Hey everyone!
How are things back at home? Hopefully good! Alright so I told you guys about my first two days in Ghana, now for the next two days, which were just as exciting as the first two I might add!
Shout Outs – Pops – Alright funny guy, they aren’t golden locks…they are just wings lol. And I’m gunna take Brazil by storm baby! They aren’t gunna know what to do with me haha. I guess you could say the waterfall was kind of like needles but it was so unique that it wasn’t like a painful needle…more like a massage! I will definitely continue to play hard and take advantage of the opportunities presented to me…no promises on the studying though haha. Chris – dude yeah you would have been in heaven chilling in Ghana. You would have fit in a lot better than I did and I can’t wait to hear how much fun you have this summer. Alright well I will hold onto that Rand for you and we can swap when I get home. My plane gets in the night of May 5th so I will definitely be bugging you to chill shortly after haha. Can’t wait to chill man…and you gotta fill me in on any and everything that has been going on at home. Love ya bro and can’t wait to chill!!
Picture – Alright so the picture I chose is from my 3rd day in Ghana. The group in the picture is the Habitat Hillbillies, wut wut!! Explanation of the will come later on. Our group was LEGIT and I won’t bother saying who was who because there were a lot of us and I honestly forgot a couple of the people haha…but I’m the one sitting on the ground in the front in the white bandana if that matters. Anyways I wrote more the day below so read on and enjoy! (click on the pic to make it bigger)
Okay so day 3 in Ghana I signed up for another SAS trip which was a service visit to a local Habitat for Humanity site. This trip was really special because instead of just sightseeing like we do every other day we were actually doing something that made a difference to the people and left a lasting impact that wasn’t limited to a candid photograph or a brief 4 minute video. We stepped out of our role of tourists and college students studying abroad and were able to work side by side with locals to produce a meaningful result. It was like any other habitat experience but for some reason this one just felt more fulfilling. It turned out to be an extremely rewarding day.
Our group left the ship around 7 am and the bus ride to the sight was about 3.5 hours. Toree, Bekah, and Sally were on my trip again (the four of us were pretty much together for all of Ghana except the first day where we actually ran into each other at lunch so we joked that we were all Ghana buddies). Jeremy and Scott were also on my trip and then I became close friends with the rest of our group. It is easy to build bonds with people when you are sweating and doing manual labor.
Upon arrival at the site we were given a brief intro and then split into 3 groups to work at three separate sites within the habitat complex. Our group consisted of 16 people I think and of course we had to make a name for ourselves. So Hillary suggested Habitat Hobos and then Habitat Hillbillies. I immediately said I favored Habitat Hillbillies (duh!!) and so did the majority of the group so that is what our group of 16 referred to ourselves as the rest of the day. Habitat Hillbillies baby!!! Of course then I had the song Hillbilly Bone stuck in my head all day but that’s okay cause it’s a bomb song haha.
So the Habitat Hillbillies were tasked with moving dirt from two large piles into the cement-base framework of a house, basically just transporting dirt into framed holes using a wheelbarrow and 3 shovels. Well real quick we realized there were 16 of us and only jobs for about 4 to work efficiently. Well that just wasn’t okay with me and two of the girls so we went and asked the neighbors if we could borrow their tools and equipment if we promised to bring it back. They said yes and didn’t ask us twice about borrowing it. We managed to find another wheelbarrow, 2 more shovels, a pickaxe to break the dirt mound up, and 3 huge pans. With a group of about 6 working the wheelbarrows and 3 of the shovels, the rest of us used 2 shovels and the giant pans/bowls to form a chain to carry dirt into the holes. We nicknamed ourselves the “bucket brigade” and not to brag but at some points we were definitely keeping pace with the wheel barrow.
I got really lucky with the group I was assigned to because everyone one of the Habitat Hillbillies worked hard from start to finish. Other groups complained about not having enough tools and just standing around but we were able to find more so that we could work. Like I said earlier, it was a nice change being with 16 people who not only were serving, but they were eager and excited about it! We worked hard despite the heat and get this, we used all the dirt. That’s right, we actually ran out of dirt because we all were working so hard. The homeowners who were working alongside us (some very cool guys I might add) looked at us and were like “Well there is nothing else for you to do…you did it all. Thank you.” Now when they said thank-you it was incredible. The look on their face was something you don’t see often. A look of 100% gratitude, and knowing that I contributed to putting that smile there made the entire day worth it. No-one cared how dirty, sweaty, or stinky they were. They just cared that we had actually done something significant.
We actually ran out of dirt about 30 minutes before we were supposed to leave anyway so it wasn’t like we just sat there forever. We talked with the future homeowners we had been working alongside and played with several of the kids. We were all pretty tired but managed enough energy to entertain the kids until we were forced to get on the bus (around 3 pm I think, like I said I was pretty beat). I don’t know if you can tell from the pic but I was definitely dirty from moving the dirt with the buckets and dumping it out and the Habitat Hillbillies nominated me as the dirtiest member when we walked back to the bus. Fine with me, I like being dirty, especially if I have a good excuse; and I’m pretty sure helping someone build a house is a good enough reason lol. Oh and my friend Sally was wearing sunglasses all day and had one of the sickest raccoon eye tans I have ever seen. She was trying to make fun of me for being dirty (which wasn’t working cause like I said I didn’t mind being dirty) when she took off her glasses and we all got a nice laugh. She is probably going to kill me when she hears that I posted this on here but oh well I think it was a funny story that needed to be mentioned.
