Ghanaian entrepreneurs are fun people to chat with. They have seen enough movies to know that some people in this world are unbelievably wealthy, and when they compare themselves to Americans, they know that their resources and opportunities are limited. And yet they’re cheerful, optimistic, and driven. Focused. The resources that are available to our clients are used with a precision that I’m not used to seeing in America: expenditures need to maximize human capital (through nutrition or education) and financial capital (through their micro-businesses). The hyper-efficient-entrepreneur-of-the-week award goes to Koopa.

Koopa runs one of the most successful farms in our district. In fact, his farm is large enough that he was never interested in the $100-$600 microloans that Lumana offers. All the work on his 20 acre farm is done with a hoe, and he has a strict schedule of walking to the field at 5am every morning, stopping for a long lunch and nap, and then working all evening, when the temperature has cooled down enough for the back-breaking work. He is 33 years old, with a wife, five kids, and big plans for growing his business.

When Chris and I arrived at Koopa’s farm to say hi, he was very eager to ask for updates about Lumana’s upcoming investment in Mr Sena’s tomato processing plant. Koopa told us that he is working on a contract with Sena to sell a specified amount of tomatoes at a low price. Every year both parties would be able to predict price and quantities. With Ghana’s volatile produce markets, this would be the first time that Koopa could make reliable plans about cash flow, so the increased production of tomato puree will create almost as many tangible effects in his life as it will for Sena.

Koopa is also excited about the fish farm system that is coming to his village. Since he was a child, he wanted to develop a large fish farm.  So since Lumana’s partner, Solve Farms, started talking about setting up an aquaponics business with a tilapia farm, Koopa has been trying to learn every detail about starting the farm and preparing for the fish. As Solve begins building the pond in the next few months, Koopa will be studying each step of the process.

But he knows that his fish farm will have to wait: first he needs to finish developing a 500-bird chicken farm, and finish construction on his restaurant. He’s working off of an impressive business model where he cuts out middle-men at every step. He knows that he needs more composted manure for his crops, so instead of buying from the ranches that are over a hundred kilometers from his fields, he is developing the chicken coup to access their dung as fertilizer for his produce. Since he already grows corn, he doesn’t need to buy very much chicken food—just a vitamin/mineral supplement. So he can sell eggs and meat at a higher profit. And the simple restaurant he’s building will eventually be able to sell food that primarily comes from his chicken farm, produce farm, or corn farm. One day, his fish farm will also supply the restaurant. In each of these side-businesses, Koopa will capture all the income from the farm field to the restaurant plate.

Today I spent six hours talking with Koopa about strategies for his business. After crunching numbers about chickens, loans and savings, Koopa went home to mull over the benefits of saving for several months before starting the chicken farm, as well as putting his other business expansions on hold until after he starts seeing egg revenues. I think our plans today will save him over $1,000 in interest charges (compared to plans he once had to get a loan from a formal bank).  That means today is a good day in Ghana.

I have been back in the US for about a week and am only now really getting used to the swing of things. The pace of life back here is much different than in Ghana but it has been very nice to connect back up with family and friends. My time in Ghana was filled to the brim with amazing experiences, hard work, some of the nicest people I have ever met and, yes, uncomfortably high temperatures. Yet, as life goes, some things must come to an end, but I will continue to hold onto everything I have learned in my ten weeks in Ghana. I do already miss the food, the market days, the trips to the beach, and the work. However, what I do miss the most, are the people. Ghanaian people are so welcoming and truly make you feel so much a part of their community. As well, even though I know I will see them soon, I miss the US staff there in Ghana who taught me so much and made my experience so exhilarating and enjoyable.

In looking back on the time that I spent in Ghana, it truly was an amazing experience for me in which I learned so much, both in terms of practical skills and about my future career plans. This primarily came about through my work with Sena and his business Tip Top Foods Inc. Although I have never taken an accounting course in college, my work with Tip Top Foods really opened up the accounting world to me and gave me a good basis to build on for future learning and application. To work on compiling a financial statement and balance sheet from scratch was both an exhilarating and frustrating experience. It really made me realize the complex process of tracking a business’ financials as well as the importance of such information for investment acquisition. I also had the opportunity to develop a strong, familial relationship with Sena who is such an inspiring individual to learn from and spend time with. I already have plans to continue working with him when I travel back to Ghana in the near future.

My work with Blossom Farms also taught me a lot in terms of the complex process of land acquisition and leasing agreements in Ghana. Although I did have to leave before we were able to come to an official agreement over the lease, it was a very rewarding experience to work with Nancy, the landowner, and Blossom Farms to help bring about a sustainable farming system in the south of Ghana. I definitely learned much about patience in the whole process and how all of the time invested in a project can really be worth it all in the end. Although I am presently not looking at a possible future in agricultural development, my work in both of these projects has really spurred an interest in social investment that I plan to follow in my future career. Beyond microfinance, social investment proves to be a very promising method by which to further develop a nation’s economy. As I have learned from Sena and Tip Top Foods, small to medium-sized enterprises have the potential to really make a positive impact on their community’s economic development.

It really feels as though I have been away from Ghana for such a long time even though it has only been a week. It really feels like an entirely different world, back here in the US, but I will always be able to hold onto everything I learned from my work in Ghana and all the relationships I made with the wonderful people there. Although I still have about a year and a half left of college, I know that in the near future I will be going back to Ghana. If not to work then at least to visit. Also, Lumana has proven to be a very impactful and effective organization that I am proud to have had the opportunity to work for. Even though it was only for a few months, I have truly enjoyed every minute I was able to work with Lumana and hope to continue my involvement with them long into the future.

With only two more days left in Ghana, I’m starting to feel extremely sad about leaving, but still excited about going home. It’s a very bitter sweet time. I just had my last day at the Atorkor office, and spent some quality time with the staff. Richard got me a very nice kente cloth, which is an intricately woven cloth worn on special occasions, as a going away present and another strip of kente that said “Truly Treasured Goodbye Halla.” I was very touched. These past months have flown by and I know that I will remember these memorable times forever. I have loved working with the staff; they put a smile on my face every day at the office and are a very enthusiastic bunch. I’m really going to miss them. Bridget is still trying to convince me to marry Richard so that I’ll stay in Ghana forever, but
I’m not so sure about that arrangement.  I’m also going to miss living with Chris, Justine, David, and Bridget, who have become my substitute family while I’ve been here. We’ve had some fun times together, going to the beach on Sundays, watching movies together at night, traveling through Ghana, and sharing many laughs.

I just had my last market day on Sunday, and had my last Togo sandwich, which I will miss as well. My procrastination habits left me to do the entire souvenir shopping until the end of my trip, but I’ve gotten some very nice fabrics from the market and gotten them sewn into bags, and blouses. I also bought some jewelry and a talking drum recently. I’m excited to give my gifts to people back home and share my many stories.

As the days get hotter, and the electricity and water keep going out, it will be nice to go back to Seattle weather and finally feel truly clean. Even though living here has been a great experience for me, I will probably not miss standing out as a Yevu or receiving the many awkward marriage proposals. However, the friendliness and welcoming atmosphere that I’ve witnessed here, I’ve never seen anywhere else. People are very honest and genuine. Everyone wants to be your friend as soon as they meet you. A lot of people just ask me my name, and tell me that they want to be my friend and after I say yes, they immediately want to know my number, where I live and discuss where to meet next. It’s always flattering to see their eagerness to be friends, and that is something I won’t find in the US either.  I’m really looking forward to eating when I get back, even though I did enjoy Ghanaian food. I especially loved the incredibly flavorful fruits. I had tilapia for the last time for dinner last night, and today, Bridget is going to cook me some groundnut soup. I was sick with malaria when she made it the last time and was unable to have any;
I hear it’s really good. Tomorrow morning, I head out to Accra from where I will catch my flight back to Seattle. I’m looking forward to having one last night in Anloga before I leave.

I am just now halfway through my time here in Ghana and I could not be enjoying myself more. Even though work has definitely picked up, and I am finding myself busier by the week, I love every minute of it. I am also becoming so much more accustomed to life here in the village of Anloga. I have even started to accept the increasingly more frequent power and water outages as a part of daily life. Either way, it is amazing to think that I have less than five weeks left here; I really do not want any of it to end and am looking forward to what is yet to come.

Like I said above, the work has definitely increased and sometimes it feels like there simply is not enough time in a day. As the field project lead for Lumana’s pilot investment project, I am working simultaneously with a client of ours, Sena Ahiabor, and with our implementation partner company, Blossom Farms. I’m working with Sena to prepare him for investment money that will greatly expand his business, and with Blossom Farms to start up an aquaponics farm in Atorkor. With Sena’s help, I am organizing all of his financials and preparing a balance sheet and financial statement for the past two years that can be sent to potential investors in the US. I also am working on a project proposal that will outline his intended machinery and inventory purchases with the investment money, as well as a market analysis and company overview for his tomato processing business Tip Top Foods. I travel out to Sena’s house, which his business is located next to, multiple times a week and really enjoy getting to learn from him. I am also learning so much, through my work, about financial statements and the necessary steps for investment acquisition.

My involvement with the Blossom Farms project is to be the primary connection with their leadership and head up all work on Lumana’s side of things here in Ghana. In my time here, I will be able to help find and secure land for the aquaponics system, aid in establishing our official partnership with Blossom Farms, and hopefully put in a good amount of work on the actually construction of the system. An aquaponics farm is a sustainable farming method in which crops grow with their roots in troughs of water, rather than soil, which is pumped to them from a fish pond. The compost and nutrients from the fish acts as fertilizer for the plants, and then the nutrients from the crops are pumped back to the fish pond to feed the fish. This closed system is very efficient because the only water lost in the process is through evaporation. So far, we have established the partnership with Blossom Farms, and have a general understanding of our roles. We have also found the land that we are going to use for the project.

It has been rather hard to establish a normal routine here but I am beginning to enjoy a constantly changing day-to-day schedule. I often have not even figured out said schedule until each day begins. Other than the days when I have very early morning meetings, I usually wake up around 8 and spend the first hour or two of my day reading. This is a rather nice way to start out the day, if I do say so myself. Some days I just work on my computer, organizing financial statements and line item documents, but most days I am traveling around to different meetings, working at Sena’s place, or visiting the farmland. As well, every four days is the market day in Anloga in which I often walk around and do the house shopping for food and supplies. It is a very exciting and crowded market that I have grown to really enjoy. I find time to go running everyday around 5 PM and am getting more and more used to the high temperatures and humidity. Nights are usually spent cooking, hanging out, and watching movies with everyone in the house.

All in all, I am really enjoying my time here in Ghana. There is so much that I am learning, not only about investment and financial statements but also about the culture here. The language is becoming easier to use in basic interaction and the food has really grown on me. Though I only have five weeks left, I look forward to the coming weeks with great anticipation.

A little over three weeks ago, I landed in Accra, Ghana’s capital city. I was pretty nervous, because this was my first time going to live away from my family and on top of that it was in Africa. It was a long three hour ride in a crowded tro tro (a van, bus-like transportation system) to get to the village of Anloga, where I am now staying as well as doing my internship for the microfinance organization, Lumana. The first few days were pretty hard for me because I did miss home, but I’ve adjusted to my new environment and I am really enjoying being immersed in a new culture and a completely different society. I’ve gotten used to the staring and people constantly referring and calling out to me as a Yavu (white person). It’s really strange being referred to as a white person since I have never considered myself to be white as I’m ethnically Pakistani. They even have a little song about white people that children love singing every time they see a light skinned person. The Ghanaians are one of the friendliest and welcoming people I have ever met though, and they love it when you attempt to say anything in Ewe, it gets them laughing every time. While walking on the street, or buying something at a store, I’ve been stopped to chat with people many times, because people truly enjoy getting to know you. Sometimes, they can be a little too friendly; I’ve already gotten a number of marriage proposals. My name is impossibly hard for people to say, because they’ve never heard such a name before. I’ve gotten an Ewe name; it depends on the day of the week you were born. After looking up that I was born on a Sunday, I was given the name Akos. The atmosphere seems very relaxed here, sometimes, when passing shops, you see people just lying down and resting.

The local staff is great; they are a very energetic group who are always making me laugh. They love to have a good time and they make the office an enjoyable place to be. I really like working with them and answering their many questions or trying to understand their interesting sense of humor. The days go by pretty fast here, and before you know it, its dinner time. The food choices are pretty limited here, but the food is pretty good and I like the spiciness of it. Usually for lunch, I get this rice and beans dish with a spicy pepe sauce on it or sweet potatoes with pepe sauce on it. It’s given to you in a small plastic bag. You get everything in a bag here and people selling things to you make sure you have a bag for it; they even have little packets of filtered water. There are a lot of stews that are usually eaten with different doughs, so far I’ve tried bonku and abolo. People eat this dough and stew with their hands, and it gets really messy, but I have to admit, it is a fun experience. We’ve only gotten meat from the city, because the meat here is just sitting out all day long and not very appetizing or good quality either. I love the fruit though, especially the mangos and the pineapples which are delicious. I see coconut trees everywhere as well. It’s a very beautiful place, with all the palm trees and red sand on the ground. A couple weekends ago, we went on a boat ride that took us to a beach side corner. It was really beautiful, the sand was so white, soft and fine and the water was a pretty greenish color. The Ghanaians played the drums and sang songs along the way, it was quite an experience. I hope to make the most out of my trip here and see more of Ghana and its culture.

The Anloga yevu population has officially grown from two to four. The arrival of Halla and David on Monday and Wednesday, respectively, brings a fresh spin to la casa de Lumana. Along with the new shipments of American chocolate, coffee and television series DVDs, we’ve got twice the brainpower to unleash upon the Volta Region.

Halla’s trip into Anloga was rather seamless. Other than a quick bout of haggling with an airport taxi driver, we made our way home in good time and without many surprises. David’s trip back from the airport, however, was a bit more obstacle-ridden. After picking him up from his late-evening landing, we spent the night at our new Accra haunt, the GILLBT (an acronym for something I would rather not Google right now), with the plan of waking the next morning to start our return trek to Anloga. We had a few stops to make, including the purchase of our new office whiteboards, negotiated down from 450 Cedis to 25. As it turns out, whiteboards in Ghana are much more valuable than anywhere else in the world, but I got a very special deal. After that we had more stops to make: going to Melcom for the dry-erase markers we called ahead to make sure they had, going back to the Accra Mall to look for dry-erase markers since Melcom didn’t have them, and several other quick stops within the Mall walls. Traveling with a 3×5 whiteboard in Ghana is harder than it sounds, but we eventually found our way into a trotro to the Tema Roundabout. The driver insisted we continue with him all the way to Anloga instead of boarding a different trotro as we normally would. We’d just have to wait for ten minutes so he could have a quick look at the brakes before we continued along. David soon learned about Ghana time the hard way. Over an hour later, after being instructed to have a seat on the station mechanic’s “bench,” A.K.A. previous backseat of a deceased vehicle to watch all four brake pads be tediously replaced, we were on the road and just barely home before dark.

With over a week under their belts, between spending time with our Ghana staff in both the Atorkor and Anloga offices for free Ewe lessons, grocery and fabric shopping on the two market days they’ve both been present for so far, hitting the beach for a Sunday swim and even taking a shot at the local dish, tilapia and banku at Happy Corner, Halla and David are both certainly soaking it all in. You can look forward to hearing about their experiences first hand, coming soon to a Ghana Make You Sweat near you.

This Saturday is the all-Ghana-staff boat trip in the lagoon/river (bit hard to tell where one ends and the other begins) organized by our friends at the Meet Me There eco-lodge. It should make for magical moments in Lumanaian history…

The Lumana house has cleared out and within it resides only Bridget,
Justine and I. The departure of Sammie and Martina has left a void in
our hearts, but it will soon be filled by the arrival of new friends
and Fellows. Boxing Day marks the beginning of a new chapter, for our
honored guest Conor arrives. Only a few weeks following his arrival,
the newest additions to the Lumana team will land to begin their
fellowship projects (looking forward to meeting you all and a
preemptive welcome!).

Now that the current state of affairs has been declared, please allow
for a moment of reflection while I rewind to play from the beginning
of Martina’s eventful stay. Over the course of the past three weeks,
following our Ghanaian Staff Retreat, we hosted the “Meet Me There”
Brits for a delicious Indian feast, crossed the Togo Border by foot, a
feat in itself here on this continent of Africa, fought off Togolese
muggers (sort of), toured the nearby Keta Slave Castle (where we also
witnessed a man defecating on the beach adjacent to where we casually
soaked up some sun), bode farewell to Sammie over coconut-mango
Smoothies at Melting Moments in Accra, traveled west to Elmina and
Cape Coast (and then back to Elmina) to stay at Stumble Inn and the
Oasis Beach Resort, braved the Kakum National Park Canopy Walk and,
finally, ventured back into Accra where Martina set off for the U.S.
of A.

Our recent excursion to Elmina and Cape Coast proved to be a very
relaxing and indulgent experience. The “eco-lodge” is apparently a
trend in Ghana and Stumble Inn, located in Elmina, was yet another
experience with accommodation of this fashion (power runs only from
6-9 PM, the huts have composting toilets… you get the idea). After we
sat in a crammed bus in Accra traffic for over 3 hours without moving
and pondered how the socio-political structure of our newfound bus
civilization would look should we never make it out of the jam, we
came to our stop in Elmina. A round of suspicious questions from our
cab driver at the bus stop had us paranoid that the ride down the
long, dirt path could lead us to our demise, but indeed ended up being
the driveway to our sleeping quarters for the evening. The security
guard from Stumble Inn “greeted” us by appearing out of the bushes
somewhere along this dark and deserted road, then showed us the way to
our room with a flashlight. After eating some apple pie cookies for
dinner, we crawled into our respective bunks and slumbered.

The morning cast a brand new light on our weekend abode. What seemed
like something out of “Nightmare on Elm Street” only 8 hours before
now looked like a tropical paradise. Serving up delicious breakfast to
our own personal, beachfront dining room set, Justine, Martina and I
sat and enjoyed the pampering from the Stumble Inn staff, overlooking
fishermen paddling their colorful canoes out across the Atlantic.
After receiving directions to avoid “toilet beach” on the way to the
slave castle by our hospitable Dutch hostess, Sitska, we ventured off
on a sandy stroll to explore the oldest and largest slave castle in
all of West Africa: Elmina Castle.

Touring the slave chambers, the old officers’ quarters and the “door
of no return,” made for some eerie, exceptionally disturbing
sightseeing. The Castle, built in 1482 by the Portuguese, exchanged
hands in 1637 when captured by the Dutch and was later purchased by
the English in 1872. Originally used for the ivory and gold trade, it
shifted to slave trade as demand increased. The more history I
absorbed, the more unsettling standing within the castle walls became.

