11/24/2004
Budaburam refugee camp
Today was my first day visiting the Liberian Refugee Camp at Budaburam for
this current trip to Ghana (my 7th). There are noticible changes here and
there (a new building or a missing tree or a new front step on a house or a
new well), but nothing terribly significant different about the place itself.
What is significant is the fact that two people I've been working with for
some time are now gone. JJ called me from Minnesota about 2 weeks ago.
Apparently he'd received refugee status and was resettled by an agency to be
wtih his mother in the Twin Cities along wtih 10 relatives from teh camp.
Chris won the US Diversity Visa lottery and is not on his way to Liberia to
obtain a passport and other necessary paperwork to be able to travel. I
spoke with his wife today and she thought it would take him a year to get
things in order.
Anyway, my people in the camp seemed really happy to see me. Lots of people
that I didn't recognize came up and greeted me by name today. Such is the
lot of someone without dark skin, I suppose. Plus I've been there a few
times and met with lots of people, and their people, and THEIR people
(pyramid-style).
Anyway, I'm visiting with the team of the shovels and wheelbarrows
fundraising on Saturday and will take photos and find out exactly what they
bought with the money and find out more about what they've been doing lately.
I also saw photos today of some other teams doing clean-up campaigns so it's
quite possible that we're going to need quite a few more tools. We'll have
to prioritize what's needed.
That's all for now (downloading another IE browser upgrade so I can get my gmail!)
categories: Ghana Africa Humanist Movement
this current trip to Ghana (my 7th). There are noticible changes here and
there (a new building or a missing tree or a new front step on a house or a
new well), but nothing terribly significant different about the place itself.
What is significant is the fact that two people I've been working with for
some time are now gone. JJ called me from Minnesota about 2 weeks ago.
Apparently he'd received refugee status and was resettled by an agency to be
wtih his mother in the Twin Cities along wtih 10 relatives from teh camp.
Chris won the US Diversity Visa lottery and is not on his way to Liberia to
obtain a passport and other necessary paperwork to be able to travel. I
spoke with his wife today and she thought it would take him a year to get
things in order.
Anyway, my people in the camp seemed really happy to see me. Lots of people
that I didn't recognize came up and greeted me by name today. Such is the
lot of someone without dark skin, I suppose. Plus I've been there a few
times and met with lots of people, and their people, and THEIR people
(pyramid-style).
Anyway, I'm visiting with the team of the shovels and wheelbarrows
fundraising on Saturday and will take photos and find out exactly what they
bought with the money and find out more about what they've been doing lately.
I also saw photos today of some other teams doing clean-up campaigns so it's
quite possible that we're going to need quite a few more tools. We'll have
to prioritize what's needed.
That's all for now (downloading another IE browser upgrade so I can get my gmail!)
categories: Ghana Africa Humanist Movement