Ghana School Library Initiative

Spring Term Shenanigans

There haven’t been too many updates this year, but the Ghana team continues to plow ahead as we are looking to travel this summer and close the project in the fall. Our subteams this year are Computers, Cataloging, Anthropology, and Education. We will soon be starting work on a monthly newsletter to send to the library to countdown to our visit, and we received our serial adapters over winter break so OLPC refurbishing should start on February 12th. Travel applications have just gone out, and the travel team will be decided by the middle of February. This past month has been pretty busy with finals, but we are ramping up for a solid semester.

The GSLI Christmas List- Serial Adapters!!!

Its been a while since there has been a post, but the GSLI initiative is still going full steam ahead trying to fix up the next set of computers to contribute to our library. But serial adapters are nowhere to be found. Ilovemyxo.com, which is the supplier mentioned on the OLPC wiki, has had their site completely disappear from the internet, and we need some hardware! If anyone out there knows a supplier or would like to sell us some serial adapters, let us know in the comments section. Thanks!

So long for now

Well, it has been a few weeks since the end of our trip, and about time to have a final post about our project. The construction ended up going extremely well, the building was all ready for the grand opening, and there was quite a turnout for the ceremony. In the end the building was fully electrified, stocked with just under 7000 books and 37 computers, and will be open six days a week for students and community members. However, I think that pictures probably tell the story better than words, so without further ado, the completed building:

A Weekend of Unstoppable Favor

Two weekends ago, on the 5th and 6th of August, we were privileged enough to participate in an extraordinary sightseeing trip to the Central and Western Regions of Ghana with some of the teachers from the school. The trip was organized by them, and for a reasonable price we were provided with transportation, meals, lodging, and entrance to the various sites we visited.

Despite some technical issues with our vehicle, the trip commenced at around 8:00 am on Friday, and by noon we had arrived at Kakum National Park in the Central Region of Ghana, the location of the famous “canopy walk.” After stopping for a brief lunch, we took to the trail.

It’s only a brief hike through a nicely wooded area to the roped walkway, and on the way our guide told us about the flora and fauna of the region. The woods are home to many unique species of birds, monkeys, and other wildlife, but the main attraction of the park is most decidedly the elevated walkway, which is at once beautiful and enthralling. After finishing the walk, we attempted to receive another tour around the walkway gratis, but the park workers wouldn’t swayed by our oburoni charm. So, we decided to head out and move on to the next site.

A short drive brought us to Cape Coast Castle, the most famous and visited former slave castle in Ghana. The slave trade was brought to Ghana several centuries ago by the Portugese, and it was then continued by the Dutch and ultimately the English, who were its most extensive perpetrators. The tour through the castle’s grounds is enlightening, although the atmosphere is certainly somber and the history unbearably tragic. The tour includes a visit and explanation of the slave dungeons, an explanation of the treatment and selection of slaves, and a tour of the masters quarters, and it culminates with a trip the the former “door of no return”–the final departure point from their home continent for so many millions of Africans who would not see it again for many generations.

Pictured at right are the main fortifications of the castle, and pictured below is the view from outside the “door of no return.” The people of the Cape Coast area are primarily fisherman, and you can see in the photo that the community is thriving in spite of the terrible legacy that the castle represents. As a take-away message, it proves particularly hopeful, as one sees not only the cruelty of mankind towards itself but also a tangible, visible example of its tenacity and perseverance in spite of this unspeakable evil. With this mindset, we left the castle and headed to Takoradi, the capital of Ghana’s Western Region, to check into our hotel and relax for the next day.

On Saturday, we had planned to visit Nzulezo, a small village built entirely on stilts over water in the Western Region and then continue on to spend some time at the beach. Of course, this being Ghana, the transportation to Nzulezo took much longer than expected, and we were all very tired in the car, as you can see in the photo below. By the time we arrived at the departure point for the canoe trip to the village, it was already past one o’clock, and spirits were running low. But the prospect of visiting a location accessible only by a 45 minute canoe ride aroused in us the curiosity to travel on.

