Out of Africa

There is a kind of grandeur about Africa, whether it is the magnificent landscape, the spectacular display of their vibrant and diverse culture and people, or the long standing connection to a way of life that has been long lost in western civilization. Much like my travel to China couple of summers ago, I was once again shocked by how much tasks people here are able to accomplish with simple tools. Or on the flip side, how much we have come to depend on the help of electronics. Will we, in western civilization, parish if all electronics suddenly fails (much like the Y2K scare)? Or would we find our way back to the way people live here, where the achievability of a task is depended much on manpower rather than the artificially inflated capabilities of electronic tools? It makes me wonder if the rapid advancement in technology has spoiled our ability to perform monumental tasks, like that of the great walls, the pyramids, and other stunning example of timeless monuments, with the bare hands we are given and the simple tool we build? Furthermore, in my frustration with the Internet’s speed, I realized living in the city had me completely subscribed to the era of lightning-fast accessibility as oppose to taking my good old time to actually live life. I think while electronics have brought a lot more comfort and convenience to our lives, the seemingly incomparable consequence of dependency are too often being ignored and forgotten. This is quite an alarming thought in this world, where shortage of resources, especially energy, is becoming more menacing to our common future.  

blogging about blogging

Thank you for all the very positive comments! I am really honoured that you are able to share the experiences with everyone on this trip! I know quite a few followers are family members of the team, and there are many others who are interested in the mission. I think I speak for everyone when I say that it feels like you are here with us to share all the good stuff, bad stuff and the very funny stuff, and that is often enough to get us through a tough day! On a personal level, the blog has allowed me the chance to regularly inventory my thoughts and feelings about my experience here. The distillation of my observations has really given me a better appreciation of not only my life, but also everybody else’s life. It truly has contributed to my journey, and made it the trip of my lifetime.

Watch out for the two!!!

As the days get longer and longer on site and the deadline draws ever closer to us, two things begin to happen: First came the topic of food! All the yummy stuff from back home we just so badly want to have in front of us. Though a good Ghanaian dish can easily rival any other cuisine on my account, the shear variety, quality, or the out right simplicity of foods we have in Toronto is something that is very easy to yearn for. Just to give all the parents a heads up, the group had unanimously voted for rich, moist dark chocolate mouse cake as the top item to charge towards when we get home. Second to the talk of our food cravings is the growing discontent with the group leader. Despite personal stress and large responsibilities, his dismissive attitude towards students’ time, effort, opinions, and capabilities in conjunction with his short temperament made the already fractured relationship between him and everyone else crumble even faster. It is truly regretful that our mutual dismay for him has begun to over take some of the fondness of this trip.

Up goes the Roof, On goes the Pargeting, and Down goes the dirt

With the opening of the school a week away from Tuesday morning, the team begins charging full throttle towards the finish line. Along with the locals, hired carpenters, masons, benders, and us, there are over 50 people swarming the site (I can only imagine the parallel between us and the ants that constantly trails through the periphery of our site). Groups of people are delegated different tasks from putting up the roof structure, pargeting the walls, filling and leveling the courtyard, building latrines, all the way to completing the classroom furniture. All these processes are more delicate than all the digging and pouring work we have been doing, subsequently it became much more tedious to learn the carpenters and masons’ techniques that made electric tools look as unnecessary than a wool sweater. Although the many of us are feeling pretty exhausted from working 10 hour days everyday, the hopes of creating new and improved classrooms kept us going. The works aren’t always the most interesting, so the sideline discussions, the silly fun we would have (that got captured on video or photographs) often becomes highlights of our days. Of course, we often derive the most amusement out of watching the time lapse for each day, where we get a very different perspective on how the day was spent (and as I have discovered in multiple footages, people does a lot more walking in circles than they believe). It really feels quite amazing to be able to work with a group of people who are connected by their hunger and passion for change.

Last one for the day...I promise!

