Biela Biela Blog (small small)

Made a quick video of some of the events in my life the past few weeks. Hope everyone has a great holiday. So far the only signs of christmas here I have seen are xmas radio music, and abstract tacky holiday trees outside of the melcoms store in Tamale with the branches all put together wrong. I will probably go to farm and read a book on Christmas and the Dagomba's have their own calendar with a different new year so it will be interesting to see if anything happens in the village. It is Harmattan right now so it's cool (60-90's)! But very dry and extremely dusty. So I constantly have an orange dirt spray tan and cannot hear no matter how many Qtips I use.  Hot season is coming up…dunnn dunnn duuuuunnnn. then Shea season!  Ni ti Yuumpalli!

Video Blog #3 Razack's Wedding

Amaraba Akwaaba Welcome

I have written a few blog posts that I have never posted.

I wonder if it is because after I write them I realize that nobody probably cares about anything I have written at all. (A feeling I get often on facebook and am  motivated to use free internet at our offices to de friend them) I also am myself benefiting from organizing my thoughts and “venting” so it is probably better if I keep my lack of writing skills to myself. Plus who knows who will be reading this.

I wonder if maybe I do not post them because I am worried what people will think of me. (This however has been disproved by how comfortable I feel in floral hammer pants and a geometric print top  sweating profusely waltzing through town completely aware of a giant hole in the lower portion of my hammer pants pretending not to notice because I am not ready to finish my walk and go back to the office)

this is a problem I can fix tomorrow when I have spare pants. And these pants are so comfy it is worth days with large holes.

Note: nobody told me “madam you are having a large hole in your trousers”

Or maybe they were but they were saying it in dagbani so I just replied “I slept well”, “no thank you” or “I go come” because those are the responses to most questions and my dogbani is limited

the problem is I speak enough dogbani that people assume I understand everything but about after 5 sentences I nod/smile/guess. When forming sentences based on vocab and words that have multiple meanings I have accidentally said things VERY wrong. luckily some dogbani speak Twi to avoid the impromptu sign language sessions of mimicking and dog-twi-nglish.

And just to clarify you could only see my lower leg. You know hammer pants. The hole was in the central region but far below any off limits zone because of the hammer style. Another reason I continued my walk. I mean, I don’t want to be a dutch girl waltzing around in shorts inappropriately but I feel my inner knee is not to risqué.

If I appear completely unaware it is not my fault right? They do not know that I know *wink*

plus I have no clean pants so I will do wash tomorrow pinky swear

Or do I not post my blogs because I wonder if what I have written will not convey my real feelings and thoughts properly because I have never been good with words. Almost like I was not doing justice to my experience here by trying to explain it to you with my……(as of right now I am searching 

for the right words to convey my thought, but I cannot seem to find them)

Emily is a bad writer. (third person=tacky=proof of bad writing)You think I would have improved with all the books I have read I mean yesterday I was in a tro tro from 9am to 11:30pm and finished 1.5 books. I forget some of the last part of the book due to dehydration and sleepiness. You cannot drink water when traveling because there is nowhere to pee. Being a girl you are screwed here.  You can ask the driver to stop 4 hours into the bus ride if you need to pee but then you may have to somehow have 15 people packed like sardines to maneuver to let you somehow get off the vehicle that is jammed to capacity. (now this is not how it always is….but let me tell you I have been on some pretty intense rides). Sitting scrunched with my feet off the ground and one women next to me breastfeeding a baby and another child on her lap vomiting while the overweight dude next to me is drooling on my shoulder. Luckily this makes the “normal” tro rides a piece of cake.

The Peace Corps' mission has three simple goals:

1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.

2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.

3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.

So let me help promote a better understanding of these peoples for all you Americans out there.

Now that I have showered and put on some purple hole-less hammer pants and have a stomach full of lettuce, yes lettuce. Perks of Tamale….internet, lettuce, yogurt….I am getting side tracked. Let me back up.

