Still in between

God bless the essential workers – health care, grocery, postal, agriculture, transportation, safety, and others who have had to go out into the world since COVID-19 started while the rest of us tried to reduce the spread. There are still a lot of unknowns and concerns about the near term future for the country and the world. Hopefully infection rates will not spike and these frontline essential workers can stay safe as states reopen more fully.

Some evacuated Peace Corps volunteers have been accepted to graduate school or found full time employment. I'm happy for them and I wish those currently interviewing good luck with the job and school search.

I can relate to evacuated volunteers who continue to live “in the between” of service abroad and life at home in the pandemic. Our evacuation was about two months. It isn’t easy and I give a nod to those frustrated and eager to get back to being more active but not able to take that step yet.

/The new look to face a pandemic

I would like to fulfill my pledge to the people of Ethiopia, but my return is not a sure thing and likely wouldn’t happen until early next year.

In the mean time there is stuff around my mom’s house and yard. I’m also working on learning and improving some skills that might be useful if I’m able to return to Peace Corps.

I’d like to find something close by related to the pandemic response, but also don’t want to bring anything home to mom. I’ve had a couple of interviews for cool jobs, but they would be out of state and full time so I would not be able to help my mom and they would preclude a return to Ethiopia.

Happy Mother's day

So, I'm busy with a few more things such as finishing my Close of Service physical and then I'll get some traveling in to visit family and friends depending on this pandemic.  I'll write about the next major step when I know.  Until then, I'll remain in between with a lot of others.  

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