Bono would be proud

If only Bono knew that Village Chiefs are now sporting his campaign t-shirts.

Still catching up on pictures from the trip...


Little girl carrying her sister in a village called Chehoille, near Tamale.

So, how do you get to Daboya village?

First you drive on a paved road for about half an hour.


This is our driver and friend, Paw. He's a great guy and drove us just about everywhere while we were in Tamale.


...Then you drive for what feels like a million hours on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Believe it or not, lots and lots of people are also walking and driving on this road to nowhere. (It's like when you are occasionally up and driving at 4am and you think, 'hey, what the heck are all these people doing up and on the road so early? I thought we'd be the only ones out at this ungodly hour!)


...Then you take a wooden canoe across a river because the bridge was washed away in the devastating floods earlier this year.


(Incidentally, you should know, that if need be, you can also easily transport your moped across the river in a canoe. No problem.)


Two lovers, very happy to be crossing the river safely since it contains all manner of foul creatures.


...Then you walk a good distance, noticing a tree whose root structure is completely exposed since floods washed the supporting soil away. It's only a matter of time until this baby's a gonner.


When you arrive at Daboya (or any rural African village for that matter), the first thing you do, is go to 'greet' the Village Chief. If you neglect to do this, you risk offending him. Once you've made your greeting, on the other hand, you are under his protection and anyone who touches you, touches the Chief. The picture above was taken in the Daboya Chief's meeting place and the guys you see sitting here are his elders. After welcoming remarks from the village Chief and self-appointed Chief on our side, we presented him with customary gifts; in this case it was a black One.org t-shirt and 20GH-Ghana Cedi's (the local currency.)








Johnson and Michael are pictured here in front of a mosque in the village. Since the population in the Northern part of Ghana is 95% Muslim, mosques are everywhere. In fact, there is no need to set an alarm clock when you are in this region, since you will be awoken each and every morning by a loudspeaker piping prayer songs from your closest mosque, through a loudspeaker; the prayer, in Arabic, sings 'Get out of bed; prayer is better than sleep.' Seriously.



An already extremely poor village, Daboya was especially hard-hit when floods took out all of its' crops and most livestock. For many people, crops and livestock are the only bank accounts they have.


Village children


Weavers dyeing yarn




Then, the yarn is woven into cloth.



Man looking out his window


This is the village restaurant. Interesting, isn't it? No matter where you are, there will always be people who, for one reason or another, cannot or will not cook for themselves.


Look what's on the menu... (hey, they like it)


(BIIIIG Parenthesis: Meanwhile, Audrey is back in the room eating Annie's organic mac-n-cheese with GG...)


Elderly lady in Orange, Daboya


This was taken in another village, closer to Tamale, called Chehoilly




This was taken at a village school; the poorly constructed wall fell as a result of the flooding.


As Paw says, 'Kids are kids, everywhere.'
You should have seen them literally ripping candy out of our hands anytime we pulled a container of sweets out.


Isn't this girl, sweet?


Proud bike rider.