VIEW OF TIGLA my home is on the lower right with the pin

Drying shea nuts in Tigla














When my counterpart found out I had no food he brought me yam and tomato paste (4 yams is expensive to a farmer with little to no income)....i didn't have the heart to tell him I didn't have a stove to cook with.

Fulani a few miles outside Tigla

Micro flush toilet built by Dave Peterson 

The white volta river

I am just a few hours north west of Tamale

I was living in the Eastern region just a bit north west of Accra

but now I am in the Northern region. I just moved into a new house. I am busy starting new projects learning dogbani because they do not speak Twi up here .

Aiysha boiling shea nuts

I live in a compound with a few other teachers so I have a room and we share a bathroom. We are building a garden together and we all get along well. Unless when they are speaking dogbani and I do not understand they could be saying other things like how bad I smell (which is true).  But I think they like me. If I do smell so does everyone else because it is so hot. I am getting used to it though and thankfully it cooled down with rains so I went from sweating 24 hours a day and not being able to sleep to just sweating 23 hours a day and sleeping. I got an extra mosquito net so soon I will be sleeping outside on my yoga mat under a net because it is much cooler outside than in a room.

Not so exciting facts but in case you want to know:

I am now in the Water/Sanitation sector

I am partnered with ITFC an organic mango out grower

I work with a primary school feeding program and am working to improve nutrition

I am also still working on my thesis for USF

My community has 16 compounds I am guessing less than 400 people

I live down by a river (the white volta)

My village has no chop
There is one mosque no churches (or speakers!!!!)

No toilets (other than one for the teachers and at school)

No electricity

My new name is Pumaya

It means free and outgoing

Then I was told it means cool/relaxed

Then I was told it means expecting child

Then I got upset and they said it means respectful child

Then when people say pumaya they rub there bellies and smile….so maybe they did mean expecting child?

Then I was told they are not calling me fat because they mean expecting child in a different way

What way?

I have a wedding ring on

I do not have fufu belly

I do not plan on having a baby

I am going to stick with respectful child. I say please “dimsolo” and “Mpa_a” (thank you has an upside down fish symbol that makes an ych noise so I cannot type it) I say please and thank you a lot….mainly because my dogbani is terrible so saying please and thank you constantly makes me feel better and people then think I can speak dogbane.

My village is beautiful. The flat grasslands full of bright green grass and farms stretch for miles and are full of shea trees (luckily I missed dry season…probably wont be so nice). I bike to nearby villages and am within hours biking distance of other PCV’s when I return home my new neighbors yell my name “pumaya!” and beckon me over and greet me. I sit with them and they teach me to boil shea nuts, crack them, and make shea butter. They laugh as I try to keep up with the old women and copy their routine that they make look so easy. They then try to take my nut cracker paddle thing away and tell me to go rest but I continue to finish the work with the other girls……they laugh……I am the entertainment of my village. I am happy to entertain such beautiful people.

Also if you are ever in a bad mood or need to release some energy paddling Shea nuts is a great release….invigorating and relaxing at the same time somehow.

They take me to farm and we plant watermelon and groundnuts. We collect shea and I made the mistake of saying “the fruit is sweet” so now everyone brings me gifts of shea fruit (which is okay but makes me a bit ill and is hard no eat without the fake “mmmm thank you *gag*”

the little nuggets come to my door pants-less with t shirts full of shea nuts so I wash them and put them in a bowl and pretend to eat them while I convince them they have to help me.

FYI nuggets are the adorable bobble head 3 year olds but i consider all cute babies to 12 year olds nuggets. most kids look a few years younger than what we are used to in the states. I often get nuggets carrying nuggets. 7 year olds or younger carrying their baby sibling on there back who is half their size.

yet they smile. I get out my flash cards and they help me pronounce dogbani words and we reenact them and laugh and practice english and dogbani.

