Bittersweet Goodbyes

It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our day of departure. With the blink of an eye, this month in Ghana has flown by and while the time has gone by quickly, the amount that we have accomplished is a great source of pride for us.

We are currently writing from the Volta Region of Ghana on our final excursion of the trip. The Volta Region is quite different from our home on the coast, with rolling hills green and mountains and-- naturally-- no ocean. It is absolutely beautiful and our days have been action-packed since our arrival on Friday. On our way up, we stood inches from wild baboons on the outskirts of the Shai Hills Reserve and watched and then actually participated in weaving our own cloth with the the kente weavers.

Today we explored the Tofi Atome Monkey Sanctuary, where the monkeys are considered sacred and protected from poaching by a wonderful community run eco-tourism project. As we hiked through the lush jungle, curious monkeys descended from the trees and some even took bananas out of our hands and ate them! It was incredible. In the afternoon we visited the Wli waterfall, which is reportedly the tallest waterfall in West Africa. We had a chance to swim in the pool below the falls and stand in awe of its height and beauty.

Tomorrow we head south the the village of Aburi to hit the hand-crafted market stalls and hopefully see the Botanical Gardens before having our last meal and flying home.

Prior to our Volta Region visit, we said our last, very sad goodbyes to Cape Three Points. Our classroom project is essentially finished, which is an incredible testament to all of our hard work and to the help of our Ghanaian friends. We hosted a goodbye party with all of our new friends and many tears were shed as we departed from our home for the past month. Cape Three Points will be missed greatly but without a doubt will remain a special place in our hearts forever. It has been an incredible month.

See you soon!
Mark and Kelsey

Time is Flying by!

Greetings from Ghana!

Hello again from Cape Three Points, Ghana. We are happy to report that this week we have continued work on our main building project. The roof is on, the walls are up, and soon we will be finished and the structure will be ready for use as a classroom and space for volunteer teachers to stay. I think I can speak for the group when I say that we are all so impressed and feel proud of our accomplishments here. Our carpenters and masons and all the Trinity Yard School students have been a great help as well as a blast to spend our days with. We have had a week of sun which has certainly been helpful for our building progress.

In addition to our construction project, we have had students teaching in the primary school as well. Our group took Wednesday AM to visit a small cassava farm close by to uproot and harvest cassava. After harvesting the cassava we headed to town (taking turns carrying the cassava on our heads!) where we learned how to peel it and saw it go through the milling process. The final product is a food called gari which is eaten at almost every meal by the locals here at Cape Three Points. Our cook, Esinam, made us a lunch of peanut soup with eggplant to be eaten with gari. It was a great chance to try local cuisine!

Yesterday many students started their independent projects. We have students repairing the stairway that heads down to our beach, painting murals and creating educational tools for the primary school, and creating a documentary film about the educational system in Cape Three Points to show friends and family at home (to raise money for a book drive at the school here). Other students are building a scoreboard for the soccer field and building benches for the home and away teams. We have a student organizing a ping pong tournament for our last few days here and yet another student who will go for a morning of fishing with Mark and some local friends.

It has been really amazing to see the friendships develop between Putney students and Trinity Yard School students over the past few weeks. When we talk about our goodbye party that will happen next week we all get a bit sad just thinking about saying goodbye to the amazing people we have met here! The sunny days and clear skies have brought amazing stargazing at night as well. A hard day of work, followed by a fun and challenging African dance class and dinner is so well complemented by time spent on our beach star gazing at the seemingly endless sky.

This weekend we will stay in Cape Three Points. Tomorrow morning we will learn to batik. There is a soccer match organized for the afternoon. In the evening we have arranged for Putney students to learn more about what life is really like in Cape Three Points by doing a one-night homestay. Each Putney student has been paired with a Trinity Yard School student who will teach them about what their life is like. Sunday morning we will all gather to share what we have learned and participate in a scavenger hunt in the village.

Sunday afternoon we have a fun activity planned. Here in the city of Takoradi there are local professional soccer matches. As a thank you to all the people who have worked with us this month and been such an important part of our experience here we will all attend a soccer match together. Everyone is very excited!

Next week will be short. Monday and Tuesday we will finish work on our buildling project, continue teaching in the school, and finish our independent projects. Wednesday we will perform in traditional outfits ] the dancing and drumming we have learned during our goodbye party in Cape Three Points. Thursday morning we will depart for our 4-day excursion to Volta region (east of Accra) where we will have the chance to visit Koforidua, Boti Falls, Shai Hills, and Aburi before leaving Ghana. This final week ahead of us is sure to be an amazing one.

Much love from Ghana!
Kelsey and Mark

Hard work, a visit to Elmina, and a Presidential Visit

Akwaaba!!!

Wow, it has been an exciting and busy week since our last posting. It is difficult to know where to begin. On Tuesday we traveled to the coastal town of Elmina to witness the Bakatue festival which is celebrated to commemorate the founding of the town and to invoke the deity. During the celebration the Paramount Chief and his sub-chiefs, elders' fetish priests and priestesses, drummers, you name it take part in a procession and perform rituals. There was also a hilarious regatta that took place on the water where the objective appeared to be more in favor of tipping the other team's boat rather than actually getting to a finish line.

Our trip to Elmina also featured the incredibly sobering and moving trip to the Elmina Castle, which was used as one of the busiest slave trading castles. Though impossible to truly understand the suffering and inhumanity that took place within those walls, the experience of walking through "the door of no return" and into the area where the slaves were crammed onto their ships was harrowing. To hear of the conditions they were subjected to within the castle was also horrifying. It was a difficult, although important, experience and tour.

On a lighter note, we finished the remainder of the week trying to fight the rains and mud to chip away at our work project. We've made wonderful progress and are very proud of how much we've accomplished. The roof is being placed on top as we speak!

