On day number 3 Isaac and I wanted to do Habitat for Humanity. Though SAS offered trips we wanted to try and do it on our own. Though my SAS trip the day before had been great, often SAS trips aren’t so wonderful so we did it indi. Well, kind of. First 4 other people came, though I didn’t know any of them before they were all great. Next, we ended up at the same sight as the SAS trip. I had emailed Habitat separately and organized it but apparently thy only have one sight in the area. Luckily, SAS got this one right and we worked hard and had a great day.
We got there noon (Kibi was further away then we had anticipated) and immediately got to work. SAS had been there for a bit already and they were all already exhausted (Ghana is pretty close to the equator) so we were their Joba (if you couldn’t tell by my unyielding baseball references it kills me that I can’t watch Yankee games—starting Sunday these will switch to Suns references as I’ll miss the entire series vs. the Blazers).
We worked for a bit and then had a nice rice lunch (as I did everyday) and were supposed to get back to work. I, however, had a revelation: I am much better at having fun than at doing manual labor. So, for a while, I just played ball with some of the local boys, taught them to throw a baseball and realized that my camera was gone. Wait, no, but seriously. I mean I found it 30 seconds later, one of the kids had taken it and ran off to take pictures, but I got a lil nervous na-mean?
Raymond, the guy who helped organize the trip with me, helped me find the camera and along the way was telling me about their struggles. He said that honestly it is nice to have people building homes but their problems are much bigger than that. Gold has been discovered on a hill by where they live and miners have come in and destroyed their landscape. He took me and my friend Kareem, through bushes and over streams, to the lake that he said was at the heart of their village. It was dirt brown—hands down the grossest thing I have ever seen. He said in the past that had been their drinking water, it had been the water they used to bathe, and now? Nothing. They couldn’t use any of it. The miners come in, destroy the land, get their gold and leave the place a mess. And, when he tried to complain to authorities, they threatened his life and forced him to move. The affects of pollution are not necessarily as prevalent throughout the developed, affluent world, but small changes can destroy communities in the developing world. Unless we start to actually play close attention and stop climate change and pollution the affects could be awful.
Well, on that happy note, I continued building for a bit. I shoveled dirt and wheel barreled it over to what was going to be the foundation of the house. Once I got tired I returned to my new friends and played somemore. Then it came time to leave they asked for gifts, but unfortunately I didn’t have anything with me. So, I gave them my sun glasses, sun screen, and hand sanitizer. They didn’;t know what the later two were, but they were still thrilled. They kept shouting “cold on my skin” and smiling. Hey, whatever floats their boat.
A few minutes later we got back in our cab and headed back to the ship. Once we got back to Tema and after a brief dispute over the price (we had agreed to pay for gas, but they wanted us to throw in an extra 40 for the cost it would take them to drive home, that wasn’t part of our deal) we got dinner on the ship and called it a night. A tiring, emotional, draining, awesome day. Good job Joba.
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