Africa's Little People and Their Toys

Very few of the children in Sunyani have store-bought type toys or toys of any kind. That's understandable as most of their caregivers, parents or otherwise, barely have enough money to feed the family every day. Ghanaians do love their football (soccer) and on almost every dirt side street, throngs of little black urchins can be found kicking a ball (oftimes made of paper taped together or some other improvisation) between two rocks or sticks or invented goal of some kind. They are actually quite proficient at foot-eye coordination and are extremely entertaining to watch.

The smaller children are every bit as creative. We see many, many small boys (and sometimes girls) pushing an old tire or wheel of some kind along the road with a stick. One little girl huddled up in a corner stroking the matted hair of an old "barbie-type" doll with only one arm and no clothes. Another had tied a rope to a discarded trailer hitch and pulled it behind her.

One small child had made a miniature wagon out of an empty plastic cracker carton and others play with bottle caps in old plastic lids or hub caps. The most ingenious toy we've seen was a little car a small boy had constructed from an empty motor oil container.

During our game night, Face-Off, some of the events used the Coldwell Banker balloons Brittany sent us. The young children all huddle around after, as we give them the blown-up balloons to play with.

We were amazed when we first arrived, at the obedience and respect all the children always demonstrated. In Sacrament Meeting, they sit motionless, always reverent, never making a sound. We found out later that the African children are beaten severely for misbehaving or even doing anything an adult finds disagreeable. What a trade-of; I guess I'll settle for a few noisy kids.

With Christmas coming, I want to go and just purchase tons of little toys -- anything, but they actually are nowhere here to be found. But President Thayne reminds me that there is no place anyway to draw the line. I'm certain for many Christmases to come, when we watch the extravagant and expensive toys we all indulge our children with, we will think back on the simple and no-toy Christmases the Ghanaian children experience. The most amazing thing is that for the most part, at least outwardly, these little people are basically happy. They laugh and love to wave to the obrunis and if we even acknowledge them in any way, they laugh and get so excited. They are literally unspoiled by worldly things and it is amazing to watch how they look out for each other. We often see little children holding the hand and caring for even smaller children.

The government does encourage schooling and has free education for the younger ones. Many go to school; some do not. They all like school as it is better than sitting home doing chores. This is good because Africa's entire future rests in the hands of these little ones.

Farewell to Good Friends

The Zolls and the Fifes (our good friends here in Ghana) were both scheduled to leave within a few days of each other. It was so hard to realize that they were really leaving. Zolls were flying directly home, via New York City, and Fifes were going to visit their daughter in Turkey before making the trip back to their home in North Dakota. Both of them have purchased new homes, sight unseen, while here in Ghana. That's one area we feel really fortunate about as Gary's sister Shauna and her husband Rand have been living in our home and taking such good care of it.

Fifes (becuase he is the doctor for all of West Africa) already live in Accra. Zolls however, who lived in Kumasi, needed a ride to the Accra airport, so of course we volunteered to drive them. It was good to spend a few last hours laughing and reminiscing about all the "TA - typical Africa" days and the Mole and Cape Coast adventures. Bud had the radio cranked up to the Beattles singing "Leaving, On a Jet Plane"! Now it all had to come to an end. We dropped Zolls off at Fife's apartment, who were out of town, and they just laid over there until flight time. We took their new truck and headed home as it takes about 10 hours and we don't drive after dark any more.

So I now have several new skirts that I inherited from Bonnie, Gary has a new (automatic!) truck and we ended up with a lot of good food that they had left. What I want to know is why when we got so much good stuff am I still so sad and lonely? Even though they were a good 2-3 hours away, it was comforting to know that someone else understood what was happening and that we could actually call someone and have them understand what we were talking about. We really are happy for them both however. They both made huge differences in Ghana, and Zolls will forever be legends in the Kumasi area. They really broke the frontier. We shall miss them all!

Play Ball!

