Living on the EDGE.....

We are at Kwahu Praso!

Arrived just before sundown.  The clinic is under some renovations - badly needed - but still bustling with traffic.  

I am going to try and keep the blog current, however as the title “living on EDGE” might imply....

Not only are we in a very remote part of Ghana - even the Ghanaians today have responded with “Oh” when we tell them we are going to Kwahu Praso, but...

We also have cellular service here in Kwahu Praso - but its EDGE - which kids shutter at due to the low support of data services over the cell.

So, I will try and update and even try to push up some photos - we will see about this living on the EDGE thing!!

Long Day......

We have had a long day!

We began the day with a greetings meeting with the clerk of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rev Samuel Ayete-Nyampong at the PCG head office in Accra.  Samuel had the opportunity to attend LWW Clean Water U in the U.S. several years and is very much a supporter of what LWW and Idlewild are doing in Ghana.

From Accra we traveled “up the hill” to Akropong (there is a lot about Akropong in the 2017 blog).  We had a good visit with the headmaster of the school and water committee - albeit brief - it was good.  We aren’t really worried about getting a deeper debrief of the past year at Akropong - since several of the teachers that were trained last year are part of this year’s installation at Kwahu Praso.  George Appah, Regina and Rose are here as part of the Kwahu Praso IP team.

We did visit the water room at Akropong - it’s outstanding.  Meter reads that Akropong has produced over 63,000 gallons of pure water in the past year.  There are 20L bottles labeled by Hall (dorm) and floor, they now have 12+ dispensers, all the 5L bottles are in the hands of students and faculty AND there are a set of bottles labeled for the community.

The 102 instructors continue to train the students, have trained the faculty and are out in the community educating others on the health & education around pure water.

We left Akropong for the 2 hour drive to Kibi (brief stop to pick up some pineapples along the way).  We met with Rev Charles the interim (soon to be permanent) head master of the school.  Kibi has 1,300 students and another 600+ teachers that attend continuing education through out the year.  This system was installed in 2015 and we were there today for the 3rd follow up visit.

Things continue to go well at Kibi.  Kibi has a very strong water committee with very strong participants - like Prosper.  Prosper is all in the details of the production & maintenance of the water treatment system and the distribution of the water to the students, staff and community.  You could say Prosper has “drank the water”!

Kibi is also above 12 dispensers for the 20L bottle as they continue to added dispensers in the Halls, food hall, chapel, etc. areas.  The water room at Kibi has a clean factory feel - all the windows have covering, the operators built a vestibule to prevent dirty air from flowing into the room when someone enters from the outside, curtains on the inside, coats for the operators and so on.  Very impressive.

We took a late lunch at Kibi -  take out from Linda Dor...sorry folks couldn’t get the fish soup and a take out, so it was grilled chicken & rice.  After lunch - we departed for the 2 hour drive to Kwahu Praso.

Rest & Preparation

Rev Asante stopped by a little while ago - on his birthday no less.    It was good to see Daniel and his son, Sulamon.  We caught up on several fronts and talked about the schedule for this week.

Tomorrow will be a very long day.  We will take a meeting with the clerk of the PCG in the morning at 9 and then immediately afterwards head up into the coastal mountains to Akropong for a follow up visit to last year’s installation.  From Akropong, we will drive across the mountains to Kibi for a follow up visit to the installation we did in 2015.  From Kibi we will head to Kwahu Praso.  A lot of driving.

Now - here is where it gets interesting - Linda Dor, the rest stop that I call the “Stuckey’s of Ghana,  has the fish soup so many of you have asked about, so if you want the recipe just let me know.  I do know it starts with 1 whole Tilapia in a bowl - head on!

Thursday, Friday & Saturday (1/2) are all about the installation and training that is taking place this week at the Presby Health Clinic in Kwahu Praso.  Charles gave us a little bit of foreshadow earlier today in that the clinic has already identified two key distribution points for the pure water outside of the clinic.  One is the school across the road from the clinic and the other will be made available to the general community - looking forward to hearing more about this.

