Easter Holiday – family and friends


I’m half way through the two weeks of Easter Holiday. I’m enjoying my time off, attending services as I can. I finished my metrics report for Peace Corps that is due this week. I haven’t really started on my “in-service” presentation for the teachers to be given the second week of school.

Around the holidays - I’m always thinking about my family and friends. More on that topic in some future post – but know that I love and miss you always – holidays and missing family get togethers around the holidays are hard on all.

The only religious pictures for this season I got were on Palm Sunday.

After a short walk to Church for Palm Sunday

You cut your own palms here
I was hoping to get up Good Friday morning to walk the stations of the cross to a church, a few miles away. However, I slept through the alarm to get me to my Church by 5 am. 

I was the lector, the narrator (ugh), for the Good Friday Gospel. Sunday morning we had fairly significant rain – but no winter mix like some of my family in the states. The rain let up by the time Church started at 10:30. Church was nice with the pews a little more full compared to a regular Sunday.

Easter in Grenada does not include chocolate rabbits or coloring Easter eggs. Eggs are a very big part of Christmas with a lot of baking. Easter – not so much. I did make hard boiled eggs – and the brown eggs were already colored.

The islands take Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays – so there are a lot of time for parties in different communities Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The family festival for Munich was on Sunday afternoon. A lady from church, a neighbor just a couple of doors uphill, was a major planner of the event to include games for kids and adults. She also got a barrel from donors that included school supplies as well as games. And with any party there was beer and food and a DJ with very large and loud speakers.

Getting things set up

Some of the toys and games.
The festival was initially “scheduled” for 1. However, with the rain or something it was moved to 3. The field is grass covered and was fairly dry by the time people started coming around 4. I was able to help with some of the set up as I arrived at 3.

Children and parents enjoying the day

Trampoline

Bounce house

What kid doesn't like to bounce?

OK, you hold it like this and then you start ...

Clouds, but no rain
It was a good turn out and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. I left after a few hours and I’m sure more people came after after sunset.


Garden


Garden is growing
The garden is doing well. I had to water it a few times recently. It will still be some time before I know if I will get anything from it. Regardless – a learning experience.

Love always,
John

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 crop...
Read more

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

Ghana Archery and Travel to Tamale

Image
Ghana Archery Roger and I were walking to see a man in the community early last week and he happened across an arrow head. It was a long thin metal piece that would be attached to then end of a shaft. That got Roger talking about archery and got me thinking about another blog post. He explained how the arrow worked while we walked and promised to show me a bow and arrow when we got back to his house. He talked about the old times when they made poison. The process involved collecting plants and such things and placing them in a pot which is buried for a year. The poison was used on animals and people in the ancient times. That got me thinking about the information that has been and is being lost in the community from the older generation. Yesterday, I was sitting talking with some of the older men and they were talking about how the grandfathers could dig up the roots and such to make medicine for a variety of illnesses. They told me that the knowledge and practice of m...
Read more