Bruce and I will be away for almost two months and volunteering with Habitat for Humanity in Ghana for over two weeks will be the central point of our time away. There are so many things to prepare for and we made some progress over the past two weeks while we hosted family visitors leading up to the Thanksgiving long weekend and my big 3-0 birthday (I'm 99.99% there in accepting the fact I am now 30). Last Thursday we received our tourist Visa's from the Ghana embassy in Vancouver (it was VERY fast!), are both up-to-date with our various shots and are slowly collecting all of the things we will need to take with us.
Yesterday, we heard from our team leaders, Rick and Suzanne, with confirmation about the community where we will be volunteering - Fiankoma is a small community near the town of Kumasi in Central Ghana's Ashanti region. Here's a map (click for a larger view):
As we were doing some web research about Fiankoma last night, we came across the website of a Habitat for Humanity International volunteer who participated in a build last summer in Fiankoma. Feel free to check out Dave's page here - you will find photos of the community, Dave's daily journal entires from the trip and some information about what a typical Habitat work day is like etc. What a great resource for us as we prepare ourselves for this experience!
One very exciting aspect of our travel is the fact that we have secured flights which allow us to bring a third piece of luggage each, at no cost, as long as they contain either school or medical supplies. We have started a collection of items we will be taking with us and will gladly accept donations of any of the following items:
School Supplies: pencils, erasers, notebooks, coloured pencils, inflatable globes (available at dollarstores), pencil sharpeners, chalk etc.
Fun & Games: soccer balls, pumps and patch kits (because apparently in Rick's words "the soccer fields are gravel and eat balls for breakfast"!) bubbles, paper for drawing - we will also gladly accept suggestions of games we can play with the kids, such as duck duck goose.
Medical Supplies: boxes of latex gloves and dressing supplies (bandages & tape etc.)
All of these items will be donated to Habitat for Humanity Ghana who will then distribute them to members of the community in Fiankoma and other Habitat affiliates throughout the country.
If you have any connections to donations of these kinds of items, please get in touch ASAP as we will be accepting these items up until Monday, October 29 so we have lots of time to plan our packing before our departure on November 4.
Another thing we will be bringing comes from an idea of Kate's that I'm totally loving . . . creating a photo album for us to take with us - something to share photos of our city and its scenic, temperate environment, how we get around (on bikes with plenty of rain gear), what we eat (lots of salad, a bit of chocolate and sometimes some chicken wings!) and who our families are (apple and beef farmers, nurses and a whole gaggle of nieces!). I'm excited about putting this all together to share with both our team members and our new friends in Fiankoma.
Well friends, this brings us close to the end of this friendly blog post . . . but first, we wanted to say thank you SO much to each and every one of you! You have been so supportive in sharing in our excitement and our fundraising efforts! Thank you, we could not have embarked on this journey without you.
And so, it is with great pride that we share our current fundraising total with you . . .
Drum Roll Please . . .
To date, you have helped us to raise $5,054.43 !!!
This total is amazing and means that we are now just $945.57 away from our $6,000 goal. We are so close, and I know we can easily beat our goal now with less than three weeks to go!
So, now is the time to make your donation online, mail us your cheque or volunteer for our last fundraiser (which will be our third Candy Blitz next Friday, October 26, by the way - drop us an email for details) - your donation is helping to build much needed safe, decent, affordable homes in Ghana's Ashanti region. You can find complete details on how to donate here.
Well guys, this chick is heading to bed with dreams of Ghana in her head - goodnight and thanks again for all of your support!!!
Brandy
PS For those of you who have not yet signed up for our Google-Group to receive automatic updates each time we post to our blog, you may want to sign up. We will have VERY limited access to the internet, let alone electricity, once we arrive in Ghana and may only be able to send very short and quick emails so posting to this blog will be the fastest way for us to communicate with many people. If you would like to add yourself to our list, please click here - looking forward to sending you updates!