The habitants of Nzulezo came there from the region of present day Mali many centuries ago to escape persecution. As we helped to paddle our canoes through the overgrowth, our guide Jeffrey explained to us the history of the village, their customs, their sources of income, and the daily lives of the villagers. Nzulezo has a primary school, which reaches up to the sixth grade, but for Junior High School and High School, students have to wake up every day at the fingers of dawn and make the journey by canoe to the nearby village of Beyin.

The village itself is extremely small, with less than 500 inhabitants. Many live outside of the village in Takoradi and other cities in Ghana and return only for the holidays. Our trip included a brief tour of the stilt village, and when we were ready we began the voyage across the lake back to the main land. It was nearing dusk when we alighted on the banks of Beyin, and we still had a long drive back to Sakumono, where we are staying.

All in all, we had a fantastic trip. We were able to see more of this amazing country, and we had many experiences which gave us much to reflect on. As we reach our final days in the country, we are looking forward to taking in all that we can. It has been a truly wonderful experience, and we are thankful for all of it.

Chey narc,

CLF, ELO, ASR, JMB, and BnrA

It’s Going On!

It seems that we haven’t updated this blog in a while, but it is not without just cause. In fact, the reason for our delay is that we have been so busy working on the project that we’ve barely even slept. Ok, that’s a little bit of an exaggeration, but don’t be too hard on us. We have made progress in leaps and bounds with the construction of the building, and we have finished our educatonal activities with the primary school kids–and just in time, too, since they have recently left for vacation. The lack of small children running around and intercepting us as we try to walk between the site and the school to ask us about our favorite Ghanaian foods is slightly unsettling, but I think we will soon become acclimated to the silence.

I have for you all glorious evidence of our progress: pictures. Let us begin.

Here, we get a good view of the trusses and purlins, as well as some of the walls going up and the plastering on top of them.

Here is a picture of the building from the pastor’s house, taken a few days ago. You can see the roof beginning to go on.

And now here is the building in it’s current state, taken from the same angle. The roof looks pretty good, don’t you think?

Buse–working hard, or hardly working?

This shot shows the progress of the interior walls and plastering, although it also clear shows how much work is left to do. But we are up to the challenge!

Besides construction work, as I mentioned, we have been doing educational activities with the kids. This consisted of giving them a brief introduction to the library, such as how the books will be organized and how they will interact with the librarian. We also told them about the other resources available–namely, the 37 OLPC laptops that were donated to us–and did a couple of activities with them to whet their appetites, so to speak, to use them more.

It was exhausting to teach 2 sessions a day, but the kids seemed to really enjoy them, as did we. We hope that they will now be a little bit more excited to use the library to its fullest extent!

Well, I think that’s all for now as far as progress on the project is concerned. Soon, we can post a little more about experiences we have had, such as our recent trip to Cape Coast and the Western Region. Stay tuned for that!

Much chey,

Cole “Baby Face” Freeman, Buse “No Regrets” Aktaş, Jeremy “Boyshorts” Blair, Elizabeth “Medkit” O’Grady, and Akhil “No Jokers” Reddy

Drilling Like Maniacs

It has been over a week of construction, and it is very impressive how far along the building has come. Another of our professional engineers, Pat, has arrived, and we’ve put him straight to work with Ash on helping us with the site. Since the last update, the trusses have been completed and lifted to the ringbeam, the purlins have been cut to size and installed, and the roofing has all been delivered. Lifting the trusses was accomplished with only manpower, and pretty much every male teacher in EP (and Benedicta the librarian) joined us and the carpenters to hoist the trusses. We had been hoping to get the roofing up earlier this week, but the carpentry has slowed slightly since the trusses were lifted, and it now appears that they will be aligned and secured in time for a Monday roof installation.

