I realize that most of what I have written lately has been about what we are thinking and not much has been said about what we are doing. That’s because we’ve been thinking a lot and doing, well, little. I suppose this is the season for that and the hope is that all this thinking will subsequently turn into some major doings… but that’s not always the point either. Still, I hope we take some good action steps next. I think we will.
So here’s a little of what we’ve been doing.
This weekend was a four day weekend (I still haven’t figured out why) so the kids were home Friday and Monday. It was a really fun weekend. We had a bunch of coloring books and crayons (and chewing gum!) left by one of the volunteers and that was a big treat for the kids. So we colored. We did a lot of singing and banging on drums and strumming on the guitar (which has perpetually broken strings due to over enthusiasm) and learned a few new songs, sang some old ones and made up a bunch about ourselves and things we like. John took the kids to the football field and there was a community team of under 17s playing so they watched and cheered and got pumped up about the U-17 World Cup in Nigeria which just started (and will be the only thing on our television for the next month.)
Yesterday we went to church in Accra and met up with a couple from Indiana who are here with a similar organization to ours. We have a lot of common connections and contacts here and plan to get together with them again soon. On the way home from church we couldn’t resist the temptation of pizza (with CHEESE!) so we blew a close to 20 cedis on that, which was well worth it.
The trek to and from Accra takes a good hour to an hour and a half, depending on how long it takes for the tro tro to fill up. It’s best to get there right before it’s full and then you leave right away, but there’s no way to gauge it. They run continuously so sometimes you show up to an empty tro tro and have to sweat it out waiting for up to a half hour before taking off. We generally arrive at church sweaty and windblown, but we actually enjoy the ride and often get to talk to people or see knew things on the way. And there are always vendors just an arm’s length away outside of any window so you can always get anything you need while waiting, or riding. There are often people selling things inside the tro tro too. It’s usually medicine, which they give a long lecture about and explain how it can cure everything from a headache to skin disease. An amazing number of people buy it, and the seller generally guarantees it by giving out his cell phone number. Sometimes they are selling books on how to use a computer or learn English or home remedies for illnesses. It’s all quite entertaining (though I’ll admit that it’s mostly in Twi so I understand very little of it and these are all observances and neighborly explanations that are probably only partially accurate).
Last night a new volunteer arrived who is going to be here for three months. Seems like a really good guy. He’s from the Bay area and has been working for Young Life for a while. We are sad that our Canadian friend leaves this week since we’ve had such a great time with her. She has really been a stellar example and a huge contrast to some underperformers we’ve had (we’ve been learning from all of them and creating a volunteer handbook to address all the issues that come up and hopefully sift through some of those before they arrive next time). I think the new guy will be a great addition too. We have been dealing with a lot of tricky situations which we can go into more in person, but really learning from them and growing and figuring things out slowly with varying degrees of frustration, sadness, and inspiration.
John is taking a trip up to the lake this week with Johnbull to make some new connections and get a better feel for what the kids go through there. It should be really interesting and hopefully insightful.
It’s hard to believe that we only have two and half weeks left! We are trying to gather our thoughts and get a few things settled for our return (school, housing, etc.) which is tricky to do without internet. Also trying to wrap things up here and set up what we need for continued work in the US. We are especially excited about a trip to the west coast which we are planning for Christmas to see both of our fams! We’re really looking forward to meeting our new niece or nephew (in utero) in Seattle! We are already in love with Baby Reimer.

