Michael - Malaria

We were to meet Michael at Anum earlier this week and then Michael was going to travel with us on our journeys the rest of the week.  However, the day before we arrived at Anum malaria flared with Michael.

Malaria never goes away - you always have it.

Rev Asante brought Michael to Accra in another car from us and Michael rested Wednesday night and all day Thursday.  We spoke to him a few times and no doubt Michael was not feeling well.

Michael showed up for the meeting yesterday, and although not 100%, he looked much better and stronger..

Malaria is a way of life in Ghana.

Meeting Recap - Look Around the Room

 We met yesterday at the PCG HQ in the OSU part of Accra located on the street Kukuhill Circle.

At the meeting were Teiko, Rev Amfo-Akonnor, Rev Asante, Regina, Rose, Michael, Chalmers, Rev Daniel Opong-Wereko, and Rev Samuel Nyampong.  Rev Nyampong attend Clean Water U over 10 years ago and is a big supporter as well as engaged in what LWW is doing in Ghana.  Rev Nyampong was clerk of the PCG for many years, as well.  Rev Opong-Wereko was Director of Development and Social Services prior to Rev Asante.  I met Daniel on my first trip to Ghana.

Why Are These People Here

When I looked around the room yesterday, it struck me pretty quick that that only person in the meeting whose job it is to work with us, grow the number of sites, etc. is Teiko Sabah.

Rev Amfo-Akonnor, Rev Asante, Regina, Rose, Michael, Chalmers, Rev Daniel Opong-Wereko, and Rev Samuel Nyampong all are in the room because LWW water treatment systems and health education for those in need in Ghana is “their” mission / “their” giveback.  Reverends Nyampong and Amfo-Akonnor have been involved for well over 15+ going back to when they attended Clean Water U.

Michael, Regina, & Rose all have full time jobs here in Ghana.  So their time this week was at the expense of family and work.

Now we have Dave & Julie Parks from Kansas that put in a system in May ‘22 in Kumasi.  They had a great experience and want to be involved more.  Dave is one of LWW’s top 103 (water treatment system) instructors/experts and Julie is a board member of LWW.

Special group that is growing!

Meeting Recap - Opportunities

 We met yesterday at the PCG HQ in the OSU part of Accra located on the street Kukuhill Circle.

At the meeting were Teiko, Rev Amfo-Akonnor, Rev Asante, Regina, Rose, Michael, Chalmers, Rev Daniel Opong-Wereko, and Rev Samuel Nyampong.  Rev Nyampong attend Clean Water U over 10 years ago and is a big supporter as well as engaged in what LWW is doing in Ghana.  Rev Nyampong was clerk of the PCG for many years, as well.  Rev Opong-Wereko was Director of Development and Social Services prior to Rev Asante.  I met Daniel on my first trip to Ghana.

Opportunities

Not a short list.  We have an opportunity with an additional funding partner, a pending discussion with a group from the USA that digs bore holes in Ghana, and a micro-investment group in the USA that would like to have discussions with us about funding more systems.

There are another 5-7 sites on the Ghanaian team’s list of potential sites.

 

Meeting Recap - Train/Retrain/Repeat

 We met yesterday at the PCG HQ in the OSU part of Accra located on the street Kukuhill Circle.

At the meeting were Teiko, Rev Amfo-Akonnor, Rev Asante, Regina, Rose, Michael, Chalmers, Rev Daniel Opong-Wereko, and Rev Samuel Nyampong.  Rev Nyampong attend Clean Water U over 10 years ago and is a big supporter as well as engaged in what LWW is doing in Ghana.  Rev Nyampong was clerk of the PCG for many years, as well.  Rev Opong-Wereko was Director of Development and Social Services prior to Rev Asante.  I met Daniel on my first trip to Ghana.

Training

As we learned in 2019 at the LWW Operator’s Conference here in Ghana, training is at the top of the list for sustainability practices.  The sites are more effective than I would have believed in keeping the water rooms clean, organized and working along with making sure they water rooms have inventory of filters and common parts.  Again - every water room operator has a direct line to to Michael - how…because before Michael leaves the installation/build of the water room he writes his phone number on the wall with a big fat sharpie!

Health education and retraining of new administration persons are in need of a break through process change.  The good news is that Rose and Regina have settled into their role as In- Country Educators (ICE).  This is a role we identified in 2019 as important and during the pandemic the Ghanaian team worked on getting this role staffed with the two best people around.  This week of (re)training sessions really demonstrated the power of the education and uses for the treated water.