Once we finished our tour, we took a little down time for lunch at a
nearby restaurant across the canal, which runs through Elmina, across
from the castle. This canal is packed full of fishing boats painted
brightly in blues, greens, yellows and reds with biblical terms such
as “The Blood” and “God is King” written along their wooden hulls, a
vivid collage cluttered with the hustle and bustle of the market
undulating at the bank of the canal. We made sure to suck down the
water from some freshly cracked coconuts here before a quick stop back
at Stumble Inn to gather our things and set off for Cape Coast.
Although we had a nice evening at the Oasis Beach Resort playing cards
over a few drinks, it didn’t end up being the crazy nightlife we’d
anticipated. This worked out just fine since we were geared up and
ready to roll for the Kakum National Park Canopy Walk early in the
morning after sleeping in our converted bathhouse of a room.

George, our private driver who had dropped us off at the Oasis the
evening before, came back, without request mind you, to give us a lift
to the canopy walk in the morning. We made our way up the road that
served as a means for holding the potholes together and we all buckled
our seatbelts, perhaps for the first time in Ghana. Along the way,
young men were shoveling dirt into the potholes of the damaged roadway
motioning for cars to stop and pay them for their services, which no
one asked them to perform. George blew by them, laughing.  Once we
arrived, we made sure George had a few Cedi to buy himself a
refreshment and made our way to join the canopy walk tour that had
already gotten a head start on us. In a series of seven rope bridges
constructed by Canadian engineers from Vancouver, well above the
ground and extremely rocky, we not-so-gracefully passed from one to
the next until we were back on solid ground and ready for another
freshly machete-chopped coconut served just down the path. We even
tried fresh cocoa, which tasted extremely sour and semi-sweet, far
from any chocolate I’ve ever experienced. When our mini-hike was all
said and done, we made our way all the way back to Stumble Inn for one
more night of tropical, hippie bliss.

The next morning after breakfast on the beach, we had good old George
give us ride back to Cape Coast, where we saw what would be the most
eventful thing we saw all day: an aggressive old drunk man getting
slapped silly by a cocky young sober man at the trotro station. We
laughed, but only since he deserved it. Then we made the long journey
home to our splendid little town of Anloga.

A whirlwind of a week has just passed us Ghana-based Lumanaians.
Eventful indeed, we did the GBC, hosted a client party, celebrated
Farmer’s Day and retreated to the local “eco-lodge,” Meet Me There, to
talk about future goals… and our feelings.

A little over a week ago, Sammie, Justine and I headed north to Ho for
a GBC radio interview, which broadcast out to the Volta Region. This
all went off without a hitch, although Justine may have another
version of the story since it was her mobile phone digits that were
distributed out across the airwaves for all of the Voltarians to jot
down and begin dialing non-stop. This didn’t cease for several days.
At least she’s got a sweet ring tone that I take pleasure in singing
along to, thoroughly annoying those poor, unfortunate souls within
earshot.

As a follow up to this radio interview, the GBC decided they wanted to
send a crew out for our big client party blowout in the Atorkor L.A.
Basic School courtyard to film interviews with some of our feature
clients (Lumana recently instituted the “Cooperative of the Quarter
Award”) and capture footage of the soiree itself. The four
cooperatives selected, one from each of the villages Atorkor, Dzita,
Anloga and Whuti, began arriving for the interviews hours before the
GTV crew was to arrive, in their Sunday best on Tuesday. Once the crew
arrived, they had their own vision for how they wanted the interviews
to go over, so they chose a few of the clients to film in their
homes/places of work, staging their day-to-day tasks for all of Ghana
to see.

The crew continued to film the presentations made by our loyal Lumana
advisors and partners, Madaam Beaula, Mr. Seth, Mr. Tettey, our own
Eric Fiazorli, loan officer extraordinaire, and none other than the
head honcho herself, Executive Director, Sammie, to the 200 or so
clients in attendance. Included in the ceremony was the Atorkor
school’s cultural group pounding traditional drumbeats and providing a
copious display of youngsters dancing throughout. The event concluded
as everyone filled their bellies with food served up in one of the
open-air school classrooms.

The following day, Justin and Mark from Tilapiana, a fish pond
development project, came out on the Atorkor town for field tests and
feasibility assessment for bringing their project to this area.
Walking from one local farm to another throughout the day, I learned a
lot about tilapia farming and gained further confirmation that Ghana
does indeed make you sweat.

All that eventfulness was not even the half of it. Ok, roughly half.
But the following day, our Lumana retreat facilitator, Martina,
arrived from the Emerald City. Once we’d settled our things at the
Pink Hostel in Asylum Down, we ate a bit of Ghanaian stew in the
pulsing Accra night, subject to rather vulgar dancing all around us.
It was time to get back to the innocence of the rural Anloga. Friday
was Farmer’s Day, a national holiday here in Ghana, so the wait for a
trotro became slightly daunting. After about 3 hours of standing under
the African sun, we were Volta-bound to return in time for our staff
bonding retreat the next morning.

My only complaint about the Lumana “Meet Me There” Retreat was the
lack of a trust fall session, but at least we got to untangle
ourselves from the human knot (if you haven’t tried it, it’s a real
hoot; highly recommended). We took great leaps and bounds to identify
new initiatives for expansion and ate pizza. As it so happens, eating
a bunch of cheesy goodness can inspire and motivate those suffering
from the lactose drought that plagues this region.

In the wake of the festival, Anloga has calmed significantly and everything has returned to the normal, leisurely pace of daily life. The streets are filled with the usual suspects and the pulsing Hip Life beats are far more faint. Allow me to divulge a bit about our first-hand experience with the Anlo Hogbetsotso Festival, a “Festival of the Exodus.”

To pay homage to the tradition, I’ll explain the reason we were so fortunate to celebrate this event amongst our Anlo-area neighbors. The Anlo Ewe people migrated to this area of the Volta Region from Notsie in Togo, as legend has it, walking backwards. While under the oppression of a tyrannical ruler for many years within the kingdom contained by a clay wall, the Ewe people needed a strategy for escape. The wise elders instructed them to pour every last drop of water they could throughout their day of labor onto the clay wall that trapped them. They even urinated on the wall, allegedly. This practice continues even today. People pretty much pee anywhere here, unless specified by the phrase seen painted or etched on the wall or sign, “Do Not Urinate Here.” Anyway, back to the legend. When the wall finally collapsed, the Ewe people migrated away by dancing backward, so the ruler’s guards would see from a distance that they were facing them and so their footsteps appeared to be toward the kingdom, so they would not be followed. (Yeah! Damn the man!)

A common theme of this festival, therefore, was this very form of backward dancing, along with all the music; the beating of traditional drums and singing. Saturday morning, the durbar of chiefs and their families, seated under festival tents to watch the display being put on across the festival grounds before them, donned colorful regalia, along with most others in attendance from infant to elder.

Another common theme seemed to be the incredibly delayed event start times, which meant they didn’t conclude until around 3:30 AM on both Friday and Saturday evenings. After a lot of standing around and waiting on the festival grounds for something to happen Friday evening, Justine, Sayra and I met up with the Lumana staff/our Ghanaian posse and their brothers and sisters (not really, just what everyone here calls friends). On the walk home after spending a couple hours at a local bar, we happened upon a reenactment of this exodus legend; a play, if you will. We decided to indulge and Mr. Eric Fiazorli’s friend Kenneth was so kind as to translate much of the entertainment for me, which began at around midnight. I might have misread the situation, but I’m pretty sure he and I also agreed to begin working on the screenplay for a Braveheart-esque, Hollywood epic based on the Anlo Ewe Exodus. I soaked up as much legend as my mind could take, but coming up on 2 AM, I couldn’t hack it any longer and had to call it a night.

After the daytime Saturday festivities at the Anloga festival grounds concluded and evening was upon us, Lumana trustee and advisor Emma(nuel) stopped in to pay us a visit on his way to Keta for the Mama Hogbe Beauty Pageant, as he mentioned he would a few days earlier when I met him in Accra. After catching wind of a few details earlier and pondering whether or not to attend, I decided to blatantly invite myself to tag along with him.

Emma is a saint of a man. Upon meeting him about a week ago in Accra (for a moment he posed as a fabric vendor and I told him I wasn’t interested… I didn’t put it together that he was dressed to the nines, far from any fabric vendor, until after Sayra who had met him once before greeted him). He came to us at Tudu Station once we arrived, told us tons of information about Accra, took us out to lunch at none other than KFC in the Osu area, patiently strolled behind us through the Art Center while Sayra and I sauntered around looking at fabric, drums and other random knick-knacks for at least an hour, escorted us to the Post Office and got us into a trotro home, all during a very extended lunch break from work. When he mentioned his intentions to come to Anloga for the Festival on Saturday, we certainly encouraged him to pay us a visit.

Once Emma and I arrived at Mama Hogbe a bit “late”, we purchased our tickets with the start time of “7:00 PM Prompt,” pushed our way through the gates and proceeded to wait for another 3 hours until the event began, just before midnight. After the 15 contestants introduced themselves individually, then came back to perform their talent based on how they epitomized the morally-sound Ewe Woman, they narrowed it down to 5 contestants. Already I was beginning to fade. Interjected with two separate Hip Life musical performances, they asked the remaining pageant contestants two rounds of Ewe trivia questions, each time the announcers repeating “show some love, show some love” and “who will take the crown?” Finally, at 3:30 AM, after experiencing what felt more like a game show than a beauty pageant, contestant number nine took the grand prize, “A BRAND NEW CAR!” and Emma and I were already halfway out the door. He’d called a taxi that we found waiting for us outside the venue in Keta and made the trip home. Emma dropped me at my gate at 4 AM and we said good evening/morning.

Long story short, everything in Ghana, including the events, “will come with time,” as they say. Note to self: next time, bring Red Bull.

The Lumanaians now reside right in the heart of Anloga (a 5 minute walk from where we previously lived)! The afe yeye (new house) separates a family compound of sorts, and in true Ghanaian form, the neighbors have already extended their gracious welcome. From the first load I delivered by hired cart with the help of 2 locals, Joseph and Kobla, I was greeted enthusiastically by William, A.K.A. Tiger (there’s gotta be a story in there somewhere… I’m still digging). The following day, a woman balancing what appeared to be a rather heavy object on her head, as per the norm, stopped to introduce herself as the neighbor to the opposite side of Tiger. She (Mielo, I believe) grabbed Lumana’s lovely new Director of Operations, Justine Levesque, by the hand, asked me to follow as well, then took off with excitement around the corner, dragging Justine along. When I entered the gate to the neighboring home, I found Justine already being introduced to an elderly woman sitting in the courtyard near their mango tree whose name is apparently not important, for I was introduced by Mielo to “Mother” shortly after Justine. It turns out Mielo, Tiger, Mother and Mr. Tettey, our new landlord, are all related. The mango doesn’t fall far from the tree.

The information Justine and I walked away with, almost certainly due to a total communication breakdown, is that there are apparently some 40 siblings birthed by Mother, Mielo’s name means “Fetish Princess” (also symbolized by the markings she pointed out on her shoulders) and we are welcome to mangos anytime. I hope one of the three is correct; I have a thing for mangos.

The next day, Mielo and Tiger gave me an Ewe lesson, something fairly easy to come upon for the willing yavu, right by the cold store literally outside our door (oh the joys of convenience) where they had set up to sell some dish I haven’t yet determined. Mielo made me follow her again to offer my currency wisdom on what she called “your money.” It turns out, she had a 5 Euro-Cent coin. I think I took the wind out of her sails a bit when I explained that it was only worth about 20 pesewas, but at least she got a mini-EU lesson from me. Basically, our new neighbors are uber friendly.

I suppose I should address how we arrived to this new residence, as moving from one place to another in rural Ghana doesn’t exactly happen by heading on down to your local Uhaul for a truck rental. I think our Loan Officer, Eric Fiazorli, said it best: “Ghanaians move in the night because we do not want anyone to see us.” We all thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

Eric’s entourage arrived at 8:30 PM to BEGIN moving, including at least 6 pairs of hands to lend assistance. Among these kind folks, his wife, Rosemary, baby Collins mounted on back (and she wasn’t just carrying the light stuff) as well as his friend with a large van. Ghanaian “safety standards” for the moving van meant our one and only van run carried a very methodically packed, structurally questionable load (think Beverly Hillbillies minus the Beverly Hills… and the Billies are African… too late, I’m sticking with it). Why make two five-minute trips when you can make one? Perfectly logical, if you ask me.

The move went off without a single hitch (Okay, 3 hitches: 1. We won’t have any furniture for another week although we were told by the carpenter it would be ready the day we moved… it’s fine, it’s no surprise, it’s Ghana. It will happen when it happens. 2. Our refrigerator fan, which was somehow nailed into the concrete floor at our previous house, needed to be removed and “re-mounted” in the brand new, tile-floor kitchen. My attempts at this, although quite clever in my own humble opinion, failed miserably, so we were saved yet again by Eric, who had his friend Prosper sort us out a couple days later. 3. One of the four stove burners fell off while in transport and the darkness forced us to leave that soldier on the field of battle (Night Moves)… no sign of him the next day. RIP Stove Burner Number 4- June 7th, 1953- November 1st, 2011. Your light will shine down upon us from the heavens.)

The Anlo Hogbetsoso Festival began Wednesday, with an excellent display of children parading down the main street performing a traditional dance number and men in warrior garb doing their own version of tribal dance, which looked more like a Pilates workout if you ask me. However, the real celebrating begins tonight. People come from far and wide for these long-awaited festivities, especially this time around. The Festival hasn’t happened in this capacity for some 13 years due to a long-term chief dispute… time to make it rain. Excitement is in the air and, rest assured, updates of its bounties will follow.

I’m unaware of the origin of our strange idea, acted upon last week to the amusement of our Ghanaian staff and fellow fellows, but it somehow planted itself in the mind of another fellow, Erica, was communicated and acquiesced to by me, and gave birth to a novel, confounding spectacle last week at the local farmer’s market: yavus selling baked goods.

Every fourth day market day occurs in Anloga. An otherwise vacant lot comes to life with the grating calls of hawkers, whose voices rise and fall like the engine of a weed whacker as an unfortunate someone attempts to start it, and who navigate through the sedentary vendors with piles of gum, biscuits, handkerchiefs, drinks, or other items piled atop their heads on platters or in baskets. The engines of trotros rumble and groan as they stream into the market’s center, unloading vendors from afar who carry baskets full of goods, while others make their way to the market with their burdens on their heads, babies wrapped snugly onto their backs with brightly-patterned cloth. The salesman with voice of a bullfrog startles passersby as he croaks his stentorian advertisement. Conversations, arguments, greetings, scrapings, footsteps overlay one atop the other, gradually building as they encounter one another and merge, filling in the gaps of silence, distinction gone, individual words hopelessly lost amidst the abundance of company, till, finally, a shapeless mass of noise suffuses all. Stands are erected, mats laid out, wagons rolled in, tables set up, and covered with all manner of goods: tropical fruits stack impressively one atop the other while towers of imported canned goods defy a reasonable prediction of their plummet; patterned fabrics lie in meticulous rows and pyramids of spices show off from within their plum-sized plastic bags; dried, fried, and smoked fish emanate a potent fustiness, the product of too many hours spent raw under the influence of the sun; and baguette, brought from the bakeries of Togo, peaks out from under its white linen covering, tempting all yavus in the area with its mildly yeasty smell and agreeably golden crust, harbingers of a satisfying chew and complex, earthy taste.

To this hive of commercial activity we brought our goods last week: a pan of dark chocolate brownies swirled with peanut butter, a vanilla and lemon-scented pound cake, and brown sugar cookies. Bridget, a Ghanaian staff member who lives with us, had approved the goods as Ghana-friendly, but her general aversion to criticism caused us to doubt her approval, and if not confident, we were at least sanguine that our product would sell. Interest alone in our unfamiliar product promised some sales. A vendor that Erica had befriended had offered us a place at her booth, and there we headed. Only a few yards into the market however, the calls of an elderly lady stopped us, “Yavu, are you selling?” Excited by the suspense of how people would react, we headed toward her, responding affirmatively and explaining our product. As we chatted, her eyebrows furrowed, revealing an obscure feeling somewhere between incredulity, amusement, and curiosity. Other people begin looking up, and cautiously trickling over. Exchanges in Ewe took place between the lady to whom we were speaking and the newcomers, and various sounds of understanding uttered from their throats, as we dispensed with the unfamiliar terms “cookie” and “brownie” in favor of the already understood “keke” i.e. “cake.”

A purchase was made. A few steps further, we were called over by another lady, and concluded another transaction. From the side, a hand bearing two coins reached over, then another. “Cake” I heard. “Cake,” from another voice. “Chris, these people want cake” Erica said pointing to even more people. Looking around, we had suddenly become engulfed by Ghanaians; an intractable crowd had descended upon us like vultures upon carrion, and warm bodies pressed upon me from all directions as sweat began to bead upon my forehead, soon coating it entirely and dripping down my noise and cheeks, attempting to relieve me of the sudden influx of body heat that immersed me. The smell of overheated bodies waxed, overcoming the scent of baked goods. Taking change from outstretched hands, I began fervently tossing cookies and cake into bags, handing them out willy-nilly, trusting that they’d make it to the right people. Requests for more continued to bombard us, and the gleam of coins shone in our eyes. Within a few minutes, our cake had disappeared along with a couple dozen cookies, though our pockets weighed heavily, a fresh sensation. A few minutes more and the rest of our cookies had vanished as well.

Left with a pan of brownies, we wended our way through the market alleys, offering samples of our treat, the rich, shining brown matching the color of customers. They were picked up curiously and tasted, a single piece shared among many, a practice which revealed the hesitance natural to people who have experienced neither the taste of brownies nor the practice of sampling. “It is sweet,” they would say, though every so often someone would purchase one. Gradually, brownies were transported from the pan to bags and from bags to the grateful hands of people making a new, exciting purchase. The pan grew emptier till finally, at the back of the market, we sold the final one to a bag seller.

Our efforts earned us about seven cede, or $4.50. Though a small sum, the experience was rich, and during the past week we have received many a request for more, such that it seems we’ll soon find ourselves at the marketplace again.

In past travels abroad I have pined over the dearth of quality dessert and moved to desperation sought solace in spoonfuls of brownie batter. This summer, hoping to avoid a similarly excruciating experience, I arrived in Ghana with a half-dozen 70% cacao chocolate bars, their importance rivaled only by my passport and shot records. Yet, I needn’t have bothered, for I soon discovered, to my consternation, that the Lumana house had both an oven and a well-stocked kitchen—baked goods serving as an antidote to all yearnings for sweets—and that a short walk to town yielded access to cocoa powder and eggs, a treasure chest of circumstances which meant that another dessert dilemma need not be feared and that I was but a modicum of time and effort away from epicurean satisfaction.

