Carol Service "Acrobats"

Though I'm no longer attending University Primary School, I wanted to go to the last day of school before Christmas break to see friends and say good-bye and Merry Christmas. That day, that last day of school, after all the exams were over, they had a carol service. And in that carol service there were "acrobats"! (by the way the carol service started 2 1/2  hours late!)

Well, I went to the carol service and we sang one Christmas song and then dancers and "acrobats" pranced out on to the field. The "acrobats" only did one 'trick'. This trick was built kind of like a pyramid with 8 people kneeling on the bottom, four people kneeling on top of them, then one short guy climbed on top of all the people kneeling. He made it to the top, surprisingly. He stood on top of them, and after about half-a-second, his arms started flailing as he attempted to keep his balance and stay up. He flailed for about two seconds before falling flat on his back. He darn near busted his trailer hitch!

Everyone started cracking up, except the dude who fell. That was the end of the acrobat performance.

Anywho,

Kojo.

I don't have pictures of the acrobat, but I have pictures of my old school, back in the day (two months ago).

my school supplies

my classroom and teacher Sir Nahr (pronounced Na)

after school chaos, er, I mean pick-up.

Can you tell I love my uniform? Especially the socks.

The university kids play 'net-ball' on our field - net ball is basically basketball without the backboard.

My Essay on the Cape Coast Castle

I wrote this essay as part of my home school.


My family is in GHANA because my dad worked seven years so he got a sabbatical and he chose Cape Coast. We arrived in Accra on the 22^nd of August 2013.

Cape Coast is famous for its slave castle, and our whole family knew we were eventually going to go there. But before the day of the tour, we were constantly driving by the castle, and on the Fante Christmas, we had walked around the castle.

After a few months we finally went inside the castle, and when we did, it smelled weird, looked very white and big and it was made of cement.

The Cape Coast castle was the biggest of all the castles in West Africa but not the oldest, which is the Elmina castle (1481). The Cape Coast castle was built by the Swedes 1653.They built it as a fort, not a slave castle. The Dutch occupied it between 1663-1664, then there was a war, and the British took over and converted it into a slave castle in 1665. They used it to store slaves and gold so that they could trade with the locals. They sent the slaves by ship to the following places: Brazil, North America, and Europe.

One of the sad parts was that the British put a church on top of the male dungeon. I thought it was sad because the slaves were down in the dungeon and could hear songs and worship going on above them. They also had a room of no return where they would put slaves, who tried to escape, with no food, water, or fresh air, and were left to die in a room closed in by three doors. There was also a door of no return, where the slaves would walk through to board the ships and never come back.

These are some happy things. A few years ago some African-Americans, who were descendants of slaves, were invited to the castle, to put a sign on the other side of the “Door of No Return” that says “Door of Return”. I was happy when the guide said they finally got freedom.

Now no one wants that to happen again. So I’m determined not to let it happen again. I also think that child/human trafficking should stop because it is similar to slavery.

Da Vultcha

A few weeks ago, at school, I needed to go to the bathroom (we're allowed to go to the bathroom whenever we want because we are only two steps away from it). My classroom was on the second floor. I went in there and that day there was a worker who was working on the roof and there was a hole in the roof of the boy's bathroom that is usually covered up by a piece of metal. That day I went in there was another boy already there. I looked up to find the worker and I saw a big fat vulture with a purple ring around his eye staring down at me through the hole. I look over at the boy next me and he says "Da Vultcha!". I thought it was pretty funny.

-this is not the vulture that I saw, but it looked just like this.

Our Epic Roadtrip

These are some pictures of our road trip to Burkina Faso. Here we go:

This is our guide, Jacobo. I liked his gun.

Wahrt-hogs (Warthogs)

millipede - 9 inches long!

this is a dead cobra - Black Mamba's are in this National Park

This is a red monkey - I like them, a lot!

This is a LONG drive - boorrring, sometimes.

This is a goat on top of a tro-tro (a crammed taxi-van that they pack with people, & occasionally animals, for long distance)

a green monkey - also one of my favorites because of their size. It's a good size. I like sizes.

Dis warhthog is 'Pumba'.

These are cool birds

a running green monkey

This is a Kob - a type of antelope.

Baboon - I like this guy

I like this guy even more. He knocked on our door and woke me up in the morning. He even tried to open the door.

This baboon is in egg-cracking position for the trampoline.

This is an awesome picture of a family of baboons.

Just chillin' - doesn't look to comfy, though.

another Kob

another red monkey - a mama.

a kid Kob

these are rare birds, well, in my lifetime they are rare.

Explorers

This is a bridge crossing - but we couldn't really cross until they put it all back together. We gave them bananas and groundnuts (peanuts) to thank them.

This is the first picture of the monkey sanctuary.

A mona monkey inspecting our car - actually he was looking for food, and seeing if the doors were unlocked.

"Really? Another banana? Why not an apple? Sheesh."

A black colobus monkey - they are very shy and prefer to stay high up in trees and eat leaves only - no bananas.

another black colobus - sleeping

me in a giant ficus tree (it was hollow on the inside and perfect for climbing!)

"Look to the Future!"

Dis is me feeding a monkey - they grab the bananas right out your hand. Sometimes they even jump on you trying to sneak bananas out of your grasp.

I now own a machete AND a sling shot! Game On!

Pumpkins! Just in time for Halloween. They have pumpkins in Burkina, but not in Ghana! Go figure.

It's already bursting at the seams, and they're piling more stuff and people in and on!

Bikes - over 600 piled on this truck.

American Footballs in Africa

Last Tuesday evening my family went out on a walk. That was the same night we got to our hotel in Bobo, Burkina Faso.

Well, we went to a supermarket and I went upstairs, just to see what was up there. I saw a lot of weird things, like a Harley Davidson motorcycle for kids and then my eye caught the sight of soccer balls  and I went over there, and when I looked closely I saw some wrapped up logo-covered American footballs!

I was tempted to buy one, but decided to wait for the one my Grandpa said he was sending...can't wait for it to get here.

Anywho,
Kojo

Termites as weathermen?

Termite mounds are huge…some of them anyway. On this trip, we’ve seen some mounds that are 30+ feet high and 10+ feet wide. Here are some examples, but we saw the biggest one today but didn’t get a picture ‘cause we were zooming past it at 200 miles per hour (of course Dad was speeding). [not true]

We learned a bit about how termites build these mounds .When they think it is going to rain, they stop building the mounds. Some termites have the job to forecast weather. So, if you see new dirt being added to the top of a mound, it will not rain that day.

Also, each mound has its own chief (just like a village chief we met today at Mognori – another blog post that I will do). When the chief dies, the whole mound evacuates and must build a new mound for a new chief!