Tuesday, April 7, 2015
Today I have to say was one of my
most miserable. We began driving out to
look at a few areas where they have drilled some boreholes but nothing else. Of course it was hot, but for some reason I
felt horrible. At first I thought it was
my cold, having once again awoken in the night coughing, having a hard time
going back to sleep. I began passing out
while they were driving and I couldn’t get out of the car for several stops
because I thought I’d fall over. Jim
told me that it was just a lack of sleep.
Oh, that’s right. After a while I
finally got out of the car and we went to the monkey reserve. They come out and get the bananas that people
give you to feed to them. Some of the
men held onto the bananas so they’d hop up and take bites. It was kind of fun.
Clarence enjoying
feeding his monkey.
But, back in the car I kept
falling asleep. We stopped again to have
a meeting with a community that is a little bit behind the others, so they did
a community entry, picked a WATSAN Committee or water committee and a hygiene
committee. The cool thing that they do
that we really like is to make the WATSAN committee take an oath, with their
hands over their hearts and ending with an ‘Amen.’
Today we met with the well
driller, that is very knowledgeable and likeable, and his hygiene trainer. His name is Joseph and hers is Rita. They were both impressive. Rita has lived all over the place and even
spent seven years in England, but decided to return to her home and help
out. Our Joseph and Clarence work with
her on this training, sharing ideas. It
is a good combination. Rita is quite the
linguist and can’t tell you how many languages she speaks.
Joseph the well driller
and Rita the hygiene trainer, with our Joseph ‘photo bombing’ my picture, in
front of the District offices. Joseph
the driller was bemoaning the fact that his company wants him to go to Sierra
Leone. He is afraid of Ebola too of
course.
At first we met in the district
office and met again with the woman who is head of it and she is really a
terrific lady. We hope they keep her
in—she is appointed, and the one who appointed her could be voted out so she
never knows if she will be staying longer then another couple of years or not.
Rita, doing her thing
with this community. She is tough and
good at what she does.
This was a new district so when
the District head got us to do an LDSC water project in some of her areas, she
really got a lot of press out of it. Her
district was one of the poorest and least thought of by government. She said that they are going to make a
documentary when the project is complete.
At the end of this miserable day
(for me) we ended up at a different hotel.
They weren’t going to turn on the power (when city power went out) until
we complained. Then they were going to
cut it off at 1AM. Without their meager
air conditioning, we wouldn’t be able to make it through the night. As it is, it barely works. We found out the next day that E/S Panter’s
air conditioning worked a lot better than ours.
I had to wet my skin, lay totally still, and hope to feel a wisp of air
on my body. Nevertheless, I finally did
actually catch up on my sleep a bit.
Also, it was another, typical rock-hard mattress, requiring other
pillows to prop you up so your bones don’t hurt in the morning.
We had a nice meal of chicken and
rice, and I came back to a nice, warm shower.
This hotel is big and grand but poorly constructed. No one stays here very much so they are barely
making it. I think Clarence felt sorry
for them. I think we will be back at the
other hotel after tonight. We are
sweating.
During dinner we met one of the
men working here who spent years in Kenya in hotels all over the country. We enjoyed a lovely conversation with
him. Since we’re going there next month,
Kenya is on our minds, along with the recent sad news.
Well, once again there is no
Internet. We don’t know when we’ll be
able to send letters.
This was taken off of a
cashew tree. The nut grows outside of
the fruit. The fruit is edible to some,
but if you mix it with milk it will make you sick. You can see the nut at the bottom of the
fruit.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
We all voted to go back to the
Sky Hotel after a not-so-great night. We
traveled around to look at this and that and were all very happy to end up at
the other hotel in the early afternoon.
Jim swam, I e-mailed. Today was
an easy day for all of us and me too. I
was awake for it. In the morning we head
back to Accra, staying at the Novotel for one night, and then flying to
Kumasi. We don’t want any grass to grow
under our feet I guess.
Love, from Ho, Ghana
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