The second part of Saturday we will travel back to Accra via the Presbyterian Women’s Center in Abokobi which was Idlewild’s first LWW water treatment installation and health & hygiene education.  PWC installed a new ROS (takes the salt out of the water) a few months ago that works in tandem with the LWW water treatment system.  ROSs don’t last forever and over time become less and less efficient.

Sunday we will be worshiping at Rev Asante’s church starting at 8 and going until....?  This is the part of the trip where I “bank” Sunday Service hours for the entire year.  If all goes as planned this Sunday, I should not have to worry about attending church on Sunday until 2019!

Arrived!

We arrived at Kotoka International Airport a few hours ago.  Our departure from NY was delayed an hour or so as the plane was full and evidently the baggage compartment was “fuller”.  Pilot kept us up to date with the ground crew trueing to balance the load and weight for take off - they got it right.

We arrived to a brand new international terminal!!  Very impressive!  As nice as any terminal in the US.  Efficient, air conditioned and lots of people to assist with information and directions.  Passport control was simple(r) than in years past and the baggage area is spacious and automated....except for some reason one of our trunks made it out and the other was “lost”.  I knew it was on the plane from the information on the Delta app.  We waited an hour until all the bags were up and out...then low and behold with the help of a few USD...the othe trunk materialized.  As a buddy of mine always says - “everybody has to eat”.  Got the trunk - no worries.

Charles Koranteng and Kwami (driver) were outside waiting for us.  Even the wait area outside is nice.

We are resting this afternoon at GILBT House where we have stayed before many times while in Accra.

New York to Accra

We are in New York getting ready to board the plane to Accra.

Looks like it’s about a 10 1/2 flight.

We’re on the plane!

The journey begins

At the airport getting ready to board the first of 3 flights.  We are traveling from Memphis to Atlanta, Atlanta to New York and then New York to Accra.  We arrive in Acrra tomorrow at 12:40 pm (7:40 am Memphis).

Exchanged emails earlier this morning with Rev Daniel Kofi Asante, Director of Development and Social Services for the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and Rev Asante indicates that Charles Korenteng, LWW In-Country Coordinator, will meet us at the airport.

We checked two trunks this trip.  Delta waived the baggage check fees for the trunks as part of Delta’s support of humanitarian aid around the world.  Thanks to Ralph Young who travelses with us last year for showing us how to take advantage of this program.

Kwahu Praso - First of a kind...

The Living Waters for the World (LWW) water treatment system and health & hygiene education at the Presby Health Clinic in Kwahu Praso will be the thirteenth (13th) LWW installation in Ghana and the eighth (8th) for Idlewild Presbyterian Church.  However, Kwahu Praso will be the first (1st) installation in Ghana where the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG) will be the lead Initiating Partner (IP) for the installation.  What does this "first of a kind" mean...

In 2017, LWW and Idlewild embarked on a initiative to train people in Ghana to become Living Waters for the World Clean Water U Instructors.  The results of last year's initiative is  that now a group is trained to be able to train other people in Ghana to project manage, educate (teach) and install a water treatment system and health & hygiene education.  In simple terms - LWW trained the trainers who will train the trainers - make sense.....it means that now Ghanaians can train Ghanaians to be Ghanaians IPs and not depend solely on IPs traveling from the US.

Pictures from last year's classes:





Fast forward to 2018 - the instructors that were trained last year by LWW formed their own IP team to lead, educate & install a water treatment system and health & hygiene education at Kwahu Praso.  The instructors wanted to be the "doers" before teaching others - novel idea and great approach.

