49th And Counting

Happy Anniversary to Us
December 16, 2015

        Another year has come and gone and as they have all been, it has been exceedingly quick. Where has the time gone? It is unbelievable that it could have been that long ago since we were at the Mesa, Arizona Temple for the beginning of this adventure and here we celebrate a second wedding anniversary in Ghana. We have had quite a day.

        We ventured out on to the Volta River to the most varied sights that one could see in one day. We went with the Hills. They are one of the wonderful couples that we have had the pleasure of meeting here. They are from Canada and he is the doctor in charge of all of us, young and old, in the Africa West Area, a former member of Canada's Parliament and is a car buff extraordinaire. Sister Hill is his right hand assistant, works in the temple, teaches piano and has the best whit. Just great people.

          We took a boat ride to and island where the villagers have no water or electricity. Several years ago a merry-go-round was installed to generate power for lights so that school children could take them home from school to study by. They now use the merry-go-round and some solar panels and eventually will have two wind turbines in use for power but the government's promises are still to come.

Barry getting a ride.

Clap for your ABC's. Barry, the teacher.

"What are you studying today?" "Ugh... do you know?"

Remember when schools had things like these?  

        We then had a walk through this island village. This is a fishing village that does a great oyster harvest. I was sorry that we didn't get to see them diving. The remnants of the shells are in mounds everywhere and are quite different from the oyster shells that I am used to.

Putting oysters on sticks to grill and sell.

Mud foundations, with no additives.

School girls carrying the wet mud for the "blocks".

Lobster traps hanging under the roof.

The baskets are the chicken coops in front of another mound of shells.

        We then headed down river towards the ocean where the fresh water meets the salt water.
This fisherman passed by sitting on his nets. His sail made of flour sacks. I have been using the Tema flour since I got here.

More lobster traps.

        I have to admit that I was amazed after leaving that very humble island village to see some very large homes on the river's edge.

This resort looked so fun but I couldn't see any water running on the slide and obviously no tourists.

        At the end of the Volta we got off onto this peninsula to experience the sight of the Sea of Guinea. The sand and water were unbelievably clean. Barry and Dr. Hill walked down to where they were pulling in one of the very large nets but there were so few fish in their catch.

The kids would have loved catching these sand crabs.

Volta on the right, Sea of Guinea on the left.

Do you see these birds?

This is all one net.

Dr. Hill

Small catch for such a large net.

Little sting rey.

          We then headed back up the river passing many other fishing villages and colorful fishing boats. These really are used for fishing. They are not tourist boats.

Water tro tro.

         This was an amazing day, full of many sights, many colors and many contrasts. Another African experience.
       
         The day didn't end here. In the last couple of months we have joined a community choir along with two other of our church friends, Mary Richards and Jane Curtis. The choir has a wonderful name. It is Accragio. After a year of only singing in church this has been really fun, especially because we have been singing Christmas music, a couple of African songs and some other things.
This evening we finished off our anniversary with a performance at the Dutch Ambassador's residence.

           
         The day was long but we wouldn't have wanted to leave anything out .Thanks for joining us on our adventure. We continue our journey.