Saturday, February 07, 2009

Walewale


Holly and I spent Wednesday and Thursday in Walewale visiting some of Holly's friends from her time there in 2007 with EWB. From my (Jon's) perspective it was a very enjoyable time getting to know a number of people Holly has talked so much about and experiencing more community life than what I typically get to see. Holly loved the welcoming and friendliness of the people and was pleasantly surprised how many people remembered her and how quickly it felt like home again. During our time we did a lot of visiting, eating, walking about the community, resting (as I had a bit of a cold) and playing with the kids. I know we were complaining about the cold before, now it's the heat... someone told us it was about 39 Celsius out mid afternoon and the power went off that evening. Everyone, especially Holly and I, were very happy when the power was restored so we could have use of a fan to take an edge off the heat overnight. During our stay there was a national clean up day. Schools and shops were closed although it seemed that the cleanup here is to simply set the areas on fire in hopes that it will burn the trash along the way. Unfortunately there is a lot of plastic used (water packages, poly bags for everything you buy and everything else) without much of a collection system so it does not seem like the majority of people have another option, which is a common occurrence over all my travels in developing nations. We are now in Kumasi waiting for a bus to Cape Coast at noon.
Jon

3 comments:

The Barretts said...

Glad you guys were able to see Holly's friends and have some downtime. This post sounded more enjoyable to me than the others :)

Nancy said...

Hey there... great to hear of your travels! Somehow I missed that you were going but it is wonderful to catch up anyway. Let us know if you plan to go to Uganda and we'll connect you with some friends

Blessings as you travel
Nancy

Jon Barrett said...

Sarah, It was nice to relax for a couple days in Walewale, and still is as we are chilling in Accra waiting for our visas. Good chance to get caught up on rest and get feeling up to par.
Nancy, once we get to that part of the world we will have a better idea of our plans (depends on time). If we do Holly will get ahold of you to let you know so we can exchange names.