The Ghanaian team has done all the "on the ground" project management work for the installation and education.  Jim Levernier & myself have been watching over their shoulders as they fulfilled the steps to plan a successful project.  We reviewed their Water Issues Survey, Project Preparation Plan, the start of the Systems Management Plan (will be completed during our visit), budget, schedule, and so on.  Charles Koranteng our LWW In-Country Coordinator did a pre-installation visit late last week and sent me these pictures of the preparation of the platform to hold the raw water tank (fed from a bore hole) and of the water treatment system & pure water distribution room.

The Ghanaian education team has been gathering their materials and planning their sessions with the intent of teaching the classes before and while we are there.  Chalmers has been communicating with the education team via Whatsapp and letting them know she will be there to help teach and support.

Previous year's blogs have told of Michael Asiamah's, LWW In-Country Technician, positive impact toward what LWW and Idlewild are doing in Ghana.  Michael is working with the lead 103 (installation) team member for the build of the water treatment system at Kwahu Praso.

So "first of a kind..." means that Idlewild will be the "Funding IP" for Kwahu Praso and the team in Ghana will be the 101 (project management), 102 (education) and 103 (water treatment system build) portion of the IP.  A Global Team...Powered by WhatsApp!

I am sure we will learn some things out of this step function change in how an IP is created and works in Ghana.  I am sure there will be some bruises and some mistakes - both will make the future better for LWW in Ghana.  However, 24 hours from leaving the US to travel to Ghana there are many milestones of progress toward this installation and education at Kwahu Praso that raise the level of optimism for this trip and the future of LWW impact in Ghana.

Editorial Disclosures

I will try my best to double check spelling, grammatical and “general does it make sense” blog posts, but please pardon any spelling, grammatical and “general does it make sense” blog posts errors that may occur.

I am going to try and post with more videos this year, but not totally sure of data connections in/around the Kwahu Praso area - it may be just be text level posts with pictures and videos to follow.

Lastly, any errors related to auto-correct is on Google and Apple - not Steve.

Stepping back a few years

I first visited the Presby Health Clinic in Kwahu Praso in 2014 with Jim Levernier, Shari & Forrest Gross and Rev Daniel Opong-Wereko.  We were on a long day journey north of Accra between Accra and Kamasi visiting Kibi and Kwahu Praso with a stop at the Linda Dor (remember "...think Stuckey's...") rest stop for lunch.  Check out the blog posts "Saturday Part 1-4" at https://valentinecw2014.blogspot.com.

I think from the time we began to wind off the main highway (or the like) along the muddy road toward the dense green hilly jungle countryside - it became apparent to all of us that we were going to arrive at a potential site for a Living Waters for the World water treatment system and health & hygiene education that would be the most rural installation a LWW team has ever done in Ghana.

Plug these coordinates into Google Maps and this is where we will be: 6° 37’ 47.7” N, 0° 54’ 54.4” W - we will be in Kwahu Praso #2 - yep - that means right before you get to Kwahu Praso #2 - you travel through Kwahu Praso #1.

The Presby Health Clinic really serves three (3) priorities 1) serves as a clinic as we would think, i.e. preventive health (as best as possible), minor injuries, sickness, etc.; 2) triage of much more intense medical problems and to stabilize and arrange transport to a larger clinic an hour or so away probably in NkawKaw; 3) maternity services, i.e. pre & post birth and birthing care (if possible).

The clinic actually has a wing dedicated to maternity services.  See below - building to the top left of the location flag:

The director of the clinic, Kumah Francis, told us back in '14 that they support the birthing of 80 babies...if you read the post, "Saturday Part 3" in the '14 blog, you'll see that we interpreted the 80 as 80 per year.  In fact, once our friend and in-country technician, Michael Asiamah, realized we didn't understand the number - Michael "poked" us and clarified it's 80 per month!

The women come from more remote villages than Kwahu Praso for prenatal & postnatal care & information and when possible arrive at the clinic to birth the baby.  There are mid-wives in/around the remote villages to assist - but a large percentage of the mothers and babies come to the clinic no matter what.