I had a dream about economic development. I know it’s a little odd. Doesn’t seem like something that would be interesting to dream about at all but I somehow can’t get it out of my head. I guess what I’ve realized is how we always seem to take an extreme view one way or the other (by “we” of course, I mean me.) It feels like I’m constantly fluctuating between the temptation to “stimulate the economy” and the conviction to buy nothing in an attempt to reject consumerism all together. I don’t think either one is right. Actually, for a while I felt that purchasing anything was wrong and that the only way to eliminate the temptation to accumulate as much stuff as possible was to give everything away (not that I did that, to be clear.) Then there’s the option of savings which seems like a good idea but can turn into hoarding -and what is the purpose of sitting on money that could be used and is needed desperately elsewhere? Even though saving seems like the responsible decision, it really can be just as selfish as pure consumption. I think the only real way to confront the whole dilemma is through responsible consumerism, which is not a new idea at all, I know. I started thinking about this in college when reading various articles about sweatshops and poor working conditions for laborers internationally. I started taking note of the companies I bought from and where various items were made. This didn’t last long, I was easily sucked back into the idea that I couldn’t really make a difference anyways, and getting a cute new shirt trumped my desire to be ethically responsible (and I’m not saying it won’t happen again, let me be upfront about my own hypocrisy.)
I grew up thinking business was a dirty word, but I realize its necessity and the good it has the potential to do when done wisely and with integrity. Putting money into purchasing goods to support others in need can mean survival for many. I’ve also seen the negative effects of uninformed generosity, which sounds and looks good but can actually do a lot of harm. Americans have a well known tendency to appease their consciences by throwing money at a problem, which often leads to disempowerment and dependency, not to mention we often throw our money in the wrong direction or at something that is culturally inappropriate or downright irresponsible (I’m working on researching this in more detail as we have seen some disheartening effects of it firsthand.) This also encourages the belief then that Americans are wealthy and unfortunately naive.
For environmental reasons I liked the idea of buying local, but didn’t give it much thought beyond enjoying the farmers market and thinking about saving fuel. I realize now that the local economy is something I should take more seriously. I like the idea of going local because I want to know where my things are coming from and that proper working conditions and wages are maintained. Not sure what this means in terms of globalization, as I know it’s nearly impossible to avoid purchasing things made internationally. And I’m not sure it’s wrong either. I don’t want to benefit my community at the expense of another, but I am not sure how to invest in my community and reject unethical practices locally and worldwide, without hurting those who need help in the process. So confusing. I read recently about unconfirmed allegations that coca-cola was using child labor and I have to say, even though I barely ever drink soda in the States it’s become one of my comfort foods over here. Something familiar that I am reluctant to abandon. All this stuff makes my head hurt.
I also dreamt about yogurt last night. Pomegranate, cranberry and mixed berry yogurt. It was heavenly. (Please don’t tell me Yoplait is corrupt too!)

Yesterday Ghana won the Under 20 World Cup! The kids got to stay up an hour and a half after bedtime to watch the game, which was just about the most exciting thing to ever happen around here. It was so hilarious to watch them. The game was actually really exciting as it came down to penalty kicks (Ghana vs. Brazil) - it was the culmination of all the tv that has been watched in this house for the past month. John and I stepped out during the game to go to the internet café and found the fastest connection we could get because the whole country was off watching the game (the poor café worker was pretty bummed to be there.)But we made it back for overtime and the shoot-out which was met with a lot of prayer and predictions from the kids, and followed by an extended period of dancing and shouting.
The past few days have brought some encouragement as we’ve met with the director here and really sorted out the needs, priorities, and changes that need to be implemented. I think it is going to work out well for us to help from the US and create some more infrastructure and development that has to be done stateside. Everything seems to be falling into place a little better and we are feeling more reassured and less bewildered about things. Too many things have unpredictably lined up for us to deny the connection here and the direction God is leading. We are praying about it and hammering out details about the position.

I feel like we’ve been in a washing machine for the past couple of months. It’s made us really dizzy and extremely soggy, but hopefully we will come out cleaner. Now that we are pursuing a return to the States the reality sets in about much of the learning we’ve done here. The past six months has really been a sort of retreat which we purposed, I would say, for self-discovery, but which turned its focus into world-discovery and God-discovery (which is far better and always sheds light on the self part inadvertently). It’s been a very interesting journey and the pain of it (sometimes self-inflicted) has been worth the price because we seem to be in emerging from it with a transformed view of everything. In a way it feels like we’ve had a very long retreat from normal life or at least from what we had always seen as normal and now we know might not be. We also had some internal organs replaced (soul organs) and isolation therapy was prescribed for the healing and health of the wounds. The surgery that has taken place on our spirit has been mind altering and eye opening. We are seeing things in new ways and with consideration for things we didn’t know existed before. Someone recently asked me how I am spiritually nourished in an environment like this, and I realized that the real question is; how am I nourished normally!? I have found it far more difficult to gain knowledge and understanding, or to even have the will power to seek after it, when I am surrounded by consumerism and everything else that takes over my “normal” life in the states, or wherever else. Being here has exponentially increased my spiritual growth in such a short amount of time, it really puts my normal to shame! Now I’m going to have to work really hard not to fall back into it once we leave. We are already strategizing and planning ways to make this happen. It’s not going to be easy.