We identified two strategies that the Ghanaian team is going to work on: 1) a productive format for conferences going forward - such as maybe an operator & educator conference and then an admin conference with locations like Presbyterian Women’s Center (Abokobi), Ramser Training Center (Abitifi), College of Education (Akropong), etc.  This would make the meetings smaller, but more accessible with higher participation. 2) It’s time for Regina, Rose, & Michael to find/train other Reginas, Roses, and Michaels (***see post on Michael and malaria).

The Ghanaian team is going to step back and see what is possible to move training to the top of the sustainability pyramid and keep it there.

Meeting to Recap - Commitment

We met yesterday at the PCG HQ in the OSU part of Accra located on the street Kukuhill Circle.

At the meeting were Teiko, Rev Amfo-Akonnor, Rev Asante, Regina, Rose, Michael, Chalmers, Rev Daniel Opong-Wereko, and Rev Samuel Nyampong.  Rev Nyampong attend Clean Water U over 10 years ago and is a big supporter as well as engaged in what LWW is doing in Ghana.  Rev Nyampong was clerk of the PCG for many years, as well.  Rev Opong-Wereko was Director of Development and Social Services prior to Rev Asante.  I met Daniel on my first trip to Ghana.

Commitment

We spoke for a long time about the attributes that make an excellent site excellent, a good site good, and then sites that aren’t in either group yet.  The attribute that we continued to circle back to was “commitment”.

The Ghanian group helped us understand that for 100s of years West Africa has been used to other nations bringing/giving to West Africa everything from the Volta Lake Dam to highways to buildings to hospitals/clinics to schools to water systems to money!  The Dutch, Germans, French, United Kingdom, United States, China, Japan, and so on.

The problem with this 100s of years of “gifting” is two fold 1) almost most of the time its what the “gifter” wants to see and not necessarily what West Africa can use effectively; and 2) there is typically no provision for sustainability.

Our commitment discussions centered getting key stake holders (my term) engaged and committed before and early with the water treatment system and health education.  LWW process is to get the admin (of the location, i.e. headmaster, general manager, pastor, etc.) committed along with the site having a water committee.  These committed groups are great for sites up to a certain size.  However, for the larger schools, like the Sr Presby schools, there needs to other groups committed.

Rev Amfo-Akonnor (Kofi) told a story about the Presby school in Koforidua where the PTA (Parents Teacher Association) has been led by the same man for over 15 years.  The school administration and the PTA do not want to see a change in leadership because the man makes the PTA work and the PTA makes the school work.  Point is - even though these larger Presby schools are boarding schools, the parents need to be engaged and committed to a primary requirement of treated water.

Another group that needs to be committed in the larger Presby schools are groups like maintenance, science department, etc.  Maintenance is clear (sort of).  Although the LWW system is maintained by the trained operators who have direct access to Michael - the system depends on raw water flow and electricity.  The schools don’t always have the best processes and urgency when electricity goes out or raw water flow is interrupted or priorities for raw water flow.  Anum lost 75% of its raw water flow to the campus - the action was for the school to repipe the remaining raw water flow to the boys wash room - every other need was “dry”.

The Ghanaian group is going to work on expanding the site selection process to include going deeper past the Presby school’s administration and water committee.

Classroom of song…

 

Memphis connection at the school in Cape Coast….

 

The Dutch football superstar, Memphis Depay, is a supporter of Cape Coast School for the Deaf.  Memphis’ father was Ghanian and Memphis spends part of the offseason in Ghana giving back.

Cape Coast School for the Deaf

We traveled to Cape Coast yesterday to visit the school for the deaf located there.

We have been to the Cape Coast area a few times as tourists to visit the Elmina castle.  Elmina is one of the former slave castles that were all along the old “Gold Coast” of Africa.  There should be posts about Elmina in the 2017 and 2016 blogs.  It was on the visit in 2017 that we learned about the government school for the deaf located in Cape Coast.

Cape Coast School for the Deaf (CCSD) was installed in late summer of 2019 - so right at 3 1/2 years ago.  CCSD has really embraced the water treatment system and health education.  The water room is one of the best in Ghana and the lead operator is a older gentlemen that understands the system and the importance of keeping everything clean, organized and working.

