Eggplant

First time I have seen eggplant being grown.  It is plentiful here at the market.  It is called 'Garden egg' here.

Beautiful People

A few random pictures from a Village.  I just can never get enough of these wonderful, beautiful people.  They love having their pictures taken. 

Cocoa

The cocoa bean industry is huge here.  While out the past couple of days at our Water Project turn over ceremonies we drove through many Cocoa Plantations.  Here are some pictures.   The pods are cut off the trees and are left to ferment for a few days and then the beans are removed and put on racks to dry.  They are then bagged up and sold, mostly for export, as they don't process them here.  Unfortunately the cocoa farmers don't get paid near enough.

When the cocoa pod is fresh and cut open, as in the picture, you can take a bean and suck off the surrounding layer.  It tastes like citrus and is really good.  You don't get much more than a taste though. 

Traffic Woes

There is no end to the traffic problems here.  Vehicles, especially these little taxis and the mini-bus transports (tro-tros) cut in as they please and really foul things up for everyone. 

Coca Cola and other soft drinks do a good business here. 

Ankaful Psychiatric Hospital Project

This was a big project that is now completed.  We had their water system refurbished so that the different buildings now have water.  The pump was fixed and now pumps to fill several tanks through out the grounds and the water is then gravity fed to the different sites.
 

We also had the laundry equipment repairs as none of it was working and they were having to send everything out to a different location.

Cement work at the Women's quarters was falling apart due to poor drainage so the drainage problems were fixed and new cement poured.  It looks great.  The Church members in 2 Wards volunteered and did some clean up around the place and also painted the Women's quarters.  It now looks so much better.

We also supplied them with some equipment (blood pressure cuffs, stethoscopes, thermometers, oxygen tanks, etc. etc. and bandaging and such.  

We will do the handover ceremony (commission the project) at the end of the month.  We just visited there to make sure all is going well for that. 

Again, they are so grateful for the help from the Church.

Cape Coast Teaching Hospital Project

The request for this project came to us through Sister Davis, who works at the Hospital.  (Her husband is the Area Authority Seventy for that area).  The hospital was built by some organization with some poor quality materials that didn't do well in this humid climate and lots of use.    We supplied the materials for the ceiling replacement in the hallway and 2 delivery rooms and the hospital maintenance staff did the work.  The Hospital repaired the roof that was leaking at their own expense.

We also paid for materials so they could rebuild 9 cabinets (see before and after).  the new cabinets were made of brick/cement with wood drawers.   The original sinks and taps were of good quality and they were able to reuse them.  The project is almost complete and there will be a handover ceremony at the end of the month.   They are VERY grateful for our help.  It is so nice to see the improvements that were made that make the rooms useable and more sanitary. 

I couldn't resist a couple pictures of the tiny new babies that we saw while visiting.

Mobile Clinic Project

We supported a group called WiLDAF (Women in Law) that is helping women and girls.  They had doctors that volunteered their time and also nurses from the communities that came and helped.   There were SO many pregnant women that came.  The group is trying to help ones that don't normally get to the Doctor.   They worked in two communities on the same day and saw about 800 people, mostly women.

They had other information/teaching for them at the Clinic.  They had a family planning class but I think it might have been too late........Just kidding.  They do need help with that.

They are doing some good work to bring medical care to many women.  We were pleased with it all.