"So Long, Farewell, Auf Weidersehen, Adieu"

And now it's time to say goodbye to all our family:
- Tuwohofo-Holly International School
- Akotokyir Village
- Fair Hill Guest House
- Cape Coast

And here comes John Denver again... All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

First thing tomorrow I leave for Accra in my old friend Kofi's taxi. His fee is reasonable for the 2-3 hour trip and, unless we have traffic like we did coming here, I should get to Bettina and Yaw's house by late morning.  I'm looking forward to seeing them and spending my last weekend (ever?) in Ghana with them.

As I wrote at the outset of my travel, this trip has been and continues to be different. I came with a two-fold purpose and so my time, energies, engagement were also split between Tuwohofo-Holly International Schools' 30th Anniversary celebration and visiting senior high schools that, according to information received Stateside, had been beneficiaries of science and technology donations from PIE (Progress in Education - the non-profit created by Ghanaian-Americans to help high schools "back home").

While this dual focus created certain scheduling issues, in reality it was beneficial in that for the first time since 2003 I did not have a group with me - which meant that my 24-7 focus was not on 7-12 other people and their needs and agendas. I'm not at all certain what I would have done with myself at T.H.I.S. for two weeks had my time there not been broken up by lengthy trips visiting far-flung high schools. So, thank you, Lord, for giving me such a busy time here.

My last trip to visit a school was on Tuesday. Tony Takyi and I, in his 1991 Toyota Hilux diesel truck drove to the town of Dunkwa at the northern edge of Ghana's Central Region (Cape Coast is the principal city of Central Region) to visit Boa Amponsem Senior Secondary School. What would have taken a little over two hours on decent roads, took us almost five hours. We left CC around 7:30am and arrived at the school just before 12:30. The majority of the trip was on dirt roads and, as is typical when driving in Ghana, you drive where there aren't pot holes and rain-washed ruts. So, we drove on the left side, the right side, the middle, and on a couple of occasions off the side of the road through the weeded borders.  That's while we were dodging oncoming cars, tro tros, taxis, lumber trucks, buses, motorcycles and a few random bicycles.  Not to mention people walking to and from farms or cocoa groves or palm nut groves or women carrying large bundles of wood on their heads so they could cook for the next day or two.

We met with the Headmaster of Boa Amponsem Senior High who has been in this position since January of 2014. He assured us that no equipment or donations of any kind had been received from the U.S. in March of 2014. "If we had received anything I would have known and would have immediately written letters of thanks.  No, we have received nothing.  But we have many needs." I enjoyed meeting and talking with him and left him my business card and told him to e-mail me with what he feels are the pressing equipment needs of BASS. I had done the same at each of the other five schools we visited last week.  

 

Mr. Baidoo told me yesterday as we were talking in his breezeway "office" that his elder brother, Thomas, had been a student at BASS and that it was one of the oldest of Ghana's public boarding high schools. BASS has a large campus and currently boards almost a thousand boys with another four hundred being day students who live in Dunkwah, second only to Cape Coast in population within the Central Region.

We spoke with the Headmaster for about 30 minutes and then got back on the road for a 4 hour drive home. Have I mentioned that Takyi's truck has no air conditioning (and there is a broken spring on the passenger side of the front bench seat)?  So he puts on a nylon jacket before we hit the dirt roads outside of Dunkwah to keep the red dust from getting on his shirt. Me? I just went with the flow.

We drove an hour and a half back toward Cape Coast and stopped in the town of Twifu Praso on the Pra River. This is Tony Takyi's home town and, as is always the case in Ghana, he called out to a few folk as we drove through the center of town. Tony had brought the TLG team here for a day back in 2013 and while in town we were formally hosted by the Chief of Twifu Praso and his elders in the "courtyard" outside the palace (the village chief's home is called his palace).  It was also the day that a few team members tried "bush meat" (in this case a very tasty antelope stew) in a local chop shop.

The only way to cross the Pra River at Twifu Praso is by means of an old out-of-service narrow gauge railroad bridge - the only vehicular route across this wide active river. As you drive across this one-lane bridge you cannot help but wonder whether cars really should be driving over railroad tracks even if there are timbers in place between the rails. But we made it safely both times and stopped in Twifu Praso for a mid-afternoon lunch: FuFu and Light (spicy) Soup with half of a fried fish floating in the broth.  FuFu is Ghana's national dish (a separate posting required).

We got back on the road after a half-hour break, put more foo-el into the truck and Tony dropped me off at the Fair Hill Guest House around 6:30pm.  Tony, of course, did all the driving and I know he was exhausted because driving in Ghana, particularly in the rural areas, means constantly slowing down to go over humps, swerving to avoid pot holes, hanging on for dear life when you hit a washboard stretch, and breathing easy for about 3 minutes when the road evens out.  Still, he told me again and again, "Prof, I like doing this. I have not been up here in a long time and it is good. Anything for you, Prof."

So, another long, long, long day on Ghana's back roads was finally ended.  My clothes, were red with road dust (of course I had worn light khaki cargo pants while Takyi had dark slacks on). So as soon as I got to my room, my clothes went into the plastic bucket in my bathroom and soaked in soapy water all night.  But, it was worth it.  The ten hours of driving, the frustration of finding that no donation had been received, the positive impression made by the Headmaster, the time spent talking with Tony and learning about life and education in Ghana. All of it was definitely worth it.  Would I do it again? Not this week; but...

In addition to the above reasons why the day was worthwhile is this one: the Headmaster of Boa Amponsem Senior Secondary School knows that this was important enough to us to drive all the way from Cape Coast to meet with him for thirty minutes and that is something not lost in a relational culture such as Ghana's.

And, equally important, I now know firsthand how really difficult and challenging it is to be so separated because of poor roads.