First week in March

Independence Day in Ghana

 
As a Peace Corps volunteer currently serving in Ghana I have a couple of events to note this week. First, as I have been mentioning, March 6th is Ghana Independence Day. Ghana gained independence in 1957. The single black star on the flag signifies that Ghana was the first African country to gain independence. Since that time it has had democratic and military rule. It has enjoyed relatively peaceful democratic elections in the last twenty or so years.

This is one of the pictures I was sent:

"God bless our homeland Ghana" is the opening line to the national anthem

Ghana does not celebrate the independence of the country by blowing up a small part of it (Bonus points for knowing the reference). There are no fireworks at night – at least in this area. The local celebration is held on the Church park grounds in the morning, the common area for most major Nandom festivals.

Independence day is Ghana is celebrated in the morning with school focused activities – primarily marching competition between schools and the speeches that come with any large public event.

One last picture of marching practice - primary students following the junior high students

My school coming up to the review stand.  Miss Vivian, English teacher is leading the group.

Another view of the group marching
The celebration was nice. In preparation for the day the staff at my school picked material so we could have matching shirts and dresses. You can see Ms. Vivian's dress in picture above. You can also see from the picture below that I still cannot take a decent selfie.  (I need more practice!)

John with Mr. Roland (French teacher) - in our new shirts.
The celebration was nice but as with other holidays most people continue to work as if it was a normal day.  This continues to surprise me for some reason.  I guess this is also true about our Independence day.


Local elections canceled and the process will start over.


Speaking of this relatively new democracy - Ghana has a unitary president but a lot of power is distributed to the regions and local communities. The political system still has a few kinks and I'm by no means an expert or even close follower of politics. We were to have election of assemblymen this week. The assemblyman is something like a mayor or ombudsman to provide governmental support within the district. Note: there is also a system of chiefs with considerable power who do not run for office.

Anyway, the elections were suppose to on Tuesday. However, there was a problem with one community (candidate not allowed to register to run) and so the election was called off by the Supreme Court for the entire country and new nominations and a new campaign period will be held at some point. This seems drastic and expensive as new ballots and posters will need to be printed and distributed.


Peace Corps birthday


March 1 was the anniversary of the executive order to create the Peace Corps (1961). Happy belated birthday to the Peace Corps. By the way – Ghana was the first country to receive Peace Corps volunteers – (August 30, 1961).

I remain happy with my decision to join the Peace Corps. I think it is a good program that helps make the world a better place and helps make the returned volunteers better citizens.


Solar dehydrator


I have received my cabinet solar dehydrator. More importantly I think I have successfully completed the paperwork to close the grant from Peace Corps to pay for part of the cost. I am working for the U.S. Federal Government so paperwork is something I expected.



I've started testing it by drying some mango and neem (on different shelves). The mango seems to dry pretty easy although it tends to puff out. Perhaps the outside is drying too fast and creates a seal that makes the inside something like a balloon. I'll work on the technique a couple of more times before the season really gets underway.

I ate part of my first mango and practiced drying the rest.

The school has some neem trees that are fruiting. The fruit is small, smaller than a grape, with a large single seed. People eat the fruit – but I don't find it all that great and again – it is very small. (I'm going to like mangos better.) I'm drying the fruit to see if I can use the seeds (oil from the seeds) to make an insect repellent for plants. Hopefully, I'll have something to report in the future.

Neem fruit drying.  Fruit was collected at various stages of ripeness so drying is not even at this time.
Note: although not obvious in the picture above the fruit turns from green to yellow when it is ripe.



As always I hope everyone is doing well. I'm fine.



Love always,

John

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