TARKWA, Ghana (Monday, Nov. 2) — It is early in the morning and we are preparing to visit the school in Aboso today. First, we’ll bring you up to date on our travels.

We arrived in Accra on Thursday evening and immediately went to our hotel and crashed. After nearly 40-some hours of travel we were bone tired and road weary. The hotel we stayed in Accra is called the Mahogany Lodge and turned out to be quite an African jewel that Jeff had discovered on the Internet. It even has a swimming pool and a restaurant that served some pretty tasty Ghanian fare.

Jeff and Bishop Quainoo standing in front of a ceiba tree.On Friday we met our driver, George Ments, who took us to see Bishop Joseph Quainoo. The Bishop has loaned us his Nissan pickup truck for the week and asked his friend George, who is an accountant at a women’s ministry in Accra, to drive us around the country.

Our trip to see the Bishop took us a couple of hours north of Accra, a distance that should have taken a half an hour. The trip took longer because Accra is one massive traffic jam, grid-locked from one end to the other in a sea of urban sprawl – a good example of no urban planning. However, the drive was rewarded as we met the Bishop at a lovely oasis, Aburi Botanical Gardens, located in the mountain range overlooking Accra and the plains to the south. The gardens were built in the late 1800s as a sanitarium for British soldiers, offering a respite from the heat and humidity of the coastal area. We recognized the benefit of the location immediately as we enjoyed the cooler air and shade provided by the huge ceiba and palm trees. 

Saturday was a full day of travel. We left our hotel about 10 a.m. and arrived in Tarkwa about 5 p.m. We spent seven hours of constantly speeding up and slowing down. Our driver would punch the gas pedal racing to top speed and then would wait to the last minute to stand on the brake for whatever slowed our way – traffic, potholes or an errant goat, of which there are many. Often we would rocket through congested areas where people and animals would be standing only a few steps from the roadway. The trip was nerve-wracking.

Along just about every road in Ghana entrepreneurs have set up small stands to sell pineapples and yams, shoes and suitcases, brassieres and belts – you name it and they are selling it. We saw a few industrious individuals who were proudly offering smoked grasscutter, a large rodent that is caught in the field.

We arrived Saturday evening at our hotel in Tarkwa. We had a quick dinner and a beer and then hit the sack. In comparison to our hotel in Accra, let’s just say that our Tarkwa lodging is a poor cousin.  Choices of accommodations are limited here, but we are thankful that our room has air-conditioning and hot showers, even if the water pressure is low.

On Sunday we drove to Aboso. The village is about 30 minutes from our hotel. The road to Aboso resembles the surface of the moon, the pavement broken and punctuated by massive craters. The dirt is brick red; dust from traffic coats the surrounding trees. Our truck soon became equally dusty. Traffic is surprisingly heavy, with a constant array of taxis and buses transporting individuals to jobs in Tarkwa or at the nearby gold mines.

Meeting with Safianu and his family was a joyous occasion, and additional family members and neighbors from around the village soon came to greet us.   With the women in the kitchen and men relaxing on the front porch, Safianu’s two aunts fixed us lunch of melon, fried yam and scrambled guinea eggs. We were told that the melon and guinea eggs were brought from the north and were a real treat.

While teaching Kim the finer points of preparing yam, the discussion turned to fashion and soon all agreed that Kim needed a traditional African dress and head scarf and Jeff needed an African shirt.  Within minutes a local seamstress arrived with tape measure and pencil in hand, while Safianu’s aunts discussed the style the dress to be constructed.   With these formalities done, the ladies embarked, with great laughter, on lessons in draping cloth into a head wrap into one of four different styles.     

Sunday is a day of rest in Ghana and much of the morning is devoted to worship.   Women and men dress in ritual black and white: women wear long dresses and matching head wraps and the men often wear a ceremonial garb that drapes over one shoulder.  Churches surround Safianu’s home. There were four congregations singing loudly, with drums and piano for accompaniment. It was quite a cacophony.

