Come With Me: July 8, 2013

Chastity Blevins & Amanda Hobson

You've been gone it's an empty home

Come on back when you're ready to know

You are always welcome home

Welcome home

You've been kept on for much too long

Stand up please and say I am free

Don't forget you are welcome home

Welcome home

Come with me

On this happy trip back to the Promise Land

All will be happy again

Come with me

On this happy trip back to the Promise Land
 All will be happy again 

You've been gone it's an empty home

Come on back when you're ready to know

You are always welcome home

Welcome home

Come with me

On this happy trip back to the Promise Land

All will be happy again

Come with me

On this happy trip back to the Promise Land

All will be happy again

Welcome home...

A sea of Tuwohofo-Holly International School children stood in orderly lines between the two rows of concrete slab schoolhouses as the choir sang this song.  

After a beautiful welcome, Mr. Baidoo (the school’s founder/head master) assured the students that we would be coming to their classrooms soon, “The o’brunyis will be coming. Don’t worry!”  Our group was then led around to each class and introduced to the students. 

 

Emotions were heavy as the group took in the reality of a Ghanaian school which has no electricity, dirt floors, tin roofs, no screens in the windows, limited books, and small broken desks.  Each teaching team spent time observing in the classrooms that they will call home for the next week.  Relationships with students have already been formed almost instantly in each classroom.

The afternoon was filled with quick naps, a trip to the FOREX, and shopping for fabric.  Later that evening, with multiple yards of brightly-colored Ghanaian wax print fabric in hand, we were able to work with Victoria (our host Ann Hooper's personal seamstress) to design skirts, shirts, dresses, and the traditional kaba & slit (matching top and skirt) to each person's individual taste/ 

 























Francis, better known in Cape Coast as Mr. Esoteric, a men’s tailor, also came by after dinner to take requests from Ben and Robert.  We asked if he could create TOMS-type canvas shoes but made of Ghanaian fabric.  We took a couple of pictures of the popular TOMS shoe and he promised to experiment with the design. 

Everyone is itching to teach tomorrow and there is a buzz throughout the guesthouse as we prepare for our first lessons.