Safely Back to Memphis

Chalmers and I are safely back to Memphis.

26 hours from take-off in Accra to landing in Memphis.  5 hour layover in Amsterdam and 2 hours in Atlanta - so 19 hours in the air.

Good trip - lots of work & planning to do for the future.

Appreciate everyone that has been following our journey this time around.

Car Snafu - Premier League Football - Lots of Time

Chalmers and are fully up to speed on Premier League Football.  We have watched 4 games today from the Ghana airport!

The driver that was supposed to pick us up this a.m. So we could spend the in in Accra, failed to show up.  So, we hired a taxi to go ahead and bring us to the airport early this afternoon.

We started watching Man Utd vs Arsenal in the lobby of the Jefking, finished watch it in the restaurant of the airport.  Then watched the next game from the airport, then watched the next game over dinner at The Landing restaurant outside the airport and not we are watching the 4th game in the gate area of our flight.

Not much different that Saturday in the US, there is a version of Game Day, first game comes on about 11 am and the rest follow in suit.

Jim texted us that his plane was late getting away earlier today, so we hope he makes his connections in NY for ATL.

The taxi ride was a hoot, a little nerve racking, and made us both more confident in Ghana.

Our return journey retraces our path to Ghana: Accra->Amsterdam->Atlanta->Memphis.

Jim Starting the Journey Back

Jim is starting his journey back this morning.  He left us about 6 am and just texted that he is about to board his plane to NY-JFK, then to Atlanta, and then to Memphis (tomorrow).

Chalmers and I leave tonight, so we are going to spend the day seeing a bit of Accra.

Jeffkings Palace Hotel

Lots going on in Accra this weekend, GILLBT and Abokobi Presbyterian Women's Center are booked!

We are staying at Jeffkings Palace Hotel in the Medina area of Accra.  According to LWW lore, i.e. Jim, this is where those LWW folks that came before us to install the system at Immanuel Medina Church stayed.

The sun sets quickly where we are the sky's over Accra are hazy tonight....

View from the Ole Jeffkings Hotel

LWW Ghana Network Meeting

We were back at Abokobi this morning to have a LWW Ghana Network meeting.  The network leadership team is comprised of: Jim, Rev Asante, REv Kofi Amfo-Oknor, Rev Josh Heikula, Michael, Charles, Rev Daniel Opong-Wereko (was not able to attend) and myself.

Also in attendance today was: operators from Kibi & Abokobi, administrator from Akropong PUC, senior leader from EPC (Evangelical Presbyterian Church), chairperson from Kwaho Presby, and Chalmers.

It's important that we meet face-to-face when we are here as it helps to continue to build the relationships, set direction for resources, and so forth.  We met for about 3.5 hours and covered a broad range of topics:

Read out of 1st year follow up at Kibi;
Plan to retro fit sediment filters in legacy sites to a sediment filter that can be sourced in Ghana (been testing it a Kibi for a year now and all good);
Plan to retro fit Ozone systems with UV as Ozonators fail and/or existing supply of parts runs out.  Ozonators are not available in Ghana and this time, but UV is very prevelant in Ghana.
Brief review of all legacy systems - problems, volume, leadership, opportunities, etc. (Jim lead this and it was really good);
Review of future installation pipeline;
Clean Water U Instructor Training discussion and action items;

Rev Asante did a great job of organizing the meeting and working collectively on the agenda topics.

Great meeting!

Reese's Cup of Soup

Today's lunch was fish & rice in peanut soup.

The soup is exactly what it sounds like - peanut tasting soup, the rice is a mashed fluffy roll, and the fish is smoked (smoking preserves the fish for future use).

Grandaddy Tree

We left Krobo around 3 pm and made a brief stop at the Presby Office to say hello to Rev Samuel (forget the last name) - the chairperson of the local Presby where Krobo Girls School is located.

We drove in to ground off the Presby and the biggest tree I have ever seen was laying on its side,

Here is the short story:

Tree was at least 175 years old.  Has been the center off the grounds since the Basel misssionaries built the buildings - again way back when!

