A Glimpse of Ghana

This is Gowin!

  Me and Erica at New Life Orphanage! She was such a sweetheart!

 The gang and some of the kids at New Life Orphanage! (Right to left Mary, Me, Macrina, Alixe, and Kayla in front).

We did a traditional dancing/drumming class on Saturday night. These kids put on quite a show for us and even tried to teach us a dance.

This is Cape Coast Castle. It was very eerie being there and knowing that over twenty million people were held in its dungeons in complete darkness awaiting either death or to be shipped off to a foreign land. 

After being held in the dark dungeons for up to three months, the slaves would pass through this door, deemed "The Door of No Return", as once they went through it they were packed into the ships and gone forever. 

This is right out of the "Door of No Return". It is where all the locals go to fish and is called "White Man's Beach" because for centuries the locals were not allowed on this beach as the "white men" had fenced it off and did not let anyone access it. There were SO many people down there fishing!

This is the Canopy Walk we did on Sunday. At the highest we were around 300 feet off the ground. It was absolutely beautiful! It was so incredibly green and a wonderful day!

The Gang (Mary, Kayla, Billy, Eddy, Alixe, Macrina, and Me) and our guide for the Cape Coast, Eric.

A shack community on the way home from Cape Coast - these communities dominated the entire coastline near Cape Coast and are what most of the communities looked like in Accra as well. 

Saying goodbye to Ghana!

     So far Capetown has been beyond anything I could have imagined! We arrived on Tuesday and on Wednesday we went on the most breath-taking hike/climb! We hiked up Lion's Head in the evening time and got to the time just in time to watch one of the most brilliant sunsets I have ever seen! I'm not posting pictures of it because pictures just cannot capture how beautiful it was! After the sun set you turned around and looked the other way and could see all of Capetown. It was a full moon and the entire city was bright with lights! It made for an unforgettable night!
    We started our building project on Thursday and are working on building a community center for a local township, Vrygrond. A township is an "informal settlement" if you are being politically correct but essentially it is a squatter camp. The townships lack proper sewer systems, water, infrastructure, schools, police force - you name it, they need it. It is an interesting experience working in a township. I get picked up from my house and dropped off right at the work site everyday and then get picked up from the work site and dropped off right back at my house. Instead of kids being in school they are running around the township playing around with the animals and trying to entertain themselves. I'm very excited to be working on this project though because an estimated 1.1 million people live in these townships in Capetown alone and to not see what life is like for them would be a huge disservice to myself. Also, this community center is inspired by a woman who lives in the township, right next to where we work, who wanted something greater for her community! She currently has five kids and is pregnant with her sixth, but all of her kids walk half an hour a day to get to school and her work has already brought a mini library to the area. I will keep you updated on how the manual labor is going!
     Tomorrow we are going to a braai, a barbecue, which should be lots of fun. I will post pictures of Capetown when I get some good ones!