New experiences

We have been in Ghana 3 and half months and it seems there are new experiences almost daily. We have been stopped by police 4 times with radar guns and taken to the police station once for running a red light! Luckily for us they soften up when we tell them we are missionaries. We just say "oh no" anytime we see them flag us down. Only once did they have a car.....life in Ghana. We went to Accra in February to go to the LDS temple there with some church members from towns called Techiman and Tamale. We have been teaching some temple preparation classes. It was a neat experience to go through the temple with them. We also enjoyed dinner there in a restaurant that was as nice as what we find back home. It was called Lord of the Wings. It continues to be very warm here. As long as we have moving air we are fine but without fans we sweat in a hurry! We have experienced a doctor's visit with one of our sisters who needed her eye checked following an injury. We sat for 5 hours waiting to be seen. They do not have appointments. Luckily we saw an american doctor who is here on a 5 week rotation. We also visited a little neighborhood preschool and kindergarten. The teacher waved us down one day as we were walking home from our exercise. She invited us to come visit her school. They were tiny rooms but the children were all very warm and friendly.

This is common method of travel. I don't think they have a seatbelt law here!

An overloaded truck going down a steep hill. We have occasionally seen the remnants of these truck loads when they take a corner too quickly! They are quite top heavy

The Accra LDS temple at night with a full moon

Tamale and Techiman groups at the temple

Meet Frances Dodoo a former track star at Washington State University...He currently teaches African studies at the University of Ghana and is part of the Olympic committee in Ghana

Cheri is a friend of Lynn's cousin she met in China. Cheri teaches at the University of Ghana also

do you think it will keep it's load?

In the villageof Nkawkaw right by a missionary apartment

We went to a high school track meet for a couple hours at the stadium close to home. There were 64 high schools represented and the stadium was packed!

This is a Ghanian funeral celebration. It goes on for 2 or 3 days. The person was deceased a couple months prior but a celebration is planned and family and friends come from all over. They sit and visit and have a loud speaker that announces the name of a person attending and how much money they contributed to the family!

The neighborhood preschool.

How would you like to do your shopping at this market?

After 5 hours of waiting she got in for an eye exam. This was the first step to check vision. There are about 5 people in there at once. 2 are checked at one time

Yes, that is a sewing machine. We see all kinds of things on people's heads!

These are the four golfers each with their required caddy!

It's a barrel on his head!

This was a very sweet stake patriarch at his home. He had a pen with goats and chickens in the front yard. He joined the church in 1983 while in Germany. He had a cocoa farm and sold it. He travels 3 hours each way to work at the LDS temple twice a month by tro tro. (a large van)

This is a tro tro. Loaded down as usual!

Two of our wonderful missionaries walking a blind sister home. One is from South Africa the other from Utah

More impressions of Ghana

It has been a month since I have posted and much keeps happening. We are getting used to traffic here though we are constantly amazed at the vehicles on the road. We see sometimes 15 people crammed into tro tros which are the size of a minivan with an extra seat added to the back. Then they put their possession in the very back and tie the lid down. Big trucks often break down. They are left right where they break down until someone can fix them. Sometimes it causes a lot of traffic jams. We went to a monkey village a few weeks ago with 4 missionaries. It was quite fun. We bought bananas to feed the monkeys. They jumped right up on us and grabbed the bananas from our hands. If we held on tight they would sit and eat them from our hands. Ghanians continue to be very friendly people and often bend over backwards to help us. In one store they grab our shopping basket and follow us around carrying our purchases! We still have yet to see rain though I am told it will come with a vengence when dry season is over. We are alive and well and learning to love these people!We had a bread making activity in Relief Society. It was quite fun. I am trying to see how easy it is to carry something on the head! I am amazed what they carry!This is the machine used for kneading Most all of the taxis and trotros have something written on the back... some even have a scripture referenceEating fufu for the first time. It is plantain and kasava root pounded together and made into a ball...then put with a soup. Eaten with fingers :-)Enjoying the monkey village! fufu again! It was the last meal for some missionaries departing for home!Lynn is right at home as we work out at the neighborhood track!cow's feet anyone?A couple of sister missionaries burned their bedroom with accidentally leaving a heating coil on. These missionaries came over to scrub down the walls.floors and ceilings to get ready for a new paint job so they could move back in :-)

