Back in Accra at the end of the trip - last day at Asaasi Yaa...

At Asaasi Yaa - our second to last night of reflection and discussion on our trip.

Our last full day in Ghana was spent relaxing at Asaasi Yaa beach resort - taking some basic surfing lessons from Sarah, our SAGE guide, swimming, walking on the beach, playing cards, reading, and taking a hike up a mountain near Asassi Yaa.  Some of the group decided to hike, others stayed back. I really wanted to go on the hike, but unfortunately I had a migraine headache at that same time, so I stayed back to rest.  Everyone that went on the hike seemed to really enjoy it!  The group climbed 246 stairs to make it to the top - way to go!

Back at Asaasi Yaa they were busy preparing for a music, dance, and cultural festival that would take place at the resort that weekend, Easter weekend, called the Mother Earth Festival.  Powerful would be drumming at the weekend event and was helping the resort staff with preparation details.  Here is a poster that was put up in the courtyard to display some of the activities happening that weekend.

One last look at Asaasi Yaa during the day.  We would leave the next morning to spend the day in the city of Accra, go to the Kwame Nkrumah memorial gardens and museum, check out a local arts center market, and have a final dinner together before heading to the airport for our flights home.  If you ever find yourself in Accra, I would recommend the places we stayed in the area - Asaasi Yaa (in Krokrobite) and One Africa House (in Elmina) - both are very peaceful, scenic, beautiful locations right on the coast.  The accommodations are simple and basic, yet comfortable, clean, with friendly staff and good food.  I will miss this place!  It was a nice spot to begin and end our incredible trip.

Video on how to make the football nets out of the recycled pure water sachet bags...

Here is the YouTube video that our group used to show the villagers in Okurase how to make the nets from the pure water sachet bags.  We showed this video at the village elders meeting on our first day in Okurase so they could see what we were planning on doing there with this project, and we showed it to some of the school children that were helping us with the nets.  It's a short video, but it is interesting to see how it is done.  This video was done by Peace Corps volunteers in Ghana. Many of the scenes (some at the soccer field, one where you can see a school in the background, some children helping tie the bags, putting the net up, etc.) look very similar to what we experienced on our CFE trip.

Click here for video: How to make soccer nets out of pure water sachet bags

Day 9: Last day in Okurase - Ashanti stools & drum making shops... next stop, back to Accra before heading home to MN

Our last morning in Okurase before heading back to Accra for a few days before our flight home was spent by most of the group walking into town with Powerful to visit the shops where they locally make Ashanti stools and the wooden bases for the West African drums that we played the day before.

The picture above is of two of the wooden Ashanti stools that were made at this shop.  These stools are traditionally symbolic of a village Chief's leadership and used all over Ghana.  We saw a similar looking stool on our first day in Okurase at the gathering of the village elders.

 Next the group moved on to where they carve out the wooden bases for the West African drums.  Some of our students took their turn at carving out the wood.  It's hard work and the artisans do it all in traditional ways - no modern machinery here at this shop.  The work is extremely detailed and exact to make the best quality product possible.

After the work of carving the wooden base of the drum, then the partially finished drums are put on a truck and taken elsewhere in Ghana to finish the drums - to put on the animal skin for the top of the drum, sealer and stain applied to the wood and the other finishing touches to the drum before they can be a complete product and sold all over the world.

The rest of the day before the group left for Accra was spent saying goodbye to the local people that we had become friends with over our week in the Village of Okurase.  It was hard to say goodbye - hard to say goodbye to people that we had come to really have friendships with, hard to not be sure if we'd ever see these people again, hard to answer the question by some of the children "when are you coming back?"  Just hard.  We gave our final hugs and waves goodbye and boarded the bus for the few hour ride back to Accra.  Our last few nights before we headed back home would be spend at the same place we started this Ghana journey - at Asaasi Yaa, by the sea.  

We were all tired on that long bus ride back to Accra and there were mixed, bittersweet feelings - sad to be leaving the village, sad to have said goodbye to new friends that we had only just met a few days earlier, sad to know our meaningful trip would soon be coming to an end... but also looking forward to some down time at Asaasi Yaa and at the beach, and anticipating going back home again to see our family and friends that we had been missing while away.  

As I've said several times before on previous blog posts, we have had such an amazing experience on this very unique school CFE trip. We've all learned and seen things and met people in this beautiful country that have made profound impacts and changed our lives in more ways than one. I feel confident speaking for all in the group when I say that we are grateful for this opportunity to have experienced Ghana, a very special place that holds experiences that we will surely never forget.

