It's great to be in Ghana

We had to smile when we looked in the ovens at the church buildings. The seminary students use them to store their books and supplies so they don't have to carry them back and forth to the church. Most people here have never used an oven, so I guess storage is as good a use as any.
This is Sister Bauss. She is the office sister. She has been so much help to us and has become a dear friend. I think she found it hard to smile and talk on the phone at the same time.
This is Elder Bauss. He and his wife go home in April. They will be missed so much. We have made many calls to him about our water problems, power problems, wall problems, car problems and so on. We hope we can see them again when we get home.
One day last week we had to go get some copies made. We stopped at a little shop along the main road. We were amazed as we walked inside and saw this wonderful old printing press. The owner was happy to show it to us and even pose for a photo.
We tried to figure out how old it was but didn't find a date on it. The great thing about it is that this man uses it every day in his business. He prints receipt books and funeral notices among other things. It was so interesting to look at the tiny detail of the type set pieces. That is truly a talent to put all of it together.
I had to wonder if the man wouldn't get as much money by selling his press to an antique dealer as he would make the rest of his life. But he probably wouldn't be nearly as happy.
There are several old trucks around Koforidua that Max enjoys seeing. He always wants me to take a photo as he drives by going about 50 klm. This photo happened to work out. There is one truck that is totally covered with wood. We'll have to photograph it sometime.
Last Saturday we drove to Nkawkaw for an Open House. The scenery here is very pretty. The mountains are more rugged than where we live.
We had a hard time finding the chapel, but did eventually get there on a very bumpy road. You can see the back end of our latest vehicle. It is supposed to be a shade of grey, but as the elders like to tell us......it is Purple. Oh well, it has four wheels and runs well. We like it just fine.
Here is a view of the Nkawkaw chapel with President Brockbank just walking up to the gate. There were some hang gliders flying around by that mountain top, but I don't think they made it into the photo.
On the way home we saw quite a few young men selling snails along the roadside. We drove up to this young man and I got out. He would have been happy to sell me three snails for the 1 Gh I gave him. But he was even happier when I told him I just wanted to pay him for taking a photo of his snails. He could keep the money and sell the snails to someone else. (When we moved into our house, we had snails like this all over the yard. We gathered them and took them to someone who raises them. That works much better when we are trying to mow the lawn.)
This is just typical of the trucks that drive the Kumasi/Accra highway. They are so overloaded that someone is always trying to turn too quickly and flipping the truck on its side.
While waiting for a branch activity, we taught the African elders and sisters how to play "Cat's cradle." They had a lot of fun learning to do it, even if the only string was a roll of dental floss I had in my purse.
I later gave them each a piece of yarn to keep so they could continue practicing.
Here Sister Gray and Sister Otchere are figuring out a new move. Way to go, sisters.

Great Day in Osiem/Bad day for our wall

We had a day with no real appointments last friday, so we decided to drive out to Osiem and try to find our friend Onward. We hadn't seem him since we got back because we don't serve in his branch anymore. We used to meet him after he finished his day as a teacher. We would meet at the police station. I'm sure this was a wonderful building in its day, but it has fallen into disrepair. I am very careful not to take photos of government or police buildings, but wanted one of this building. The policeman always comes over to visit as we are waiting. (Not much else to do in this little village.) So Elder (President) Max asked if I could have a photo. He was happy to do that. He even posed in the doorway for me.
When we realized he didn't show up in the doorway, I asked him to step outside. He was telling us he and Onward are from a different tribe than most of the people around here. They come from the Volta region near the dam and speak a different tribal language....Ga, I think. Very nice man.
After Onward found us we set off to try to find a metal part for the bottom of my oven. The real one is missing so I burn everything. While they were talking to a welder about making me a "plate", I got some fun photos from the front seat of my car. Where else could you find three women with bundles on their heads, baby on a back and machetes (cutlasses) in their hands?
This little boy has one of the few toys we've seen in the villages. If you look closely it is just a piece of wood with two wheels. Then a long stick is fastened to that. The boys roll them along pretending to drive a vehicle. It seems to entertain them for a long time. The only other thing I've seen them do is roll an old tire along using a stick in their hand to control it.
These little children were very interested in me and kept peeking around the edge of the car. Finally I rolled down the window and started to visit with them. After a few minutes I asked if they would like me to take their photo. They hurried toward the car. It took some persuasion to get them to back up so I could get them all in the photo.
Then this school girl came by, knocked on my window and stood there smiling. I asked if she wanted a photo also. She did. They are such bright children with hope in their eyes. I just want to find more ways to give them reasons to hope.
We were leaving our compound the other day to go to a meeting. As we drove out of our gate we saw a man writing on our wall with red paint. We asked what was going on and he said the wall had to come down because this was supposed to be where a road would go. Wow! Didn't know that.
The land behind ours has a house on it now so I guess the owner wants a way to get to the front. He has a road that leads to the back of his property. Who knows how this will all come out. I'm just hoping it's like the salt project and they are still discussing it four years later. Maybe next week I'll have photos of the destruction and people walking about ten feet from our bedroom window, but I don't think so.
I took the wall graffiti government man inside to show him that the place they would come through the wall is exactly where our water line goes. That would all have to be replaced before anything was done. I also told him we were required to live where there was a wall and he agreed that was necessary. The owner insists there is no easement there and he owns that property. We'll see who proves to be right. (Never ending with this house. :-) The last section of the front wall would come down plus all you see on the right and about twice that much in the back yard. Crazy.
Last of all I have to include an "artsy" photo for Brad. He always takes the most interesting photos. This little stump of dead wood in our backyard has had some very dead looking mushrooms on it since we arrived. The other day I went outside after a rainstorm and saw that something very pretty had come from something quite unattractive. I wish I knew if they were eatable, but we won't risk it.