Our plan is for our LWW installation team to conduct a "normal" LWW installation with the clinic staff and Kwahu Praso community - but to stretch one step further and develop education and information that the mothers and midwives can take back to the villages around the importance and care of the newborns with pure water.

Make no mistake - it will be challenging to keep the mothers/families supplied with pure water from the clinic, BUT the first place to start is with the information and then let the Ghanaians do what they do (which is over top) in figuring out how to distribute the pure water to mothers/families to the remote villages as best as possible.

The infant mortality rate in Ghana is off the charts compared to what we know in our lives.  Depends on who you talk to in Ghana but we have gotten numbers anywhere from 1-3 out of 5.  Does it really matter if it's 20% or 60% - I think you get the point.

A lot of the infant mortality rate is driven by water born disease - either directly effecting the baby or the mother or both.  Baby gets water born disease - very high likelihood the baby dies of dehydration or lack of nutrition or worse.

Some of you will remember this picture (from the celebration of the installation of a LWW system in Akropong last year) of Chalmers holding Valentina's (yep crazy huh..) baby.  The baby is getting her first drink of water since being born.  It's a necessity for new mothers to breast feed for as long as possible before letting the baby drink water - including formula.  Too much of a risk of the baby contracting water born disease!

BTW - check out the smile on Jim's face!!  Being a retired pediatrician - when Jim see's the real impact of the pure water on the kids - he's like a kid with his happiness.

Winding back to our visit in 2014.

We rode away talking about how challenging an installation would be at Kwahu Praso and about how much impact a LWW water treatment system and education could have on the community and mission around the clinic.  In the long ride back to Accra that Saturday night we challenged Rev Opong-Wereko to figure out how we could offer sustainable impact and we challenged ourselves to figure out what we needed to do to bring sustainable impact to the clinic.

Rev Opong-Wereko has moved on from his role as Director of Development and Social Services for the PCG and has been succeeded by Rev Daniel Asante - our new partner & friend and a great leader of thought and people.  Rev Asante has the same passions for and understanding of the need of the sustainable impact of implementing a water treatment system and health & hygiene education at the Presby Health Clinic in Kwahu Praso #2.

We are going to "tackle" this installation and education in a first time model for Ghana and maybe LWW - there will be another post on this.

We are within hours of getting the message "it's time check-in" - but make no mistake Jim, Shari, Forrest, Daniel, Daniel, Chalmers and I have been checked in on the clinic at Kwahu Praso for almost 5 years!

Road to Kwahu Praso

We are heading back to Ghana next week!!

All packed (sort of)...and have a pretty full itinerary for the trip.

During the trip we are going to install a new Living Waters for the World (LWW) water treatment system and health & hygiene education at the Presby Health Clinic in Kwahu Praso.  The blog from the 2014 trip to Ghana has a good post on Kwahu Praso "Saturday Part 3".  The link to the 2014 blog is in the right sidebar of this page.

We have been visiting and working on getting a water treatment system and education to Kwahu Praso for some time - not it's time!  More to follow on just how the water treatment system and education installation will work in a later post.

We will also be going to the Kibi College of Education where we installed a water treatment system and education in 2015.  This will be our 3rd follow up visit to Kibi.  Jim Levernier, Chalmers and myself followed up in 2016 and Shari & Forrest Gross with Jim followed up in 2017.  The link to the 2015 blog is in the right sidebar of this page.  Here is a picture of our group at the dedication of the water building.

We will also be doing the first year follow up visit to the College of Education in Akropong where we installed a LWW water treatment system and education last year.  The 2017 blog gives a full recount of the visit.  We look forward to connecting in person with many of our new friends we made last year in Akropong.  Here is a picture of our group and many new friends.

In addition, we will be working and following up with several of the Ghanaians that trained by Living Waters last year during our Clean Water U Instructor Training sessions.

The link to the 2017 blog is in the right sidebar of this page.

Much more to share along the way!!