Two pictures of our teams. The full team picture is missing two people, but it's hard to get all 21 together at once! We have become good friends with our teaching colleagues and we will miss them when we leave. The man in the centre is John Nyaogbe, the course director.

The other photo is one of us hosting Canada Night. We did this in all three locations. The evening consisted of a slide show, talks about our provinces, a Canada trivia quiz, Balderdash, a line dance, the campfire song "Fish and Chips and Vinegar", the story "The Hockey Sweater" and barrel racing. Very busy evenings, but much fun had by all!

Proof we were here! We see the words "You are welcome" everywhere and hear them every morning when we arrive at school. It's a typical , gracious greeting that we find charming.

Here's a very curious little monkey that reminds us of one of the funniest stories on our trip. At breakfast on Sunday morning at Mole, one of these brazen creatures jumped up on our table, and grabbed toast right off Debbie's plate. We all jumped and some choice words were uttered, but it provided quite a laugh for many days afterwards.

We got up close and personal with a family of elephants during our safari in Mole National Park. It was a real thrill to be so close and take great pictures and video. We also saw other animals like antelope, bush hogs, monkeys, birds, but these elephants were the highlight for sure.

This is the Regency Resorts Hotel in Sunyani. We stayed here on Saturday and Sunday nights. It had incredible gardens - lovely outside. Unfortunately it had some drawbacks that made us decide to move to the Eusbett Hotel, closer to downtown. Hot water was available in only some rooms, electricity was iffy, no internet, very noisy spot and far out of town, so we felt pretty isolated. We changed hotels this morning and we are much happier this evening. Stan, Jennifer and I went for a walk to the market (about 15 minutes walk). Jeanne and Esther also explored a bit around the market. Karen took advantage of the gym in the hotel to work out and go for a swim in the pool. We have had little opportunity for exercise since we got here. This feels good!

These are pictures from the last night in Wa - Ghana night. Upper East and Upper West competed to see who could put on the best show. So we were treated to some wonderful displays of singing, dancing and drumming - including the playing of this xylophone by a sister (nun) from an area south of Wa. She sometimes played other drums and let another player have a turn but she was amazing! At the end of the evening, the competition was declared a draw! No losers here.

Debbie and her wonderful SHS Administration class from Wa. Jennifer and some items she purchased from funds given by her union and school board - these given to some very deprived schools in the Wa area. Debbie is working with a group of administrators on aspects of leadership skills.

Here is the "summer hut" at the Upland Hotel in Wa. This is where we ate breakfast and dinner each day. There is an inside restaurant, but why go there when you can enjoy the outside warm weather?

We are in Sunyani, currently staying at the Regent Resorts Hotel. We'll be moving tomorrow morning to the Eusbett Hotel in town. It has more facilities and proximity to town than the place we are in now.

We are all still well and looking forward to starting our last week in Ghana. This will be the third time for doing most things so we should be very practiced and efficient now. We will be getting rid of things as we finish each lesson - no more saving materials for the next time. We are all trying to lighten our load before we leave.

Wa finished with a wonderful Ghana night. Some incredible music, drumming and dancing! We had a great time. We still have one of those nights to look forward to and of course another Canada night. You should see us line dance! The people here loved it.

It has been a very successful trip so far. Both feedback reports from Tamale and Wa have been overwhelmingly positive. We hope we can keep it up for one more week. This is our third chance to make another first impression! Time has gone quickly, but it also seems like a long time ago since we were home. This does feel very far away. We are looking forward to getting back home.

Happy Birthday, Debbie!

Happy Birthday to Ghana team leader

Debbie Davis-Maybee

July 26th, 2009

Best wishes from your family, friends and team teachers

Have a fabulous day!

This is a picture of a very common sight in Ghana - excluding the white guy. It is a large termite hill and Stan is giving us the perspective. This was taken in Mole National Park but we see them along the roadways everywhere.

We are almost finished our time in Wa. We are leaving for Sunyani on Saturday morning and should arrive sometime in the late afternoon. Then begins our last leg of this amazing adventure. Hard to believe that we're nearly on the home stretch already!

This is our dear friend Prisca Claire Ninwienah. She has been teaching at the Teacher Training College in Wa for 10 years (Math), as well as serving as assessment officer. She is the longest serving member of Ghana's Project Overseas Team, this being her 10th summer. This picture is taken in the yard of her house on the college campus.

This is the last night of our teaching in Tamale. The participants treated us to "Ghana Night", where we enjoyed drumming, dancing, food and drink. We are decked out in our new outfits that were gifts from the grateful teachers.

This is most of the class of adminstrators at the basic level. I am wearing the handwoven smock they presented me with on the last day of classes.

Here are the infamous snails we bought on the way to Tamale. They were cooked for us and most of us tried them for lunch on the first day of classes.

Jeanne and I met with several school heads in the Tamale area. Their schools are considered very deprived and they are being supported by the Nkabom project (CTF and GNAT). Jeanne purchased some books with money from her association, and the money that CCRSB (Debbie's school board) provided paid for school supplies for these 6 schools. It was a pleasure to present them with the items and they were very grateful.

Here is my group of Senior Secondary headmasters (one woman) in Tamale. They are working together in groups to get ready to present to the class on different leadership theories. Sound boring?? We really like it! Great discussion!

We are teaching in this new block of classrooms in St Charles Senior Secondary Seminary School. The classrooms are very plain, no electricity, concrete floors and open windows. They do have blackboards and desks. No teachers desks yet. We are teaching in classes on both floors. It's noisy but doable.

We are ready to start our second day of teaching in Tamale. Yesterday we had our first opening ceremony and met our "students" for the first time. Everyone is very welcoming and enthusiastic about being here.

The journey here on Sunday took about 11 hours. Most of the road was paved, or "tarred" as they say here, but the parts that were not were quite the experience. Stan had read about giant forest snails that are a delicacy here. We were told that we might be able to get some on the way to Tamale. Our driver, Francis, kept his eyes open and found some on the way to buy. They cooked them for us yesterday for lunch. I hope I can get some pictures on later today showing this experience, but the slow internet here is a challenge for uploading pictures.

So far we are all healthy, content and having a good time.

Cape Coast

Ghana has been gripped by Obama fever. This is Cape Coast Castle, a slave castle that Obama and his family visited today. We were not able to see this castle yesterday since there were preparations going on for the visit of the president, as you can see in this picture. The town of Cape Coast was very busy with traffic on Friday, again in anticipation of the visit.

On Saturday, today, the traffic in Accra was unbelieveable. The main road was blocked to all traffic to allow Obama to travel more easily. That meant that we were on secondary roads, locked up in traffic trying to get to the cultural market for shopping. We did get there and had a wonderful hour buying some lovely things. On the way back, it seemed like it was going to take hours, but our wonderful driver lucked out and joined a motorcade of diplomats which took us quickly through the middle of two stopped lanes of vehicles! Even with that, it took a long time to get back to the hotel - more than 2 hours.

We are off very early in the morning for what we expect will be a long and grueling trip to Tamale. We think we will arrive late tomorrow and hopefully be ready for our classes on Monday morning. It begins!

Food

This is another local food, kenkey (on the right),which is added as a side to many dishes. We have decided as a team that we will likely not acquire a taste for this. This was one of the lunches ordered at "Hans Cottage", following the Canopy Walk. The buildings are surrounded by ponds where crocodiles live. They seem pretty tame, but we didn't test them too much!

Canopy walk

Canopy walk at Kakum National Park

A few pictures to try to show this incredible experience. It was pouring rain, but it could not be missed, so we dressed up in rain gear and went for it. Amazing!

Food

Above - grilled lobster and fried plantain

Below - chicken and jollof rice

Street scenes

Street sellers

Scenes from Accra

You can buy most anything as you can see, from toilet paper to plantain chips.

Presidential Palace

This a picture of the presidential Palace on the way back to the hotel from GNAT headquarters.

July 9, 2009

Another day of work at GNAT headquarters. Jeanne and Jenn did some shopping for supplies and books - not as easily done as in Canada but many great books were bought and supplies were listed to be bought tomorrow. We are off to Kakum National Park tomorrow to try out the Canopy Walk. We hope the weather is ok so we can get some good photos and video.

First night of work

Here is our first night of homework - sitting in the lobby of the Mensvic and planning for tomorrow's meeting. (Karen, Stan and Jenn)

Partners working together and planning at GNAT

In this group of pictures, you can see us working with our GNAT partners, beginning to plan the next three weeks of workshops. We have another day like this tomorrow. (Debbie and Prince; Jenn and Prisca; Esther and Daniel; Jeanne and Joyce; Stan and Akorfa; Karen sitting between the two Samuels)

John Nyoagbe accepting CTF gift from Debbie

First Day of Work in Accra

We are here and we met almost everyone today. It is raining and warm, but not too hot. Our hotel is fine, actually brand new and not officially open, but they wanted us to be here on the "new side" of the Mensvic Palace! We are treated like honoured guests and are enjoying ourselves very much so far. Of course, the most important guest this week is US President Obama, whom everyone is anticipating with much excitement.

We finished out our day with Canada Night. Stan is doing an excellent imitiation of the Parliament Building while Jenn is doing a great job as the Japanese tourist. What a team!

We had a very enjoyable lunch with Phil Baddoo, a resource person from Ghana, who taught us lots about food, customs, greetings, etc. From the left - Stan, Karen, Phil and Esther.