Final day in Ghana

We spent the morning with the PCG at their offices which are located in the central part of Accra.

After meeting - we walked around the corner and let the LWW group take a look at the Salem water plant the PCG had built to bottle water. Salem is the enterprise (water, banking, etc.) that the PCG started a few years ago to help their churches, schools, etc. to obtain water at a price that allowed the church, school, etc. to spend more funds on other needs.

The one Ghanaian we had not seen this trip was Sammy - a PCG driver that we have had for the past several trips. However, that changed when we were able to connect with Sammy via phone and link up with him for a short "hello" and a reminder from Sammy that the score was 1-2 when Ghana played the US recently in soccer.

We left Sammy and were able to get a little tourist shopping done before grabbing lunch at Frankie's where many of our group left he Ghanaian culture of food behind and dined on burgers, pizza, quesadilla and the like.

As the sun began to set we made it to the airport to begin our journey home.

Thanks

Steve

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We had a lot of this yesterday to/from the Cape Coast area..

A little tourist adventure

We left Akropong after the celebration and headed to El Mina Castle on the east side of Cape Coast - a 3.5 hour drive.

I think the group really had a good experience at the castle (look in the 2015 blog for my posts on El Mina). The castle was built around the mid 1500s and had been inhabited by the Portuguese, Dutch & British. The castle was one of the slave castles along the coast that were used for holding and loading points for slaves. it's a very moving and important experience.

Celebration of Living Water

Yesterday the celebration of the education and installation of the LWW water treatment system at Akropong-PCE took place. We had a service in the old chapel and then moved to outside the water room for a formal dedication.

Better pic of “hands on fire”

Tailgating in Ghanaian

We cooked for our Ghanaian friends that have taken care of us so well during our stay at the Guest House at Akuapem Presby in Akropong. We located a grill and rounded up the items for a nice kabob, pasta and fish dinner topped off by Shari Gross' Bread Pudding.

Chalmers chopped the wrong peppers and her hands got saturated with burning hot pepper juice!!

PCE Educators Practicing

Before some of the 3rd year teaching students leave for their practical experience, the 102 Educators for PCE pulled them for one more opportunity for the PCE 102 EDucators to practice being Instructors.

Cleaning the tank

The water treatment system installation team is thoroughly cleaning the inside of the tank to prepare for creating the first batch of purified water.

As you can see, Michael is the back learning to be an instructor.

Water treatment system installation continues

The installation team is putting the final touches on the water treatment system. They were able to flow water yesterday with no leaks....a couple of the team members were late to dinner as they did the final trouble shooting of the system.

The water treatment installation team has done a great job the past couple of days to get to this point.

Really it’s Travel Day at PCE....

The 3rd year students are literally packed up and will be loaded up on buses to travel to the communities or villages where they will do their practical training.

Just in case...

OK to stand behind the yellow bus, not so much OK to stand behind the white bus!

PCE Travel Day

The 3rd year student teachers found out late yesterday afternoon where they would be teaching, i.e. village or community for the next year as part of their practical training.

Today they are getting their motivational instructions...

Saturday morning is Saturday morning around the world

We woke up this morning at 6 a.m. to the local community football and volleyball games.

Work Outside the Water Room

There was a group working outside the water room plumbing the raw water and treated water lines.

The town of Akropong lost power for half the day, but this 103 group was resourceful and "found" a generator somewhere else on campus. It allowed the water treatment system installation team to keep making progress!

103 Water Treatment System Going In

The 103 group worked hard today to go from an empty board on the wall to the pictures below.

Michael has done a great job letting the students do the work, the problem identification and finding solutions. The video below is a little jumpy, but it shows the students diagnosing a couple of leaks and Michael standing "in the back" letting them be "in front".

The walls of the water room are solid concrete 9-10" thick. The team took turns with a 5lb hammer and chisel kicking a hole through wall to plumb the pipe from the raw water tank to the filling station.

The water treatment system will be operational tomorrow.

Idlewild & PCE-Akropong

Starting yesterday around midday, the training and work shifted from the Clean Water U Instructor Training session to the installation of a LWW water treatment system at the Presbyterian College of Education (PCE) - Akropong.

I have written about Idlewild's intent to put a LWW water treatment system at PCE in several previous Ghana trip blogs - please look at those for intent and history.

This morning, PCE & Idlewild updated the Systems Management Plan (SMP). We collectively signed the first version of the SMP on the last visit to Ghana in November 2016. Today we updated that version of the SMP with a few changes to the PCE Water Committee (names & signatures) and we identified the Lead Educators and System Operators (names & signatures).

Several of the LWW instructors and other Ghanaians attended the review and updating of the SMP as "observers".

These are pictures of the PCE Water Committee, PCE Water Committee & Operators, and the larger PCE Water Committee and LWW group.

Kendall’s wrap up of the Clean Water U IT Session

102 Education group taking questions...

102 Presentation has rhythm....

The “Mad Professor” talking about bacteria!

102-Education Presentation.....

Presentations

Part of the Clean Water U session is to have each group (101-Project Management, 102-Education and 103-Water Treatment Technology) do a presentation to each other around what they learned in Clean Water.

This is the 101 group doing their presentation in the form of role play/skit format...

103 Class hosts the 101 Class

The 103 class hosted the 101 class to talk about testing water for bacteria, chlorine levels, hardness, and so forth.

After the class room work, Dave Parks & Michael Asiamah took the 101 students into the water room at Presbyterian University College to shoe them how the water treatment system works.

Class Picture Day!!

It’s back......

During the tropical storm yesterday we lost power - just got it back!!

Dan is in his element now with PowerPoint and Excel as he takes the class through the LWW forecasting tool.

Education team making the banner for the celebration

David and Regina

Education Class Day 2

The education class is well underway on Day 2. The class has 9 students that Joanie & Chalmers have said are engaged and "the right" people to be in the class.

Project Management Class Day 2

The LWW Project Management (the "101") class is underway Day 2. The class picked up two additional Instructors students this morning - that's good - so the class now has 13 students that will be trained in the 101 curriculum.