Mongo Mongo

We had a much better week.

Our batteries are somewhat recharged, thanks in most part to the return of the missionaries to the MTC. We had a late arrival of the group from The DR Congo. They will mostly be serving in Madagascar. We spent the night at the MTC on Saturday as the scheduled health lecture and immunizations was postponed until late in the evening.

We are thankful that we were able soak up the spirit there. It is quite rejuvinating for lack of a better word.

We had a wonderful opportunity to visit the very remote village of Akyremateng. We had to walk into the village as this is the only way to get there. It is not far, really just across a ravine--less than a mile through the jungle. Down into the ravine, over a couple of streams and then up the other side. We visited the school today. No electricity or running water except for a community well.

As usual, the people are very welcoming. Happy, happy, happy. It was great. Michelle brought along her bag of smile makers for the kids--and was instantly the center of attention. After the trip, she made a comment about perhaps liking the idea of working in the primary--which has to my knowlege never before crossed her mind. This is a photo of us descending into the ravine.

We walked along the bottom of the ravine through the jungle, and through cocoa farms and learned a lot just watching the vegetation go by.

This picture to the right is a bunch of cocoa pods. When they turn yellow, they are ready to harvest. We brought a couple home and cracked one open. It looked all slimey and brain-y. The seeds tasted slimey sweet with the dark bitter chocolate center.

For some reason the kids kept calling me Mongo-Mongo, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Its now what they call most big white men--ever since a very playful, but big white man came to their village a couple of years ago on a service project. So to be known as Mongo-Mongo is not such a bad thing.

Here is a picture of some of the school rooms that are still being used. They are making bricks to build more buildings, but for now there are about 4-5 mud rooms that will be used until the rest of the school is built to accomidate their needs. I spent time talking with the math teacher. He lives in Koforidua and comes to the school each day to teach the children from primary school to high school.

We had a lot of fun just playing around with the kids on their playground equipment. Here again is another merry-go round that charges a battery to light lanterns.

Here is a photo of our group. We came up with President and Sister Froerer who are the president of the West African MTC in Tema. Also Elder and Sister Page who are the Africa West Area public affairs missionaries. We also came with Chris Owen (director of Empower Playgrounds) and Isaac his local employee.

Here is Sister Fife searching for her smilemakers. She brought a handful, but some of the adults took the toys away from the kids for themselves--kind of discouraging.

Of course it is hard to go anywhere without taking pictures of kids.

This lady wanted us to take a picture of her daughter--so we did.

and another photo from our walk--this time heading back out.

Not far from the village is Boti Falls. This is a pair of twin waterfalls that are as beautiful as anything you might see in the movies. We love these little slices of heaven.

We stopped along the way at the bead market in Koforidua. Sister Fife bought some beads. We also stopped along the way at some wood carving shops and spent about a half hour or so looking at all of their wares.



Overall, I would say we had a pretty great week. We are charged and ready to get back to work. We have a very busy week planned with travel and lectures planned for the MTC and with 2 zones in Cape Coast. Looking forward to another great week.

...Elder and Sister Fife