Pongo and Perdita

Now I know that to most people Pongo and Perdita are a pair of dogs from Disney but to me they will always be this pair of ducks. Every year, just about at this time (early spring) a pair of ducks show up each morning at our pond. They are the sweetest couple, swimming around in this little pool of water when there are so many true ponds and lakes all around us. But each year these two come back for a little alone time at our pond. They don't stay long, just a couple hours a day for around 2 or 3 weeks, but I have come to love seeing them. Somewhere along the way I started calling the Pongo and Perdita (maybe 3 years ago) and so that is how they are known to us. Most days Perdy swims around with Pongo watching out for her (they seem to be aware that there is a camera crazy female living in the house.) They are my true first sign of spring and I look forward to seeing them each year... now if only we could teach them to poop in the neighbor's yard!

I'm BAAAAACK!!!

Ok, I have been a Lazy Blogger. I haven't even thought about my blog in a while. Then this morning I read a great blog and then I went out to the Celery Farm and I feel renewed. so I am back, just like the pair of ducks in my pond, just like the birds in my trees and just like the plants that are starting to bud. I have missed being outside and walking at the farm. This morning the birds were singing so loudly I almost wished I could have turned down the volume. I was struck by the different calls and wondered why a bird as pretty as the cardinal has such a lousy little Peep instead of a beautiful song. I heard a red wing black bird make a call I had not heard before.. I think he was cat calling a pretty little finch a tree over. The ground was muddy, the air was cool and I was so happy. So here are a couple of my first views of spring.

Yeah, I am still alive

I wish I could write that I have been somewhere incredible and that is why I have not been blogging but the truth is I am just a victim of the winter blues. Every year about this time I start wishing I was a bear and able to hibernate for a few months. I want to sleep late, I want to go to bed early, I want to take naps.... all in all I just want to sleep. But I am not a bear and my family is taking issue with my continual sleeping so up I get, Laundry I do and I just wish it was spring already. Did the groundhog see his shadow??

That said this past week the gourmet club meeting was at my house (and Lora's) and we did cooking with chocolate in honor of Valentines' day. The menu was excellent- baby greens with a citrus dressing (cocoa nibs get sprinkled on top,) Medallions of beef with Rosemary sauce (cocoa is in the sauce,) Roasted butternut squash ravioli with a brown butter and bittersweet chocolate sauce ( Big yum!) and 2 desserts- white chocolate raspberry sauce over raspberries, and chocolate nibs napoleons. Oh and chocolate martinis too. The food was great and I love cooking with the women on Thursdays. This is the closest that I get to the communal feeling of life in Assasetre. Now I am longing to get back to Ghana...maybe I can sleep the entire flight there? LOL

getting caught up

OK, Here it is the 20th of January and I have not gotten out of November and Ghana, so Goodbye Africa and Hello Christmas. Christmas this year was a little tough. Just like my blog I was definitely still in a Ghanaian state of mind and buying gifts for people who really don't need anything was dificult. A lot of charitable donations were made this year in people's honor rather than handing them a scarf or new pair of socks and underware. Decorating the tree was a family event as you can see below, I the one behind the camera so you know I was there. The big discussion is icicles or no icicles- Jay is a tinsel man whlie the rest of us are not. Secretly I was glad he could find no tinsel on his shopping trip but later found and bought 5 boxes of them that he never runs out of the stuff. If some tinsel on the tree makes this man happy so be it, I don't mind vacuuming it up for the next 3 months ;)


Jay makes sure the lights are evenly spaced on the tree.

Kyle is happy that this line of lights was working... we definitely need to go out next year and get some more lights. We prefer the old fashioned big bulbs and we have more that don't work now than ones that do.

Shelby makes like a reindeer, or maybe it was a moose.

One reason

This photograph is just one of the reasons why I travel. On my second day in the village James and I went out for a walk. There was a lot of excitement from the people as we walked around... visitors are rare. My camera stood out and the calls of, "White Lady, White Lady, Photo, Photo," began. As we passed the small market one woman came up to me and the kids told me she wanted me to photograph her with her mother and her children. after I took the shot I turned my camera around and showed them the image I captured. This was the first time the older woman had seen her image this way and was very excited. I only wish I had a second camera around to have caught her reaction.. It was priceless. That's OK though because I will always remember itand that's what really matters. It is those small moment connections with people that I love. Sharing something new, or maybe something old with people, a realization of how we are all the same no matter where we are from is worth the money and time spent and the discomfort that sometimes accompanies travel. I pray that there will be many more opportunities waiting for me.

More kids

How beautiful is this little boy? I just love his eyes. He was around a lot while I was in the village but never spoke to me. I wish I was good at learning languages but that is definitely not a gift given to me. I just thought this kid is one of the most beautiful children I have ever seen.
And this little boy always was looking at me as if I was a science experiment. He had this way of tilting his head as he looked at me and I wish I could have known what he was thinking. Maybe I am better off not knowing though.