Maybe I am experiencing typing-diarrhea or maybe it is simply because internet connection has been nearly impossible for the last few days, I am particularly in the mood to blog today so please bare with me! It finally comes time to begin count down the days before we depart Ghana. With everyday past, the buildings are looking closer and closer to their final form. In order to successfully (and more importantly, timely) complete the project, there has been many masons, carpenters, and benders helping us with the form work for the columns and lintels for the past three days. Many more trenches for the verandas' foundation and gardening walls have been dug, and many more plains around the buildings are being leveled for the entrance reception, courtyard, and gardens. In the flurry of activities, it is a good time to evaluate some of the do-and-don't of this project. Under a tremendous financial and time constraint, many of the participation aspects in the project was forced to be cutback right from the design to the construction of actual buildings. Many students are feeling that they have been spending all of their time digging trenches. Furthermore, the difficulties with timing and communication meant we often have to take several bus trips to complete a single task hence increasing the already pretty substantial carbon footprint of the project. There are no doubt that many of the aspects of this opportunity can be made better by more student participation and more project management, but on the same token I must pay recognition to the work that has been done by the team leaders up to this point for it is nothing less than unimaginable by ordinary standards. I feel that the fundamental trouble occurred at the scope of the project, because it is much more than what our original funding and available labour could manage. If we are to repeat the effort, or if anyone is interested in doing similar efforts for that matter, I say we should carefully consider the balance between ambition and the limitations that we are confronted with to ensure that everyone can have the learning experience they came for. For me though, despite the hardship of the project, I still had the pleasure of meeting and learning about the amazing people and culture that is Ghana. It made me realize once again that it is not about where you are or what you do as much as how you made it to be. I am going to end this passage on a really positive note that the elders in the village and the ministry of education in Volta Region have commended the project to be a model school.

Dr. Ho oh Dr. Ho!

I knew my first aid bag would come in handy when I was packing for Ghana, but what I didn’t know is that it would make the local mistake me as an actual doctor. In the past couple of weeks as the locals observed me in first aid action, I have been getting more and more questions about health everyday. But it wasn’t until yesterday when someone tried to consult me about erectile dysfunction did I realize that I need to constantly reiterate that I am not a doctor…

A night in Kpedze

As Jeno and I stood on the side of the road and watched the mini bus drive out of sight, we couldn’t help but wonder what this night in Kpedze would entail. The minister, Maxwell, had graciously invited us to stay at his family home to experience life after dark in the village. By 6:30, the daylight had completely vanished behind the hills that surround the village, Goats and Chickens roamed the main street calling their family members home. We sat at Maxwell’s front porch, at his semi-completed new home, for our first authentic Ghanaian supper. The first entre was Fufu (mashed sticky yam) with a spicy antelope stew. It is customary to eat with your right hand only, it took Jane and I about half of the meal to finally learn the proper technique to pinch the Fufu and slurp it down. The stew that the Fufu came with was a true delight, a blend of spices in a Tomato broth with antelope meat (that the bullet was hiding in) made this dish not only finger-licking good, but also one of my favourite thus far. After we finished cleaning off our greasy hands, Maxwell took us to the night market in the neighbouring town to pick-up salads for the next entre. It took about 10 minutes across rough terrain (AKA the local dirt road) in the dark of night to get to the barely lit main street of the neighbouring town, where the night market is held. Candle light flickers on the smaller stands, while electric lights dimly illuminates the stores to make the street a cavalcade of light. The locals casually hung around their doorsteps and many others drifted up and down the street with chatters and laughter. This scene was perhaps the farthest thing from that of Dundas square or Time Square, yet there is a much more distinct sense of urbanity. We spent a good half hour touring the street and picked up salads, sweet beard, and chilled Stars (my daily bear) along the way before we head back to Maxwell’s place. Over the course of dinner, we got to meet some of his family and spoke to his daughter and brother on the phone. It was a fabulous feeling to be welcomed to his family (and to be mistaken on several occasions as Jackie Chan). It was a night of great intrigue as Jeno, Maxwell, his brother Emanuel, and I exchange tails of our countries. The more I talked with them, the more I was amazed by their views of the world; by that I mean a world built on trust and co-existence. To me, their ability to cope with life and be thankful for what they have actualized my belief about an instinctual connection between people of all kinds. The night in  Kpedze had just become extraordinary.

Hi Mom, I am alive...but soaked!

Apologies to parents who may have had a scare from the content of the last post! Although the problem with management remain somewhat unchanged, everyone is feeling much better and more spirited today from the extra bit of rest we were able to get yesterday as a result of a little weather intervention. Well, maybe little is an understatement given that we have had the pleasure to be living prove of just how magnificent and merciless a tropical down-pour can be. It was about two in the afternoon when the sunny sky suddenly turned pitch dark. Within minutes, wind speed had increase by a full magnitude. The locals shouted at us (with all seriousness) " You need to get out of here now!", as they dropped all task at hand to chase us towards the mini-bus. We frantically picked up whatever we were able to scrounge up and dashed towards the bus. The mini-bus was pulling away from site slowly (to avoid being stuck in mud) with its door wide open as running students jumped onto the bus. I know it's a tat dramatic, but the scene reminded me of 'The Day After Tomorrow' and 'Cloverfield'. Not a minute too soon, as we all got on to the bus, a gust of strong wind swiped across the site and immediately ripped out and destroyed the tends that we were resting under earlier in the day. The horizontal rain quickly followed the wind and created a thick vail of white that swallowed the mini-bus. We set in the bus anxiously looked towards the direction of the tends assessing the extend of damage, but the effort was futile as visibility worsened. The rain continued to pound on the window for next 20 minutes, the road we parked on had become a small stream, before it finally began to subside. At this point, the decision was made to return to the hotel early. Who knew the tropical down-pour would end up being a blessing in disguise.

