October 13, 2008

It seems no matter how little money women have they always keep a little tucked away to buy pretty things. :-) This mother and daughter are selling hairpieces, jewelry and women's clothing. The ladies they sold to at this little shop were excited with their purchases and put them on right away.
Along the roadside in a small village between Suhum and Koforidua we found three young men weaving the Kente cloth. This cloth is the national cloth of Ghana and recognized worldwide. The patterns are made to represent local proverbs or events in the community and each has a name.
I'm not sure what patterns they are weaving or what they mean. I'm also not sure why the thread of one is set out much farther than the others. Maybe he is just beginning his roll of weaving. The pieces are woven and then the strips are sewn together. I have a shawl at home made from the cloth.
The men said they sell their cloth to markets in Aburi where there is more tourist trade. They were ready to sell to me, but I was in a hurry to get to a meeting. We may stop and look at what they have another time.
A closer view of the work. Notice they roll up what they have finished.
They worked very fast while I was there. Notice they use both their hands and their feet to work the machine. They are very patient workers.
We finally went out to celebrate Elder Max's birthday. He chose to go to the new Royal Plaza Hotel here in Koforidua. It is very nice and the food is good.
Strange thing is we have never eaten out in Koforidua where anyone else has been eating. We always have the whole place to ourselves. You can see it is very nice.
For those who haven't read my stick snake story, here is the "snake" I found under a chair on my porch. I took its photo from the doorway so I wouldn't have to get closer. When I zoomed in on the photo I was convinced it was indeed a snake. When my brave companion came to move the dead snake for me, he picked it up with the pliers, took about two steps and laughed, "It's just a stick!" So much for my paranoia of snakes.



Later I got brave enough to put it on the porch wall and get a better photo. What do you think?

The week we stayed home - Oct 6

This was a much quieter week for us. We invited the Ohene family to come to our house for dinner and family home evening. Elder Max told them a story from the Book of Mormon scripture reader.
Mom and dad listened too. (Dad is wearing something the former mission president's wife gave me when she left and told me to give it someone up here. They said they don't celebrate Halloween, but this would be great for dressing up at Christmastime.) The kids had a hard time getting it away from dad. :-)
The daughter went all out with a purple wig and all. She reminded me so much of Doug and Taunie's children as she danced around my living room. She was really very good. Their home is much too small for dancing.
Here is another moth I saved from our front porch. The chemicals used to spray our house do not discriminate between good and bad bugs. I put this one out on the lawn and it recovered quite quickly.
Since we were home this week I took my camera into the back yard again. I keep hoping we will be here long enough to grow oour own plantain, but nothing seems to come on these big trees.
Elder Max finally gave up on his American cucumbers and planted some seeds from here. So far they are growing well.
He is protecting these canteloupe from the snails. So far the score is Max 5, snails 1.
These large papaya (paw paw, pronounced po po here) are growing just over our back fence. We hope some will fall our way, but not likely.
These are also papaya but a smaller variety. They are also off limits for us. How fortunate these people are to have their food grow with such little effort on their part. No one lives on the lot behind us. Things just grow there on their own.
This is a coco yam plant. The young leaves are used to make a very popular soup/sauce here. The mature plant has yams that grow underground which are also well liked here.
Elder Max also planted cassava just to see if it would grow. He took a couple stems from the tall plant on the left, cut them in pieces and stuck them in the ground. They are now growing back against the wall. In front of them are some of our African tomato plants and then our pineapple on the right. You can see what a big back yard we have. I am about a third of the way from one side. The wall on the left is the rest of the back wall.
We've learned some African tricks for planting crops. Here is the way to keep the tomato plants supported. There are plenty of palm fronds around to do that.
Last of all, I recently mentioned the fun bracelet I bought at the bead market. The beads came from the country of Senegal which is on the coast a ways north of Ghana. It reminds me of candy. YUM! A close-up is needed to appreciate these unusual beads.

On the road again....

