After returning from last week's adventures, I woke up early on Wednesday and piled into a 70s style minivan big enough to take about 25 students on the four hour journey back to Akosombo. We were crammed in there and it was the usual rowdiness you would expect, but I slept throughmost of it because I'm still not fully used to the early mornings here. For no reason other than that I am a total nerd about this stuff, I want to show you guys pictures of the dam itself from up close.
When we arrived we met a man from the Volta River Authority who lead us on a tour above the dam. He also felt free to meander off and talk about how children should take on more responsibilities for society.
Here are pictures from this dam
Now I'm sure many of you are thinking, why do we care about such a dam? This is a hydro-dam that provides virtually all of the electricity to Ghana, as well as some to neighboring countries. Those of us who remember the rolling blackouts in California not too long ago will remember griping about not being able to use their microwave for an hour during the blackouts, but people in the Untied States tend not to think about where electricity comes from (or water for that matter). It was cool to see the mechanism that provides electricity to all of us (when we're lucky) and allows me to do things like write on this blog at all. As we toured a second dam downstream it started to rain on us with thunder and lightning strikes that made me realize why people believe in God. I mean, it just came down. And rather than thinking of rain as a pain, getting us soaked before we sat in a hot bus for four hours, it was nice to think about each raindrop as the energy used to power hospitals, schools, this computer, etc. It never hurts to remember that it's all connected.
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