On second thought

I think we have reached a new landmark in our journey today as we arrived to the half-way point of the trip and the construction. Unfortunately, the sentiment towards this day is much bleaker than what it should have been. Aside from the inevitable home-sick and the yearning for some food items (lattes, salads, nachos, candies, and chocolates) many of the students are beginning to show signs of heat/stress fatigue. Minor cold-like symptoms and some stomach troubles are quickly spreading amongst the group. The 7-day week in conjunction to the intense heat are catching up to even the most resilient ones of us. Furthermore, the management style of the team has been quite discouraging to the team's morale, the frustration of the team is quickly becoming an eroding force that compromises our productivity. Although it seems like we are running off of a thin margin of time, we can only hope that there is an increasing awareness that none of us are design to work continuously and tirelessly. I have faith that this experience is common in any travels and that it will pass in the near future (so parents need not to worry!). In the end, the team will remain true to our mission.

and the top 5 tributes goes to...

It's the 8th day on site today, the foundation (excavation, concrete footing, 3 concrete block coursing, poured columns, and the poured finish floor) on the "Ho House" is finally completed. I will spare you the arduous and sizzling hot (by that I mean the tropical sun) details of the process, but I figured I should share with you a fine selection of the 5 biggest topics of discussions we have had in the last few days that had made our lives here pretty interesting.

First tribute goes to our girl, Ava, who realized she should have been on the plane leaving for Toronto while she was in the swimming pool on Saturday afternoon.

Second tribute goes to the bonfire, where we had a 10 foot high flame, ironically prepared for Ava's good-bye party.

Third Tribute goes to Miles, who got bitten by a fire ant and his subsequent full body allergic reaction that was frankly to funky to show on this blog 

Forth Tribute goes to the trip to the fabulous Ho Market that is like a gigantic maze full of great textiles, fruits, dry goods, and pretty much everything else you would need other than Starbucks.

Fifth and Final Tribute goes to all the wired tan lines everyone is getting, which will be featured shortly! Stay Tune!

GUEST BLOG #1 - Teaching Without Borders

Hi!  I am writing on behalf of the Ryerson Early Childhood Education (ECE) students who are apart of this project.  During our stay in Ghana we are consulted on the classroom space as well as we teach in the classroom with teachers and review the curriculum documents used.

The school is in rough shape but the students and teachers come everyday with a smile.  The classroom supplies are in desperate need of replacing but it is surprising what you can make do with what you have.  The teachers have been warm and welcoming.  They are excited for us to be here and are always asking us to show them new ways of doing things in the classroom.  The children are taught in the classical rows of desks and chalkboard technique, which isn’t the most optimal way to teach kindergarten children.

One thing I noticed that interested me is the new workbooks the children have.  They receive new workbooks every year, which were created in partnership with the Ministry of Education in Ghana as well as George W. Bush’s African Education Initiative.  Looks like he did something right in office!

Apologies for the long post, I will report again later.  By the way, the pictures shown are of the old kindergarten building, Melanie Mendes reading a story and myself teaching doing a review of numbers with the children.  The other ECE student, Vathsala Sinnarajah will be featured in our next post.

Patrick Molicard-Chartier

It’s a lift…it’s a tank…oh, it’s the village women

My experience in Ghana thus far has been a pretty even mix of good and bad. One thing, though, that has been consistently intriguing to me is the village women. They never seize to amaze me with their fun-loving attitudes, incredible strength and the most infectious laughs. For the past few days we have been working on the buildings’ foundations. Every morning the women would arrive bright and early with buckets, make no mistake these ladies aren’t here to spectate between their house hold choirs, but they are here and ready to do some heavy lifting. From the gravels to the mixed concrete or even the concrete blocks, they seem to be able to transport bucket full of stuff with unbeatable stamina while keeping up with the chatters and laughter. It inspired me to try to do the same, but all I accomplished was a head full of sand that made our already disastrous hotel bathroom even worse. I think there is something tremendous about these women, they don’t live materially rich lives, but they certainly seem to live rich spiritually. In many ways, Canadian visitors to Ghana are perceived by the villagers to be people who live wealthy and educated lives. While there might be some truth to the stereotype, I felt much more comfortable in this environment where people are simply genuine and honest. It is amazing when they feel that they can relate to us (i.e. when we clumsily try to learn their language and their culture or when we try to bring buckets on our heads), because it is a true honor to see and in a small way part-take in these women’s lives.

put your back into it!

