Back in Accra

Note: This blog was written on Sunday, just didn't get around to posting it until today...

All four of us have just spent the most gorgeous day wandering around central Accra, enjoying fresh coconuts, and finally poking our feet in the ocean!  Due to some unfortunate difficulties with our projects, Josh and I returned early to Accra.  The upside is that we get three bonus days with Lindsey and Amy before they embark on the eCARE project.  It’s been so nice to see them again!

Josh and my recent project trip was full of eye-opening experiences.  For the first time, we saw Ghanaian hinterland; the most gorgeous tropical jungle roads alternated with bustling towns, each with their own set of provisions shops, chop bars, street vendors, and animals!  Along the road was a constant stream of people traveling to work in the field, or carrying huge loads of water, wood, produce, or anything you can imagine, on their heads!

The experience of helping to conduct surveys was such a view into the rural Ghanaian life.  Josh and I were each paired with one of the KITE staff, and we conducted questionnaires with the households, businesses, and elders of the community.  I have some mixed feelings and insights about the experience, and can’t wait to discuss it more in depth with some of you later!

As we were in the same village for three and a half days, I was able to get to know some people.  Best of all, I got to play with the children, and they showed me how to get mangoes down from the tree.

We will work in the office this week, summarizing and analyzing our results, and writing a report. 

Love to all of you!

Ive got a lovely bunch of coconuts...

Well I guess its about time I threw my two cents up here and wrote something for the blog. Amy and I were alone for the week in Accra and we really had a great week. We have made friends with a few Ghanaian boys who are staying at the YMCA with us, and they've really shown us a good time. We went to a local 'chop bar' which is really not much more than a table with large quantities of food and some benches to sit on. We had some traditonal Banku there and it was delicious! Actually one of my favourite meals so far (althogh with both of us being left handed Amy and I need to be extra cautious eating traditional meals with our hands because eating with your left hand is considered quite rude).
Ive also become a lot more comfortable navigating thorughout the city, including batering with the taxi drivers to get to work in the morning (the cabs here have no fares). Everyone also finds it quite amusing when you try to speak Twi to them. We will buy something and say medasee (phonetically spelt, but it means thank you) and people will nod, then have a delayed reaction and laugh because obrunis (white people) dont speak Twi! Im picking it up slowly (many things sound EXACTLY the same), but I'm getting better at some of the key phrases thanks to our friends at the YMCA. The typcial day is definitely shifted here to start much earlier and wind up earlier since it is pitch dark by about 6:30 every night. Although, sleeping late has proven to be rather impossible with the roosters on the YMCA campus crowing every 2 minutes beginning at about 6 am everyday.
As far as our project goes it seems to be boiling down for the summer like this: Amy and I will be travelling around 4 regions in Ghana; Greater Accra, Eastern, Central, and Volta. We will be spending a week each at about 9 RBC centers and most likely stay with the entrepreneur who owns the RBC. During our time at the center, our job is to conduct a field survey we have developed on how the busniess is doing, what they offer etc., as well as provide any support service they may need (like computer training, maintaining the solar component etc.) And, Im sure we will meet some great people and see some interesting communities along the way. We will also have to become quite savvy at navigating Ghana's sometimes quite confusing roads, especially since the first town we are supposed to visit isnt even on the map!
To fill you in on some other things we've been up to, Amy and I had a chance to visit the National Museum of Ghana on saturday morning. It was the first real touristy thing we have done and it was actually quite interesting. It was a simple museum and vey hot inside, but I leanred a lot about culutral traditions in the various regions, and they had a pretty powerful exhibit on the slave trade. Lindsay and Josh returned to Accra in the afternoon and we spent the rest of the day lazing around in the warm breeze at the YMCA.
Today, our new friends took us on a walking tour around some areas of Accra we have not been yet. We stopped at some monuments including Independence Square, and went to the beach! It is the first time I have been to the ocean and it was so nice. The cool breeze made you feel like you were in a totally different climate than the humid city, it was so relaxing i probably could have sat there for hours. It was sunday, so the city was generally quite quiet, although we probably interrupted about 7 games of football as we walked down the beach.
Along our walk we took a break and got some coconuts from a street vendor. They are so delcious! The coconut water is nice and refreshing, and when you are done, the vendor cuts the coconut open with a huge knife and you scoop out the fruit from inside. so yummy!
All in all Accra has been a cool place to see and become familiar with in the last couple of weeks, but i'm quite excited to get our project rolling and see some other parts of the country!
Hope all is well at home for everyone, please keep me updated!

