvious far-reaching issues embedded in this way of thinking.

Above - dutiful AP US & AP World History students posing with their textbook for class extra credit in front of Cape Coast Castle, on our way out of town. Many of the MA history teachers will give some extra credit to students if they take a picture outside of MN in a historical place with their class textbook. Then after bringing the picture to class, it will usually go up on the wall. It’s fun to see all the faces and places in those pictures!

We’ve been sharing “Highs & Lows” each night as we reflect on the day. I can never settle on just one high! This day one of my high moments was visiting this kente cloth shop in town. Kente is a local and traditional style of cloth, often with bright colors and beautiful patterns.  I was very much visually overly stimulated in this shop in the very best way possible. Everything was so beautiful! Most of the students picked out gorgeous patterned fabrics that we would then bring with us to the village and have a local tailor make the fabric into a beautiful clothing items of our choice. I literally could have stayed in this tiny shop for hours to spend time looking at each and every pattern and the vivid colors in detail - it was all so beautiful and such a highlight for me! One of many on this trip!

The ride from the Cape Coast area to Okurase was, well… BUMPY! (The capital letters do not do that word justice in this situation.) Most of the roads are dirt and have pretty major potholes. So many holes that often you have to drive really slowly in order to get your car through or around them all. I heard one student declare, “I will never complain about the potholes on Highland Parkway near the golf course ever again!” That stretch of road is one block from my house, so I know exactly what she’s talking about, and I totally agree. Several in the bus, including me, got motion sick - it was bumpy and hot and the AC on the bus just didn’t seem to help in the hot and humid weather. But, the crazy, almost four-hour drive was all worth it becuase when we finally pulled in to Okurase, we were all seeing our months of preparation and anticpation back at MA come full circle - we were finally here at this rural village across the world that we had talked about and looked forward to for so long! 

A welcome sign greeted us when we got to Okurase and our home for the next several days - the Nkabom House of Project Okurase. Welcome, Minnehaha Academy!

There were many murals painted on the walls of the Nkabom House structures, as well as a lot of work done to the facilities to make them look nice, welcoming, and be comfortable for guests - fresh coats of paint, an ample toilet and shower area, and so much more - all done by volunteers and local artists over the years.

The first thing we did when we arrived is get our bags situated in our rooms, and then we were taken on a walking tour of the village. It was very interesting and extremely eye opening. The very little that people have, the extreme poverty, the dirt and litter all around, the random animals walking around (mainly goats and chickens, a few dogs)… but really, people seemed HAPPY. They had smiles on their faces, they came out of their huts and homes to welcome us, kids followed us, and one adult asked me if she could be my friend - my answer? Yes, of course! And I can speak for myself (and probably for the others in the group too) that what I saw on that tour of the village will forever change and touch my life deeply… probably in many ways yet unseen as I still process it all.

In the above picture, you can see our wonderful tour guide from Project Okurase, Ben, on the left, and MA co-leader Mr. Johnson on the right. This is the newly paved main road through the village of Okurase. It is so nice for the villagers to have this road paved as many travel on it by foot several miles each day to go to school, work, get water from the one clean water source in the center of town, and more.

These sweet and smiley boys ran out of their home to the road to greet us. One of the cultural things we learned from our SAGE trip leader is that you should always ask (kids and adults alike) before taking photos (some are fine with it, others don’t like it so much), and the kids especially like looking at your camera and the photo(s) you took after you take them. Those faces above are priceless! 

Below are more pictures from our walk through Okurase. There are 5 sub-communities within the village of Okurase. For this tour on our first day in the village, we only walked through one of them, but they are all very similar in look and feel.

I just loved this little boy so much. Powerful told me that from the look of his body (big, extended belly) he may be malnurished. This made me sad and frustrated at the thought that in a world where so many have so much in comparison, that something as simple as a child not being fed properly for them to grow and thrive is a stark reality for those in Africa and in many other parts of the world - including in many parts of America.

This is a training center (like a vo-tech school) that Project Okurase is building to help educate the village and beyond about various tech and craft skills that they can then go out and teach others and better their community. It is a beautiful structure that has been in construction mode for several years, and as I understood from our tour, is not too far from being completed.

Cabbage growing in the community garden. The village was just coming off of the dry season, which is commonly an extremely hot time of draught. In March now they are officially in the rainy/wet season, although it has only rained a few nights during our visit.

My new friend! I was walking through the second half of the tour holding this girls hand - what a sweetie! I was in heaven. :)

Another one of Project Okurase’s buildings - the computer lab. The area schools take turns rotating through the lab, and all of the equipment has been donated by volunteers. There is also a small but very cute library right next door to the lab. As Powerful explained to the group, many of the donated laptops that they have to use are older models that people don’t really want anymore (vs. a brand new machine), so it is often difficult to keep them in good working order and sometimes they can break down.

I don't have the time on our trip to upload every single picture on my camera to this blog, so I have to choose just a few. For every wonderful picture that tells a story here, there are several more that tell just as an important story of this beautiful place that we get to experience. Thank you, God, for this amazing opportunity!