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Trip to Maranatha, a great experience
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Winfred, the builder and owner of Maranatha and it’s nursery school.
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This is one of the many small villages McCue passed on her way to Maranatha. This area of Ghana is absolutely beautiful and McCue would have loved to spend more time there!
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Sydni McCue
For Spotlight
Six days before I flew back to Canada my volunteer friend, Porter, and I headed from Kumasi back to Accra. I had one more building project to check out before I made my journey home, and I had very limited time to do it in. Four days before my flight left, I headed out on my last adventure. My good friend Poppo had helped me find enough school books for one hundred students, the books only costing approx. 20 cents each. Poppo is a close friend of mine that works for Volunteer Abroad and lives at the Volunteer Abroad House in Accra.
He grew up in Nsuta, the little village that hosted many volunteers from Volunteer Abroad who worked on the Jansa Building Project. On the day that I was leaving for Maranatha, Poppo took me to a tro tro station and made sure that I got on the right tro tro van that would get me to a place called Adaa Foa.
From Adaa, I would meet a man that would take me on a boat to the Maranatha Cultural Beach Camp. The base camp was founded and built by a young man named Winfred. Maranatha is located on the East Coast of Ghana, where Winfred grew up.
He had noticed that a lot of the villages located on the East Coast had no access to schooling, so he started the Maranatha Nursery School which he built with his own money and hands.
I was very excited to meet this young Ghanaian man who believed in Education.
Well, my trip went less than smoothly. I had actually gotten on the wrong tro tro and ended up twice as far as I was supposed to go, which almost got me to the Togo border.
It was one of those moments that should have been way worse, but lucky for me, everything worked out perfectly.
I was keeping in touch with Winfred through my cell phone, and he knew exactly where I was and was able to get a fellow passenger of mine to get me a taxi from a place called Tama Junction to another place called Keta.
Since it was 10 pm, very dark and very lonely, I clung to every instruction Winfred gave me.
It so happens that I made it safe and sound, not to Maranatha Cultural Beach Camp but Winfred’s newer second ‘resort’, Emancipation Beach Camp. Thank Goodness!
I stayed for two nights at the Emancipation Beach Camp, where I was able to talk one on one with Winfred and learn about his Nursery School and his motivation for building it.
He told me about his immaculate life story; about growing up on an island on Ghana’s East Coast with eleven brothers and sisters who all joined their parents in becoming fisherman.
Winfred wanted an education and fought for years to finish school and obtain his high school diploma. After getting kicked out of his uncle’s because of a jealous cousin, Winfred made his living on giving tours to travellers by using the English that he had learned in class, and by surviving on teacher’s sympathy when he wasn’t able to pay his school fees.
When he graduated, he went to school for landscaping, and when he acquired enough money, Winfred bought land and built Maranatha Cultural Beach Camp.
The area that Maranatha is built on is Ghana’s estuary and is a very secluded place.
To get to Maranatha, you need to take a boat from Adaa Foa, and all along the way are tiny villages where the only mode of transportation is by boat.
These villages are very rural, mostly with houses made of palm fronds and weathered wood.
So, Winfred found out that because these villages are so secluded and small, the government did not provide them with schools. Winfred told me that he fought very hard to try and get schools built, but the Ghanaian government has not responded at all to his requests.
Taking charge, Winfred decided that he would build what he could for classrooms out of palm trees and grass and would use all his proceeds from his Maranatha Cultural Beach Camp to provide supplies, desks, chalkboards and lunches for the students that would be attending his school. Since he doesn’t make a very large profit, Winfred was only able to have three classes in his school.
He has nursery students who are around the ages of six and under, primary students who range from six years to ten years old, and primary two students who are eleven and older. Winfred encourages the children to bring twenty cents for every two weeks, that way he can ensure that the children get fed, but for these children to pay even this small amount is sometimes hard to do.
I was very intrigued by Winfred and how he strongly believed that every Ghanaian child should deserve the chance to acquire an education.
I was extremely excited to also make my way to Maranatha, so on the day that I was supposed to go back to Accra, Winfred and I started out early and took a tro tro to Keta’s lagoon.
The lagoon was like a narrow lake in which we took a dug-out canoe to travel with. We passed many small villages with canoe-filled shores and saw families going about daily activities, like bathing and doing laundry. After about half an hour of paddling, we made it to a giant estuary where the ocean met the narrow lake. About fifteen minutes later, we were at Maranatha, which was built on a stretch of narrow peninsula. On one side of the beach camp was the lake, and on the other side was the ocean.
The bottom of all the trees and poles on Winfred’s beach resort were painted with the colors of the Ghanaian flag and in one corner of the resort was the Maranatha Nursery School.
Winfred led me over and got the children to welcome me by singing two songs VERY loudly. I was introduced to each of the three classes and even got to witness the children at lunch time. I was so impressed with what Winfred built with his own two hands, and felt that my $460.00 donation was not enough to get him started towards building more classrooms. But, Winfred was very ecstatic nonetheless and thanked me profusely. After a couple hours with the small school, I headed back to Accra. I spent the last two days in Accra shopping for family and friends and recovering from a stomach bug that I caught while in Keta. I left my friend Kersten with a list of $800.00 worth of more donations to give since I had run out of time. I was extremely sad to leave what I now consider my second home, and promised a third return to my Ghanaian friends. I am very thankful for all the experiences I was able to take part in on this second trip and I hope everyone enjoyed reading about my adventures!
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