Time's Up!

The last few days in Ghana were full of getting in my last bits of culture, food, and saying goodbye to all the people I got to meet while I was there. After the screening, we said our goodbyes to the kids that we got to work with. One kid in particular, Nicholas, was sad all day because he knew it was the last day to see us all, and anytime he would see me, he'd just look up at me and say, "Forever?" All I could tell him was hopefully not, and that I'm glad we all got to meet each other. But it's great to see the impact we had hanging out with these kids for just a month. 

The last day came and went by super quickly and before I knew it, I was off to the airport. Just like when I arrived, there was no fancy tunnel that connected the gate to the airplane door. Instead, I boarded a shuttle bus that took me to one of the several planes ready for boarding on the tarmac, I got off the bus, and approached the Delta plane. I had a slight Macaulay Culkin à la Home Alone 2 moment where I wondered if I walked towards the plane headed for somewhere other than New York, like Casablanca or Dakar. But I did manage to find my plane, take my last steps on African soil, and head up the stairs to the cabin door.

On the plane, I sat next to an older woman who I think was experiencing her first plane ride ever and first excursion out of Ghana. She barely spoke English, had to have me help her with the seat belt, and have a fellow passenger help her fill out her immigration documents. As I was ending my adventure in Ghana, I thought how exciting it must be for her to just be starting her adventure to somewhere new. 

And soon after, the plane lifted off the ground and I was left with a beautiful view of the African coastline at night while listening to my new playlist of Ghanaian popular music. Eleven hours later, I was greeted in New York City by some muggy weather and a bit of culture shock. The first things I did were get a freshly-brewed iced coffee, take a hot shower, and do laundry by machine. These were just some of the conveniences I wasn't able to have since July.

Being in Ghana and working with Akosia was an awesome experience that I would definitely do again. I got to get acclimated to a completely new place, meet some great people from all around the world, and do film work with some amazingly-talented kids. And in the under two weeks that I have been back in the States, I can't stop talking about it... I came back with some awesome experiences, memories, and some great sneakers...

For anyone interested in doing a project like this, check out the Akosia website for some more information (http://www.akosia.org/). Or you can always ask me more about it! To my loyal followers, thank you for checking out this blog, and I am sure that there will be plenty more to come in the future. I have one in the works, movieswithoutborders.blogspot.com, so be sure to check that our in the coming months!

Akosia Film Festival!

This past Friday was the event that we had all been waiting for… the final film screening for the kids’ two films, The Friendship Bracelets and The Four Friends and the Golden Aluguitugui (I will post links as soon as they become available). The screening was a huge success and drew in tons of kids from the local community. Before the screening of the actual films, there were live performances done by a few of the volunteers and the kids themselves.

The kids had a lot of preparation to do before the big event. They helped out with the set decoration by drawing animals on cardboard that were cut out, painted, and hung up in front of the stage. They also prepared some acts to perform. There were a lot of kids who sang and danced to popular songs in Ghana, a few who rapped, three kids who created and performed a very complicated skit, and a crazy acrobatics show. 

When we saw the acrobatics group practice during their rehearsal, they did things like back flips and cartwheels. While on stage, they did much more than that. They were dressed in crazy costumes & make-up and did things that took amazing balance, such as balancing while standing on someone's head and things like that. At one point in the act, the boys lit these sticks on fire, and one of the older boys, Prince, picked them up. It was right here that I learned Prince could eat fire. Who knew?

After all the performances came the film screenings. This was the first time I got to see the final projects and they looked great. All the locations that were used in the film are very familiar to everyone, so it was really cool to see something like a patch of trees being used as an evil forest in which skeletons and ghosts are all around. The kids really enjoyed seeing themselves on the big screen and how all of their hard work paid off.

And what better way was there to wrap up this event that with an impromptu dance party? The kids and volunteers all stayed at the event until we got kicked out of the venue to continue the party and do all the dances that the kids had been teaching us for the past few weeks.