I go to school to help the women prepare food for the children when I come all the kids poke their heads out and yell Puuu----myyyy-aaaaaa! I apologize for disturbing but the teachers they greet me and help answer all my questions. If a class is not having a teacher I go and play with the kids. I am trying to learn Dogbani and they are learning English so I figure hey we can help each other out…..it mainly turns into them laughing at me and looking confused and then we play the banana raison game which they love…and….then….I got nothing….sooo….. m chaη k aka na…..I go find something else to do like garden, read a book, or explore the bush paths on my bike.

I do not have electricity so I use a solar panel to charge my lights, ipod, and speakers. The teachers also do the same. I can leave my bike outside, my hammock, my solar charger, and no one will touch them.  People are respectful.

Whenever I greet anyone my age or older I drop to my knee or a crouch and ask for their health or if they slept well. Everyone I pass on my bike waves and we bow to each other. When the children come over after school and I bring out my art supplies they stare at it. I give them paper. They stare at it. I give them a crayon. They stare at it. I help them write their name. They place the crayon exactly back in its spot in the box.

My coloring party was a fail. In the south kids would have been grabbing and fighting over the crayons and destroying them while coloring as much as possible.

After a while I had drawn all the kids different animals and their names in block letters and they colored them very diligently (or their older siblings helped them). Later when I was sitting with some of the women their children came up holding their pictures smiling and laughing rambling in dogbani.

The Fulani are in my area right now. They herd cattle and migrate from Niger and Burkina. They also have milk and cheese. Due to lack of food (and electricity) in my village I have been on a diet mainly of wagashi, mangos, and groundnuts. I learned quickly how to bike out and find the Fulani houses and say "afternoon, how are you, please, I want wagashi, please, thank you....i am happy....thank you...buhbye" I was sick the first few days from massive wagashi intake and nothing else but honestly in the south my favorite foods were wagashi and mangos which are hard to get and right now I am in the land of wagashi and mangos....I pictured the north as some desolate desert (I haven't been through hot season and harmattan here yet so my perspective could change) but so far its more of a shea savannah.But also shea is seasonal so that will be over soon too. I hope my lavender I planted grows fast so i can get to work on my homemade lavender shea butter.

I love the north.

but also I do not have a fan and it is hard to sleep when its 100+ and no fan...I have used a folder to fan myself while laying my bed trying to sleep and its not even hot season. If they can do it I can do it.

fan...sigh....

 positive note:

yoga mat +bikram sessions on my solar charged ipod= free hot yoga! 24/7 I even have incense!

Peace Corps isn’t always peachy keen. If I were to generalize it is constant amusing weirdness (no...thats not it...but i will behere for hours if I try to sum it up in a few words). I don’t hate all the terrible things that happen because it makes life exciting and interesting. If I were not so easily amused peace corps may not have been the best place for me.

Also I have to brush off a lot of things. I have had a hard past few months and it has definitely been a rollercoaster. Sometimes I wonder if I am crazy because I feel like I should be upset. I am moved, my computer breaks, I cannot write my quarterly report, I lose everything from my old site, I show up to my new site and have one bottle of water and no filter, no way to cook and nobody around. No furniture and it rains and the roof leaks and all my thing are on the wet ground. It is weird thinking about all the bad things that have happened. For some odd reason I am not upset. Other people feel sorry for me and have been helping me with my problems, and that is the one thing that makes me feel bad. My problems are nothing. My site evacuation rocked my world and I do not think I have ever been through anything harder in my life but I made it through, and most the women in my village have endured things 10 times worse than what I did. I know the world has problems but when you are sitting with a group of women who have been kayayo’s and been put through things I cannot imagine and we are laughing and singing and I cannot get enough of there beautiful smiles and something inside you changes.

