Rainy Season

Did we mention that it's the Rainy Season?

At the end of Heckel's visit, we drove with them out to visit two of the first Stake Literacy Specialists who have now moved on and are doing other things.

One of them has started a school along with her parents.

Magdalena gave us her insights from what she learned and the factors she felt contributed to the success in the Gospel Literacy Program.

 

Then we got a quick tour of their school of several classes and about 140 students.

Naps happen!

This is the second school we have visited and we only ever see the kids sitting at tables. 

either playing with a few toys, 

or doing workbooks.

Whatever they are doing, we tend to be a distraction.

Next, not far away, we stopped in a village center to meet up with Amelia. She came by taxi to meet us so she could direct us through the streets and mud to her mother's house. 

GPS has limits when there are no addresses.

She had her 4 week old baby with her and needed someone to hold her as she climbed into the truck. So, yes I quickly took her and  carefully held her in my arms, swooning all the way to grandma's.

We haven't seen a car seat yet. We weren't going fast though as we drove slowly to avoid the "free range" chickens.

This is her mother's first grandchild. Apparently we are honorary grandparents when we are friends, YES!!  They will stay with grandma for few weeks before going back to their home.

She also told us about her experiences as a Stake Literacy Specialist. We are finding the same things are important for success and longevity of the program that they also experienced. 

After observing schools and talking with local people, we haven't  seen evidence of children's books or reading time in the schools here.  Apparently it's not common at all. 

A couple of our nieces have offered to send children's books which has furthered these thoughts. We talked with  JoAnna who manages the Library where we volunteer for the Adult Literacy classes, because they also have a children's program after school. They have children's books for people to buy that are printed here and have pictures of African children.  

I purchased a few books early on to take home for grandchildren, and have been thinking that we could demonstrate a "reading time" at some of the local schools and provide a packet of books and mats for them to continue on their own.

With this in mind, JoAnna went with us to the big Makola Market to find mats, you need a guide if you have something specific in mind!!  

In all that chaos, we managed to run into the cocoa lady again, guess it was meant to be, so we bought more!  It's to share with the other missionaries who like brownies, wink.

Saturday we went with a couple missionaries, the Eatons who are Area Auditors to find the Craft Market called the "pit," perhaps because it's hard to find. 

Sunday is always the highlight of the week though. This picture is from a couple weeks ago. The class has doubled so we went back again this week-end to train the new teacher. (Didn't get another picture.) Awesome people and so wonderful that they have succeeded at getting the men as well as women to attend.  

I'm realizing it's been a couple weeks since we wrote, really? Sorry this is long. On another Saturday we went with a new couple from BYU-I the McGary's. He was a professor in Agricultural Economics there. In a nutshell, they are working with the government to help support business development here. 

Dressed to cover skin for mosquito protection. It really hasn't been a problem though.

Many adventures start or end with getting lost, which we did on the way there.  But look how beautiful!!

Notice the field of young pineapple plants.

It's also harvest time. We understand that about 80% of the produce goes bad before getting to market. 

Meeting and talking with these young entrepreneurs was the best part of the trip and worth getting lost.  They talked us into buying 9 pineapples! How could we resist?

Finally we arrived at the Aburi Botanical Gardens, complete with vintage helicopter.

Looking up inside the hollow tree trunk.

We also found cinnamon, nutmeg and various other trees.

Sundays are always the best, but one other experience was a highlight of the week. 

One of the guards at our compound named George speaks English quite well, but has been wanting to learn to read and write. With the new manual in hand, we sat outside on chairs by the compound gates and spent about half an hour going through the first lesson where the students learn the letters for the words "I am."  I was so touched by his excitement over the scripture reference in this lesson. John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way the truth, and the life..." He noticed the footnote by the word "way" and wanted to know what that was about. He LOVED all the references that were listed throughout the scriptures referring to the word "way."  

He will read and work in his manual each day and then we'll get back together with him on the week-end. It was sooo awesome!!! 

For times when we wonder if we are making any difference?

Sister Vinson said in a devotional today in their honor as they prepare to leave for re-assignment in Salt Lake. 

"If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven't spent the night with a mosquito." (That has special significance here in Africa.) We all laughed, but there's great meaning in those words.

Other Random Picture

Don't try this at home!!  Advanced skill level, carrying eggs while both hands are holding shopping bags 

Kumasi

Welcome to Kumasi and the Noble House Hotel 
where we stayed about 5 hours north of Accra 



Saturday morning, we arrived at the Stake Center at the same time as Rebecca Abedi, the Stake Literacy Specialist who came by taxi.  But we found the gates were locked. A couple minutes later a young boy came by and said he knew where to get a key. So he took off by foot with us trying to keep up as he got a key from a neighbor and returned to unlock the gate for us.

He came in and helped us clean up the building and then began playing the digital piano which was his purpose for coming to the building in the first place, so he could practice. 

Nice kid, and perfect timing!!

We had a full crowd, 60 people in all as the word got out about the training and a bunch of people came from the Bantama Stake also.

It was really too many to train well at one time and we will be aiming to simplify in the future. These are all new teachers and some of their leaders.

We followed up with two of the Wards on Sunday

One very large class.

With child care provided. 

On the way to the second location.

The guys on the side, filling in the potholes, encourage donations. 

Another enthusiastic class that was more than happy to stay after the 3 hour block so that we could meet with them to help their teacher get them started.  They love pictures with their books.

Mary in the middle in red will be getting baptized next Sunday along with her family and extended family of 12 total! I so wish we were staying another week!!  Wish you could have heard her tell her story of conversion!! 

Before leaving town the next morning, we stopped at the Cultural Center which is the Asanti Region in Ghana.
We couldn't take pictures while inside, but learned lots about tribal kings and queens and their traditions. 



Outside is this Calabash tree. The large gourd like balls the size of watermelons are cut in half and dried for use as bowls.

There was also a Kente fabric weaving shop. 

Each pattern has a meaning behind the design.

A large kiln for baking pottery.

 Trucks overloaded with charcoal like this one often end up broken down or even tipped over on the sides of the road.

Flares are rare, so they use what we call "veggie flares."

 We stopped in Nkawkaw, a village where the Heckels introduced the program when they were in Ghana as missionaries while  writing the manuals 2015-2016.   

Mountain vistas, yeah!!  

 Collins, the instructor for the group has 29 students on the rolls. They don't all come every Sunday, but this handful took time out of their Monday to come show us how they are doing. 

Joan Heckel was particularly interest in seeing the progress of this group because Collins had contacted the NFED about getting additional help for his students. (The NFED is responsible for coordinating literacy activities in Ghana and implementing the National Functional Literacy Program) Apparently they have a native language literacy program in the Twi dialect, one of a handful of dialects that has a written language and they thought this might be a better way for them to go before learning English literacy. He said that after they came and observed his class, they encourage him to continue with the English Gospel Literacy Program he is doing and have continued to come and observe his class. We found this pretty cool!!

Kudos to these students who were most impressive!!

Heckels left for home yesterday, but we will continue with the rest of their visit on a blog post next week.  We are very grateful for their visit and feel the Lord's mighty hand in this work in so many ways!!