It's been awhile, huh?

My apologies, mis amigos y mi familia.  I have been slacking on this whole blog thing.  You may assume that I have an excuse to not be blogging, that maybe where I'm at in Africa, it is really hard to find any sort of internet access.  The truth is, I have the opportunity to use the internet just about every day, so I've really just been quite lazy.  So sorry, I'll be adding a few new posts in the next couple a days.

It has been quite some time since my last post, and a lot has gone down over here in Ghana.  I think it was 3 weekends ago, my new friend Chris came to visit from the U.S.  He is friends with my youth minister Clint and he runs an organization called Mercy Project that is working on economic developing here in Ghana.  It was great meeting Chris and hearing about his plans for Mercy Project.  But I'm gonna come back to that in more detail at a later date.  In the meantime, check out their website, mercyproject.net, Chris has got some great plans to do some really incredible stuff over here.

Anyways, for this post, I'm gonna focus on my trip to the Village of Hope, which took place 2 weeks ago?  Yes I believe it was.  Man, I really need to blog more often or I'll forget everything before I can write it down!  Anyways the school here had a midterm break from October 19th through Sunday the 24th.  We had(well, all the other teachers had...) conferences on Monday so we left Tuesday morning.  We got into the Village of Hope around 5 or 6 that night, with no idea of just how interesting our entrance into the guest house would be.  We walk inside and are welcomed by a tall Ghanaian guy dancing and jumping around in his boxers, while reggae music plays in the background...  It was certainly the strangest welcome I have ever received at VOH(which stands for Village of Hope).  After being introduced to this guy, and the 9 other Ghanaian guys and gals in the guest house, we found out that it was a group of university students coming to VOH for their midterm break to do community service.  From the time we walked in, I was thinking that it was going to be an interesting week...

The kids at VOH didn't have break that week, so I spent my days helping my pal Katie(an American volunteering as a music and dance teacher) teach dance and art classes.  This was a ton of fun(although the art wasn't thaaat exciting...).  A few of the university students also helped out with the dance classes, so usually one of the guys would teach me a drum beat and we would both drum while the kids learned to dance.  This was a blast, and it was really neat to get some drum lessons.  So this is how the days were spent, but it was really nice because I didn't have to be to school on time, and I got to sleep in some too.

In the afternoons and evenings, I just hung out with the kids and played some b-ball and guitar and other fun stuff like that.  Being there this time, I realized just how many kids are there at VOH.  Every day it seemed like I met new kids, sometimes as many as 10 kids I had never met before!  Being there during the school day, I got to meet some kids who are just day students, and a bunch of these kids are really cool too.  It was great meeting even more kids this time around.  And at night time, after the kids had gone to sleep I would go back to the guest house and hang out with the university students there.  Hanging out with these guys was always filled with humor, and it was a good time.  One guy there was a musician, so we talked about all sorts of stuff.  He plays drums and keyboards and is really into jazz, so we had some similar taste and had a lot to talk about.  He showed me some videos on his laptop of him and his friend playing and they were all really good, and very inspiring too.  All of the 6 guys(Derrick, Caleb, Joshua, Ato, Enoch, and Phillip) love "foolin" or joking around and teasing each other.  It was awesome to hang out with these Ghanaian university students because I saw that they were just the same as college students anywhere.  One night, Derrick, Caleb, Katie and myself got into a discussion about religion and faith, and we were all able to share our views and opinions.  It was cool because we all agreed on so much and Derrick and Caleb had very similar views and beliefs as I do.  We all discussed what we believe Christianity should be and it was a really productive and interesting discussion.  After this we just talked about what college was like.  It was great talking to them for a couple hours.

As usual, throughout my stay at VOH I was asked about 23 times a day to "do the beat, do the beat!"  I don't really mind it at all, but when I'm having a conversation or something, it can be slightly annoying.  But it really was bothersome, and it didn't "worry me".  Anytime someone or something is annoying or bothering someone here, they say, its worrying them.  But the whole week was a blast and it was so good to spend time will all my friends at VOH.  Saturday was a work day, so all the kids had to break down dried corn cobs into just the kernels.  I joined in the work, and had a pretty good time doing it.  It was terribly hard work or anything, so we mostly sat around talking while we worked.  It's just a chore for the kids, but I can't imagine my younger sister doing that for 3 hours!

So it's getting late here, so I'll wrap it up.  We stayed for church Sunday and left afterwards.  It was an awesome week and I had so much fun hanging out with all the kids there.  I love being at the Village of Hope, but leaving, I felt a deep peace and joy because I also love the kids at this school here, and working here has been great and a really good experience.  I enjoy being here, and enjoy visiting VOH, and all I can say is that I am so grateful that I have been given this opportunity to explore a new lifestyle living here in Ghana.  Thanks to everyone who has been praying and thinking about me.  I miss all of you!  And I truly hope life is going well back home.

With Love,
Kwaku

P.S. You may be wondering, "But what about this university kids you met?   What ever happened to them, and did you ever see them again?!?"  Well, do not fret, but rather stay tuned for the next webisode, "Adventures with Newfound Friends in the Big City!"!!!!