This is the most important part of my peace corps experience

But also I have my thesis and I am lucky enough to have the training and resources to help my new home as well as the surrounding villages. Behavior change is a hard thing. Why not sh*t in the bush when you are surrounded by bush? Why would you sh*t near your home? I cannot just come in and tell them “hey OD is BAD, STOP, DO this instead”…..it is hard. I cannot just say you shouldn’t process shea this way. Look at all the wood you are wasting?the carbon! The deforestation! But it is tradition, and there is plenty of wood. SO why improved cook stoves? Why change what my mother and great grandmother and ancestors did. Sustainability is hard. Writing my report for future research is hard because this takes time and I do not have time. I have to be patient and take many precautions to try to make the largest impact I can by empowering my community to improve themselves instead of me trying to improve them.

I better get back to writing my quarterly report I am working with a new toilet design that will be making a large impact on the developing world thanks to Dr. Mecca and I am also looking into improve shea processing to reduce carbon emmissions as well as food storage and drying. But in-between all of this my life is full of moments I will never forget.

We just had a PCV media IST and I would encourage you to watch our videos

The shea video was shot about an hour bike ride from where I live so it gives you a good idea of what spending time with my girls in Tigla is like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V95gT6fHZHU

4^th of July is coming and in Peace Corps 4^th of July is a big deal. I will hopefully have lots of photos of me in my new northern smocks at our celebrations soon. It is funny how in America I was never really a big fouth of July fan but man, let me tell you, when you are a minority, we congregate and do justice for the sake of our independence day….I hear warriors and a parade may be in order….as well as potato salad and fried chicken of course.

To all my pen pals here is my new address

Emily Adams

Peace Corps Ghana Tamale Sub Office

 PO box #962

Tamale, Northern Region

Ghana

West Africa

I also apologize for those of you who sent letter during my evacuation I asked if they could get my mail for me but I think many of you sent letters that never made it to me at my Asamankese address.

I wish I had more pictures but because I am trying to fit in with my community I don’t like bringing out the camera. There are so many moments I wish I could capture to share. I really believe the PCV media videos are worth watching. I am so proud of what they have done and I hope I can help with producing more throughout my time here and hopefully soon make more videos of my personal expriences for you to see.

http://www.youtube.com/user/PCAVGhana


****organizing photos, text, editing, and everything else is very hard with practically non existent sketchy internet...so I apologize for the spelling and photos not going in the right place

Deal with it

Emily/Pumaya......the un-pregnant hopefully not looking pregnant Pumaya. I will get down to the bottom of it eventually. It is hard when it is a language where one word means 500 different things in different context

yours truly



appendix I

the other day we had a long discussion about jokes/sense of humor here. Here is a Ghanaian joke for you (stolen from another volunteer)

a man says to another man from the north "ayy! what happened to your face?"

a moto accident?
a robbery?
a fight?

the man replies: "no boss, it is my fathers signature"

NOW this is the point where ghanaians laugh hysterically....and I think to myself....everyone in the north has facial scarring and tribal marks....it is the signature of their family/tribe......why is this so funny....maybe I should laugh but why?......often times someone is talking to me and looking for a response and I realize "oh no, was that a joke? I should probably laugh...otherwise they will keep starring at me waiting and wondering why I am not amused...


In defense....I do not think jokes translate well....it is probably deeper than we realize...i hope.

in a sense they fly right over my head not because of comprehension but because of the fact that common knowledge is not funny in most cases unless used cleverly with a pun (a good pun at that)

or it could be comprehension....most likely. I should not judge because our jokes make no sense to them. also you cannot say "making sense here" it is derogatory.

Let me sum up this rant by saying: I am jealous of bi-tri-multi- lingual people. going to ashanti and speaking twi like a boss then hearing the radio and not comprehending the message.....then 6 hours late I can impress people with dogbani but then they continue and I cannot understand what they could possibly be talking about. Often I translate as much as possible and ask what the conversation was about and am completely off.

tonal languages.


and to end on a happy note (for the second time)

“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is to not stop questioning.”

