Guests from Afar – Part 2

Sri 11^th April – 29^th April
Bea and Rebecca 15^th April – 25^th April

My first trip to Accra on my own and I thought I did pretty well. On arrival, I lumbered myself with a taxi driver who insisted that I help him get a better life as I seemed to have some money. I explained that I am not here to give money, but to help more needy people help themselves.  He did not understand and waited sullenly at the airport while I met Sri to bring her home to Ayensudo. It was Sri’s first time in Africa and I wanted it to be as smooth as possible.  The sulky driver did not help by dropping us far from the Ford station and also got away with a huge tip because I miscalculated. Oh well!

Bea and Rebecca arrived a few days after that and this time all of us spent the weekend in Accra, eating and doing touristy things. The heat was sweltering and the girls often needed a break from the crowds and humidity. It was very enlightening and I must say I am not a big fan of Accra. 

The girls understood the difference between the city and Ayensudo immediately. For one, almost everyone is pleasant and they greet you and secondly, they expect nothing from you. 

The girls had brought with them as much as they could physically carry and these were donated both to Star of the Sea School and Ayensudo Islamic. Sri had raised money by setting up a stall at the local flea market in Singapore and donations from friends and family. B & R kindly brought everything I had requested and even more. Rahul Shah, a legend at DMS (my old company), also helped amass a huge load of stationery for the children in Elmina. Lenka Krepelkova also donated art supplies and a cute penguin which is now companion to beautiful Baby Ryan. All donations were received at the presentations with great enthusiasm.

We had to cram in a lot of activities so that the girls got a taste of West Africa. Despite all being first-timers, they coped brilliantly with the occasional stomach upset, dehydration and insane tro-tro races. Joe and I were very happy with the company as was Lawrence who could not believe his luck, being surrounded by beautiful women!

1. Bea with Little John at the Rising Phoenix
2. Rebecca dropping some postcards
3. Sri poses bravely at James Town where photos are a no-no unless for a price
4. Rebecca with her first Ghanaian beer, Star
5. Girls in a James Town housing compound
6. Rebecca's a hit with the kids
7. Meeting the chief is a must as the girls get acquainted quickly
8. Bus trip from Accra to Ayensudo
9. Rebecca meets my cheeky neighbours
10. Bea trains a young, enthusiastic photographer
11. All of us with Sampson, creator of Star of the Sea School, in Besease
12. Cheering with the students and Sampson at Besease
13. Early morning boat ride to Nzulezo Stilt Village
14. Obrunis (foreigners) are always popular with the kids
15. With Akosi and Kettee, after a wonderful stay at Escape Three Points
16. Sri presenting the donations to Ayensudo Islamic School
17. Thank you note for Rahul & Friends from the community and school
18. Joe writing down every donation the girls had brought
19. The crowd that turned up to receive your kind donations..
    

All our guests are sorely missed and I really wished I had played more Scrabble while we had the numbers up! Thank you for coming and leaving a piece of you here with us.

Hope to see you soon, not just for the donations but also for your good intentions and kind thoughts. Our deepest thanks go out to 2 sets of people -

·         Bea & Rebecca, Rahul (DMS), his friends at Lyreco and Lenka
·         Sri & Family, Ana & Jay and Karen

Please visit the following pages to view some memorable photos -

Uma's facebook page.
Here are some photos from the Ayensudo site. Please view by SET.
Please check out the Sabre photo site sabretrust.smugmug.com.

Guests From Afar – Part 1

We have been neglecting this diary of late due to a hectic schedule both in and out of work. The KG buildings are coming along nicely despite the rain which has become steadily incessant, and we’ve been blessed with some special guests....

It’s been a great couple of months as Joe’s folks (Roger and Beatrice) and then some friends from the UK (Rebecca and Beatrice) and Singapore (Sri) came to visit, bearing gifts not only for us (cheese and chocolate!!) but for the community and schools too. It has been an amazing journey and almost indescribable with words, so here we present collages which will hopefully convey the colours and scenes that peppered their visits.