In my time here, I haven’t quailed from the opportunity to add diversity to the monotonous cuisine, but rather have delighted and indulged in it, preparing crepes, banana pancakes, cinnamon cookies, pound cake, and peanut butter—or groundnut butter as it’s locally known—brownies on many a morning, afternoon, and evening, the scope of sweets limited only by my access to, and patience with, the finicky, uncommonly slow internet which provides recipes. Amidst this land of milk and honey, what could I possibly want? As it turns out…the milk.

For what is a brownie, a cookie, a banana pancake without a glass of milk to accompany it, but an incomplete, unperfected, pitiable treat that has yet to reach its potential? And how am I to maintain my health and the strength of my immune system, so as to ward off those ravenous tropical diseases which lie in wait for an opportune time when, weakened by lack of dairy, the white man falls easily to their influence, without my habitual thrice daily consumed cup of milk? Many an oddly named store I have visited in search of that most desirable of bovine beverages, meeting time and again milk in its most corrupted and forlorn states—powdered, evaporated, and soy. Bags of yellow powder, mixed with water, provide not even a simulacrum of the creamy, grassy, mild-sweetness milk, but only a watery, flavorless, too-sweet beverage, topped with yellow-tinged lumps. Cans of evaporated milk trace their origins to the same powder, and soy milk, the juice of a bean, serves as distinct and inferior “milk” which has stolen and shamed the term. Banished along with milk are all of its lovely progeny—cheese, yogurt, cream—such that one cannot find anywhere even a dose of dairy.

Here in Ghana, calls of “Yavu! Yavu!” bellowed from the mouths of small children, often chase after me. If the child feels especially frolicsome, they’ll felicitously incorporate it into the childhood rhyme which goes, “Yavu, yavu, gaibo, ya, ya, gaibo,” repeated either for as long as the yavu is within sight, or as long as the perverse pleasures of the child last. The word means white person, but doesn’t connote the same non-politically correctness, nor evince the same awkwardness, as the usage of “white” would in the US, especially were it to be shouted at the back of someone as they passed on their way to the market or on some other daily errand. Rather, it is used to get the attention of a white person, and, once the yavu’s name is learned, is disregarded.

The rhyme traces its origins to the Portuguese colonization of Ghana, the term “gaibo” meaning black beard, a form of hair, and color, sported by the colonials. Groups of children may be trusted to favor the rhyme over simply the term, as one child amidst the herd will indubitably inspire the rest of their kind to similarly take up the festivities, and, in general, the younger the child the more emphatic their rendition of the rhyme, which may work them into such a frenzy that their eyes glow like crystal balls and double in size, bodies convulsing rhythmically, arms spinning about like beaters, and voices growing hoarse, yet persistent, till finally their assiduous application leaves them heaving for breath as spittle drips in viscous threads from their lips. However, such a frightening sight may be avoided if, with a turn of the head, a wide smile, eye contact to each member, and a wave of the hand, one swiftly truncates their performance before they gain momentum, the acknowledgement mollifying their fierce taste for yavu attention.

Adults too share a fascination with yavus, though they tend to express it in a more refined, dignified manner. Yavu, said once only, and loud enough to catch my attention, but not screamed, is followed by friendly greetings of “Good day, how are you?” or “What is your name?” expressed first in Ewe, the local language, but, if not understood, then communicated in English. After the initial exchange of greetings, further questions may follow. Sometimes however, even adults indulge themselves in a bit of childish fun, adding a modicum of excitement to what would otherwise be a routine, monotonous day in a small town. Other times, neither questions nor rhymes satisfy an adult’s curiosity, in which case they resort to peculiar methods.

A few weekends ago the other fellows and I traveled to Lome, the capital city of Togo. We were not sure what to expect, but thought there a chance of being tasty French-Togolese fusion cuisine, and after a repetitive diet of rice, beans, tomato, shallot, and the local bread, this chance captivated our minds like El Dorado did that of the conquistatadores. The voodoo market, or fetish market as it’s known, also pressed itself on our minds, and was to serve as our major site for the day.

Rising early Saturday morning, two other fellows and the fellows’ coordinator, Eric, found themselves feeling sick. An hour later the others felt their condition improved, though tucked into their bags one could find stores of toilet paper and further anti-diarrheal pills, and we disembarked for the trotro station, a ten minute walk up the road, and much like a bus depot, but which concerns itself with large vans rather than buses. Rusting parts, jammed windows, ripped seats, and a generally decrepit appearance characterize trotros, as well as taxis, the other major form of public transportation. After loading four to a row, rather than the three for which the seat had been designed, we headed east for the Ghana-Togo border, a two hour trip along lagoons and the Atlantic, and, for the last half of the trip, atop dirt roads which swept umber dust into the air as we passed, leaving grit on our skin and in our noses, in quantities such that you knew boogers would follow.

Reaching the border city of Aflao, we were inundated with calls and hisses, a preferred Ghanaian method of attracting one’s attention, from the omnipresent money exchangers, whose half-foot thick wads of money they would wave at us as they grinned, as if a plentiful currency supply meant a better exchange rate, our chief concern. We passed the leering men along the roadside, and exchanged our Ghanaian currency for that of Togo inside a money exchange, whose propitious features, like a building, signs, seating, counters behind glass windows, and lack of zealous self-advertisement, combined to give us westerners a sense of comfort and security; they also had the best exchange rate. Upon converting money enough for our Togolese entrance fee, transportation, food, and possible shopping, we veered first toward the Ghanaian authorities, who quickly completed paperwork for our departure, and then toward Togolese authorities, who spent nearly an hour stamping our passports multiple times and generally piddling about. The hour would have passed horribly slowly if not for the gross spectacle of the corpulent Togolese border official, whose waist-height stick he used to hit people, and who, at one point, pressed himself against the back of a shorter man while rubbing his head, prodding him with the stick, and grinning maliciously. Thoroughly disturbed, I couldn’t help but watch.

Having finally passed through the border, we started toward the Presidential Palace. However, no sooner had we, than a tall Togolese man accosted one of the fellows, grabbing his belt and shouting at him. Eric swiftly glided in and pushed him off; as we walked away calls of “You like fight” pursued us. The ominous beginning to our trip proved rather accurate as the day unraveled, for the Presidential Palace was so humble we passed it without noticing, and our trip to the fetish market lasted but a few minutes, the span of which was dominated by a belligerent, avaricious man who pressed us for fantastic fees to take photos of the market, or even look around. Unable to shake him off, we decided to leave, and in doing so, I looked around, attempting to absorb the many necromantic images that surrounded me: monkey skulls, crocodile heads, dried birds, paws, pelts, and various other strange and obscure animal parts adorned the tables, heaped in piles, laid out in rows, hanging from strings. Due to the unsavory circumstances, that vague description is all I can offer of a surely interesting place.

The disappointing trip to the fetish market left us rather tepid, and a languorous afternoon followed, in which we drifted from craft market to restaurant for a late lunch and back to the border. A two hour trotro ride followed, and we once again found ourselves nestled in the comfort of our temporary home, Anloga.

I spend my mornings in the courtyard of the Lumana house, reading whatever book I’ve checked out that week from the local Peace Corps-affiliated community library. It thus seems appropriate that, having spent so much time there, I should describe it.

A decades-old mango tree dominates the environment—its oblong, waxy leaves grant shade to most of the courtyard. The tawny sand covering the ground travels in ripples, as though each indentation were pressed into it by a giant thumb. Multi-colored laundry lines undulate in the perpetual sea breeze, strung from the porch (painted a shade of green reminiscent of the plastic grass one finds in Easter baskets) to the iron spikes that rise from the top of the burnt red gate. A few untended shrubs mark haphazardly a path from gate to porch, their form resembling the comical tuft of hair you’d find atop the muppet Ernie. In the corner lies a pile of refuse: black plastic bags, cans of tinned tomatoes, dried branches fallen from the mango tree above, all wait to be burned, their only chance at disposal in a community where officials haven’t the opportunity to ostensibly praise their sanitation workers. A few yards away lies a two by four heap of composting coconut husks, fruit scraps, and egg shells, a feeding ground for birds and oversized, murky green geckos. Mid-distance between the two juts from the ground a spout and nozzle, our source of water for doing laundry by hand. A palm bush that would otherwise look impressive huddles against the cement-bricked wall near the trash heap, as if bullied there by the domineering mango tree. Near the base of it rest the remains of a ten foot circle; half crumbled away, its fragments lie scattered around it, like crumbs tossed by a generous hand. It is here that I read and write, body ensconced in a bamboo chair, atop a dusty, patched cushion with a faded floral pattern, arm and book resting on a grimy mottled wood desk. Out here, the whir of fans and the harshness of LED lights are replaced by the sounds of trees breathing in the wind and the muted light which, filtered first by the clouds and then by the leaves overhead, lands gently atop my pages. An ever moving wind whips away the heat, and birds chatter back and forth.

Many thanks from the help of Mr. Seth, our loan officer Eric Fiazorli and the rest of the Lumana staff, for making our new business training courses a success for the newly incorporated Whuti cooperatives. This new curriculum still consists of the same material previously taught, however, includes an added emphasis on our business principles training. The new structure is as so:

• Day 1: Introduction to Lumana and Cooperative Health
• Day 2: Business Basics and Business Model Workshop
• Day 3: Business Basics: Profits and Savings

Along with our adjusted curriculum, clients will be introduced to new business review lessons that will be incorporated into their cooperative meetings. These lessons will touch along the topics of savings, profit margins, marketing, cooperative communication and product life cycle, just to name a few!

When Alorwu Semevor, client and group leader of the Mawumenyo cooperative, asked me if I’d like to watch her observe how fishmongers in Atorkor smoke their fish, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse. The very next morning Erica and I made our way to the beach of Atorkor to find Alorwu buying fish from the mornings catch. After some time of observing the bargaining process (about an hour) and a brief moment running away from a sea snake that was caught in a net, it was back to her yard to sort her fish.

The sorting process is a very labor-intensive task. Alorwu and four other women will help collaboratively sort the piles of fish and shrimp into large shrimp, small shrimp, long fish, and small fish. These women will spend up to two hours sitting and sorting their individual pile. The fish and shrimp are also have quite pointy edges, making it hard to grab a lot at once!

After each pile is sorted, it will be placed on grates and dried in the sun. This is a prime opportunity for all her animals to snag a piece of the catch while she’s not looking as well. Alorwu will proceed to prepare her smoker, from which she will continue to stack about five grates on top. From here she will wait as the slow process of smoking begins.

Lindsey brought a little piece of home to our little house in Anloga. I washed my clothes by hand this morning, watched the power go out again during the workday, and worked on a new strategy for combating the mice and the mosquitoes. This place is definitely Africa.

When I came home tonight, Lindsey was rolling out dough for tortillas. As the aroma of guacamole and refried beans started spreading through the house, I found myself creeping into the kitchen, where I would ask repeatedly if I could help cook, though really I was just mesmerized by the thought of Mexican food in Ghana.

Market days happen every four days here in Anloga. I usually spend a couple hours wandering among the 30+ acres of stands, goods, vegetables, and vendors. I’m always looking for anything American, and I pounce when I find it. Recent finds include ketchup, powdered milk, crackers, and quasi-hot dogs. Mostly we buy rice, beans, tomatoes, eggplant, and plantains. And eggs. We go through more than 2 dozen eggs per week between the seven of us. So we eat a lot of Ghanaian dishes, with their wonderfully heavy corn, beans, rice, and tomato stew. But rarely authentic American food.

The tortillas were just thick enough to taste homemade. I slowly chewed on a plain tortilla, and felt like I was sitting in a certain homestyle Mexican restaurant in Bainbridge Island. A squirt of lime made the guacamole irresistible, and fresh lettuce and tomatoes were as comforting as any food has ever been. Two thumbs way up to Lindsey Engh for the most amazing dinner of the summer (so far) and to all of you out there who have yet to begin your Ghanaian adventures, I highly recommend including some homemade tortillas.

1.Gather clothing that you want to wash. Make sure the items pass are actually dirty and worth the time and energy it will take to wash them.
2.Grab three buckets.
3.Pour a handful of soap into two of the buckets.
4.Fill all with buckets with water.
5.Take one clothing item and place in first bucket to get it soapy. Pull the garment just out of the water and rub the garment together briskly against itself to scrub out stains. Dunk back in the bucket for more lather. Focus on neck, arms, waist and other particularly dirty areas.
6.Lift the garment out and search for any missed stains.
7.Move the garment to the next soapy bucket to get out any stains noticed in the previous step and to make a second run through scrubbing.
8.Lift the garment out of bucket. If it meets your cleanliness standards wring the soap out of it as much as possible and place it in the rinse bucket.
9.In the rinse bucket make sure to get all of the soap out of the clothes, otherwise you will end up with a nice rash wearing soapy clothes. Replace the rinse water as soon as it starts to accumulate suds to minimize soapy residue on rinsed clothes.
10.After throughly rinsed you must wring as much water as possible out of the clothing without stretching the garment out too much.
11.Hang to dry on clothesline using clothespins.
12.Retrieve garments after they are dry, but before they become sun bleached.
13.Be thankful that you normally have access to a washing machine.

Went up to Ho last night to say my goodbyes to Felicia, Bridget’s sister.  I’ve been visiting her somewhat regularly, and always stop by when I’m in town.  It’s customary to serve water and a meal for a guest, so I show up and we visit while she cooks, then we eat or I eat alone.  It’s sort of weird to show up somewhere and have someone make a meal for you then not share in it, but I’ve gotten over it.

Everyone in her compound was sick with malaria, which struck me as kinda odd because there seem to be way fewer mosquitoes in the city as compared to Anloga.  Hopefully I’ve dodged that bullet.  5 months without anti-malarials and I’m knocking on wood every chance I get for the next 48 hours.

Bridget’s niece, Joanna, is all growed up!  Not really, but she’s standing and cruising around like a champ.  Bridget wanted a picture of her standing as proof of her new-found maturity and I delivered.

And speaking of proving things, remember when I wrote about failing to climb Mt. Adaklu? Well I referred to it as a “big, sperm-whale looking mountain.” I had no pictures to back up my claim at the time, and though this isn’t a great shot, you can kinda get the idea. Just imagine a tail coming up to the left of the mountain and there she blows!

A couple of days ago I gave one of my sandals to our friend and local cobbler, Joseph.  The sandals were I gift to me during my work for a software start-up in Seattle, and though I would never spend $80 on a pair of flip-flops, if I did it would be another pair of these.  The brand is Olukai, for those that are interested.  Anyway I wanted to get them fixed while I was in a country with affordable shoe repair.

Today, knowing full well that the repairs would be finished, I walked into town barefoot, holding my remaining sandal in hand.  Joseph wasn’t around and I quickly discovered that he had traveled to Accra for supplies.  Already in town and pretty disgusted with the idea of putting on socks and shoes, I decided I’d just remain barefoot until he got back.  I walked over to the bean lady’s spot, but alas!  She was also nowhere to be found.  I wish I could put her name into this story but everyone just calls her “Boboto,” which means, “The bean one.”

A random passer-by told me that there was another bean lady in town.  On recollection, I remembered seeing her.  She doesn’t have a spot though, and instead travels, beans on head, doling out deliciousness on every street corner from here to high heaven.  What commenced can only be described as a Pacman-type adventure in which I was one of the angry ghosts and the bean lady was Pacman–or Ms. Pacman, we’ll say.  At every intersection I would say, “Boboto de?” which translates roughly to, “What of the bean lady?!?” and people would point this way or that.  After traversing most of Anloga, I tracked her down and procured my lunch.  Not as good as my usual girl, but I was satisfied.

I returned to the office, my feet raw, my newly shaven head sunburned, my belly oh so full.

We just got back home from another delicious meal in Keta.  I told the manager of the local bank that I was leaving soon and he invited us out to have some Cognac.  I didn’t drink, but the company was top-notch and so was the food.  He also invited two wild cards: a pair of Cuban volunteers who are working in the local hospital.  Spanish practice commenced, as well as a brief salsa session.  My Spanish and Ewe collided horribly, but there were moments of clarity.  Occasionally I conveyed an idea successfully and I was able to understand a bit.

Tomorrow I’m off to say my goodbyes up in Ho and take care of some Lumana-related shopping.  I’ll try to take some pictures so I can prove I’m not making it all up.  :D

My time in Ghana is rapidly coming to an end!  I’ve got five days left and then I’m off for another leg of my journey in Europe.  The site has been changing a bit and will continue to change over the next week.  You can now check out the articles section, though admittedly it still isn’t very organized.  I’m getting around to it!  Also the Ewe lessons are missing for the moment.  They’ll be back with a vengeance.  I want to get a total of 20 up before I leave–right now I’m at 14.  Wish me luck.

Times are definitely changing here in Anloga.  Bridget’s friends have all disappeared now that they’ve graduated.  I didn’t realize how many of them were only in town for school: all of them.  Also my replacements are here: Lindsey and Eric.  They’ve been jumping-to with running the operation and I’ve shrunk back into the shadows, providing input when needed, mostly working on Ewe Lessons.  In the meantime… an excursion!

Jos protects her brother from the scary yevu.

One of Bridget’s friends, Josephine, is from a fairly remote village at the mouth of the Volta called Fuveme.  I promised I’d come and visit her once before I leave so Bridget and I headed down there today.  For a change of pace, I brought my camera.  New pictures abound!  If you can’t tell from the photo above, we had to take a ferry to get to Fuveme.

Bridget got all fancied-up for our trip, and I came in my normal, scrubby ensemble.  Thank god there are no pictures of me.  We made it out to the village without too much trouble, and Jos waited on us with true Ewe hospitality.  Fuveme is pretty damn small–I’d say a couple hundred tops–and we walked the length of the village in just a few minutes.  We went to the school where I was naturally a big hit.  It was the first time I’ve seen school buildings constructed entirely of palm-fronds and sticks.  Most of the buildings were cement though.  It seems like most of the people in the village raise goats, pigs and ducks, all of which were prolific.  Also there were more dogs than I’ve seen anywhere else.  And let’s not forget TINY PUPPY!!

Since Jos and Bridget were both all pimped out, we had to do some glamour shots. We walked out on the sea side and got to enjoy a fantastic breeze. I’m getting all sentimental! Ghana is awesome and it’s tough to leave. Anyway, once we snapped Bridget and Jos’s new Facebook profile pics, we headed back to the river-side of town and got back on the Ferry. See you next time around Jos!

Alright so I guess I didn’t quite finish with my brother’s visit.  We also had our trip to Ho.  Unfortunately we didn’t have a camera during our first night on the town, so you won’t see any pictures from Jake’s attempts to find me some romance.  We did meet some girls from the UK/Ireland that were volunteering in Cape Coast, and it was great chatting with them.  Jake was beyond disgusted when I didn’t ask for anyone’s number.

