The Final Two Weeks!!!

It has now been three months since our team has returned from Ghana and I have yet to go about describing the final two weeks of the trip! Needless to say, I think any anticipation of this announcement is thoroughly dead by this point but regardless, it was an unfinished task which I am finally going about finishing! Therefore, without further ado, I will now recount the final two weeks of The Ghana Rural Library Project 2008.

The last two weeks of our trip in Ghana was a time of excitement, progress, and anticipation. Where the first half of the trip had mainly been a time of adjustment, the second half was definitely a time of progress. Having been in the country now for a month, our team finally was beginning to understand (if not just accept) the way of life in Africa and figure out how to work within the African system and culture. The result of this was a great increase in the efficiency and effectiveness of the team in the community. After numerous hic-ups and a few blunders, programs that we originally set out to do finally were full under way with the local children noticing the difference.

One of the best examples of this was the after school programs that we initiated at the original library in Manhyia. Initially, our plan was to instantly enact a series of after school programs aimed at encouraging the children of Manhyia to use the library that I had built a year ago. The goal was not only to display the multiple different purposes a library could fulfill but also to encourage excitement about the library, demonstrating to the children that learning was not only fun but was fundamental to their success in the future. While this is a value that is taught relatively well in America, in Africa it is not. Education, in many ways, has failed in Africa in the past. Due to poor education, past generations who attended school were not necessarily better off than those who never did. Because of this, and because of a large uneducated adult population, the importance of school was never really passed down to the younger generation. Realizing that one could not rely on the older generation to motivate the younger generation, it was necessary to create a program independent of the childrens' families to encourage and excite them about learning.

Initially held up by certain unforseen factors (mainly a miscommunication/rivalry between two towns), we were not even able to access the library that we had originally built! But after a few meetings, a bit of yelling (its hard to keep calm sometimes), and finally some agreements we were able to work out a schedule for the library. It was thus by the final two weeks that we had regular daily afterschool programs taking place at the library with sometimes almost one hundred kids showing up to either do creative writing, yoga, young girls small group, watch a Disney movie, or simply have our team read to them.

In regards to the teaching, the volunteers had finally become accustomed to teaching in their classes and figuring out how best to communicate with their students. Initial problems in the classes ranged from not being able to control the kids to simply not being able to communicate with them. Daily at lunch we would frustratingly laugh over stories from the class room. Somedays it would be simple miscommunication between the student and teacher with the teacher asking the student "What is your favorite animal?" and the student replying "rice". Otherdays we would show up to teach only to find that our class had been selected to do manual labor and was moving gigantic stones on their heads. As crazy and as incomprehendible as it may seem, everyone eventually was able to account for this and move forward.

For me personally the greatest accomplishment in regards to my class was the fact that we were actually able to finish "Charolette's Web". Famously last year I was only able to progress through a few chapters with my students because the language and their understanding was so bad. Second time around, with the help of my teaching partner Megan, a better understanding of communicating (basically speaking extremely slow for the kids) and the fact that a book about farm animals was much more real to the children, we were able to make it through the entire book. I still remember the final day of class, reading the last page to the cheers of the children and watching them jump up and down when I told them I was putting the book in the library for them to read on their own if they wanted! It was such an amazing contrast between the United States and Africa. I only had one copy of the book but it was perhaps the greatest gift that I could have given those children on that trip. I am sure that as I write there is a child reading the book right now!

Finally, last but not least, was the actual library project. As I had mentioned earlier in the blog series, the library this year had been moving forward almost flawlessly. Looking back on it now, that was hands down one of the biggest blessings I could have asked for. My first year in Ghana, when I was alone, all I had to worry about was my class and the library. There was no team, there was no after school educational programs, there were no homestays. While difficult for me, logistically it was much more managible! This year however I felt as though my attention could never really be focused on any one thing therefore the fact that the library went so smoothly was an absolute God send. While the team definitely helped out, the major credit goes to Adu Boateng (my partner from the privous year) who oversaw the entire project with the help of Nana Opoku (the cheif I lived with). Having the authority of the cheif us, we ran into very few bumps when building the library, an absolute blessing and a good lesson for future libraries as well!

With all things going well, we finally opened the library on the 25th of July to a large crowd. The community sat us all down and danced and celebrated while person after person after person after person (it lasted awhile) got up and spoke about the importance of the library in the community. With the final unveiling, we opened the doors to the library and Assenemaso, my home in Africa for the last two years, was finally introduced to the wonderful world of books!

