News from rural Ghana

Reporting for the D-Lab Ghana team, student Catherine Johnson (Civil Engineering, Class of 2012) writes:

The last time you all received an email from us we were in Kumasi, but now we are in the town of New Longoro.  Last Sunday we arrived at our host, Pastor George's house and have been based out of his place since.  The first day we were welcomed by the whole community at a meeting at Pastor George's church.  It was an exciting beginning to our stay here.  Since then our activities have varied greatly and have involved many new experiences.  Each morning starts out with a morning walk to the river (well most of us... some of us choose to sleep a little extra)  where we indulge in BallFloat or Ghana's delicious version of fried dough. Then we eat some breakfast, and get started on the day.  Some of the things we have done is mix and pour cement slabs, pumps, and blocks (this has happened like 5 days now!), traveled to Tamale to meet up with another MIT group, visited Wenchi for numerous shopping trips, and gone to the Bamboi market.  We have learned some Ghanaian dance from some of the children here, as well as from church this morning.  We have also been eating absolutely fabulous food everyday, which is great and delicious. We will end with some individual updates as well.  Elaina has taught many of the children here name games.  Mette taught us all a fun danish song, Raghu taught the kids some bhangra, Kelly ate with her hands, like a local ghanian, Kevin has sifted about eight suitcases filled with gravel, Mary has been found chasing roosters numerous times, Cat has been nick-named snake girl for her freak out encounter with a DEAD snake  (Don't worry.  It was dead.  We were VERY VERY SAFE)  which was video-taped and showed to the whole village, Anita gave babies vitamins, Amy made a paper mache yam, and Kofi showed off his mad dance skills.  But we are all having a fantastic time!!