to move up and down
Being Awake
The world is not just, but there is beauty everywhere.
Mother Feeds Son at Market.
Volta River, Ghana.
August, 2008
Industry at a Haunting Port. From Elmina Castle, Cape Coast, Ghana. 2009, Rebecca Thom
The Volta River flows through Ghana and Lake Volta, the largest reservoir in the world. There is a tiny town at the mouth of the Volta River called Ada Foah. One early morning during my visit to Ada two adolescent boys offered to take me down the river in their dug-out canoe. We rowed slowly. The boys and I chatted as we drifted past larger boats, painted colorfully with names inscribed on the side like, ‘In God’s Hands.’
When we neared the river mouth we passed a tiny village that was literally going under water. Water lapped at the little thatched homes, sand bags and makeshift barriers were built.
‘The sea is rising,’ one of the boys began to explain to me, ‘pushing this village out because God is Angry. God is angry with all the wrongdoings that people have done throughout the world and that is why the sea is rising and pushing this little village out.’
And as I thought to try and explain global warming to them, I stopped, because in some deeply illustrative way, they had already explained it to me.
People of Ada. Volta Region, Ghana. August, 2009 by Rebecca Thom
Women Working. Kumasi, Ghana. August, 2009. By Rebecca Thom