Part 1 Roger and Beatrice 15^th March – 6^th April

Joe’s parents arrived in Accra with heavy bags laden with donations from themselves and some very kind people back in Wales. Roger and Beatrice had requested for a list of things to bring for the community and school we live in, so we sent them a long email. Although initially stumped as to how they could afford it all, Roger decided to ask for small donations to be made so the list of materials could be bought. Beatrice and he succeeded in not only getting donations but also discounts and free things from stores that they bought the resources from.

Each of the following was received at the presentation with a huge roar, cheers, chanting and dancing : – 

·         3 Tyre Levers for the Muslim Chief
·         A suitcase full of library books for KG, Primary, JHS and SHS levels
·         Board Games
·         2 Laptops for the ICT lessons which are solely conducted on the chalkboard
·         Sports Kit with Tops, Bottoms and Socks for 15 boys and 15 girls
·         2 Wales Footballs
·         7 Wales Sharpeners and Pencils + various other stationary
·         Wales Flag

We thank them, their friends and anyone else indirectly responsible for enabling this mission. It was successful and very warmly received.  

They spent a week around Ayensudo, meeting the community, visiting the local Sabre projects, towns, markets and old slave castles.  Then we travelled for a week along the south west coast, staying in a camp in the middle of Ankasa rainforest, visiting a stilted village in the middle of a lake, staying in the most beautiful beach resort in Ghana for my birthday, and travelling to an eco-lodge at the southernmost tip of Ghana where the rainforest meets the ocean.  The last week we returned to old friends in Ayensudo to exchange gifts, relax by the beach, and say farewells.  Roger had never left Europe before, and Beatrice had never been to Africa, but they were naturals and we really enjoyed sharing our lifestyle with them.

1.       Roger and Beatrice arrive in Accra and have a taste of city life from atop a roof bar
2.       Roger shows my little neighbours how to keep our surroundings clean
3.       R & B’s first taste of a school sports day in Brenu where they cheer for Ayensudo!
4.       R & B present the Muslim Chief with tyre levers for his work as a vulcanizer (tyre replacer)
5.       On a boat heading to Nzulezo Stilt Village, Beyin
6.       Beatrice with Eke, Paddy’s son
7.       Dinner cooked by teacher Paddy and his wife for all of us (Red Red - Bean Stew and Fried Plantain)
8.       Beatrice bravely crossing the stream at Ankasa Rainforest Reserve
9.       View from the inside of a stilt house
10.   R & B having a lavish breakfast at Lou Moon, Axim
11.   R & B attempting to eat/ drink an orange like the locals
12.   R & B walking into the sun by a beach at Cape Three Points, Ghana’s most southerly point
13.   Beatrice posing by a bean shop at Cape Coast wet market
14.   R & B presenting their gifts that hail all the way from Wales!
15.   Two students happily model the sports kit brought over for them by R & B
16.   The whole team with teacher Paddy, Prosper and R & B
17.   Everyone’s happy as they celebrate R & B and friends’ gifts to them
18.   A family photo of sorts
19.   The chief hands over some tailored clothes made for R & B as presents for their donations

Here are some photos from the Ayensudo site. Please view by SET.

 

Money, materials and labour mean progress

With the funding arriving from Tullow Oil, we are able to buy bulk materials and move the project forward. We have had two 20m3 trucks deliver aggregates from a quarry near Takoradi, as well hundreds of steel reinforcement bars to complete the concrete works, and timber for the concreting formwork. The hardwood Dahoma has been ordered and as soon as it arrives we will employ more carpenters to begin cutting and fitting all the truss elements for the roof structure. The timber truss will be connected to the reinforced concrete ringbeam by bolts into a welded steel “shoe”, cast into the ringbeam. There are about 20 shoes for each classroom which are now being fabricated at a local welder’s shop.

