A Visit to Chrisantus’s family home
on Horrockses on VSO (Ghana), 01/Dec/2007 09:53, 34 days ago
A Visit to Chrisantus’s family homeand a night with a cockerel in our kitchen!We are supporting an 18yr old Ghanaian boy, Chrisantus (red shirt in the photo)with his studies, by buying him books, clothes, paying medical fees etc; last weekend he invited us to visit his family home at Dondomoteng.We first met his parents in Nandom town at the local Pito Bar (home brewed beer– some similarity to cider?); we then gave them, and half the village, a lift to Chris’s home where we met the 24 children of the extended family /community of 37 all of whom live in the mud constructed compound.It was a visit with a difference: we sampled more peetou! and were shown around the amazingly designed compound of interlocking dwellings, grain-stores and kraals and were sharply reminded of the huge gulf in lifestyles between the rural poor and city rich citizens of Ghana, as well as the immense gap compared with our own lifestyle. After consulting Chris we took with us soap, salt and a large bag of oranges, as gifts for the family.We were then humbled big-timewhen, as we were leaving, we were given quantities of soya beans, ground nuts, two pumpkins and to cap it all– a symbol of real respect for visitors - a live cockerel! All this from a family/community of 37 existing on subsistence farming. We posed for photos and vowed that we must do something, maybe you can help?, to assist them to improve the children’s life chances by finding ways of improving their: living conditions, clothing, access to electricity (solar panels + batteries) and enabling access to education.Cocka doodle doo– I’m going to escape from you!– or nearly. So, it was home to Lawra with cockerel crowing, sensing its fate, in the back of Mitzi (our car). It’s 10.00pm so we can’t deal with it tonight – so we spend the night with a cockerel crowing away in the kitchen –he got his revenge by signalling dawn continuously until we finally surfaced to silence the blighter - but he was smart! Despite being hobbled he gave us, and our neighbour Madame Kubio, the run around for twenty minutes, escaping into the courtyard and then outside with us in hot pursuit; but we got him. Chrisanthus arrived, did the deed, it was plucked, cookedand eaten for supper as Chicken Casserole with locally produced ground nut sauce, onions and tomatoes – delicious. The real world is a bit uncomfortable for animal rights and vegetarian enthusiasts!