Ghana - June 4, by Russell Howard

After a couple days of travel, we've finally arrived at our first full day at the Weda Resort.  This morning, the staff at the Anomabo Beach greeted us with eggs and pancakes to prepare us for a day of village visiting.  We departed around 9:00 for about a one-hour journey to the Ayeldu community.  Though the bus ride was bumpy, it was filled with both impressive landscapes and poverty-stricken towns.  We drove by hundreds of street vendors, each carrying heavy food or water on his or her head.  We also saw various abandoned or otherwise dilapidated buildings.  According to our Squads leader Halil, these buildings are unfinished because of the lack of a banking system in Ghana.

Upon arriving to the first community, Ayeldu, it's customary to meet the chief and inform him of your intentions.  We walked by the palace, but didn't meet the chief until we entered his private residence.  Every member of the team shook his hand, and we thanks him in Fanti: "medasse."  We also introduced ourselves with our newfound Fanti names.  In Fanti, the prevailing language in this part of southern Ghana, but distll one of the hundreds in the broader country, names are attributed based on the date of the week on which you were born.  For example, Wednesday, the day I was born, comes with the name "Kweku."  The seniors of the group then presented the chief with several gifts.  These gifts mostly included MBA goods, like a small football and shirts and bags, and some soaps made in Nashville, but the chief seemed very appreciative.  As Halil later informed us, this chief was slightly different from others in that he addressed the group directly, rather than using the interpreter as a liaison.  So the group graciously thanked the chief for his blessing and investigated the rest of the village.

Next, we visited the medical center, a small clinic that treats ailments that don't require surgery.  The center also has a midwife and a room for baby delivery.  Interestingly, the "small" medical problems seemed substantially different from what Americans would deem inconsequential.  In Ayeldu, the small illnesses would include HIV, intestinal worm, malaria complications, etc.

After the medical center, we visited the worksite.  We didn't work today, but we met the kids and teachers of the school we are renovating.  During the next few days, though, the group will be constructing a room to house computers, which the kids have previously not had the opportunity to use.  We probably met upwards of a hundred kids just where we visited.  According to Sam, another one of our Squads leaders, it's normal in Ghana for classrooms to contain 50-60 students.  One little girl wouldn't let Jimmy go, and many kids tried to mimic Collin's dances.  But everyone was impressed when Reggie did a backflip in the circle of students.  Unfortunately, we had to leave Ayeldu to return to the Weda Resort for lunch.

After the group was again satiated, we got back on the bus to visit another village in Ekumfi.  On the way, we passed by a large juice factory.  Mabel, another Squads leader, told us it produced the local brand of pineapple juice, Ekumfi Juice.  Upon our arrival, we were again treated like celebrities by the local children.  Despite that most of them likely believed we were last year's Squads group returning, we welcomed their excitement nonetheless.  In the village, we entered last year's Squads construction project: a new building filled with computers.  Then, the group walked through the village with the locals.  Some of us practiced some of the Fanti phrases Sam and Halil taught us.  The native children's ability to speak some English was awe-inspiring, especially considering how rural this part of Ekumfi is.

We finally reached the beach, and Reggie once again demonstrated his backflipping abilities to everyone's delight.  This time, one of the locals successfully backflipped as well.  Eventually we began playing a form of tag with the kids on the beach.  Despite the language barrier, the game's simple parameters allowed us to convey the rules clearly.

In southern Ghana, fishing is a large part of many people's lives.  To learn more about the industry, the group met with the fishing chief of the village.  He told us the fishermen in Ekumfi only go out during the night to fish.  They primarily catch herring, casting a net sixty yards deep in the Atlantic.  We thanked the fishing chief with another "medasse" and left the village.  

Back at Weda, the Squads kitchen staff cooked some mouth-watering fufu for dinner.  We ended the day with some reflection with Halil, as well as some Ghanan political discussion, readying us perfectly for the first day of work.