Students spend part of summer vacation building Library in Ghana

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Summer vacations often entail long hours outside in the heat and blazing sun.

But 11 Central Michigan University students eschewed the pool side in favor of ten days spent helping to build a library a world away.

The students spent part of their summer in Ghana. Their trip was an Alternative Break, a program of CMU’s Volunteer Center. The team’s purpose was to perform manual labor and experience the culture of West Africa.

The team worked in Jukwa, with the help of Amizade, a volunteer coordination organization. Freeland senior Ashley Stephen went as one of the team’s site leaders. Their goal was to help finish the construction of a library.

“Pretty much each day we woke up, go the work site, and we would do things like mix concrete, paint the library, and rake trash,” Stephen said.

She said what really made the trip for her was the people.

“They are the most friendly people in Ghana,” she said. “I feel like sometimes Americans don’t get portrayed the best in other countries. It’s not the case in Ghana. They love Americans.”

Albion senior Chris Hopcraft was the only male on the trip. He spent his time making pillars for roofs support.

“It was rewarding,” Hopcraft said. “There was never a time I thought, ‘This sucks, I wish I wasn’t here doing this.’”

After dinner the team would reflect about their day’s experiences. Many talked about how surprising it was to see the happiness of Ghanaians who live with only the minimal basics.

Erin Monahan, a Grosse Pointe sophomore, felt impacted by the culture shock of the third world.

“They had mud houses,” Monahan said. “That’s all they had, that’s all they knew and that’s what they would die in. I don’t know if I could do it.”

When their work was done for the day, the team was taken on excursions to see the country. They visited a rainforest and took tours of the Elmina and Cape Coast castles that were used as holding cells for slaves.

Stephen remembered visiting a room used as a death chamber for female slaves who refused to be intimate with their captors.

He said they would have to stay in isolation until they died.

“There were scratch marks on the floor and it still smelled,” she said. “It was strange to think about how awful things could happen in such a beautiful place.”

Hopcraft said the experience was both humbling and horrifying, but he appreciated the historical aspect of their visit.

“I’m a history major,” he said. “I was thinking, ‘Wow, this is actually where European imperialism impacted the triangle trade routes.’”

Looking back, Hopcraft feels the team was successful in their mission and hopes to one day do another Alternative Break.

“It’s worth it to go through challenges to give those services,” Hopcraft said.