Operation Ghana

I have received a number of request and questions about Ghana. Yeah! I am glad you all enjoyed the experience as much as we did. It is still something I think about daily. Aaron is working on the video this week and we are hoping to have it as a special feature on an upcoming Signing Time DVD. Yes we have video of the crocodile run, the canopy bridges and my feeble attempt at carrying water on my head.

After my blog that showed Alfred and the first elephant carving, my friend Natalie called and said, “I love my elephant! When can I come get it?” I started laughing and said, we actually got you something else. Natalie thought I was kidding. She said, “I read your blog and it says you got it for me.” I started laughing and I told her to wait a few more days and she would read in my blog about what we special ordered for her instead of that elephant. She still thought I was teasing.

A few days later one of Lucy’s workers came over for a yearly interview. We were talking and she looked up at a shelf in my living room and said “That’s Alfred’s elephant!!!!” I was sort of shocked that she too had been reading my blog. I guess there are a lot of lurkers out there. Don’t worry, I love lurkers.

I asked Aaron to take some photos of the different pieces we brought home. Here they are with descriptions!

Here, of course, is Alfred’s Elephant

Here is our special order for Natalie. Elephants, Mother and Child.

These are the tortoises we special ordered for Lucy. Keep in mind, special order means he carved them at our request. Remember we had asked for a baby turtle and like a true businessman he carved a larger one as well.

When we went into Accra I told Aaron and Leah that if I saw any figures that looked like me (at any point in my life) I would buy them. This one has no resemblance at all, but I bought it anyway:)

Later in Aburi I found this figure and it cracked me up. Leah said, “That doesn’t look like you at all!” (I’ve trained her well!) Then she asked, “Will you please stop buying naked ladies?” LOL I guess she prefers wooden animals.

The night that we did not find a family of four carving, but Alfred promised to carve us one, I bought this wooden bowl. It was perfect to keep our cocoa beans and money in.

Alfred’s older brother, William, carved this family of four for us. He taped a piece of paper with his address and email address to the bottom of it. It is about 10 inches tall.

We picked up a small piece called “Lovers” for our neighbors who had fed our fish while we were gone.

The final piece is the large “Unity” carving that we had picked out and when we returned Robi was looking at it. He later special ordered a smaller one.

In Aburi there was one shop with countless necklaces. We picked out this one for Aaron’s mom. She loves jewelry and asked us to bring her something back. I should have bought two. Can you see the necklace on the lower right hand side? I wore the necklace to her birthday party and she noticed it, “Did you get that in Africa? It’s beautiful.” I smiled and said, “It’s for you!” She was surprised and happy.

Luckily, giving away all of our clothes and supplies left plenty of room in our suitcases to carefully pack all of the carvings. We were happy to find that all of the pieces arrived without any breaks or cracks.

Today I got some more good news for the Signing Time Foundation. You can now use Good Search.com as your search engine and raise money for The Signing Time Foundation! When you search the internet and use Good Search with Signing Time Foundation as your non-profit of choice, each search generates 2 cents for us. This may not seem like a lot, but think of how often you search the internet and think of how many of us there are! It uses the Yahoo search engine. One way to remember to search for us is to set www.goodsearch.com as your homepage. It’s just a little thing, but it can make a big difference! So, spread the word, the more the merrier. Do a great thing and start using GoodSearch today!

I know some of you are already having “Going To Ghana” withdrawals. So am I! I promise to continue posting some more pictures and stories.

I am relieved to have the entire journal transcribed and posted and it was a real challenge for me to “go back” especially over the final two journal days. When all is said and done and read, I realized I was only successful in giving you a flavor of the experience. Honestly, I have concerns about what I posted and that eventually there will come the request for me to remove it. My bigger concerns are about the things I didn’t post. Going to Ghana reminded me that looking only a generation or two into our country’s past you find stories of families sending their children with special needs into full care homes. It was not so long ago that you would send your deaf child to a boarding school and only see them on weekends or holidays. It was not so long ago that most deaf children’s families could not communicate with them.

When we discovered Leah’s deafness, we were asked if we would send her to a deaf institute for schooling. We were warned against signing with her for fear she “may never talk.” This was only 10 years ago. Disability laws are relatively new in our country, in the grand scheme of things. I think it is important to remember that, as we look at the progress and vision that will come to these third world countries.

A week after our return home, Curry called and said that some of the teachers had requested that rather than being paid cash for attendance and participation in their sign language classes, they would like to be “paid” in Signing Time DVD’s. This is a huge honor! The teachers said they would like to be able to view the DVD’s at home and review the signs so they can remember them better. This is a beautiful breakthrough in what is possible for the teachers and their students. It’s beautiful to have the teachers looking for a way to have the information reinforced at home, on their own time And we all know that if they have any small children in the home, they too will be signing soon enough! Curry offered to have SOHI pay for the DVD’s, but knowing that each $250 is equal to a year of life for a deaf child, I cannot charge him. We will be donating over $2000 in Signing Time product to Signs of Hope International so that they can use it to pay the teachers.

