Akwaaba

I love looking at houses.

Beautiful or run-down, big or small, new or old - a house is always much more than what you see. Who knows how many people have made their home, for a time, in a given house? For each, it was the main stage for a season of their life. They leave their memories and emotions there. They recall them when they come back.

In that way I always think that people leave a bit of their spirit in the houses they stay, and sometimes when I see one I try to imagine the people who left their love in those walls.

Akwaaba house is an old place with older hardwood floors, a couple of dens, and a few bedrooms - the kind of place you see four or five college kids staying. If I saw this house a week ago, I would have imagined them jamming on the couch with guitars and cooking KD in the kitchen.

This is ABSOLUTELY not the case.

Twenty four West Africa JFs are currently living two of the most emotionally and intellectually intense weeks of their lives. We have seen elaborate family dinners from the Burkina team, rather than the staple KD, and hough there is a guitar there are also two African drums and someone even brought a trumpet!

We are not the only group that have been here. So many have come and go before us, and ALL I'm sure look back with fond and intense emotions.

No one will see it when they pass. No one will imagine it when they look at front door, but the spirit of this house is idealism. Its walls remember our theories, our hopes, our fears and our flipcharts. Its shower recalls our determination and commitment. Its beds remember our exhaustion. Its plumbing? Well... lets just say it won't mess with us again.