Long Road to Kumasi, Part II of IV

The Long Road to Kumasi Part II

This is one of the “roads” to the Frimpong house. I use the term lightly, but this picture does not do it justice at all.

The Frimpongs’ land was originally located in a totally deserted area. They had to survey and create the road and bring power out to the area. As soon as they had paid to put up the powerline by their home, they had a bunch of new neighbours build houses right beside them! Hmmm

The Frimpong’s home is quite lovely and the Frimpongs themselves have an amazing gift for hospitality! Heather Frimpong even went out of her way to make me some cinnamon buns to take back with me to Accra, among the many other ways she and Joseph blessed me that weekend :)

This is the Frimpong house

Though they deal with a lot of pests including cobras, other snakes, scorpions, roaches, and termites! Termites did this damage to their door even though the wood was treated for termites:

Oh, another pest they have is butterflies. Many butterflies...sigh.

The Frimpongs are in constant danger of armed robbery so they keep two german shepards on the property. They don’t use dogfood – Joseph makes the dogs a homemade meal twice a day!

I understand that homes and plots of land here can be acquired at a fraction of the price of Canadian homes (which I guess translates to a millifraction of the price of a Toronto home…hmmm) and the Frimpong have a nice yard which they have planted several interesting crops on including

Snow Peas (seriously!)

Plantain

Pineapple

Peanuts (known as Groundnuts here)

Mangoes

Several kinds of Tomatoes

Sugarcane

And Canadian Corn

They’re not just growing these crops to eat though. Joseph has a real desire to help the community around him as a missionary and so they are growing good quality Canadian crops in Ghana so that the produce will become acclimatized to the Ghanaian conditions and produce seeds that the locals can use to grow their own crops, feed their families, and start productive businesses. Here are some of the first generation of a a corn crop that has been adapted from Canada to Ghana. This cob is being dried to produce seeds for the next generation planting. Very neat.

My room at the Frimpongs was like a little Chalet! I couldn’t believe it. Sure, the Frimpongs have to spray their home regularly for cobras and scorpions, but the house is comfortable if you can get over that! :) My room had recently been built and the idea was to build a room that could accommodate Heather’s parents who aren’t in the best of health. My room had a queen bed, air conditioning and its own bathroom with a huge tub! In the mornings I had to wash down the various species of insects that had entered the tub in the evening (one evening a very large bug landed in the tub while I was in the bathroom – I decided not to worry about it and I would deal with it in the morning. Well, the next morning I found it living in my toilet. Keep in mind the toilet lid had been closed all night. Yeah. That’s right.) but that was fine, they washed away amicably enough.

Here is the view from my bedroom window: