A week off in Ghana and Togo

I arrived in Ghana at the end of March a week earlier than Dennis Hilman who I will be working with for the next few months. I came early to arrange visas as well as to visit a friend in Togo.

I was looking forward to couchsurfing during my week alone. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, look up couchsurfing.org. It's a great organization. My couchsurfing host family was wonderful! Edem, his sister Victoria, and her two daughters (seen here) Juliet and Fidelia were all welcoming and lots of fun. Another treat was meeting fellow couchsurfer Stephanie who is currently volunteering with an NGO in Ghana. (We had all just eaten green candies and were showing off our green tongues!)

Edem also works for an NGO and while I was staying he needed to go out to the field and asked if Stephanie and I wanted to go too, which we did! Edem was helping to administer baseline surveys to see which villagers would participate in a farming program. Meanwhile, I wandered around and played with the young children, joined in on a school volleyball game, or hung out with the people fillingout the survey. The highlight forme was that I could join in on a middle school volleyball game and actually hold my own! :)

We managed to squeeze in some touring through the Eastern Region when Edem was finished working. We took in the "biggest tree in West Africa", Aburi botanical gardens, the Buti Falls (which were unfortunately dry since it's only the start of the rainy season), the Umbrella Rock (where local villagers get in on the tourist trade by charging visitors to climb their ladder to the top of the rock) and a few other sites. The drive through the Eastern Region was itself a treat! The scenery was fantastic.

As soon as we returned to Accra, I was off to Togo! A good friend of mine, Karen Godard, is serving there with Mercy Ships. The tro-tro ride to the border was uneventful, other than the two hours it took us to get out of Accra due to traffic, and I met up with Karen in Lome with no trouble.

The weekend was fantastic! We couchsurfed, wandered through the market, ate lots of great street food, toured the ship where she lives, went to the ballet, toured Lome, rode around on moto-taxies, helped cook fufu, ate fufu, and generally enjoyed being in Lome. We also had birthday brownies for my birthday...a bit belated, but who cares!

Monday as fun--I went to the Dental Clinic with Karen to help out. I never would have thought I'd enjoy being at the dentist office all day, but I did. I helped clean up after each patient, I held the light for the dentists, I found and handed out tools, I even got to pull a tooth! Maybe if I decide to get a job again sometime I will consider dentistry...well, no, actually I'm lying, but I WOULD help out in a mission outreach again in a heartbeat! :)