Pediatorkope: Light and Heat

The huts on the island were all very hot. I noticed while I was in the Evangelical church that there was a nice breeze outside, but the heat inside was trapped in the ceiling and not circulating. My mind was wandering, so I started thinking about how you could alter the hut design to allow for circulation.
The basic Dangbe hut is constructed from mud. They shape mud into walls a foot at a time, wait for it to dry, and then build the walls a little higher. The process takes over a month. They frame in windows by placing 2x4's into the drying mud. Once the walls are done they make simple wooden trusses and cover them with reed thatch. The roof is quite waterproof, as far as I can observe. They usually leave a gap where the roof hangs over the walls, which allows some ventilation, but not much.
After throwing around a few rather complicated ideas, I realized that you could make the roof on one side extend a foot or two past the peak, and then cut the thatch back to make an opening a few inches wide on the other side of the roof. The extension would cover the vent from rain, and heat could leave the hut through the roof. This would allow cooler air to circulate in through the doors and windows.
I ate dinner with my new brother Moses, who happened to be a mason. He had built a number of huts, and had some good insights on hut design. I shared my idea with him, and we had a good time sketching different ideas out on a scrap of paper. One other option I had seen elsewhere is to drop the roof on the smaller sides down a few feet to create a triangular gable on either side of the roof.
Moses and his family were all interested in my flashlight. I'd crank it for a few seconds and turn it on. They'd turn it over in their hands and say "Battry?" "No, crank." "Oh, solah..." "no, not solar. Just a crank. See?" I'd crank it and show them how the light got brighter. They were amazed that you could buy a flashlight that was easy and free to recharge. Everyone on the island used these little kerosene lights, like large versions of the warmers that caterers place under the food trays. The burning kerosene creates an acrid smoke that fills the hut and makes you cough--I'm sure it's not healthy. It's also expensive: Moses said he spends 4-5 Ghanaian cd's each week on kerosene lights. He also buys D batteries for his flashlight about once a week. I did the math: they spend about 230 Ghana cedi's a year ($160 USD) for one kerosene lamp or flashlight. My family used three or four, which amounts to almost 1,000 cedi's a year ($700 USD). My flashlight cost $11.00 at Walmart back home. Say you paid $30 for it in Ghana--the flashlight would pay for itself in a little over a month. If the flashlight only lasts one year before breaking, it would still save you $130 a year, or a discount of 81%.
There are microfranchise organizations in other countries that help people to establish small businesses to become economically sufficient. You could borrow a thousand dollars, buy a bunch of flashlights and lanterns, and go out to a village to sell them. It works in other countries--I'd like to find out if it would work in Ghana. We're actually visiting Burro on our trip to the Eastern Region, and I'm excited to talk to them about the feasibility of the idea.

Pediatorkope: Churches and beaches

I woke up refreshed and well-rested the next morning. I took a wonderful bath, and ate a breakfast of bread and cheese. I was feeling generous, so I shared my food with the kids. I was touched by how well they shared food. The wedges of Laughing Cow didn't go very far, but the kids shared everything evenly. One would take a bite of a wedge of cheese and then pass it on. They may not be able to get along when it comes to waiting in line for kickball, but with important things like food, they make sure everyone is taken care of.

I waited for my papa to take his bath and get dressed. We were supposed to get to church at 9:30 am, and it was already 9:20. My papa had some position of leadership in the Methodist branch that met at the village school. He was dressed in a long sleeve, white shirt, and slacks. I felt out of place in my shorts and sandals, but I didn't have any room in my backpack to fit dress clothes. While we walked I practiced saying "good" and "bad" in Dangbe. For some reason they are very similar, and I wasn't able to get any of the villagers to understand the irony.

"How do you say 'good?'" "ehi." "and how do you say 'bad'?" "ehi." "They sound the same!" "no, listen. 'ehi', 'ehi'."

People would ask me what I thought about something and I would say 'ehi'. I wondered why half the time they looked at my funny. I guess I was telling them it was bad.