More favorite pictures

OK..I know I have not been really good with posting things here and people have been asking...sorry. The holidays came and all and Blogger has switched to a new format and I can't seem to get more than one or two pictures up at a time and got toally fustrated after writing a whole story and downloading pictures and then having it not post...but enough of my whining... I am learning and now I will just create a few posts rather than one. Enough of that..

I totally fell in love with the kids of this village, actually I have always loved the kids I have met in Africa but on this trip I got to spend more time with certain kids and they now hold a very special place in my heart.

This little girl is Rebecca, one of Cosmos' daughters. She is 5 years old and thought I was fascinating (read like a science experiment.) I don't think she ever met someone like me and I just made her laugh. It was neat to see her warm up to me as my time in the village lent on. In the beginning she would just stare at me but by the time I left she would stay close to me. The best part is that neither of us really understood the language of the other, but that didn't really seem to matter. Friendship really doesn't have anindividual language- its universal.


This little boy, I never learned his name, was so adorable but he never quite warmed up to me. He would cry and hide any time he saw me. He had never seen anyone who looked quite like me (not many white people have ever been to the village and certainly not any in his memory.)It presented a dilemna for him when I would be playing with the kids on the porch. We would all be singing and laughing and he wanted to be a part of that but it would mean he would have to come somewhat close to me. What's a boy to do? He started out by standing on the outskirts and then eventually would move in a little closer. Now he never was one of the kids coming up to me to feel what my light skin felt like but he would join us on the porch as the week wore on. I was amazed when he subjected himself to getting photographed my me..a true testament to the power of peer pressure. I wasn't questioning it...I was thrilled to get his portrait to remember him by.

the heat

I just wanted to share how hot I was while in Ghana.... I took this photo on e of the first days I was there. Yes, I know this is not the most flattering shot of me but it is true to how I felt at the time. when I look at it I can see how much I felt the humidity. But here is the amazing thing about being there... even though I was hot and sweaty, I would soon forget about it. While looking at this picture I could imagine I was totally miserable but I wasn't. You just kind of think..gee its hot and then you get over it. But I didn't want to forget so voila... you have this picture

Favorite photos

I have been really lax in posting lately...actually I have just been lax all around. I thought I would just post a couple of my favorite pictures of people from my trip.

This girl was excited to have me take her picture. She came looking for me. I thought she was proud of the way she was carrying all the pots on her head... I was impressed... but that was not what she was excited about. She wanted me to capture the image of her with a kitten. It is funny the things that create excitement in our lives. The grace with which she balanced those pots was amazing to me but was everyday to her, having a kitten was a special event for her but was commonplace for me.

OK, For some reason I am not getting things to work on my blog...maybe it is the universe telling me I really should be taking care of the laundry or something so I will just post this and work on more later

This says it all

This picture is by far my favorite of all the shots I took on this trip. It speaks volumes about the situation in this small village in western Ghana. As I was walking arounf the village one day I came across this boy standing by a tree watching the kids from the school playing soccer (futball to them.) It just looked like he was standing there dreaming about being able to go to school and play with those kids. The reason he can't go to school? His parents cannot afford the 22-24 dollars a year for his tuition. Schools are not free in Ghana and it is impossible for many parents to raise enough money for their children's education. It breaks my heart. 

Market place and cooking

Wednesdays are the big market day in this area (Actually I think it is that day in almost every area I have been in, I wonder why that is?) We headed over to see the market that first wednesday that I was there. You could definitely buy cassavas- they were all over the place. But then again it is the main part of Fou Fou and everyone eats Fou Fou each and every night in Ghana so it is no wonder there was so much of it at the market. Plantains too.


These are palm fruit which is used in a palm fruit soup. There is a lot of pounding needed to make both palm fruit soup and fou fou

They let me try to help with the palm fruit soup but as I almost turned over the container twice as I pounded the women quickly got the stick out of my hands

Makiing fou fou is not always a happy thing but this woman made nice for the camera. 

Church of Christ Assasetre

The main reason why James was going back to Assasetre was to see the completed roof on the church there. Two years ago, on his first visit to the area, he was saddened to see the beginning of a church structure that the people could not afford to complete. He returned to the states with a burden to raise the money to finish it. The people of his church in Ohio and the one he grew up in in Kentucky rose to the challenge and gave enough money to roof not only this church but the one of John's in Half Assina. Pretty amazing. last yerhe went back to Ghana and brought them the money. And now here it was another year later and the dedication service was going to happen. You will see that the church is still not what we would call complete. The floor is still just dirt and the walls have no plaster but now people can worship there out of the glaring African sun or heavy rains. I hope to go back one day and see it all the waythey envision it but I know that it is not really the building that is important but the message they share there.



