May

May was quite an eventful month! Rainy season came with plenty of water!

Overflowing muddy rivers turned the ocean brown...

Lawns turned into lakes...

Church had water creeping up towards it one Sunday and then flooded inside the next week...

And wash ladies ran home in the rain with dish pans over their heads!

Patricia and Della came one Sunday to celebrate his second birthday.

Gloria and her friend came and braided Kelsey's hair. They brought their girls along and they kept Kelsey well entertained.

One Sunday after church the children played the African version of hot potato.

                                                

One week we joined Garys' for a trip north. They were going to see a missionary up there and we tagged along since it has been on our bucket list since we got here. Northern Ghana is so different from southern Ghana. We really enjoyed our trip!

Northern Ghana does farming on a large scale compared to this area. They do a lot of rice and yam.

Muslims are the majority there. We have Muslims and mosques here but nothing like they did up there. Their mosques are quite pretty.

                               

And quite elaborate.

A large river flowing to the Volta Lake.

Their little villages are scattered far apart it seems because everything is flat. Their houses are farther apart as well. Here they tend to build as close as they can to each other. They also have round mud huts with thatch roofs, in our area almost all houses are square and thatch roofs aren't the normal.

Do you see what is on top of this van? It isn't uncommon to see things on top of a van. But almost every van up there had a goat or sheep tied on with the other belongings.

They make a lot of charcoal and we saw many huge loads of charcoal.

We loved the change of scenery. Wide open spaces with small scrub bushes. And we watched many rain storms move across the horizon far away from us.

We spent two days with Ross and Cynthia Ulrich. Learning much from their years serving here in Ghana.

Their neighbors weave fabric. It was an interesting process. It is thick but they make clothing out of it here.

I had fun picking out a few pieces for place mats or table runners.

Then we were on to Mole for a safari. Ghana doesn't have a lot of African wildlife anymore. No Zebras or giraffes but they do have elephants and we were fortunate enough to see a lot of them!

Looking at the size of an elephant foot print.

Our tour took us down to the water hole where the elephants were having a morning swim. The crocodiles were also swimming. My boys were impressed enough that they only needed to be told once to stay back from the water.

Our ride for the safari.

An old male elephant.

Every morning these elephants come right next to the motel to eat the mint growing there. They got quite close to us, and our tour guide telling us the one closest to us on this picture earned the name Action because he chases people, didn't help the children's nerves. 

The baboon tribe came around early in the morning. They were a lot of fun to watch.

A wart hog eating nuts under a tree next to the restaurant

This python ate a crocodile and then died because it couldn't digest it. They found it and saved the skin of the python and a piece from the crocodile.

  And a few last pictures. It was a full busy month! But enjoyable!

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