Dearest Gentle Readers,

It has been a while since my last update. Christmas is approaching soon, and we are preparing to finish off the year. Even though work is taking up most of my time, I still get to do a lot of fun activities on the weekends.

I met some people from “A Rocha Ghana” who were doing a project together with UNICEF on ‘The Convention of child Rights.’ The Children were taught about the different child rights. Then they had to draw a picture of a world where one or more of these rights were practiced. I was there for the end of the projects and had the chance to interview some kids on their art works and thoughts on this topic.

We also initiated another recycling project in Osu Girls School and Salem Boys School. This time it was just with a small group of kids. The theme was Christmas, and they could use anything they wanted to make either decorations or gifts. They had about four weeks’ time to make their art works. I am impressed with the outcome. Someone even made a Christmas tree out of plastic bottles.

Augustina (my host mom) took me to the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, which is a museum about the first president of Ghana. It was educational and fun. We went to get some popcorn after the tour and enjoyed the big park next to the museum. We also went to get my hair braided at the salon. It hurt for the first two days, but you get used to it after that.

I have made quite a few acquaintances since coming here. One of them is a genuinely nice woman called Nana Aba. She works in the office next to mine and occasionally takes me to work. She invited me to join her and her family to go and visit her parents. It took us an hour to get there. There I met Nana Aba’s parents, and they made sure to feed me enough food so that I don’t go hungry. After eating, me and her dad got to talking. We talked about different Christmas traditions. I told him about some traditions my family has on Christmas, and he told me about Christmas in the village where he grew up.

He told me that in the village, he lived in a big house together with eight other families. The other families were his aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Everyone living under the same roof. Around two weeks before Christmas, the kids would go into the forest to collect big palm leaves. They would use them to mark out the walls of a big building. Kind of like blueprints to build a house. Then they would use a mixture of mud, hay, and water to construct the walls of this spacious room. Apparently, they would finish this in a few days and then start decorating for the big Christmas feast. They would bake biscuits and put them on a string to hang them up like garlands. The younger kids would always cry because the older ones hang them up too high. If one of the kids did not help in the building of this construction, they would have to pay a small fee before being able to enter. After Christmas, the building would be torn down and the space empty for the next year.

Asempa and Nhyiraba just finished their exams in school and got high marks. They are so happy, especially after Rev. Eugene (their dad) got them some ice-cream to celebrate.

I am excited to experience a warm Christmas in Ghana and cannot wait to tell you all about it…...

Yɛbɛhyia bio