 

My home away from home

Cosmos and Millicent are the couple who opened their home to me for my stay in Assasetre. It is not easy to accomodate 2 people into an already filled home but they did so graciously. I loved all the color of the Ghanaian homes, no white walls here.


This ws the house I staye in. Out front is the porch. Inside there are 3 bedrooms and a living room

Here are my bathroom accomodations. The blue structure was a privacy area for bathing. With no running water I had to bathe from a bucket and use a cup to rinse. I found the privacy was not complete as a man came down from the trail on the right and I could see he could see down into my space and probably saw more white flesh than he wanted. From that day on I used a bathing suit for modesty. The building on the right is the outhouse. It was much better than I had expected, it had a seat and all. I had envisioned turkish toilets so this was a pleasant surprise.


This was Millicent's cook house. I loved how a number of women congregated each day and worked together on laundry and cooking. It makes me sad as I go about cooking on my own in my house.... I kind of like communal cooking. 

More house picts

This is the living room inside the house. James and I ate our meals at that table while the men ate outside together and the women and children ate at another area outside together. Quite different from family meals at home.

This was my bedroom. I loved all the color (purple and fuschia) and the an made it possible to sleep at night. Jay and I are subzero sleepers and so it is not easy for me to fall asleep when I am warm. I lucked out and only had one night in the village with the power turned off. To conserve energy all through out the country areas rotate on night time with no power. Because of the measle vaccine program going on while I was there they suspended the outages for 5 days. Boy was I grateful for that. 

People

This is James, my friend's Father in Law and the reason why I went to Ghana. James had been writing to Cosmos, a minister for the Church of Christ in Ghana and sending some support to him. A couple of years ago cosmos invited James to come and see the church in this western region of Ghana. He went on his own and was upset to see that the church did not have a roof and people were worshipping in a thatched hut in the middle of the building. He went home with a burden on his heart and he raised enough moeny to not only roof the one church but also another about an hour away from the one in Asasetre. Last year he brought his son and daughter with him to hand over the money. In the spring he got another invitation to come back in November to attend the dedication celebration for the new roof. This was to be his last visit to Ghana, the trip is hard and he is not getting any younger. I was lucky enough to feel a call to travel with him and photograph our time there and the work the people of the Church of Christ are doing there.

This is Cosmos and his wife Millicent. Theyare kind people who welcomed me into their home not knowing much about me at all. As you can see by the sign they are busy with many church services here at the building in Asasetre as well as 4 other planted churches in the surrounding area.

This is John with James. John is a minister at the other church that benefited from James fundraising. He was with us the entire trip, translating for us all along the way. 

Accra, part 2

Tito s a man that I knew of from my church at home. The kids in the Sunday school had been writing to him for a few years while he was in a prison in Egypt for converting to Christianity. This spring he obtained his release from jail and ended up in Ghana, after finding his home on Nigeria dangerous as his family wanted to kill him. I emailed Tito about my visit to Ghana and arranged to meet him for lunch one day. It was great to see him in person and hear about his work in Accra with kids living on the streets. We went to the beach so that I could take his picture to show the kids in the Sunday school.


Tito

Moses, my driver and Tito

This is my room at the Triple Crown Guest Lodge

This was my wonderful bathroom. I enjoyed this knowing that I would not have running water at my next home. 

Accra

I arrived in Accra and was happy to find Julie from the guest lodge waiting for me. When we arrived at the Triple Crown the whole area was dark. To save energy the whole country rotates with power shut downs. I was grateful that the hotel had a generator so I had air conditioning, a definite bonus in the Ghanaian heat. I had arranged for a driver while I was in Accra and Moses arrived bright and early on Sunday morning to take me to church. I planned on worshipping at the Lutheran church in Accra, St Paul's. Some things were so different while some things were so familiar. The worship books that they use are the same ones I used when I was little so it was like taking a step back in time. The service was long but I was glad to be there. Afterwards the women had made food that for a very small price ou could eat all you wanted. I just loved seeing how beautifully everyone was dressed. Not the casual wear from home. I was glad I wore a skirt.


St Paul's is a beautiful and very updated building with a large school attached.

The sanctuary is open with lots of fans to move the air.

Just check out some of the dresses on the women 

Tales of travel

Time to start with stories from my trip. Getting to Ghana is not a direct trip, I had a 7 1/2 hour layoner in Amsterdam airport. Now, if you have to hang out in any airport, this is the one. First I took a 2 to 3 hour nap on the lounge chairs in the comfort area. Every airpoet should have these. Then I went to the excursion desk and booked a 2 1/2 hour tour of Amsterdam. I love this city and hope I can go another time and spend a couple of days there.


Frst stop was a wooden shoe factory. It was interesting to see the shoes being made and fun to try a pair on.

Next we stopped along a canal and checked out the windmills.

We visited a number of areas around the city before heading back to the airport in time to catch my plane.