The grounds has housed many institutions over the years, i.e. Schools, etc. and almost all of them have had the tree has their symbol.

A while back at around 11 pm the staff felt a huge thunder.  They went outside and the tree was on its side.  They had someone come look at the tree after it fell and were told it was the tree's time "to go". So the story goes, that the tree waiting until everyone was gone beneath its massive trunk and limbs to die.

Check out the scale of the tree compare to Michael (who ain't small) and the size off the letters carved in the trunk over the years.

Krobo Girls School

Yesterday, we traveled from Kibi to Krobo Girls School - about a 2 hour drive from Kibi through some magnificent hills and mountains covered with thick and tall canopies AND roads riddled with point holes and ruts - a chiropractors dream.

In my 2014 blog, I posted about Krobo Girls School - Always Shining - so I refer you to that post.

Krobo has about 2,000 girls that attend school and live on the campus.  Krobo is a high school level institution built on the top and side of a mountain and has along history being founded by missionaries - again way back in the day!

We have really wanted to and still want to put a LWW system at Krobo.  Krobo has been challenged by not having adequate raw water supply.  Although they have 3 bore holes - all three do not have sufficient flow at this point.

However, while we were at Krobo Rev Asante called the hydrologist that drilled the bore holes.  The hydrologist recommend not just drilling the hole holes but to allow the drilling to create hydro-fracking which in turn creates better flow.  Krobo chose to only drill.  So there is some potential for good a good source of raw water.

Krobo today feels like Kibi CoE 3 years ago.  I think (hope) with Rev Asante's leadership we can get the right things in line at Krobo to where the girls can have access to clean water.  Right now, not all the girls can afford to buy water and not all the girls that can afford to buy water can afford to buy it all the time - so a lot of the student population is in & out of drinking clean (hopefully) water through out the year.

Lastly, the lavatories at Krobo are not plumbed with water - which means the girls have to take a bucket of water with them to put the water in the toilet to flush (look at last year's blog about Kibi, it was the same situation until Idlewild purchased a water tank for the girls dormitory and Michael plumbed the tank to the toilets).  So, yesterday Chalmers said 50 times "boys we got to fix this...."!  I hope we can.

Its not simple to fix water problems here in Ghana - there are the challenges we can see, i.e. Need money, need to drill & frack to trap the water, need committed Ghanaians like Michael, Charles, & Rev Asante - but there are problems we can see or need to allow some time to pass.  What makes one believe is to have been at Kibi COE yesterday morning and see the 11 20L bottle dispensers, see the water tank that now feeds the lavatories in the girls dorm, see that almost all the small water bottles have been distributed, and hear the Kibi water committee talk of their progress in the past year and their vision to begin help the greater Kibi community over the next year.

It was wash day for "some"of the students at Krobo yesterday - picture should give you some level of the complexities..

Lunch at Linda Dor today

We stopped at Linda Dor, the "truck stop" / "stuckeys" off Ghana for lunch today.

Chalmers and I had the goat soup!

Cooking lesson....

Guess I'm getting Chalmers a caldron for Christmas (I have a boat paddle)...

Kibi Follow Up

We left early this am for Kibi, about a 2 hour drive from Accra.  The purpose of the visit back to Kibi was a one year follow up on installation.  Let me get right to the point and tell your what we saw and heard:

The raw water source was changed from one bore hole to another.  The reason was the water from the first bore hole has a slight iron smell to it that the Ghanaians could detect.  The second bore hole required a new pipe to be laid (buried) from the second bore hole to the water room - at least 300 yards - thanks Michael!

The school has added an addiotnal 7 5G water dispensers to the campus for a total of 11.  4 in the girls dormitory and 4 in the boys dormitory and 3 in the admin building.  Wow!

Almost all of the 2G water bottles are in use.

Water room is over the top and improvements continued to be made like adding glass shutter panes to the windows to let light in but keep dirt out.

The water committee told us that they are figuring out how to add the health and hygiene training into the schools orientation curriculum for all new students.