Meanwhile two classrooms have complete concrete foundations, the third with blinding poured ready to build cages and install reused formwork. The 1st classroom has stone and sand build up ready for the reinforced concrete slab, columns ready to pour, and ring beam reinforcement cages progressing. The 2nd classroom has a levelled footprint ready for slab build up, and column reinforcement cages are progressing.

Elsewhere the carpenters are busy tweaking the column formwork, crafting the ringbeam formwork, and extending the foundation formwork for the larger 3rd classroom.

The stabilized soil block man has started on site with two apprentices. He has retained his James Bond nickname from his time working on the Dwabor project. Being a part-time boxer, he is a beast of a specimen and hugely impressive to watch as his bulging arms pound the mix into the block press, scattering earth and flying sweat. His small team works ferociously pressing about 150 blocks in a day (current record is 25 seconds/block) using a mix of 2 parts cement, 1 part Pozzolana (clay based local cement replacement), and 48 parts sieved soil from the site. This ratio was based on a simple shrinkage test on the soil to ensure it is not too sandy or clayey. The soil blocks will be used for non load-bearing low level wall infill panels for the classrooms as well as structural walls for the toilet pits and kitchen block. We need about 3000 in total which will take a few weeks to finish. Then they need to be stored in a dry shaded place (tent) for a month to gain strength. A sample will be tested locally to ensure correct strength is attained.

The grader finally came to level the football park. This is a huge relief for everyone involved, as it is a large expense and fairly unpredictable work. Generally everybody is happy with the result, so now we need to set out the pitch and goals and get the school planting grass.

The majority of the drainage swales surrounding the site and pitch are now complete, with just a few small sections remaining, and 3 bridges and 3 fords to finish. Using only voluntary community labour, it is impressive to see the extent of this earthworks, and I am very happy to see that during a recent heavy rain (please stay away for a bit longer!) they performed brilliantly, removing the flooding issue on the lower park. However, this work has taken its toll on the community labour turnout, as it was repetitive and hard in the hot sun for two months. We tried to vary it as much as we could, but it had to be completed before the rains, and the community asked us to extend the work to recover additional land from the flooded zone. The repetitive hard work coupled with some local political issues between the chief, elders, gangs, and police saw the gang attendance plummet to 1 or 2 per day. With more interesting and varied work on the actual classrooms, and dispute resolution, attendance is now at a more respectable 5 or 6 per day. With the work getting busier, and the deadline getting closer, we need to increase both the community labour pool and the paid skilled workforce. We will supplement the daily gangs with task based super gangs, whereby for a large single task the community will gather additional labour for a day to complete it in one go. This is to be tested on Wednesday when 20 women will bring their head pans to place the hardcore under the 2nd classroom slab! The skilled paid labour pool must also grow over the next few weeks with a push on completing the reinforcement works, as well as getting more masons (for concrete, block-work, rendering, etc), carpenters (formwork, truss roof, etc) and general labourers.

The focus now is to get the 1st classroom covered before the rains come, and continue the reinforced concrete for the other two classrooms.

Volunteers Alice and Tina from Davis Langdon were helping on site for a week, and with the grading done, they were able to erect the front fence, as well as get involved with the gangs on the floor build up. Mark and Lee from the UK were construction volunteers for two weeks, and helped the gangs sieving the soil for the soil blocks and then assisted James Bond in production, as well as levelling the 2nd classroom. It is interesting to see the increased productivity of the community gangs when working with the Sabre volunteers. We also had a party of fourteen 17 year-olds from the US, led by long time Sabre friend Erin Janca, who were a flurry of activity, excitement and emotion. To find out more about their week long stay please check out the Sabre photo site sabretrust.smugmug.com.

Here are some photos. Please view by SET.

