Is this a 'Ram Tough' Tro-Tro?
Need to travel and don’t know what to do with the family pet while you’re gone? No problem. Just take it with you. On the way home from a recent family history trip to Kumasi, the northern most city in the mission (about 165 miles north of Accra), we stopped to refuel our car at a gas station. Parked next to us was a tro-tro (vans which serve as public transportation) loaded with not only people, but baggage tied on top as well. This is not uncommon, but this particular tro-tro had as part of its baggage a goat which seemed quite comfortable to be along for the ride.
Is this a 'Ram Tough' Tro-Tro?
It is a rare thing to see children here with toys. That is why Sister Armstrong was touched to see this little girl at church with a stuffed bear fastened to her back in much the same manner as the mothers fasten their babies to their backs. As she took the little girl’s picture the child clung to her mother’s legs in terror. We sometimes wonder what children who are not familiar with cameras think we are going to do to them when we hold it up in front of them to snap a picture. Maybe it’s not the camera they are frightened of. Maybe it’s the person holding the camera!
Baby with Bear on Back
On a recent trip to Ho in the Volta Region for a ceremony honoring the repair and re-opening of a number of boreholes by the Church in that region, a few of us making the trip stopped for photos on the way there and on the way back. The next few pictures were taken on that trip made in late November. The first two pictures are of the cashew tree and the nut it produces. Did you know there is a by-product of the cashew nut called a “cashew apple?” This pseudo-fruit develops at the end of the fully developed, but not yet ripe, cashew nut, which is the real fruit of the tree. This false fruit is 2 to 4 ˝ inches in length with waxy yellow, red, or red-and-yellow skin and spongy, fibrous, very juicy, acidic yellow pulp, which is sometimes made into wine or juice. On the day we photographed the tree there was not much on it but Sister Armstrong did manage to get a picture of one cashew.
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| Cashew Tree | Cashew Nut on Tree |
Before the beginning of the ceremony Sister Armstrong gathered up the full-time missionaries who were serving in Ho and asked them to pose for a photo. These young men are as serious, stalwart and hard-working missionaries as you will ever find in the Church. They are very disciplined and conscientious about presenting a favorable impression of the church to everyone around them. After Sister Armstrong took the first photo, she asked them to pose for a “silly” photo. Mouseover to see how missionaries in the Accra Ghana Mission make a silly pose.
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Ho (Ho, Ho) Elders
| When you travel into the Volta Region you have to cross a suspension bridge that spans the Volta River, the largest river in Ghana. Sister Armstrong snapped the following three photos of this picturesque bridge on the journey back to Accra. To the right is a picture of the entrance on to the bridge. Lower left is the beautiful bridge off in the distance. The lower right is the romantic Volta River spanned by the bridge. |
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| Graceful Bridge | Beautiful Volta River |
As we have driven in many areas we often see pillows for sale. These look like very nice pillows made of brightly colored western-world fabrics. When the group Elder and Sister Armstrong were with saw bales of “cotton-looking” material at the side of the road they decided to stop and check it out. They found out that this was cotton fiber from a nearby textile mill. Earlier they had witnessed women stuffing this fiber into casing, and the result is the beautiful pillows you see below. Since these pillows were only 10,000 cedis each (a little over one dollar) Elder and Sister Armstrong bought two. They were made out of a Mickey Mouse fabric.
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| Dan with Cotton Bale | Roadside Pillow Vendor Shop |
We stopped to watch a child weaving Kente cloth. This is an art form in Ghana that can be seen throughout Ghana. The weaving is a slow, tedious process but results in cloth of beautiful, rich colored patterns and textures. This child was an experienced weaver and it was evident by the beautiful work he was doing. Near where the child was weaving there were several village children playing. They were so beautiful Sister Armstrong just had to get their pictures. The African children everywhere we go seem very happy and these children were no exception.
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| Young Weaver Making Kente Cloth | Happy Children in a Village |
Occasionally senior couples working in the Africa West Area have an opportunity to get together for lunch or dinner. Here they have just finished lunch at a Chinese restaurant. They are honoring the Walkers, a humanitarian mission couple, who had completed an outstanding mission and were leaving that evening for their home in North Carolina. Standing from left: Findlay’s—humanitarian (recently evacuated from Ivory Coast); Markham’s—auditor-trainers; Skelton’s—executive secretary to Area Presidency; Whisenant’s—Public Affairs. Sitting from left: Armstrong’s—Family History; Walker’s; Merrill’s—Medical director.
Area Senior Missionary Couples
If you happen to catch a sunset here in West Africa, they can often be quite spectacular. This was the case with the one we saw in Cape Coast in November. We watched it change from a sliver of pink to the flaming orange and red you see here. One has to be prepared to stay with it, however, because if one leaves to get his camera, when he gets back it might be nothing but a wispy trail of dark clouds silhouetted against the black African horizon. We were prepared for this one!
Cape Coast Sunset
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