Beautiful day in Senchi Ferry!

Prepared by Eddie Martino

ANOTHER DAY IN BEAUTIFUL SENCHI FERRY,

The day as always begins with a hearty breakfast, eggs, coffee, goat’s milk, jam and the quote of the day along with the journal. Tara gave the quote: You are rich for what you give, poor for what your refuse. Jamie, read the journal. While very upset about not getting pizza at the Volta hotel yesterday, she recovered last nite with a great pasta dinner with the team.

The day always starts off great. How could it not. With cheerful good morning exchanges in different languages from young and old while traversing well-worn paths and dodging baby goats and fallen mangoes.

Patty and Christie continued their work teaching computer skills to a jammed packed room of kids’ in the library. The electric shocks situation continued but was lessened by running laptops more on batteries than electricity. Also, kids needed to break religious tradition and wear shoes. This helped reduce shocks by acting as a conduit. The whiteboard marker was supplied, big progress. Patty’s highlight in afternoon came when one boy – just introduced to a computer – wrote a short bio of himself on the laptop in MS word.

Tara spent the day on child health promotion in New Akrade. There she participated in helping many families understand how to deal with anemia and polio as well as family planning.

Kathy spent the day developing a plan with government officials to obtain approvals for resources needed to staff computer classes and the library. A meeting is planned Monday with all headmasters and teachers.

Eddie, Jamie, Ashley and Maggie joined Reuben, Shaibu at the construction site where work is being done to build a new kindergarten school. Reuben is the overall project manager and spends time plastering mortar while the team led by Shaibu’s high energy helps mix and carry mortar and cut blocks to specified shapes. While removing rocks to clear the way for scaffolding we also came upon two scorpions that have unfortunately moved on to another life. Shaibu made special hats out of emptied cement bags to make carrying trays of mortar on our heads so much easier. The construction workers have now formed a productive team each respecting the others abilities and sharing in all required efforts to complete the project no matter how hot the day gets. We do get some breaks like when Cristabell comes by with very refreshing sugar cane. There were a few visitors to the site. First a group of pesky children that played with the large water barrels. One small child fell in head first and was quickly yanked out by Maggie. Later a group of teenage boys came by to get pictures and share sports interests.

We finished up the day as usual at the library. Kids swarming over the team who are reading books with them. Patty and Christie again jammed in the computer room teaching skills.

After a dinner with French Fries, we set out for the special drums and dancing event in New Akrade. Unfortunately, along the way Kathy fell in a hole the size of a moon crater along the road. Kathy and Ed went off to the hospital and made new friends including a terrific surgeon. Happily, Kathy is ok and should be back on the trail in another day or two. The drums event was fabulous. The kids showed their talent and made the night a memorable event.