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

DJ Hannah Montana and the Chocolate Waterfall

Hello,

It has been a busy few weeks so I haven’t spent much time blogging.

So let me break this up into a few parts

Part 1

Two weeks ago was Ohum Festival, so they celebrated by having a little get together at the Chiefs place. Right before my science lecture I was informed that we were leaving… So I guess science is cancelled today? We went to the Chiefs compound where they had set up canopies and chairs for the guests. I sat with all the teachers from the primary and JHS. They had a DJ and an MC who lead the event. The MC screamed into the microphone and really enjoyed singing along during the frequent musical interludes. The DJ (who I named DJ Hannah Montana due to the amount of Hannah Montana stickers covering his laptop and other gear) had some pretty sweet tricks. He had some buttons that would play sounds like lasers or the end buzzer of a basketball quarter through his extremely loud and incredibly close speakers.  The “Event” I guess you could call it began and the MC rambled on for a long time and lead the students standing behind the guests in song. Eventually the lasers sounds were pressed over and over again (my signal that something new was going to happen) and some of the elders entered followed by the Chief all dressed up. Nana has a throne with a big picture of himself over it that looks out over the compound. He is pretty old and moves slowly but gracefully. He is very solemn, which I like to see considering most Ghanaians are very loud, it is refreshing to get anyone or anything quiet around here. So the ceremony continued with the prayers and throwing of schnapps on the ground. From what I know the elders/traditional priest are praying while they toss the schnapps onto the ground one of the elders yells something after every statement that is usually a yooo. This time the yells were very high pitched and strange sounding compared to the other times I have seen this ritual so I found myself jumping every 30 seconds or so when the priest let out a crazy unexpected shriek. 

ZOOM ZOOM PEEW PEW PEEEEW the lasers came again and now they were covering some women with white powder. I don’t know who the women were or what the powder was but DJ Hannah Montana was ready with his special effects. He pulled out his “Give it to Me BABY!” button. While this lady was getting powder poured over her in a ritual a high pitched electronic voice repeated “Give it to me baby!” ….“Give it to me baby!”…. “Give it to me baby!”. I wonder how much DJ Hannah Montana charges for his services? I should have gotten his info in case I ever have any special events. Eventually The Chief gave a speach and I tried to translate as much as I could but the microphone makes Twi really hard to understand. Every Ohum festival the Chief is to make a donation to a charitable cause. Boxes of books were carried out to the middle of the compound labeled “Books for Africa” and he was giving them to the Islamic Primary and JHS. The teachers and students thanked him and some students hauled them off to the school. The ceremony continued and the sun continued to get hotter, after the assembly man decides to talk for over an hour I lost interest in Practicing my Twi… they were talking about money… at most events the main topic is money…. And whatever donations are given they are never private. All money issues are talked about openly. Even in church when you give everyone knows how much everyone else gives you have to do it in front of everybody and they will read out loudly what you have given. They never seem to get bored with it either; they will spend hours at funerals, festivals, church, weddings, talking about money to no end over the microphone. After they finally finished talking about money a heated argument broke out for a long time with teachers yelling, then parents yelling, then students yelling, then the Chief would speak, Then the MC would delegate who’s turn it was to yell into the microphone. I could only understand bits of it and my decision to wait until after my science class to eat anything turned out to be a bad idea because now it was the afternoon it was hot and I hadn’t eaten anything all day. So I sat there half passed out wishing the yelling would end soon…knowing that it probably wouldn’t because if one person yells about something everybody else has to yell about it too and we still had half the crowd waiting in line for the microphone.

After what seemed like years….. freedom!!! On our way back I asked one of the teachers about the discussion and apparently what I had gotten from my interpretation was completely off. They had been discussing something completely different than I thought for hours, which I found slightly amusing… I really need to keep practicing Twi. Actually I am getting much better and I have been practicing but most people talk too fast for me. If I ask them to “Ka no Boko Wei” say it slowly please I can usually get it the second time around. My students get a kick out of it when I speak Twi to them too. They are only supposed to speak English in school but some of them can barely speak/understand English. Sometimes instead of trying harder to understand English they space out and don’t listen so I like to switch to Twi and say something funny to startle them and wake them up.

Anyways we get back to the little office at the JHS and the teachers begin looking through the Spoils of the Ohum festival. The chief had sent over the boxes of books, biscuits, some minerals, and a gas can full of palm wine. I passed on the biscuits and minerals I wanted to eat something other than junkfood for lunch. I watched as the teachers curiously dug through the boxes of books while I worked on my lesson plan for math the next day, and figured out when I would teach the missed science class. Next thing I know there is a mug full of palm wine in front of me. Well I didn’t have any classes left that day and according to Ghanaians palm wine is good for you if you have been in the heat or the sun (which we were all afternoon). The palm wine tasted amazing after such a long hot afternoon it tastes like coconut water but much sweeter and a little milkier. I enjoyed my coffee mug of palm wine while I watched the teachers discuss a book on wizardology. They had found a big colorful book entitled “wizardology”. It is one of those books if your kid loves Harry Potter or something you would get them for Christmas. It is big and has all the information and pictures on things like the sorcerers stone, magic, and mystical creatures. The teachers were absolutely fascinated especially my headmaster. I was getting a major kick out of it, most Ghanaians believe in witches, spells, curses, magic, and all that jazz. Even some of the most educated Ghanaians I have met said they would never ever go to the parasailing festival and no Ghanaian ever would because you never know when you have been cursed. This is how they explained it to me: Apparently you never know if someone like the electrician who came to your house was really a witch and has cursed your family and if you were to go parasailing you would surely die, so they would never risk it. I had to think that one through for a while, I couldn’t really believe it. Some people have claimed to have seen magic first hand and that is why they believe it. So the teacher’s fascination with the Harry Potter encyclopedia just affirmed this strange cultural difference.