We spent the day training a group of students, about 50, where 2/3 of the students were deaf and 1/3 of the students were blind.  It was a moving and interesting experience.  It was interesting to see how the two groups of students interacted with the training - the deaf students were more engaging, visual, and of course speaking with sign (which by the way was very similar to kids of their same age with their hearing - all the students “speaking” at once!).  the blind children were much calmer and listened closely to the words and instructions.  As an example, the blind students were able to get the words to the songs memorized on the first pass of hearing Rose or Regina speak the words.

The health education training lasted about 7 hours and then we headed back to Accra (3 1/2 hours).

Mampong School for the Deaf

We hustled (3 hours) south back toward the Gulf of Guinea and then west toward Akropong to Mampong to visit the school for the deaf that a system and education were done in June 2022.  The amazing part of this (and the Cape Coast installation) is that the entire health education class is done in sign!

Mampong has 531 children and is a government school - no affiliation to the PCG.  The school has really taken the water system and distribution seriously and is generating about 350 gallons of safe water a week in the first 6 months.   The water room is really a nice set up - Michael and team did a great job with this one.

Our visit was short due to darkness and our need to get back into Accra.

The highlight of the visit were the kids being enamored with Chalmers iWatch.  These kids cannot speak and only can sign.  They had never seen an iWatch before.  They really got excited when I snapped a photo of them (the kids) and texted it to Chalmers and the kids saw themselves on the watch.

GREAT WAY TO END OUR 15 HOUR DAY!!!

 

Lake Volta Video

 One of the largest man made lakes in the world!

Breakfast snack on the way to Anum

 Corn maze steamed in a leaf….

Spellings / Grammar / Complete Thoughts

 I am not proof reading the posts - real time - excuse any spelling/grammar/complete thoughts errors.

Anum Sr High Presby School

Anum is one of 34 Sr High Schools the PCG partners with the Ghanaian government.  Anum has 3,000 students and is a boarding school.  It has a rich history dating back to the early 1900s and a couple of the original buildings, like the chapel, are still on the campus.

Drying clothes on the ground in the sunshine.

With 3,000 students the school has a lot of challenges with that many students - water not being the least of them.  The campus has 4 bore holes, a water feed from Ghana Water Company, and we heard today at one point (in recent times) was able to lift water from Lake Volta up the hill to the campus.

Today we saw other challenges as well.  such as the campus took a series of lightening strikes which knocked out several pumps around the campus - including the one that feeds the LWW system.  EAch bore hole has two pumps to it to lift and distribute the water.  We were disappointed in not seeing the system in full run mode - but understand the challenge.

The system at Anum is a reverse osmosis system because of the high iron content of the bore hole water.  Very common in the hills and mountains of Ghana.

The upside of the visit was we got to see a group of students, who had taken the health education class with Rose and Regina, give their demonstration, i.e. the read out of what they learned.

We think the school’s admin can get their arms around the various challenges related to water, but as we learned with Kibi (similar scale) it does take planning, thinking about distribution of the water, etc.  Teiko, Kofi and Rev Asante are very supportive of the school’s admin team - which is helpful!!

Correction - Teiko’s start date as Director DSS

Teiko became Director of Development and Social Services in October 2020.

Travel to Anum

We left Accra before sunrise today to make the 3 1/2 hour drive from the costal region of Accra to the mountains around Lake Volta.  Anum is a school of roughly 3,000 children.  We are here to meet the people of Anum Presby School where we put a system and training in 2019 (prior to COVID).

The grounds of the school sit on the shores of the lake.

GillBt Day

We today at GillBt house getting some things organized and meeting with Rev Kofi Amfo Akonnor and later with Teiko Sabah.

Kofi came by early afternoon and we spent a couple of hours catching up in person from the past 3 years.  Kofi is doing well, he moved from his position as District Minister for the Kloflorida area to outside of Tema to be the senior pastor of a church.  Kofi got it an update on all the LWW folks and we got an update on many of the Ghanaians that have been part of the work here in Ghana.  It was really good to be with Kofi in person today.

Teiko is the current Director of Development and Social Services for the PCG.  She came into this role in January 2021 and succeeded Rev Daniel Kofi Asante who had been in the role for 6 years.  6 years is the “term limit” for the role.

This is the first time we have met Teiko in person.  Teiko is bright, thoughtful, and really understands our work and the importance of our work.  It was great to take a few minutes with her and talk about the history and some of her thoughts of the future.  There is quite a bit of alignment and hope for what the group (LWW) is doing here in Ghana.