Lindsey

I love Westlife

Ma jo (good evening). It is time again for my weekly blog. I know from many emails that you would like more frequent posts; alas, we are doing the best we can and that is likely going to be once a week. But, I PROMISE to put up pictures on Tuesday or Wednesday while I'm at work, as I can borrow a computer there and upload them.



We are settling in quite nicely here. Lindsey F and I have been in Accra now for 13 days and it feels like home. We'll be leaving to start our project on Wednesday, and I'm a little sad! We are used to the transport, ordering food, and best of all we have had plans with our friends every night this week!



Kofi Daniel, Eddie and Isaac are three guys that go to technical college on the campus of the YMCA and live at the hostel there. Most days, Linds and I come home after work, 5:30 or 6ish and hang out in front of our little building. Shortly after, the guys come out and they teach us Twi, chat and go for dinner. Then we stay up late (like 9pm) talking and then they force us to go to bed ("You must go to work tomorrow, you must sleep!!!"). They are some of the kindest people I've met, and have made it their goal for us to feel welcome in their country. We ask them all about what they do at school, how and where they grew up, their families, their friends, and much about Ghanaian food and culture. They also ask us about Canada sometimes and we try to describe what snow looks like to them, or that for breakfast, we normally eat bread and peanut butter ("Only cold food?? Not even tea??"). A different guy from the hostel is bent on going to the Yukon. I have no idea why and have tried to explain to him what the Yukon is but he has made up his mind and I don't want to dissuade him I guess. One of them said that "I know Canada is cold, but I think I would be fine because I am from the Eastern Region". The Eastern Region of Ghana. Where temperatures get down to 25 and there is less humidity. But there is no way to explain the feeling of cold to someone who has never felt that. They are so patient and kind to us, and even though they laugh at us a lot (like the time Linds and I tried to eat rotten mangos because they seemed fine to us) we are sure that they are laughing with us, not at us.



They took us out to dinner one night to a "chop bar" (small stall on the side of the road) and we had banku and stew, which is a spicy, thick stew with fish in it. The banku is mashed corn, sort of the consistency of mashed potatoes but more thick, and has a sort of sourdoughy taste. You break a piece off with your hand (only your right hand, using the left is rude) and dip it in the stew. I think it was the best meal we've had so far. They had to show us how to eat everything, and even how to wash our hands. We feel sort of like toddlers but they don't think twice about it and insist on us trying all types of Ghanaian food. On Wednesday, my shoe broke around 10pm and Eddie forced me to let him take it to the shoe doctor. It was fixed and at my door at 7:30am the next morning. The best is when we come home late from work and we flash them or they flash us. Flashing is when you call someone's cellphone and then hang up right away. It lets us know they are outside and we sit with them chatting.



We told them that we hadn't taken too many pictures yet of Ghana because we didn't always feel that it was appropriate. They promised to take us downtown to show us around, and to let us know when and when not to take pictures. So today around 11, the four obronis (obroni=white person) and Eddie and Daniel took us all around downtown, to Independence Square, along the beach and through Jamestown which is the area which has all of the old colonial buildings. It was such a great day and so great to have them with us to show us around. The beach was so nice! It was so nice to wade in the water, feeling the sea breeze.

I guess it's hard to describe these guys well enough in this short blog post. They are are hilarious, constantly making fun of each other, making jokes, telling stories. Now we understand their accents even get their jokes sometimes! I guess the best thing for us is to see how similar they are to a bunch of guys from home. They claim that their rooms are the "national headquarters" of mosquitoes, and call LField and Lwig "Lindsey squared". I think we'll miss them when we leave.

The people here have certainly left an impression on me in this short visit. In general, they are so proud of their peaceful country and so happy to talk about it with us. When we speak our broken Twi to the lady from which we buy bread in the mornings, she laughs and laughs at us. Twi is very difficult for me, though. For example, the word for "see you later" is "echerie" and the word for "spoon" is "echrie". At least I think they might be something like that. Anyways, half the time when we think we are saying goodbye to people we are really "Spoon!". Also the words for banana and for a very common name here are similar, which makes thinks awkward when you are meeting someone for the first time. "Hello banana, nice to meet you". Anyways, we try our best and learn more each day, and hopefully we'll be better by August.



Another thing that amazes is how hard they work here. If you ask someone what they do for fun you get a blank stare. Ask what they do on the weekends and they'll reply "the washing, and then go to church, and rest". Accra is a VERY expensive city to live in, and restaurants and bars are expensive here. If we ask people where we should go for dinner, many don't know where to recommend. That's why the chop bars are key. If you can find a good one, you can eat delicious food for a good price.



