Wednesday, November 14, 2007

A Day in the Life!!!!!!

So, you might be sitting there and thinking to yourself, what is life like in Eguafo, Ghana? Well lucky you! you have stumbled upon a few folks who currently live there and we are about to tell you about the daily life of Eguafo Broni's (Bromi is the term for "White Man or White Woman")

4:30 am: Wake up time is roughly around this time where we can here the kids starting to clean their rooms and the local church behind us chanting and singing the same song at the same time everyday. Of course we have the pleasure of our backdoor neighbor yelling and making sure her side of the story is being heard by everyone who will listen
4:30-5:15am: diane and i refuse to believe that people are actually up right now and arguing! We try to stay asleep but are definitely awake.
5:30-6:00 am: we actually get up and put on our running stuff and go for a run.
6:00-6:45-7:00am: we run on a trail that weaves it's way through a beautiful farm. We see the sun rising, plantain trees, corn growing, cocoa trees, orange trees, cassava plants, charcoal being made, and a beautiful soccer field. it is breathtaking! The kids used to run with us in the beginning but they have stopped. they do enjoy doing stretches, push-ups and sit-ups with us after we return from our run.
7:00-7:45am: we get our bucket of water and wash our bodies and our clothes with that bucket of water in an outdoor showering area. the blocks are about 5 feet tall so i can see out of them b/c there is no roof. There are 5 "showering" rooms there.
7:45 am we eat our breakfast of cocoa (read: corn breakfast mush, DEFINITELY NOT AS COOL AS A BOWL OF COCOA WOULD BE!) We also eat rice soup and various fruits.
7:55am: attempt to push the kids out the door to get to school and head off to school ourselves.
8:00am:-2:00pm: this is the school day: we have focused on teaching the students how to read. but we also have worked on art, PE, colors, songs, and other fun things like math! But again our main focus is reading and teaching English.
2-5:30pm: After school there are many different activities that we do: Project we have worked on include: creating the Sankofa Mbofra Fie web site! Look for it soon on the famous World Wide Web! We have painted three signs for the school and orphanage as well as a large one on the building. We
have brought that wonderful game of tether ball to Sankofa! We have helped build a duck house! We have built shelving. We have cooked delicious meals for the children and staff. We have meet with the Board of Directors of Sankofa and discussed their future. We have prepared Sankofa to become and NGO. We have put up mosquito nets on all the windows. We have created a monthly budget for Sankofa.
It is not all work and no play for the two travelers! Fun stuff we have done: We have each watched a Ghanaian film. (Not recommended!!!!!!!!!!!!!-Mark actually watched a Nigerian film)
We have picked oranges, coconuts, papayas, dug up cassava, made fufu (fact: 75% of Ghanaians eat FuFU for dinner)-what is FuFu- you boil cassava--editors note: cassava tastes darn good just boiled-- but then to make fufu you go through an hour long process of pounding it into more or less mashed potatoes. One person has a large pestle and the other person is placing the cassava under it in hopes of you not crushing their fingers. We have played soccer, ultimate, done gymnastics, and have worked on stupid human tricks with most of the children. Diane has worked on batik and tie dye while there. (They call is tie and dye- Mark really likes that name!)
That is all i can think of right now!
5:30-6:00pm: we eat dinner around here or a bit later. Our favorite foods are Groundnut(peanutbutter) soup, contumbra (green leafy god stuff) soup, rice, boiled cassava.
6:00pm-the sun usually sets around now. we hang out a bit more with the kids, staff, and ourselves.
6:35pm there is a brown out
6:45pm the power goes back on
6:45-7:45ishpm: reading and playing games
8:00pm: diane reads stories to the kids
8:30pm: we read in our room and go to sleep sometimes soon after.
so that is our amazing day! look for some of our favorite things in ghana soon!
thanks~

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Your day sounds much more exciting than a day in the life of a boring student in the good ole USA. I love to hear about your travels - keep up the good work and the amazing descriptions of all the food you guys eat! It is making me hungry :)