Love each other as I have loved you. [John 15:12]

A few weekends ago, the 11 Americans working with AgriCorps in this region of Ghana met for the first monthly meeting. We had just spent our first weeks in our assigned communities and had plenty to talk about – crazy stories, complaints, weird discoveries, good and bad experiences, interesting living situations, and the things we miss about America. At one point, we decided to go around the room and have each person share their favorite moment from the last few weeks. Any of us could have easily mentioned a delicious new food we tried or seeing a beautiful, tropical part of Ghana or learning how to complete everyday tasks in a developing country or successfully implementing a new idea; but we didn’t.

Every single person told a story about how they connected with another person in some way. There were stories about making someone laugh, even though they didn’t speak English…not feeling well and having a student bring you a baby bird to make you feel better…walking your neighbor’s kids to school, hand-in-hand, every morning. Our favorite and most memorable moments are those that involve relationship with another person.

I want to share some of the people who have entered my life since arriving in Ghana.

Madam Peace is a home economics teacher at our school. She is also in charge of the girl boarding students, so she lives with us next to the girls’ dormitory. On the day she arrived, I extended my hand to shake hers as I introduced myself. She ignored the hand and went straight for the hug. I doubt we would have survived our first week of school without Peace – she has guided us around the school, taught us how to cook Ghanaian food, accompanied us to the market, invited us to her family dinners, given impromptu language lessons and greeted us every single morning with a cheery, “Good morning!!! How are you?!” She now refers to Kyler and me as her son and daughter, and treats us as such. We are extremely blessed and thankful to live with Peace!

Adwoa is Madam Peace’s 9-year old daughter. She was shy at first, but is getting more and more comfortable with the obronis (foreigners) living with her. Almost every night after supper, Kyler and Adwoa play the game they invented in the living room (which is mostly void of breakables). The game involves throwing/kicking a ball around and only has one rule: do not cross the board that is between the two players. By the end of the game, both Kyler and Adwoa are cracking up.

Mr. Sakitey is one of the agriculture teachers here at the school. Since day one, he has been amazingly helpful and has welcomed me as a co-teacher and co-advisor to the new 4-H club. I am always encouraged by his commitment to his students and their success. In order to help them improve their test scores, he has started a weekly “quiz bowl” after school. The students are divided into teams and he is posting their rankings as the year progresses; the students love the competition. Unfortunately, many teachers in Ghana put very little time and effort into helping their students learn, so the fact that Mr. Sakitey is taking extra time to do this is especially awesome.

Deborah is a boarding student I met one evening when I was sitting outside the house. She sat and talked with me for a while and I learned that she loved singing church songs. After singing a couple of songs in Twi, she started singing one in English, Ancient Words. I freaked out a little when I recognized the song – it had been so long since I heard someone sing a worship song I was familiar with. We sang together and she completely made my night! I see Deborah quite often and I can say that she is one of the most positive people I know. She makes me and the other students laugh when she is trying to tell me something (half English, half Twi) and I don’t understand but she, literally, cannot stop smiling.

Joy…is not technically a person. Joy is a male cat. He lives around our house because we feed him our extra food scraps. Sometimes he is friendly, others times he acts like a crazy jungle cat and freaks out when you get near him. I put Joy on this list for one reason: he kills the lizards, snakes and creepy things near our house. For that, I am grateful. J

Yokama: A Women's Day Celebration

"Yokama" = the ideal woman. Every year, a woman from the community is selected as the Yokama based on her work, education, character, family and reputation with the community.
Also during the Yokama 2015 celebration, we were able to witness the installing of the new Queen Mother for the Krobo people. The Queen Mother is the female equivalent to the chief.

Madam Yokama 2015, followed by Yokama women from previous years.

Girl dancers at the celebration.

Drummers!

Nene Konor: the Paramount Chief of the Krobo people

Girls from my school with whom I attended the celebration.

Our mailing address:

Kyler & Lyndee Lum
4H Ghana / AgriCorps
P.O. Box 2561
Koforidua, E/R
Ghana
+233 0 533 237 115

- Church Update -

For the last few weeks, we have been attending a nearby church, the Odumase church of Christ. Kyler has begun teaching Bible lessons and helping with the church service there. Worship, sermons and Bible studies are conducted in a mixture of English and the local Krobo language. We pray that, with time, we will feel more and more connected at this church and will be able to deepen our relationships with the members there.

In addition, both Kyler and I have been recruited to lead some of the morning devotionals and Sunday night lessons for the students at the school. Over 500 of the students that attend are boarding students, which means they rarely see their families or people outside of the school. We pray that we can provide an example of love and kindness in an otherwise strict environment.

Very proud of this man and the message of love he spreads.

#GhanaLife #GodisGreat #proudwife

(sorry for blurry photos)

I recently submitted a paper to my advisor at Colorado State University as part of an internship program I completed. Here is an excerpt I thought I'd share with you all:

 "Upon arriving in Ghana, I had prepared myself for the differences and similarities I would see between the agriculture practices I am familiar with back in the United States and the practices used in this West African country. However, I quickly found that no amount of studying can compare to a first-hand experience. It was humbling to realize how diverse agriculture is across the planet and how much I have yet to learn.

The first and most obvious difference I noticed was the climate, and therefore, the crops grown. A year-long growing season and high amounts of rainfall allow for crops such as cocoa, banana, plantain, mango, cocoyam, sugarcane, pineapple and cassava, all with which I am very unfamiliar. By physically seeing and touching these plants and speaking with the Ghanaians who produced them, I was able to learn things like: how to tell a banana tree from a plantain tree (they look very similar), how to propagate new cassava plants rather than plant them from seed, cocoa seeds must ferment before being dried and roasted, there is both an edible variety of cocoyam and an ornamental variety of cocoyam, fast-growing plantain trees are intercropped with cocoa seedlings to provide shade, and it takes a full year from planting a pineapple to the first harvest.

I also noticed how different the farming practices are in this country due to the low income levels of the farmers. Although I had expected this coming in, it was eye-opening to actually witness someone using a cutlass to slowly remove weeds on a large field or to see goats and chickens running free, literally everywhere, because fencing is too expensive or to watch a tro-tro (large van used for public transportation) drive by, filled to the top with cassava roots, because very few people have vehicles, much less a truck to transport produce. This made me realize that many of the “solutions” I had for the problems of African farmers were not solutions at all if they depended on a resource they could not easily obtain.

Finally, I have realized that despite language barriers and geographical differences, when you meet a person who is dedicated to their work in agriculture, that passion is universal. Farmers in Ghana care about their crops and livestock and worry about weather, pests, yields and the market, just like in the United States. Agriculture educators search for new, innovative information to pass on to their students, just like in the United States. Students studying agriculture at senior high schools or universities in Ghana have decided to spend their lives working in the industry that feeds the world, just like students in the United States.

 In conclusion, I would like to encourage any student, who is given the opportunity, to venture outside their familiar, comfort zone - experience, first-hand, a culture or practice different than your own. You will quickly notice the differences, and you will come to recognize the similarities. My guess is that you will walk away from the experience with a greater appreciation for your home and a greater understanding of the diversity of our world; I know I have."

Lyndee