A busy week

We went to Suhum during the week and stopped at the new church building. The elders were excited to have their baptismal font delivered. This means they will no longer have to travel to Koforidua for baptisms.
The font was used for the first baptism about a week ago. Some were worried it would be too small, but they said it worked very well. It is nice when more members of the branch can be present for the baptism in order to welcome the new member.
This photo is taken from the "stand" of the chapel in the new building. The classrooms go around the edge of the courtyard you can see in the background. It gets noisy at times, but is much better than where they were. They don't rent the two-story part. They are hoping the owner will lower the roof on that part.
The Koforidua district invited us to the branch Family History Night. They came a little early to eat some of the fufu and chicken the sisters had prepared.
We were invited to join them, but eating from a common pot with my fingers just doesn't sound too appetizing or sanitary. But the elders and sisters love it.
While I was visiting in the Oyoko Branch we helped this lady and her sons shell some corn to be pounded for kenke.
They laughed when I started to do it and shot kernels at everyone, but I soon got about as fast as they were. The little boys were certainly cute.
This thirteen year old girl lives almost at the top of a pretty little hill on the edge of town. She was stirring the corn mixture for kenke. She told me she likes to come to Young Women. You can tell the girls because they wear earrings.
This is our Koforidua Zone at the Ghana Accra Temple. Sister Gray, on my right, is so much fun. She is from Liberia and is always doing something to make us all smile. She was posing for MY camera. I was just trying to control my skirt on a very windy day. We had a great time with all these elders and sisters.
If we haven't said yet, it has rained several times. (New Moon!) Now we are getting little critters in our house again. I just told this little guy if he could find his way in he could find his way out again. (I think I showered with him the next morning and Elder Reynolds saved him from the drain.) Those are hangers on the left. I kept the photo so he was right-side -up.
The other morning I walked out the front door and thought a bunch of seed pods had been blown on the porch. As I looked closer I could see they were wings. (And some kind of bug.) They were everywhere.
Here is the pile I swept up and threw over the fence so whatever they were wouldn't be tempted to come inside my house.
We drove to Asamankese on Saturday for a meeting. This is the chapel there. Very nice.
We saw a couple of trucks that had not been too careful in their driving. We aren't sure what happened here.
This was one of those logging trucks that tried to take a ninety degree angle turn a bit too fast. The little shacks in the background are ruined. I hope they were empty at the time. The next day when we went by most of the mess was cleaned up, except for the houses.

The Week of February 25

Last week I posted some photos of a wedding. I printed and took some of the photos to give to Cecelia. She wasn't expecting us and was in the middle of preparing dinner for her family. She was making banku, which is basically pounded corn and cassava that is then cooked over the stove, formed into round balls and served with a covering of hot spicy soup.
She was so excited to have the photos. She worked like this for about thirty minutes while I visited with her. While she was working, she told me the differences between fufu and banku, which are other favorite dishes of Ghana. Fufu is made the same way as banku, but with plaintain and cassava. Kenke is made from pounded corn. Then it is wrapped in plantain leaves and steamed. I like fufu, but haven't tried the rest.
The other day I took my camera along for our morning walk. The road just below us is under construction. Someone told us it is a Chinese company doing the job. They are creating an oiled by-pass to downtown Koforidua. This is a great idea since sometimes it takes 45 minutes to drive through town. Our intersection is torn up now. We hope they finish that part soon. This is an overpass or something further down the road. (No cross road there, though.) There is a dip in the road, so maybe this will just be filled in and made stronger. IDEAS?
It looks like it might be four lanes wide. Wow! I hope we can get out of our little road.
I tried to tell people at home what kind of dogs live here. This one will give you a good idea. 95% are either his brothers or cousins. The one thing I like about them is that they don't bark at us or even come over to sniff us. In fact, we seem invisible to them.
This well is along the road where we walked . It is used by all the people in the area who don't have water tanks. It had been hidden in the underbrush until the road crew cleared around it.
Imagine having to come here, lower a bucket and then carry the water back home on your head to use for bathing, cooking and washing. Most people don't drink this water. They buy what they call sachets off the street. They are little plastic bags filled with about eight ounces of water. We don't drink them. The water is clean, but there is no way to know how clean the outside of the bag will be. You have to bite it and then suck out the water.
More road construction right at our intersection. They are putting a culvert across the road for drainage.
Elder Max making his way up our little pathway. The white dot you can see on the left is our wall. I can't believe he is ahead of me. Usually not! I'm always saying, "Walk faster elder or we'll find someone who will." (Sorry, that's an inside family joke.)

The men across the street from us were cutting down all this growth. I'm sure they will try to burn it before the rains come.
More cutting down of the "bush."
Last but not least, our loaner rental car died last week. Here we are with a brand new Ford Ranger. Too bad we only get to keep it until we see the couple from Nkawkaw. They will trade us for their car. They live up where the roads are much muddier. Oh well, we really don't mind because the car has automatic transmission and the truck does not.