Our best friend Beezus

This is our best Ghanaian friend Beatrice Taylor. She is the volunteer receptionist at the Employment Center in Takoradi. She is great. We started calling her Beezus and explained Ramona and Beezus Quimby to her (see Beverly Cleary for details). I think she likes her new name. At first we just called her that behind her back, but then we decided to get it all out in the opening. She likes to call Kristen, Katia. I have no idea why. She is a hoot and we love her. She is the one that taught us to balance things on our heads. She can practically break dance and not drop things from her head. Also, she thinks that our hair is made of rubber.

Tour of Accra

Here are some things we saw when we toured Accra with Bishop Oware.

This is Amelia and me drinking from a fresh coconut. It tastes nothing like our coconut, by the way.

Lydia's Baptism

Lydia was in our first career workshop this week. She was baptized on Wednesday night with her husband. She is a great girl and we have loved working with her!





















Here's a picture of two of the four elders in our ward, Elder Rappleye and Elder Lewis. They are the ones that have been teaching the lessons to Lydia.

Our First Career Workshop

This is our classroom where we teach the Career Workshop. This is our first batch of students. We really became good friends during the week.

Also, Here are our friends from left to right:
Top row: Amelia, John, Prince, Sophia, Francis, and David
Bottom row: Patricia, me, and Lydia

How do they do that?

Our friends from Accra

Amelia with Emmanuel




Volunteers at the Center (the guy in the middle was taking the workshop)






Yahaya, Amelia, Kristen



Afua and Zak



Afua, Kristen, Mawuena, and Abigail.

Cool Shirt!

Do you like this shirt? We saw this man in the distribution center in Accra and asked to get a picture of his shirt. He asked if I wanted one. I don't really know what he meant--if he was going to make one for me or give me his....

Street near the ERC

Here is a video of us walking through the streets of Accra! This was just about two blocks from the ERC (Employment Resource Center). This is pretty much a good representation of what we see everyday.

The Center Managers

Bishop Alex Tanhoh, one of the Center's Associate Managers.


Fred, the other associate manager.


President Peter Atobora Brown, the Africa West Regional Manager for the Employment Resource Centers (president because he is in his stake presidency)


The entrance to the Employment Resource Center in Accra

Our Apartments

Here are the two homes that we have lived in for the last couple of weeks. The first is called the Pink Hostel and is pretty little compared to the second. The second apartment is where we will be staying for the next three months. We live above an internet cafe on the third floor. Our balcony looks out on three different streets. That's great except when there is a funeral party going on (yes that's right, a funeral party) and there is loud music playing all over the place! Last night we had such loud music that we couldn't really sleep and our beds were vibrating although the music was about a block away. Anyway, our new house is a lot bigger. We are missing our consistent flow of water and A/C from the Pink Hostel! Our showers were a little bit incomplete this morning!


(We are having trouble downloading the videos, but we will try later.)

We are finally posting!!

We have been having a heck of a time finding a computer that has a USB drive hook up. We finally found on and it is slower than heck. We are hoping to post more often because we take so many picture, but we'll see how it goes. Right now we are writing a few things, but we may not be able to post pictures for a few more days. Stick with us and you will see some great stuff.

Ghana really is rad

(fu fu)


(Amelia scared to eat fu fu)

(Don't judge us okay?)

(By the hostel)

(view from airplane)

(another view from the plane)

We got here on Sunday morning and we were fairly trashed from all of our travels. However, when we first saw Africa from the airplane, we were taken aback by the beauty. We saw an amazing sunrise, more beautiful than any we had ever seen. We must have been flying low because we could see Senegal below us. It was so awesome. The ground was gray-brown and there was a small winding river below us. Anyway, it was beautiful. We were surprised as we flew into Accra that there were so many trees and that everything was green.

Leaving the airport, we drove by the temple and stake center. We quickly changed out of our white trash travel clothes (emphasis on white) so we could attend the last part of sacrament meeting. Later, after a good nap, we found the energy to explore a small part of Accra for a while.

We are loving it here, although we are having trouble finding food that we like. Yesterday we ate Ghanaian food for the first time. We tried fu fu and banku. Picture this: bread dough and fish in thin soup. You eat with your hands and you don't chew, you just swallow it right on down. Honestly, the taste wasn't that bad. The soup was good but spicy, the fish was salmon and rather good. But, the texture wasn't that great and one of us may have gagged once before giving up altogether and leaving some food in the bowl.

We are staying in a place called the Pink Hostel. It is rather small but it is growing on us. Today we are going to the temple and the grocery store. We like it here in Accra but are excited to be more permanently situated in Takoradi. We will be going there on Friday. We taught part of a workshop yesterday and are excited to do more.

Also, quick disclaimer: Don't judge our appearance. The power goes out here frequently and we are ugly. Okay. Ugly. Lay off. The humidity makes our hair frizzy and it is hot and we sweat a lot. So no judging. Can't we all be brothers?

Ghana is Rad!

We haven't actually been to Ghana yet but we are really excited. We are spending the week in Salt Lake for more training. Although the days seem really long, we have been entertaining ourselves during our down time. Here are a few pictures of the fun activities that have already taken place. We love the group that we are with and we are sad that we are all going to different countries. Stay tuned, we promise this blog will get really cool next week.

Here we are smashed into a serving cart in the church where we spend the better part of our days. The ride was surprisingly comfortable.

Mimi, the internship coordinator with LDS Employment Resource Services, who we think is awesome.

Most of our group in the room where we spend pretty much all of our waking hours.

Out to dinner with all the peeps.

Stay tuned for more awesomeness. Thanks for reading. We hope it won't always be this boring.