Ghana

by Amelia P.

                    “Every year the Upper School presents its students with a service trip opportunity. Last year it was Costa Rica and this year Aminata Brown came to one of our assemblies and presented a power point of the trip. I believe the school has been trying to make a trip to Africa possible for its students for several years now, and it happened to work out perfectly this year!” said Sully Hildebrand, one of the 14 lucky high school girls going to Ghana, Africa over Mardi Gras break. These girls left for London on Thursday, February 7, 2013 on a jet across the Atlantic Ocean.

           The living spaces that will accommodate these girls will be a new hotel room every night in two-three star hotels. Sully said, “I think all the girls are a little nervous about the long plane rides and being so far away from home, but all in all, we are all very excited!” Mrs. Powers, the Headmistress, said, “I am super excited about this trip.”

            One of the main purposes to go was to see other cultures and go to an all girls school in a foreign continent.

“Personally, I believe I have been blessed to grow up in a country/community where it is expected that I get an education. I am really looking forward to being able to help in anyway we can. We have been given so many opportunities that the girls in Bolgatanga have not and I think the whole experience will be incredibly fulfilling,” said Hildebrand. Mrs Powers had a little different view for the trip’s importance. She said, “The girls in our school need to have the opportunity to see other cultures.” 

They will be visiting the BaBa Blankets store and meeting all the women who make the blankets. They will mostly be involved with the SISTAscholars. SISTAscholars are partnered with BaBa Blankets. Aminata originally opened Ba Ba Blankets for all the young women who were forced to work in the markets to provide food for their families. Aminata asked some of the girls if they wanted to learn how to do anything. Most of them replied that they wanted to know how to sew. So Aminata created BaBa Blankets, but she wanted to get to the root of the problem, which was the young girls in Ghana were not being educated enough to ensure successful futures. That is how SISTAscholars was created.

After the trip was over, a few things popped up that were not expected.

When they were there, they had to get a large number of shots for Malaria, TetnisSS, Meningitis, and so on. While McGehee girls slept in hotels, the girls at the boarding school weren’t so lucky. The girls slept 80 to a dorm room with 40 bunkbeds and mosquito netting all around the beds. When our girls have hot showers, the Ghana girls had stalls with soap and a bucket of water to clean with.     

            This trip was a huge event because most of the girls had not been over an entire ocean by themselves. A video was taken of teacher Debbie Pigman and dean Val Whitfield-Dunn hip-hop dancing with some of the girls at the school in Ghana. This trip was a great success. 

Aminata Brown. Photo courtesy of nola.com.