Day 8 in Ghana: visiting the schools, drumming workshop, and a soccer game!

Eating breakfast at Nkabom House in Okurase.  A typical breakfast included hot oatmeal, a thin omelet, toast w/ jam, fresh fruit, coffee &/or hot chocolate.  A nice way to start the day!

Check out that net!  This is the soccer goal net that we made out of recycled pure water sachet bags.  Here we are just adding a few more strips to the net to make sure it is the correct size to fit properly in the goal.

 

The group with all of our completed batik shirts - so neat to see the final product of the day-long batiking process!

This was the main day that we visited some of the schools in Okurase.  We brought two soccer balls, a ball pump and extra pump needles, and two trash/recycling bins to donate to each school.  

These were the items that the MA advisor groups donated and collected over the past few months at school through the MA upper school International Project for 2016 called "Growing with Ghana".  It has been exciting and satisfying to see those donated items go to schools and a community that are really thankful to have new equipment that will be well used and go toward further bringing the community together. 

We also broke into three groups of four students and one adult each and divided up to go into different classrooms and deliver the message of picking up trash to keep your environment clean, why that is important (for good health, good soil to grow healthy food, take pride in your community, and more), and how you could reuse the pure water sachet bags to make sports nets (soccer and volleyball), make a fence for your home to keep your animals in your property (many families own a few chickens &/or goats), and we even taught some of the teenage girls later in the day back at Nkabom House how to make reusable sanitary pads out of the sachets.  This is a huge thing for them since girls are not able to go to school during that time of the month.  Having pads that they can use (which aren't normally available/are too expensive to purchase) allow them to keep going to school, which is an obvious benefit to them, their future, and family.  The girls who learned how to do this can then teach other friends how to do it as well - the benefits of this kind of pride in learning something so useful can be very positive and far reaching!

The students seemed so happy to see our group visit their school and they all wanted to say hello and have their photo taken!

Students from our group educating some Ghanaian students on why it's important to pick up your trash, clean up the community, and recycle items for reuse.

"Di wo mantem ni" is Twi for "Keep your community clean". This is the phrase that we had printed on the bumper stickers that we brought with us from Minnesota that we stuck to the new trash/recycling bins that we donated to the schools and greater community. In this particular group Mrs. Johnson wrote on the blackboard while the MA students spoke to the Ghanaian school children.

It was both interesting and gratifying to be at the schools and speak to the students, but also a bit difficult at the same time trying to correctly communicate a newer idea to the students.  We had support from our friends at Project Okurase (Nana and Ben) in translating our messages in English to their more understandable language of Twi, which was extremely helpful to us while in the classrooms.  It was such a memorable day of learning for all of us in the group.

Back to Nkabom House after spending the morning at the school to participate in a traditional West African drumming workshop!  Powerful is in the center (in the yellow shirt) and he led the drum group in different ways to strike the drum to produce the different tones they can make.  After we learned the three basic tones, then we learned some traditional rhythms and all played them together - it was really cool to hear and fun to participate in!

We also got to each create our own rhythm on the drum and everyone copied our rhythm as a group and played it back to us - pretty cool!  I heard several of the students say when we were done, "I really did better at the drumming than I thought I would... I wasn't too bad!"  After the workshop was over, almost everyone in the group purchased at least one drum to take back home as a souvenir or gift for a loved one.  The drums were handmade and beautiful carved by local villagers.  What a cool memory of our trip to be able to bring home! 

We ended the day with a much anticipated soccer match with the community soccer players. The MA group members that chose to play were dispersed between two teams that also had Ghanaian players on them as well.  Several other of the group members sat on the sidelines, cheered for the players, and enjoyed hanging out with some of the kids from the village, laughing, taking pictures, and more.

After the game was over, we hung out for a bit on the field with the players and everyone that came to watch, took pictures with our new friends, and just had a good time being together.  Once again, a very memorable event - one of many on this special trip!

Day 7 in Ghana - Palm Sunday church service, batik & jewelry making workshops, pounding fufu, & a birthday celebration...

Walking to a local church service on Palm Sunday. Mrs. Johnson is on the left, our in-country guide from Project Okurase, Powerful, is on the right, and Powerful's son is holding our hands in between.

Five students from our group decided to join the MA leaders at the church service.  The others stayed back at Nkabom House and took some sabbath rest time after some busy days of working on our projects in the extreme heat.  We were invited up to the front of the service to dance during the praise and worship time.  It was really memorable and a powerful time of praise!

