Orphanage Donation Day

Posted on September 23, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

We had a really cool day!! Amber, Nico, and I took a food donation to the orphanage, and it was awesome to get to see the payoff from our work.

Our trip to the farm this morning was bittersweet because it was Amber’s last day, but we were getting the food together for the donation. We spent part of the time shucking more corn and the other part picking some eggplants. After everything was assembled, we had to take it out to the street which is easier said than done when you’re coming from a farm that’s probably a 25 minute walk from the street.

Me and Amber with Joe (the photographer clearly struggled with the frame a little)

Nico took one sack of corn in the wheelbarrow, John carried the sack of eggplants on his head, Anthony (another one of the local farmers that works with us) carried another sack of corn on his head, and they made a mini sack of corn for me. Amber offered moral support and carried the eggplant bag for part of the walk. I was carrying my sack in my arms until Anthony shook his head and told me to put it on my head. Learning how to carry things on my head is on my to do list, so I felt like I had to try. I think I did okay! It was a little uncomfortable because corn cobs were digging into my skull, but that’s just because I didn’t have anything to use as a cushion. People usually coil up towels or other fabric pieces and put them between their heads and whatever they’re carrying. By the end, I could even walk a little distance without using my hands. Woo! I’m not going to be carrying water on my head anytime soon, but it’s a start! (I was feeling inspired and actually tried carrying some water with no hands this afternoon… It did not go well.)

We left the sacks by the side of the road for a couple hours while we ate breakfast and got ready to go to the orphanage and just trusted that no one would touch them. Apparently, having someone steal your food from the side of the busiest road in the village is not something you need to worry about. Sure enough, we caught a tro by our house, and when we drove down the street to where we left the stuff, it was all still there.

The tro dropped us off in Asikuma, the town where the orphanage is, and we still had probably a 15 minute walk to get there. Joe called one of the guys who works there, he came on his motorcycle and rounded up three other guys with motorcycles, and they all took one bag of food in front of them and one of us behind. My first motorcycle ride! Let’s just pretend that we all had helmets on.

School with no walls = cool until there’s rain or wind or you’re trying to get a bunch of kids to focus. Great for air circulation though!

One of the classrooms. They have whiteboards!!

We thought it was funny that it seemed like as the kids got older, they had less and less walls. This is the oldest class… So no walls.

You can see the very beginnings of the new school in the grass on the left side of the picture. They were just starting when we were there, so mostly they had people making the blocks that they’re going to use to build the walls.

After handing over the food, we checked out the primary school that’s right next door. It’s really cool! The school just started this year, so they’re using a temporary structure while the permanent one is under construction. They said that as long as they have a steady stream of funding, the project will take two years total. This is the only school in the area, so all the kids who go there now either didn’t go to school before or had to travel to the next town to get there (probably getting there by walking, and the towns aren’t that close together). It was fun to see another school, and it felt like there was such a good energy there. Obviously we were only there for a few minutes, but the teachers seemed passionate and the kids were engaged. Whoa.

We worked on the hole (to store the pig poop and convert it into fertilizer for the farm) a little more in the afternoon, and Isabel came along again to help. It’s so nice to have extra hands!! Oh yeah, as you can see, Isabel didn’t leave today. Apparently now she’s going on Monday. At least we can put off another goodbye for a few more days! We didn’t make as much progress on the hole as we had hoped, but isn’t that what always happens? We should have known.

This is Amber’s last night, so we’re having a bonfire (of course) to celebrate. How did 6 weeks go by so quickly?? Ah! That reminds me! Originally, I was planning on doing agriculture for 6 weeks and construction for 6 weeks during my time here, but I’ve changed my mind. I would have to switch to Gold to do construction, and as you know, they have a lot of lizards and snakes there. But actually, I’ve decided to stay here because I really like the village, and I love being able to work on the farm and teach and help out with whatever projects the other volunteers have going on. I feel like I have some momentum here, and it seems stupid to interrupt that and move just because of a decision I made before I really understood what I was getting myself into. So yeah… In conclusion, I’m not moving, and time to get ready for Amber’s bonfire party!

Goodbye Tolu

Posted on September 22, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

Can you spot the eggplants? So many weeds.

Happy goodbye week! Tolu left today, so now we’re down to six of us in the house. There’s still enough going on that you can kind of look past the fact that people are leaving, but I know that won’t last much longer. It’s just a matter of days before the house is practically empty.

The morning started off with hoeing, so I could already tell that it wasn’t going to be a great day. We were back to doing the first field that we did our very first week here, but the weeds this time were even more intense. I seriously can’t believe that I once said shucking corn was worse than hoeing. I must have been delusional! Hoeing is the actual worst because at the end, your back aches, you feel like you barely covered any ground, and you can practically already see the weeds growing back.

