Getting ready for school


This week was devoted to getting back to shopping and cooking for myself, a little getting the school ready for this week, and watching to see if an uninvited visitor, Irma, was going to crash the party.

Settling in and budgeting


 Like everyone else, Peace Corps volunteers need to learn to live on a budget – and we get to do that while adjusting to our new community.  Peace Corps want volunteers to live like an average, maybe upper middle class, villager: definitely not like the wealthy, but not poor either. 

Peace Corps gives you a “settling in” allowance to help set up the house.   A volunteer gets a monthly living allowance which should cover monthly expenses.  We also get a rent and utility adjustment.  There is also a travel allowance that is to be used to explore the country.

Settling in continues as I try to fill out my kitchen with things I can cook and things I need.  Ghana was easier – 2 burner stove top, no fridge, and limited food selection.  I didn’t have much selection but still had to budget my money to my living allowance.

Here I’ve have a stove / oven and a fridge.  I’m wondering if I should buy a microwave to make life easier with fridge leftovers.  The microwave would be about one third of my settling in allowance and I’m still deciding if I really need it.  I’m holding off on buying a lot of stuff that I can live without – which is making to settling in drawn out.  

So far I’ve bought a few things like 2 forks and 2 spoons, a grater, and a mosquito bat.  I’m also building up some food stocks.  I have some places plates and bowls that I might upgrade at some point.  I also brought kitchen stuff so I originally bought for Ghana.  I did buy some tree fertilizer for my fruit trees and some potting soil to start seedlings that I guess I could attribute to settling in.  Doesn’t seem like much.  Still, I seem to be going through my money this week – so I need to tighten up my tracking for a time.

On the food side I’m trying to avoid gluten to see if that changes the way I feel (which is not bad.)  My grandmother was diagnosed with gluten intolerance and as I’m in a new environment with breadfruit and other staples.

I’m not gluten free yet – but I’m mainly avoiding bread and pasta for now which is cramming my style of breakfast French toast and evening macaroni, tuna, cheese or spaghetti dinners. So far – I been having simple things like rice and potatoes, tuna, meats, oatmeal, fresh fruits, and such.  I'm going to try liver and onions and mashed potatoes tonight I think.  Oh, if I could find a cast iron skillet on the island, more settling in costs.

I’ve seen some Ghana yams in the market, along with plantains, breadfruit, green bananas, and dasheen – but so far I’ve not cooked any.  And yes they eat ripe bananas and cook green ones.  It will be some time before I get enough food prep stories for a post.  In the meantime – a picture of a recent breakfast – avocado season !!
Fresh avocado, oatmeal, and coffee for breakfast on a non-gluten morning - not the worse way to start the day. 

School


 Monday and Tuesday will be planning days for the teachers.  The kids start coming on Wednesday.  Fridays will be another Peace Corps training day – with my principal and counterpart.  I’m to mainly observe for the first few months.  I don’t know how long that will last – I’m not use to sitting around doing little.

I helped Elena, the volunteer that I’m replacing, brighten up the place by updating some of the painting around school on Thursday.  Next week’s post should have more school information and pictures.  For now some pictures of Elena’s expert painting and one of mine showing I need more practice.

 
New sign on the front wall of school.


Elena painting

One of the 5 words I painted.  The first one was so bad I had to repaint and do over. 

Irma


 Hurricane Irma was aiming at Dominica when it was just a tropical storm.  As it quickly gained strength over the warm Atlantic, thank you global warming, it was looking like we might get hit.

The projections from National Hurricane Center sent staff into contingency mode to see if we should stay on island or evacuate to St. Lucia.  I think leaving is rather drastic but two years ago tropical storm Erika dropped so much rain on the island that with landslides and bridge/roads washing out pretty much every community was impacted.  It was a surprise storm that isolated a number of new volunteers.

Staff spent several days working though contingency plans including plane flights out if warranted, but in the end the storm turned north so should miss the island.  Near the last minute before I would need to finish packing and travel to rendezvous points in prep for flights out the next day we were told that we could standby.  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) updated forecast indicated a more northerly track avoiding the island. We might still have to consolidate on Tuesday, but that remains to be seen.  (I’ll likely have a post of the hurricane plan and evacuate, consolidate, ect. in the future.)

This is another example of Peace Corps going through considerable effort to assure the safety of volunteers.

Love Always,

John

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pito – brewed millet

Image
Corn, rice, and millet are the common grains grown in my region of Ghana. All three are used food, but millet is also used to produce the local brew – pito, or daa in the local language. “N nyu daa” - in Dagaree means “I drink pito.” There are several varieties of millet grown here – a red and white varieties have loose heads. These are used for pito and other foods. There is also a smaller seed variety with a tight head of seeds that is mainly used for porridge. (Don't have a picture of that variety yet.) In all varieties millet grows on a stalk with the grain head at the top of the stalk. White and red millet in the field Two bundles of while millet to be used for seed next season Converting a grain to alcohol is a common practice in various cultures. It provides a way to capture and digest the nutritional value of the grain. In some places, like Germany and the beer brewing monks, the making a beer was a way to preserve the harvest. In Ghana the millet is
Read more

Yam harvesting

Image
Roger and I went to farm to harvest yam on Saturday morning, September 13, 2014.  In Ghana a yam is a root crop that is different from a sweet potato.  We have sweet potatoes here as well. Yam recently harvested Preparing a yam for boiling The yam has a white flesh – softer than a white potato. In this area the yams are planted between April and June.  Harvest continues into December and January depending on the weather and pigs getting into the field. The plant is a vine – which is grown on stakes rather than allowed the spread out.  The plants are placed on a raised bed about 2 feet high.  The beds are surrounded by flat trenches.  This allows the rains to flow around, but not wipe out the yam crop.  Intercropping seems to be common practice with yams planted in the raised bed, soybeans around the edges, and rice in the trenches.  The occasional corn or okra plant is also among the yams – although the bulk of those crops are in other fields.   Row of ya
Read more

Mid-service Training

Image
This past week was mid-service training (MST). The conference was held on St. Lucia at the Mount of Prayer Coubaril run by the Benedictine Nuns. It was a lovely place with hospitable people as you would expect from Benedictines. A couple of years ago in Ghana I was able to spend a little time at a Benedictine Abby (popular with volunteers) – so it was a nice connection with the two Peace Corps services. I got a little spoiled with the great meals and the WiFi. I intentionally don’t have WiFi at my house so I’m less tempted to stay inside. I do have better data service than Dondometeng in the Upper West - no complaints there and so none here. Their Church Their view Their conference room Getting ready for a meal My room was the only one with a television.  It did work, but I didn't watch anything. My guess is the picture was a little fuzzy because of all the estrogen, but that's just a guy theory with a dirty phone This was actually my firs
Read more