Travel report



Visiting our projects in Ghana,
Afrikaad Foundation, 29 October 2004

Report: W. Roos

We traveled to Accra with KL 589 on 29 October 2004, arriving in the evening after a good, 6 ½-hour flight.
Our driver Agyei and his wife Jane met us at the airport and drove us straight to our hotel in Teshie in the Mercedes van.
After a day of acclimatising and looking around Accra, we left for our first project in the Volta district.
We took a quick look around Tema harbour, where our container with relief goods was inspected by customs.

First we visited Xantroli, a beautiful, clean mud hut village where we donated 150 trees.
The chief’s son gave us a tour of the village and showed us that the trees are growing nicely.
Click on the small picture to enlarge!
  Later, these trees should provide shade for the fields and prevent the   crops from being scorched by the sun.
  The women of the village were busy grinding flour and baking and the   men were all working in the fields.
These are warm-hearted people, who are very pleased with our interest in and help with their problem.

After this, we left for Vume, one of our educational projects.
Here, the Foundation has provided the villagers with the materials to build two classrooms and an office-cum-storeroom next to the old classroom (an open construction with a rush roof).
The villagers and their children gave us a warm reception on the village square.

We walked to the school.
There, the headmaster introduced us to the teaching staff and insisted on showing us how the children played with the donated toys and the other things.
It was a real treat to see all these cheerful children, who all want to hold your hand, or shake it.
Touchingly, they sang some songs for us as well, including the Ghanaian national anthem.

  Finally, we met with the chief, who will join the headmaster in drawing   up a statement concerning the new foundations.
  These foundations have been laid by the government at the expense of   the Afrikaad Foundation, without the Foundation’s knowledge.
This statement is very important to the continuation of the project, something which the villagers both need and want.

Through a splendid mountainous landscape we drove to our educational project in Begoro by way of Lake Volta and the Akosumbo dam.
Since the school in Begoro is closely allied to the Presbyterian church, we were welcomed by the minister.
After the introductions, followed by a prayer, the headmaster arrived to take us to the classrooms, which have been built with materials provided by the Foundation.
They looked great.

  While we were looking around in the classrooms, the oldest children had   set out tables in the schoolyard, displaying all the goods donated by the   Foundation, such as computers, printers, trainers, toys, exercise books,   crayons, pens etc.
Aad officially presented these materials to the school, with a good speech in which he pledged some funds to paint the classrooms both inside and out and to put up a fence or a wall along the railings of the building.
Everyone was immensely pleased.

The headmaster thanked Aad and the Foundation and expressed his hopes for a long relationschip.
The minister, too, made a short speech, and then the children sang to us.
Before leaving, we sat in on an English lesson, during which we taught some children a mnemonic aid for remembering the number of days in each month.
We returned to Accra by way of Kumasi, the cultural capital of Ghana and on friday night November the 4th we left for Amsterdam with KLM.
It was a marvellous and fascinating trip, that made it clear that all our donations are used well and end up at exactly the right places.



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