Week of 20251221 - Ghana Week 93: Last Sunday at Mfuom; Spotty Power; White Shirts Donated; WiFi Data Purchase; Truck Repair; Special Meal; Christmas; Missionary to Accra; Anomabo Beach Resort
= Sunday, we made our last trip to Mfuom. Coming Sundays will be at other locations as we experience meetings in other Wards before departure. Home, power dropped for a couple of hours. I worked on bicycle issues, then by 0200 Steph shared song lyric suggestions from ChatGPT for the podcast she's getting ready to start after we get Stateside.
= Monday, we had no power; by 1030, I was at the office to use the Internet there to work on the blog. Multiple Elders were sorting new white shirts by size, shirts that an organization had donated. I scanned and sent medical invoices to Steph and worked on bicycle and vehicle issues. Steph had power mid-day.
= Heading home, I bought bread and bought a fluffy cap (with ears) as a gift to protect Steph's hair while she sleeps. Steph fixed supper, and we were still on our laptops past 10:30
= Tuesday, I interacted with our sister-in-law, Carol-Ann, who was checking on our return and wondering whether we would bounce back out to another mission right away. When I discovered our WiFi data balance was nearly zero, I bought more data. I worked on a clothing issue. Home, we had ramen and sardines; good; just enough salt. Our truck was picked up to work on it; it was a blessing that it didn't happen until after I made multiple trips to add WiFi data. I worked on bicycle and apartment issues.
= Wednesday, my effort yesterday to block morning light from over the back door with aluminum foil (so Steph could sleep in longer) worked. In the afternoon, M3 delivered a big meal we had arranged for. We watched an animated version of Scrooge and then Jim Carey as The Grinch. Steph found bicycle helmets for the mission on Temu, but because that large order would require someone to show her passport to receive them after we leave, we dropped the idea. Kevin Lloyd reached out to me from Indiana via a Facebook video chat; I met him shortly after Ann-Marie, my first wife, died, and we've kept in touch since.
= Thursday, Christmas. I gave Steph the hat. We responded to a musical post from Mary-Lorraine, our oldest daughter. The Dimmicks dropped off a gift of plantain chips. We packed for tomorrow's drive to bring a Sister to Accra. We sang Christmas carols while we packed. Sleep was difficult.
= Friday, we were outside our gate by 0717, and the Sister leaving for medical reasons was ready for us in Brafoyaw. However, she asked for her items that had been parked in the office safe. None of us had remembered until we reached the office that she needed travel money and a mission pin; so, this worked out well.
= We left the office for Accra by 0830, picked up a malaria test kit and malaria medication (to be used if she develops symptoms in her home country), and drove through construction whose dust made it hard to see. We arrived at the temple grounds at 1 and handed her off to a staff member who brought her to where she would spend the night prior to her flight home the next day.
= On our way home, I stopped at a mall for food and instead was blessed to find KFC at the edge of the mall: fast food versus a long sit-down period that would have resulted in a later return. Then we continued to Anomabo Beach Resort for a Senior retreat and arrived there by 5:45. We ate with the Dimmicks, then organized our room and slept.
= Saturday, I grabbed what was left just before the breakfast buffet closed. I checked on the Dimmicks a couple of times and finished a blog episode. At 2, we were outside and ordered with the Dimmicks at 2 and were served at 3:30. We saw the Tachie-Mensons occasionally. Back at the room, Steph made arrangements for a missionary to be moved to a clinic in Cape Coast to be treated; he was dehydrated, panicky, and delirious.
= We took an evening stroll together, gabbed with the Dimmicks who were eating - we didn't, and sat on recliners to look at the water and the lights winking in the distance. In the room, we dug out snacks. I worked on the journal; Steph monitored the status of the ailing missionary. [After malaria treatment, he was better by Monday.]
The corner store I often talk about. The next intersection to the right is with national highway N1. In the distance, you see people heading for church.
Greatest Love Links (?) Ventures
Wash ramps are being constructed next to this tower. The tower could be to hold a polytank for the water source.
