Ghana Team Journal

Quote of the day: ”Change is the evidence of life”

Journal by: Will Jackson

Today started off with the usually nutritional breakfast. I believe that some of us are not eating as much as we should, forgetting the golden rule. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Anyways, after breakfast we departed briefly to meet back up in 10 minutes. Upon meeting outside the guest house we began our trek to the schools and construction site. Grace and Laurie departed to teach at the primary school, Sara to the JHS, and my mom, Tracee, and Marguerite to the peace perfect school, and my dad, George, Kay, Steve and myself to the construction site.

At the construction site the amount of workers was limited compared to the other days. We started off by bringing the water, stones, concrete, and dirt into the building to be mixed. After that we started the laborious job of getting it to the second floor. We had mixed a much smaller portion then yesterday so we finished at about 10:45. Kay, my dad, and myself then went down to the Peace Perfect school. We got there just as reading time began. My mom’s class was deeply into the classic novel “Henry and Mudge” while Margaret was reading a counting book. Tracee’s class was extremely quiet because they were doing silent reading. Some of us headed back to the guest house to wash the concrete off of us while the teachers taught till 12.

We all met back up for lunch. Lunch was delicious rice with a tomato based sauce. When lunch was finished we all proceeded back to our rooms for some down time. During our down time it started pouring rain. Ester then made us drive a taxi to the library instead of walk. Although it was thought that there may be fewer kids at the library due to the rain, there were plenty of young avid readers. After our reading we came back to freshen up for an earlier 6 o’clock dinner. We ate pasta with a tomato based sauce with or with out meat. I was really upset when we came so close to eating all the food but couldn’t quite do it. At 7 o’clock we met outsider for our van to see the drummers.

The drive to the community center took about 4 minutes. The drummers had got delayed so they came later then expected. They arrived and quickly put on there clothes. They then came out and four of them started drumming, while a couple others were holding rhythm with sticks. Then 3 boys and 3 girls came out and started dancing. They danced continuously for a while. The way they danced was amazing, the flexibility, endurance and the smiles they had. After awhile they picked some of us to come up and dance to the rhythm of the drums and singing of the kids. George, Kay, Tracee, Sara, Steve, and myself were in the first group while the others were in the second. The dancing was unlike any kind of dancing any of us had done before, correct me if I’m wrong, but that stuff wasn’t in my parents or my dancing repetwar.

Well, at least both groups had fun…I think. After our wonderful show of dancing they insisted that we must have great rhythm so we all went up and tried our hand of drumming. After drumming they preformed one last dance for us and others from the community. Again I was amazed at the endurance and the fun they were having. After the dance one of the men came up and told us that it was a first time for one of the kids. So, now I bring this journal to and end because its breakfast time.