Journaling my Reflections on Ghana

Time is fleeting and there is only 2 weeks left before school holidays begin, and my work here ends.

I'm going to miss the safari ride to school on the dust trodden road. Leaving the compound gates and the crazy dogs that nip at the car tire. Peering into the tick tree forest to catch anyone by surprise using the toilet. The fearless goats and sheep that see our truck as an invasion to their sweet slumber in the middle of the road. They inch slightly to the right or left to let our car can pass. Young kids with big bellies and worn shirts hollering “suluminga” or “China! China!” to get our attention. Adults turn and stare until the dust obstructs our view. We cautiously approach the intersection where a ménage of bicyclists, motorbikes, trucks and wild taxis crisscross following their own invisible traffic lines. I thank God every time we successfully complete the left turn in this intersection. I inspect the view out my window, of women carrying all sorts of oddities on their heads. A bucket of water, bucket of buckets, bucket of an assortment of lotions and creams on sale, a bag of rice, construction materials of all sorts, a sledgehammer. Though I’ve seen it many times, I still nervously examine how tightly the young kids are holding onto their mother or father, as they sit on the back seat of the motorcycle weaving between traffic. Sometimes there are 3 or 4, sometimes they look only 3 years old. We pass the campus of T-Poly (Tamale Polytechnic), dodging large tree trunks that are blocking most of the road. “They’re protesting the “construction” of the dirt road,” says Pastor Joshua. “The newspapers announced the completion of the road 4 years ago,” he likes to remind us. Just before we make the last turn towards the ECG school, I crane my neck towards a huge tree to look at the hundreds of some kind of yellow bird fluttering beneath their hanging basket nests. Finally, just as we pull through the gates, I hear the eager shouts of children “Teacher Dora! Teacher Dora!”