Appomase and Daily Duties

Appomase is the village up the road from KITA and one the two villages the school does work with. Students took me up to show me around and introduce me to some of the village leaders. They also do daily duties each day and these pictures are just some examples from working at growing mushrooms to raising rabbits.

KITA

KITA is the Kumasi Institute of Tropical Agriculture. My first impression was one that was quite interesting. I found out there was no regular electricity ( the generator is not turned on every night), no running water ( which means bucket showers), no place to properly store food, there were chickens and puppies running around and one very cute flea bag of a cat. It was eye opening but nothing I could not handle. The grounds were amazing as I got to see the plots the students each have to work on. These students work each day on practical skills to maintain the grounds and keep up there individual plots of crops.

Volta River cruise

We took a river cruise along the Volta River. This river provides most of the eletricity for Ghana and has created the largest man made lake in the world.

Ghana - Volta River

The last stop on my trip was to visit and do a volunteer project in Ghana. It was a good way to end the trip as I had felt like I had missed out on a lot of the culture of Africa by doing a truck tour. Ghana is west Africa and is quite a safe and friendly country. I was amazed by the sprawl of Accra when I first arrived. It seemed like we drove for hours and did not leave the city. Unlike here at home they do not have highrise buildings so their people live in low sprawled out housing. My project was outside of Kumasi between two villages called Appomase and Domeabra. I worked at a place called KITA which stand for Kumasi Institute for Tropical Agriculutre. I got a chance to work with students doing horticulture projects so it was a great chance to do something I know a bit about with people from a very different climate. Of course my first stop in Ghana was to visit the Volta river with Gunadiish ( the co ordinator for Global Village Volunteers in Ghana ) and Michelle ( another volunteer at KITA from Winnipeg ). This set of photos is of the botanical gardens we visited and a celebration in the village.