When we first arrived in Africa - after a few weeks of adjusting to total culture shock - we evaluated the area we were to be serving in and drew up a plan of some of the goals we wanted to instigate while here. Since all four of the branch meetinghouses were in deploarable states and President Thayne being the "neat-freak" that he is, one of the first things on the list was to clean up, renovate and make the buildings "look like the temple grounds." This was a tall order. We also wanted to get some kind of recreational facilities in each branch so that the missionaries, as well as the members, would have something fun and wholesome to do and be able to interact with each other.

FIAPRE: The first branch we attacked with a vengeance was Fiapre. It had a huge front area, overgrown and covered with weeds and the building walls, inside and out, like most of the buildings here in Ghana, had patches of mildew and fungus. After literally months of badgering, Area finally gave Prosper the funds to buy a mower--a really good mower--and the maintenance on the grounds began. The front now literally looks like a park with beautiful grass and trimmed hedges. The missionaries creatively got some large poles, cemented them into tires and made the two stand necessary to hang a volleyball net from. The District purchased the net and a new volleyball and Fiapre now has a great volleyball area. We also have a horseshoe set (donated by the Zolls) that we plan to set up on the other side of the driveway. The building is set to be painted--inside and out--and should be complete before we leave.

PENKWASE: Penkwase Branch has had the Elders moved out, has been painted inside and out and has a beautiful new baptismal font. The only problem with the font is that often times the water in the Penkwase area is out, so if we need to fill the font and the local water is "finished", water to fill the font has to be hauled by the "bucket brigade" from the well in the back of the building. There were also two magnificent 40 foot Norfolk Pines in the front yard. They were truly beautiful. One morning Car-David called and excitedly told us that they were cutting down the pines. We told him to stop them immediately, but unfortunately the trees had already been chopped down. Such is how it is in Africa; they have these wonderful trees and do not value them at all. In fact, the Africans consider them almost a nuisance. Penkwase does have a huge porch and we have purchased a heavy-duty Table Tennis table and the equipment that goes with it, so Penkwase now has a Table Tennis tournament and playtime for all the members on Saturday mornings. Thay love it!

NKWABENG: Since Nkwabeng was moved suddenly to the building the District Office was and is housed in, our plans for a basketball court were put on hold. However, after getting the "obruni price" of 1,000 cedis to make one and almost deciding it was just out of our budget, we found a basketball standard already made and just sitting on the ground at some metal worker's yard. We purchased it for a mere 240 cedis (of which the Branch paid half)and the Elders took on a service project on P-Day to put it in. It was so heavy that it took the Elders plus quite a few members just to hoist it into position. The hole we had to dig was over three feet deep and we had to use a pick to get through solid rock. What should have been a a few hours' job ended up being most of the day. Elder Larsen, from Loa, Utah, and Elder Riddle and Car-David went to work. By the end of the day they were all so black we couldn't tell them apart, and we made them hose down in the water sprocket. It was truly a great project and now we are patiently waiting for the cement guys Prosper has hired to smooth out the cement so we can paint a key on it and it is ready. The Ghanaians aren't too familiar with basketball but they are all really excited to learn. This building has also been painted inside and out and has lovely trimmed hedges lining the walkways.

ESTATES: We are holding on the Estates Branch because we really need a new building as it is just not large enough for the growth of the Branch. Buildings in the downtown area (which is Estate's area) are extremely expensive and hard to find. We've been looking for months and haven't found anything that is suitable yet, but we are determined to find something and know that it will show up. In the meantime, the weeds that covered the entire lot have been removed and a corn patch was planted. Elder Otagba from Nigeria took down a huge palm tree while we were planting the corn with one sweeping blow from his cutlass (machete). Again, trees just get in the way.

All in all, we are making progress, even though it seems oh. so slow at times. All of the buildings are looking much better. The members are learning to clean the interiors, but that's another blog in itself. We just hope we can get some kind of a schedule developed and in place before we leave so that the maintenance will go on and the buildings will be maintained for years to come.