Leaving January 1, 2010, Bob and Thomas will be going to a village in Eastern Ghana, Africa with a small group from our church, St. John’s.  We will be bringing a set of eight computers from One Laptop Per Child initiative to set up a computer lab in the village school, for the students to get exposure to computers and to give them the tools to do new kinds of educational activities with collaboration, tools for making music, cartoons, animations, story telling, physics, mapping and other activities.

Mafi-Dove is a small village in the Volta/Tongu region of Eastern Ghana, Africa.  This village is very special for the quality with which it educates its children.  Children from Mafi-Dove become very successful when they go out to the cities and work in business and industry.

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Approximately 12 years ago, a member of our parish joined the Peace Corps and was placed in Mafi-Dove for 18 months and during that time she and our parish developed a strong relationship with the village.  Water wells, were part of her first project, and our church donated money and supplies to help give the village fresh water.  Water-borne illness is a leading cause of death and disease in communities with no source of fresh water.  Approximately 2 years later, Mafi-Dove began a project of building latrines for the village.  St. John’s Ashfield contributed to the building of these latrines, and a number of them are named after people in our church.  in 2005, the village got electricity and they have had it wired through major parts of the village.  The village school has a room set up for the computer lab and we will be setting up the computers, and introducing the community to the new computers and how to help their students get started on computer learning.

Additionally, we will be taking some things to give to people in the village, including clothing.

Here is our approximate itinerary:
Jan 1 – Friday – Stop at the Bishop’s house for a blessing on the way to the airport.  We will be flying to JFK at 1:30 pm, and then leaving at 4:30 to fly direct to Accra, Ghana
Jan 2 – Saturday – arrive in Accra, early in the morning and do a little time in the capital city, buying last minute supplies and then head to the coast for lunch and then over to Sogakope, the town where we will be staying during our visits to the village.  We will be staying at the Villa Cisneros Resort. 
Jan 3 – Sunday – We will go to the village, and attend church in the morning, then participate in a celebration where we are welcomed to the village and meet the Chief and other members of the village community. During this time, we will get a tour of the village and see the school and, of course, meet more people.
Jan 4 – Monday – During the day we will be spending the day at the village working on setting up the lab.
Jan 5 – Tuesday – At the village with the computer lab and the teachers
Jan 6 – Wednesday – At the village with the computer lab and the kids
Jan 7 – Head to some sight seeing at the coast
Jan 8 – Friday – Spend the day in Accra
Jan 9 – Saturday – fly back and arrive in Hartford at 8pm

Today we had a long meeting discussing things to do when preparing to go on our trip to Ghana. There was a lot of stuff we have to talk about a lot of stuff we have to plan technical details about the laptops, cultural issues we have to consider, aspects of money how to tip properly, proper protocol for having social contact with the village chief.