Hello all.
We had a wonderful time in Ghana and experienced many different emotions. We arrived at 8 am and had an early customs clearance as we had a scheduled tour to what's referred as Castles and Slave Dungeons. These castles were built by the Portuguese in 1482 and were later taken over by the Swedes and then the British. It was during the time that Ghana was a British Colony that these castles were used as torture centers and slave dungeons for many of the Africans who were sold into slavery. Horrific conditions before they were put into boats to sail to the New World and be put up for slavery. Many died before they were able to transport them due to the conditions of overcrowding where in one small room 300 men would be placed for 45 days with no room to lie down to sleep, minimal food and having to do bodily functions where they ate and slept. I can't imagine the odor and stench that these men had to live in for 3 mos. If a women was on a boat crossing the ocean and was found to be pregnant see was simply thrown overboard. It was very sobering to think how families were separated and men and women treated as commodities.
The following day we went to a city built entirely on stilts on an open lake fed by two rivers. Its name is Nzulezo which litterly means "built on water". We drove thru numerous rubber plantations before enjoying a one hour ride on the lake in a dugout canoe. Most of the inhabitants have ancestors who lived in this same village for over 500 years. Their lives continue to be very basic with no electricity and no running water. The people were very unfriendly and we felt very unwelcome. I could hardly wait to leave! Their reaction was so different from the other encounters we had. Even on our way to the village people were smiling and waving at us.
The third day was by far the best and was truly life changing. When Steph was in Ghana on her SAS trip she had met a couple, John and Stacy, who recently started an orphanage for children who were involved in child trafficking. She and some her friends went back the next day and helped them paint not only the inside but the outside of the orphanage. We had told Steph we would try to visit. Not only did we visit but we took 30 students with us. Sounds crazy? It was! It turned into this big service project where we committed to this orphanage to raise the money and feed 1,200 children in a neiboring village. Plus, we had to figure out how to get to their city as it was 4-5 hours away. We had raised the money, but only 12 hours before we planned to leave did we secure a bus to take all of us. We left at 3 am so we would get there by 9 am. When we arrived we met the 14 children who had been rescued and it seemed that immediately we formed a bond with the them. Some of the SAS students started playing soccer with the kids, others toured the facility and yet others helped in the cooking of the meals which was being done in the back yard. What happened after that is hard to put into words. It was magical, it was life changing, it was a bonding to strangers that I had never felt before, it was powerful. We all stayed at the orphanage for another hour and a half, had a little breakfast, then broke up into 3 groups. One group was to stay and finish the cooking and assemble the 1,200 boxes, another group was to be dropped off with the kids to play soccer and the third group was going to the village to say we would be back in a couple of hours to distribute the meals. We all reassembled to load up the 1,200 meals and boarded our large bus to go to the village for what we were calling "The Feed". As we arrived we saw a large collection of children assembled in a sheltered area but as soon as they saw the bus they came running towards us. They were yelling, raising their arms and hands and so excited to see us. Seeing hundreds of children excited upon our arrival was so moving and brought tears to our eyes. When we arrived it started raining and hard at times, but none of us noticed till we passed out all the meals and boarded the bus again, It was only then we realized we were drenched. When we got off the bus bus the children were so happy and gathered around each of us in 2's and 3's to lead us to the mini bus where the meals would be distributed. We experienced their desperation as it became a feeding frenzy and in their eyes you could see the fear that we would run out of food., These children were not starving but certainly malnourished. It was chaos, it was mayhem, and we had little control of this mob mentality. Little children, as young as 3 had lost family members, mostly older siblings, and were crying in the rain, shivering from being cold, feeling lost and abandoned and very few mothers were in the crowd. As I held a very young shivering child who was very thin I wondered if she would make survival of the fittest? My heart was breaking! She was so frail!! This village was a high risk village. Definition: Many in this village are single mothers, desperate to feed and care for their children, living on the edge, and the fishermen prey on them. Often these mothers sell their children to the fishermen being told they will feed and educate them. But this is far from the truth. These children work fourteen hour days, slave labor, putting themselves in danger as they dive into the lake to undo fishing nets. Some end up dead, all mamed for life both physically and mentally.
So this is the mission of John and Stacy. You see John is Nigereon and grew up abandoned and a street child. A family from Liverpool reached out to him, educated him, rescued him, gave him hope. That is their mission. We all need to be aware, not naive, and spread the word that this is happening all over the world. We need to act and we need to act now!!! We will never be the same--------