I hadn’t had a drink since the last time I left site so I enjoyed drinking my alcoholic beverage that doesn’t taste like alcohol out of a coffee mug in the school office at only 2pm in the afternoon. For some reason there is something amusing drinking an alcoholic beverage out of a coffee mug at work, I guess I never thought that would happen to me. I am not sure why I felt so guilty about it…how alcoholic is palm wine anyway?.....when in Ghana….Sometimes I get these weird moment when I realize, wow, I am not in Nebraska anymore. I am out in a tiny village with a headache thanks to DJ Hannah Montana and MC Kwaku, wondering which teacher will be the lucky one to get the Wizardology book while I drink palm wine out of a coffee mug.

Part 2

Last week I went to Accra to pick up some awesome packages and mail from friends and family. Thank you all!! I love getting letters, it makes me so happy on the inside. I went with Melissa to do a bit of shopping and spent way too much of my PC pay at lunch. Accra is expensive, so I won’t be going back for awhile. It is hard because you say you won’t go to the irish pub and eat American food and drink beer…but….you get there and realize you will be eating the same foods and spending no money when at site for weeks…so you should probably go have an awesome lunch at the irish pub with friends.

Anyways eating at site isn’t that bad either. Melissa brought her plants over to transplant so after working in the garden we cooked an awesome meal of squash curry, salad, and spring rolls (see pictures). I can eat paleo easy here but it would be cheaper if I didn’t. I have spent ridiculous amounts of time in my garden so soon I should be spending nothing on food and eating all my fresh fruits and veggies. It takes forever to do dishes here so I usually make a big salad or curry and then eat it for the next few days so I don’t have to cook. I got balsamic vinegar in a care package so I don’t mind eating cucumber, tomato, avocado, and onion salads everyday.

Veg Curry and Salad....what I eat at my site most days

our attempt at fried spring rolls

A well desreved feast

It is so nice to be able to cook for oursleves

Our fried spring rolls tasted a lot better than they looked :)

Moving on.

Waterfalls.

Best Sunday Ever.

Well not really but it was great. I worked in my garden all morning it was beautiful out so I went to Nto’s and I went with all his little munchkins to the waterfalls.  I was told it was a 10 min walk from Kwaku Sae. Now Kwaku Sae is a small village that I was told was only a 10 minute walk from Nto’s house…. That is if you can walk  almost 2 miles in 10 minutes. I enjoy the walk to Kwaku Sae I take it often to go to the mountains/farm/farmers meetings so a few miles seems like nothing now. So then we headed to the waterfalls from Kwaku Sae (which of course are far more than a 10 minute walk) on a more beaten path through the banana fields and the chocolate mountains. If you ever ask how far away something is in Ghana always multiply the answer by atleast 2….or 5…..The cocoa trees are my favorite and as we walked through the beautiful cocoa farms going up the mountain I wondered if I was in Willy Wonka and the waterfall was going to be a chocolate waterfall and the people in the village there would be Oompa Loompas. Well the 10 minute walk was more of a 30 minute hike with some pretty treacherous rocks. I actually got really sweaty and tired, and I felt like a total wimp because Ntos little kids were doing it barefoot. It was a beautiful and a fun hike with lots of changes of scenery and terrain! Well they were not Oompa loompas but they people of A______ (I cant remember the name of the tiny village) were very nice and it was a cool desolate place with a beautiful view. The Waterfalls were not made of chocolate, but I was not disappointed. A few fallen trees were blocking the more “private” swimming hole so only me and a few of the kids were able to climb over to check it out. We then went back to an area full of little streams and pools to swim and play in the water for awhile. It was really fun watching the kids play and swimming with them. It seems like a really great place to hike to with friends and chill on the rocks, read, picnic, sunbath, and get away for the day. The rock climb down in really fun but I probably would not do it alone just incase I slipped it would be a rough fall down. Hopefully I can get nearby volunteers to come a join me every few weeks.

Eventually we decided we should probably get back it was late afternoon and the hike back was very pleasant and full of beautiful views. When we got back Sister Patience had made fufu for everyone including me so I chopped with them. (see pictures of fufu below). I actually like fufu better than most Ghanaian foods, I really don’t like banku or empece, so they invite me to chop when they make fufu which is often. I prefer to eat fufu at most once a week, I try to stay away from the starchy cassava but every now and then I enjoy it. It is just nice to eat with a family instead of by myself. I always learn a lot during evenings at Nto’s house. Gideon then took me on a walk weaving through compounds in the back of town to see the most adorable little baby puppies. Their eyes were barely open so they still need a few more weeks with their mother. I played with all of them and one took a particular liking to me and I didn’t want to leave him. I am so excited to be able to bring him home in a few weeks. I have been doing some research and I should be able to make my own dog food/balance his diet with local foods just fine. The more I think about him the more I want him so at the beginning of October I am going to take him to MOFA to get vaccinated and start training my new puppy which should be interesting. I will try and get pictures of him ASAP.

Waterfalls near my house!

one of the swimming holes

The kids

leaving A...something...something...(still can't remember the name of the village)

view on the hike down

Little Ebenezer

banana and plantain farm

cocoa forest

home just in time for dinner

soap made from palm nuts

Nto's house

Nto

Sister Patience

Deborah

My Fufu!

For more picture see my latest facebook photo album, there are a lot more of swimming and the waterfalls!