Good article in Bloomberg yesterday describing the booming funeral business in Ghana. Visitors to Ghana learn this quickly, as funeral processions in the streets, with music and dancing and singing, are common throughout the country. Not to mention the elaborate custom coffins which reflect the essence of the deceased person’s life; they can look like a fish (for a fisherman), a bible (for a preacher), or a sneaker (for an athlete).
With the support of Whole Planet Foundation, four college kids traveled to Guatemala to conduct research about how the poor must budget their money. They tried living on $1 a day.
Here is the first installment of their documentary:
The authorities in Nairobi continue to recover from the major airport fire earlier this week. Good news — Kenya says it will resume all international flights today (Aug 9) at its main airport (Jomo Kenyatta International).
For our volunteers currently in Kenya who are scheduled to fly home this week, Cosmic Volunteers will continue to work with you and your families back home to re-schedule your flights and/or book new flights out of Kenya.
Online accounts we are following for updates:
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s life.”
-Mark Twain
Samuel from Australia is working in Cosmic Volunteer’s journalism internship program in Ghana — at Pravda Radio Station in Ghana in west Africa. Thanks so much for joining us in Africa, Sam!
Check out our new Pinterest boards at http://pinterest.com/cosmicabroad
Today we released the new version of Cosmic Volunteer’s website. This is our first re-design in years. We’re now running PHP on WordPress, leaving behind our HTML site. Enjoy!
Jon from Texas just volunteered in Kenya at a community school in Mombasa.
This post is to report that as of today’s date April 27, 2013 our client Hannah Olson owes Cosmic Volunteers an outstanding balance of $385 for her trip to Nepal in October 2012.
Ms. Olson has refused to pay the balance despite the fact that Cosmic Volunteers provided everything promised to her — a volunteer placement, accommodations, meals, airport pickup, pre-trip advice, and 24 hour support.
We are posting this information as a warning to other volunteer organizations who may come into contact with her. We have full documentation of everything, including Ms. Olson’s agreeing in writing January 2013 to a monthly payment plan to pay off the balance.
We at Cosmic Volunteers create custom volunteer handbooks for our group service learning trips abroad. Below is a small excerpt from our Volunteer Handbook — Service Learning in Kenya.
Tips — Traveling from USA to Kenya