It seems every day is full of something new and different. One thing of interest is children in school. They all start going to “school” as young as under a year and they go full time. The parents have to pay for school so I guess most of them that can afford it send the children off young. I was visiting with the sister missionary that I waited 4 hours with last week at the clinic. She has a degree in teaching and hopes to be a teacher when she returns home. I asked her if she was ever caned in school. Her response was “oh, all the time!” Caning is being hit with a stick. I asked her the reasons….she said it was for just about anything such as being late to school (that would solve a lot of tardies back home!), doing poorly on a test, not having a clean uniform, not performing in class as the teacher thinks. That is normal behavior here. Wow. That is quite interesting as on the whole Ghanians are not violent people. We do see them yell at each other occasionally but we have not seen any evidence of fist fighting or shooting. Right now we are hearing that they are mortified that President Obama allowed some Al Quaida fighters that were in US prisons for years come to Ghana. He wouldn’t let them return to Afghanistan but they could come here. I don’t know the truth to that but it is what they are talking about. We are learning that sometimes the phone map sends us on rather interesting roads. One day this week we ended up going about 20 miles on some interesting dirt roads going from one missionary apartment to another. We were driving through the jungles again and passing through villages. We saw evidence of gutters being poured along the road….maybe in a few years there will be a road! We came upon the fellows mixing the cement by hand and pouring it in the wooden hand made forms. Amazing. When we arrived at the missionaries’ apartment they let us listen to the bats that are in the roof. They may have to find a different apartment for the missionaries to live in. There are lots of adventures with apartments. Plumbing issues seem to be frequent. The mission just received rechargeable fans that we are starting to pass out. They are quite nice. They can run about 15 hours from a full charge. We have one and I charge my phone on it also. That is a life saver when the power is out… It gets hot and humid in a hurry around here. We did see some blue sky for the first time this week! It will be nice to have harmattan over hopefully soon but it may become hotter with full sun. This morning we left early for Techiman where we had a district meeting. I helped with the training. We had a special time this afternoon. We called a set of sister missionaries and asked if we could go out with them. We met them and walked into a neighborhood village. We were with them as they taught two different households. We sat on chairs or benches right outside of their little huts. It was really a neat experience of which to be a part. We are staying in a house tonight that had no water. The plumber arrived from Kumasi about 7PM tonight. Lynn and he were outside for 2 hours and he finally got the pump working so we have water. We took him to the trotro to catch a ride 2 hours back to Kumasi. homemade pingpong table! This is a typical soccer field! we went to the market to buy fabric for curtains for missionary apartments. This was the fabric store! Sorry it is blurry big pieces of wood being pulled by a tractor and trailer. Note the tires This is common. When trucks and cars break down. They leave them there and fix them right there! typical site along the road. police checks are very common. We usually just smile and wave as we slowly drive by. One day we did get stopped for speeding. We were eating peanut butter on a cracker. We gave one to the police officer,apologized for speeding,smiled and told him to have a good day and drove off! Little chicken coop right along the side of the road. They carry everything in trotros! Note the fellow outside the window trying to get more customers to ride. This is the beginning of a funeral. They are held on Thursdays and Saturdays….many months after the person dies. They have to collect a lot of money to have a big celebration for the deceased. We passed 4 funerals on Thursday. LOL. We were already going about 10 mph! not sure what they were drying but we see this a lot. Maybe palm nuts getting a bath Sisters at district meeting. We gave them bags that were sewn by a benefactor in the US I believe these are onions being transported in a small trailer pulled by a motorscooter. we went to lunch with missionaries today having our first street meal…. Chicken and rice! It was good The sister missionaries teaching in the village. Lynn was in his element. The kids thought it was a lot of fun seeing this obrunie play with them! They are so sweet and cute!