For the last 3 days excavation work has been on the front and centre of our agenda. Each morning we dragged our tired asses unwillingly into the hotel restaurant before we are graced by Bob Marley and his Jamaican tunes in the bus. It takes about 45 minutes for us to commute to the village, which gave most of us a chance to actually wake up before we get to the work site. The excavation is done in preparation of the foundation pouring for the two classrooms and the latrine. Clay soil, occasional encounter of bedrock, the sizzling sun, and the funky surprises (ants, snakes and other earthly creatures) makes digging this nearly 3 foot deep trench extra exciting. Many locals, children and adult alike, eagerly chime in to the excavation and our entertainment. Their slander bodies delivered surprising strength and endurance which had allowed us to move quickly. In the end, "Ho House" (AKA the southern classroom) pulled ahead and finished the excavation first. On our way home, fatigued, muddy, and down right smelly, were once again accompanied by the ever-repeating Bob Marley tape. As the mini bus full of us drive back on the road we have traveled twice a day for the past 5 days, I can't help but to bask in the amazement of just how far life can take you. 

Kpedze-todze

The village where we are building the school is about a half hour drive away from our hotel. The road to the village is surprisingly well paved, but within the village it was more like a roller coaster ride down muddy puddles. Much like our other experiences here, we attracted many curious eye of villagers and commuters along the way. We drove pass the site of the school that looked like it was briefly cleared prior to our arrival, it is barely recognizable from what we seen in the pictures. The kids in the village are delirious to see so many visitors of so many different colours (like a bag of M&Ms). They waste no time to cozy up to us and they are always ready to pose for the cameras. We went into the chief’s house and were seated in the living room for our final design consultation with the village chief and the elders. It was a long and intense meeting in a small space that seemed warmer with every breath we take. The women and the children casuals hangs around the yard, occasionally peak into the living room with curiosity. There are chickens and kittens running around in the yard, the whole picture reminds me much of my childhood growing up in the countryside of Taiwan. Couple hours went by before the chief and our group leaders finally shook hand in agreement of the design. We headed for the site just a couple minutes away behind the chief’s house, it was a piece of land about 30 meters x 30 meters with a beautiful breeze coming from the northeast. The beautiful surrounding, the incredible hospitality, and the very warm and lovely people paint an entirely new impression of Africa that goes much beyond my expectations…oh by the way, the guy in the last picture has been missing since Wednesday! (PARENTS PLEASE DON’T PANIC!)

Wild Ghana

We packed our bags yet again to leave Accra for our final destination Ho (As the Ghanaians smirked politely when I mentioned my last name). Many of us are still haunted by the fatigue and hunger that came as a result of the adjustment period. We got on to the familiar mini bus and headed off for Volta Region of Ghana. The mini bus navigates through the streets and highways that are bustling with mobile venders (by that I mean dry goods, cold beverages, toys, even ties balanced on peoples’ heads) As we leave the city, the scenery outside the windows became greener and greener until eventually human occupation becomes a rare element in the vastness. Like all the other day, this drive was estimated by the locals to be 2 and a half-hours but we barely made it halfway by then. Along the way it is hard to ignore the obvious signs of deforestation. Many magnificent old trees are found standing alone in the low-laying tropical vegetation. We arrived at Chances Hotel in Ho shortly before noon; to be honest the hotel is more like a holiday resort than I have ever imagined it would be. Luscious tropical plants, scenic paths and near pristine natural surroundings all suggest that this should be a vacation in paradise, but I don’t think we will be doing much of relaxing this time around.