Einstein

Is it really the holidays? It feels more like hamatan

I do not have time to tell you all about thanksgiving, school, exams, research, farm, or our education reconnect, or basically 99.9% of my life right now. But, I will tell you something. That is why I have a blog right? Yesterday elections took place in Ghana. I am not allowed to leave my village for a 5 day or so period around elections to ensure safety. On Election Day I did not leave my house because there was a polling station in my village. I woke up sweating with chef curled up next to me. FYI the sweating was due to my fan being off=”lights off”. This happened the past few mornings by the afternoon or even earlier “lights on” so no worries. Just don’t open the fridge and use my solar speakers for music and the lights will be back on eventually. So since I could not leave my house my goal was to have a relaxing day (no gardening or heavy cleaning) finish some paperwork, get a chunk of my quarterly report transferred from my field notes, and then play with my puppy and watch Downton Abbey or human planet for hours. I never watched movies at site but after thanksgiving/reconnect I collected a lot of new things to watch. This is not a bad thing because most movies bore me so I wont get stuck doing nothing all day….but human planet….pretty sure I could waste a day watching it, which I can only do with a few choice series. Excited for my lazy day I prepared my normal coffee finished grading the final set of a zillion exams (I do not exaggerate I am an American not a Ghanaian) I cleaned the house and kitchen before preparing to be extremely lazy for as long as I possibly could. “light off” still….computer battery 12%....ugh. It is kind of sad that I have to plan out being lazy….but I was very excited to watch human planet for hours and not feel any regret or remorse for unproductiveness. I vowed not to garden, not to do any intense cleaning, or finish my quarterly report yet….this was my day. I sat angrily amusing my pup with his new favorite toy I found him in Accra waiting for the lights to come on. I texted my teachers. They announced in Asamankese (the large nearby town) that “light on” would be at 4 pm…..alright no worries….. and guess what the lights came on at 5 pm ( 4 pm Ghanaian time). The speakers started blasting from the town I could here all the election craziness just get even crazier with the addition of electricity. So I went to turn on my fan…nada….my voltage regulator…asaaaa….. ummm why does my house not have electricity? I checked the fuse box and decided….it will come eventually. Yeah I sat in my home reading books by candlelight (almost out of candles fyi) watching water drip from my fridge as all my food begins to rot…luckily most food here doesn’t require refrigeration so my veggies and things are all good but chefs food and sausages that I prepare in big batches to last him all week was probably getting pretty rank.  Now it was too late to garden because I would get eaten alive and my new painting would be hard to start without proper lighting, and so I gave my self a mani-pedi  (life is so rough in peace corps *sigh*) crossing my fingers that my solar speakers and ipod would not die (the speakers in town were extra loud) luckily it was a sunny day so they were charged proper. Chef and I took a nice bath which he is actually really good about even now that he is bigger he is not hard the bath and I clipped his nails which he hates. We went to bed and listened to the blaring speakers from the town and did not cuddle due to body heat and lack of fan purposes. The next day I still couldn’t leave town but at least I could go beg to charge my things somewhere and pick up some new food for chef in town.

I awoke to the sound of whirling….yes my fan whirles loudly… yay. Maybe all food (especially recently received care package gifts) have not been too spoiled from 24 hours of heat. So I made my coffee and went to garden…..yeah don’t leave your garden for 2 weeks. My plants are fine except my pumpkins got some fungi thing going on I gotta treat but the weeds …..my lordy…they done grow might tall. My machete has grown very dull…. Due to the amount of coconuts I eat and leaving it out to rust on accident (multiple times). I really just didn’t feel like a machete type of mood I slaved hours with the weeds before I left making sure it would be manageable when I returned…and to come home to this….jungle of weeds….I cannot believe it….. it made my heart hurt. Can’t deal with the garden the plants (the most important) are fine and weeded I’ll worry about it later. New plan! Guest bedroom. So I am the 8^th volunteer to live in this bungalow, meaning 8 other people have left a lot of things behind. Some extremely useful (I am so thankful!) but just…boxes…and boxes…..