Holding Powerful's son while up in front of the service as the MA group members were introduced to the congregation.  He was really sleepy at that mid-morning time during church.

The church service was amazing, and I'm so thankful to have had that very meaningful opportunity.  The congregation was really praising God with everything they had, and you could tell there was a beautiful sense of community, strength, and peace in that church - it was extremely touching.  Towards the end of our time at the church, the pastors called us up and prayed for our group - it was very moving and a wonderful feeling of solidarity with them through our mutual faith in God.  Usually church services in Ghana can run up to four hours long, but our group stayed for just over an hour on Palm Sunday. 

One of the pastors gave the MA leaders a Bible to follow along with the scripture readings during the service.  I thought it was interesting that on the inside cover of the Bible was a Ghanaian flag on one side, and on the other side of the page a letter from the First Lady of Ghana, the President's wife.  It was saying how she and her husband love God's word and are committed to its practices. She hopes that the reader will enjoy reading the Bible and grow closer to God through the scriptures.  She ends the letter by saying, "God bless our homeland Ghana as we commit ourselves to the principles and standards of God's Word, the Bible."  

From what I have read about Ghana, religion is often an important part in various government affairs on an informal level.  This was interesting for me to think about as an American knowing the age old debate on what exactly Thomas Jefferson meant so long ago when he spoke about the separation of church and state in America.

Back to Nkabom House after church to participate in a batik workshop led by local batik artists.  Batik is a dying technique applied to white cloth where you use dots or lines to trace around a stenciled shape with wax. Where the wax is applied, that area is then resistant to any dye, so it stays white/outlined to your original design shapes.  We started off with white t-shirts provided by our guests - it was an all-day process, but the outcome and final product was amazing to see at the end of the day. You'll get to see the whole process in this post, from start to finish.

After applying the wax around the stenciled objects, then we used sponge brushes to paint the designs that we each chose for our shirts and give them some color.  The dye is an interesting process because the color you paint onto your shirt is much darker than the final color that it becomes after the oxidation process takes place while it sits and dries.  A bit of science involved here!

Everyone seemed to really enjoy working on their shirts.  The batik artists were taking their work very seriously, so it was hard not to have their enthusiasm and dedication to their craft rub off on us too.  They mentioned that they had been doing batiking work for years because they loved it, and they would rather do something that they loved and enjoyed than be doing work that they didn't enjoy.  Food for thought...!

The batik artists that helped us create the shirts explained that the patterns are traditionally used as a form of symbolic expression and even communication. Some in our group chose designs for their shirts based on meaning and symbolism, others chose their design just based on what they liked or how they wanted to remember our Ghana trip.  

Here is a picture of some of the shirts oxidizing and drying in the sun from the first round of wax and dye.  We were also able to add other designs in wax (from sponge stencils) around the shirt.  Then later on, when we go to dye the whole shirt, those designs in wax will stay white, while the rest of the shirt becomes a deep jeweled tone and color.  It was definitely quite the process!

Below are a few pictures of the images that our group members chose from the available stencils to put on their shirts.  A few of the pictures are sideways - sorry about that. It wasn't working for me to edit and turn them around, I tried.

While we were waiting for our shirts to dry, before our t-shirts could move on to the next step in the lengthy batik process, we participated in a jewelry making process.  All of the beads we used were handmade locally from recycled glass - some were hand painted, other beads were a raw colored glass.  Each group member either made two bracelets or one necklace. Like the batiking, the group took the jewelry making workshop as more than just fun, but a chance to show our creativity and care in each bead and color combo we chose for our piece of jewelry. It felt cathartic for me to be creative through the batik and jewelry making workshops, and to have that time set aside to do something enjoyable and artistic with the group.  

A view of the Nkabom House (pronounced N (sound) - kaa - boom) buildings from the courtyard.  The 2-story building on the left is where the MA students stayed, the leaders stayed on the lower level of the house in the middle (behind the tree), and we ate all of our meals in the open air structure on the right in the middle (next to the white board with our daily schedule).  The bathroom structure (toilets, sinks, and bucket showers) are on the close right side just behind and out of the picture. 

Playing with some of the local children, outside of the small shop on the Nkabom House grounds 

where local artisans can sell their crafts.

Good buddies!  :)

 Back to the batik process... the dried shirts (still mostly white) will now be soaked in a certain color of dye (each person got to pick what color they wanted for their shirt).

Next the dyed shirts are put out in the sun again to dry.  You can see where the wax stencils were placed on the shirts - those areas stayed a lighter shade when soaked in the dye. 

And then it's time for more waiting...!