Since most of our week was spent in the car, most of the photos are taken from the car. Just a photo to show the amazing women of Ghana and to show why I buy my bread at a store in Accra.
Most everything we need, or don't need, can be purchased as we drive along the road. I have no idea how we would get it home, but I guess we could hire a taxi to deliver it. I wonder what they do when it rains.
There is also beautiful slate available on the roadside. I wish I had somewhere I could use it.
I've said for a long time I wanted to take some photos of signs we see on the way to Accra. Today the traffic was slow enough to get some shots.
The people use religious phrases or scriptures to name their businesses. I'm not sure the reason. It could be to thank God for what they have or to hope if they do that God will help their business to prosper.
Get out your scriptures and see why they gave this cosmetics shop this name.
Hair and hair styling is so important here. There are beauty salons on about every corner. This one is Blessed.
Another sign for an art studio. Here most signs are hand painted, so there is demand for sign artists and painters.
The only day we were home we went to the school next door to present their devotional. We enjoy being with these children.
Elder Max did a demonstration about choosing good friends, then I taught them the song, "I am a Child of God." They love to sing and are so anxious to learn new songs. I think they will like that one. (Please don't take note on the next photo that I accidentally wrote the wrong word to the song. It shows my age. The song used to go "All that I must know." At least when I gave the choir teacher a copy it had the right word, "Do" on it.)
Before we left I taught them the song about "The Ants go marching one by one...and so on." I had ten children come up to be the ants. I chose the youngest ones except for #1 who needed to know what to do. They were so cute. I had them march around the table. Before we were finished I got worried they would get dizzy and fall over. I let them keep the tags to use another time.
As we left Accra the other day we saw a most unusual cloud formation. Notice we are going toward it, not away.
We are glad Ghana is not a place known for tornadoes. It didn't have any twisting motion; it was just out there.
We did get a pretty good rainstorm as we got up in that area, but nothing more.
While we were at the temple site on another trip last week, we walked out to see very, very dark clouds in the sky. I stopped to look at the beauty of the scene. It seemed symbolic of the turmoil in the world and the peace of the temple.

I noticed in the center of the dark clouds a ray of light opening up right down to the steeple of the temple. The clouds were darker than they appear here. It was amazing.
When I was a child I used to like to lie on my back and look for shapes in the clouds. (Back in the days before TV and such.) When I posted this photo on my desktop and enlarged it, I was surprised to see an interesting shape in these clouds. Click to enlarge the photo. Look to the right and a bit above the angel Moroni statue. You will see a black speck that is a bird. Look just above that and try to figure out what you see. It was interesting to me. Let me know what you think.

All-Africa Service Day

September 20th was the All-Africa Service Day. Members of the church all over the continent were to participate in an organized project. Here in Koforidua they cleaned a drainage ditch that runs through a very busy part of town. There was good participation and a lot of compliments from the people in the area.
You can see the sand and sludge that had collected, preventing the runoff to drain away.
The missionaries turned out to help. Here are the sisters from our area.
I "risked my life" to go out to the middle of the road to get a good shot of the whole group. Actually I was standing on a traffic island, so all was well.
This sister was recently baptized. She is a "mechanical engineer." (She has her own shop and can fix cars and trucks as well as any man.) Her cute little boy was very patient through the whole project.
This dumpster was totally filled with sand and garbage before we were through.
He looks worn out, but this was actually taken before we did any work. He is a good actor.
I tried and tried to get a shot of all the men leaning over at the same time. They finally did it.
They worked so hard, shoveling for several hours.
The women were on the street using wheelbarrows and shovels to carry it all away.
Strong women here.
The elders worked hard in loading the dumpster and lifting heavy rocks.
There was a line-up for dumping.
Okay, I couldn't just take photos. I wanted to help too. Everyone kept trying to take my shovel away because American women can't possible know how to work like that. I did help fill a few loads and then someone did take my wimpy little shovel away.
I got a photo of this dear sister last year as she carried dirt and sang. The area public affairs people told me they put her in their video and set her to music. I hope they do it again this year. She took many, many loads.
A big slab of cement was found under all the sludge. It was partly blocking the channel. These men were determined to get it out. They tried lifting it but finally resorted to using a sledge hammer.
Elder Max did his share of shoveling into the dumpster.
This area will be in much better shape when the next big rainstorm hits our city.
A crowd gathered to see if the men could remove the cement block. They finally did.
When we finished the town officials gave a speech and recognized the good the church does in their community. And of course, they said, "We will come."