Old firm, new signs. aat-foundation.org claims to do "sustainable" tourism.
To church
He stocks very few parts, somehow calculating what will sell; the variety changes from time to time, and he's been here for more than a year.
The goats have to make a choice; the two near the center are facing in opposite directions.
Unsorted but mostly small firewood
I don't know where they're going or whether they're together.
Foundation for a scoreboard for this football pitch?
Prepare for takeoff [grin]
94
There are clay oven designs that use less wood, but this one, three lumps of clay, replenished frequently, is the most common we've seen.
When we see water being moved in bulk, we know the dry season has arrived.
They are boarding the aboboyaa.
Not trying to balance this basket
Dirt to fill potholes near Kakum National Park
Every meeting needs chairs.
Here come kids (and adults)..
We surmise that the weight of the poles helps secure the roof.
One of these white boxes was at Mfuom for a while. Perhaps it holds construction material.
The initial cement-block fence was put around this property after we arrived; after a long interval, construction began in earnest. This roof is only a couple of months old, if that.
A different view of the statue cluster at Amponsem Square
Preparing and selling coconuts for immediate consumption of their milk (and potentially their "meat", though it appears to us that the hull is thrown away with the meat intact).
Salesman. A flashback reminds me that I once sold brushes and soaps and perfumes and candles door-to-door: "Fuller Brush Man!"
We opened the windows when the power dropped for a couple of hours. The house is built for air to flow through.
The wood is a ceiling panel. Geckos seem to defy gravity. We seldom see them in the house, although we know they are there. They eat bugs. Sometimes they'll hide behind or inside an air conditioner.
They're measuring and sorting white shirts by size so they can be given to missionaries.
Laminated labels; the bicycles for these labels haven't come back to the mission yet. The even and odd labels are sorted separately so they can be found quickly. (The numbers are read from red to green, the sequence of colors, top-to-bottom, of the Ghanaian flag.)
Ɔkyeso Nyame {Provident God}
Tuwoho fo -> Tu wo ho fo {Advise yourself, take care of yourself}
Chicken patties, green beans, vegetarian beans
..
Our "office" at the end of the living room
Driving the back road to Veronica's stand to buy data.
Sardines in ramen: a new quick treat.
(One can of sardines and its oil split between us, two sardines each; Indomie seasoning added to the sardines; two SuperPacks of ramen in boiling water for two minutes, then fished out and added to our bowls.)
Steph finished before I did.
Elder Dimmick sent funds for our electric meter.
The foil applied to the window over the back door has been effective.
Otherwise, it would be brighter than this: the master bathroom window.
Setting up for Christmas Eve dinner
Turkey, mashed potatoes (stuck to the lid, here)
Mac and cheese, rolls, cherry pie (and apple pie)
..
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol
(animated), with songs)
As a young man, fear of poverty caused accumulating wealth to become the point of his existence.
Changed, he makes a business partner of Bob Cratchit.
The Grinch, the Jim Carey version directed by Ron Howard.
World on a snowflake
Video call with an old friend
Christmas gift from the Dimmicks
in the pressure cooker with leftover peas, and french fries!
(and now we know what to do with leftover French fries)
Mashed potatoes, gravy, and mozzarella cheese
And may hope be the lighthouse that guides your steps.
A business, perhaps a 20-minute brisk walk uphill from Brafoyaw
The right turn to downhill that I have to be reminded of
The owner has dumped building materials in front of the door - Brafoyaw.
Another approach to having a breezy patio
Giftious Pub and Food Joints
Fantastic. Jules Verne used this word in the sense of impossible to be believed: utterly fantastic.
We stopped by the office for items needed by the person we were bringing to Accra
It was early; the Dimmicks found what was needed and then returned home.
Finally on the road to Accra at 0838
Passing on a slight curve and hill..
