Accra –The First Few Days

After MANY hours of flying we finally made it to Ghana. Stephen Abu, Jr. was at the airport waiting for us in Accra which was great. I felt like we had the red carpet treatment from the get go. We did not have to carry our bags to the car at all. We met his wife Sonya at the van and were off. They stopped for gas and got us some Ghanaian ice cream. It had a different taste but was delicious. The roads are terrible here.

As you can see the bathing system is somewhat primitive. We were able to take either a cold shower or use a bucket of hot water. I opted for the cold and it was fantastic! It is so hot and humid the cold was more of a cool and was soothing to my soul!

We need to brush our teeth with bottled water because the tap water is not safe here.

Stephen Jr., Sonya, and their kids (Koby and Rhea) were so wonderful to us. We feel like family already and were instant friends. One of my favorite moments with Sonya was after we picked Maddie up from the airport. Before I share that let me go on a tangent for a minute. Maddie had flight problems and ended up coming in a day later. She emailed Stephen to let him know and he had no idea we were coming in that day. Dave had not emailed him to let him know. Thank goodness Maddie sent him the message or we would have been at the airport without a ride or a phone (or any numbers for that matter). Anyway, when we were leaving the airport a rent-a-cop was trying to tell her to back up so another car could come in. Had we done that we would have been stuck and the other car still would have had nowhere to go. Long story short, she stuck to her guns and we were able to get out. She said she has almost been forced to be more aggressive and assertive living in Ghana. The traffic is absolutely terrible and she shared many times how much she hates it.

She told us about a couple deaf schools in the area and we were able to stop by one. We missed their students by about 30 minutes to an hour. I was able to talk to three deaf adults however and they are excited to have me come back and volunteer. I really look forward to that sometime this summer. I had a goal of finding a deaf person to talk to while out here and I did it on the second day!


Abi was our driver to Abomosu and was very patient with us. He helped us in learning Twi (the local language/dialect). The drive was about 4 hours long. There are people and shops everywhere. 

(This is a roundabout while they are apparently doing construction.)

Throughout all the crazy traffic people are walking up and down between the cars selling everything you can imagine. Some of the things I saw were various foods, water, windshield wipers, towels, board games, phone cards, and even bubble blowing guns. What fascinates me most is that they carry everything on their heads! EVERYONE does it and Abi said it is something you learn to do from a young age. They also strap their babies to their backs with a cloth so they can just keep working on whatever they need to.

One of the items I purchased on the trip was sugar cane. You just chew on it and suck out all the sugar water then spit it out. It was very yummy.

We were excited to go to Abomosu!

I stayed awake the whole ride but as you can see the drive did a number on the other three.

We arrived in Abomosu to a beautiful sunset. 

Stephen and Margaret Abu are very friendly and call us their sons and daughters. I look forward to our experience here and all the wonderful things I will learn. I will keep my mind and heart open and do my best to make an impact on the lives of those in the community. I truly want to help them learn to fish and give them the tools needed to do so successfully. This is an opportunity I could not ever have imagined myself having. I am a very blessed man!