Of course my experiences are only based on a small number of interactions with people that live in Accra, and I would never want to generalize about the entire population, but these have been my experiences with many of the people I have met.

This has been a long post and I haven't even explained any of our project details and plans for the rest of the summer! Much has happened at work as well, and we are getting ready to leave Accra for the rest of the summer!! Maybe I'll explain more next time.

Again, thanks for all of the emails and keep them coming!! Your news is NOT boring to me, contrary to popular belief!

Echerie,
Amy

PS The blog title refers to the ONLY music that we hear anytime we get into someone's car. Who knew.

Our first week in Ghana

What a week we've had so far!! We have been very busy here so I will try to mention a little bit of everything.

We started work at the KITE office on Wednesday. The staff are very friendly and welcoming and they are all very hard workers and passionate about their projects. We have had a number of presentations about our projects so far, and without going into too much detail, I will be working with Lindsey Fielding on a project dealing with providing communications (internet, phone etc) to towns which are currently off of the grid. We have done a lot of reading this week and will likely do a lot next week as well, and then the week after that we will be visiting different communities around Ghana.

My favourite part of our week was this weekend. On Saturday we walked down to a market down by the Novotel Hotel. It was very busy and huge, and isn't even the main market here! You can buy anything you want: suits, clothing, cloth, irons, movies and DVD, bags, you can get your hair done (if you have the right kind of hair) and of course, so much food! The food aisle was definitely the highlight, pineapples, mangoes, so many peppers and spices, cows feet, live snails and lots of fish. The pineapple is almost white inside and is the most flavourful I've ever tasted, I ate an entire one myself!

It is wonderful to simply walk down the street or drive around and experience the city. The whole place just seems so alive. Everywhere you turn, there are people selling things along the roads: newspapers, toys, ground nuts (peanuts) and plantain chips (so delicious). The cars are constantly honking as well; they use honks along with turn signals when they enter an intersection or change lanes. On our way to work we always see children walking to school in their brightly coloured uniforms, tro-tros (big vans that carry an amazing number of people) whizzing by, and on every street corner their is a huge billboard advertisement for some cellphone carrier.

This weekend was also great because we got to hang around the YMCA, which is where we are staying. Their is a boys dormitory on the campus and during the week it is a technical school, where the boys (mostly our age) study draftsmanship, carpentry, etc. We sit under the big tree in our yard and some of the boys come out and talk to us, or some kids come and we play "football" with them. We have made a couple of friends and they have been very serious in teaching us Twi, which is one of the main languages in Ghana. I am not that great at it, but I write it all down so that I can remember it. It is a very tonal language and often we can't hear the difference between what we are saying and what they are saying, but to them we say it entirely wrong. They've also been showing us some of their favourite Ghanaian music which is pretty fun. In general, the people here are incredibly friendly. Any time we look lost of confused, which is definitely 90% of the time, at least 2 or 3 people will come up to us and ask us if they can help us. In general, we are always SO awkward, not wearing the right thing or totally lost, and they find it very hard to understand our accents.

The food here is pretty different. They eat A LOT of rice and meat, and their portion sizes are very, very large. I think we will start splitting meals, because we can never eat it all, and once when we left food on our plate the cook came and asked us why we didn't like it!! I am enjoying the food, although last night I was pretty sick. The most unusually thing so far, at least for me, was Zoo Soup with fufu. It was a red, spicy soup with beef, fish, snail and many entire crabs in it. The fufu, which is mashed cassava with a kind of doughy texture, is dipped in the soup and then you are supposed to swallow it whole without chewing. It was hard to get the hang of but quite good in the end! The best part is definitely the fruit here, which is so flavourful!! The man who is in charge of the YMCA wants us to feel at home there, and so each night he brings us huge bags of mangoes and pineapple!! He is very nice and we have had some interesting discussion about Ghana and Africa with him.

It is getting late so I should probably finish up here. Thank you for all of your emails, I LOVE getting news from home so keep them coming! I will try to post once a week from now on. We haven't taken too many pictures, but when I do I will post them!

Amy

Jollof rice...

Hey All!

It has now been 5 days since we landed in Accra. In some ways it seems like we've been here for WAY longer than that!

It's sunday night and the four of us just finished a meal of jollof rice at our favourite restaurant: Bus Stop. Accra is such a busy, fast, exciting, challenging city - just finding our way around in taxis has been an adventure!

