First Village Visit

Village visit 2010
4.9.2010

Just got back from the village visit to Dogobom at Ada. This is my first time ever seeing anything like it. I was so moved so amazed so wowed by what God is allowing me to see and do here. I really did enjoy the trip. What we did was build water purifiers for a community that otherwise would not have clean water to drink.
They have a pond in the village where people go to fetch water for drinking, cleaning, and bathing, and any additional domestic needs. It was really dirty water that is also shared with cattle and anything else that wants a drink or to live in the pond. Our program partnered with a local water sanitation organization to purchase the supplies to build 5 water filters in this community. The water filter consisted of a barrel, sand, rocks, a mesh net, a pipe and a water nozzle. The stones and sand act as filters for the water. The way it works is people put the dirty pond water into the filter and turn on the nozzle to obtain purified water. I suppose this is a proven science. The water certainly did change from dark brown to clear because of the filter but I’m unsure about the ability of this filter to cleanse the water of microscopic organisms that could hard the people. Nonetheless, we were able to build three of these filters. We were told that water from these filters was 98% clean. Our three water filters were donated to the school in the village for the students to have clean drinking water. Two additional filters are to be built in the actually living community in the near future.
I was primarily in charge of getting sand from the ground and “washing” it in order for it to be used for the filters. All of the materials used in the filter have to be extremely “clean” in order for the filter to function properly. I had to use a mesh net to sift the sand on the ground to remove large stones and grass. Then my group (about 3 other participants) filled a large bowl with sifted sand. After that we poured water from the pond onto the sand and proceeded to swirl it around. When the water was swirled enough times we dumped out the water, removed the top layer of silky sand, then added more water and repeated the process. It took about one hour to get one bowl of sand “clean.” The washing was not too difficult it was the swatting over the bowl to do the washing that put a strain on my body.
I was happy to help the people of this village though. I was constantly reminded that this is how people live here everyday but soon I would return to the bustling city of Accra and soon enough home to America. I realized that people survive under really bad conditions with little to nothing therefore I have nothing to want for or complain about. I was made to acknowledge the immense privilege that my life style has even though I’ve always thought of myself as not among the “privileged class” in America because I live in the ghetto. I felt so very blessed to be able to serve in a practical way that would really increase the welfare of people’s lives. We were told that these filters could function for up to five years.
I also considered what it meant that we built these filters in a school. This school was basically a series of cement, open rooms lined up next to one another. How can students really be educated when they are getting sick from the water in their classrooms? Furthermore, since all the food is washed in this water as well what they eat and how they bath are all contaminated. So the environmental and geographical issues of a place are imperative to the education of the people. There were a lot of kids from the village all around while we worked and it was obvious that they were happy we were there. Several people from the village came out to meet us, greet us, and thank us during this process. I could tell that they really needed and appreciated the gift of clean water. The elders of the village approved our gift, accepted it, and invited us to dance with them in celebration. They also gave everyone a coconut to drink from and eat.
It was amazing to see. The village consisted of what looked like mud huts with straw or grass roofs. From what I saw most huts were one room square buildings with not much inside them. It had no running water or electricity. The key thing I want to mention is that these people were happy and enjoying there lives. They were happy for the help but if we would have never come they would have kept living and making it. I admire their endurance. There were girls fetching bowls of water that held about five gallons of water. They carried these bowls on their heads up hill and to their homes. Three other women and I in my program (Americans) had a hard time carrying one of the same bowls together. These women (and I believe women in Ghana in general) were innovative, strong (physically, emotionally, and mentally) and self reliant.
This experience has my brain full of thoughts and questions. I realized today why the Bible says that we are our best in serving because when you give to someone else you are able to be empowered and strengthened. In serving you can see how much God has done for you and be humbled. I learned that the world is dealing with grave hardships and my being here is no mistake. I questioned how does this relate to God’s purpose for my life? What am I meant to do with the indescribable emotions I felt in those moments of cleaning sand for water? I wonder why God has chosen to be so very kind to me. All these are reoccurring thoughts that are challenging my perspective of myself, my world, the world, and my place in the greater world. I was reminded of how my mentor told me that Christ’s first order of business any place he went was to meet the needs of the people. We were meeting a need today and in that there was an inherent aspect of communal respect and community building. I’m convinced that dancing is a universal language that any “body” can speak. Speaking of languages, the people in this village spoke Ga and a few people spoke English. This trip is making me want to become a language learner because communication is so important and living in a global world mandates more than English. That is if the world is meant to be authentic and not oppressed by western culture, language, and ways. At the same time, I hope that rural Ghana can one day acquire the resources that are so readily wasted in the states.


Living is Learning,

Camea Osborn