Making my way

Hello everyone, sorry that it has taken me so long to post things on here but I have not figured out how to get to town on my own to take the hours necessary to write everything down properly. You have to walk out to the road which is about 1-2km away and then flag down a tro tro (Ghanian bus) for a ride. Thankfully enough, Emmanuel, the staff memember of ZOVFA that picked me up, needed to do some photocopying in town so he took me along. I had a brief disagreement with the food last Thursday but it seems to have mostly worked itself out.

I have a story to tell about the day that you think you've seen everything. I was on the back of the moto going to Bawku when I saw atype of boxy mini-van piled high with stuff. Trucks and cars andpretty much every vehicle is always packed to the max with things tiedon top for several layers so this van was no different. Severalplastic chairs bags and ...two goats adorned the top of van...I juststared and didn't know what to think other than..man I wish I had a camra right now. Luckily the van was moving quite slowly...probably because of the goats, so I hope it doesn't have far to go. Livestock is transported in all sorts of ways, baskets attached to the back of bicycles. I saw a rooster strapped to the back of a motor bike which was inevitably going to be supper and a goat in a big water basin strapped to the back of a bike. My little moments of joy are the goatbelieve it or not, there are so many baby goats around, I feel like I am in a petting zoo, and they are playing and sleeping out under trees. Whenever I feel tired I try to find a goat to watch.

Working with ZOVFA is proving to be very informative. It gives me a chance to get out to different farming communities and really meet the people work with them and so on, but it is also confusing since I don't understand the language and what exactly is going on. Plus, the people are used to working in the heat without much water for long hours so they are always asking me if I'm tired. They are taking very good care of me, teaching me the ropes and making sure I'm not out there too long. I was working with other ZOVFA members in a community called Poyamire demarkating 10 acres with sticks for a mango plantation. After 3 hours in the late afternoon it was getting dark and a man that I had come to know, Avado, came up and gave me 4 guinea foul eggs as a thanks. He appreciated that I was doing the same work that they were and helping them with their project. In 3 years time hopefully they want to have a organic mango plantation that the community will harvest and export for extra income.

Other times, there is very little to do it seems, the staff are around reading or talking or in town so I need to find a project that keeps me busy, builds capacity in ZOVFA and doesn't take up too many resources (such as petrol to run the generator to work on the computer) I've been doing some training on a digital camera that was given to ZOVFA as part of a CARE Canada run project. I will really need to figure out all the diferent projects, I think there are about 8, each one with its different objectives, reporting criteria and soon. With a staff of only 9 people and one of them is injured ZOVFA has it's work cut out for it.

Living in the Philip's compound has proved both insightful and challenging. Insightful in that I can see how a family compound operates and challenging because mostly women live there and few speak any english at all. My Kusal is coming along but not at the rate that I would like, there are no books that I have been able to find so I'm spelling the way things sound...unless there is no spelling for the sound such as frog (gwan in the back of your throat). There was also a German junior social anthropologist researcher staying there for 6 months who was living in the compound and left 2 weeks before me. The family is therefore used to treating white people like guests and my requests to eat meals with the family have met little success. They were very fond of her but she was also very busy with her research and probably didn't have as much time for integration activities. It's hard to know...I try to help but since I start to sweat because of the heat they think I am tired and want me to sit down.

In the morning I try to help sweep the compound with stalks of grass tied together at the end. The sweeping is done by stooping close to the ground and brushing back and forth. I also try to pull up water from the well whenever I can to fill the metal basins that the women carry water with. Trying to lift one of those onto my head is a little out of my reach right now, I'll have to start small or else I might spill water so labourously pulled up from the well. On the weekend I also had the opportunity to help plaster a cow pen by the compound. I came home from the market with a Emilia (a 17 year old elder daughter living in the compound) and saw all the women slapping mud onto the walls. Buildings here are made by either cement or mud. The mud is rolled into balls and piled up for the walls. Then, tar is heated and melted into a sandy material which is all mixed together with water. It forms a kind of paste which the women smooth onto the mud wall and then resmooth with a smooth surface so there are no rough spots. I was bringing the paste to the women with a shovel and bucket so that they could slap it onto the walls. We finished the pile of paste in about 2 hours and a bit.

So as you can see things are going well and I am trying to integrate and learn as much as I can. I had a skirt and top made for a funeral on Thursday from the material I bought in Tamale and I went to see a Nigerian film at a neighbour's house yesterday night called Tom and Jerry. It was about two boys who were tormenting their blind grandfather while he was watching them for his daughter. Let's just say they weren't setting a very good example for the kids.

I'll try to write more soon and thank you for all your support. I always love hearing from you even if I can't respond right away so thank you for writing me...hint hint

Samina