Surfin Portugal

Our last 2 weeks of travelling were spent in Portugal. We didn't travel because we were with our cousins. we did go to the beach a lot though. We also went surfing.

Marek surfing.

Gabriel surfing

Dagbe cultural center

We spent one week of intense drumming and dancing at the cultural center. The center was in the far east of Ghana right on the border of Togo. Since we were the only students there we each had 5 instructors for the 2 hour afternoon drumming session. In the morning we had a brutal 2 hour dance lesson.

This was our drumming and dancing class.

These were just some of the drums that the cultural center had.

Our main instructor Mensah was a really good teacher.

Every evening we went to the "bar" which was exactly the same as the classroom. This is my mom and Mary, one of the instructors. 

We spent lots of time with our friend Kofi Jackson. He was also an instructor but he mostly just hung out with guests. He doesn't look like it, but he is 17.

Cape coast

We went to cape coast directly from the cultural center. For the first few days we didn't really do much. We mostly just hung out. On the third day there, me and my parents took a drumming course but Gabriel was sick so he didn't come. We thought it was hand drumming but it was the same thing we did at the cultural center and it was not that good. We spent most of our second last day at the castle taking a tour. The castle was built by the English. The castle was a slave trading castle. My brother got malaria while we were at Cape Coast. We were lucky that no one else did.

This was the main courtyard of the castle.

This was one of the holding cells they put about two hundred people in here. There were a few other cells, but all the same size. 

This was the main building where the colonialists stayed.

This is the Door Of No Return where all the slaves walked through to get to the slave boats.

The canons were there to fight off pirates and other slave traders.

This was the poor area of cape coast.

Malawi - Livingstonia and Nkhata Bay

Most of our Malawi time was spent in two places.  Lukwe Eco Lodge at Livingstonia and Mayoka at Nkhata Bay.  The first location is known for amazing waterfalls, nature, and the historical community of Livingstonia.  In Livingstonia we walked around the villages, met locals, did a bit of work around the lodge to help out the owner (Auke, a nice Belgian guy) and just hung out. 
Nkhata Bay is basically a tourist draw on Lake Malawi where you'll find many young travelers (or volunteer workers) coming to unwind for the weekend, read: party. We spent 3 weeks at Nkhata Bay, where we played in the lake quite a bit and spent the rest of our time volunteering.

Me and my brother spent lots of time on this dock. Sometimes the local boys would join us.

Beach soccer

Mister Chocolate, as we called him had many stories to tell. His father was the first doctor to get trained in Malawi. He was always at our lodge selling chocolates. 

Lake Malawi

The Malawians use the dugouts canoes as everything from cargo to fishing boats.

We did lots of cliff jumping because there were big cliffs and deep water

These are two of the guys who worked at the hotel. Everyone who worked there were really nice.

Me and my brother took a carving class with Rasta kelvin.

We didn't carve the chairs, only the board Kelvin is holding.

The soccer games are hectic every time someone scores a goal. All the supporters for that team come on the field and throw dust and dirt in the air

This was our bungalow. We had a view of the lake from our balcony and we were about 20 meters from the water.

My brother and I spent the last couple of days in Nkhata Bay making this Bao Board game.

We were making clay so that we could fix the pizza oven.

We helped some of the local boys with setting up email accounts and other computer stuff.

My mom helped the widows with sewing. They had a sewing machine even older than ours. The hand crank was very practical, due to the frequency of power outages.

The little kids loved to have their pictures taken.

Every weekday morning my mom carried a little kid to nursery school, where she volunteered.

Josie and AJ were the masterminds behind all the volunteering at Butterfly Space.

We all helped out at this little nursery school. It was fun chaotic work and it was pretty hard. The kids would sometimes jump out of the windows instead of using the door.

These were the two woman who ran the nursery school.

We helped our dad paint the primary schools new class one day.

School under a tree was something we saw regularly in Africa.

Innocent George

The whole point of going to Malawi was to visit our sponsor child Innocent George. From the picture we received from World Vision, we expected him to be a tall big kid, but he was the opposite.  He was one of the smallest of his class.We picked him up from his school in the middle of class. After we introduced ourselves the teacher made the whole class sing a welcome song for us. We then had to identify him but sadly, as we already told you, we were misled by the pictures and weren't able to find him.  He had to stand up and say that he was Innocent. The whole village was buzzing with excitement. Our money goes to the whole community not only the family. We drove of to see the pig farm that they had started with our money. When we got out of the truck that was bringing us from spot to spot we were hit by a wave of sound!  Half the village was singing. Innocent's parents ushered us into their house and we talked with the family. We gave the family gifts and we were thanked so much you would have thought we had given them  a fortune. The village had set up a small drumming band and a circle of chairs.  The drummers were for the traditional dancers that danced to the drums. The World Vision people told us we had to go after the dance so we left with some members of the family crying. (from both families)

This is the local reggae band at the Youth Center.

Marek with two of Innocent's siblings.

The whole village came out to thank us for giving them money and they even did a performance and the local reggae band came out to play for us again.

This was one of the traditional dances that the village does.

This was us with all their family.

We took a picture with Innocent and he insisted on holding our hands.

As you can see, it looks nothing like our schools in Canada. The two adults in the front are teachers from this school.

All the children from the school crowded around us while we walked through the school grounds. They split before us if we walked in there direction.  We found it really funny.

 The ladies did a circle dance while the reggae band tried to tune in.

This is me and Innocent in front of the pig pen. He is the same age as me.

Our family and innocents family all crowded in the Land Rover. We were 13 in total.