This week has been such a whirlwind. We spent full days (sometimes until 7!) at the KITE office doing research and preparations for our projects. The staff and atmosphere at the office is SO incredible - I am really looking forward to working for a group of such motivated people on some really interesting initiatives. Josh and I will be working on a project called FAPSEED, while Amy and Lindsey will be working with a separate initiative called eCARE. You can check them out on the KITE website if you'd like more details. It's hard to beleive, but Josh and I are actually leaving at 6am tomorrow to a different town a few hours north of here, where our project is located. We will be helping two KITE staff to conduct some research. I'm really eager to start the project, but definitely sad to be leaving Accra and Linds & Amy already. I'm going to miss them a ton! We may not see each other for another month.

Yesterday we did some wandering through one of the many markets here. It was crowded and loud and colourful and wonderful. The best part was the fresh pineapple that Lindsey and I bought and cut and ate right at the stand. The fruit is incredible here - I feel like when I get home, the bananas and pineapples will taste like cardboard.

Today was truly the first day since our arrival that we took some time to take it easy. I went to church in the morning (they hold a service at the YMCA where we are staying - it was incredible!) then slept away the afternoon. Later we spent some time with some friends who are students at the YMCA. They are teaching us Twi - the most common African language spoken in Ghana.

Overall, I'm feeling worn out, but also welcomed and excited to learn more about Ghana and Ghanaians. Everyone here is extremely welcoming and forgiving of our thousands of mistakes.

I send all my love back home, and trust that everyone is doing well - or "fine", as we say here. Shout out to mom on her birthday this Wednesday. I hope to hear from all of you!

Lindsay

Safe in Accra

Well, we are safe and sound in Accra. The flight was pretty uneventful, and we had some decent food from Lufthansa Airways on Wednesday.

Arriving in the country was phenomenal. As you walked off the plane, you could feel the humidity hit you like a wall. We've discovered this also happens anytime you exit an air conditioned building. The temperatures are not too out of control (certainly nothing compared to the 47 degrees celsius in Burkina Faso), but the humidity makes everything feel warmer.

More than anything, it has just been a whirlwind of activity since we arrived. In my true workman style, I forgot to account for taking any time to rest, and hence, the schedule's been a bit jam packed. Things with KITE have kicked off to a great start, and although we've already started working with them full time, we have details on the three specific projects we will be working on.

More to come about those, but I just wanted to post and let everyone know we are safe and sound. Hope you are all doing well!

Ready to Roll

In less than 24 hours, we will be airborne to Frankfurt, Germany for the commencement of what will be an incredibly exciting summer. Wow. Hard to believe.

It has been quite an arduous journey for our team this year, and it is rather surreal to be on our way. I'm not sure how to describe my exact emotion at this point, but it is sort of a weird fusion of excitement, nervousness, nostalgia, and happiness. It won't be quite real until we arrive in Accra Tuesday afternoon, but it feels pretty close right now.

So what am I hoping to do this summer? Why am I embarking on this journey?

First of all--to learn. I hope to learn everything I never expected I would. I hope to gather insights from friendships that will last a lifetime. And I hope to be humbled by the depth, beauty, and kindness of the people we meet.

"Development" isn't easy. It's not easy to understand. It's not easy to define. It's not easy to discuss. However, I hope this summer will bring me a greater depth to my knowledge of development, and allow me to bring positive amplification to our partner organization's goals and objectives.

Anyway, thanks for coming to check us out. We'll try to keep the blog updated as often as possible, add pictures, and share not only information on what we are doing, but also our reflections into what it means. This summer will be an incredible experience, and I couldn't ask for a greater team to share it with. Keep us posted on how your summer is going, wherever you may be. Next post in Ghana...

And off to bed.

The final countdown...

Looks like I'll have the first post on our new fancy blog!

We are leaving in three days!! It seems hard to believe that it is already here. We have spent the last two weeks doing "predeparture training", so a lot of readings, presentations, research and discussions about Ghana, development, energy resources, agriculture, etc. We've been pretty busy but I think we are all feeling good about the amount of learning that we have done. We talked today about how we feel that this trip doesn't really seem to be the beginning of something new but more the culmination of our months of preparation, which I think is a good thing. That being said, we know this is just the beginning of our learning, and we are ready to keep our minds and hearts open to soak up as much as we can throughout our three months!

We will be posting some updates and pictures on here so that if you'd like you can keep up to date with us. I am looking forward to hearing news from everyone in Canada and would love to receive emails from everyone!

Bye for now,
Amy