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

Recap of LWW Ghana

We had another great trip this week in Ghana.  We were happy to reconnect with many of our friends and colleagues.

The visit to Kwahu Praso was important and although we saw & heard many good things, we also have some things that we can help them do better - its part the journey.

The Operator Conference came at a very good time.  The attendees from all the different locations coming together and sharing their experiences and ideas was very important.  We look forward the written recap that we know Rev Asante will send us.

Rev Asante will be leaving his post as Director of Development and Social Services at the end of August 2020.  So there is time to plan for his transition with the work of LWW in Ghana.  We have been fortunate to have Rev Asante in his DSS role as he has built onto the work of his predecessor, Daniel Opong-Wereko.

As the blog post "Water is Life" articulates, all work toward providing Ghanaians for generations to come access to safe water is crucial.  We are grateful for having the opportunity to have a small role is this work.