The next day we had big plans to climb Mt. Adaklu.  It’s this big sperm-whale looking mountain South of Ho, rising gradually on the eastern side, plateauing, and finally dropping off with cliffs on the west.  It really does look like a whale coming out of water if you get the angle right, because the surrounding area is just so flat.

We knew we had to choose the right route–namely for my benefit.  Antonia had climbed it before, but the tourist trail required you pull yourself up by ropes in some places, and with my arms at about 60%, it seemed like a no-go.  We got ripped off on the tro-tro ride there, and found ourselves with a walk ahead of us.  Our vague plan was to find a way up the mountain.  During our walk, Antonia convinced Jacob that we needed to get some baobab from a baobab tree.  She knew they weren’t ripe, but apparently wanted one anyway.  Luckily for her, Jake is a project guy.  He quickly obtained a baobab, and proceeded to man-handle it open.  We had about a bite each and said, yup, that’s what unripe baobab tastes like.  Good story, huh? Also Antonia was her sneaky self and got a great picture of me looking tiny tiny with a tree that was big big.

We asked around in a village about how we could find a good route up.  We were encouraged to take the tourist way.  A farmer showed us a route behind his place but Jacob and I were skeptical.  He called it the “bush way.”  It was a little overgrown and we weren’t really clear on where exactly it went.  Antonia was all for it, but she was also wearing long pants.  She assured us there there are no thorns in Africa, but I later learned the hard way that we were misled in that department.

So we set off for the next village, choosing a path at random.  In the end I think we wound up on the “bush way” after all.  We meandered from path to path, eventually deciding to tackle the mountain via the work trails that we were on.  Locals farm all the way up the mountain, or at least until it gets too steep.  In the end, it got too steep.  We reached the last cassava farm on an epic slope and there was no more path.  We hadn’t made it to the really gnarly rocks, but we were close and pretty hot and tired.  It was one of the first times I’ve pushed myself since I got sick, and I did well enough.  Here’s a shot from up on high.

And then my brother went home. More or less. I myself am getting ready to ship out of this magical land, but I’ll try and get in a couple more updates. As always there are more pictures of our antics over at my flickr photostream if you’re into that.

Jake has been gone for over a week now, and it’s time to throw down on the latter chunk of our trip.  We wiled away a few of the days, me putting out fires in the Lumana office, him reading Dean Koontz and working on his sunburn.  We also had fun running around in a thunderstorm with our umbrellas.  We were hunting for lightning, but all we got was wet.

On the way into town, way back on day one, Jake had seen a sign on the road for a sustainable aquaculture project.  I barely caught a glance of the sign, but I recognized it.  There are lots of them around, signs with several placards, the topmost of which always stating that the project was funded by the Millennium Development Fund.  We set out one morning, thanking our former President, Mr. W. Bush, for the opportunity to visit a fish farm funded by old fashioned greenbacks.

Our plan was simple: find the sign, then find the fish farm.  We caught a car down to Savietula to find our driver for the day, and we were in luck.  My main man, Surprise, was hanging out with his cab and we scooped him up and told him of our plans.  He seemed a little wary about our indefinite destination, but I was very convincing.  We drove and drove and drove, our keen eyes searching for the sign.  As time went on, it seemed less and less likely that we were going to find the sign.  But how could we have missed it?  Surprise was beginning to show his frustration.

Finally we got to Dabala, a town that we knew was beyond the farm.  Surprise helped us ask around for a fish farm, and one lead sent us deep into a residential area.  We arrived at a house surrounded by a Ghanaian family.  We were told that the man of this house was a fish farmer, but as Surprise made our objective known, the alleged fish farmer just looked confused, then laughed.  He told us that someone had made a mistaken, then led us to a small concrete enclosure filled with water.  There were a few Catfish inside, planted there as a bit of an experiment.  That’s what we get for asking random people on the street for directions I guess.  We had a good laugh and continued on our way, but now Surprise was bordering on despondent.

Heading back towards home, I spotted what looked like a Millennium Development sign down it a ditch, so we had Surprise stop.  Sure enough, the storm that Jake and I had been so excited about had lain waste to our landmark sign.  No wonder we didn’t see it.

We found our way to the village with the fish farms, and a group of big men convened to discuss the important issue of us seeing the fish farm.  Finally, it was decided that someone would show it to us.  Thank god we all put our heads together to come up with that solution.  We went off and finally tracked the damn thing down, but we weren’t allowed to take the canoe out to investigate, so we had to settle for a glance from afar.  We drove right to the site, but I’m pretty sure we were on a footpath.

Gah! I’m out of Internet Cafe time.  Check out my photostream for a bunch more pics of Jake being a baller, and a few of me being a goof. 

Ewe culture has a big component of respecting your elders.  Ewes also tend to be really bad at judging the age of white people, but once they figure out who is the oldest, the jokes at my expense begin.  I should never have invited Jake here.  Without him, I’m a Big Man, but when we’re together, I’ve been relegated to the status of a child.

On the other hand, he’s been getting much more attention from the local ladies.  They flock to him, asking his phone number, his address, telling him that they were the third runner up in the regional Miss Ewe Competition.  To say that he isn’t interested would be an understatement, but sometimes it’s hard to shake someone, especially when there is a nice language barrier.  This is the exchange we make: I get clowned on for being the young one, he gets a bunch of unwanted attention.

Well–that’s optimistic.  As the one with some grasp of Ewe, I end up responsible for ditching his tagalongs as well.  So it goes.

We went down to Dzita because it’s a good walk and there’s a lot of Ghana to see on the way back.  Our journey was especially slow because we kept running into people I know.  Sometimes we walked uninterrupted, stopping to check out the lagoons, being brutalized by the midday sun.  Against the doctor’s recommendation, Jacob has been combining anti-malarial medications with large doses of sun exposure–the dermatological equivalent of chasing a bottle of oxycontin with a fifth of scotch.  Actually, he’s been prudent about the sunscreen.  I should take a comparison photo of our arms.  Months of comparing my skin with that of Africans has caused me to forget how white we honkies can really get.

I finally got a picture of one of the desk-pile rooms. I think they store the desks in here when they’re cleaning the other classrooms. Could be mistaken about that but regardless, they’re a bit surreal.

We also happened upon Antonia on the way back from Dzita.  Jacob, a project man, had set himself about fixing our communal bike the night before.  Antonia was breaking it back in with an epic ride, heading down to Dzita, meeting a local musician for flute lessons.  She looked tired and hot when we saw her, and Jacob gave her some coveted water from his canteen.

Today we’re heading up to Ho.  Going to do some hiking, see Felicia, and whatever else tickles our fancy.  There are some more cool photos over on my photostream, so check that out if you like.

Our time with Jake is running short, he leaves on Wednesday.  That means if we’re going to lasso an elephant or water ski on two cobras, we’ll have to do it this weekend.  Wish us luck.

In Ghana, Christmas is not such a big deal–but Easter, now that’s a real holiday.  It’s big enough that I’m constantly hearing about some crazy, Bacardi sponsored Easter party in Accra, my ears deafened by the constant advertisements on the radio.  Apparently all the hottest ladies and DJs will be there, just so you know.

Here in Anloga, far from the happening scene of Accra, it’s still mostly a church holiday, but Ghanaian church is just much more of a party than church in the US.  The tomfoolery begins on Friday, lasts through the weekend, and finished on Monday, which is when all the picnics happen.  I don’t know where the tradition came from, and who cares!?! Picnic Monday is going to be the bomb.  We’re going to head out the beach at a nearby lighthouse and picnic until we can picnic no more.  We’ll hold out for good weather… Crazy clouds have been a constant but not too many downpours and the temperature has been really pleasant.

We went to church today which lasted forever.  Easter mass–go figure.  I did get to force Jake and Sam to do the Akpedza though.  At some point in the afternoon Jacob’s competitive urges started to kick in and eventually a game of Settlers of Catan was in full swing.  First, Jake and I squared off in a game of chess, my strategic skills thoroughly demoralizing him.  To be fair, I got some tricks from a book so it wasn’t really a fair match.

The game: Catan. The stakes: your life.

Our game of Catan was a lot of fun, although I was trounced.  Jake was ahead for a long time and then, with a surprise comeback, Sam swooped in for the win.  We’re having another game later tonight. Jake was talking about a best of three that would last two games, him winning them both. After Sam’s redemption though I don’t foresee anything more than a rematch.  I’m not an ambitious settler but the great thing about Catan is that it gives plenty of opportunities to BS–and if a Skeers can do anything well, it’s BS. Here is a dramatization of Sam making some smug plays, to the dismay of Jacob.

It’s Sam’s last night in Anloga, and he’s treating us with his classic marinara sauce.  His sauce-making skills are commendable and were developed entirely here in Ghana.  Attempt #1 looked more like stir-fried tomatoes, but now he’s making some legit stuff.  We needed some produce so we took a trip into the market.  One hundred small interactions later, Jake was itching for a little phrasebook so he isn’t so lost.  He should catch up pretty quickly on the basics.  There are about ten Ewe interactions that happen over and over throughout the day, so I wrote those up for him.  In general he turned out to be a keen negotiator.  He doesn’t have an ear for Ghanaian English yet, so when people quote him a price he asks it back as a question.  At least one person thought he was playing hardball on the prices–”Two cedis for these green peppers?!?!?!”

He wasn’t playing hardball though… he paid the two cedis.

More to come.

So what are we doing down at Lumana Ranch these days?  If you didn’t know, my parents left over two months ago… so my last post was a little dated.  Granted I was sick for a lot of that time, nothing to catch up on there.  Nowadays it’s Antonia, Sam, Bridget, and myself in the house.  We’ve found that we’re never quite as well stocked on food as when Abbey was here, and we’re finally getting organized with the cooking schedule.  Abbey was a little more prudent about such things.  On the other hand, we finally fixed the burnt out light bulb in the bathroom.  Apparently after six weeks of pooping in the dark we’d had enough!

Bridget making something yummy.

Bridget has taken over the living room again, coming in with a slew of girlfriends every night, making strong coffee, presumably studying for her exams.  They’ve started “writing” and they should finish mid-may.  Good luck girls!

I’ll try not to end any more paragraphs with exclamations.

My Mom sent me magic pills from the US that are supposed to take care of everything that ails me.  I’ve been taking them for a few days and feel a bit better, so they’re either filled with sugar or they’re actually doing something.  Only time will tell.  I’ve felt well enough anyway, and have gotten back to wandering around the area when I have the chance. Had a good wander in Accra the other day as well.  I had been dropped off at the Accra Mall and needed to get to the US Embassy to pick up mah drugs.  A friend of ours has an Embassy mailbox and apparently you can send stuff via regular US Post and it gets transported to Ghana in a timely three weeks or so.  Anyway, the cab drivers at the mall weren’t giving me prices that I liked so I just walked in what I thought was the general direction until the rates were down to something I felt good about. Then I walked all the way back.  Accra is a really weird town.  Next time I’ll try and take my camera so I can show you what I mean.

My brother is coming to Ghana next Saturday.  You’re going to see all kinds of insane pictures of us riding elephants, defeating entire Ghanaian soccer teams, wrestling black mambas, and whatever else you think probably doesn’t go down in Africa.  We’re going to do it all!  He’ll only be here for 2 weeks, so maybe we’ll spend just about half chilling and half out doing sweet things.  I’m dreaming about my aches subsiding enough that we can do some hiking up in the jungle near Ho.  Wish me luck, or pray, or do whatever it is that you think improves my chances… nothing unsavory though, please.

Other notable things?  Not sure.  I started trying to learn to play chess a little bit.  I hear it’s big in Ukraine, and Cole has convinced me that it’s the best way to make friends in such places.  If it’s anything like carrying cigarettes and a lighter in France, it sounds good to me.  So how are my skills of a chess master?  I downloaded a little chess game on my phone and lost to the lowest difficulty level 10 times in a row.  That’s difficulty level 1 of 10.  Is it easier to make friends by providing a good match, or by getting your teeth kicked in?  If it’s the latter, I’m set.

Now that I’m down to my last two months here in the land of the Black Stars, I’ve gotta make sure I finish my GH bucket list.  This mostly includes a bunch of work for Lumana, and getting my Ghanaian cooking a little bit closer to Bridget’s level.  There’s a funny kind of frankness about gender roles here… Bridget has informed me that as a male, I will never be able to attain her level of cooking.  Anyway, I retaliated by putting some ice shavings from the freezer on her so I think we’re even.

Wow, fragmented! Catch you all later, and hopefully I’ll actually have a story to tell. Oh, and the opening picture was a nice evening over the farms out back.  Here’s one I just grabbed as a storm was whistling through.  Just barely got the shots and back inside before it started pouring.

I’m glad I can devote an entire post to our time down in Elmina, because it was the nicest vacation experience of my life.  Duffy had somehow discovered a hole in the wall called Stumble Inn and after spending a couple nights there with his family, he heartily recommended it.  He said R&R was the name of the game, so I figured we’d finish the trip with it after I hauled my parents all over hell.

After another soap opera filled bus ride we were in Cape Coast, a really cool town in the Central Region of Ghana.  The home of the Fantis, cool rock formations, beaches, and a couple of slave castles, the area is distinct from everywhere else I’ve been in Ghana.  We were heading to the neighboring town, Elmina, so we hailed a taxi.  The driver made a mistake with me.  When he quoted us the price for transport to Stumble Inn, I got the impression that he actually didn’t know where it was.  This is something that happens with whiteys here in Ghana sometimes… it must be that once you get tourists into a car, you can reason with them over prices if things don’t go exactly as planned.  I’m not reasonable though.  I learned to bargain from Ghanaian mothers and old women, and they pay the quoted price or less.  Anyway, after our driver stopped for directions and drove us significantly farther than he intended, he was rewarded with exactly the price he quoted us.  Sorry bud.

Anyway we set up shop at Stumble Inn, which is an Eco-lodge–but it doesn’t beat you over the head with it.  Most of the toilets are composting except for some near the dorms, and there is only power for three hours in the morning and three in the evening.  Accommodations vary from dorms, to single rooms, to two-person huts with attached bathrooms.  My parents took a hut and Mandy and I hit the dorms.  Eventually we were joined by Abbey and Cole, who came out to kick it for one night.  All the buildings are thatch-roofed.

At night everyone gets a kerosene lantern for light.  The lodge is right on the beach, and the main hang-out is a flat, sandy area with some couches, chairs, and tables that are protected from the sun.  The main attractions at stumble in:

• Sitting
• Napping
• Reading
• Walking on the beach
• Volleyball (bring your own ball)
• Conversing with good company

Kofi. As a good friend would say: The dude's a Dude.

Stumble Inn provides easily the most laid-back environment I’ve ever experienced, but our leisure was the result of some very hard-working individuals.  Kofi, the maître d’, is a master of hospitality.  A lot of touristy joints really miss the mark for me in Ghana–not Stumble Inn.  Kofi remembers your name from the second you contact him, he’s always right behind you when you realize you need something, or he magically suggests the thing you didn’t realize would really hit the spot.  He pays attention to you, your interests, and the kind of experience your looking for–then he tailors your stay to suit you.  I never felt like I was ordering him around when I requested something, and never felt pestered when he asked me what I needed or suggested something.  How does he do it? He really blew me away and I’ll definitely be going back if for nothing other than his great company.

One day we went to Elmina to visit the slave castle.  We walked on the beach, but learned that between Stumble Inn and town it becomes more or less impassible.  If you’re going to town, have Kofi call a cab for you.  He’ll get you local rates and reliable drivers.

The castle was beautiful and our tour guide was great.  We learned about the history of the place and saw where some really heinous stuff happened.  It was really refreshing that our tour guide didn’t sugarcoat anything, and even made some jibes as if to say, “Yes, Westerners, you are very welcome in Ghana, but we still remember this.”

We spent some time playing in the waves back at camp, and bid farewell to Cole and Abbey the next morning.  They only came for a day.  Most of the rest of our time was spent as described above.  We sat around a lot and just enjoyed the sea breeze, cool water, and an occasional tuna sandwich.  The notable exception was our excursion to Kokum, one of the few bits of continuous rain forest left in Ghana.

Kokum was beautiful.  It was a tropical rain forest just like in the movies.  There was also a mini-museum there that showed a map of what Ghana’s forests once looked like.  It seems that Ghana had a lot of rain forest, and I’ve traveled a lot through once-forested areas.  There’s a lesson you only learn once: when you cut down a rain forest, it doesn’t grow back.

We also got a great lesson on the local flora from our tour guide. We learned lots about which trees were the best for improving one’s love life. We also learned about a tree that’s called, “Having Sex with Your Sister Tree.” I’ll leave the story behind that one up to your imagination.

And then my parents left!  There’s a little more to it than that, but good lord, I’ve gotta catch you up to the present at some point don’t I?  You can find a set of all our Elmina/Stumble Inn/Kokum photos on flickr as per the usual.

Kumasi from the roof of our hotel.

This post is so titled because I’ve felt like some kind of radioactive beam struck me two days ago, awakening latent powers that amaze all those around me.  Really I’ve just felt quite a bit better and I’m now able to walk at a normal Ghanaian pace.  Still slow by Pacific Northwest standards, and I probably don’t register as a moving object by East Coast measurement, but we can’t have it all.

I told Cole that as soon as I’m well enough to run again I’ll go play soccer with the high-schoolers on the weekends, getting my ass handed to me, but making sure I’m taking advantage of being well.

Now–to relate another leg of my journey with my parents and Mandy.  We just covered Mole Park, and our next destination was Cape Coast and Elmina.  It was a journey we didn’t want to try and make in one day, so we planned a layover in Kumasi.  I’ve already regaled you with the bus experience, so I’ll just say that we had ten more hours of that.  We showed up in Kumasi in the late afternoon and found a hotel using Mandy’s guidebook.  It was a nice spot and we just kinda hung around for dinner.  We had great Western-style food including pizza that was pretty passable and milkshakes that were questionable at best.

Night on the town.

My parents and Mandy went to bed, and hit the streets to take some pictures and meet some people.  I wound up hanging out with two really nice guys who were very excited to hook me up with one of numerous women.  They even showed me pictures on their phones.  Tempting.  We wandered around for awhile and were eventually joined by a man that I’ll have to call a night missionary, because that seemed to be his profession.  His sermon was very well delivered, naturally flowing, frequently returning to the theme of our inevitable reckoning.

The next morning Mandy and I left my parents to do some shopping, window shopping in a world without windows.  They didn’t want to pack anything around so they were more or less stuck with a plan of buying souvenirs on our last day in Ghana.  Still, they had plans of wandering and so did Mandy and myself.  I wanted to check out this abandoned railway, having seen it on the drive in.  My homies from the night before recommended I not go down there until morning.  Mandy and I separated almost immediately and started checking out the scene.

