Today I Fell in Love With Ghana

Today, somewhere in between dancing with villagers and painting a kindergarten classroom, I fell in love with Ghana. 

Working with an organization called Disaster Volunteers of Ghana, my classmates and I  traveled to Abutia Agodeke in the Ho Municipality of the Volta Region.  In this small village, our mission was to complete the construction of a 3 block school for kindergartners. 

Early this morning, as our bus pulled down the bumpy dirt road and into the village, we were greeted by an overjoyed crowd of adults and children. With our wheels still rolling, they ran along side the bus, waving and chanting as the men of the community beat their drums. It was the kind of scene that leaves you endlessly smiling. 

Immediately upon stepping off the bus, the women of the community ran to hug as all. We were ushered over to rows of plastic chairs, where we sat and watched as the villagers welcomed us with a traditional ceremony, mostly consisting of dancing. 

Some of the little girls of the community could really break it down.

I got a total kick out of that orange dress the young girl is wearing. Everyone was dressed to the nines for our arrival.

After a period of dancing and introductions, the women of the village decorated our wrists with beads and sprinkled some sort of white powder on our wrists, as a kind and traditional gesture to welcome us.

When some of us shook the powder off of our hands, the women were quick to sprinkle more on. Due to the fact that no one in the village spoke English, or Twi, we relied entirely on make shift sign language and their sign language was telling me not to shake the powder off. It didn't quite matter anyway, I was already covered in dirt and soon to be covered in paint.

We got right to work on the school. Classmates went with the little girls to fetch water (which they carried on their heads) to mix the paint. The paint was mixed with the water by hand. 

I worked along side one of my resident assistants, Kalvin, to paint the interior of this classroom. I was so happy to be working out of the sun and Kalvin served as my entertainment as he listened to his ipod and sang soprano to the top 100 hits. We rolled coat after coat onto the cement walls, but it quickly became clear to me that the walls would never have an even coat and that the cement would always show through. The perfectionist inside of me was tormented. 

I was entirely spotted from head to toe by the time I finished. You can see in the picture above the bracelet that was tied onto our wrists.

At the end of the day, our bus driver, Sammy, decided to purchase two baby goats, which he strapped onto the roof of our bus. We were forced to listen to their little hooves on the roof as we sped down the highway.... At first everyone was horrified and begged Sammy to let us keep them in the bus with us and not on the roof, but he claimed that they would be fine up there and we had no other option but to blindly believe him. Welcome to Ghana. 

We pulled away from the village, looking back the whole way, waving goodbye to the villagers.