Nzulezo Village on Stilts

Since the teachers are still on strike, I haven't spent much time at school. My host Ralph teaches at Wesley Girls Secondary School, and he has had free time with us this week since we are not teaching. We are doing as much as possible to get into schools and work with students, but it is hard due to the fact that they are on strike, students are taking national exams, and then students leave early for the Easter holiday.

Ralph had told us of a village on stilts a few hours away, so we decided to drive there for the day. We left at 7am, and returned around 11pm- it was surely an adventure!!! We met up with two other fellows in Takoradi, a city about an hour from Cape Coast. From there we followed each other until arriving at the place to take the canoe ride out to see the city on stilts.

To get to the canoes we had to walk barefoot through the mud and wetlands since it was too wet for a car to go through. Our driver named "PK" was amazing, and actually drove us through part of it.

Once we walked through the mud, there was a dock that took us to the entrance of the lake where we got in canoes and paddled for an hour to get to the village on stilts. Everything was made of wood, and the Nzulezo people have been living there for centuries. In the water along the way there were snakes and crocodiles, which was a bit scary considering we were only in a canoe.

We arrived at the village and got to speak with the chief's daughter since the chief was out of town. Here we learned that there were 450 people living in the village, and that the village just got electricity 9 months ago. While there, we toured the primary school and we walked through the rest of the town. The Nzulezo people are very friendly and opened their village to our visit.