In the coming year the school is planning on their students distributing water to other (less fortunate) schools in Kibi - along with some form of the health & hygiene information.

That's a really good 1st follow up!!

Some pics:

Another full day planned

We are up early this morning as we have a full day's agenda - all outside of Accra.

We are going to head to Kibi ("Cheebee" or as Josh said last night is also pronounced "Chebe").  Kibi is where we installed a LWW system last year (see 2015 posts about Kibi & the installation).  We are looking forward to this follow up visit to see how the school is using the system, what challenges they are experiences, etc.

We have a little bit of insight around the changing of the plumbing from one raw water source to another a few months ago and some insight that the school is primarily using 20L/5G water bottle dispensers around the campus to distribute the water - we'll see.

After Kibi, we are planning to head to Krobo Girls School.  We have always thought Krobo would be a great place location for a LWW system, but the school is on the side of a mountain and has several bore holes and rain water collection - however, the bore holes do not perform very well and the rain water collection solution has not been sufficient.  Hopefully, we will see something different this visit.  In the 2014 blog, I posted about Krobo - but the short version is Krobo has 1,500 students that live on the campus (all girls, hence the name).   School has a long history in Ghana and is another institution founded by missionaries "way back in the day".

Dinner tonight

We went to the German Cultural Center with Josh Hiekela, PCUSA World Mission missionary, tonight.  Haven't seen Josh in a couple of visits now just due to schedules.  Josh just returned from Niger.  Josh covers Ghana, Liberia, Niger, Kenya, and Togo and lives in Ghana.

OK - good to see Josh, but in the back of the German Cultural Center was a small restaurant serving German beer and brats (or the Ghanaian version of both - Ha!).  Oh and it was owned and un by a Canadian- go figure that....

Abokobe

On the way back to Accra from Akropong we stopped but the Presbyterian Women's Conference Center at Abokobe.  I posted back in 2013 on Abokobe, but the short version is that the PWC is an Africa wide conference facility and over 12,000 people from all over Africa attend the center throughout the year.

Idlewild put a system at Abokobe some years ago and nether he Jim nor I had visited Abokobe since 2013.  The LWW system supplies all the attendees each year with pure water and Abokobe serves as an example of a system working very well AND Abokobe promotes the clean water by LWW to all of its attendees through out the year.

LWW system is working well and the operator is "top notch".

There was even a chance for American Presbyterian Women to help Ghanaian Presbyterian Women through trade.....

First day - Long Day

We left out of GILLBT (Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation) a little before 9 am.  GILLBT is located in the Contonment area of Accra.  We crossed a little bit of Accra through traffic to get to the Osu area of Accra where the PCG Head Office is located.  We met with Rev Daniel Kofi Asante, Director of Development & Social Services for the PCG for about 30-45 minutes.  Rev Asante is senior person in the PCG that is responsible for water and water related projects.

We made our way from PCG head office to Akropong with is up in the coastal mountains outside of Accra about 2 hours or so depending on traffic.  In Accra we met with the Water Committee at the Presbyterian College of Education where the next LWW will be installed.  The WC is a very impressive group: Vice-Principal, Senior Educator, Senior Finance person, etc.  In the meeting we reviewed the System Management Plan and Project Preperation Plan for a "last" time prior to next years installation.  After the meeting, we toured the school's facilities and spent some time understanding their plans to renovate some existing space that will house the LWW system - the "water room".

Lastly, we took some time and walked the grounds, showed Chalmers the original (or close to it) church that was built when the school was founded in 1848.  Took some pictures with the "kids" (the school is primarily a teacher's college with about 1,500 - 2,000 students - a teach for America type model - but the school also houses a primary school with about 500 kids, i.e. An onsite "lab").

Before we left Akropong, we stopped by the Presbyterian University College where we installed a LWW system several years ago.  The system at PUC is not generating a lot of water - or as much as it could - which has always concerned Jim & myself.  The leadership team at PUC has changed since our last visit and we were encouraged to hear that they have plans and motivation to increase the LWW systems production by the students taking on distributing water into the Akropong community via service projects - we'll see.