It was a pretty cool spot and I met some great people.  I also got hassled by a couple of “criminals” who were hoping for I’m not sure what.  They made their demands pretty clear, but didn’t seem to be willing to follow up with anything other than more demands, so I just ignored them and eventually they peaced out.  It was after they left me alone that someone informed me that they were criminals and I should be careful.  If I’m to judge by this experience alone, Ghanaian criminals can be identified by their terrible teeth.  And poor manners.

Besides criminals, there was a massive group of young girls just chilling with big metal bowls.  I learned that they were all immigrants from the north, and a really common job for them was to just hang out near the market and wait for someone to need help carrying something.  They just sit in the sun all day with their bowls, among hundreds of other girls doing the exact same thing, until someone comes and pays them to haul yams or whatever.  They had some pretty killer jumping and clapping games going down, but when I asked to take a picture they declined.  Oh well.

Before too long it was time to rendezvous back at the hotel.  We had a bus to catch.  My parents had a good wander of their own, meeting some nice people on the street, apparently having some good conversations.  I think both Ghanaians and my Mom like to talk about family, so they get on well.  We grabbed a taxi to the station and were off to our next destination… but that’s a story for another time…

Abbey and Esther

Has it been six months already?  NO!  But Abbey is leaving anyway.  She is being flown back to the US courtesy of one of those fancy Gateses.  She’s going to be studying Public Service Law at UW and submitted an application for a scholarship some time ago.  She worked on the essays for quite some time over here.  I had the pleasure of editing them and eventually she sent them in like letters to Santa.  And just like with letters to Santa, she got a prompt response saying she’d made the first round of interviews!  So I think one of the Gateses will be sending a stretch limo helicopter to pick her up from our backyard.  Go Abbey!

We’ve been ramping up for her departure for some time now.  First of all, she finally broke into her bag of chocolate chips, chips that taunted me for months from the “off limits” drawer in the fridge.  Instead of going directly into my belly, they went into two batches of banana bread and one of pumpkin bread.  Works for me!  We had some last night with Ghanaian ice cream.  It’s called Fan Ice and if you imagine a Go-Gurt package filled with canned Betty-Crocker frosting, you’ve almost got a sense for it.  The main difference is that I think Fan Ice has more trans fat than Betty-Crocker frosting, a commendable feat.

Then we had movie time, epic as usual.  All of Bridget’s friends seem to be crashing with her because anyone who hasn’t completed payment of their school fees has been “sacked”.  So everyone is waiting for their parents or family members to send money, and in the meantime the boarders have nowhere to sleep.  Right now Bridget is sleeping four in what I would consider a room for one.  Last night all four were drunk on Fan Ice and banana bread, watching Transformers 2.  I politely declined on the latter.

The good times continued this morning with a dance party/laundry session.  Bridget and her friends refused to let Abbey do her own laundry.  Sam, our new volunteer, has simply vowed not to do laundry for his entire two month stay.  We’ll see how that works out but he’s held strong for his first three weeks.

We’ll be taking a walk later today, checking out how the new road to Dzita is coming, trying to see what remains of Aploatorkor, the town that the sea is destroying.

Also I shaved my head!  Don’t ask why, I just felt like it.  It’s working out pretty well so far, except I got a sunburn which was inevitable.  My Dad left a really epic Mickey Mouse hat when he came though, so I’ve got some protection.

As always, you can see more random photos on my flickr page.

Apparently I’ve been sick forever.  My parents deserve a good retelling of their visit, so we’ve got places to go!  For those of you that were worried: I’m more or less fine.  There are still some residual issues that have been plaguing me, mostly aches and stiffness, but I’m surviving.  As for my absence from the bloggin scene, well what is there to blog about when you’re sick?

Let’s pick up where we left off with our story: we had just enjoyed a visit with Felicia in Ho, and my parents had learned to appreciate AC.  By the way–I’m having trouble with the Internet so please check out the photos on flickr if you want the whole story.

Our next stop was Mole Park, which is in the Northern Region of Ghana.  Now, Ghana may be about the size of Oregon, but it feels much larger.  It’s because of the roads.  Except for the main East-West road, every road in Ghana seems to be in a state of revolution.  Technically I think it’s called road work, but that implies that there’s a road to work on.  Revolution seems more fitting because it implies you destroy the whole system and start over.  That’s the approach to road work I see here.  It looks like you’re driving on a non-road.  It’s the right shape, there are cars on it, it connects two cities, but someone came by and swiped all the materials that make a road drivable.  There are places where you can see the treasure trove of road materials–stone, gravel, sand–sitting in huge piles on the side of the road, sometimes in the middle of the road, mocking you as your bus passes.

Oh yeah, we took the bus to the north.  Due mostly to the roads, it takes about 16 hours of drive time to get to the North.  I had this brilliant idea that we’d take the overnight bus so we could get some sleep on the way up.  I may not have been clear about this before, so let me remind you:  I’m an idiot.  The buses are a kind of luxury transportation, so they have a couple perks.  They have more room than a tro-tro, are air-conditioned, and have TV screens that show Nigerian Soap Operas.

Nigerian Soaps are about the foulest form of entertainment on earth.  They are generally one very melodramatic story that could be told in 45 minutes, stretched to 6 hours.  I can say this without much exaggeration.  The production quality is often so bad that the volume jumps between inaudible to ear-piercing.  The solution to the audio issue is to turn the volume up so you can hear the quietest parts, and rely on the resilience of Ghanaian ears when the loud parts come around.  The soundtrack usually includes about 60 seconds of music: two thirty second clips from two different songs, one sounding happy, the other sad or ominous.  These will be played in alternation once every three minutes.  Most importantly, having access to Nigerian Soaps is a real treat for a bus ride, so they’ll be playing the entire time.  That means all night.  The bus ride was a very long, very bad dream.

We got to Tamale at 4am or something, and started haggling for a car out to Mole Park.  Someone figured they could hook us up with a 4×4 for hire, and we bit.  We had to wait around in a gas-station parking lot for awhile, which was quite a sight.  My parents, Mandy, and myself, just sitting on a bench in the dark.  Our man showed up with a really nice rig and a deadline.  He had to be back in town for some other job in the morning.  It sounded good to us so we piled in and took off.  The ride was pretty hilarious, but I find dangerous situations somehow funny.  The guy was driving like a bat out of hell down one of the worst non-roads in Ghana, racing to drop us off at the park, apparently really concerned about getting back to town for his appointment.  There were a few close calls and I think I saw Mandy’s life flash before her eyes, but we made it.

We got jerked around a bit at the Mole Park Hotel, the concierge pretending they didn’t have any rooms.  Eventually we sorted it out.  The Hotel is kind of an afterthought to the Mole Park experience.  People come for the wildlife, so they need to stay somewhere.  That somewhere is a half-assed “luxury” resort with some really poor service.  The non-management people are really great though.

I’ll let my pictures do most of the talking for the rest of our time at the park.  We went on both walking and driving safaris, and we saw an elephant but I blew it.  My camera battery was dead.  Sorry.  Next up: Kumasi!

I’ve been out of commission with some kind of mysterious ailment for the past week or so.  Besides generally feeling off, I’ve been having crazy back spasms.  That’s where a nerve gets pinched in your low back, sending pain shooting down one side of your body, activating your body’s reflex to tense at pain, which then pinches the nerve again.

I have to limit my motion to avoid these spasms, so I’ve spent more than a week shambling around our house like Frankenstein’s monster hung over.  Somehow I’ve managed inflict two incidental injuries during this time.

First I slept wrong on my ankle.  How does that make sense?  Actually it happened as I was trying to find a sleeping position with elevated feet to relieve the stress on my back.  Anyway, my ankle swelled up to the size of an oil drum, even further restricting my movement.

Then, in a desperate late-night staggering to the bathroom for an impending piss, I slammed my arm into the dull end of a nail just below the shoulder.  Not sure why there is a nail sticking out of the bathroom door, but that mystery will have to wait for another time.  The nail didn’t break the skin but somehow made my entire arm sore.  It begs to be left at my side at the moment.

On the bright side it seems that my fever broke last night and this morning my back felt way better.  My arm and ankle are still a bit off, but otherwise I think I’m on the home stretch for recovery.  Knock on wood.

And for the more sensitive of you, please don’t worry about me.  If an illness even threatened to cross the line from absurd inconvenience to alarming and dangerous, I’d go see a real doctor.  As it stands I don’t think that will be necessary, but we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Real updates to follow.  Haven’t been walking around so no new pictures or anything of that sort.  Cole left us and we have a new volunteer, Sam, coming on Monday.  I’ll see if I can wring some blog posts out of him once he gets here.  Until then.

Dad enjoys a traditional Ghanaian beverage.

After five days rest in Anloga we set out for Ho with Bridget, traveling by tro-tro.  We had the intention of visiting my Ghanaian sister–and Bridget’s real sister–Felicia.  According to every map I’ve seen, there’s a somewhat direct route to Ho from Anloga that involves traveling to the west, then north, a route that makes good sense, our destination city being northwest of here.  That mystical northern road must be long gone, however, because as far as anyone around here can tell us the only way to Ho is to take a tro-tro east to the border city of Aflao, then turn north, then eventually west, boomeranging back towards the center of the Volta Region.

I don’t mind the journey so much, but I must make some admissions about it.  First of all there are some bumps.  They are the kind of bumps that launch you from your seat, granting you moments of weightlessness, like mid-flight turbulence.  In a tro-tro, unlike a plane, there are no seat-belts to preclude the impending spinal injury.  You become painfully aware of this as you rocket upwards toward the ceiling of the van.

Also, it is dusty.  I’ve spoken a lot about the harmattan dust, but the dusting you receive in a tro-tro is far more immediate and far more red.  The worst parts of the road are where the asphalt has been destroyed and the red clay beneath is all that remains.  When it is hot and dry, the clay becomes dust, and the dust rises into the air, cars, and nostrils of people passing by.  There are entire towns along the road that are stained red from the dust, though I’m sure they’re squeaky clean after that epic rain we had the other day.

I digress because the real peak from our journey to Aflao wasn’t actually the road in, but the road out.  At the Aflao station we loaded into the next tro-tro to Ho and were on our way–just as soon as we got a push start.  It takes several men to push a tro-tro full of people and luggage, the van starting, sputtering along, dying again, the men pushing, waiting, then jogging to catch up with the floundering vehicle.  Eventually we made it about a block from the station but the tro-tro died again.

There was dissent from the passengers inside, a well dressed woman furiously chastising the driver, the couple to her left talking in low tones about finding another vehicle, me laughing, my parents waiting patiently, then the well dressed woman exiting the vehicle to have her sandals shined, the rest of us eventually joining her on the dusty roadside.  The pit crew pushed the van once more and away it went–full of baggage but empty of passengers–down the road and out of sight.  It seemed that the machine was self conscious, not liking to warm up in front of its audience.  A few minutes later the tro-tro rounded the corner, seemingly ready to perform.  We all boarded and the rest of the trip went off without a hitch.

Baby Joanna in Felicias lap.

Until three blocks from the station in Ho, when the tro-tro ran out of gas.  Despite the obvious proximity of our destination, no one got out and walked.  Instead, we waited, the driver fetching gasoline, then waiting for traffic to clear, the tro-tro then drifting backwards down the hill, then turning around and rolling forward down the same hill in the wrong direction, eventually being slammed into gear and springing to life.  About twenty-five blocks away from the station we found an opportunity to turn around.  The rest of the journey was uneventful.  It was a prime opportunity for us to learn something, a lesson in value, in getting one’s money’s worth.

The journey was long, hot, tiring, and humorous to varying degrees. It was probably hottest for Mama Skeers, who was sitting just above the exhaust pipe on an uninsulated wheel-well.  I’m pretty sure I thought it was most funny.  In the end we saw Felicia and her baby girl Joanna, and we found a nice hotel in which my parents slept soundly.

Oh, and the hotel had AC.

The harmattan is officially over, as are my apologies and excuses about catching you up on recent events.  All in due time, friends!

The first rain came down last week, a welcome sight. After it stopped the air smelled like dust–really pungently.  It was odd if only for the fact that usually dust is a somewhat muddled smell, even if you accidentally take in a vacuum cleaner bag of it.  If the smell wasn’t enough of an indicator, the newfound clarity in the sky sealed the deal that our dusty days are over.  Now things are starting to heat back up again, being a little more crazy-tropical. I like it.

Our second big rain was yesterday, and it was a bit more epic.  It lasted for a couple of hours, coming down in sheets, absolutely soaking this poor chair.

Lots lots of work to do here, but we’ve finished a long-standing employee hunt and once we have our new staff members trained we’ll have more time to focus on our relative areas of interest within the business workings instead of having to generalize. We’ve all been doing so much of so many things that it’s hard to tell where one person’s job ends and the next begins. Luckily we’re just one big happy family here so it all works out.

Keep checking my photostream, as I update it much more frequently than I do this site and I’ve been taking quite a lot of pictures. Catch you all on down the line.

Just about finished with the craziness of having the parents under my wing.  We had some crazy travel time–which I’ll detail later–and then we settled into a nice resort in the Central Region for some R&R.  I don’t do so well with sitting idle but I admit the spot was very nice.  Thanks to Duffy’s Sherlock Holmes-esque internet research skills for tracking the place down.  It’s called “Stumble Inn” and I’ll have to write a treatise on it when I have more time. 

For now we’re killing time in the Accra Mall before my parents fly out this evening.  We just had latte-like drinks from the Cafe/International Food/Chinese Food joint.  Not sure why they had to be rolled into one. 

We had big plans for visiting Makola market today, but I don’t see any reason to run my parents any more ragged than I already have.  They’ve been troopers anyway, though I don’t approve of the amount of air-conditioning they required for our journeys.  In their defense, we did spend well over 50 hours in busses, tro-tros, and taxis, so they do deserve some credit for their survival.

Many updates and photos to come.  You just wait!

Note: The photos from this post can be found on Chad’s Photostream

This website title is no joke.  Ghana makes ya sweat!  As in sweat running down your back, your chest, your neck, your brow.  Everybody sweats.  Have I mentioned it’s HOT in Ghana?  Last night we gave up on mosquito netting – it is stifling.  I busted out the insect spray and hoped for the best.  (fyi – we all take antibiotics to prevent malaria).

This has been such a culturally rich experience.  Traipsing around after Chad is entertainment in and of itself.  Since he is learning to speak Ewe he is a double-whammy-novelty here.  The Lumana group are the only white folks around for several villages.  Then here comes Chad conversing in their language.  Whenever he stops to talk (which is often) and starts to speak Ewe, a crowd gathers.  Everyone smiles and nods and laughs.  They are all so delighted.  Plus he is carrying around his amazing camera (I call it “the baby”).  Almost everyone wants a picture taken.  The little kids strike these funny poses for the camera.  Then everyone has to see their picture in the screen.  I am going to get his photos on a thumbdrive and have a bunch developed and send them back with Sammie in March.  An actual photo would really be treasured here.

Friday we went up to the road to Dzita (pronounced Geeta) where it has been washed away.  We would say it’s where the road ends.  The Ghanaians say it’s were the sand begins.  We came to a village  of huts with grass roofs and could hear some drums.  Chad peeked his head around the opening and we were invited in.  The Ghanaians are very hospitable and they brought out a short wooden bench for us to sit on.  There were 2-3 different drums, some wooden blocks, a piece of metal with a screw driver clankin’.  Women were singing and dancing and we were surrounded by all ages.   My mouth hurt from grinning after awhile.  A couple of the women got Chad to dance then I gave it a try too.  Papa Skeers declined gracefully.  Before we left the oldest matriarch got Chad up again and really busted out some moves.  Chad kept up like a native.  It was so much fun.  We took one picture – it is considered impolite to take photos without asking first or being invited, so a bunch of group shots would have been rude.

Other random observations:  the egg yolks here are almost white.  Probably because the chickens just scratch around on dirt and bugs.  Not  a lot for those free-range chickens here!  Some people dye their chicks to identify them.  It’s hilarious!  Chad chased blue chicks around the other  day to get a good picture.  Fat is associated with wealth here.  Dad and I were walking down the street and he was wearing an unbuttoned shirt (have I mentioned it’s HOT here?) and one of the men said “I like your stomach” to Dad!  He is considered a “Big Man” in more ways than one.  If you are carrying around anything (groceries, shoes, whatever) it needs to be covered.  Everything you buy is placed in a black plastic sack.  I guess it is considered a privacy thing so you don’t walk around showing your goods.

Today we go to Ho with Bridgette to see her sister Felicia.  Another day – another adventure – another sweat-fest.  Have I mentioned it’s HOT here????

Mama and Papa Skeers arrived on Tuesday for some adventure with their baby boy.  Their trip got off to a leisurely start with an unexpected two-day stop in Washington, DC.  It turns out you need a visa to come visit Ghana.  Who knew?  Luckily their layover was in a place that happens to have a Ghanaian embassy.  Visas all sorted out, they flapped their wings and made it over here.

I picked them up at the airport and gave them a very Ghanaian experience to start us off on the right foot.  I refused to pay the absurd prices charged by the “sanctioned” airport taxi drivers, and called a taxi that was just passing by.  It is illegal for these guys to pick passengers up in front of the airport, so we had to throw our bags into the car more or less on the run, and at first it seemed that the driver was trying to take off with our baggage. Thank God–he was just running from the police.  Savings and excitement right from my parents’ first moment in Ghana!

The savings were more or less wasted though.  I took us to the station and we promptly got in the wrong tro-tro and headed off to see a little bit more of Accra than intended.  There’s a long story about why I thought it was the right one, but I’ll spare you the details and we can chalk it up to me being an idiot.  Eventually we made it to Anloga, had dinner, and hit the sack.

Dad found his post pretty quickly the next morning.  He took a lawn chair out behind the house to a spot that looks over the nearby farms.  I had some work to do and went down to Atorkor, and Mom came along as well.  We wandered around town and I introduced her to Steven, our resident Kente weaving expert.  When we got home I learned that Dad had been out learning about farming from some of our neighbors.  He’s a natural.

Anyway, we’ve just been hanging out more or less.  I’m trying to get some work done in preparation for our departure.  We’re going to travel around the country a bit, and even go up to Mole for the safari.  I’ve already done it once but the park is a nice place to relax.  Also it wasn’t dry enough last time we went, so the elephants were all hiding in the far reaches of the park instead of hanging out at the watering hole near the park hotel.

I’ll try and get my Mom to write another post about some of the misadventures we’ve had while hanging around here in Anloga.

