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