“Our aspirations are our possibilities.” – Samuel Johnson

If you were given the property to design your own sustainable community, what would it look like? Where would you place the gardens in relation to the schools and the markets? What kind of housing would you design and which jobs would be the most vital for the vibrancy of your community? Vail Mountain School’s 7th graders colorfully filled graph paper with their own ideas about community landscaping. This task was a little more daunting for the P6 students at EP Primary Ho-Bankoe, and yet, many hands went up eagerly when we presented this as one of two creative choices to produce. Rulers came out and noses inched closely to the paper as the students demarked locations and defined boundaries. The Ghanaian students’ villages highlighted big areas for both farm and market, drawing inspiration from their lived experiences by literally mirroring their personal villages and towns.

 
Other students opted for an easier exercise to share with 6th grade students at VMS. They each completed the phrase “If I were a seed I would be…” by filling take away plates with colorful images of local fruits, vegetables, plants and flowers. Many also wrote letters to describe their favorite foods. Matilda even pulled out a special plastic folder filled with her previously received CIH projects to compare her new letter, and the name therein, with the ones from past exchanges; she seemed to hope that this letter came from the same friend, and she will, undoubtedly, cherish it and keep it safe within her personal archives.

 
Nearly everybody was a little more edgy today, as the power was out for most of the night. This was a popular topic of discussion today given that most of us tossed and turned our way through the evening because the outage spread through the entire nation and parts of Togo and Benin! If we were creating more sustainability for this community, keeping the luxury of comfort in mind, we would line the buildings with solar panels to harness the intense African sun. If this environmentally friendly power source were in place, not only could we all have rested better in our homes, lulled by fans, we all would have been a little more lively with fans in classrooms instead of the saunas we were sweating in this afternoon.

The art of encouragement is the art of creating community and celebrating friendship. – Candy Paull

The third graders at CT Walker know a little about baking for good. In December, they held bake sales to raise money for Children Inspiring Hope. The two classes raised nearly $800! Their projects are as sweet as the goodness they were baking, and were received with both excitement and gratitude.

Dr. Painter’s students sent beautiful poems for the Earth, some of which rhymed, others that were raps, all giving thanks to the Earth for all the bounty, each in their own unique way. We chuckled at the Earth Dance Party drawing in one, Earth with dancing arms and a disco ball, expressing how Earth is the best planet for the life it sustains. They also shared friendship recipes. For example:

Friendship cake:

1 C      Kindness

½ C     Fairness

1t        Politeness

¼ C     Honestness

1C       Carefulness

We all took time to share the recipes and poems, and help the students read in their second language. In return, Beauty’s P3 students shared “If They Were a Seed They Would Be….”

Next door, in Emma’s P3 class, Ms. Evans’ Friendship Garden was shared and the students cultivated their own ideas and creations of their gardens filled with colorful representations of their favorite foods, how they are made and family stories attached to them. The simple act of cutting colored paper lights the faces in the darkened room, as students work closely together to exchange ideas, and friendship, cross-culturally. Love is encouraged and grows here.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. -Simone Weil

On this humid Wednesday morning, we reconnect with Elizabeth’s P4 classroom matched with SPARK Elementary School in Atlanta. The students, although this is only their second time with us, are eager as they form the large circle. Shoes come off quickly, just as they did last time, in anticipation of getting down on the floor to create. Attention is focused and anticipation fills the air.

Colorful profiles filled with foods the students eat are passed around the room. This is seen as a little silly, and also fascinating at the same time. The teachers are particularly shocked to hear the inspiration is a 16th century artist, Arcimboldo. We are just as delighted to watch the students trace profiles from shadows on the walls and floor as they are to be doing so. After this commotion of excitement passes, they settle on the floor, feet kicked in the air, and begin their own stylistic masterpieces. Crayola crayons (made from solar energy) brighten the grey floors, and fill profiles of local fruits and vegetables. The profiles reflect a culture steeped with messages, which are written everywhere in Ghana from chairs, to windshields, and walls.

For better or worse, if we are what we eat, these reflective profiles show that Ghanaians are a lot more natural and local, and Americans are more processed and from greater distances, when it comes to food. The rhythm of their eating is connected to the seasons, and therefore the weather. We have watched farmers at this time of year, contemplatively pace and take stock of the fields, and gamble on the right time to plant the seeds. Whether or not the rains come, means a lot more than the clearing of air, or the cooling of temperatures. Right timing is survival. At home, bounties of fruits and vegetables can be found nearly year round even though they are not in season locally. Some more food for thought, reflected in the cross-cultural exchange of art.