So I had confined chef to the main living room, hallway and my bedroom. I was getting sick of stepping over the blockade I created and decided to puppy proof the kitchen, bathroom, guest bedroom, and other hallway.  The past week I bought a bunch of bleach, anticeptic, soap,  and other cleaning supplies I was running low on so I went to town with my bathroom area and am very proud of the results. All chemicals are contained and out of puppy reach as well as it is nice to have everything orderly and immaculate…then….dun dun dun….(dramatic tone drop) the guest bedroom. Very nice until you look under the bed……8 years of volunteers s*** I had been through briefly sorting out the useful getting rid of the nasty and saving the unsure. Now it was time for the purge. I started organizing boxes….tools…bike stuff…education..screening…..papers…papers….papers….sheets….millions of condoms (still haven’t checked dates yet but I can add them to my own personal condom collection peace corps provided me with)…..hopefully this whole celibacy thing won’t last forever but right now I am not sexually active with an obscene amount of condoms around my house. So I went through box by box organizing, cleaning, and to my great luck discover a family of rodents! I had already disposed of a dead rodent a month ago that probably got ahold of the poison in the kitchen left out to eradicate them (one reason chef was confined to only half the house). So I found a dead rodent and some surviving family members. Now I feel like I should not go into what happened next/I don’t want to think about it. Luckily I skipped lunch and had nothing to vomit otherwise that may have been an issue.

There were no survivors.

Moving on…So I focused on the sorting of the boxes, checking exp dates on things, and washing tool containers of the things in them that were not tools. Pretty soon I had two Ghana Gucci’s fully organized and no more cardboard boxes. Totally puppy proof, mouse proof, mouse free, and awesome. I re-cleaned the guest bedroom….anticeptisized (yes I am making up a word) everything and started thinking about what painting/organization will go best.

So the disposal part was the hardest….luckily thanks to the weeds capable of growing a metre a day my garbage area is impossible to see now. My neighbors like to go through my trash. It is okay until I find all my trash strewn around my house because they found it interesting for 5 seconds then threw it back on the ground. I wasn’t sure how to go about it….I know some things I threw out were just disgusting or not useful. I am sure there are a few things someone might have used though…. I am just not sure how to say in Twi “would you like this 10 year old pair of pliers that have a broken handles and are warped and a ripped blanket that smells like rotton fish and probably had rodents living in it?” So I just got rid of it all….I just hope tomorrow it is not all scattered around my house……

Ahhh….my house is so clean (African standards fyi) and chef is free to roam the whole house now. Although even with his new freedom he doesn’t leave the living room much. And now my guest bedroom is ready for decoration and I don’t have to worry about chef getting into the millions of things shoved under it because they are gone.

It just started down pouring ( “lights off” possibly) so I put all my buckets out to collect from my gutters yay free water! Sadly though I don’t mind fetching water because I enjoy the work out and I get to hang out and practice Twi with my neighbors who don’t speak a word of English as far as I can tell, if the lights stay on I am starting a new mural tonight….or watching human planet…..or basically whatever I feel like doing. The great thing about being a Peace Corps Volunteer is the freedom to choose what to do with my time.

I am sad I missed the Ghostland concert

I am sad I cannot see my friends or call them whenever I want

I am glad I have some of the best friends in the world though who write me (even though I am horribly slow at writing back) and will always be able to pick up our relationship where we left off.

I love and miss everyone. I also love it here and cannot imagine leaving Ghana right now.

You know that month of thanks thing people were doing on thanksgiving…well I will sum my 20-whatever days of thanks into one “I am thankful for my life. I am positive  it is the best life ever. Seriously. I cannot wait to see where my life continues to take me because I am loving every minute of it.”

Except certain minutes…I DO NOT LIKE KILLING ANIMALS OR LIVING THINGS…it just has to happen sometimes….sorry……but every other minute I really do love.