Dance Lesson 1

Talking About Something Concrete

Paddy's Place

Paddy, the Maths teacher at the Islamic school, invited us to his home for chop (food). It is a great honour to be invited by a Ghanaian so we were overjoyed at this opportunity. Arriving at his home on Tuesday, we found Paddy cooking jollof rice for us. He must have been forewarned by the 2 engineers that I do not eat meat, which meant we were having hard-boiled eggs and a lovely tomato&onion sauce with our rice. Hmmm...We were introduced to Beatrice, Paddy's beautiful partner and little EK aka Paddy Jr too.

The open kitchen was outdoors with a couch to hang out on. The single room that this small but adorable family lived in was neat with Paddy's work clothes for the week hanging from nails on the wall like posters. The big TV took pride of place in the room and it seemed that we were in a sound competition with the neighbour in the room next to us! We watched football (Paddy's an Arsenal supporter) while the neighbour blasted some hip life music! Overall, a brilliant evening with great fun people..

The construction volunteers left last week and we were sad to see them go. We had grown used to having them around, motivating the community labour with their enthusiasm. Thank you Alice, Rich and Peter! It was really great to have you on site. More volunteers to come out next week, so wipe away the tears guys!

Before the volunteers left, we had arranged to meet them at Shell for a Champions League game as a bonding session. Yeah right! We were sucked into the tense game as were the locals. When a team scored, we celebrated but the Ghanaians dashed about wildly, screaming. It was fun watching them instead. At one point during a celebration, I got carried away literally by a spectator who got too excited! I had to politely but firmly ask him to let me down a few times. He gave me a tour of the area before he let me down. See? Football makes people mad.

On site this week, we finally started the concrete pour after the stone was found, but only managed one day, after the mixer needed fixing. We should finish the pour on Tuesday, taking care to remove any trapped air by poking the wet concrete repeatedly. Then it will be left to cure and kept wet to avoid cracking of the concrete drying out too quickly. Meanwhile we started digging the third classroom, but the ground was very hard and the boys were very tired and bored of digging after a couple of days of it. So we built some shaded work areas for them, and completed a few other site improvements to pass the time. Getting water to the site was solved this week, by installing a 150m temporary pipe to a standpipe in town.

The great news is that the project funding finally came through this week, so instead of struggling to scrape together materials from small donations, we can buy in bulk and really start moving .... so hopefully you’ll hear of some above ground action soon!

Here are some photos. Please view by SET.

Fishing at Bantuma

Last weekend, I initiated a rare thing. Waking up at 5am. All to go fishing with the locals!

We very nearly did not make it as the engineers decided to map out work for the Saturday community gang on site. Still we decided to go down to the beach anyway.

Alas we arrived too late for the boats and settled on walking along the shore. It was already a hive of activity at 7am. Men were lined along the beach, all tugging at one line or another. These men had gone out to sea earlier and dropped their big nets and come back to shore to haul the catch in.

Joe and Lawrence stopped by a small group of 6 men tugging and decided to lend their strength. It was obvious that we were going to spend at least 4 hours there and I settled down to watch and photograph them.

As the sun rose in the horizon, men were shedding their clothes and pulling hard at the nets. A break consisting of a freshly peeled hard-boiled egg sliced in half filled with a tomato & chilli onion paste and a good swig of water kept them going some more.

Slowly but surely, the buoy which indicated the distance standing between the men and their catch came closer. Soon there were more than 25 men, women and children tugging along the ropes.

Towards the end of the adventure, Joe jumped into the sea to help another man untangle the mess of nets. They were battered by the waves endlessly and still they persevered at their task. With a few final tugs, the blue net holding the fish came into view. Every now and then a fish would escape its mesh-like cage only for a local to pocket it! Lots of slithering, silver fish were hauled in and the locals proudly pointed out the various species. We had intended on paying for the fish but the men would not allow it and gave Joe and Lawrence some as is tradition for all who help.

So I make the boys get up at 5am and we end up going home with the freshest fish possible!

Great deal if you ask me.

P.S. Lawrence made a mean pepper fish soup that night.

Here are some photos. Please view by SET.