On the masonry side of things, the masons have been moving very quickly and already have much of all walls completed after only three days. Meanwhile, we have been introducing the teachers and students to the OLPCs, and had three very successful sessions yesterday with the fifth and sixth graders in which we had the students take pictures of themselves and import these pictures into a writing document with a sentence of introduction (using the Record and Write Activities). The kids seemed very excited and enthusiastic and were all able to complete the task with our guidance. Additionally, as the post title indicates, the EWB team has also been drilling all over the place. The masonry walls required small indents to be drilled in the concrete columns to serve as fastening locations, so we bought a chisel bit and chiseled into the columns. The concrete turned out to be very good quality after all. Since then, we have taken to the ringbeam to drill holes in the concrete for Hilti fastening, and through the trusses for a throughbolt connection. Drill bits and drills are being passed around and interchanged very liberally as all of the different holes require different bits, drills, and bit converters. It is definitely a lot of fun though to drill from three meters up.

As for culture, we have pretty much exhausted the supply of new foods to try, and cycle through the dishes already described. We now have a lunch location to go to, which is very good and features fish quite often (fine for some members of our team, but not as popular with a few others). We went to Accra Mall over the weekend, which was a little disconcerting due to how Western it was and how many oburonis there were. We saw the new Harry Potter movie, bought a ton of Ghanaian chocolate, and had some juice. It was not our most action packed afternoon, but it was still a lot fun.

It’s Truss Time

Construction started on Tuesday, and the first order of business is getting the trusses buil

t and situated on the ringbeam. Our first professional engineer, Ash, arrived on Monday night, and has been leading us in ironing out the technical details of the truss design and fabrication process. We have also been consulting Kofi, an EWB-Ghana engineer, for input on the truss design, roofing decisions, and other structural issues. Currently, the truss members are mostly cut to size, but we have to finalize one final connection before we start fabricating the pieces. The past few days have been filled with a lot of meetings with our construction partners as Ash can fill them in on our requirements for construction methods and quality.

Meanwhile, we met with a roofing company today, the Roofing Supplies Co., and have given them our roof dimensions for fibre cement panels. They were very receptive to our questions and requirements, and it is currently looking like we can get the roofing started by next Tuesday, on schedule.

As for book and library updates, we have completely finished stickering and taping the books, and have moved to cross checking their catagorizations in our Excel spreadsheet.

Finally, with regards to cultural updates, we have been laying pretty low since last weekend. The Ghanaian food list continues to grow, including porridge for breakfast- very smooth, soupy, gingery stew, fried doughnut balls, fufu and abenkwan- palm nut stew, and a stew with crab and goatback- the extremely rubbery and oddly textured back of a goat. The team has also developed a deep love of Alvaro, a malt-based drink that comes in pear, passionfruit, or pineapple flavor. We arrived home a few days ago to find a fridge in our common room competely stocked with Alvaro. We still do not know how our host family, the Atsus, knew that we liked it so much.

A Delicious Interlude

It’s Monday again and we are back to the daily grind, but we are still riding the high of a very eventful weekend. On Saturday, we took a long and extremely bumpy excursion to Bojo Beach, which is west of Accra. The beach itself is on a long sandbar, so you have to take a short ferry ride across a freshwater lake to get to the sandbar. The water was really warm, the waves were great, and we played volleyball and soccer with other Ghanaians on the beach. There was also a large population of rival groups of obrunis (white people). On Sunday, we took another long but significantly less bumpy excursion to the Volta region to attend the church service and afterparty for Dada Nyamadi’s 95th birthday. We were all decked out in matching outfits with Mrs. Nyamadi’s face all over the cloth, as was almost everyone else at the party. The entire affair was pretty over the top. Check out our sweet Nyamadi-wear below.

Countdown to Construction

Maakye from EP School! The project continues to move along on schedule, with the wood, sand, preservative, electrical supplies, windows, nails, and lots of FanIce being purchased since the last update. We are down to the last corner of books for cataloging, and everything else besides the temporary library has been stickered and taped. Below is a picture of the team in the book storage room with the librarian Benedicte (minus Elizabeth, who took the picture).

On to cultural notes! First, the new food rundown: redred- thick black-eyed pea stew with fried sweet plantains and gari, which is casava flour, ɛtɔ (eto) – mashed fried plantain with groundnuts and eggs, and agbele – like banku but less sour. A picture of the very artistically prepared ɛtɔ is below.