Tomorrow we head out at 6:00 a.m.  We will be going to Anum, Mampong, and Akropong.  Then back to Accra to spend the night.  It will be a long day, probably 14-15 hours and a lot of road miles.  Along the way we will link up with Kofi, Rev Asante, Regina, Rose, & Michael - so the van will fill up throughout the day.

We have sent pictures of GillBt in previous posts, but here is a short video of GillBt at night.  One observation - when we were landing into Accra last night we both noted that Accra is a brighter city at night than it used to be.  We have noticed that Accra/Ghana had been moving quickly to LED in past trips.  It looks like that since 2019 they continued that progress as last night and tonight we see much more LED than the incandescent lighting in the streets, homes, etc.

 

Two sunsets and a sunrise

We arrived in Accra somewhere around 8:30 p.m. local time.  Door to door I calculated this was approximately a 31 hour journey.  We did spend 2.5 hours in Dallas and about 10 hours in London Heathrow.

LWW trunk made it to Accra.  We had some trouble with the trunks in the Accra airport last time we were here in terms of they “weren’t” here, but they really were here.  Tonight, after like 2 million bags come off the belt, our ‘19 experience kicked in.  We found a baggage guy, showed him a picture of the trunk, and guess what it had been pulled from the belt and was sitting in a holding spot.  Now 2 times doesn’t define a process, but my guess is there will be a 3rd time!

We saw the sun set over the western horizon of eastern Canada Sunday evening.  Later on that same flight we saw the sun rise over the eastern horizon of Scotland as we were making our approach to London.  Tonight we saw from 35,000 feet the sun set again over the western horizon of the Sahara desert.

Tomorrow, we circle up here in Accra with our PCG colleagues to catch up in person and line out specifics for the week.

14 hours into the journey

We left for MEM around 9 a.m. yesterday morning.  Flight to Dallas and then onto London were fine.  Bag and LWW trunk arrived in London as planned.  We now have to check the LWW trunk back in here at  Heathrow for the London -> Accra portion of the trip.  We have a bit of a layover here at Heathrow, our flight to Accra is not schedule to depart until 13:25 London time - so we are camped out for the next 5.5 hours - then a short hop (6.5 hours) to Accra, another hour to get LWW trunk out of the airport - probably 9:30 Accra (+6 to MEM) - all in all will be a 31 hour journey.

We are looking forward to getting into Accra, reconnecting with everyone, and then heading to Anum where we will meet up with a few more of the group.

Flight to London was pretty good, we sat around some good travelers.  I had a bit of trouble falling asleep, so I tuned into the on plane entertainment system and listened to the audio book “Moby Dick”.  I was out before Captain Ahab enter the plot!  However, I made it further into the book than I did in 12th grade English class - I completed that read right after the opening line “Call me Ishmael”.  There are 4 other people reading this blog this week that were actually in that 12th grade English class and I am pretty sure all but one of us never got to the introduction of Queequeg.

Returning to Ghana

 

It has been 1,249 days since Chalmers and I left Ghana back in late September 2019.  Who would have thought that just a few months later the world would come under siege by a pandemic!

When the pandemic was in full swing, there wasn't much we could do or our colleagues with the Presbyterian Church (PCG) could do to further our mission of bringing pure water and heath education to more schools, clinics, and training centers in Ghana.

However, by summer 2020, the PCG was beginning to figure out how to navigate the pandemic in Ghana and the PCG was taking the lead on figuring out how to restart the installation of the water treatment systems and health education at new sites.

Chalmers and I are heading to Ghana later this morning and looking forward to reconnecting with our Ghanaian friends and colleagues and meeting some new (Zoom) friends for the first time like Teiko Sabah.

Our time in Ghana this week will be spent visiting the new sites the PCG installed since the fall of 2019, visiting Anum and Cape Coast for the first time (these sites were installed in 2019, but we were not able to visit them during our visit in 2019 due to the airline strike which shortened our stay), we will get the opportunity to participate in some health and education refresh training and work with our PCG colleagues to plan the next couple of years of new sites, training, another operator conference, etc.

We hope this blog shines a little light on the importance of relationship, friends, and colleagues all working toward bringing the treasures of pure water and how to use it in daily life to the many without - especially the children and the most vulnerable.

PEACE