Our last part of the trip took us to the south of Ghana again. We travled to Alberta Palace Hotel on the beach of the Gulf of Guinea. For the last two days we swam, watched traditional dances, took drumming lesons, and just reflected on the great trip we just had. We had travled half way around the world, lived with a family who had no modern conviences, aided in building a school, saw elephants up close, but overall we each learned something about ourselves. This trip changed my life forever and I will never forget the lessons I learned from it. We are all one people, no matter where you are from or what you have. We all want the sam things in life: family, prosperity, love, success, friendship, and happiness.
“Be the change you wish to see the world”- Gandhi

Elephants, elephants, and more elephants, o wait and some baboons. Ghana use to inhabit a variety of large and small game, but due to the large amount of poaching and deforestation most animals have disappeared from West Africa. That is not to say that I did not see elephants, baboons, antelope, water buck, warthogs, monkeys, and thousands of stunning birds. Below are pictures of just some of the wildlife I saw on my safari. At on epoint, a baboon was able to open my door to my room and go through my backpack and steal my oranges. We literally we only a few feet away to some of these animals.

Our next stop on our journey was Mole National Park in the north west part of Ghana near Burkina Faso. The ride soon became longer and longer as we realized that we could not travel fast because the roads were not paved and they were extremely bumpy. After 14 hours, starvng, tired, and nauseous, we finally made it.

Probably one of the hardest moments in my my life was saying goodbye to the most caring family I had ever met. For someone to have so little finanically and in material wealth, they opened there doors to me, so I could gain the full cultural experience of Ghana. We presented the chief of the village, Nana, the school building and we were all honored in a ceremony. We all got on the bus, and in the most amazin moment everyone in the village crowded the exterior of the bus and wished us goodbye. It was so great to see how they were

Another project we put together was making the village soccer team into a more legitimate organized team. We bought each player new uniforms and new equipment. When thsi was complete we had a big event, where Breman Soccer team played the neighboring village. The whole town came in an amazing event of town unity and place to put there troubles behind.

Midway through my time in the village, all the volunteers took a weekend trip to Kakum National Park. It is one the only places in the world with a canopy bridge over the rainforest. Even though I was scared of heights and nervous about the structure of the bridges, I finally made my way across. Since we were mostly above the tree line, many of animals were down below, however I saw thousands of birds all over. It was amazing sight.

The goal of our journey into the village of Breman was to aid the community in anyway they wanted. Prior to trip, each volunteer raised a few hundred dollars and combined we had over $7,000. We spoke to the chief of the village and he thought that a school was the biggest priority. With the entire towns help, we were able to build a three room school, complete with supplies, and a playground. Everyday during the week I got up around 7:00 am and worked with about 60 Ghanaians to put together the building. Whether carrying buckets of water for the cement, mixing cement, raking, or moving stones, I always came home exhausted.

I was now Kobina Abaidoo and Scott Karrel seemed to just slip away as I fell into the Ghanian culture. Kobina was chosen as my first name because I was born on a Tuesday and Abaidoo was the last name of the family I was staying with. My family had a mother, a father, aunts, uncles, 6 chilldren, and cousins. From the minute I arrived I had already noticed the difference in cultures specifically dealing with family. Every night we all gathered in front of our house to talk, sing, and just hang out with each other. This was a a normal occurrence. Family is was top priority and always came first. I slept in a room with another volunteer and also ate in that room. The bathroom was a few hundred yards beyond the house (no running water, just hole in the ground), a closed space was used to bathe (dump a bucket of water on your head), and the well was right behind the house. Becoming Kobina Abaidoo seemed pretty easy actually as neighbors frequently came over and said hello, I began eating traditional food, and playing with my new brothers and sisters.

The day had finally come to move into our village where we would spend the next three weeks living with a family. Our group got on our bus and headed 15 miles outside the city of Cape Coast (along the western coast of Ghana). As we approached a hill, I honestly did not know what to expect. The next 10 minutes were and still are the most life changing moments I ever had. We came around the corner to nearly 500 people jumping up and down and screaming. We had never met these people, nor had we done anything to help them, but our mere presence made them extremely happy. The next few hours were a blur to me. We walked around the village to cheering and singing families as we finally made our way to a a group of people waiting for us. We were then formally inducted into the village by the village elders and separated into pairs so we could meet our families

Once I began to absorb the culture a little more, we traveled to the region of Ho, which lies on the border of Togo. At a remote “hotel” (if thats what you call it, it did not have any running water or food however) we met our Ghanaian Leaders who would help us learn some of the language we would be using in our village. We learned the basics of fanti, like how to say hello, goodbye, and a few questions.

After 17 years living and traveling in mostly western countries, stepping out of the plane into kotoko airport in the capital of Ghana was surreal. From that moment I stepped out of the plane, my life has not been the same. My first night in Ghana is something that I will never forget. We quickly hopped on a bus and headed to the University of Ghana. That night I slept in a dorm room with goats outside my window, no running water on the floor, and cockroaches around bed. I did not think I would be able to last the 2 months that were to come.