I'm back in the lovely village of Luhuor. We spent our time in Nkawkaw relaxing and learning from Father Paul Lawer. He spoke to us of Africa traditional religion and it was quite interesting to hear about the rituals and beliefs including about witches. After four trotros' and one taxi I made it home around six on Friday night. I was greeted by hugs and smiles. I have been experiencing fatigue the last few days this is probably due to the fact that I havn't been able to sleep much the last few days. After sleeping on a very comfortable bed in Nkawkaw and going home to a bed which allows me to sleep in limited positions due to springs sticking out of the mattress can be difficult. Oh well, I will adjust.

Anyways since arriving home I have begun to admire my four Yayos' (mothers) even more. I watch them go about their work each day, looking after so many children, carrying huge loads of water, wood or other goods on their heads and taking time to laugh even when it is so hard. I want to tell them how much I admire them and am in awe of their strength but it is difficult due to the language barrier. I hope I can think of a way to show this admiration to them.

I was also able to 'try' and pound fufu yesterday. for those who don't know fufu is just another way to eat cassave, you pound it with a heavy log and it becomes quite gooey. This was an achievement that my Yayo allowed me to try and Pound the fufu.

Anyways, I must go as my time is ending on the computer and I am off to the market.

Peace & Love
Cait

Princess of Luhuor

I wake up each morning to sounds that make me realize that I am actually in Ghana. First at about 5:00 am the roosters crow. That then tells the goats that its time for them to start their day and they start to talk to each other. Then my family wakes up at about 5:30, I hear yelling in Dangme, buckets of water being poured and scurrying around. Finally someone next door turns on the radio to the local radio station, 93.3, radio Ada. I throw my sheet over my head, toss and turn for about another hour, I then know it's time to wake up. I quickly changed into my sarong grab my bucket and go outside to get water that we fetched the day before from the pond about a 5 min walk away. I go behind the cement wall that covers about up to my shoulders and take a bath with dirty water. Next I have tea. Some morning I have fried egg, bread and Milo (like hot chocolate but 10 times better) and the odd time I have Wachee (rice beans with a hot pepe sauce on it). I eat my breakfast and was my dishes with the same water that I used to bath. My task during the day change from time to time. At times I spend taking the tops off of pepe which my family, usually my young brothers spent time farming. My Yayo (mother) then drys the pepe and will sell it when the price is right. Others days I remove kernals from dry corn it's hard work that usually ends with blisters. My Yayo currently sells this at the market, people grind it and use it to make a variety of food. On Tuesdays and Fridays I go to Market with my Papa, he is 96 yrs old, the oldest man in my Village called Luhuor, and still going strong. He is well respected. We run errands in the market and usually I find time to sneak away to see friends including Amanada, Ayrn and Mark. I've also started attending the Jr. school where most of my siblings go to school. I am lucky enough that I met a teacher there from Accra, the capital, who speaks perfect English and really wants me to come to his class. It also helps that he is probably the most beautiful person I have every seen in my life. I hope to get more involved in the class, maybe do some marking for the English class. After or during any of these activitys I will eat lunch. Usually a ball of kenkay, which is made with the dried corn, with pepe. By 2:30 my siblings have come home from school and spend the afternoon playing games with them. I often just watch the women cook and try to help them in any way I can. So much preperation goes into a meal. My family feeds 18 people including myself. Each night we eat Bonku, it's the staple food in Ghana, with some kinda of stu or just pepe. Bonku is made from Cassava and Corn dough. We eat a small amount of fish and its always divided equally between my entire family, all 18 of them. We eat in the dark as there is no electricity in Luhuor. I really enjoy this because, well sometimes the food taste sooo good but doesn't look as appealing. After dinner we turn the lanterns on. Some of my siblings complete homework, while others just sit and chat. At times the radio comes on and we dance. My sisters and cousins taught my how to dance to traditional Dangme music so I was able to repeat this the other night with my other Yayo. Finally at about 7:00 or 8:00 I go to bed. I dream all night, sometimes of home, other times of my new home. Then I start it all again.


Thats my day, seems simple but I learn a lot. Ghana is a beautiful country with a lot of pain and suffering. Hard work doesn't even begin to explain how people in the village spend each day. Everything is worked for, nothing comes free. Something as simple as water is valued so much because of the amount of time and effort it takes to get it. I enjoy fetching water, I have improved my carrying capacity and have moved from a small bucket to a medium sized basin. My family sometimes drinks the water, this scares me because I can only dream of all the bacteria that is present in this dark grey liquid.

The food in Ghana is delicious, repetative but delicious. It also comes at the cost of blood and sweat. My family spends hours at farm in order to make the food they eat. They earn an income only after of spending hours and hours of labour working with hot pepe or corn.