I call my outfit in this picture "A Song in the Key of Khaki"

First things first–everybody simmer down and prepare for me to lay some knowledge upon you.  Remember I talked about this frigid winter we’re having here?  The one marked by the mysterious haze in the air?  First of all I previously referred to this phenomenon as the “Hamatan,” which is how it sounded to me.  I was wrong.  The other day I asked Bridget if it was a Twi word.  Twi is the most widely spoken language in these parts besides English.  She laughed at me and said it was an English word.  It sure doesn’t sound like it.

But damn it, she was right.  Although it was pulled from Twi some time ago. The Harmattan is a strong wind that blows southward over the Sahara, and that haze in the air is dust from the Sahara!  Crazy!  That explains how it can be so hazy and also bone dry.  If you’re more educated than me on the subject, this isn’t news to you.  Either way we all deserve a gold star for our learnedness!

Ok now time for me to get even more real about this crazy winter weather.  Honestly, there were a few mornings where I thought, “Wow, it’s getting chilly!”  How cold was it? When did I start considering it chilly in the States?  It had to be getting down into, say, the mid 60′s right?  72 is my standard comfortable room temperature as I recall.

The seasonal low has been 77 degrees.  I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when I return to a land of snow and ice.

Along that vein, Bridget and I cleaned out and defrosted the freezer the other day, and had a big bucket of “snow”.  In the ensuing discussion and inevitable snowball fight, I learned that Bridget has very little tolerance for cold.  Bridget isn’t what you’d call soft either.  The other day she stepped on a nail and her friend Josephine was helping her cauterize the wound.  This involved opening the cut with a match stick, pouring palm oil onto the blade of a knife, heating the knife and oil on the burner, and then inserting them both into the wound.  From what I can tell, it wasn’t an enjoyable process.

Why share this gruesome story?  Because she was even more agonized when I put ice down the back of her dress.  Ok I’m exaggerating.  But make even the slightest threat to bring her in contact with ice and she’s out the front door and the front gate before you can close the freezer door.  That’s no exaggeration.

It seems that our Internet access is improving as of late, so I’ll be updating more often.  Also I can’t take credit for any of these pictures.  Mandy had been so kind as to lend her skills to me for the moment.  Can’t wait until my camera gets here.  More importantly, can’t wait until my parents get here!  They’ll be arriving in just over a week!

Just one last thing:

Me! Lean and mean or emaciated? You be the judge! Also check out that sandal tan.

Forgive the wait, but I’m back with a brief update and a couple of pictures.  Abbey and I have mostly just been working away.  Sammie and Duffy have been traveling with Duffy’s family, so it’s just been us, Bridget, and the constant stream of friends that Bridget brings over to study.

It seems that the days are slightly shorter now, probably because it’s winter on the one hand, but largely just because the hamatan is really starting to block out the sky. The sun is still coming up around 5:30-5:45–at least I think it is.  But it doesn’t rise above the haze until sometime after 7am.  It’s pretty odd to see the sun starting to shine through as a deep orange ball.  I’ll try and get some pics one of these mornings.

We made a new yevu friend down it Atorkor.  A volunteer came to work with the Atorkor Developer Foundation.  That’s the organization that Sammie originally came through to set up Lumana.  Anyway, her name is Mandy Sladkey and she’s staying in the same complex as our office all by herself.  Unacceptable!  We had her over for dinner the other night and Bridget gave us a lesson on cooking Babara beans.  Mandy’s a strict vegetarian so she’s been cooking for herself, but has felt a bit limited the available ingredients.  Bridet will have her squared away in no time.

We also had her over for Market Day yesterday.  She showed up early and caught me in my natural habitat–hardly dressed and working in my notebook on a website outline.  We wowed her with our coffee supplies and did her up a cup (she helped, to be fair).  Always good to make a new friend!  She’s coming with us to Dzita today as well, just because she has nothing else to do and we told her about what a nice walk it is.  I’ll post a link to her personal blog once I get it from her.

You can check out her blog here.

Site Announcements:

1. There are no less than 5 Ewe lessons now!  I had an Ewe lesson marathon yesterday.  Thanks to Mister Seth Kordorwu for entertaining me at his house on Friday and helping me to clarify a few points I was struggling with.  Please comment on anything that you find confusing about the lessons.  They need review and revision!
2. The header has changed.  Not really a big deal, but I just don’t want anyone to confuse this change for the redesign of the site that I’ve been talking about.  When that happens, you should be able to tell pretty clearly.
3. Really having a tough time with the GH internet lately, so I apologize if updates are few and far between.  Next time I’m in Accra I’m going to walk into the office of the President of Vodafone, and grab him by his big fat head, and say, “Listen man, I’m not going to jail for you, or anybody!”
4. I digress.

Stay safe and I’ll be back with more updates soon.

Duffy’s family came and went like a tornado of activity in our humble house–except this tornado leaves luxury items in its wake. Among the new additions are some track lights for the kitchen and an oven with a range. We also have a new fan, but Bridget has barred us from using it because it’s the dead of winter here and cold enough as it is. Now in her defense it is actually cooling down quite a bit, and the other morning I was so chilled in bed that I got up and brought my top sheet out of storage.

Sailor solidarity. The boats we saw on the way down were much more ornate than the ones we usually see on the beach.

Also as a result of the Tillemans visit, a house-wide cruise was arranged with the good folks down at meet me there. I think Sammie and Duffy have done it before, so they set it up.  We took a boat from Anyanui down to the mouth of the Volta River and across to Ada, which is apparently pretty ritzy, then came back to a sandbar island for a picnic, and then returned home. The cruise was quite a bit of fun.  The Meet Me There band was contracted out for the afternoon, and provided mood music.  I love this band and have apparently worked my way well-enough in with them that I can come take drum lessons in Dzita if I want.  Anyway their fee is usually a couple cedis each plus free alcohol, and this time seemed to be no exception.  They drummed and sang for the whole cruise, and were still at it when we left Meet Me There.  That’s about seven hours of music, interrupted only by a brief nap and lunch when we had our picnic.

At this point in the jam session he was pretty sauced. Also the strap on his drum broke, which is why he is holding it between his legs.

The boat was a very large canoe, similar to the style used for fishing.  We had 26 people on board with room for more.  Perhaps more notable was that we fit 24 of those people into a single 11-seater van for the trip to the docks.  We were waiting for what I assumed would be two vehicles to take the group plus the band, but I assumed incorrectly.  24 people, three coolers for food and booze, and all the drums fit into a single tro-tro.  Try and tell me that the Ghanaian public transit isn’t efficient. As for the picnic, the food was good and our desert island was pretty awesome.  To be fair it wasn’t really deserted; there were some fishermen working in the distance.  We walked down to one end where the Volta actually meets the sea–what a turbulent spot.  It was very cool but I didn’t get a picture.  In the other direction our Meet Me There guides found some fishermen who had a sea tortoise on it’s back and were planning on killing it.  They eat them here when they can, and also just kill them because they destroy the fishing nets.

Penny for your turtle?

An endangered species just doesn’t stand a chance.  Someone in our crew bribed them to let it go, although I think we could have just flipped it and pushed it out to sea ourselves without any need for the money.  Hopefully there are parts of the beach that are protected for these guys because they definitely don’t have a chance here in the Anlo region.  The beaches are fished constantly and otherwise patrolled by people who would love to have some turtle stew or a turtle egg omelet.  Bridget’s friend  Josephine told me that when I come to her town we can have tortoise, but I kindly declined. After that we climbed back aboard our tiny ship and sailed away.  It’s really a beautiful spot down there and I’ll have to go explore Ada a bit more when my parents come.  I’ve heard there is sport fishing out of there and would like to take my Dad when he comes.

Next up will be another Ewe lesson so stay tuned.  Also make sure to check out all the pictures of the cruise on flickr because there are some awesome ones from this trip. Can’t take credit for all of them though, Antonia and Tobias were all over it and were gracious enough to let me share their camera, as well as their pictures once the adventure concluded.

Antonia and Tobias being all romantic. I walked them halfway to Dzita before work.

I mentioned previously that I was having some guests in from Ho, the regional capital.  Those guests were my new friends Tobias and Antonia.  Tobias is working through a German equivalent of Peace Corps teaching English.  His girlfriend, Antonia, came to visit for a couple months and is now considering extending her stay if she can find a good volunteer program.

They arrived Christmas Eve and we proceeded to have a very low-key Christmas day.  Antonia was on the mend from a none-too-pleasant bout of typhus, malaria, and food poisoning.  It seems she had some bad luck with the food at their home-stay.  Actually it seems that their home-stay is an unfortunate situation altogether but I digress.  Regardless, they really enjoyed staying in our concrete bungalow and it was a good opportunity for Antonia to get some well-deserved rest and relaxation.  They continued on their way down to Meet Me There, and then headed back to Ho this morning.

Duffy’s family arrived the 26th and brought a wealth of provisions, including some Christmas cookies.  I indulged in them shamelessly.  We’ve had some delicious meals in the meantime.  I made jolof rice for the first time, which went alright.  I made it a little spicy and it was the first meal the Tillemans had in-country.  It was a cool night and I told them I made it spicy because Ghana would have them sweating one way or other.  Sammie did up a couple of feasts on following days, including a roast duck dinner on the evening of the 27th.  I don’t think I’ve had straight duck before, and it was pretty good.  I still think I’m a vegetarian at heart though.  After being here for awhile and living without cheese and dairy, I even think I could stomach veganism.  (boo, hiss, yes I know)

Mixing away... Not super stringent about the safety here.

For those of you that looked at my flicker photos and were confused to see a bunch of pictures of walls and light-switches, I should let you know that those were photo references for a friend who needed some shots of West African buildings.  Nothing too exciting there.  It did so happen that I got some nifty pictures on that day though.  I try to grab at least a couple of decent pictures when I have the good fortune to borrow a camera, and had some good fortune.

One of the places I investigated was this mill next to our office in Anloga.  I wasn’t really clear on what they do there, but after my tour it appeared that they make crackers of some kind.  They were working away when I arrived and only took a brief break so that the head of the process could get me to photograph him training to be a boxer.  It seems to be somewhat common that I can photograph whatever I want as long as I take a couple staged photographs of the shop owner looking like a badass.

Those peppers hardly stand a chance. There is another good pic of this on my flickr page.

Anyway my tour of the cracker factory was pretty magical indeed.  The machinery is all open to the air and is a safety nightmare.  While I was observing the process I noticed a neighbor spreading cayenne on the pavement.  I’ve seen peppers drying here often but never seen the lady responsible.  She was kind enough to let me take some shots of the process.  It was a pretty vibrant scene with the peppers and her red shirt.

Announcements!

1. The first Ewe lesson is up under Ewe Classroom.  It’s brief, it still has typos, but it’s a lesson.  Please comment and let me know what is confusing.  I’ll be revising them as I go and would really appreciate the feedback.
2. I’m redesigning this site.  This isn’t news to me, but I thought I’d make the announcement here.  I may even post drafts of the design on the site for comments.  It’s going to be a dramatic change, and yes, the current design is just fine.  The current design is also the default WordPress theme, which means there are thousands of sites out there that look almost identical.  I want to come up with a design that somehow represents the activity and vibrant nature of the Anlo region– something more representative of the blog’s objective, which is to try to convey the experience here.

MEDIA BONUS EXTRAVAGANZA!  I made a panorama of Atorkor from the top of a building.  The pink building barely visible in the upper leftish region houses the Lumana office.  The haze you see in the sky is the Hamatan that I may have mentioned before.  It’s a haze in the sky typical of this season.  So far it’s only around the edges, but it’s working towards the center.  I understand that during the peak of the season, the sky will be full of it.  Crazy!

We’re all gathering around the yuletide coal stove and roasting a well-aged cat for a traditional Ghanaian Christmas… in 90 degree weather. Actually it’s probably in the low 80′s and quite pleasant.  I’d prove it with a picture of the sun, but you all know what the sun looks like.  I’ve got a few meetings today, and some errands to run, then some guests are arriving from Ho.

Tobias and Antonia are German volunteers from a village just outside the regional capital, the aforementioned Ho.  I met Tobias on my first trip to Ho when I randomly flagged down the cab he was in.  He was naturally wowed by my broken Ewe and the next time I went to Ho I took him digital copies of the books I had been studying and we had lunch.  His girlfriend, Antonia, arrived a couple weeks ago and will spend two months here helping him with his English teaching.  They’re looking for a little taste of the Christmas beach so I’ve invited them down for a few days.

Sammie, Duffy, and probably every other white person in the area are heading down to Meet Me There for a big shindig.  I think the Germans might go too but I’m not sure.  I hope they do,  Meet Me There throws some good parties.  I’m going to take it easy though and work on a couple of pet projects, this site being one of them.  Also I’m going to Skype my family to get some Christmas cheers transmitted to me.

In other important news, the Ewe Classroom is officially up and running! Well, not really.  It’s just an introduction and I haven’t added the audio.  My first lesson is all ready to go though, and God willing I’ll get the recordings finished tonight with Bridget.  Be prepared!

For those of you furious with this post’s lack of photos, check out my photostream over at flickr.com to see some recent pics.  I’ve been learning a little more about processing my photos so I’ve made them a little punchier than they’ve been in the past.  Photoshop is a dangerous beast though.  Let me know if I start getting out of control.

Ok people brace yourselves because things are about to get interactive.  I’m still working on getting together my introduction and first lesson for the Ewe section of the site.  In the meantime I know that people are dying for content and I can feel the suffering from here.  So with minimal effort I have put together a game that will wow you all!  Whoever guesses the closest answer will have their name immortalized in bold, pink letters on this page.  The game is simply this:  Guess the age of the following kitty-cat!

Good luck and God speed!

Alright people the game is over.  I made this much more confusing than I intended because there is nothing for scale in these pictures.  The cat is very small, and could probably sit upright in the palm of my hand.   It is actually 6 months old, and I thought this would be challenging because it would look younger than it really is.  Without scale though, it seems you were forced to judge on the cat’s grizzled appearance, which is indeed pretty grizzly.  So without further ado, the winner is:

ROSALIE PETERSON!!!

Cecilia is an all-star client despite having trouble repaying. Talking with her group on the beach is always satisfying.

I haven’t had much in the way of wild adventures in the past week, so I’ll fill you in on what I have been doing.   Most of my time is spent either meeting with cooperatives or entering their repayment info into our online tracking system.  Doing data entry for a good chunk of my time isn’t an idea situation, but it’s a bit inevitable until we iron out the software that we’re using and then train our employees on it.  In the meantime I’ll be clicking away, through the numerous dialogue boxes and confirmation screens that litter the path to recording a client’s payment.

The fishermen take refuge from the sun at our meeting spot in Dakordzi

The group meetings themselves, however, are a real delight.  Maybe I’m just a people person, but I love people!  It’s really nice to talk to our clients about their businesses and give what help I can.  It also gives me plenty of opportunity to develop my still pitiful Ewe skills.

About three weeks ago I learned a few crucial words that opened up my Ewe skills to a great degree, so I’ve been a bit better at saying what I want to say.  Still, I have a lot of work to do and need to put in more time studying from my books.  One of the first things I want to be able to do in a language is make jokes, and at least I can do that in a rudimentary fashion.

For instance, the other day as I returned from work I approached a group of about twenty schoolgirls.  They were animatedly chattering as schoolgirls are wont to do.  We were both walking in the same direction, but their pace was suffering by their constant joking and gossiping and I started to pass them pretty quickly.  As soon as I was beside them, the focus of at least a couple conversations turned to me. God only knows what was said, but they were confidently discussing something about me at full volume.

I listened for anything that I could pick out, but couldn’t understand a word until one member of the group hissed at the others and said something discretely.  One of the more brazen girls replied confidently, “E mese vegbe o,”  which means “He doesn’t hear(understand) Ewe”.  I turned around with a smile and with a wave of my hand said, “Mese vegbe kengkeng,” meaning, “I understand Ewe completely.”

Oh, did they howl!  The brazen one ran off in shame and the others just laughed and hollered at one another.  As I walked off I could hear them repeating my words and laughing.  Score one for me, Ghana!

Well, that was a bit of a tangent but let’s ride it out.  On the topic of Ewe, I’ve been working on getting a few simple lessons together for the site.  To put them up, however, I’m going to need to put some time in on the site.  The point is, my next post will be an Ewe lesson, and it might be a minute until I get the lesson pages set up to my liking.  I’ll try to be swift!

Until then, here’s another gratuitous sunset picture!

This tree is insane.

I had planned to write three posts in my time-travel series but the overwhelming demand has been for some information about what we’re doing right now.  The customer is always right!  Let’s talk about the present.  (Yes, for anyone snarky out there, technically everything I write about is in the past.  Dork.)

After a series of hearings, filibusters, and votes, we’ve firmly decided that Saturdays are to be free of microfinancin’ and shall be used to kick back a little bit.  Recently we decided to take advantage of this lazy day by renting a canoe and touring the lagoon a little bit.  Siva told us that we should be able to find a rental by talking to anyone adjacent to a boat.  This wasn’t quite the case.

We went to his recommended spot at the back of the Anloga market.  This was a pretty cool experience anyway because the market was utterly empty except for a few kids playing soccer with some wadded up plastic bags for a ball.  We really got a sense for the size of the market without anyone in it.  Somehow on market days the grounds feel both bigger and smaller at the same time.  Maybe it’s just that you don’t spend much time gauging size when you’re squeezing between people or tro-tros or ducking under a large bowl on someone’s head.

We found a couple guys hanging out at the water’s edge and asked about renting a boat in broken Ewe.  The best we could get was a ‘guided tour’ by our captain, who pushed us around the lagoon using a large stick.  When I asked them how much it would be – “Nenie?” – he responded that we should just go for the ride and come back – “Ne yi na va”.  I had mixed feelings about this response but went along with it anyway.  My Ewe skills being what they are, I generally take every opportunity to come to an understanding with someone.  It’s just a lot riskier to try and clarify things.  Odds are I’ll just pineapple the whole situation.

As another aside, the word for “to confuse” in Ewe is the same as the word for Pineapple. Moreover, it seems that it isn’t like a lot of words in Ewe where people consider them different words despite sounding identical. They are simply the same word. Pineapple is both a noun and a verb. In noun form, it is a delicious fruit. In verb form, it is befuddling. As a result, people will use pineapple as a verb when speaking in English, such as my usage up above. I find this to make sense in a Sponge-Bob kind of way.

Asides aside, we took a pleasant trip around the lagoon that lasted about 45 minutes.  We didn’t go too far from the market grounds but it was nice to see Anloga from the water and also just to get out and dink around.

We returned to shore and prepared to continue our tomfoolery, and it was at this point that our driver informed us that he would be charging 10 cedi for our trip.  That’s about $7, and though it might not seem like much, it is! 10 cedis for 45 minutes in a canoe is highway robbery!  For a sense of scale: a 45 minute ride in a taxi is less than 1 cedi, a delicious and filling lunch is 0.30-0.70 cedi, and maybe most illustratively, his proposed 10 cedi rate would have been more expensive/hr than hiring an armed guide to take us on safari in Mole Park.  Guides charge a rate of 3 cedis/hr/person.  Anyway, it was an outrage!