The last step in the batik process is to dip the shirts into the liquid in this boiling pot, which takes off the wax to show the final product.  Amazing! 

You'll see what some of the finished shirts look like at the end of this post - they turned out so nice, and the batik experts who helped us were very kind and sincerely happy to help us make the shirts, and for us to take that very special memory home with us to remember our trip. 

Moving on... to helping make our dinner for the night!  Our group told our Project Okurase leader, Powerful, that sometime we wanted to try the Ghanaian staple food of fufu.  He said that most Ghanaians eat fufu every night for dinner, and it is a favorite food of many in Ghana.  He also said that most of the groups that he's been with that come to visit Ghana really want to try fufu for the experience, but 9 out of 10 visitors generally will not really like it.  Powerful told us that we would have a chance to try it sometime on our trip, and this night happened to be our chance.

I did some reading on Wikipedia, and here is what I found: fufu is a staple food with deep roots in Ghana's history and is common in many countries of West Africa and the Caribbean. A popular method of preparation is to boil pieces of cassava or another tuber and pound it together in a large wooden mortar using a wooden pestle. In between blows from the  pestle, the mixture is turned by hand and water gradually added until it becomes slurry and sticky. The mixture is then formed into a ball or a rounded slab and served.  Fufu is eaten with the fingers of the right hand, and a small ball of it can be dipped into an accompanying soup or sauce. Popular soups eaten with fufu include palm nut soup or peanut soup, and sometimes can include a meat like pork or chicken.  The word fufu comes from the Twi language from the word fufuo, meaning "white", due to its appearance.  

Several from our group took their hand at pounding the cassava to make the fufu.  It is actually harder than it looks!  The wooden pestle has some weight to it, and you have to keep a consistent pounding pattern to get the proper consistency just right.  The woman in the orange shirt with the scarf on her head was helping to flip the fufu with her hand every time it was pounded.  She was also the person who cooked our meals while in Okurase, and she did an amazing job every day! 

You can see Powerful standing in the background (with the striped shirt), standing next to Mr. Johnson.  The look on his face is a classic "Powerful face" - smiling and happy. He seemed to enjoy being with our group, and the feeling was mutual. One of the days in the village he had to drive back to Accra to get some supplies and he was gone all day - the students definitely missed his presence with us that day. He definitely has a positive and friendly energy to him and made a significant impact on all of us - a great guy and a memorable part of our trip.

The woman sitting down in the orange tank top is named Nana, and she is one of the Directors of Project Okurase.  She is an amazing, selfless, caring, kind woman - someone that made a huge impact on me during our few days in the village, simply because of the kind of person she is.

Our Ghanaian friends seemed to get a kick out of Mr. Johnson pounding the fufu.  I couldn't quite tell if this was because this is usually something that the females prepare, or just because he was pretty good at it from the get go.  They said that he was doing a really great job - leave it to the P.E. teacher!  

Below are two pictures that I found online of fufu - I didn't get a chance to take one during dinner that night, but the bowl with the soup is pretty much exactly what it looks like when served.

This little sweetheart was fast asleep and so comfortable.  She enjoyed being carried around and played with all day, and our students enjoyed being with her as well.

Back to see the final products of our batik shirts.  Don't they look great?!

Here is my shirt - I love it!  I chose the center Africa graphic, but the man holding the shirt, on of the batik masters, helped me place the rest of the white marks.  He was such a caring man, talking to me through the process making the shirts, telling me all about the various steps, talking to me about being a teacher, and more.  

You can tell by the look on his face that he really enjoys and is proud of his work!

Here is my special buddy, Prince.  Each person in our group brought a few children's books from home, and we set them out in the courtyard area for the kids to look at when they came to visit us at Nkabom House.  This day Prince wanted to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, which is a book I loved.  The kindergarten classes at MA do an annual program on this book - they memorize the words and do cute actions to the book while they recite it for the parents. Last year one of our daughters was a kindergartener at MA, so we must have read this book 100 times at home leading up to that program.  So, I had a lot of fun reading this book with Prince because of my past experience with this  same book.

This last picture is of a birthday celebration for our SAGE guide, Sarah.  In Ghana it is a tradition to get water thrown on you on your birthday.  This mainly happens among children.  This was Sarah's third straight birthday in Ghana, as the past two years she lived and worked in Ghana with the Peace Corps.  Powerful and drummers brought out the drums, and there was lots of drumming, singing, and clapping while several people walked up and dumped buckets of water on her head.  A fun tradition!

Happy Birthday, Sarah!  I think she liked the celebration.  :)