I believe that education is the key to success in countries like Ghana, but when I attend classes I see that it can be difficult. Not only are some students not present in the classroom because they have to work for their family but there are limited teachers. the teachers in Ghana require two years of education after they complete secondary school. Sometimes I notice that lack of education. One day when I was sitting in class, the teacher was teaching english to a level three class. He asked the students to name of verbs, one girl said thinking. He laughed and said can I see thinking. Sometimes I find it difficult to go to school because they practice caneing of students. One day Aryn and I went to class and the teacher caned a male student for not being able to speak English properly. His native language is Dangme and she is teaching the English class. I kinda thought it was somewhat her fault that he didn't understand what she was teaching. I was curious to know what caneing felt like, was it really that painful. So the other day Aryn and I were in our newly befriened teacher Ben's class. It was break time and we were talking to Ben about Canada, Ghana etc. Aryn was holding the cane in her hand just examining it. I said Aryn cane me. And she did, on the back 'lightly' as she says. It really did hurt, left as mark aswell. I was happy I was able to experience this first hand.

My family is beautiful. I think it was fate that I was placed with them. I live with four strong women, two under 45 and two over 70, who do all the work for the family minus some of the farming the boys do. But they are controlled by and answer to my papa. I struggle with this and will continue to struggle with it.

I have so much to learn in such a small amount of time. In a few days we are off to Nkawkaw where we will have our first retreat. Not sure what to expect, hopefully just some down time and good times with Aryn, Mark and Amanada.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Peace and Love

Here I am..

well, I've made it. Finally--Africa. Well, thats a huge lie.. Yes, I'm in africa, but I'm not experienceing Africa. I'm not even really experienceing Ghana. I've just seen a small part of the Southern tip of this beautiful country. Still hard to believe. We arrived in Accra on The fourth of October at about 7:00pm. We were recieved by Sister Bernedette, Eric and Jackson (Our godsend "tourguide"). We then were taken to a hostel called the Salvation Army.There we were roomed with a women named Claudia who travelled from Togo to study English. She is hoping to move to the United States to live with her Husband.

We were typicl tourist in the capital of Ghana. We to the first presidents musuem, walked through markets besing *tst*ed at to come and buy things. We also went to the "dead White Man's Markets" where North American second hand clothing is sold. We also made our way to Shiny Beach where we swam in the Giant Waves. We tried new foods and met new people. We then were picked up by Eric and Sister Bernedette and came to Ada where we would begin our language lessons. We stayed at Dinahs house with her nieces Happy and Sala. We traveled to the school which teaches a wide range of students from young children, six of so to 20 yr olds. We sat in on Dungba lessons and picked up what we could. We also had a private teacher, Dinah's Niece Vida come and teach us every evening. I will be the first to admit that this language is extremly difficult to learn. Their are many sounds involved that we never use in the English language.

While in Ada we were also given local names. Mine is Akutu Yayura. The Akutu was given to me from Dinah and it means first born female. Yayura was given to me from Jackson, it means blessing. The names Jackson gave us are all names parents give to their children at birth which my symbolize what the childs brith meant to them at that time.

Today we are off to Battor to visit Sister Bernedette, then on Sunday we will be immersed into our vilalges. I will be living in Luhuor which is the furthest village, it will be about a 45min bike ride to Amanda and Aryn.

Anyways, that is about it for not. The next time I will post will be in about 3 weeks we will just be begininng our first retreat in Nkawkaw.

:)

Counting down the hours...

Tomorrow the adventure begins. Hard to believe, so hard I don't think I actually DO believe yet. These last few days that I had with my family and friends were wonderful. I was able to spend time with some of the people who I love and most importantly able to say bye for now.

Tomorrow at 10:20 pm I fly from TO to Amsterdam then to Accra, Ghana. Yes, Thursday I will be far away from those I love, the comfort of my home and western life. But I will be closer to the new beauty that I will discover, the friendships I will make and the knowledge I will gain.

I will write on the blog as much as a can but my access to the internet is limited. Thank you to everyone for the support, I will be thinking of all of you in the coming months.

Until next time.

No Difference

No Difference

Shel Silverstein

Small as a peanut,

Big as a giant,

We're all the same size

When we turn off the light.

Rich as a sultan

Poor as a muite,

We're all worth the same

When we turn off the light.

Red, black or orange,

Yellow or white,

We all look the same

When we turn off the light.

So maybe the way

To make everything right

Is for god to just reach out

And turn off the light!

Quote

I really enjoy quotes. I believe it is a quick way to learn from other people's wisdom. From time to time I will post quotes that I find knowledgeable, inspirational or just beautiful kind words.





"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure.It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God.Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.It is not just in some; it is in everyone.And, as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

--Nelson Mandela
1994 Inaugural Speech, (a quote from Marianne Williamson)