New understanding turns simple observation into meaningful perception. -Eric Lin

The beginning of all of our classes includes a discussion on food and our connection to the Earth. Our intention is for the students to take a deeper look at all the Earth provides, and envision stewardship as deeper than recycling or picking up trash, to reconnect with nature and form a more intimate relationship. We are sometimes surprised, we have to admit, that these students are more removed from this understanding than we expected. Ghana is still a predominantly agricultural society, and while many of these students’ families do farm, many of them do not.

One of our essential questions this exchange is, Who are your farmers? There happens to be a wrapper of biscuits (crackers) on the floor. We inquire where they think they are from, and the response is resoundingly, Ghana. The rise in the globalization of food has also reached these shores. As it turns out, the biscuits are made in Nigeria. There is a gasp of shock in the room. At home we are also tracking the sources of our consumption and have discovered that some products such as juice, sugar, cheese and butter come from Egypt, South Africa, Germany and France. Outside of these products, and a few snacks we brought from home, our food purchases, made on Market Days, are almost entirely Ghanaian and mostly regional.

People around the world differ in many ways, but [lunch} unites us. – Hungry Planet
Cliff Valley students in Atlanta came at this subject from many angles. The 4th graders, inspired by Hungry Planet photos of What the World Eats, shared what they eat for lunch, with photos of their meals. Fifth graders made beautiful hands with images of their favorite foods inspired by henna hand paintings. The 6th graders dug deeper into what agriculture is produced in different states, and created their own culinary atlas.
In return, EP students are taking the same look at food, what their favorites are, where they come from, and what fills the schoolyards during break. There are fewer options here, and a ton of commonality of favorites – kenkey, banku with okra soup, fufu, and rice and beans. While recipes are a foreign concept, they do know what it takes to pound fufu, or make okra soup over a coal pot. We try to snap photos of students during second break at 12:30, but quickly realize that they eat their main meal at 10:30 during first break. We wonder how this meal satisfies and energizes them through a scorching afternoon in classrooms with tin roves, and forty plus bodies crammed together in a sauna-like and stifling environment. Students escape their classrooms periodically to scoop warm water to drink from pails throughout the day.

“[T]he stories that are served with food matter.  These stories bind our family together, and bind our family to others. 

Stories about food are stories about us – our history and our values.”

– Jonathan Safran Foer –

We started our week, with bags filled to their maximum capacity with projects and supplies, at RC Mixed School.  The students in P4B were happy to hear that their 5^th Grade friends at Holy Innocents had sent another creative project.  They smiled broadly at the class photo and they searched intensely for the American student who proudly held the project they had just received.  The class was amused that “take-away” plates had been transformed (through stickers and colored pencils) into books about favorite foods.  They read through the recipes and meals, steeped in family traditions, with a desire to consume and indulge in new ideas and new information. They read quickly with smiles on their faces and then began to create.  The students tried, as best they could, working in a foreign language, to describe their most loved meals.  Many students outlined the process of collecting the required tools and ingredients as well as the cooking procedures.  Some students included the importance of giving thanks before eating.

We visited the students in P4A in the afternoon and shared the work of the 5^th Grade students in Ms. Collins’ class at SPARK Elementary School.  We described the role and impact that advertisements can have on our eating habits and our awareness of our environments (using Indome, the equivalent of Ramen Noodles, as a local example) as we shared the messages and pictures for healthy eating and Earth stewardship. The students excitedly passed the drawings from SPARK around the room, many students jumping out of their seats to sneak an early peek before the artwork arrived at his/her seat.  They smiled brightly as they held the messages in their hands.  Many students slipped them into their desks for safe keeping before we could even snap a photo.  Their energy and eagerness to create was palpable.  Each student filled their whole page with drawings, without the need for encouragement to make things bigger.  They drew with care, expressing their love for specific foods and encouraging others to adopt new eating habits.

We realized, after our time with these two busy classes, just how much the stories and images that accompany what we eat truly do matter.  Around the world, many hands, minds, and hearts contribute to the growth and production of our food. People cook and eat together as they share stories and anecdotes from their day.  Food has always and will always continue to connect us to one another and to the gifts of the Earth.