Hello everyone! So many things have happened since the last time I wrote, it’s a struggle to know where to begin! School started for Faith Roots Academy. All of the children living at City of Refuge attend that school, in addition to roughly 190 children from the local community. Surprisingly, I am teaching Botany! I will also be teaching health classes, alternating with Troy and Jammie. It’s been an adjustment to start teaching. Although, when in Africa, you must be flexible and ready to help wherever you are needed. Most of the time, it’s doing things you wouldn’t have pictured yourself doing.
This week we will be doing health screening for the new students, and also deworming the entire school. (Now there’s a phrase you don’t hear in the US!) It’s recommended that you take a dewormer about every six months. You can get worms from a lot of things here, and I can tell you from experience, they are no fun! I’ve had them on my previous trips, but I’m hoping this trip will be worm free!
I finally had a night off, so I decided to make the most of it! Another volunteer and I took tro tro’s to a nearby city called Akosombo. It sits along the Volta River, and is absolutely beautiful. Between the stillness of the water and not having anything scheduled for 24 hours, it felt wonderful! We took a kayak out on the river. We passed many huts where children ran out to greet us, yelling, “ Obruni, I love you!” It was quite adorable. (Obruni in the local language means white person) Many children were playing in the river, or bathing, and some were going to the bathroom. The river serves many purposes for the communities it surrounds. Many villages don’t have a water supply, so that also comes from the river. We were very careful to not tip the kayak over, because it’s definitely not water that you want to fall into. There are certain parasites that are very common in the Volta River because of it’s multipurpose use.
The next morning, we woke up early to go see Boti Falls. We took a tro tro to Kpong, and then another to Koforidua, and then another to Agogo. We hopped out early at the falls entrance. You walk down roughly 300 steps to this beautiful pair of waterfalls surrounded by lush, green vegetation. They said the water was safe to swim in, but we decided not to risk it. I’m glad we didn’t because a snake passed pretty close to us and went swimming in the pool beneath the falls! The locals told us that snakes in the water wouldn’t bite you, unless you were cursed. I didn’t feel like taking my chances! It felt so amazing to go exploring for a day. I came back feeling refreshed, and ready to work hard.
This past weekend, Jammie and I went up to Aveyime. We were asked to teach CHE ( Community Health Evangelism) to a group of women. It was such a wonderful experience. It was a two day seminar, and an estimated 22 women came from six different villages. On the first day, we taught more about mental and emotional health, and the second day we taught on physical health. On the first day I taught about a woman’s worth, through God’s eyes. It broke my heart to hear these women’s stories about how their culture views women. They said that in their villages, it’s not important for women to go to school. It’s thought that women should be at home, taking care of children. They said that men frequently practice polygamy, and take many wives. It was such a blessing to be able to share with these women how much God loves them, and how valuable they are in His eyes. We talked about how even if their culture doesn’t value them, God does, and that’s who’s opinion matters.
The second day of the seminar focused on physical health. The first lesson I taught was on hand hygiene and sanitation, and the second was on HIV. It was so interesting to learn the different beliefs about how HIV is spread. People told me it was spread by sharing eating utensils, sleeping next to someone in a bed, shaking hands, mosquito bites, talking to them, and sharing clothing. They said that people with HIV are sometimes rejected in their communities. This was heartbreaking. I told them now that they have had this education, they can return to their communities and spread awareness about how HIV is actually spread. They can help dissolve some of the fear surrounding the diagnosis, and work to love and care for these people.
Probably the most entertaining moments of the seminar were when the women tried to teach us how to dance and sing songs in their local language of Ewe. Let’s just say I need practice before I’m willing to try it in public. During the night, I heard loud drumming nearby. It continued passed 1am, and had me curious as to what it was. The next morning I asked someone who lives in the area. They told me that on Fridays they have funerals, and will drum late into the night. They also told me that sometimes they will make sacrifices to gods during this time. They said that human sacrifices used to be performed when a chief of a village died, but that’s now out of practice. They said that people in a nearby village tried to do a human sacrifice recently and they were arrested. Needless to say, it’s a very different culture than the one I grew up in.
During the mornings, I go on runs to the local village named Doryumu. I meet so many people who are curious as to why there is this random white woman running around. On one of these runs, I came across a little girl that I had met during a training we had done at her church. She wants to be a nurse when she grows up, and we became instant friends. She lives several kilometers away from me, but she brought her siblings to visit me. I have also been going to her house to visit her and her family. It’s the most amazing experience. I walk on paths through tall grass to get to where she lives. They pull out a nice chair from their house, dust it off, and offer me a place to sit. They cook me fufu ( pounded yam or cassava) over a fire, with okra stew, and some kind of meat that I’m afraid to ask questions about. The idea of hospitality is something that is lost in our culture compared to here. I know that this family doesn’t have that much extra money, but they don’t hesitate to feed me, and offer me what they do have.
This family also helps me learn the local language of Dangme. It’s difficult because depending on where you go in the country, you will run into various local languages. Right now, I am trying to learn Ewe, Twi, and Dangme. Keeping them all straight is quite the challenge! All the help I can get is very much appreciated. They actually wanted to learn Spanish, so I get to teach them something too! People here are so amazing with the amount of languages they speak. There are children at CORM who can speak six languages. It makes me feel lazy for only speaking English.
Thank you all for your continued love and support that you are sending my way. Please keep praying that God would grant us favor with obtaining our medical licenses here, as it is proving to be a lengthy process. Also, that God would continue to refresh us every morning, and to pull closer to Him instead of being consumed by the amount of work to do. Thank you and I love you all!
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