I figured out that the second syllable of "good" is pronounced nasally and with a downward tone, while the second syllable of bad is produced in the front of the mouth and with a rising tone. I had heard that Danbge was a tonal language, but up until this point hadn't encountered any problems with it. We used the words we learned without respect to tones, and people seemed to understand us fine.

We got to the church at about 10:00 and there were only a few other people in the room. The pastor was arranging a purple-fringed cloth over the lectern, a boy tuned a bass drum, and a lady in a white dress was singing into a megaphone. The meeting was scheduled to start an hour earlier, but no one was there yet. The pastor started the service. My papa had written the agenda on the board. The theme for the day was "I will give eternal life to those who follow me."

There were a few scripture verses listed, and next to those were names of people who were assigned to read them. I also saw a list of eight or so hymns.

After an opening message we started singing the first hymn. People began filing into the meeting. The music was amazing--I kept telling myself that I was listening to Africans singing. The lady with the megaphone would lead, the boys would drum to the rhythm of the song, and the congregation (which had grown to over 20) would sing along mostly in unison. My papa would shout the words of the song after we sang them. There was a visiting preacher from Big Ada, and he had a resonating baritone voice. He sang a counterpart to the congregation. When they would die down he'd start up, then they would swell together and break. At times I felt almost moved to tears.We'd sway and clap, and I'd attempt to sing along. You could tell everyone knew the tunes. The hymnbooks only contained words.

After each hymn we would have a scripture reading, or we would recite something in Dangbe--probably the Lord's prayer or a creed. I just listened. The villagers would lower their heads and whisper into the desks. The visiting pastor would sometimes get very animated, whispering explosively and bursting into tongues and growling. When that happened the hair on the back of my neck would rise, but hearing all of the villagers reciting was an interesting aural experience.

The visiting preacher was given his turn at the lectern. He paced the floor like a caged leopard, staring off into some unseen place and yelling fervently in Dangbe. Every once in awhile he'd pause his yelling and whisper something like "thank you Jesus." I was only two feet away from him at one point during his circuit around the front of the room, and when I looked into his eyes I saw no human recognition, as if he were temporarily autistic. Shortly after his scheduled tantrum, he sat down and became just another friendly villager again.

After church I walked over to meet my friends. They were attending an evangelical church, which still had 30 minutes to go, so I slipped in. It was a very different experience. A lady in a bright yellow dress was visiting from Tema. She would charismatically tell stories (again, in Dangbe) and recite scriptures. The conclusion of every story was a heartfelt "hallelujah," which everyone in the room would repeat. People would frequently interject with "Praise Jesus", "Thank you Jesus", or things like that. In general, the message was much more everyday than the Methodist scripture reading. She would talk about food, clothing, and the fact that God had brought obrunis to this church for the first time. At the end they pulled out this collection plate and the men and women lined up separately into almost a Conga line, dancing in a procession toward the collection plate. Each person would drop some money into it and dance back to their seat.

The preacher wanted to take some pictures with us afterward, and invited us to return to the island and donate to the church.

After church we gathered at the riverbank to meet our canoe driver. We had planned on touring the islands the day before, but our driver wasn't available due to the heavy rains. We generally try not to do certain things on the Sabbath, but we did want to explore the rest of the islands, so we took a vote and decided to go. We all hopped in with four villagers and sped down the river toward the estuary, where the Volta meets the sea. We passed colorful fishing boats, big mansions at Ada Foah, and little resorts. Eventually we reached the estuary. A narrow sandbar separated us from the sea. We beached the boat and hiked up the dune to see what was on the other side. There were waves! Good ones!

I took off down the beach, dove into the water, and before I could think straight I was coasting back to shore on a little peeler. Everyone else was laughing. I hadn't been surfing (or bodysurfing for that matter) in a very long time, and it was heaven to be back in the waves, even without a board. The outgoing river created interesting sandbars and currents which cause the waves to wedge and break partially perpendicular to the shore. They're peak up and grind across the shore like a point break. It was so fun! The waves would sometimes break directly on the sand, and I'd get tumbled around for awhile. I jammed my big toe after an especially powerful collision.