First time for everything

On every trip to Ghana I have been on we just kind of "live" out of our travel bags.  Just walked back into our room and found this....

I guess "living" out of the travel bag ain't for everyone - no matter where you/they are!!

Arrived in Ghana

After a new set of brakes and new tire on the plane out of Amsterdam and a 3 hour delay, we made it Accra a little while ago.  Don't get me wrong, I am very happy that before we left, KLM made sure we could roll and stop!

Sammy, PCG representative/driver, (see previous years blogs) picked us up at the airport.  All bags arrived and we are set back up at the GILLBT House as in previous trips.

Tomorrow starts off a busy 3 days.  We have a brief meeting with he Clerk of the PCG at the PCG headquarters building in a part of Accra called Kukuhill.  From there we are going to make the drive to the teachers college in Akropong where the next LWW system will be installed.  We hope to stretch the day a bit a stop by Krobo Girls School - which Jim and I have visited before - we hold out some hope that maybe their raw water source scenario has changed since the last time we visited and that we can add Krobo into the LWW pipeline for systems.  Then back to Accra.

I will try and post along the way tomorrow.

On the move to Accra

We are on the plane in Amsterdam heading to Accra.  The delay should not be a big deal since we were getting in this evening anyway, more of a burden for our PCG friends picking us up at the Accra airport.  Hope this flight will be 6 hours or less, landing in Accra about 11 p.m.  Accra being one of those global cities that never sleeps, landing at 11 p.m. won't be that much different than landing at 11 a.m.

Jim checked a bag with some water supplies, i.e. Bottle caps, bottle stands that he found in the USA, etc. and Chalmers got pulled aside by the KLM baggage 'monitor' during boarding so her bag is now checked - meaning we all will experience one of the best feats of our trip - claiming bags in Accra.

Delayed in Amsterdam!

We are sitting through what we hope is just a 2.5 hour delay here in Amsterdam.  Our flight is now scheduled to depart at 4:45 p.m. (Amsterdam time).

We have read just about every newspaper and magazine that we could put our hands on and any more coffee and Juan Valdez will feel like we are cutting in on his coffee gig.

Amsterdam......halfway point.....

We all made it to Amsterdam.

Jim flew Memphis to Minneapolis and on to Amsterdam.  Chalmers and I flew Memphis to Atlanta and on to Amsterdam.  The wonders of air travel that we all could not get on the same flights!

We have about a 4 hour layover in Amsterdam and within 30 minutes of arriving I am getting a whole new "landscaping" plan for my yard centered around tulips.....

Everyone hard at work......

On our way...

We are leaving Memphis ready for the trek to Ghana....

Ghana 2016

We are headed to Ghana - Today!

Jim Levernier, Chalmers Valentine, and myself are traveling to Ghana.  Our journey takes us to Atlanta (Minneapolis in Jim's case), Amsterdam (the 3 of us meet in Amsterdam), and then onto Accra arriving about 8:00 pm tomorrow (Tuesday) night.

The purpose of our trip is: 1) follow up trip to Kibi College of Education, where we installed a Living Waters for the World (LWW) water system last year; 2) visit the teachers college in Akropong where we will install a LWW water system next year; and 3) meetings with the Presbyterian Church of Ghana where we will be planning for a LWW Clean Water U instructor training session in 2017 (look for a future post on this topic).

Jim & I started planning this trip several months ago and we were able to "convince" Chalmers to come with us...actually not much convincing as she has been wanting to come with us for a couple of years now.

Shari & Forrest Gross, who have traveled with Jim and me the past couple of trips, are "sitting this trip out" in hopes of getting a LWW CWU instructor training session set up for 2017.  We will miss them.

As in previous blogs, I have created links on the right side panel for you to understand previous trips, LWW, and Idlewild Church.

Kibi College of Education

Promise to post often - so stay tuned.

BTW - Blogger has changed on me, so be patient as I understand how to use the new features and forget the old ones....