I’ll start with the end of the story - we are all fine! But of course there is a tale to tell. Yesterday, April 16, was our day to tour Kakum National Park and the slave castles at Elmina and Cape Coast as well as re-visit the Budaburam Refuge camp and give the students the school supplies that had been collected by the Sunday School at First Church. The visit to Budaburam was excellent – we stopped in each classroom and the kids all stood and greeted us in English. They were studying for final exams. The building the first and second graders were in had had the roof blown off in a bad rain storm about 2 weeks ago. There were pieces of plastic and tarps on what was left of the roof joists. Hard to see and not do something about.
From there we drove about 2.5 hours to the Kakum National Park. The attraction there is a “canopy walk” where a rope bridge has been made between 6 giant trees in the jungle and you walk one at a time across each of the 7 pieces of the bridge, going from platform to platform. The drop to the ground is 70 – 80 feet but you can’t really see anything but the tops of the trees you are walking (hanging on for dear life) over! Jack commented that we were nuts but at least good sports! There are lots of pictures to prove all this.
Then we went to a “botel” for lunch – a hotel built in the middle of a lake and there are alligators all around. Very exciting. Two huge ones were hanging out just catching the breeze - .
It had gotten to be about 4 PM by the time we finished lunch so we decided to just drive into Elmina, see the castle and then go to Cape Coast for the tour. It was gorgeous by the Atlantic, palm trees, big rolling waves, sea shells, fishermen. We stopped to take quick pictures and then back into the bus for the 7 or so km. over to Cape Coast. We all heard the metal hitting the bottom of the bus and Rob smelled the diesel and saw it spraying up on the windows. Tony, our hero driver, stopped the bus, we grabbed what we could of our things and got out in record time. The diesel was gushing out the bottom and spreading all over the sand on the shoulder. We scrambled up over the rocks and onto the sandy beach waiting to see if the bus was going to blow up or what. Well, nothing that dramatic and in about 5 minutes a tro-tro (Tempo, 9 passenger van) drove up and a deal was struck to take us into Cape Coast.
We arrived at 4:30 which is when they were supposed to close but we’re a pretty impressive group so they let us into to see the museum first. It was wonderfully done – all of it sobering and horrific but the museum has great pieces of Anka history. They a tour guide gave us a complete tour of the castle from the dungeons where the male and female slaves were held, the “Door of No Return” and “Door of Return” which was installed when two African Americans were exhumed and returned for burial in Ghana in 1995. Seeing the quarters where the governor lived right above where the slaves were held and were dying is maybe the most horrendous of all – to think there were people who thought it was okay to deal in human misery is beyond imagining. Our guide kept repeating that the most important lesson was for us to pledge that such a thing would never happen again.
So then we were able to see some Ghanaian crafts for sale and for John to be in touch with Tony and Nana who had stayed with the bus. And, miracle of miracles, they had found a mechanic, removed the fuel tank, soldered the hole, put it back on the bus, were putting some fuel into it and they were at the castle to pick us up by 7:30! But it is about 3 hours back to Abori – and we pulled in here at 10:30 amazed and exhausted. Jack said he was sure he was going to spend the night in a broken down canoe on the beach and was astonished to find himself in his bed!
Today was a lovely, memorable last day. We are weary but triumphant. One of us has a nail puncture wound and we’re glad it’s not Rob because he didn’t get a tetnus booster. Cate has a sun allergy on her neck. Don B. managed to work a huge blister onto his thumb pulling about 10,000 nails. Phyllis fell trying to get up the rocks onto the beach yesterday and hurt her ankle and Rene’s knee that had been operated on earlier this year appreciated being iced. And Jack really screeches every time he sneezes or laugh because his ribs hurt. But we’re really fine!
We finished a two more coats of paint in the main hall today, and I swept the floor for the last umpteenth time. We pulled all the protective tape off the lovely new windows, and Hope got all the lights connected. (The electricity kept going on and off because we had a tremendous tropical down pour at about 1 PM.) They had poured more concrete this morning (and Charles had written our names again all over the concrete in back!) and part of it washed away but it’s Ghana , it happens. As I looked around and realized it was past 4 the momentum was building because we were beginning to see a completed room emerge. The paint was drying, the floor was swept, we assembled 27 chairs, 10 for us and 17 for our Ghananian team mates.
We had asked for a final communion service with our fellow workers and what a blessing that turned out to be. The boys painted a huge shell on the wall with the letters Y.M.D. (Youth Methodist Division) in the middle and then wrote each of our names in a section of the shell. You will see many versions of the shell, of it being painted and of it as the back drop for our communion service. The final touch was the communion table set in front of the shell with a lace cover and the room was transformed for us to the have first service in the new facility.
It could not have been more special – most of us cried and we all smiled until our faces hurt. It was a perfect ending. We came in love to share love and received so much more than we could have possibly ever imagined possible. These young men who traveled from all over Ghana to come and stay at the center and work with us are a blessing for this country and the world. They are full of spirit, skills, vision and determination.
There was a lot of hugging, picture taking, gift exchanging, and many miles of video taken during the service and afterwards so look forward to seeing all of that.
Now off to bed – it’s almost 10 and those who know me know that’s outrageously late! For friends and family who have been to Mussoorie, the lights of Accra are sparkling in the clear, rain washed air this evening, like looking down on the Doon from Mussoorie. Very, very beautiful. We are more fortunate than we deserve and we can only praise God for this marvelous experience.