After awhile everyone got tired and piled back into the boat. I was reluctant to go, but was starting to feel burnt, so I scrambled back up the dune and strapped on my life jacket. We ate sugarcane on the ride back and took a bunch of pictures of palm trees and colorful boats.

Pediatorkope: Kickball and Sardines

I was reluctant to leave my friends after the fun we had in the rain, but we knew our families were waiting for us. A mild sense of homesickness and anxiety had settled over me during the day. I was mostly dreading another sleepless night alone in the heat of the hut.

I made the two-mile trek back to the village and found the boys playing with a partially-deflated soccer ball. We kicked the ball around for awhile and the thought crossed my mind that I should try teaching them kickball. My Dangbe was still extremely limited: I knew how to say "ball", but we gave it a go. I marked out three palm trees as the bases and stuck a stick in the ground for home plate.

After some work I got them to line up and showed them the process of kicking the ball and rounding the bases. They giggled when they learned that you could tag someone with the ball and send them back to the dugout. We started playing and it quickly turned into a game of tag: one boy would kick the ball and start running as fast as he could, straight past first base, into the outfield, and out of the village, usually trailing the pitcher behind him.

I taught them that when you touch the base, you are safe and can't be tagged out. This was good for them, because a few of them were nursing headaches from being tagged out rather forcefully. We started the game again and the kids were running from one tree to the next, regardless of which base was which. Sometimes one of them would scurry up the palm tree and sit there taunting the pitcher. That was an interesting new element to the game.

In between uncontrollable laughing fits, I would teach them a new rule. Eventually we had a rather orderly game: the first kid in line would kick the ball, round the bases, and run home, giving hi-fives all around.

I quickly found that the kids didn't like waiting in line. After rounding the bases, instead of going to the back of the line, they'd try to see how far up the line they could cut. This led to arguing and a little crying almost every round. In the morning I had seen turkeys fighting in the yard. They puffed out their chests, stuck their heads up high, and bounced into each other like teenage boys. It was quite hilarious. I'd tell the boys "kapui klakumi." "Don't be turkeys." and they'd all laugh. Then we'd have a group hug, everyone would say "I love you, I love you, I love you" and we'd try to make a line again. They were doing better by the end of the game.

We never kept score, and the only player on the field was the pitcher. We had so much fun, though. After awhile they started to really get it, and they'd steal bases, play chicken with the pitcher, and kick the ball where they thought would minimize the likelihood of any of their teammates getting tagged out.

It was starting to get dark, so we broke up the game. I realized that my camera batteries were dead, and someone told me that there was a generator on the island, back up by the school. They turn it on every night from six to nine-thirty. Ray was staying with the schoolteachers in a brick house by the school, and he said that the lights would suddenly come on at night and the electrical outlets would work for a few hours. I wanted to charge my batteries for the next day, so I set out for Ray's house.

Every time I made the trek to the village I remembered how long it was. The time is also compounded by the fact that every villager you meet stops to talk to you, ask you where you are going, and give you directions. They eventually sent one of the village boys to accompany me. My feet were starting to get tired. I have high arches, and when I walk in my sandals for very long my feet start to ache.

We eventually got to Ray's house, said a quick hello. He was learning how to pound fufu. It looked like a big ball of yellow taffy. One person would pound it with a five-foot long stick that was fatter at one end, and the other person would shape the ball of dough in the bowl, holding their hand precariously close to the stomping going on. We left them to their dinner preparation and started back for the village. My feet and back were aching from all the walking. My friend started calling me "kawi" (crab), because I was hunched over and shuffling my feet. When we finally got back to the village we had been walking for almost two hours, just to charge some batteries. Yes, everything in Africa takes longer to do than back home.

We sat down to dinner, and I noticed that I didn't mind the banku as much as I did yesterday. I was a few bites into a big ball of dough, when they set a dish of fish stew on rice in front of me. I was honored that they would give me rice, as it is a luxury. At the time it was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten. I found out that the fish were tinned sardines, served in that pepper, tomato, onion sauce I ate the night before. I hadn't eaten much in two days, so I was very grateful for the food.

We joked around for a little while after dinner, and by bed time (about 8:30 pm) I was so exhausted that I shuffled into the hut, rolled under the mosquito net, and fell promptly asleep. The air was deliciously cool from the rain, and the animals were sheltering somewhere else in the village. It was a wonderful night.

Pediatorkope: Morning at Last

I woke up the next morning tired, but extremely glad for a new day. The roosters were crowing outside, the frogs were dying down, and I could hear the little birds in the palm trees starting to chatter. I got up, changed out of my sweat-drenched clothes, and left the hut.

People were already hard at work outside. They used bundles of reeds to sweep the yard and gather up the trash (I still haven't figured out what they do with it. I never detected that "burning trash" smell.) A pot of water was boiling on the fire.

My new father greeted me. His name, by the way, is Joseph Quality Agamah. He decided to name me Agudi, which means "First born." Each family chooses a set of names to give their children, and that identifies you personally and as part of a specific family. It beats facial scarring, like they do in Mali...

He asked me if I would take my bath. I said sure, not knowing exactly what that entailed, and he signaled to his daughter to get it ready. The bathing area is a 10'x10' enclosure. They stick stakes in the ground that eventually sprout into trees. They weave palm fronds into a mat and wrap that around the posts to make a little wall. I looked inside and saw a bucket full of clear water. I decided that I wasn't ready to bathe in the buff, so I changed into my swimming shorts and took my bath.

It was great! A little awkward, though. You slather soap all over yourself, do your best to rinse off by cupping water in your hands, and finally dump the bucket over your self (that was the best part).

I got dressed and quickly ate some bread and cheese that I had brought to the island. We had been told that they would provide dinner, but we would need to take care of the other meals. Well, when I left the hut there was a little table set outside with a bowl of bread and a cup of coffee. She motioned for me to sit and eat. I ate some bread, but didn't know what to do with the coffee (1: I don't drink coffee, and 2: it was made with river water). I eventually was able to communicate to her that my stomach was too weak for coffee and gave it to the kids.

I played with the kids awhile, teaching them tic tac toe in the sand, until Papa Joseph took me out to see the sugar cane fields. We left the village and winded through the bush on a narrow sandy path through mangroves. The mosquitos were pretty thick in places, but it was beautiful. The sugarcane grows everywhere. All you have to do is hack it down with a machete and bundle it up. They take it by boat to Big Ada across the river and sell it in the market. Some of it is processed locally into rum. They also tap the palm trees, which provides an instant supply of cheap alcohol. The liquid ferments within a few hours after tapping. After hearing that I expected to see drunk people everywhere, but never noticed much drinking at all while on the island.

While I waited for Papa Joseph to take his bath the kids taught me Dangbe: goat, rooster, chicken, tree, coconut, crab--you know, all the basics. I found out that many people in Accra speak Ga, which is almost identical to Dangbe, but I quickly realized that most of the words I was learning would be useless in the city. "The crab bit me." "I want to drink coconut." "I like your goat." These were the kind of sentences I used most frequently on the island.

We hiked two miles back to the school to meet my friends. Isaac had brought some green and blue paint for the playground. I guess I never provided any background information: my uncle Ben Markham founded Empower Playgrounds after living in Ghana as an LDS missionary. He builds playground equipment that generates electricity for village schools. The kids play on merry go rounds and swings, and that charges LED lanterns that they can take home and use inside their homes. Ben graciously arranged our visit to the island, the host families, and even our travel to and from Accra. We are very thankful for his generosity.

Isaac thinned the paint with gasoline, something I had never thought about but I guess it works fine--it does evaporate. We put a new coat on the merry go round and then went down to the river to swim. Looking back, it probably wasn't a good idea to swim in the Volta River. It does contain the pollution of two African countries. But we were hot and had a rough night, so we decided to brave the water. Isaac took us out in a canoe past the marshy reeds and we jumped in. It was so nice to see my friends again, and to speak English for awhile. We tread water in a circle and talked about our crazy experiences from the night before.

It started to rain as we were getting out of the river, so we just stayed in our swimsuits and walked around. A guy named Tete took us crab hunting, which basically meant laying the little tin-can traps next to a crab hole. The rain was pouring down in buckets, and it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Tete climbed up a coconut tree and knocked down a dozen for us. We all guzzled coconut juice and Isaac taught us how to get the meat out. You stick you thumb in between the meat and the shell, and work your way around. It comes out in one big piece.

It was a magical experience. Standing in the cool, drenching rain, playing with my friends, and eating coconuts. Most of us had experienced similar things the night before, and we compared notes. The whole village experience was more difficult an adjustment than we had thought (looking back, that's a no brainer. We were in Africa.) We were reluctant to separate and go back to our families, but it was almost time for dinner again.

Pediatorkope: First Night in a Hut

I went inside the hut to drop off my backpack and food, and started to feel a little nervous. Huts look romantic on the outside, but the inside is dark, dirty, cluttered, and very hot. I was glad to see that I would be sleeping on a bed; the only bed in the hut. I wondered where they would be sleeping. Would we be sharing the bed??? Or was there a bed somewhere else?

I met my new brother Robert. He was 39, and recently returned from Accra. He took me around the village and introduced me to everyone. I was starting to get tired and feeling a little shell-shocked from being separated from my friends, in a new place, surrounded by people who didn't speak my language, and it seemed already expected me to understand theirs. Robert would take me to a new family, introduce me, and they would smile, and laugh, and chatter at me in Adangbe. I would say "Hello", "how are you", "I'm good", and then shrug and smile while they continued to ask me questions. Heck, those who spoke English were hard enough to understand.

The introductions seemed to last forever. When I finally had met every last living soul in the village, we went back to the hut for dinner. I met all the grandkids. They were inquisitive and hilarious, and almost all were boys. We started playing games: I taught them thumb wars and tic tac toe. We went for a walk down to the river bank, where they threw off their clothes and dove into the water to play and fight. They filled some empty gasoline containers with river water for cooking, drinking, and bathing, and we walked back to the village.

The kids were fascinated by my crank flashlight: "batteries?" "no." "Solah powah?" "no." Then they'd look at me like we had run out of options. I'd show them the crank and let them play with it. They were all glad to have another flashlight around, and resumed playing tic tac toe in the dirt, with the aid of my flashlight.

My new mother brought out dinner, which consisted of banku and fish stew. Banku is a mixture of fufu (pounded cassava) and corn flour, mixed with water and cooked like porridge, except it has the consistency of cookie dough. Everyone reaches into the bowl and breaks off small pieces of it, dips them into the fish stew, and swallows them whole. I kept gagging on the banku until I learned to grab smaller amounts at a time. The stew was very fishy-smelling and full of bones. I had a hard time eating enough to claim I was full: I kept thinking about river water carried in a petrol container; I thought about typhoid, food poisoning, etc. and was glad when I somehow convinced them I was full.

I went to my hut and promptly stripped off my shirt. I was covered in sweat. I spread my twin sheet from Walmart over the musty-smelling bed and laid down. The rest of the family was still listening to Bob Marley on the radio and washing dishes from dinner. It was very hot inside, but after an hour I finally managed to fall asleep.

It was a night of suffering: I woke up after only an hour, feeling wide awake. I felt on the verge of heat stroke, or dehydration, or just hysteria. I was drenched in sweat. I could hear the ticking of the clock on the wall, the sheep bleating outside, and these cursed frogs that actually sounded like legions of people snoring. It was impossible to sleep, but for some reason I never got up to find my ear plugs--the fatigue from the heat made me unable to move.

I closed my eyes and tried to tune out the other noises. Every time I would check my watch I'd notice that only ten minutes had passed. Time slowed to an agonizing crawl. I found out that everyone in the family crowded onto a palm mat in the front room, under a mosquito net. I could hear parents in the other room snoring, kids giggling, and people going to the bathroom in a chamber pot. I prayed that God would allow me to sleep, or at least massacre all of the frogs in the village. Finally, around 3:30 am I fell asleep, and woke up at 5:30 so glad to get out of the hut.

Pediatorkope: The Landing

We piled into the little boat and motored around the river, zigzagging around small, uninhabited islands in the river, speeding toward Pediatorkope. We noticed some tiny islands that seemed to be moving, and realized that they were actually huge masses of plants floating down the river! We rounded a bend and could see off in the distance a sandy beach. I recognized it from the pictures Ben had shown me when he visited the island. I can't describe how excited we all were. I felt like I was visiting some place in the afterlife--I had looked forward to this experience for months; the thought kept me sane while I was slogging through government accounting, budgetting, nonprofit law, and the rest of my classes. And now we were finally here, halfway around the world in Africa, setting foot on a primitive island in the Volta River.

We landed on the sandy beach, between two palm trees jutting out over the water at awkward angles. A few village kids were watching us from one of the trees, and another small mob of children eyed us shyly from farther up the beach. The men at the landing looked at us inquisitively for a few moments and then broke into big smiles. Soon the children came running up to us. We exchanged high-fives with a few and Jasmine started a game of "can-you-make-this-face." She'd do something and all of the kids would mimic her. It was the most hilarious thing I'd ever seen. At one point she started singing Harry Belafonte's banana song and they ran around in a troop singing it for an hour. Even after we left them we could hear "Daaay-oh, day-ay-ay-oh" off in the distance.

The wildlife was amazing. A big black iguana with an orange head and tail scurried up a tree. A million bird nests hung from the fronds of the palm trees above. There were mangoes, coconuts, and little figs growing everywhere, with some banana trees. The ground was paved with beautiful little shells: purple ones, white, pink, and orange. Most lived in mud huts with thatched roofs, but there are some cinder-block houses with tin roofs as well. We saw goats, sheep, dogs, turkeys, and chickens (the baby chicks were dyed bright pink to deter the hawks). We later found out that all of these, even the dogs, are raised for food. There were a few cats too. Hopefully no one eats those.

The trees are very beautiful: Neem (bodhi tree), royal poinciana (regarded by some as the most beautiful tree in the world), some tulip-looking tree, and mangroves seemed to be the most common. All the furniture was made of mahogany and teak. There is sugar cane everywhere as well.

We gathered in chairs under a tree and had a quick lesson in Dangbe, the local language.

Moiye - Hi (Welcome)

Yay - Hi back

Kayonga kay - How are you?

Inga sa minya - I'm good

Onga sa minya - How are you?

Eeeeeeeeh - I'm good

It's a funny language. Kinda like something Bob Marley might spontaneously invent when he's baked. We noticed that people would have entire conversations consisting mostly of "eeeeeeeh". It's a standard greeting, acknowledgement of understanding, and a general catchall response to any question.

After our introduction to Dangbe we made a procession through the villages and dropped each member of our group off with their host family. Each time we'd give a round of hugs, say "eeeeeeh", and keep going to the next village. We ended up spread out over almost two miles, among a few different villages connected by sandy footpaths. I found out that I would be the last one left. We walked for what seemed like forever, and the scenery began to look less dusty and more sandy. I noticed more palm trees and sugar cane. We were approaching the end of the long island.

We came to another village and met my host family. An elderly man with a towel around his waste wrapped me in a sinewy bear hug. I would call him "Father", and I was introduced to my "brothers" and "sisters". My new mother was ushered out from somewhere inside, and she greeted me with a big smile. They were going to teach me Dangbe, feed me, and I would live with them in their hut, they said.

Accra

I slept in my clothes last night: just collapsed on the bed, and woke up in the same position. I felt great. A new day was starting--and an African one at that! I crouched under the cool shower spigot for a few minutes to wash up and ran downstairs for breakfast. A dark, moustached man wiped glasses behind the bar while a loud Ghanaian soap opera blared from the tv. The breakfast buffet was interesting: sweet, non-acidic spears of white pineapple, hard-boiled eggs, the same thick, sweet bread we had eaten the night before, watermelon, baked beans (for some reason), and pineapple jelly.

I ate quickly and went outside for a walk. Accra reminds me of Mexico: every street looks like a back alley; open sewers flank the sidewalk; plywood shops are set up everywhere, selling anything from bottled water to clothing and even dog collars. I walked down the street to Barclays Bank to break a few large bills. I broke out my camera and took a few pictures of city life. People walking around mostly ignored me politely, and the ladies in the shops were very nice. I ambled around and chatted with people. A sign on a passing truck proclaimed "Satan is a liar." I spent 15 cedis ($11 USD) for a beautiful handbag made from colorful scraps of batik cloth. (I found out that if something has a price on it, you just take it. no haggling there.) I stopped in another shop to buy some water. Prices in Ghana vary widely--I got a bottle of water for 20 pesewas (14 cents) that would have cost 1 cedi (69 cents) at the hotel.

We met Isaac and Mr. Narteh at the hostel. They had brought a van to take us to the island. We piled in and headed toward the temple site to drop our large suitcases off with a friend. We stuffed into our backpacks what we would need for the island and left everything else there.

The temple in Ghana is very striking. It sits in downtown Accra on one of the main streets by the embassy neighborhoods. The temple itself is flanked by a variety of dramatic palm trees that I've never seen before. On either side are three story buildings. One is a meetinghouse and the other contains a visitor's center and dorms for visiting temple-goers. We met a nice man who would be holding our stuff for a few days and drank a few malt pineapple sodas. After Ray and Jasmine arrived, we all hopped back in the van and headed out of Accra.

We stopped at a shopping mall (the only one for maybe a thousand or two miles) to pick up some food for our trip. One of the larger stores inside is a shopping mall much like Smith's or Safeway. I bought some bread, cheese, and hummus, and some juice and chocolates as a gift for the chief in Pediatorkope. At the other end of the mall I found a place to change dollars to cedis. The rate wasn't amazing, but I got enough to last a few days.

I am amazed at how beautiful Ghanaians are. They wear bright clothing in every color, and have clear, beautiful skin. The kids are adorable; women usually carry the baby on their back in a tightly-wrapped length of fabric. You'll often see a woman walking with something on her head and two little baby feet sticking out on either side of her waist. Men usually wear nice shirts and slacks, but I saw a wide variety of men's clothing--even a few in Middle-Eastern shalwar kamis.

Everything in Africa takes twice as long as it does in the U.S. We finally gathered our missing group members together in the van, then had to find our driver who had wandered off, and then had to go get the other group members we sent off to find the lost ones. We finally set off out of Accra for the African countryside.

Once you leave Accra you really notice that you're in a different place. Strange baobab-looking trees stick out above semi-tropical scenery. There are huge red ant mounds and mountains in the distance. men in bright purple shirts and pressed black slacks doze on wooden pallets under a tree, next to a herd of scrawny goats. Women sell pyramids of yellow mangoes on dingy wooden tables. Almost-naked children run around between the tin-roof shops, which bear names like "The Grace of God Barbershop" or "El-Shaddai Tires."

Eventually we came to Big Ada, a picturesque town of colorful buildings, narrow streets, and corrugated metal roofs. Ada used to be a powerful kingdom, controlling the salt trade up and down the Volta River. Now it's a fairly quiet place where few tourists go, but a short jump to the south is Ada Foah, a small town at the estuary of the Volta River. Ada Foah seems to be the "Ghanaian Riviera." There are nice resorts, expensive houses, and tourist-friendly places.

We got out of the van and trekked through town. People smiled shyly at us when we passed, and the children would raise both hands in the air and scream with excitement. It was as if no white person had been there in years, and we were only two hours from Accra. We came down to the riverbank, where children played soccer between rows of colorful canoes. We were so excited to finally be here, and nervous about what it would be like.

Just across the water lay a maze of islands, the largest of which is Pediatorkope. In the distance a coconut tree swayed in the wind, as if in greeting. Egrets and hawks criss-crossed the sky, and small canoes with bedsheet sails drifted up and down the blue Volta.