Visiting Adoteiman

Lindsey and I have begun our travels! We are traveling around the southern part of Ghana, visiting different communication centers. These centres aim to increase access to communication to local communities, and Lindsey and I will visit different centres to learn about what services they are offering.

And so we find ourselves in Adoteiman. Don’t try to look it up on any map.

This is a very interesting town. It is about 30 minutes or an hour outside of Accra, and is a mixture of very rural mud-hut village and wealthy business people commuter town. It is growing very quickly, and once they finish paving the road that runs through the town, I think it will expand even faster. Two years ago they got "light" and "pipes" (power and water) and there is already an internet café here. We have been here for four days and we have been living with a family. They are GREAT! They are so friendly and welcoming, and they will not stop feeding us. They keep saying "I want you to be fat". And we certainly will be. We’ve learned to prepare so many delicious Ghanaian meals! Often, we’ll make stew with fresh tomatoes, onions, sometimes garden egg or cocoa yam leaves, and of course pepe, which is the natural spice here. Add some fried fish and either boiled yam, cocoa yam or banku and you’ve got lunch and dinner. We are always so "satisfied", as they say, and I know I’ll need to do a lot of exercise when we get back.
They are a lot of fun and keep us very entertained. The youngest two, Nanayaw at 9 and Afia at 12, are so witty and intelligent. Nana kept us up late one night drilling us on our Twi, trying to teach us the different between Toum Toum (up inflection), which is ‘black’, and Toum Toum (down inflection) which is ‘mosquito’. We still have a lot of work to do. Mame is our age, and she teaches us how to cook anything and everything. We’ve had so many great conversations with her and we’ll miss her a lot when we leave. Last night, the whole family sat down to eat Aponchi Cra-cra (goat stew) and watch the football match, Ghana vs Lybia. Everyone was all decked out in Ghana gear, including Linds and me, who now have our own Ghana flag scarves. It was equally as fun to watch the game as it was to watch the family react to Ghana scoring three times! We won, of course, so everyone was quite happy.

Spending time with the owner of the centre, Mr Paintsil, has been quite inspiring. He has lived in Adoteiman for ten years now and is very passionate about helping the community. He runs a bakery and has just opened this communication centre (last week!). He says he doesn’t really want to make a profit, but only sustain the centre so that the community has better access to communication services. Right now, people have to take a bus into town to send a letter, photocopy a document or make a telephone call. As the centre continues to grow, he hopes people will save time and money because they won’t have to travel as far to access these services. He has a lot of ideas about how to support community members and works very had to do so.

All in all, our stay has not been as sugar coated as we sometimes describe. It has been filled with many ups and downs. People are very welcoming and friendly here, and we certainly feel part of the family. But speaking to community members about the advantages and difficulties about living in a more rural community, and also about dealing with a Ghana that is changing and developing very quickly is tough. Some people ask us to bring them to Canada with us, and believe that Canada is the perfect country. We are learning a lot here and I will not forget the people we’ve met.

We will be leaving here on Thursday and moving to another town. We’ll miss the beautiful view here, though; as I look out the window I can see the gorgeous "mountains", which are a little taller than the Niagara escarpment and covered in rainforest. I can't describe how lovely is it! You look out and can see palm trees and red dirt roads, mango trees everywhere and trees with red or yellow flowers, lizards everywhere, beautiful bright red birds, etc. I wish you the best for the month of June and hope things are well at home!

Love Amy

PS Unfortunately we can't post pictures while we are on the road, so maybe they'll be a few more from Linds and me in June!