Building the Airfield School – update from Shifra Raz 12/5/09

Friday was a national holiday, "Farmer’s Day". Farmers compete for the best crops, livestock, fishery, and can win tractor, bike or farming equipment. In 1997 Bishop Forson won first place in his district for his Timber (teak wood) and Palm Oil Farms.

Due to the holiday, work was not scheduled for Airfield Community, but they all decided to work anyway. I counted 40 community workers. Foundation blocks were already cemented in the trenches. Women running back and forth, large cement blocks on their heads. "blocks", "mortar", shouting form the site and the women ran to deliver the goods.

75 years old Kofi Gamo does not have kids in school and his grandkids graduated years ago, but he is the first one in the morning and the last to leave. He does not walk, he runs. He does not stop to rest and is a great inspiration for all of us. He is also the leader of his church.

The mayor of Ho and an assembly member visited the site on Thursday and spoke to the community. This is something they all do very well in Ghana: talk, big words, promises, cheering… but deliver very little. We were surprised when a member of the parliament paid us a visit and actually offered a real help, starting with 200 bags of cement. Morale was high at the site, but the week did not start this way.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 6th, 2009 at 1:02 pm and is filed under Building Airfield School, Volunteer posts from Ghana, Volunteering in Ghana. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.