Ghana...the good and the bad and everything in between

It's the end of our second day in Ghana, strangely, it felt like we have been here for much longer than 48 hours. We have had the pleasure to meet some incredibly nice people in these past two days, and Ghanaians are exceptionally friendly and lovely people. Even a simple exchange of glances as we drive by on a mini bus are most often accompanied by waving hands. The multi-nationality nature of the group has also been a point of interest for a lot of the children here, evident by the fact we were swarmed by young children who nicknamed us "Power Rangers" (which I misheard as "Asparagus") when we visit the local schools. It's astonishing how bad traffic can be in Accra, any road at any time of the day can easily rival that of LA rush hour traffic. Even the parking lots can often entail more than half an hour of traffic to get through. Another surprising encounters in Ghana has been the amount of Chinese restaurants that can be found in the city. When Mr. Chance (our gracious host in Ho - not me, but the city) told us the first thing he wanted us to experience was to have the famous Ghanaian Chinese food and beer for lunch, I must say my heart was guiltily delighted by the nostalgic soya sauce tasty deliciousness.
It is refreshing to be able to so intimately experience a culture that is so entirely different than ones that exist in Toronto. As my heart has suspected, there has been lots of true delights about this lovely country, but there has also been things that are very tough to see. As we journey forward, I can't help to wonder how the delights and let-downs will affect everyone of us...

Ghanaian Handshake...oh snap!

I have not been this eager to spread a news since my acceptance to university years ago, but I just have to share with everyone the Ghanaian handshake I have just learned!

Step 1. You shake hand like you usually would

Step 2. Hang on to the middle finger as your hands slide away from each other

Step 3. Snap using each other's middle fingers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OpQsQ2PeIo

Everyone does it here! It's super cool.

People in crowded places...for many many hours!

Finally came the much awaited departure Sunday, most of the team would journey together from Toronto and transfer through Amsterdam to get to Ghana. We are on KLM0696 for the first leg of the trip, thanks to the wonder of personal entertainment system, most of us survived with our sanity intact despite the constant cries of children. 

I have to give credit to Amsterdam's airport, under any other sleep deprived state I wouldn't have been in the mood to explore but there was something inviting and personable about the airport that I simply couldn't resist. For one, I witnessed the brilliant industrial design in the most unsuspecting place: man's washroom. A fly is printed inside the urinal where the point of least splashing occurs, the designers knowingly did so because the gents tend to go right for the fly. The result, of course, is less work for the clean up crew and less embarrassment for the gents. The second flight from Amsterdam to Accra seemed to have taken a lot longer than the first flight, although I completely blacked out from fatigue minutes after the plane left the runway. The only times I was awake was to catch the meals and catch a glimpse of the vast African Plain glistening in the sunset (before the man in the window seat returns from his washroom break). 17 hours, 3 meals, 2 movies, 2 snakes, 1 stop-over and way too many washroom breaks later, we finally arrive to Accra (Capital of Ghana) to find a small airport with a mini bus and a pick-up truck from the hotel waiting for us. Just as we loaded the mini bus and the pick-up truck and cheered to the thought of ending our long journey, someone smashed the Mercedes Benz that accompanied the our cars to delay our arrival to the hotel for another hour and half. The night seemed never-ending, and we are so tightly packed into the mini bus like frozen Wontons, but it was all okay, because I am with this great group of people at the beginning of a truly extraordinary adventure. 

Packing bloody packing

Some say packing is part of the joy of traveling: crisply folded cloth, carefully wrapped shoes, stylishly contained toiletries and the neatly stacked traveling guides; I ask " Who are these people anyway?". For me packing is the otherwise much dreaded last minute routine that enhances the war-zone conditions my room would have been in any other day of the year. Muddy boots, hard hats, dried goods, meds, flash lights and first aid supplies certainly add to the illusion of war-zone in my very own bedroom. I think the only one who got a real thrill out of all this is my girl (AKA my cat, Gogo). I guess it must have been like a jungle gym for her! Hours later, as I am wrapping up the frantic packing process, I realized I had accidentally left my passport in the photocopier at Shoppers Drug Mart (Take it from me kids, it is not something you want to do a day prior to departure). Luckily, some kind-hearted stranger had picked it up and gave it to the post office where you can find me later on today.  

and it begins...

With the departure date drawing dangerously close, it finally hits me on Wednesday evening in the middle of my badminton match " OMG! IT'S REAL, I AM LEAVING ON SUNDAY! ". As my head was overwhelmed by the simultaneous run down of To Do and To Bring lists, a flood of emotions, uncertainty, and excitement quickly washed over me (needless to mention the disappointment on my badminton partner's face). I am no doctor, but something in me suspects this is a typical case of traveler's anxiety. After-all, going to Ghana for a month with a team of students to build a school isn't like going to brunch on Sundays. It is something I have been wanting to do since my mid-teen years (sadly almost a decade ago). The optimistic side of me tells me that this is the chance of a life-time, while the pessimistic side of me tells me to prepare to see a world that has no means to live the way we live in Canada. Through blog posts, I hope to share with you some thoughts, observations, and maybe with luck, a few cheap laughs, as we travel through Ghana to build this school.