It wasn’t actually much of an outrage, but more one of those yevu-price moments where someone (usually a guy) tries to charge you a ridiculous amount because you’re white.  At least by now I have some sense of scale so I can recognize when this is happening.  We paid him three cedi and continued on our merry way.

It

The rest of our way wasn’t all that merry though.  Duffy went back to the house and Abbey and I went to the beach, where her backpack was promptly stolen.  This was a bit of a downer as the bag held a little money and a lot of sentimental value to her, not to mention one of the smart-phones on loan to us from the University of Washington.  It was a sobering reminder that, despite the fact that Ghana is incredibly friendly and inviting, Ghanaians are still humans and humans make mistakes.

That’s all for now.  I hope you enjoyed this departure from the retrospective. Also take note! I’ve switched to using Flickr for my image handling. When you click to see the larger sizes, you’ll be taken to the Flickr site. There is also a sidebar widget now that shows photos that I’ve put up on flickr. Right now it is pretty labor intensive for me to maintain it in this way, but it will make it easier for me to post photos that don’t have to do with any blog posts, so even if I don’t have time for a blog post, I can put up a picture on Flickr and you can see it at my photostream! I’ll even prove its value by uploading some pictures that I’m not featuring in this post.

Mole was incrediby beautiful, and we met some really awesome people while we were there.

Everyone settle back into your seats. I know you’re all giddy from our last stop but this trip is just getting started! Behold as I turn the dial to November 18th, 2010, and observe the trip that Maggie and I took to Mole National Park!

Mole is Ghana’s largest national park, and the bustling hub of Ghana’s safari industry.  It should be noted that Ghana doesn’t have an especially robust safari industry, especially compared to places like the Serengeti.  The issue isn’t the wildlife– although there is much more in East Africa as well; it’s the terrain and vegetation.  The Serengeti is a grassland punctuated by solitary trees and bushes.  Just picture a giraffe eating from a tree.  What terrain could be more ideal for animal viewing?  Mole Park, however, is semi-forested.  Not only that, but the grass that grows in the park is about six or seven feet high.  In the case of the driving safari, this makes it largely impossible to see off of the road in lots of places.  Don’t take this to mean that Mole isn’t a good place to go on safari, though.  Just don’t go during the wet season.

Not only is the view beautiful, but in the dry season elephants will be clearly visible. This picture is taken from beside the hotel pool. Now that's a lazy safari.

If we had waited just a month or two more, the experience would have been entirely different.  The grass dries up, the trees drop their leaves, and the whole landscape burns.  Every year.  This has a couple of handy results for tourism.  For one,  it is much easier to see the animals from the road, or from the walking safari.  In general the terrain is much more open.  Secondly, thanks to the craftiness of the park organizers, the animals of the park spend their time much closer to the park lodging during the winter.  There is a man-made watering hole that becomes the talk of the town as far as the elephants and other animals are concerned.

We went on both a walking and driving safari, and my preference was the walking one.  I just love walking!  The terrain was beautiful, and though we didn’t see that many animals, it was a lot of fun.  Our guide, DK, was knowledgeable and hilarious, which is the most you can ask in a guide.  He also had a very large gun, apparently large enough to stop an elephant.  Good to know.

The baboons and warthogs are pretty shameless about rooting around and playing in the yards of the park staff members.

From the hotels, which are situated on a bluff, we traipsed down the hill towards the watering hole in single file.  Maggie and I joined a group of German tourists and our new friend from Ireland, Christopher Ryan.  More on him in a minute.  We wandered more or less aimlessly through the brush, listening for animals and receiving lessons in the local flora and fauna from DK.  We took the afternoon safari, so we started back to the lodge as the sun was setting.  Although the wildlife experience was a little lacking, the good company more than made up for it and I need to make some shout-outs to the people we met during our stay.

Heading home after our nature walk. Christopher is in this picture but you can't see him. Beans!

We met the aforementioned Christoper Ryan on our first afternoon in the park.  I was aimlessly wandering around the restaurant area and wound up taking a seat next to a fairly burly, fairly tan fellow.  At first I mistook him for another traveler that was a part of a group, but he quickly let me know that he was flying solo.  Christopher, or Christian, as DK called him, had been cycling across West Africa.  At this point in his journey he had ridden from Dakar, in Senegal, through Mali, Burkina Faso, and into Ghana.  If you don’t have a map on you, that’s about 1550 miles.  Some of which, like on the day he crossed the Ghanaian border, were ridden in 105+ degree heat.  He had definitely earned his tan.  He made great conversation during our trip to the park and I hope to catch him in his home city of Dublin sometime.  When we parted ways he still had hundreds of miles left on his trip, which he planned to wrap up with a well-deserved week of relaxation on the Ghanaian beaches.

Aside: This is the oldest Mosque in Ghana. It is in an all-Muslim town called Larabanga just outside the park and was built in the 1400s.

We also chatted with a cool Australian girl who was “gap-yearing” and some American students and volunteers.  We ended up making a large part of the return trip with an Tony Lipari, an American volunteering near Accra.  He’ll be in Ghana for a bit longer so hopefully he can come visit us at our humble abode and enjoy the village life.

Probably the most bizarre thing about going to Mole was that we were just there to relax.  We had pretty much spent the whole time up until our trip working on Lumana, so it was a very strange adjustment to sit and chat with other travelers or swim in the pool on a lazy afternoon.  It was a welcome bit of variety.

And now, because eventually I’ll run out of them, a gratuitous shot of Maggie a the park!  She probably wouldn’t want me to post this one but I like it because it isn’t posed and is telling of our interactions.  She’s exasperated with my ridiculousness, but just can’t help but love me.  Love you too Mag!

Watch your head as you enter this fantastical time-machine.  Sit back and relax as wonders of days gone-by are revealed before your eyes!  I assure you, we’re embarking on a magical journey here, and not a series of posts where I hastily catch up on cool things that I never wrote about.

Our first stop is way back on November, 6 2010, when we visited the island that Maggie mentioned in her post about dancing.  The island is down past the destroyed road to Dzita where the road ends in the mouth of the Volta River.    At the road end, we found a concrete dock covered with piles of mangrove branches.  People canoe around in the lagoons and the river, cutting down mangroves and piling them on their boats until they are so heavily laden that the lips of the canoe are barely above the water.  A couple of women who rode with us in the tro-tro wanted portraits for their kids, and in the process of taking one we managed to document a fellow that, I would venture to say, had a strong back.

From here we kicked around for a few minutes while we waited for our host, Siva, to tell us where to go.  I spoke to him briefly and didn’t really understand what he was telling me, but the vibe seemed to be that we should wait and that it was being sorted out.  Sure enough, a small motorcycle gang arrived at the dock and told us they were to be our transport.  Sweet!  It felt good to ride a bit as I’ve been missing my bike back home.  Even Abbey had a good time, despite a general mistrust of motorcycles.  The road we took was pretty sketchy so we kept a leisurely pace.

If variety is the spice of life, we were living it up. We traveled by tro-tro, on foot, motorcycle, and finally in a canoe. As an aside, back here in the present we’re preparing for another canoe trip today! We don’t have any definite plans except to find a fisherman, tell him we want to rent his canoe, and then dink around. Wish us luck.

During the process of embarking, Abbey shared hilarious anecdotes from a public health class about how the Volta River is the single most parasite-infested river on the planet.  The girl knows how to give a pep-talk!  After everyone was made thoroughly paranoid about getting anywhere near the water, it became clear that we would have walk through it and the mud surrounding it.  We did so with zeal, like true adventurers.

The objective of our visit was to see our German friends Jan and Malte who were staying on the island to help build a medical center.  We ended up hanging out with them for the rest of the day and had a delicious lunch, which culminated in a dance party.  We also made the cross-town journey to the village Zoo.  Several island animals were held as more or less living trophies in town.  Apparently for years there was a hunting duo on the island of mythic proportions.  Malte told us about the hunter, who we then met, and his late hunting dog that was capable of taking on a crocodile 1v1.  His dog was also capable of subduing one of these, a native species known as “angry cat”:

The whole trip was a lot of fun and I definitely haven’t done it justice.  The island is still very traditional and the people were very nice.  It is the least Westernized place I’ve been to date.  We’ll leave you with a group photo of our crew, the Germans, and the construction boys at the medical center.

Yup, it’s official. Dan and I are officially “yevus” (meaning “white person” in the local ewe language). In the Volta Region of Ghana, we hear that word no fewer than 50 times a day, mostly from young children utterly fascinated with white people in a region where white people are few and far between. The other day, I even heard it from a 40 year old mother sitting with her child on the ground as we walked by. To be clear, “Yevu” is not said to be derogatory but rather just as an exclamatory. It’s said like “Hey, look, a WHITE person” – not “LOOK at the white person”. We arrived in the Anloga region of Ghana about two weeks ago, and have gotten a chance to get a feel for Lumana daily operations and the community here in Anloga, Dzita, and Atorkor. I’ve met a few clients, such as Steven (above), who weaves kente, and Mercy, who runs a food stand and is also a tailor.

Dan is here another 8 days, and I’m here until the 21st when I fly back to through Washington DC on the same flight as Sloane and Taylor (who I eagerly look forward to seeing this Wednesday!).

I look forward to hearing the word “Yevu” shouted at me from every which way 50+ times a day until I leave –- mostly because it’s primarily beaming young children behind the voices.

Things have been a little crazy here and I’ve managed to not update anything for awhile.  But here is an update, so there. Maggie has peaced out for the USA and will be missed over here.  This puts an awful lot of pressure on me to keep up the blog, although it also releases a lot of pressure since our only readers were here to check in on Maggie

Edit:  Apparently I already posted this on another post!  If you feel cheated I apologize!  It takes a long time to load all my old posts so I didn’t look to see whether I had shared this image before.  Whoops.

Bye sister!

Anyway I’ll be recruiting a little bit of help to keep the updates rolling in.  This will mark the beginning of a transition towards a shared blog for anyone volunteering for Lumana to post updates to their families and friends.  Up next is a post from Drew Meyers, a volunteer who has already departed but wrote a post for the blog before doing so.  I have a backlog of photos and posts to share anyway, and Damn!  I forgot to send my busted ass camera back to the states with Maggie so it could be fixed.  It looks like I’m out of luck in the meantime and will have to borrow Duffy’s or use my phone camera.

Abbey, Bridget, and I went to Accra to send Maggie off on Friday and we got to say with Abbey’s friends, the Kramers.  They work for USAID and live in an air conditioned house.  I felt guilty the whole time we were there.  Also I went to Ghanaian supermarkets for the first time while there.  It just feels so wrong to see things sold at American prices here!  I can get a delicious and filling lunch for 0.20 GHS in the village but it costs 2.45 GHS for a Toblerone?  Poppycock!

I did end up buying a Toblerone nonetheless.  I also bought some green tea to give my morning routine a bit of a kick-start.  Coffee and black tea are just too much for me; I’m a sensitive boy.

We’re crazy busy with Lumana stuff as usual but when I have time I’ll start updating the site more often and even opening up some new sections.  For instance I want a spot that I can post updates on different projects that we’re working on around the house.  For instance our compost pile and the hammock that Duffy is making.  If you aren’t excited to read about weaving and food decomposing than you need to get with the program!

Here’s a gratuitous shot of some beautiful evening clouds.  The sky here is something else.

We made it to Mole, it cost us a lot more than we had planned but the result is a bit more of the keen safari action we’ve been so excited to experience.  We went for a walking safari today and it was quite fun.  We did however learn that this is not prime safari season, and in fact it is the worst season for elephants.  : (

Here are a couple random pictures.  Again excuse my cell-phone camera action.

After a very Ghanaian morning at the bus station we’re en route to Tamale, from which we’ll catch another bus to Mole National Park and get some safari action.  The road north from Accra leaves something to be desired.  For a good distance the traffic just travels on dirt roads adjacent to the freeway that is under construction.  We hit some four-lane roads for awhile and made good progress, but now we’re in the dirt again. : /

We’ve heard varying reports for the length of our current journey, ranging from 6 hours to 14. We’re hoping for the former, otherwise we’ll be catching a bus from Tamale tomorrow instead of this afternoon. Doing my best to include a video from the bus, but forgive me if you don’t see any media until we’re back home.

Giving up on the video with the cell service out here. It’s also incredibly hard to take pictures since we’re off-roading.

Here’s an unrelated pic of an approaching storm front in Atorkor earlier this week

This is our friend Yan, better known by our Ghanaian friends as "the White James Brown" for his akpadza skills. In this pic you can clearly see the chicken-like nature of the dance.

Let it be known that we have publicly preformed the Akpadza not once, not twice, but thrice times this week. Thursday Chad came home and informed me that we were going to a party. A party? Yes, a party! Over the non-existent road to Dzita there is a resort owned by a yevu. Its name is Meet Me There. He invited us and other volunteers in the area to dinner and some good old fashion fun! When we got there we were stoked to hear that we were all given rooms on the house. Wahoo! Dinner was amazing and I know its shocking, but no beans!

Ghanaians always carry hankies to wipe their brows. They also make handy props for dancing. Here you can see me thoroughly working a borrowed hanky.

Directly after dinner the band got together and the drums and maracas began, along with the singing and the Akpadza! We danced like crazy and attempted the Akpadza for hours. Man. These people can really dance, and I am ashamed to say that because of us, they will forever consider white people to have no rhythm and no moves. To sum it up, it was a pretty rad party and we all enjoyed the little break!

Saturday we went to a nearby island to visit our German friends who are building a health center. Our Ghanaian friend Siva gave us a tour of the remote place. He also had the children (who followed us around because yevu’s are rare) sing and dance for us. These kids can move! After a long time of watching the children dance the German’s cook Elorm decided it was our turn. She led the kids in a song and pulled Chad, Abbey, Yan, Malta, and I in to preform for the crowd. They didn’t laugh much, but I saw an adult in the distance mimic us, and I don’t think she was complimenting.

I wonder if we are getting better at this crazy, ghetto chicken winged dance. I sure hope so because Sunday, this Akpadza happy church goer grabbed Chad and I and challenged us to a dance off. She was absolutely pleased that she got us to dance but I cant say that she was impressed with our moves. Maybe next week during donations we will give her a run for her money.

Apkadza from Chad Skeers on Vimeo.

(Almost) Everybody is getting down.

Excellent show, children.

“Mo la gble” is a phrase that I put some mileage on during our last trip to Dzita.  It means “The way has spoiled,” or “The road is bad.”  Really it was an understatement.  The road is gone.  We caught a tro-tro from the market and headed out at our usual time in the early afternoon and by the time we got to the temporary road there was a small stream from waves clearing the only dune that blocks the sea from the low wetlands beyond.  We got stuck briefly and had to dismount.  In the Chinese-firedrill that followed I found myself riding on the outside of the tro-tro instead of within– “hanging,” as the first-mate called it.  He also hung from the side of the van and we got to chat a bit during the journey.  Like just about everyone here he was friendly as hell.  I especially enjoyed that his name was Surprise and I made it no secret.

After collecting loan repayments at our cooperative meetings, we started the journey back only to be cut short at the temporary road.  True to its name, the road was a paragon of impermanence.  We disembarked from our tro-tro and I went into photographer mode.  Duffy forged ahead and was out of site relatively quickly.  Maggie and Bridget were bullshitting and waiting patiently for the stupid boy, and I, the stupid boy, was trying to get a nice picture of waves hitting a rock.  I failed.

I think I lack the word-mastery to really describe how surreal it was to walk through this village under these circumstances.  The sea was wildly unpredictable.  Waves would clear their shrinking barrier and hit us with sometimes surprising force.  More often however the water would come rollicking at about shin-height.  Maybe that was the most bizarre thing; the waves were destroying this village almost gently.  However strange the event was, the mood amplified the feeling by a hundred-fold.  There’s a certain positive vibe here in the Anlo region of Ghana.  It’s an unspoken understanding between people that I’d almost describe as optimism.  But not quite.  Steadfast with a smile might be a better description.  I’ll have to noodle on it, but all I can say is that this was the most well-received village-devastation I could possibly have imagined.  Certainly it is sad and people weren’t celebrating the loss of their homes.

Somehow people just maintained a staggering degree of perspective.  The boys above saw no reason why the situation should prevent them from continuing their coconut harvest, and were even kind enough to share their bounty with our crew.  The people were just… still happy.  Their houses may be built on sand, but whoever poured the foundation for their world-view did a bang-up job.

These oddities combined made the return trip feel like something a bit out of a dream, and we took our time with it.  We enjoyed our coconuts and occasional chats with passers-by.  The interaction between sea, sand, and sun also made for many beautiful pictures.

Walking back was perilous at times and downright deadly for my sandals.  I almost lost them twice.  Walking without them was preferable but there were places where very large, pokey cacti were being buried by the sand.  What ever was a boy to do?  Maggie and Bridget took the high road when it came to avoiding the waves.

Although occasionally there was no choice but to just brace yourself.  By this time people on both ends of the road had given up on motorized transport altogether and were beginning to ferry goods across the waves on their heads.

I think the walk back left quite an impression on us.  The air was thick with mist and felt electrified as we waded across the last stretch of beach.  Then it was on to find a tro-tro and return home yet again.  Again, I can’t express how crazy this experience was in words.  I hope the photos help a bit.  I left them at a higher resolution than usual so you can get a little more detail.  This last one is really high resolution and comes closest to capturing the sort of magic that I still feel when I think of that night.  Enjoy.

I’ve been advertising a backlog of updates and I just can’t seem to get them up quickly enough.  Our Internet has been incredibly unreliable lately and I tend only to write when I’m about to post an update.  I’ll have to plan a bit more deliberately in the future.  Onward with the post!

My original jogging route was to take the first road that headed toward the sea, and follow it until I got to the sea. It worked! The road turns from asphault to dirt pretty quickly

I’m told that humans are creatures of habit and certainly find that to be the case for myself.  I tend to be happiest and most productive when I’m maintaining a healthy routine, and I’ve been working on getting such a routine going since I arrived in Ghana.  The recipe for my routine has many ingredients, but it is best served with a side of exercise and a liberal helping of waking up early.

Early mornings are a pretty active time in our area anyway.  Bridget tends to get up when the birds start singing, which Maggie places as happening every day at exactly 5:24am.  If the birds haven’t done their work on me, the sound of Bridget sweeping our mango tree’s leaves in the yard is usually enough to stir me.  Then if I’m really feeling zealous it’s up, dressed, and out for a run.

...from a dirt road it becomes a footpath...

