I have received a number of request and questions about Ghana. Yeah! I am glad you all enjoyed the experience as much as we did. It is still something I think about daily. Aaron is working on the video this week and we are hoping to have it as a special feature on an upcoming Signing Time DVD. Yes we have video of the crocodile run, the canopy bridges and my feeble attempt at carrying water on my head.
After my blog that showed Alfred and the first elephant carving, my friend Natalie called and said, “I love my elephant! When can I come get it?” I started laughing and said, we actually got you something else. Natalie thought I was kidding. She said, “I read your blog and it says you got it for me.” I started laughing and I told her to wait a few more days and she would read in my blog about what we special ordered for her instead of that elephant. She still thought I was teasing.
A few days later one of Lucy’s workers came over for a yearly interview. We were talking and she looked up at a shelf in my living room and said “That’s Alfred’s elephant!!!!” I was sort of shocked that she too had been reading my blog. I guess there are a lot of lurkers out there. Don’t worry, I love lurkers.
I asked Aaron to take some photos of the different pieces we brought home. Here they are with descriptions!
Here, of course, is Alfred’s Elephant
Here is our special order for Natalie. Elephants, Mother and Child.
These are the tortoises we special ordered for Lucy. Keep in mind, special order means he carved them at our request. Remember we had asked for a baby turtle and like a true businessman he carved a larger one as well.
When we went into Accra I told Aaron and Leah that if I saw any figures that looked like me (at any point in my life) I would buy them. This one has no resemblance at all, but I bought it anyway:)
Later in Aburi I found this figure and it cracked me up. Leah said, “That doesn’t look like you at all!” (I’ve trained her well!) Then she asked, “Will you please stop buying naked ladies?” LOL I guess she prefers wooden animals.
The night that we did not find a family of four carving, but Alfred promised to carve us one, I bought this wooden bowl. It was perfect to keep our cocoa beans and money in.
Alfred’s older brother, William, carved this family of four for us. He taped a piece of paper with his address and email address to the bottom of it. It is about 10 inches tall.
We picked up a small piece called “Lovers” for our neighbors who had fed our fish while we were gone.
The final piece is the large “Unity” carving that we had picked out and when we returned Robi was looking at it. He later special ordered a smaller one.
In Aburi there was one shop with countless necklaces. We picked out this one for Aaron’s mom. She loves jewelry and asked us to bring her something back. I should have bought two. Can you see the necklace on the lower right hand side? I wore the necklace to her birthday party and she noticed it, “Did you get that in Africa? It’s beautiful.” I smiled and said, “It’s for you!” She was surprised and happy.
Luckily, giving away all of our clothes and supplies left plenty of room in our suitcases to carefully pack all of the carvings. We were happy to find that all of the pieces arrived without any breaks or cracks.
Today I got some more good news for the Signing Time Foundation. You can now use Good Search.com as your search engine and raise money for The Signing Time Foundation! When you search the internet and use Good Search with Signing Time Foundation as your non-profit of choice, each search generates 2 cents for us. This may not seem like a lot, but think of how often you search the internet and think of how many of us there are! It uses the Yahoo search engine. One way to remember to search for us is to set www.goodsearch.com as your homepage. It’s just a little thing, but it can make a big difference! So, spread the word, the more the merrier. Do a great thing and start using GoodSearch today!
Actually I wore it a few weeks ago to my brother-in-law’s 40th birthday party because I had just come from a performance and had no time to change. Sure I felt silly, but all of the kids thought I was better than a party clown! My own nieces and nephews shied away, slightly shocked and nervous to see Aunt Rachel’s alter-ego in real life. 
