Day 68

Today was a tree day.

Trees in Ghana are incredibly important. Today I was reminded of their uses for four different things; I’m sure there are many more.

Use one – shade from the sun. I was at a brand new school, and the head was telling me how nice it was, but how she was missing having trees. Most school grounds will have some – children will shelter under them and play all year round (even at its coolest, midday is hot in Ghana!) New schools have to wait until it rains to plant – the ground’s too hard just now.

Use two – storage (see picture). I wrongly thought that these were storing funeral mats, which are rolls of reeds tied together into a mat. They are actually just being used as large cupboards, trying the reeds and keeping them from the cows so that when it’s the wet season, people have something to burn on their fires.

Use three – baby weighing. I wish I could’ve taken a picture of this but it didn’t seem appropriate. There is a pully weighing device hanging from a strong branch of the tree. Babies are put in a sling, and then weighed on the device. There was a sort of clinic going on at a school, so weights were beign recorded monthly in a log book.

Use four – hang your radio – some watchmen were hanging their radio from the tree so it was at a good height for listening in.