Cheers

Em

Update: I wrote this a few days ago. So I have a little dis’ting to add. They have giant gutters all over Ghana for those of you who don’t know. I have a goal to not fall in one during my stay here…. which seems inevitable….if you see them you will understand. One morning I woke up to a moat around my house (AKA the beginning of the building of a gutter) so now I have to cross this moat every morning with my bike. I have fallen twice….I don’t count it as a sewer fall because it is more of a ditch/moat fall. Anyway this morning on my way to school my bike decided to break and as I tried to recover without falling. I managed to not recover, fall, and roll down into the moat. My injuries were minor just some pretty nice scrapes and big bruises and some small bleeding. An entire tro tro stopped to watch they all said “ooooh…..sorry oh” then starred at me for awhile…then drove off. It is not everyday you get to see an Obruni eat in and roll into a ditch….I made a lot of peoples day.

BUSY-O

Sorry I haven't updated. I have been traveling for Gardening IST, Thanksgiving, and Education Reconnect IST.

Here are some pictures though for those who are not on Facebook of malaria education, beekeeping, and other things


http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.705326802535.2103029.26404635&type=1&l=bad6c87d14

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.701696333025.2102598.26404635&type=1&l=9deb7ddc91


I will try and write a fascinating and enthralling post soon.

Cheers

Emily

No more cheese for Emily

Wow it has been awhile so I thought I better send out an update. I am working on a new video blog because I know they are much more interesting than reading what I have to write. Sorry-O it won’t be for a while because I am somehow extremely busy. I thought editing video would be a great way to pass long hours with nothing to do…. But the long hours with nothing to do have yet to come.

So today is a glorious day. I have been traveling all week and am finally back at site. I fell asleep at 8pm last night and slept a nice 11 hours through all the noises that begin at 5am. Chef was waiting impatiently outside my door when I woke up…apparently he does not need 11 hours of sleep. He lost bed privileges due to puppy bladder control issues so now he has a pillow in the living room that he spends many hours napping and sleeping on.

So today is a holiday so no school. I have the whole day to myself. I am very excited to get caught up on my life after a busy week. I have all day to work on my lit review, respond to letters, play with my puppy, work in my garden, make papaya ice cream…or papaya anything on my way back to site I passed through a town that has huge bags of papaya for a cedi because they are harvesting so many right now. So now I will be eating papaya for the next few days

So last Saturday I went with some volunteer for a day at the beach. I had a long week at school. A rollercoaster would best describe it. Someday the kids are great they participate in the lesson, they get so excited when I bring balloons, or a thermometer for a simple science experiment or math calculation, we laugh, we play, they do their homework.

Then the days where it is clear that out of my 63 kids only a few understand English, let alone my accent. Most of them don’t want to be there. Most of them don’t care. They mock me during class. They make excuses, tattle-tell, and no matter how slowly or how many times I give directions they fail to follow anything I say. Somedays I am so worn out, my voice is gone, my head is pounding, and I wonder what I could have accomplished with all that energy working on my other projects.

So enough about school but an invite to the beach sounded rejuvenating. So chef and I enjoyed a day at the beach and on our way back in the afternoon we stopped and when I was coming out of a bathroom a dog ran up behind me and grabbed my ankle. It was a pretty big dog but it let go quickly and ran off. I didn’t see any damage so we continued our way back and I noticed later a few drops of blood on my ankle and it was a bit sore. So I ended up having to go to Accra to get a rabies vaccination….well two actually. So Sunday I went to accra Monday I came back Tuesday I taught all day and graded a million papers for hours (63 kids=lots of homework grading) then Wed morning headed back to accra again.

It worked out well because I met a lot of volunteers and got to find out as much info as possible on aquaculture in Ghana. There are some farmers in my village interested in raising fish so I am currently trying to figure out the feasibility of a project and get educational materials for the farmers (and myself). Well I learned there are not many resources in Ghana, but I had the chance to follow many leads in Accra and get a better idea what I am in for. I also met a volunteer who was wanting to help food security build an aquaponics system in the Accra PC office…… ummm, excuse me…aquaponics….I LOVE AQUAPONICS. So luckily they did not know much about aquaponics so I jumped right in and offered any help they wanted. I got to tag along on a field trip to see the only and very new aquaponics endeavor in Ghana. It was very interesting and a bit different than I expected. I learned a lot from Chris the guy running it (a returned PCV) about aquaponics and aquaculture resources and issues in Ghana.

