From the Big City

Greeting from Kumasi, second largest city in Ghana with 1.5 million people. Our adventure just getting here was exhausting. Left our village at 7:30 with our favorite taxi driver. There are checkpoints on the highway (?) where ther is lots of graft. We were stopped by policemen and told that our driver's insurance was expired and that a different taxi would provide us with transport. We would not budge while they hassled our friend. It seems that since we were Brunis (white tourists) he would be allowed to continue after a gave them some money. Very common occurrance. At Cape Coast we hoped to board a bus soon but needed to wait 2 hours before departure. Then the fun began....the roads were horrible with potholes, so we progressed at a snail's pace much of the time. We made one rest stop about 2.5 hours into our trip for snacks and a stretch. When I asked several local ladies for a pay toilet, one l ead me across the road and handed me a huge leaf. All I could do was laugh and use the opportunity in the bush, out of sight of the busload of passengers.

We finally arrived in Kumasi, the garden city, in the heart of the market place, absolutely enormous and bustling. With the help of our guide book and several passersby, we found our hotel. Greeted with a clean room, towels, and soap, we were very happy. Dined and now we are at the neighboring Internet Cafe.

Tomorrow we will explore some sights of the city, then board the bus for our return at noon. It will have been a whirlwind getaway but an adventure nonetheless. The countryside enroute here was hilly and lush and dotted by little villages that all begin to look alike. The government built school are all identical as are the gov't. issued uniforms in gold/brown.

Taught several math lessons this week and shared the algorithm, Lattice Method for multiplication with 2 classes. They love it and floor the entire time. Never in America. One tiny example of the difference in a third world country. Someone told us that families can get insurace for 15 cedis, but the problem is noone caught on fast. During one class, an epileptic child suffered a seizure and lay sprawled on the has 15 cedis.

Most people in our village earn their living, hand to mouth, through fishing, farming, or selling small items from a wooden shipping box. We have no market, so the ladies walk twice a week with their vegetable, kenkey or smoked fish to a neighboring village on the road. We are tucked away at the seaside where noone travels by enroute anywhere. A small number of men go to a nearby city to work. There is a strong tradition to stay in the village generation after generation.

I am past the halfway mark and am missing many people and conveniences of home. We still have travel plans for the next 2 weekends, so I will keep you posted. Thank you for all the prayers and well wishes. They have helped to keep us healthy and happy. But then the village children and women are a wonderful support system for us. They seem at times to be the whole village.

We keep receiving updates on the campaign and feel very encouraged by what we hear. We never see television, so at times we feel very out of touch with America. Life seems simple most days and very routine. Encountered a hunter this week on my early morning walk carrying a rifle in one hand and an antelope in the other. A small one.

Lots of love,
Linda