Next up on the culture rundown is the appearance of religion in all aspects of Ghanaian life. Stores in Ashaiman are named such things as He Is Mighty Electrical Shop, Burger in Christ Home Goods (still don’t fully understand that name), and Yesu Dɔ Wo (Jesus Loves You) Barber Shop. One popular form of public transportation, trotros, which are like shared taxi-vans, all have phrases painted on the back like Enyame Tease (God Understands) or less religious phrases like Michael Jackson. There is even a show called The Pulpit, which is like American Idol except that it is a competition for children preachers. The kids have about 10-15 minutes to give a sermon to a live audience, and then a panel of preachers gives them feedback. There are musical interludes with church choirs and then two kids are voted off each episode.

Speaking of church, we went to church this past Sunday, which was very lively and filled with songs and dancing. There was also a wedding that day, with even more songs and dancing. One dance, called agbaja, is very popular among the churchgoers and looks like a much more coordinated version of the chicken dance.

Construction begins next Tuesday and we are all very excited to get started.

Mepe se mekɔ Accra

It’s time for another update from the field. We got a lot of work done last week with book categorization and construction. The fiction sections of the library are almost completely sorted and labeled, and the non-fiction books have been categorized into new categories that better reflect the types of books we have in the library. The new categories are:

Fiction: Early Reader, Youth, Young Adult, Adult, Poems and Plays

Non-Fiction: Reference, History, Science, Religion, Biography, Health and Self-Help, Business, World Cultures and Geography, Art, Language, Cooking, Parenting, and Education

We visited two libraries in the area yesterday, the Osu Library and the Cathy Knowles Library to get some feedback on our organizational systems and see how the libraries operate. The first library visit was actually an accident, since we thought the Cathy Knowles Library was called the Osu Library. The librarians were extremely confused when we came in saying that we had just spoken to one of them.

Nevertheless, both visits were helpful. We had already planned to put in place a number of the organizational schemes and procedures that we saw, like havign students take their shoes off and organizing the books by reading level and topic, but we also got a lot of very helpful information and good contacts that the EP School can rely on once we transfer ownership. Particularly, Joanna Felih, the Cathy Knowles librarian, gave us a great tour of her library, and two Canadian volunteers, Penny and Callie Giaccone, even provided an extremely generous donation of about 20 books written by Cathy Knowles that specifically reference local Ghanaian culture for the early reader section of our library. Other take- away messages were that checking out books will probably not happen until a few years of operation have already passed, that picture books are extremely popular for all ages, and that there should be procedures in place for reserving books so that longer novels can be held for later reading in the library facility.

On the construction side of things, we are still talking to the different partners involved and buying materials. As we have said, the blocks are done and paid for, concrete has been delivered for the mortar, and the contracts have all been signed. We plan on buying wood very soon for our trusses, and sand for the mortar will arrive once the ground dries out from the past two days of rain. Updates here are a little less interesting, but things are still very much on schedule.

And finally, for the miscellaneous notes and anecdotes. Our repertoire of Ghanaian foods has expanded to include fufu, which we helped to pound, waakye- rice and beans, rice balls with ground nut soup, kelewele-fried plantain with ginger, sweet apples (which look kind of like guanabana and are about 95% seeds), and zoay – spicy peanut butter balls with ginger. The weather has been surprisingly cool, and while still humid, it has been breezy, mostly cloudy, and relatively rainy. The team has also discovered a love of the card game Rummy, and there is currently a tournament to get to 10000 points. Akhil is currently winning by a landslide (this is a lie, he is doing very poorly). This week has been declared Jeremy’s Fitness Challenge Week, which no one is excited about except for Jeremy. Sunday was a wall sit competition, Monday was a plank competition, and today is unknown. Elizabeth is currently the fitness champ with two wins.

And even more finally, pictures will be coming soon. Prepare yourselves.

Ghana School Library Initiative

An EWB–Princeton effort to improve the quality of education in Ghana