The bus ride back to the ship was another nice 3.5 hour trek (with a short 10 minute stop for cold drinks and street snacks in one of the villages) and most of the bus fell asleep fast because they were all so beat. Well I don’t really take naps as most of you all know so I just read a book and got some time to reflect on my experience while listening to music traveling the back roads of Ghana. It was a great day and extremely rewarding. Not to mention that the ice cold shower at the end of the day was the best shower I have had on this boat lol.
I spent day four in Ghana (our last day in Africa) on another SAS trip to a Torgorme Village for a day experiencing their culture. I wanted to do something authentically Ghanaian that was outside the city and this was my best option. Toree, Sally, and Becca were again on my trip, but Cara, Trevor, and Christina were also on the trip so we had a nice huge group of us running around together all day. The trip was the shortest bus ride I had in Ghana, only a little under 2 hours!! It was a joke compared to what I had been doing the previous 2 days haha.
Upon arrival at the village we got to experience a traditional naming ceremony as the village chief’s guests of honor. The ceremony took about 2.5 hours and was filled with traditional dances, ritualistic introduction of the chiefs, music, traditional drumming, and each of us receiving a traditional African name from the chief’s family as well as a welcoming into the family.
The experience as a whole was surreal. The entire village attended the gathering and everyone was dressed in ceremonial dress and some even had on paint for the dances and rituals. The African name given to me (they base it on year of birth, day of birth, month of birth, day of week of birth, and something else I forgot) was Kuadzo Agbenyga. They also told us the literal meaning of our names and supposedly it is supposed to define our lives. Well it was a little creepy how accurate they were with mine, they got my name spot on. The literal translation givin to me for my name was “Life is Great.” Not just “good”…no no…life is “GREAT!!” Considering that has been my life motto anyway I was thrilled when they told me that is what my name when. And life is great isn’t it. I mean you are breathing aren’t you? And you obviously have access to a computer if you are accessing this…and you can obviously read this if you are this far. So I would say we are all in pretty good shape and life it GREAT!! Waaahhhhhhhhhhoooooooo!!!!
After the naming ceremony, which concluded everything I listed above and even an opportunity to participate in one of the tribal dances with the members of the tribe, we were given a brief tour of the village which was mainly just the kids dragging us around haha. The kids were really cool and it was fun getting to chill with all of them. Following our look around the village we were transported in our bus to a nearby Mess Hall where we were fed lunch. The lunch was super good and the best thing was the plantains because the way they cook them is similar to a caramalization and they were delicious!! We were able to take our time eating without being rushed and it was nice because we all got to compare our African names and get to know each other a little better.
The last activity of the day was a trip to a nearby nature reserve area where we got to explore one of the famous local caves that is known for its bats. Going to the cave we were able to see a lot of impala and even some baboons running across these rocks cause they were scared of the bus. The hike to the cave wasn’t even really a hike, more like a short walk, and we were able to take turns squeezing into this little crack to get to view the bats. I was toward the end cause I had been climbing around on some rocks while we had been walking and I had also tried to find another way into the cave. Me, toree, sally, and cara where the last 4 in the cave and basically there was this spot where everyone had been standing to see the bats right inside the opening but that is as far as everyone had gone. Well I wanted to go into the cave farther, not just stand in the opening, I mean what are a few bats gunna do to me? So I jumped over and started walking farther in, although unlike Hawaii I didn’t have my flashlight this time so I had to go pretty slow.
Okay going farther in was a way better decision. It was a totally different experience than standing at the front. The ground was covered in so much guana (bat poop) that it was like walking on a sponge. The smell didn’t really bother me cause it just smelled like a natural cave, although some people definitely didn’t like it lol. So going in we could see the bats fluttering around (they clearly didn’t like us in their cave) but they were still farther in. Again I wanted to keep going so I did, but the girls didn’t really want to. I was like “Guys how many times are you gunna be in Ghana, Africa in a bat cave? Let’s go get closer!” As I was saying this I was walking farther in and all the sudden a hat flew into my head. Yeah hit me in the head. I think it was attracted to the white hat but what do I know? I was like “Whooaaa!!” and my hat flew off and that really freaked out the girls. I thought it was funny so I was cracking up…I got hit by a bat!!!...in Africa!!! CRAZYYYYYY!! We kept inching in but eventually couldn’t go too much farther, right as we reach the end I lifted up my hand to point at the opening that we could see and I got hit AGAIN! Yeah I got hit by another bat! I basically clothes-lined it with my arm. So I got hit by two bats!! Well that pretty much ended it for the girls because they didn’t want to get hit so they started to leave. Right when they turned around another bat hit Toree in the face….haha she screamed so loud and jumped so high!! It was AWESOME!!!!!!!! She didn’t really think so at the time but as soon as we got back to the bus she had no problem bragging about the fact that she got hit by a bat. Oh and I forgot, Cara got hit by one in the leg too! Basically Sally was the only one who went farther in that didn’t get hit by one, so we decided that she could take credit for one of my two haha. Oh gosh it was a fun 15 minutes in that cave man. Freaking awesome!!!
See it pays to go off the beaten path!! First in Hawaii and now in Ghana, two really good cave experiences if you ask me! The bus ride back to the ship was a short 1.5-2 hours so it went fast. When we arrived at the ship it was about on ship time so we all boarded and that concluded our time in Ghana and in Africa as a whole.
Our second to last port is now behind us and tomorrow we land in Brazil to experience our last port of call before beginning the journey home. Although in a way we have already begun the journey home ever since we left India and began the second half of our journey with Florida as the final destination. It’s weird to think that tonight is my last pre-port briefing and tomorrow will be the last foreign port that we pull into. Crazy man…everything just happens so fast!
Thank you all so much for your prayers, they are felt and greatly appreciated everyday! Love you and praying for each and every one of you guys!
T
2 Corinthians 12:7-10
