Ada Foah

Ada Foah (pronounced ahh daa not a da) is a town that is located where the mouth of the Volta River meets the Atlantic ocean.  We had a couple of days in between meetings and did not want to take the 12 hour bus ride up north just to turn around the day we got back, so we took a little vacation to Ada Foah. There is a whole series of towns that start with the name Ada, such as Ada Kaasa and Big Ada. Ada Foah is a little bit different than Ada Oklahoma. Last time we checked Ada ok did not have a fishing village or coconut trees. We stayed at a beach camp in a little bamboo hut with sand floors and a thatched roof.

This is the view from our front door. The camp is located on a skinny peninsula not even 100 yards wide. we could look one way and see the Volta river/Ada estuary and then turn the other way and see the Atlantic Ocean.

 

The first night we were there it got a little chilly, so we had to wrap up in our 2 yards.

  For dinner we ate coconut banku with tomato sauce.  It was awesome, although it doesn’t look all that appealing.    We spent the rest of our time swimming hiking around, and watching birds.  We saw four new species of birds.  That puts us at over 125 species! When we weren't active we just lounged around in the sun and drank a few drinks, including so local rum that was made from sugarcane. We bought it off a Rasta. It was not the best drink, it could also be used to strip paint. Jennifer refused to drink it.

A Good Old Fashioned Floor Pounding

Just as the rains start to come, Dagomba women repair or refinish the floors in their compound.  They are community events.  Several women gather to help at each compound.  They bring in different layers of fine gravel and pound them into the ground until it is smooth.  They will pound the ground for hours at a time.  To make it more enjoyable they sing and dance as they work.  We both got a chance to try it out.  It is really hard work, and we found we don’t have very good rhythm.

The women got a kick out of us trying. 

The songs got more exciting as they pounded harder. 

The School Garden in Gushie

 Gushie is starting a school garden and we are helping them.  We had a bunch of trees in the shade cloth at the farm so we offered them to any of the schools that were interested.  Gushie has fenced off a garden area so we planted 22 lemon trees and 22 moringa trees there. Right now they have planted veggies in with the trees, but as the trees mature they will move the garden to a new area.  Lots of kids came to help with the tree planting.  School is vacating for a month break, so we will see how the trees do with out the teachers around.  The teachers seem really enthusiastic about the garden, so we hope to help them expand. 

Loading the trees at the farm in Dipale.

Offloading at the school.

That is one of the lemon trees.

Digging holes for the trees.

The headmaster is overseeing the planting.

We also got to see the kids eating food with the vegatables from the garden.  Ghanaian kids love veggies as long as they are ground up.  Big chunks are are really hated.

The cooks hard at work.  The woman on the left is pounding the bera for the soup.The Gushie cooks are awesome.  They make the headmaster come for the vegetables every week.