Yesterday was the first time that it had rained since we have arrived in Ghana and we now have a real appreciation for the term “gulley washer.” There are open sewers in Aboso and the rain serves to clear these of the stench and filth that otherwise remains stagnant. In some places there are no sewers at all. Livestock — goats, sheep, cattle, chickens and ducks — roam at will. So in a heavy rainy, the streets are awash in excrement, both human and beast alike. We tried not to think about what the water contained as we stepped around the larger puddles and watched young boys swimming in the deeper ponds. The rain also served to ease the repressive heat of the day, offering a cooler evening.

Between rainstorms and guided by Sampson Forson, Safianu’s former teacher, we made our way to the home of Augustina Abidoo.  Augustina is the local representative to the district assembly and is also a member of the Ghana School Foundation board of directors. She welcomed us into her new home, which was under construction when we had visited here a year ago. The home is simple, yet comfortable and perfect for her retirement, Augustine told us.

Augustina informed us that the newly elected national government had recently upgraded five or the six school classrooms at the Aboso school. That would be extent of the government’s help with the school, she said. Augustina said that her main goal, however, would be to improve sanitation in Aboso. She hopes to upgrade the sewers and possibly expand the water system.

Victoria, who is the head mistress of the school, was called and she came to Augustina’s home to see us. We discussed our next few days in Aboso. Plans were made to meet today at the school with members of the school construction committee and the town engineer. (Yes, they have a town engineer, just like in Jamestown!)

Hopefully, later this week we will also meet with the local building contractor who recently performed repairs on the school. We can talk with him about construction schedules and costs.

AMSTERDAM (Thursday, Oct. 28, 2009) — We are watching a foggy dawn outside of our window at Schiphol, the international airport in Amsterdam. There are passenger jets from around the world sitting on the tarmac and airport workers are scurrying about attending to the planes. Kim and I are sitting in a pair of comfortable overstuffed chairs at the KLM Club as we wait for our next flight which will take us to Accra, Ghana. We have an eight-hour layover. Enough time to get some sleep and take showers.

We started the day in Jamestown, flew from Providence to Detroit and then on to Amsterdam.

This trip to Ghana is quite different from the one we took last fall. First of all, we know what the country and people will be like so we should not experience the same culture shock that we underwent a year ago. Last year Kim and I questioned our collective sanity in seeking to meet Safianu Sandah, a young man in Ghana whom we are helping with his educational expenses.

Second, we have a clear mission on this trip. We plan to meet with leaders in the village of Aboso and discuss how we can rebuild their local middle school.

Last year when we arrived in Aboso the villagers asked us to help them build a new school, as the old one was in ruins following a devastating storm. It has taken us a while to get organized, but we are finally ready to tackle the project.

We recently established the Ghana School Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization, in order to raise the money needed to rebuild the school in Aboso. Several Jamestowners have kindly agreed to serve on our board of directors and the foundation will certainly benefit from their expertise. They include Eric Archer, Elizabeth Delude-Dix and Ken Newman. Rhode Islander Vanessa Quainoo, who is a professor at the University of Rhode Island, is also serving of the board. Our final board member is Augustina Abidioo, who lives in Aboso. We met Augustina last year. She is a real sparkplug and serves as the chairperson of the local PTO and the elected district representative to the state senate.

Of course, along the way we plan to do some sightseeing, time permitting. In Accra we hope to visit with Steve Mecca of Jamestown. Steve, who is a university professor in Rhode Island, is currently on sabbatical and is involved in a variety of worthwhile projects to aid educational development in Ghana. He is also a member of the Jamestown Rotary Club. I hope to report on his activities for the Jamestown Press.

We also plan to visit with Joseph Quainoo, Vanessa’s husband. Joseph is the bishop of the New Covenant Church International in Providence. He was raised in Ghana and is currently working to complete his doctorate of divinity at one of the universities in Accra. Part of his project includes developing an alphabet for his tribe’s native language. He will then translate the Bible into his tribe’s language. We hope to report more on that.

We should mention that Joseph and Vanessa have helped establish a mission and medical clinic in the village of Enchie, which is not too far from Aboso. Their advice has been incredibly helpful. They also ship a container loaded with medical supplies and other donated items to Ghana about twice a year. They have said we can utilize space on the container so we can collect items to ship to Aboso. We’ll talk more about that later.

We should land in Accra at about 7 p.m. this evening local time. Ghana is four hours ahead of Jamestown. We’ll one day in Accra and will then drive to Aboso on Saturday, about a six-hour trip.