Essam

Yesterday we got up and went to meet the MPAs at the church office building on the temple grounds. It’s pretty amazing how the church is the same all over the world. We met with them and scheduled the next couple weeks to do school evaluations and get together for some other activities. This is going to be a pretty amazing couple of months. After meeting with them, we went to lunch at Pizza Inn…the pizza was actually really good. I changed my money then we came home to drop off Taylor and Sarah so they could work on other stuff while I went shopping for food with Solomon. He plays a huge part in the success of this operation. He's really great at teaching and has an awesome personality. After shopping, we came back and worked on grouping and scheduling for when we go to schools with the MPAs.

Today, we went to Essam. It’s about a 3 hour drive from Accra and is more like the places I knew in Indonesia. Lots of palm trees, people on the streets selling things, and dust. We got to the village and the kids were peeking out from behind doors and houses trying to get a look at us. We finally got them to come out and they played with us on the MGR and we made some fruit batteries, played with the hand generator, and I tried to explain stuff to them but they had no clue what I was saying. Solomon had to get up and explain everything all over again. They finally got it (or pretended to) and started repeating after Solomon, “Energy transfer!”

We finished with that and walked around the village to see what it was like. There were a couple guys pounding cassava so I asked if I could help. They looked at me funny but finally let me do it for like, 3 hits. We left when they kicked us out and the kids followed us around the village. Naturally, we played follow the leader but they didn't know it. They just did whatever I did. I don’t think they’ve ever skipped before. They just kept following us further and further down the road. It would have been pretty suspicious back home, but here, they just don't care. Oh, they have a movie theater in their village! Well, it's more like a house with a bunch of benches in it. I didn't see a TV but I didn't ask where it was in case there wasn't one. But that's what they called it.

We came home after that and I played around more with the science lab stuff. Anyway, I've got mango juice all over my legs from the fruit batteries so the mosquitoes are eating me up and I'm gonna go clean up. Until next time…be cool, stay in school.