Anyways there are a lot of roadblocks especially in aquaponics due to the requirement of a pump of some sort and fish feed which is supper expensive and unavailable in Ghana. At the Accra office they are wanting to use a bicycle rope pump……ummm…. BICYCLE….WATER PUMP… cough..cough…..please please let me design and build this. Now we are looking into raising tilapia so we could try using an algae bloom and local compost for food, which would actually make it feasible for rural application (what I am considering for aquaculture projects). I am not sure though how that will effect an aquaponics system (clogging the pump, ph balance, plant nutrients, filtration). The aquaponics system we visited is using feed so if we could use food security funding to set up a small system at the accra office to see if we can pull it off we could learn so much. Let alone create a solution to the fish feed problem!

Any way I am very excited about being able to help out by sizing the system and giving my input (Luckily for them I had been reading crazy amount of literature on these topics and have past experience with aquaponics). Hopefully because of Peace Corps food security interest it will get built and I can be apart of it. Although I plan on doing aquaculture and not aquaponics with my farmers both projects can benefit from each other.

So if I never got bit by a dog this wouldn’t have happened J how ironic

It feels good to do solve problems like how big of a system can a bike pump run. Doing calculations makes me feel like an engineer again. Although my calculator I brought is not working which is a bit of a bummer.

Hmm lets see…other parts of my life:

My garden is great, it is a lot of trial and error but I am starting my second compost bin (well actually third someone stole my second one I built…who steals a compost bin…come on) and about to harvest my compost crop. I have planted a ton more seedlings in hope to stop spending money on veggies.

baby pineapple

compost bin number 2 and future duck area

satchet seedlings

 Drying Moringa to make powder

When I get tired of reading I play music and I paint my walls

When I was in Accra they have a store called Koala which has tons of Obruni things and is very expensive. I walk around looking at everything, picking up things, putting them back. Fresh broccoli 40 cedi a Kg… I would kill for broccoli but when you get 350 cedi a month to live off of you cant spend that much on broccoli. I then made my way around staring longingly at all the things I want but can’t have. I then found the frozen broccoli 8 cedi a bag...okay not bad…but I can eat for a week in my village for 8 cedi…pick it up… put it back… pick it up…. Put it back…. I finally parted with the frozen broccoli. They have a deli, I decided I hadn’t had cheese in 6 months so I should probably fix that. The wheels and containers of cheese are too expensive plus too big. Looking at the crazy prices at the deli I found the cheaper ones and asked what kind it was, the lady cut of a small sample…..oh man….what about that one? Another sample. I continued to try as many of the cheeses as possible. If only you could know what cheese tastes like after 6 months without it. I then watched as a lady bought 10 slices and saw the price. I will take two slices. I walked out with a very small amount 2 cedi ($1) worth of cheese, some toothpaste, and a belly full of samples. I ate my cheese savoring it, 2 slices was plenty because it tasted so rich.

So that night I got unbelievable sick, I don’t think I slept at all I felt like an alien was going to tear out of my stomach, I vomited for the first time since training. I am not sure if it was the cheese, but I doubt I will be eating cheese again. Apparently at site some people eat laughing cow, powdered milk, and fan ice so it keeps there stomach somewhat used to dairy. I never buy laughing cow, powdered milk, or fan ice (the ice cream things here). So I think maybe my body went back to being lactose intolerant.

So friends and family I miss you all! I am going to go work in my garden (there is a window when I don’t get eaten alive by bugs). I have a long list of people to write back too so I will get on it later today, I love hearing from everyone and I am excited to have some time to catch up on writing back.

Em