Larabanga, Northern Region, Ghana

Looking back at some of our pictures I found a few we had not posted yet.

Oldest Mosque in Ghana. Dates back to 1400 AD  

The women's entrance. They can hear but not see from this special room. Opposite side of the Mosque is the men's entrance. Left to right is Sister Halladay, Sister Curtis (area president's wife) Sister Barney, and Sister Cosgrave (mission president's wife)

Pretty wide open country, for miles and miles.

Gone Postal

Today was the day to pick up the Mission mail. We have to travel to Adum to go to the post office and bank once a week. The drive is not really too far but the traffic determines how long it takes. The drive took about 20 minutes. However...the whole process of picking up the mail took us 2 1/2 hours. They have a crazy system here.  You go to about 4 different buildings to collect it all...

This is a back road in Adum. 

Some sort of speaker had a lot of attention here at this building.

                 

Our first stop. See the post boxes in the background?

This is where we get packages.

Next stop, the mail box for letters. There located in little hallways through out a second building. 

This is the customs office where you go to pay for extra duty fees on boxed packages. Unfortunately it's very expensive. They open the boxes and go thru everything and determine what to charge you for each item. The poor missionaries end up paying the extra fees out of their small amount allowed to them each month. Not good.

I think we left for the Post office around 2 pm. By 3:30 when we were still sitting in the customs office, we finally asked the two elders to go to the bank for us before it closed at 4. We waited for over an hour while the duty fees were determined for three boxes. :-/   Then we had to go back to the first building to collect the last parcel.    Christmas time ought to be a blast.....

This was the highlight of the day...

This sign was taped to the desk in the customs office.  Guess they don't want the building to smell bad when they come in on Mondays. :)

Sundays drive

We tried to take wider view pictures to get a flavor of the busyness on the sides of the road. Someday I will get a video of the actual traffic flow. Totally nuts. no rules just everybody moving. Intersecting roads have no rules other than pull right out in front of you and get in your lane. Cars and motorcycles, 2 and three wheeled mini cycletrucks, coming at you in your lane on both sides of you. Crazy!

9 passenger van with at least 16 passengers

We counted 5 adults in the back seat. Even hanging out the windows!

Typical road sides. Vendors everywhere.

Even in the streets. walking up and down between lanes selling everything from water to cellular refill cards to meat and dried fish (the whole fish)

This a two lane road,,,,, when its not three or four lanes. Changes by the second.

Good news, our Branch President's wife was baptized Sunday in the Asamang Branch font. Our's had a hole in it. Where's the duct tape when you need it! Seriously, no duct tape. The fonts are 5'x7'. Think of an above ground vinyl pool. Had to drive down the road a way to the Asamang branch and use theirs.

Branch President ready to baptize his wife.

Very nice out door font in front of the Asamang branch.

Hmmmm...

Hear are a few pictures from our Sunday trip to our little branch of 20 or so. The internet has been down and at best is only 2mbps down and 1 up. Think 3G on a good day!

No hours posted for the hospital.... I don't suppose many make it there, just pass right on through to the mortuary.

The road to Agona

We go to a small village called Agona, North  of Kumasi for church. It is a branch of about 20 members. Michael is now a counselor in the Branch Presidency to help them with leadership training. It takes an hour an a half to get there and two hours to get back. We leave at 7:30 AM and get home around 3 PM. It is very beautiful once we leave the city. We will post more pictures tomorrow of our weekly trip to Agona.

For you map browsers look up Agona Ghana!

Brooms

Typical Ghanian broom and it works amazingly well. Specially if someone else is using it!

Note our water tank and generator to the lower right of the tank. There is a separate pump to pressurize our water system with a large filter next to the tank and three more filters inside at the kitchen faucet. The kitchen is the only drinkable water. We have to use bottled water to wash our face and brush our teeth. When we shower we can't get any water on our face.

The generator is 8,000 watts to run one of two room air conditioners. The power goes out about three times a day for up to 2 hours.

Neighborhood friends

Practicing carrying her baby.

Home sweet home

See our broom by the door?

                           

The cute neighbor children at our front gate.  They like their "pikchuh" taken!

                                                 
     

Beauty!

Mole Game reserve

The first week we were here in Ghana, we went on a Mission tour to see the area included in our mission. We visited the missionaries in Techiman, Tamale, and then traveled up to a game reserve in Mole. The picture above is of one little community up near Mole. The farther north you travel, the more remote. Huts like these are not typical of the area in which we live. We live close to the mission home in Daban.

We were luck enough to to see elephants that day. Others told us they'd searched for three days before finally finding any. These are three males. The one in the middle is the youngest and is often more aggressive.

Pumba!

Mama baboon with her baby on board. 

These are called Kob. They're like an antelope. 

These men were our driver and guide. And yes, the gun was loaded just in case we needed it.

We have arrived!

We had the pleasure of attending our first Sunday meetings this week. The people are very friendly and welcomed us warmly.  I especially enjoyed these cute little ones!

This woman has her little child on her back. Everyone carries their little ones this way. They showed me how they wrap them on their bodies.  It looked pretty simple and I wondered how they keep the wrap fastened!  Apparently it works for them. 

  This shows some of the beautiful clothing worn here by the women. It's typical to see them dressed this way. 

They all carry their wares on their head. I've even seen them carrying laundry bags and huge bundles of wood. 

This gentleman was at the tollbooth. 

Here is one mode of transportation used here. Often they are way overloaded.  

Villages such as this are found in the upper northern area of Ghana. We had the opportunity to visit the northern area last week. It was wonderful!  I will post photos of some of what we saw later. We are very happy and so grateful to be serving here among these kind people.