We’ve had our first two downpours in Tema in the past few days. The rain takes over all other sounds and we say antigravity prayers for our sagging roof as it threatens to cave in at any moment. The kids are excited to take advantage of the water and have a free bath (“We are baffing!” they yell.) Returning from our trip last week we really got hit hard by how attached we are to these kids. It’s going to be so hard to leave them and the house parents who we have built strong relationships with. It was so precious to get welcome home hugs and excited requests to see promised pictures of elephants.
We’re still working on a lot of documenting of our observations and ideas for the organization. The head of the organization comes this week and we are preparing for a lot of discussion about direction and the potential for our future involvement with this project. There’s a lot to cover. We are praying that we get good answers and clarification that helps us make a wise decision about where to go from here.
In the mean time we are also working on applications for school and talking about all the details that are involved in moving back. We are so thankful for Lorie who is helping us set everything up and spending endless hours on the phone with airlines, schools, and doing all kinds of tedious explaining for us. We couldn’t do it without you! It’s really hard to coordinate all the details from here. (We got our tickets for November 12!)
John passed his sickness on to me, so we’ve been taking it easy for the past few days and trying to do as much restful work as possible. We are really enjoying the new volunteer who is here (and plays Settlers with us!) She has a willing spirit and flexible attitude and it’s nice to meet likeminded people to bounce ideas off of at meals and during the day. We have another girl who arrived last night so the house is getting fuller which is fun. I am working on writing up a volunteer handbook and having new people helps me process what is needed in this area.
We got the news of Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize and have been discussing it at length with our Canadian counterpart here. Yes, I completely believe that it is premature and there are certainly thousands of more deserving individuals with a heck of a lot more to show in their efforts toward peace. Agreed. Since I had nothing to do with the decision, and it has been made, I will offer only this in slight defense of the choice. First, I hope it is a call to action and causes him to make some more influential steps towards peace. Secondly, as someone who has traveled extensively during both the Bush and Obama administrations (I resisted the temptation to insert the loaded regime here) I can say only this. That the dialogue within other countries and specifically towards me, as an American, has definitely changed. It seems that we are better received - at least, received with a less defensive spirit, and at best, notably received with excitement by those around the world (and I’m not just talking about countries that are stigmatized by the West. I especially noticed it in Europe). I do think that Obama is unduly elevated by his celebrity status and of course his moderate rhetoric towards reconciliation is only seen as monumental in contrast to the contradictory efforts of the past presidency. However, I believe the international community that has so enthusiastically embraced this change may give this honor to Obama as a way of extending back the olive branch to the United States. I do believe he is mostly a symbol, and though it should be the American people offering the branch who should be credited the honor, it is a way of tangibly acknowledging the offering. I won’t go on about this, I know it’s controversial and I don’t want to invite too much criticism (I know my own limited capacity to accept it, which I’m working on.)
…Okay, now that I’ve rethunk it - do Americans really deserve a prize just for voting in a president who has some inkling of diplomacy? I’ve unconvinced myself and my argument is pointless. I concede.
All this to let you know that we are receiving some news from the outside world and are trying to discuss it in light of our new experiences and insights. We have definitely had some major changes in our views of issues as we become increasingly aware of how policies and philosophies directly affect individuals and societies, which is the whole point.

On Friday we made a spontaneous decision to take a trip to Mole National Park. There were a few extra visitors staying at the house and we thought we should take advantage of the extra help and get away for a few days. A new volunteer arrived Friday night and we invited her along. We were impressed at her flexibility and eagerness to go despite just coming off of a 30 hour trip from Canada. She was super laid back and a great travel companion. The trip was not exactly luxury travel (it never is with us). Mole is in the northern region of Ghana. The whole country is about the size of Oregon, but you would never guess it by the length of time it takes to drive across. We took a bus to Tamale which made several fifteen minute breaks which turned into hour-or-two breaks for bus maintenance and various other issues. What was supposed to be an eight hour drive ended up being about sixteen. The roads are intermittently paved and I’m not convinced the paved areas are any better than the unpaved. We probably doubled our intended mileage with the amount of swerving we had to do to dodge potholes, and goats. The drive was beautiful and very entertaining. We watched the landscape change from flat and sparse to thick and hilly. The buildings change from cement blocks to round mud homes with thatched roofs. The people changed from busy city Christians to rural traditional Muslims. And the transportation changed from traffic jams of cars to occasional groups of villagers walking miles to fetch water or sell the goods they carried on their heads.
We arrived in Tamale at 10:30pm and after a few short hours of horizontality in a hostel we caught an early ride to Larabanga, the little Muslim village at the entrance to the park. There wasn’t space on the Metro bus so we asked around and found a tro tro going there at five in the morning. The ride turned all of us from white and black people into red dirt people. Every head was dyed henna red by the time we arrived and what began the trip as white prayer caps came out fully transformed along with any part of your body or luggage that was exposed to air. We rented bikes in Larabanga and rode about 5km into the park. About 50 meters past the entrance we spotted our first antelope and just beyond that we saw a bunch of monkeys. We stayed at the Mole Motel, which is idyllically located on a cliff overlooking two huge watering holes and the vast spread of the park. Just as exciting for me was the clean swimming pool which we made good use of, I haven’t swam in ages.
Within the first few hours we were sipping cool drinks by the pool and watching the lookout for animals when a couple of baboons came running out carrying a bag of stolen food. They startled us from behind and were followed by about ten more friends of various sizes. A couple of them settled on a perch about five feet away from us. We had to fight off a baby baboon who wanted our yellow bottle of sunscreen (a precious commodity) that he must have mistaken for a banana. It seemed too cliché to be true, like a page out of Curious George where we are the man with the yellow hat. Soon afterward he found an actual banana peel and was satisfied to sit there obediently for a kodak moment.
We went on two safari hikes in the park which are only allowed with a park ranger as your guide. The landscape is technically called “wooded savannah” but to me it was a jungle (John argues it’s a forest). We saw different kinds of antelope – kob, water buck and bush buck – three kids of monkeys, baboons, more than our share of warthogs, and a lot of different birds including storks and guinea fowl. Our first hike was in the evening and we did another the next morning. The jungle smelled like fresh herbs everywhere, which surprised me, I was expecting more of an animal smell I suppose. It was hot and muggy, but the anticipation of seeing the animals was so exciting no one minded. We tried not to leave any evidence of our trek, save for a few sneaker prints and a number of bugs fuller than before. After a rigorous two and three hour hike with some intense tracking, we were disappointed that we hadn’t seen any elephants (the main attraction). Our guide, who had worked there for 27 years, was feeling bad about it too and was working hard to find them. Somehow, though, it validated the experience for me. This was authentic. The elephants weren’t being coaxed out of cages to perform for us; we were foreigners in their home, not the other way around. Later in the day we saw one from above. He was taking a bath in the watering hole and we watched him for a few hours as he napped and went about his daily routine. I was satisfied.
At night I lay awake listening as the fan click rhythmically, it sounded like Grandma Mary’s fingernails rapping out tunes on a restaurant table. I couldn’t sleep and kept getting up to look for animals out the window. I saw six or seven kob antelope grazing at different times of the night and in the early morning light I could make out a few elephants moving from the open field into the trees. We ate lunch at the motel restaurant, which is notoriously slow - we took our time in the pool and at the lookout - and when our food finally arrived we tried some new ethnic dishes; guinea fowl in curry, fufu, and omo-tua with groundnut soup. Warthogs watched us from their mud hole by the pool. This place is definitely in the running for a spot on my list of paradise locations.
