Building a Community Center in Ghana

Hagar is a woman from Abrafo-Odumasi, about 52ish years old. She works as a guide 5-6 days a week at Kakrum National Park (with the canopy walk) and farms on Mondays (her day off). Hagar is the original link between Miami and Abrafo-Odumasi and the root to the story about how the university started building here.

This past Monday, Sylvia and I accompanied Hagar past the normal bounds of the village - a mile or so up into the rainforest - to help plant water yams and plantain trees. Everything is planted by hand, not machine, so there were not rows of plants, just organic intertwining crops with the rainforest as a backdrop. We dug 20+ holes with a "farmers shovel" and mounded the dirt as prep for the water yams. [Farmers shovel = picture a normal shovel, with a 3' handle made from bamboo, and rather than the head being straight, it's at a 90+ degree angle.] We hiked to a hidden stash of yams that she's kept tucked into a giant tree trund, hiked back with yams on our heads, and burried them in the mound. These yams were huge, they looked like gnarled giant feet. One of the large ones could easily weighed 10lbs. She chopped them up with her cutlass before we planted them (cutlass = looks like a misformed sword, but as useful as a pocket knife - most everyone will have one to show off when we get home). To thank us for our help, Hagar gave our group a huge water yam, picked cocoa fruits for Sylvia and I, along with about 8 avacados. It was a great adventure.

I have some great pictures from farming, but none that I can post tonight... perhaps tomorrow.

We're still working hard on the building in hope that it will be complete before next Friday! Wish us luck and good weather!