Hill where everyone sells the same items
Susu sei me - ɔbra nye woara abɔ {Think about it - Life is your own responsibility}
Anomabo Beach Resort, this is where we'll double back to tonight for the senior retreat.
Town sign donated by the local football club
Machete or Cutlass, it comes in different shapes and sizes.
Obra YÉ› Ntoboase {figuratively: Life requires patience}
He is rocking his van while the attendant mans the pump; he wants as much fuel as it will hold.
Steph is picking up medication we didn't readily find in Cape Coast; it's for future use by the missionary we're bringing to Accra if needed.
Preparations are being made to widen the road
This is a big undertaking that will span the width of Ghana along the coast, and beyond to other countries.
King of Glory Bakery Ltd.
Destination: Accra
Businesses will have to be moved and compensated.
Much of the approach to Accra looks like this, as we are directed down small roads on either side of the new construction.
Seeing all the lanes at once, sometimes you imagine the future of this highway.
Christ Hyira {Christ Bless}
Inattentiveness could take you off the edge at night.
Piles of gravel are being watered down.
It was worse than this; the camera's filter pierced some of the dust.
This is similar in architecture to Kat apartment near the Abura chapel in Cape Coast, only this one doesn't have walls or railings yet on the curved portion.
Siblings love roofing
Clearly, this is the place to come for onions and potatoes: stalls, and stalls and stalls and stalls.
You don't have to pull off of the road.
Imagine this at night. Even now, the camera makes this appear clearer than it is to the eye.
You could climb the embankment to buy.
Queued to deposit their load, day after day after day
Of course, our side has traffic too.
The goat has a good place to ride.
Tricycle motorcycles I agree with. They're light enough that they can be extricated from a situation and aren't top-heavy. I'm not as sure about this three-wheeled truck.
(Of course, four-wheeled Ford vans also had a rollover problem.)
There's a world below overpasses.
There are people under this load.
Melcom and Shoprite next to each other: a strong combination.
And KFC. We somehow didn't remember later that we had seen this KFC at this mall instead of downtown, and that omission figured into our discussions later.
[On the way home, I worked to get to the mall for some kind of food and was delighted to find that the KFC was here: fast food, so we won't travel in the dark.]
The pedestrian walkway uses stairs, not ramps.
Two men, trying to close the back doors..
Dada Ba {pampered child; son or daughter of a wealthy person}
Someone tried to make the cell tower remind you of a tree.
(We see this sort of thing in the States as well.)
We're on the temple grounds, our destination, just before 1.
Of course it's closed, and the adjacent offices are closed. But a person who has been notified of our arrival is there; the handoff takes fewer than five minutes.
Imagine a package and a shoe at the same time.
Onua ɛye adom bi... {Brother, it is a grace [that]...}
Forgive
Shops set up on what will be a guardrail someday.
The truck is merging; he won.
You're free, but where will you go?
(I think it's an auto repair shop.)
Vendors and travelers at a transfer point
There's a church back there.
Grazing between a wall and a gully
Really wide clearing of the soil
Matthew 7:7 - Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Roadside graves. What will become of them when the road is widened?
We've reached the turn for Anomabo Beach Resort: site of the senior retreat.
We have arrived, before 6. (We beat the darkness.)
They spotted me and posed..
We won't be using the TV.
Free breakfast. There would have been fried egg, sweet potato, jollof rice [spicy], sauteed vegetables, scrambled egg, beef sausage, and other items, but I arrived as the bar was closing.
A thick crepe, vegetables, watermelon, and a roll. Not bad.
It looks too good to be true, but it really is like this. Breakwaters jut perpendicularly from the shore, reducing sideways wave action.
Seagoing canoes are moored offshore.
The Dimmicks got moving earlier, checking things out.
Regular darts
Tetherball
There are two sets of bungalows, one on each side of the restaurant. We were on this side.
Our bungalow. The Tachie-Mensons are at the table just outside.
View through the screen of our bathroom window
There are ships in the distance.
A volleyball court with permanently marked boundaries
We won't travel without laptops.
Activity
..
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