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.