This weekend has been a great winding down of a busy week. We traveled back to Accra and surprised the students with VIP access to President Obama's farewell celebration and speech! Needless to say, it
was an amazing opportunity to be a part of the President's first visit to sub-Saharan Africa and to hear him speak of his experience here and his vision for Africa. It was truly historic. Some students even shook the President's and the First Lady's hands!! Today we head to the beach at Busua to surf on our way back to Cape Three Points. All is well!

Miss You,
Mark and Kelsey

Drums, Dance, and Digging at Trinity Yard School

Greetings from Cape Three Points, Ghana!

After orientation and an electrifying African drum and dance performance (during which we all participated), we left the capital of Accra to head to Cape Three Points, our home for the next month. Upon arrival we were greeted by hundreds of people from the village gathered in a local open-air meeting hall. After more drum and dance performances, a blessing of safety and health, and an all out celebration of new friendships, our welcome party moved to the ocean-side soccer field where we took part in sack races, impromptu soccer games with the local children, and LOTS of children clamoring for our attention. We certainly left with sense of excitement for the month to come!

We have settled into our residence at the Trinity Yard School and have begun our work projects. In just three days we have already dug the foundation that is being constructed as a housing facility for volunteer teachers that come to teach at the Trinity Yard School. When complete, it will overlook the ocean-- it should be a pretty nice location to volunteer! The walls will be built with bamboo, mud, and mortar. We have installed much of the bamboo as well!

The students are working hard and keeping positive attitudes. A quick swim after a day's work at a secluded beach on the ocean seems to be helpful! Next week will begin teaching English at the primary school, drum and dance classes in the afternoon, in addition to our current projects. To reward our students for all of their hard work, we took the weekend to visit Nzulezo stilt village and then spent a wonderful 4th of July at the Axim Beach Resort with a bonfire on the beach, showers, beds, and all the simple amenities that are even more appreciated these days.

So far, it has been an incredible journey. More to come soon!

Mark and Kelsey

Akwaaba!

The group arrived last night in great spirits with huge smiles on their faces, happy to have finally made it to Ghana. After an easy arrival with all bags claimed, we headed to our hotel in Accra, Korle Bu Beach Hotel, for a late dinner on the beach. Everyone enjoyed some local food and bottles of cold water. Beds were much appreciated after such a long journey and we slept well!

This morning we awoke to the sounds of the waves crashing on the beach. We ate breakfast and then it was time for our big orientation meeting. We talked about our expectations for the month, shared our knowledge of Ghana, brainstormed about all the things we are excited about learning this month, and went over all the details of our living arrangements and projects in our village, Cape Three Points.

Our meeting was followed by a delicious lunch and time on the beach-- some students played cards while others struck up a game of ultimate frisbee. We can already tell that the group is fantastic! Students are getting to know each other and everyone is excited to start this adventure together.

We have exciting plans for tonight. At 7pm we are off to see a drum and dance performance at the Arts Centre followed by a meal at Mamma Mias. Tomorrow in the early morning we will head to Cape Three Points, a journey that will take us about 5 hours. We are excited to get settled in our new environment, to move our things in, and to meet everyone in Cape Three Points. Plans for tomorrow include an afternoon welcome party followed by games on the soccer field - tug of war, sack races, egg on a spoon, you name it!

We are all so happy to be starting this journey together. Look for more updates soon!

-Kelsey & Mark

The group has arrived

We've received word from the leaders that the group has arrived in Accra. They will head to their project village, Cape Three Points, on Wednesday.

Meet the trip leaders

2009 Ghana leaders: Mark Pommer and Kelsey Burns

KELSEY BURNS: St. Lawrence University, B.A., cum laude, Spanish & Creative Writing. While at St. Lawrence, Kelsey spent her junior year in Madrid, Spain, studying literature, art history, ecology, and theater at Colegio Mayor Isabel de España. Back on campus, Kelsey worked as a peer tutor, a teacher's assistant for the Spanish department, and in the International Office for the Spain Study Abroad program. She was a member of the women's lacrosse team and the Outing Club. Kelsey has traveled extensively in the United States, Europe, Latin America, and West Africa. This will be Kelsey’s eighth summer with Putney Student Travel. She has led a Putney Language Learning program in Spain, worked coordinating Putney’s Global Action programs at Yale University, and led Community Service programs in Ecuador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Ghana. Kelsey works full time at the Putney Student Travel office as an Associate Director. She is responsible for organizing Putney’s programs in Spain, Ecuador, and Ghana, and for hiring the Putney leaders. When she isn’t traveling, Kelsey sings in her band, dances West African dance, hikes, bikes, skis, and reads. She is fluent in Spanish.

MARK POMMER: Butler University, B.A; Columbia University, Ed.M. Mark's love for travel began in high school when he spent a summer playing soccer in Europe against European teams. While at Butler, Mark tutored Latino students in inner city schools and served as leader of an after-school youth program, leading week-long backpacking trips through the Appalachian Mountains. He spent a semester studying literature in London and a summer studying Spanish in Mexico. At Columbia, Mark studied Child & Educational Psychology and provided psycho-educational consultation at a high school in Spanish Harlem as well as in Costa Rica. He has traveled extensively in Western Europe, New Zealand, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. He currently lives in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he works as a high school psychologist, ski coach, and service learning coordinator, and runs his own private psychology practice. Mark is an avid skier, mountain biker, backpacker, fly-fisherman, and photographer. This will be Mark’s fourth summer with Putney. He has led Community Service programs in Costa Rica and Ecuador and a National Geographic Student Expeditions program in Peru. Mark is fluent in Spanish.