March 11, 2007

It’s been a while since I’ve updated my comings and goings...here’s what’s been happening:

- I got my hair braided about three weeks ago. It took over 6 hours (I have a lot of hair!), but I like the fact that now when I get up I don’t have to brush my hair to make sure the cowlicks are out. Besides, during that six hours Baba, the cutest kid in Kpandai, came and hung out with me so he made the time fly by. His mother better be prepared because I’m taking him back to Canada with me! Anyway, for the first couple days my head was really sore because the braids were pulling on my scalp, but I think they’ve loosened up a bit cause now I don’t feel them. The only problem now is that my hair is smelly (try not washing your hair for three weeks), and you can see little white flakes where my own hair pulled out of my scalp. Today I got fed up with the look and the smell, so I started pulling the braids out. It should take me another 4 hours at least.

- I started motorbike lessons. The other week Lelewu took me to Balai, one of the communities where there’s a farmer co-operative, and on the way we stopped on a good part of the road and he let me take over driving. I don’t think I did too badly, I got it up to third gear before the road got bad and Lelewu took over again. Shifting with my left foot and having the clutch on the left is going to take some getting used to.

- I saw a grasscutter (aka ‘bushmeat’) right after it was killed, and it still had its hair on it. I will never eat grasscutter again. Don’t get me wrong, it tasted okay when I tried it, but grasscutters look like grey beavers without the tail. No thank you!

- I tried cashew fruit. Cashew nuts don’t grow by themselves. They grow on the end of a fruit that looks like an upside-down apple. I can’t explain what they taste like, but they’re pretty tasty. I didn’t get the nut unfortunately. I don’t know how much people eat them here, but they have to be roasted first. It was very strange though, after I ate the fruit I had more than a few people warn me that I shouldn’t drink cow milk, because it turns the fruit into poison. Beyaa reassured me that it’s just superstition and that I wouldn’t die if I took some milk after I ate it. And I didn’t.

- I spent the past month entering the reproductive health surveys into SPSS and Excel. That’s over 1200 surveys and on a good day (read: staying from 8 am until 11 pm), I could type in about 150. Carpal tunnel syndrome anyone?

- My kitchen is set up, my gas stove is functional, and I now have a fridge. I am ready to cook....I just need the time!

- I have four new Ghanaian outfits made, four skirt/shirt ensembles. I’ve been wearing them to work when I know that I don’t have to or want to go anywhere on a motorbike with Lelewu or Raymond.

- We are a few steps closer to having internet access in Kpandai. This past Friday the Ghana Telecom people came to the office and installed a land line. It will be only dialup, but it’s better than nothing!

- The mangoes on the trees are getting bigger and bigger every day. I am told that after the first rains come we’ll be swimming in them. Beyaa brought me some from his farm that were already ripe. Mmmm mmmm good!

- I get to go to Liberia! It’s now only a matter of when. It will probably be the end of April or the beginning of May, before the rains begin. Either way I am super excited, but it means a trip into Accra earlier to get my visa from the Liberian Embassy. Not really a trip I am particularly interested in at the moment.

- The whole month of March will be crazy busy. This next week my validation workshops begin, the first being here in Salaga tomorrow. I hope that all the kinks are straightened out because if the last few days this week are an indication of what lies ahead, the next two weeks will be a nightmare. First my boss wasn’t sure if there would be enough money in the coffers for me to do my workshops at all, because the money for the workshops wasn’t transferred from the Accra office. So they pulled money from the budgets for other activities for me to carry out my validation workshops. Then the community officer for Salaga calls me to tell me that he hasn’t booked the hall for the validation workshops, which are on MONDAY, and that I should go over there myself, put in an application, and hope that the hall isn’t booked. Wtf?? I was pretty rattled, and then he said he wouldn’t be here in Salaga, my boss Janet, the programme officer won’t be here as well. So it’s just me and Mr. Atta, the co-operative information officer in Salaga, on our lonesomes! After Salaga I have workshops in Kpandai on Tuesday, Chamba on Wednesday, Banda on Friday, Kete Krachi on the following Monday, Bimbilla on Tuesday, and then Tamale on Thursday. Somewhere in there I have to find time to edit a report for Chief, prepare the rest of the booklet for the SPSS refresher training course I am supposed to teach the Eastern Corridor Staff at the end of March, and prepare the Reproductive Health Questionnaire for use in Liberia in April. Okay, I’ve finished complaining!

- Last week I went into Tamale for a couple days to celebrate 6^th March, Ghana’s 50^th Anniversary of independence from Britain. It was crazy, but fun. I went to Police Park with my friends Delphina and Barry, and it was absolute chaos there. There was some marching by school children and the military, but we couldn’t hear any of the speeches because the sound people arrived too late to fix up the sound equipment, so because of that, everyone just did their own thing in the stands. The chiefs had their entourages drumming and dancing, and everyone was carrying on. I’ve never seen so many people in one place! At times the police had to come by with canes and beat people back from the main park area where the schools and military were marching. After Police park I went with Delphina and her friend Joe, to a bar by the new soccer stadium and from there we commenced on to a few other bars to drink with the Christian Mother’s Association, a group that Delphina belongs to. Nothing like getting tipsy with a bunch of middle aged women! I had a blast! After I got back to Kpandai from Tamale I was on the public means again the very next day to get to Salaga. The ‘bus’ to Salaga was a small pickup truck from the 70’s with seats welded to the box. They got about 16 people squeezed in there. At Kumdi, where the river is, we had to get out of the truck and cross the river by foot because the truck wasn’t strong enough to carry us up the other side of the river bank. At Kpembe the truck broke down entirely, but thankfully by that time I had phone coverage, so I just called Imoro to come pick me up. Gotta love public transit!

Sorry that this is so brief and in point form, but I really have been living at the office for the past month when I haven’t traveled to Tamale or Salaga, and really haven’t been inclined to write out my activities after a whole day of entering surveys. I promise that I will improve!