One thing particularly special happened to me that day as well. As a thank you for building the two libraries and for leading the team to Africa, the chief of Assenemaso decided to officially knight me as an Ashanti Chief! Therefore, after the opening ceremony of the library, the crowd made it's way over to the chief's palace to watch me become a chief. After dressing me up in a black robe (that looked a lot like a black dress) I was presented in front of the people of the town and all the elders of the Assenemaso tribal council. Then, with golden Ashanti sword in hand, I was sworn in as a Development Chief for the town of Assenemaso. After I said my oath, the crowd roared with approval and I was lifed up onto the shoulders of men and tossed into the air, a new chief! They brought me down, took off my black robe and then dressed me in a royal white Kente cloth robe with golden slippers. As I stepped out into the sun, a boy with a royal umbrella came over to shade me (for the sun is never allowed to touch a chief) and, to the beat of drums, shook hands and danced with the people. I was no longer just Nana Poku (the name my chief had given me the year before) but Nkwa-hene Nana Poku, chief of the Ashanti tribe!

Three days later, with all our bags packed and piled in the back of a van, our team departed Assenemaso, no doubt heros to the community for the work we had done. While many were excited to be returning home after 6 weeks of hard work in Africa, it was a bittersweet departure for in those 6 weeks, we had all become intimate members of the Assenemaso community and had fallen in love with the people. God truly did amazing things during that time, the benefits of which may not be seen for decades but will no doubt have a profound effect upon that community.

Skydiving with God

Sadly it has been over two months since I promised everyone a final blog entry by the end of July. For those of you who do not know, I was at that time in a rather extreme state of flux, being homeless, jobless and computerless (yes, after I made the joke about an elephant crushing my computer my laptop actually crashed). Since then, the last few months has been an amazing struggle of trying to get on my feet and restore a bit of the normalcy that once used to be present in my life.

If anyone has ever sat down with me and had a discussion about faith, they would know that I always say that faith is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute. Most of the time in life we don't really rely on faith because either when we jump out of the plane God catches us instantly or because our plane was never really that far from the ground in the first place. Yet there are definite times in life where when you jump, you keep falling. Sometimes you fall a little bit; sometimes you fall a lot. Sometimes you might even be close to hitting bottom but the truth of the matter is that God will always be there to catch you; He will never let you hit the ground, no matter how close you get. Knowing this however doesn't always make the situation any less scary.

Well for me, this has been the characterization of the situation I have been in since returning from Africa. Having decided to return to LA, I came back with a limited amount of money, no job, and no place to live. Luckily God had provided me with a place to stay (my sister had just decided to move back to Los Angeles and graciously opened her apartment up to me) but obviously this was only temporary until I was able to find a job and get my own apartment. After calculating my expenses, I estimated that I had only a month and a half to find a job before I ran out of money and would be forced to return to Northern California. At first I figured that I would be able to find a job quickly but as days turned weeks and my account drained more and more, I began to panic that I would not be able to find a job in time. I had jumped out of an airplane without a parachute and almost a month and a half later I was still falling, with the ground zooming up faster and faster everyday. I needed a miracle fast.

Finally, two days before I was supposed to return to Northern California, I received a call about a possible job at UCLA. They thought I was good for the position and wanted to interview me. The problem was that because it was so last minute, I was only able to interview the next day. I figured that there was no way a business would want to scramble so last minute to interview someone. Luckily, I was dead wrong. My final day in Los Angeles I put on my best (and only) suit and walked onto UCLA for my job interview. After an hour long comfortable interview I was hired on the spot! God had caught me my last day in Los Angeles! I was staying! The next day I left Los Angeles to go on a family vacation to Thailand, knowing that when I returned, I would have a job waiting for me.

I have now been working at my job for one month and couldn't be happier. Last week I moved into a wonderful apartment in Culver City and celebrated by buying myself a pillow top full mattress that I found on craigslist. Though it seems like a small thing, I have been without a bed since I graduated in April, sleeping on couches, floors, and foam pads for almost six months. So to finally have a mattress after 6 months of not having my own place to lay my head is one of the biggest blessings I could have asked for. As I said, sometimes when you jump out of an airplane, God catches you right away. Other times, God allows you to full on skydive for a month in a half. But at the end of the day, if you are faithful, He will always catch you, whether it be with a brand new job, an apartment, or simply a pillow top mattress from craigslist.