Quote of the day: There you go man. Keep as cool as you can. Face piles of trials with smiles, for it riles them to believe you perceive the web they weave. And keep on thinking free.
By: Steve Ostrom
Our 9th day in Ghana started like most others. We met in the dining area at 7 am. Today we were served delicious French toast for breakfast. Will read his journal from the weekend, which was delayed by an unfortunate addition of water to his journal notes, and Kay read her journal notes from Monday. During breakfast there was much discussion about the visit to the bead factory and about Monday’s session at the Senchi Ferry library. Esther also graciously agreed to cash in some of our US dollars for Ghana money before lunch.
After our tummies were sated, we all left for the school, again splitting off into multiple groups as we arrived. Tracee, Margaret, Grace, Laurie, Sarah and George went to teach, while Mary, Jeff, Will, Kay and Steve went to try our hand at concrete mixing. While we Americans were trying to remember the correct sand to rock to cement ratio for good concrete, the Ghaneans emptied three bags of cement on the pile of sand left from the previous Global Volunteers group, and started to mix the two together. This mix was shoveled into a wheel barrow and wheeled into the new library and dumped on the first floor. We then shoveled rocks into head pans, and Mary and Key carried these very heavy pans of rock on their heads into the library and added the rocks to the pile. The students in Laurie and Grace’s class were asked to stop lessons and fetch water in buckets. This water was mixed with the rock, sand and cement, and the mixture was passed from the first floor to a scaffold and then to the second floor. We were all sweat-soaked, tired and glad when it was time to go. George taught French for part of the morning, then joined the crew on the second floor hauling wet concrete.
Lunch was a traditional rice and beans meal, with side-dishes of fried plantains, pineapple and mango. Wonderful as usual. The conversation was lively and related various tales from the school and construction site.
After lunch, Esther passed out our exchanged Ghana money, and we boarded a van to the Wood Market and the Botanical Gardens. The ride to the market took a little over an hour, and our driver did a great job. During this drive we passed through many small mountaintop villages while a fine mist was falling. We noticed a welcomed drop in the temperature. Our van ride was quite comfortable using the typical local mode of air-conditioning.
We spent about two hours shopping and having various degrees of success at haggling for a good price, but everyone did buy some fantastic treasures.
The trip to the Botanical Gardens took less than 10 minutes. While there, we just wandered around in small groups for about an hour looking at the stately palm trees, interesting cocoa plants and one scary strangler ficus tree. The ride home was filled with various discussions about our wood art purchases, and how we were planning to safely pack them for the air flight back to the States.
Our dinner was again delicious, and consisted of a dish of chicken and rice, cabbage salad and fresh bananas. The younger set stayed to play cards for awhile, then everyone left for bed.
I like to switch things up a bit, so the quote of the day is actually from a song written by Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues back in the 60’s. It happens to be one of my life’s mottos, and helped me immensely through a particular bad couple of years at work under the first two years of a tyrannical boss. She was extremely jealous of my experience and accomplishments, and even though she threatened to fire me on a daily basis, and would never acknowledge me when we passed in the hall, I always greeted her with a smile and a sincere “good morning, Mary”. It drove her nuts.
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