Before we went to Ghana I shared that we could not give the children anything that could be taken away from them, thus our focus was giving them love and language. We had heard of other groups who had raised large amounts of money to provide items for each child, things like hearing aids or glasses. We also heard that after these items were distributed and the groups returned to their country, the items were collected from the children and never seen again. We can only presume they were sold. It is my understanding that similar events have occurred with donations of clothing, toys and books. When word got back to the groups, they never returned to offer assistance again. Would you?

When we first began planning for this experience Emilie and I said we would love to leave a set of Signing Time Books with each child, we were discouraged from doing this, because we heard that the children would not end up with the books once we left. I know it is hard to imagine, and I urge you to steer clear of the immediate judgments from our comfortable lives where all we can call it is “stealing.” If your life focus was survival, then you might see those “extra” items for “disabled” children (or children with no rights or future) as unnecessary and even an extravagant waste of resources. Now, just to be clear, I am not saying that it is my opinion, by any means. I am just trying to help you imagine a world and view that is very different than our own but it is THE view have. It is what most people there believe. I just know that it is hard for us to see it as anything other than evil and selfish. Fortunately, our children have rights, whether they have disabilities or not. Sadly that is not the case in many countries. It is a different mindset.

A few days ago I was informed that the full set of DVD’s that we left for use in the schools, the teacher’s sign language classes and the church sign language class had been collected immediately after we left and have not been seen since. Of course I was furious. I am sure it was no help that I had a 106-degree fever, but I sat at my computer and wept. Then, I went through all of the things you can yell out loud so you feel better, things like, “It’s Not Fair!” “What’s The Use?” and many others. Leah, who has been home sick all week, saw my tantrum and said, “What’s wrong mom?” When I told her, she took a deep breath and held it until she turned red. “I want to pummel them!” She said, and then gave me a hug.

The stupid thing is, I knew better. I knew that anyTHING I left could be taken away. I guess I just didn’t think it would happen to us especially since the THING we left would support education and communication. It is frustrating, but I am not going to be one of the people who quit, because it’s not about the things, it’s about the kids.

As I am coming to the end of transcribing and posting my Ghana Journal I am realizing that there are pieces, pictures and stories that I somehow left out. Surprising I know, since I have actually transcribed over 46 single spaced pages (so far), in a Word Doc.

I know I mentioned that the taxis have vinyl lettering on the back windows. 99% of the sayings or words are spiritual in nature. Maybe we can be inspired by these images. What would you put on your car?

Yesterday, Aaron was able to get all of Robi and Derek’s pictures of our trip to Ghana. Tonight I posted my fourth Ghana Journal 2008 page. Check out Leah’s fancy braids! A hair salon made out of a metal shipping container! Be amazed at just how much CAN be carried on one’s head! All this and more as we continued to frighten small African children.

After posting that page, I went back into the first three journal pages and added pictures where I could. Be sure to take a quick look through the previous pages. You will see JoJo Boy the monkey. See us crossing the street with goats. Look for our first hugs from the deaf students in Mampong. See termite mounds that are taller than I am… I know that’s not saying much! You can even see the Machete Men! See Alex helping the students with numbers and counting. See more pictures of our Signing Time performance at the Deaf School.

Subscribe to my blog or watch for new journal pages daily, in the upper right hand corner of my blog. Start reading soon, or you may never catch up:) Besides, we are almost to the spiders and crocodiles! And don’t you want to know what this is?

Tomorrow’s post promises to inspire you with business names you’ve NEVER thought of.. I guarantee it. And you will find out who covered their face with their shirt to block the smell of raw sewage only to “lose their lunch” inside their shirt! If you thought the spicy hot dogs looked bad, just wait and see what “treat” comes tomorrow. The adventures continue daily!

Ghana Journal 2008 Day 1
Ghana Journal 2008 Day 2
Ghana Journal 2008 Day 3
Ghana Journal 2008 Day 4

I got back late last night from Oklahoma where I was asked to be the Keynote Speaker at the OFCEC (Oklahoma Federation of the Council for Exceptional Children). Every flight was delayed. One of the flights attempted to take off twice and then returned to the gate where we got off and tried another plane. Sitting in airports and on airplanes, I had plenty of time to get a head start transcribing my journal.

You can find it on the right hand side of your screen under “Pages” The top Page is Ghana Journal 2008. That is where you want to start reading. Today I posted Day 1, the shortest entry and the first entry, so that makes sense, starting there. Since I am creating them as pages, I am not sure if those of you who are subscribed will get an email notice when I update the page, we will know shortly, won’t we? So check back often.