Our grandson Evan and his dad Marcus arrived on schedule this morning. We were so excited to see them. They were a little travel worn but in good spirits. All of the luggage they brought arrived with them and they breezed right through customs with no problem. Bismark, the driver we hired, picked us up at the hotel at 6:00 this morning. He drove his van; so we would have plenty of room for all the luggage and carry-ons. I wanted to shout at Evan and Marcus when they came out of the airport but some dignitary was on their flight and they had set up drummers and dancers at the airport exit and we could not hear anything over the drumming so I just crossed the barrier and met them face to face. I told Marcus to get a picture of the drummers and dancers because they were there to greet them! Ha!
Bismark drove us over to the domestic airport which was only a few blocks away and we offloaded the bags and put them on trolleys. We had a couple hours to wait for our plane to Tamale so we went to the small restaurant and got breakfast. I don’t know if the guys were particularly hungry but Steve and I were. As soon as the gate was open we got in line to check in. The agent told us that he was not sure that all of the luggage we had would make it to Tamale with us and might have to be sent on the next flight. They tell us that every time that we fly with bunches of luggage but somehow it always seems to arrive with us.
When we landed in Tamale the same gate agent that has checked us in at other times was there again. He laughed when he saw how many pieces of luggage we had this time. He is the same agent that checked us in when we flew to Accra to pick up the guys. He teasingly asked us where all of our luggage was because we only had one small carry on which we put inside an empty suitcase. We told him to just wait because the next time he saw us he would see lots of luggage. He was surprised that we had 13 checked pieces of luggage. The plane is small and they made us check our carry-ons and I had filled the empty suitcase with carvings. He said you go with empty suitcases and come back with many full suitcases!
We are at the hotel in Kintampo; we are planning on getting up early in the morning and going to visit the monkeys at the monkey sanctuary. Marcus has been to Ghana a few times but he has not been to the monkey sanctuary. When we passed through Kintampo we stopped and bought a bunch of bananas for the monkeys.
Red was fasting today because it is still Ramadan, the month long fast for the Muslims. Tonight we bought him 2 orders of fried chicken and fried rice. He can eat one tonight and he can eat one early in the morning before the sun comes up.
We are tired so I will close for now.
Keep us and our travels in your prayers.
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie, Marcus, Evan and Skeeter