Unfortunately John got sick on our last day and as we rode our bikes out of the park we found tick bites all over our legs. We spent the night on the roof of a small guest house in Larabanga with a Dutch couple and two German students . The owner’s son played on the roof with us and told us what we could and couldn’t take pictures of. The Dutch couple had left from Spain and have been traveling for four months around West Africa. They plan to spend eight more months on their way to South Africa and had some pretty interesting stories to tell.
The chief of the village had just died and there were continual funeral services going on. I was amazed at how remote the town felt, and pleased it had kept its cultural flavor despite its location on a tourist path. I suppose even the most touristy location here is off the beaten path compared to Egypt. John couldn’t sleep because of his sickness so we spent most of night looking up at the stars and the full moon until the cloud cover rolled in. The clouds looked like a giant white reflection of the crackled mud we had been walking on all day. It seemed that everything here came full circle and I felt the chaos around us settle into a peaceful rhythm. We listened to chickens, people and goats rumbling around in the night and finally fell asleep just a half hour before it started to rain. Thankfully, our bus was arriving soon so we packed our things, climbed down from the roof and began our journey home.
It took 6 different vehicles to get us home, but we saved about eight hours compared to our way there. On one of the tro tro drives we stopped suddenly. The driver’s assistant ran back a few hundred yards and returned carrying a four foot lizard. When they threw it in the back of the van it was only mostly dead and I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder every few minutes to make sure it wasn’t moving in our direction. When we finally got home the water wasn’t on, but we were so thankful to be in our “own” bed we didn’t care that we were filthy and fell immediately asleep.

It seems every egg in Tema has hatched in the past week. We have our own ten little chicks running around the back and pecking behind their mother. Walking down the street you have to dodge them - there are chicks everywhere. Our rooster may or may not belong to the neighbor, no one is really sure. He is over here about half the time and I can’t get a straight story on where he belongs. We’ve decided today to take a trip to Mole National Park in the northern region of Ghana. By the time I post this, we will probably be back and I’ll hopefully have some stories to tell that involve more interesting animals than chickens.
In Ghana it is very important to know what day of the week you were born. They may not know what year or month they were born, but they all know the day of the week. There is a masculine and feminine name for each day of the week and many people go by this name. John and I are Kwame and Akosia – Saturday and Sunday born.
The movies are full of scandal with occasional scripture quotations and conversion experiences. Most of the films they watch are from Nigeria and have the same 5 actors in them. The plots usually involve someone cheating on someone or backstabbing their best friend and end abruptly with a confession, forgiveness or a sudden death. I suppose the mix of friction and faith is somewhat congruent with a lot of Old Testament stories, so it’s not too inaccurate. It is still very confusing to watch the ease with which they accept the clash of piety and corruption. The other day I saw the African remake of “A Walk to Remember”. It was the exact same story line only with worse acting (I didn’t think that was possible either, but I assure you, it is.) Strangely, some of the most annoying cultural things are also very endearing.
These are just a few of the curiosities of Ghana we have found especially interesting. My list of store names is growing, so here’s an update: “Come to Me Cold Store”, “Clap for Jesus” kiosk, “Blood and Fire Fashions”, “Thy Will Chemicals”, “Divine Providence Cosmetics”, “Jesus is my Manager - Collections” “Jesus Say Yes”, “Phobia Enterprise”, “Redemption Barbering”, “Goodness and Mercy Chop Bar”, and my new contender for best yet, a fast food stand called “I Shall Not Want – Jollop Rice”.
I wrote this before our weekend trip, but am posting it now. Today was a good day of emails, being gone for a few days it’s nice to come home to some encouraging words from family and friends. I’m going to go home and take care of John, but I’ll try to write back in the next few days. Sending love you all.