My initial assessment of the Anlo region was that jogging is simply not done, but  I’ve gathered bits and pieces of information from various Ghanaians that suggests otherwise.  My friend Eric first put me on the path while we were exploring Keta.  He’s a marathon runner known locally as “Koom chah chah”.  Just read it like it’s written.  It means “fastest runner” and whether or not it is true of him, he’s notably well-recognized by that name.  At some point between the numerous brief interactions he has with everyone in sight (his friends, he tells me),  he asked me if I was part of a “Keep Fit Club”.  I assumed that he was referring to a gym, and detailed for him the facilities that I got to use at t

...the path ends at farmland. Only one path leads to the beach, and it's between some onions and some cayenne peppers...

he University of Washington when I attended.  At about this point the language barrier interjected, and the conversation clumsily disintegrated without my ever getting to really find out about what a Keep Fit Club actually was.

Thank the sweet Lord for Bridget, who I’ve now taken to calling the Ghanaian Wikipedia.  Apparently the Keep Fit Club is a group of people who get up and jog (or “trot”).  This transpires every day, but is kept from the prying eyes of Westerners.  How is this possible?

...now we've got to traverse some wetlands. Maggie and I walked this route as a team to do some beach-combing.

This secret society has a secret weapon: they are unyieldingly practical.  To get in a run of any considerable distance takes some time, and when is a good time to go for a long run in Ghana?  Never.  Or, if you insist, before the sun comes up.  The Keep Fit Club calls meetings to order at 3:00am.  Needless to say, I’m not yet a member.

For now I’ll keep my thirty minute jog at 6:00am, thank you very much.  I hope you aren’t too painfully bored by these pictures of my old route.  With the arrival of the new volunteers, Drew and Dan, I have a new running buddy!  Let’s hope that Abbey shares our enthusiasm.  If she joins us we’ll have three runners at the 6:00 time slot and maybe that will make us eligible to form our own club.

The sand here is very coarse and there are tons of polished seashells. In the background some fishermen are pulling in a net.

This is the view coming up onto the dunes

Farming is done at about six inches above the water table. The paths flood often.

This one was too big to jump over. She just slogged through.

It was my first tree and I attacked it with zeal. I was admittedly a little nervous. Here you can see me at the peak of my progress. Thanks to Brass for spotting me, I had no idea he was there.

Chad and I had quite the adventure in Dzita this week, and guess what?! Chad climbed his first coconut tree and didn’t die like I predicted. It was pretty entertaining! A Lumana employee named Brass hurried over to spot Chad after he started climbing. Although Chad didn’t make it all the way up this tree, I think the Ghanaians were pretty impressed. Chad suffered some scrapes on the insides of his ankles and Brass was quick to nurse him back to health (pretty sure infections start pretty rapidly here).

Although Chad was a little beat up from his first attempt at retrieving a coconut, he wouldn’t let it get him down! A few days later he decided to try again! I went and got Bridget (figured she would want to watch). Good thing we got her because it turns out the trees behind our house actually belong to someone and we needed to ask permission. Bridget asked a small boy to show Chad how it’s done, he made it look so easy!

Brass is a quick draw with the H2O2 and alcohol.

With many spectators at bay, Chad climbed his second tree. This time he made it all the way to the top! He stayed up there for quite a while trying to figure out how to get to the coconuts. He is stronger than I thought! After a few minutes he had cut his first coconut down! Impressed? I was! Turns out this coconut was dry (not fleshy like the first ones we had). Interesting fact, when they are dry they are used to make coconut oil. We want to try!

This time I had a crowd of spectators. I knew that they were counting on me to collect a coconut.

With both Duffy and Bridget traveling, Chad and I had the place to ourselves last night. We made chili and rice. Not bad, except the chili was a little too spicy for me. I’m getting a little more used to it though! We made a shelf for my room and two new shelves for his so our new volunteers have something to put their stuff on. We used left over plate glass from the windows and mounted them on bricks made of cement and sand, pretty resourceful eh?! After I rearranged my room there was a strange noise that I couldn’t pin-point. I discovered that it only happened when my fan was on but couldn’t see anything in my room clicking against anything else.. and it sounded like it was coming outside. It freaked me out so Chad finally caved in and investigated. I was sure some twisted Ghanaian was playing a mean trick on me. After a few minutes of silently following his ears Chad discovered that a tag on my suitcase (under my bed) was rattling against the plastic handle.

Do I look tired? At this point I'm tired. When I got up to the palm fronds I realized there was an ant nest at the same level as my chest. I spent a long time contemplating how to deal with this situation and it was tiring as hell to hang on.

Mystery solved and I was able to sleep like a baby!

Today we are off to Dzita again, this time for a community meeting with all of our clients there. Also, we have two new volunteers that will be staying for the next month. We haven’t met them yet but hope that they will be cool dudes. Next week Abbey comes and I can’t wait to have another girl in the mix, I’m being overrun by boys here.

We found an african cat being cute. Maggie took an excellent picture.

I take a minute to size up my quarry.

One of these is probably the puppy that helped a lucky child win the Cutest Kid in Dzita contest last week.

Maggie is trying to make a friend. She failed.

Yesterday I came home from a day of micro-financin’ with  no idea what horrors were in store for me.  My keys scraped the door as I absentmindedly tried the lock.  It had been a long day at the loan factory.  At 85 degrees and 85% humidity I felt as though I’d swam back from the office rather than taken a taxi.  I stumbled into the house and flipped on the ceiling fan planning to kick off my shoes and relax.  I had hoped to have a tidy dinner, make a little progress on my audiobook of War and Peace, and get to bed early.  I had assumed, incorrectly, that I would live another day.  But as I entered my room and beheld the beast lying in wait, none of this mattered.  No word, save one, can describe the horror I experienced then, in my last moments of life.

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Welcome to my world.  Or should I say this land of SCORPIONS!

Actually the scorpion was about 1.5 inches long and was easily dispatched with a flip-flop.  We had seen one before in the office and Kizito gave us a little local lore on scorpions.  The river scorpion is very poisonous, so be wary.  He added, “I don’t know about the office type.”

The temporary road is almost in the surf. Unfortunately for the inhabitants up ahead, so is their village.

In other news Maggie and I went to Dzita again on Sunday and she’s got an epic report on the doin’s that transpired.  She got first dibs on the images so I’ll just throw down a few and tell you a little bit of the story.  For one I’ve added a couple more shots of the road on the way to Dzita just because it’s easy to get pictures and it’s a crazy situation.  We went to the houses of many of our clients and talked to them about their families and businesses.  Maggie will surely fill you on most of the details.

The obvious winner of the adorable child competition in Dzita. There we're many entrants, but only one brought a puppy.

On our return trip we made a pit-stop to try and see the beach at a new location.  We immediately acquired an escort, John.  I think yevus must be seen as delightful and incompetent visitors because people always spring up to help us get wherever we need to be going.  What I’ve learned about the Ghanaian stance on private and public space, or the lack of differentiation between the two, has emboldened me to get where I want to go by walking in a straight line and staying on the ground that looks most like a path.  Today, however, John helped.  As much as he could at least, we learned eventually that our passage to the beach was not meant to be.  We would have had to wade through the lagoon at chest height and we settled for a picture.

The view was definitely worth the walk.  It’s been consistently gorgeous here and not too inhospitably hot.  We’ve received word that the ‘cold’ season is coming quickly though, which probably means seasonably cool with highs in the 70s.  The bad news is that the cold season is supposed to be lip splittingly dry.  Woot!  Here are a couple of bonus pictures for you media-hungry readers.

When the road picks back up it is still right on the beach. Beware of double-parked fishing boats.

A goat next to a tree. I liked both but I don't like the picture. View it anyway! We've got a great goat-pic of Maggie coming up so stay tuned.

Here's a shot from wandering around Anloga looking for mosquito nets. I spent a long time asking for "kodu" which I later realized meant rice. Nets are "kudo". - Chad

We had four guests this week from Global Brigades. They are Lumana’s fiscal sponsors and wanted to come check out the program. Their names were Steve, Vanessa, Allen, and O’ryan and were quite entertaining. We toured Anloga and Atorkor, and looked into a local volunteer organization where we met 4 more yevu’s (sounds like yahoo to me). We went to a fancy hotel that we had never seen before and paid 5-7.50 cedi for meal (3.5 to 5 dollars). Quite expensive considering we usually get lunch at the school for 30 peswas (25 cents). They came Wednesday late and left Friday morning to go back to Accra.

Here are some people in Dzita gathering shrimp that they've dried in the sand. At this point I should let you know that we only have two pictures that actually relate to this post.

We had a meeting in Accra so Duffy and I hitched a ride in the Brigades van and were on our way to the big city! It was my first time touring Accra and unfortunately, I would be happy if it were my last. The city either smells like exhaust or sewage due to all the vehicles in horrible shape and shanti towns. It was crowded and confusing and people were not friendly like they are in Anloga. We had our meeting with the Grameen foundation and were able to stay in their guest house for free! It was wayyyy nicer than the house we live in. Tile instead of cement floors. Luxurious eh? The next day we wandered the city until we found the market that I wanted to go to. It is a cultural arts market for tourists so although it wasn’t very crowded, you get hassled by every shop owner. Luckily I don’t mind being rude to people who are up in my grill. This guy kept telling me to buy his earrings and I said “tell me to buy them one more time and I will go buy from someone else”. He said “oh okay” and left me alone! After that we eventually found the tro-tro station that went to Anloga and 3 hours later we were home!

Bridget joined in our farewell photo with Kizito. As you can see he was already wearing his mp3 player. He isn't allowed to have any electronics at school so he'll only use it on holidays. Unthwared, he let us know that "It's still mine!"

After arriving from Accra we headed over to Atorkor to bid Kizito farewell. He is going to high school and will be boarding in Keta so we had to show him the final cut of his movie debut. He was very excited to see himself on film and was even more thrilled when Duffy gave him an old MP3 player as a parting gift. He practically tackled the boys and restrained himself to just shaking my hand.

She's a natural. We'll have to work on getting the video of her dancing up here for all to see.

Today was graduation for our first round of clients in Anloga. Duffy and I went to set up and when everyone got there Madame Beulah let the group in a song and a dance. They did the same dance that we saw in church. I learned it is called the “agbadza” and is almost like popping it but slower, and you put your arms out (as if you were pretending to be a chicken). Embarrassingly enough, Madame grabbed me and made me try in front of everyone. I need a lot of work.

I have been informed that it took me way to long to post this so hopefully we will have two a week from now on. I need to take more pictures!

Lame Bonus Picture! About 80% of the buildings here are unfinished. Here's an epic shot of one!

In case you had some doubts about whether or not we are total badasses…  have a look at this.

These guys were hungry for photos. I took a few and showed them, but once each had a close-up it was time to walk down the beach a ways until they lost interest.

Not as in “kids are awesome”, but as in “children are the rulers here”.  Maybe that’s an exaggeration but the Volta Region is exceptionally chill and about the only thing you need to worry about is getting mobbed by a bunch of kids who will either want to know your name, hold your hand, or ask you for money.  Not that they’re begging– more as if they think it’s a really funny joke to ask for money in English.  Maybe it is!  I tried to get a picture of the beach but was briefly waylaid by a group of little dudes playing with old tires.  Luckily for them they were photogenic so I didn’t have to regulate.

Here's a glimpse of the transit situation on the way to Dzita. This was a fortunate encounter in that there was actually a spot to pull off of the sandy road.

My walk on the beach was immediately following another trip to Dzita, this time with just Bridget and myself.  We caught a tro-tro in Anloga with much greater ease than last week.  It was good luck for sure, but I was immediately skeptical of our ride.  Judging by what remained of the interior, the van had been in a very serious accident at some point.  It looked like someone took a tin can, smashed it, then uncrumpled it as best they could and welded it together where there were cracks.  From what I could tell most of the frame was actually missing.  I think my suspicions were confirmed when some of the passengers loaded goods onto the roof and it sank substantially.  How would this vehicle fare on the “road” to Dzita?  Would the several dozen eggs on board survive the journey?

There are lots of marshes and lagoons on the way to Dzita, many of which have little mangrove forests.

I can only substantially answer the first one.  In what was probably the sketchiest vehicular situation of my life we made it to Dzita, but as the van rocked back and forth the entire frame slanted and wobbled like a tower of Jello.  At the top of the van I’d say it was shifting back and forth 5-6 inches.  Unfortunately I didn’t get any good pictures or video of that.

Built by hand and without safety harnesses. Those two guys up top just use a rope to haul up the parts they need.

In other news they are putting up a cell-phone tower across the street from our house.  This will be pretty baller if they get it going sometime soon, as it may provide us with super fast Internet! Probably not, but here’s hoping.  Considering the rate at which most buildings are constructed here, they’re making some mind-blowing progress on it.  Especially since they do it all by hand.  Oh and I’ll spare you the photos, but about 35% of the buildings here are unfinished.  There are just concrete shells of buildings all over the place, many of which become decrepit before being put to any use.

So yeah, we’re surviving.  The house is shaping up a bit, especially with the eviction of three mice that were living in my room.  That experience taught me that if I ever cross Bridget she will likely smash my head in with a large piece of cinder block.  I should probably say that we evicted two mice, and made an example of one.

We met the Chief of Anloga last week and also happened to meet his wife, who sells beans and rice downtown.  I decided that we needed to get the beans that kinda-sorta looked like pinto beans and make refried beans.  If they were related to pinto beans it wasn’t apparent, but they tasted ok refried anyway.  Booyah for yet another incarnation of beans and rice!

More to come, we have a busy week coming up but might end it with a day of cultural tomfoolery in the Capital.  We have to be there for a meeting this Friday and might as well make an event of it.

Random seed-leaf-thing I found on the ground in Dzita. Special thanks to my hand-model Bridget.

Here's a shot of the beach after I was free of the kids. It is lined with fishing boats and fishermen repairing their nets.

We made it through our first week in Africa. Go us!

Sunday was a long and eventful day. We went to church in the morning for a good old fashion three hour service. They spoke mostly in Ewe but also translated bits into English as well. The majority of the three hours was pretty dull, a typical Christian service. However, rather than sending a basket around for collection they put one on the podium in the front. (This was the BEST part!) The choir sang; congas and tambourines played, and each row danced their way up to the basket and back. Some even stayed on stage and danced in a circle. This lasted a half hour and was amazing.

After that we took the long road Dzita. It is about 5 miles from Anloga, but a mile and a half of the road has been washed away by the ocean so it is tricky getting there. Long story short, we waited over an hour to get a tro-tro with all-wheel drive, spent a few hours with clients at a meeting, then spent the rest of our day trying to find a tro-tro to take us back. As it got dark, a tro-tro driver took pity on us and allowed us to cram in. We were every crammed. They usually fit 11 or 12 people but I counted, and we fit 20 people in that damn thing. The Ghanaians in the tro-tro were not happy about it.

As an aside: Check out this Dzita beach video we took.

The past few days we have been at the office working away. We have had problems with our loan officer (she sends her sister to work for her), so until something changes, I am the new loan officer. Yay.

Chad is still working on his Ewe. I know I few things but some pronunciation seems impossible. “Akpe” is “thank you”. In order to say it properly you have to make a P sound and a K sound at the same time. Try it. Tricky eh?

More work tomorrow then possibly a weekend trip to a larger city for better Internet and supplies . Can’t wait!

This is our house! In the upper left you can see a bit of the big mango tree. Just about everything in Ghana is made of concrete and our house is no exception. WE LOVE IT!

We went to Market Day on Thursday in downtown Anloga.  I’m sad to say we don’t have any pictures but it was awesome and insane.  Although Anloga isn’t the largest town in the region, for some reason it houses the regional market and it is quite large.  People come from all over the region to pick over produce, hardware, fuel, tools, and raw materials.  The object of our desire was an avocado.  No dice.  Both the mangos and the avocados are still ripening, and we’ll know when they’re ready because we have a massive tree of the former in our front yard.

We’ve been getting more familiar with the both the community and our microfinance operations here but we still have a lot to learn.  The language is quite a mouthful and uses a bunch of sounds and tones we don’t get down on in the US.  No clicks though, so that’s one less thing to worry about.  We’re working on it and will surely be fluent in minutes.

This picture is unrelated to anything except that no matter what we're doing there are lizards scuttling around. They're to Anloga like squirrels are to Seattle.

Today we had some sort of booze cruise planned but it ended up not happening.  Instead we had our handyman install a sink in our kitchen.  Even better!  Plans for home improvement abound and we’ll be ordering some wood this week to make shelves for some kind of storage.  Mounting anything on the walls is pretty unrealistic.  It is apparently difficult to put a nail into a concrete wall.   I’m also making a meditation bench.  Wahoo!  It’s shop class with Mr. Hanberg all over again.

Papa, our handyman, snagged a couple of coconuts from a nearby tree for our afternoon snack.  He’s quite handy with a knife and popped them open with about as much effort as we use to open a can of soda.  I didn’t realize that coconuts have so much water in them.  We just drank up and then he helped us crack them open more to eat the insides.  I tried to open mine with a machete which was humorous at best and pathetic at worst.  I’ll leave you with a picture of Maggie enjoying some delicious coconut.

Isn't she adorable? I have now vowed to climb a tree and achieve more coconuts, for which she considers me an idiot. We're a good team.

We are finally in Ghana! Chad and I spend about 16 hours in the air today. He refused to let me sleep on our flight to DC (so I could sleep on the flight to Ghana) and it turned out he was right! I probably slept for 6 of the 10 hour flight. He slept for an hour or so. Booooo.

Duffy and a friend were waiting for us when we arrived in Accra. We took a cab to the tro-tro station and waited for 45 minutes or so until the tro-tro was full. (A tro-tro station has a bunch of vans that they cram as many people as possible in.) Two hours, many security check points, and some bread mummies later we arrived in Anloga! Note from Chad: They are actually bread zombies, and not really zombies at all but just people with bread who chase after your tro-tro and try to sell them to you

These are the fields the people in Anloga work. My photography was pretty poor so I had to photoshop this a bunch. This is pretty close to how it looked!

We got settled in our temporary home and went to town to get some light bulbs. Unfortunately Chad and I are the whitest of the white so it will be impossible to blend in. Everyone stared. People didn’t seem too friendly but when you say “good evening” they warm up pretty fast! The children followed us around, but didn’t say much. It was pretty cute.

Our house is pretty big (pictures to come). Chad, Duffy, and I each have our own rooms for now. Bridget (a senior in high school) cooked us an amazing dinner. She made us fried chicken and rice. The rice had tomato, red curry, garlic, and onion. It was soooooooo spicy (but good)! I will have to get used to it.

It is beautiful here. Lots of green and sand everywhere. We have a mango and many coconut trees outside the house. Can’t wait until they are ripe! Big day tomorrow. More to come =]

Here it is people: