Where is it?

Over the last few weeks we have been visiting different wards and branches in the local area, trying to get to know more of the members. Each ward/branch seems to have someone who we see at the Area office or temple. A couple of Sundays ago we were headed to the Achimota Ward. One of the hardest things to get used to is finding someplace without an address. Just about everything is by landmark and sign. Very few homes receive mail to their homes; it is mostly businesses. We got to the place where we should have taken a turnoff but couldn't find it. The signs we were told to look for we couldn't see so after driving a mile beyond what we believed should have been the place we found ourselves in an area where we knew we have gone too far. We turned around and went back to a ward we knew where it was – Alajo. We were late for sacrament meeting because they started 30 minutes earlier. We happen to see a brother also waiting to go in and asked him if he knew where the Achimota Ward was. He tried to give us some directions which we thought would help so off we went to try again. Once more all the signs or landmarks were not clear to us so we turned around again and proceeded home since Sacrament meeting at Alajo Ward was almost over. We decided to attend the Jamestown Branch at 10:30 am here on the temple complex. While they have pretty good maps, most roads to not have signs and most people have no clue how to read a map so everything is by landmark and sign or business. Actually those who have GPS devices loaded with the local maps do quite well. We should have brought ours and bought the maps for this area. Oh well, once you find your destination you feel a sense of real triumph.

Below are pictures of the sign for the Christiansborg Ward in Osu. Some street corners can be so cluttered with signs you are hard pressed to find what you need and still pay attention to driving. The first picture is a view of the street corner while heading North on Osu Road. The second picture is a view you would see heading South. Depending on which direction you are coming from you may be able to see the sign just fine. Other times good luck.

Since the chances of seeing the sign are low, we will be updating the directions for this chapel to say, “Turn at the corner of the new Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant." That is pretty hard to miss.

Today we went to the Tema 1st Ward. It is a large nice stake center; something we don’t see very often. We didn’t take a picture of it but below is a picture of the corner where we turned to go to the church.The sign in this case was a bit easier to spot.

After the block of meetings we drove down to the Gulf of Guinea to see the port where all the ships arrive with their freight. Tema is one of two major sea ports in Ghana.

The stores we shop at frequently are out of the items we like. We blame it on the ships still waiting to off-load. Ships are not necessarily off-loaded based on who arrived first but who is willing to pay to go to the head of the line; probably a common practice in other parts of the world.

I counted 27 ships in the gulf either coming or going. The video below doesn't do justice to the fact that the horizon is lined with huge ships/tankers.

We also saw some fisherman casting their nets and a family playing in the surf with an inner tube. We saw the man dive in, so there must be a deep spot right there by the rock they are standing on.

It is a beautiful sunny day. The weather here is getting warmer as the US gears up for winter.