Friends from Awaso
By Dave Bezaire, March, 2005
(Click photos to see full size)
Friends from Awaso are people we met and worked with for two weeks in Ghana. Their stories, told here primarily through pictures, give glimpses into Ghanian life, Habitat for Humanity's work, and our Global Village team. Click to open each title, and then on any of the small thumbnails to see some beautiful, full-resolution images.
Introduction
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Ghana's literacy rate, defined as the ability to read and write at age 15, is 75%. English is the official language, but most people speak a variety of tribal tongues. Those with more education tend to be more fluent in English. In the farming village of Awaso, many of the children had learned some English in school, but we needed an interpreter to speak with most of the adults.
Ghana's economy revolves around subsistence agriculture, with some development of the cocoa, timber, gold, and bauxite industries for export. Lake Volta, formed by the dam at Akosombo, is the worlds largest man-made lake. The generating station there provides electricity for much of southeastern Ghana as well as for export to neighboring Togo.
Janet
- George's experience exemplifies the strength of family ties in Ghana. Multiple generations of families often live together, not only because of lack of funds for separate housing, but also because they bond together so closely. The resulting overcrowded conditions are terribly difficult on everyone.
Ishmael and Ya Abiba
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After our first day of work in the hot Ghanaian sun, we refreshed with a shower and dinner at our hotel, and then visited Ishmael and his family in their previous single room.
- Beyond is the town dump. Unfortunately, the village had no organized collection of trash, so we found discarded plastic and litter everywhere.
- That's an illusion caused by rampant erosion which has removed several feet of earth from around the building.
Anthony
- Anthony is also leading his Subiri affiliate in the development of a profitable farming operation. This mirrors the development of the Build It Again Center here in Columbus as a way to earn money to finance construction of more Habitat houses.
Peter
- Our team was surprised to find that there were no local volunteers on the work site with us. In fact, we were a bit shocked since we'd been told we would work on 6 to 10 houses—which we implicitly believed possible given our generous local volunteer base. Solomon helped us understand the difficulty of developing volunteers from among people living at a subsistence level. In this new Awaso affiliate, the FIRST volunteers had come from 5,596 miles away! We quickly realized that part of our team's contribution would be to assist Habitat Ghana's efforts to develop a volunteer component in Awaso.
Solomon
- Normally, Global Village teams such as ours are accompanied by the Volunteer Coordinator or Development Director from the HfH national office.
Chief
- Our team enthusiastically accepted an advocacy role for Habitat for Humanity in Awaso through meetings with village leaders, churches and schools. Ghana's government is a constitutional democracy, and they boast about their very successful free and "weapon-free" presidential election in December 2004. We previously learned that the Chief had never visited the Awaso Habitat building site, so we extended an invitation to come out during our visit. We were not afraid to use our "exoticness"—many people, especially youngsters, told us they had never before seen a white person. We hoped to also inspire the Chief to see Habitat first hand.
- The importance of family extends to ancestors who are always honored in the meeting with the Chief by pouring a libation -- usually schnapps or gin -- on the ground amidst an elaborate prayer ritual. Sometimes, such as our meeting with the Awaso Chief, the entire bottle goes to the ancestors.
Ackah
- Supplies were another matter. How can they practice writing without pencils and paper? How can they learn geography without pictures of the world?
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We decided to visit all of the Awaso schools as part of our advocacy role. We purchased some additional school supplies in the neighboring town of Bekwai and split up into six teams of two on Thursday morning.
We distributed a few things to each child.
Fr. Thomas and Susi
- Father Thomas, who we had already met at school, was very receptive, and helped us to make the necessary arrangements.
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Once again we divided into teams of 2 and spread out through the village.
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The second request was for everyone to put their faith into action by volunteering once per month at the Habitat site.
Adu and Memunatu
Dedication
Life in Ghana
- With building work complete, we visited the most significant historical sites in Ghana. The visits were chilling, with evidence of man's inhumanity to man so close and tangible. As distasteful as these images are, we feel compelled to remember what happened so that we resolve to never let it occur again.
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Since English is Ghana's official language we could read all the signs, but some took a bit of getting used to.
- God is King Motors
- Sisters in Christ Beauty Salon
- Psalm 23 Drinking Club
- In God Brake and Clutch Works
- God First Fashions
- Glory and Honor Fashions
- God is the Provider Shoes
- God Is Able Meat Market
- Showers of Blessing Mini Super Market
- God's Time is the Best Hardware Store
- Prince of Peace Photo and Video Productions
- Christ is the Answer Magazines
- While I Have Hope Hair Styles
- My Redeemer Livith Hardware Store
- The King and I Eye Clinc
- Jesus the King Saloon
- Even Jesus Was Hated Tro-Tro Service
- God's Finger Farm
Americans
- Enjoy a look at all of the people on our team. You can also learn a bit more about them on the Team Members page. Remember to click or touch to see larger size images!