This is Maryanne Ward, here in Ghana on behalf of Ghana Together, at the increasingly expensive but still nice Afia Village Hotel. A long ways from Seattle---snow, ice, delayed flights...
I will use this News feature on our Ghana Together website to keep folks, esp. my family and fellow GT Board members informed about my to-ing and fro-ing here.
Off we went to Frank and Anita's neat little apartment in the middle of Accra. One of our original Ghana team, Frank has benefitted greatly from his friend and mentor our Leif who helped him launch his computer career, and helped him get Microsoft and Cisco certifications, etc. Frank now works for MTN, a large telecom/cellular phone company. Anita and her Mom have a catering business, doing weddings, birthday, funerals--anything from cakes to groups of up to 500 people!
We brought "career-oriented gifts: SD chips, RAM memory, and serial cables for Frank; for Anita a high-quality manual can opener from Gretchen's in Mount Vernon (scarce and almost unknown in Ghana), and of course, books for little 18 month old Gejooba Sue (sp). Her Ghanaian name means "Monday-born".
Frank and Anita represent to me the "upcoming young adults" of Ghana---educated, trained, determined to better their lives. It was great to be with them. Anita the caterer prepared a special meal to honor me: rice, boiled plantain, palava sauce (based on moringa leaves), red spicy chile sauce with little slivers of beef, and a bottle of water. It was truly delicious.
