August 24th – First thoughts about site

Road Trip


I went from Accra to Nandom on an overnight bus – waited at the station for 5 hours with a couple of volunteers and we were on the bus for 15 hours. The bus had reclining seats and in theory you could sleep on it. However, we had seats in the back row that did not recline and the bus played loud music videos or movies all night long. The extra people sitting or sleeping on the floor along with the luggage in the aisle made it nice to have long legs at the toilet breaks.

Future note: Bring earplugs, eye mask (thanks Sam), and make sure to get a ticket before number 25. Still the trip was worth it because I'm finally at site.

My site


The corn and millet is considerably taller than at my last visit so the paths look different. We are getting a fair amount of rain so the crops look pretty good. I'll post more about farming once I learn more about West African agriculture.

The people are great and Roger, my neighbor, is very helpful showing me around the place. The people are wonderful and I'm speaking a new dialect of Dagaare. Roger is my tutor in most things and I'll make friends with the children – helping them with their English while they help me with my Dagaare.

I'm on my bicycle everyday. The rear derailer does not work well so I need to use it as a one speed for now. (There is no front derailer)  I think it needs to be cleaned and greased so the springs pull it back into place. I need to get into shape to be able to get some distance. I also need to get a longer seat post because it is not sized right. Eventually, I might get a larger bike frame that fits my frame, but for now I'm “making do with what I've got”.

My house

As previously mentioned I'm following Jessica, a great volunteer, so I have a bike, two burner stove, pots, pans, dishes, silverware, shelves and such. Most volunteers are first year at site so they need to get almost everything.

Still, I want to make a few changes. I'm using a desk for the stove and there is no desk in my room. So I'm going to get a larger prep table built and then move the desk into my bedroom. I'll also get a few more plastic chairs. For now I'm not going to get a fridge. The fan seems to have died, or maybe the electricity is not on full 3 phase at this time – so I might need to get a new fan.

As already stated this is the rainy season so there is a fair amount of mold outside. The windows in the back also allow rain water to come into the house, but so far no serious mold problems inside. Roger cleaned up the place inside before I arrived. I'm going to work with the headmaster to see what we can do about the rain situation. I'm hoping to extend the roof over the back door and put some sort of awning for the windows.

I've bought some bleach and began the battle against mold on my patio. I need to get a good brush and then apply some muscle grease. I'll post before and after pictures as I clean it up. I'm also likely to do some painting inside and out. But that will wait for now.

The rain has also spoiled the borehole closest to my house. So I need to get water from a little bit farther away. Of course an old guy should not carry water so I need to have a child do it.  (More on that later.)

I'm unpacking my 100 or so pounds of stuff and need to get organized. This will be a work in progress over the next several months. I'm far from having a working system of a place for everything and everything in its place. After down sizing from my house to 100 pounds I still have so much stuff. Incredible.

Pre-projects


The Peace Corps does not recommend projects in the first three months. We need to figure out what the community wants and needs before we put too much effort into something that will not be used. Still, I know what I want – so I've started my worm bed so I can eventually have rich soil for dry season gardening. All the garlic I've seen is from China – so I'm going to plant some and see what happens. I need to get some dry season seeds, but that is a longer project.

I will talk to a carpenter about a cabinet dehydrator and shelves for outside storage and mushrooms, as well as the prep table.  The dehydrator will help handle to period of a lot of food before the dry season.  I've got about a month to get it built and get the method down.

One can grow mushrooms in plastic bags.  I can get prepared (oyster) mushroom bags that I can use to easily test the ability to grow mushrooms here. If it works and the community likes the idea we can get the supplies and use the local source sawdust and such to make a project of it.

Spending time with the people


I'm spending a lot of time sitting with people – listening to their speech, talking a little, and such. They spend more time sitting together than in the states. I'm happy working to fit in. There are so many new names to learn (and I did not get my father's memory) and I'm having a hard time recognizing people – their facial features are different so I'm told this is normal and will just take some time.  So it is hard to know if the person I'm greeting (maybe another post - the process is formal) is someone new or not.

School starts in a few weeks so I have time to switch gears as I take my next few steps in my community for the next 2 years.

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