Quote of the day: “Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by smiling back, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” –Therese of Lisieux
Oh, where to start…
Today started off as most others have. 6:00AM: An unfortunate hour made significantly less painful with good conversation, good company, and great food.
Breakfast ran a little later than it typically does, as we all had a weekends worth of activities to rave about and a grand total of 5 journal entries to read. We ended our early morning round table meeting around 8:00AM, still basking in the humorous afterglow of Laurie’s accurate yet satirical recap of our weekend adventures, and made our way down the now well-beaten path to our respective volunteer sites. Sarah, Will, Laurie, and Grace slipped into their classrooms at the local JHS and Primary schools, and Tracee and Margaret continued their trek towards the Peace Perfect school. As per usual, George, Jeff, Steve and I all convened at the construction site for the schools up-and-coming attraction, a new library. Mary, who typically accompanies Tracee and Margaret, decided to try her had at industrial assembly and joined us there. Unfortunately for her, today also shaped up to be the hottest day we’ve experienced since we arrived over a week ago… sufficed to say, I think a lot of us discovered sweat glands where we hadn’t previously known they existed!
We had some initial concerns as to whether there would be work for us to do there, but upon arrival we were immediately tasked with putting up the side-board panels on the second floor and reinforcing said panels with wire, nails, and the occasional well placed wooden brace. They would, after all, be serving as the mold for the 6 inches of concrete we will be pouring tomorrow for the floor on the second story. That in and of itself took up a good chunk of our time, but we were able to successfully complete the job with about 45 minutes to spare. Never the type to retire early, we politely declined Esther’s offer to return to the guest house, and instead spent some time meandering about the schools to get a feel for what the other volunteers in our group were doing.
Laurie’s was the first class we visited, and despite the slight disruption our entrance caused (Sorry again, Laurie!), we were able to spend a few minutes listening to her talk through her Anancee the Spider Trickster Tales with the students. When the children were dismissed from the reading circle to return to their geography, we eased out of one classroom and into various others. Sarah was hard at work, exuberantly teaching a group of student math, while Will was seated outside, patiently tutoring two youngsters on their alphabet and handwriting. At Peace Perfect, Tracee graded her class’s end of term science exams while Margaret finished up a story for the youngest of the bunch. Upon her completion of the literary classic The Rainbow Fish, Jennifer and Abigail (two of the teachers there), were kind enough to give Jeff, Mary, Margaret, and I some lessons in Twi, and I am happy to report that we successfully completed their tutorial on the months of the year.
At 12:00PM, we all reconvened and made the return hike back to guesthouse. Lunch, as always, was delicious. Bless took it upon herself to appeal to our Americanized taste buds, and served chicken, French fries, fresh fruit, and salad. Post-lunch, a few folks returned to their rooms to rest up and shower while Margaret, Tracee and I lounged around the common room, striking up friendly conversation with Esther until the time came for us to head to the Senchi Library. We spent our usual hour with the kiddos (Steve with his returning group of four youngsters- they absolutely adore him!- and the rest of us with any of the many children who showed up, eager to read), after which we parted ways. Us ladies had a driver pick us up from the library to take us to the Cedi Bead Factory. The four gentlemen in the group opted out of the tour (I use the term “opted out” loosely… I do believe one of them said he would rather go take a dive off the dam into Lake Volta than go…) and chose instead to spend some time with the guys from the village playing soccer. Boys will be boys!
I had every intention of torturing them this morning by recapping the bead factory tour in a minute-by-minute, painfully long monologue (including videos, pictures, and a show-and-tell of the merchandise we came home with), but out of kindness to their testosterone-driven aversion to jewelry, I will say only this: The factory was amazing! Mr. Cedi himself was the one to greet us and to take us on a brief tour of the site. Realistically, it was just a large property with 3 long thatch-roofed structures under which worked a handful of nimble-handed bead artists. Some worked in the initial construction phase, where they broke up, ground up, and placed old recycled glass into bead molds. Others worked long hours near the blazing hot firing oven, where molds were placed to melt the glass. Still others worked to shape, decorate, polish, and string the finished product. The work they do there is incredible, and the beads around which their lives are formed are exquisite. It was almost inconceivable to us that they make each and every elaborate bead by hand, from start to finish. It’s hard sometimes to step outside of the bubble of our first-world home to see just how dependant we are on huge industrial machines to do all of this delicate, time intensive work. Where we can mass-produce millions of identical bracelets in a matter of minutes, these people have dedicated themselves to a form of ancient art, and their hard work comes through in the beautiful, unique pieces they produce. We all spent a little more in the factories accompanying shop than we had likely anticipated, but it was well worth it!
We headed back to the guest house just before 6:00PM and arrived just in time for a delicious pasta dinner. Sarah, Tracee, Mary, George, Will, and I spent the after-dinner hours engrossed in a riveting game of Five Crowns before we all retired to bed.
Oh. And one more thing. Mary- sweet Mary- has just recently informed me of my obligation to wish myself a Happy Birthday in this entry so, at the risk of sounding egomaniacal, Happy Birthday to me! And, if I haven’t said it enough, Happy Birthday to Will, whose 15th birthday fell just a day before my 23rd. Funny, isn’t it, that two people with such similar birthdays would find themselves together, half a world away from the places we call home? No better way to spend a birthday though!
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