Nico and I stayed late to start installing things in the hole! It’s exciting to do something besides digging, and this part is fun because it’s so much easier to see progress. We put three of the walls in so far, and I think we have a plan for how the roof and the roof supports are going to work. All I can say is, the finished product is definitely not going to be pretty or elegant, but it will be the prettiest poop hole (it’s to convert the farm’s pig poop into fertilizer) in all of Ghana. Hm… that’s kind of a bold claim. I can guarantee that it’ll at least be the prettiest poop hole in all of Frankadua and potentially Ghana and who knows maybe even West Africa.

Tolu left after lunch, and instead of a tro, some businessman in a shiny car (that probably even had working air conditioning!) pulled over and agreed to take him to the airport for only a little more than it would have cost in a tro. Whatttt?!?!? Joe said that sometimes random people will pick up passengers to help pay for gas on longer trips. So basically Tolu hitchhiked to Accra. After Joe explained it, we all kind of looked at him like, “what? Are you sure he’s going to be okay?”, and Joe said, “it’s fine, I could tell the man was good.” Hm. Okay. We have a lot of T.I.A. (This Is Africa) moments here. Basically anytime something happens that is so beyond our realm of comprehension that we have no response, we just say “T.I.A.” and accept it.

Front – Avy, Tolu, Isabel Back – Nico, Amber, me

To continue the happiness and good feelings (sarcasm) that were going on when we got back inside the house, Isabel chose that moment to tell us that she’s leaving tomorrow to go to the Gold program because she wants to do childcare, and we don’t have that here. I spent about half an hour trying to convince her through songs that she should stay (aka I searched “stay” on my phone and played every song that has it in the title) before accepting defeat and the next half hour telling her that Gold has more lizards and spiders and snakes and that they have to carry their shower water half an hour from the well (all true statements). So I guess the leaving parade will continue tomorrow. Ugh.

Goodbye Sosane

Posted on September 21, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

Today included the first of a long string of goodbyes coming in the next week, and I can’t even begin to explain how much I am NOT looking forward to it. Sosane left today, and it’s really bumming me out. Time here simultaneously moves quickly and slowly (and no, that doesn’t average out to it moving at normal speed). It moves slowly because after spending three weeks with someone, it feels like you’ve known them for a lifetime, but it moves quickly because before you know it, your friend is packing his or her bags and getting on a tro to the airport.

This morning started off with another phone call for Amber, this time at a more acceptable hour. Her phone rang at 5AM with news of another delivery at the clinic, so she sprinted out the door and left Nico and me to go to the farm without her.

The path to the farm was still a total mess. It always has parts where there’s some mud or a puddle to walk through, but now practically the entire path is little puddles and goopy mud. I think it’s going to rain more frequently in the coming weeks, so who knows if the ground will ever dry out and get back to how it used to be.

The chickens, so close you could kick them

Nico and I had another exciting morning of shucking and fighting off the farm chickens. It’s crazy – they just keep getting more and more aggressive and cheeky! Usually, the chickens hover but keep their distance. Today, they did whatever they wanted! It was like we weren’t even there. We throw the shucked ears of corn into a big basket, and there were a couple of times when a chicken literally jumped into the basket to try to eat the good corn! We try to threaten them and scare them away, but they barely even flinch anymore. Little monsters.

Schools were closed today because it’s Founders’ Day, a national holiday. I don’t know that most people here even know what the holiday is for, but it’s celebrating the founding fathers of Ghana. It takes place each year on September 21st, the birthday of Ghana’s first president, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. One of the kids in the junior high was using the day off to study his science notes, so I sat with him for the morning, read a book, and answered any questions he had as they came up. The more time I spend here, the more amazed I am that the students manage to learn as much as they do. The schools have textbooks, but the kids can’t take them home, so anything they want to study has to be copied from the textbooks into their personal notebooks. Then, since there’s no library or internet, anything that’s confusing just stays confusing because there isn’t any way to get more information about a topic besides having someone teach you. As if learning wasn’t already challenging enough!

Possibly the world’s most awkward picture… Pull it together, back row! (missing: Amber at the clinic and James in Accra)

Anyway, after lunch, Sosane showed up in the common area with her suitcases packed, and I was so confused. Her flight isn’t until tomorrow, but she has some things to do in Accra before she leaves. I guess I knew that she was still deciding between leaving today or tomorrow, but I had convinced myself that she would stay. Surprise, I was wrong.

I know she did it that way on purpose because she didn’t want people to make a big deal about her leaving. I understand, but I’m still kind feeling like “what just happened?” At least I can console myself with the knowledge that I’m going to see her in November. I’m staying in London for a week on my way back home, and she promised that she’ll come hang out!

I Thought This Was the Dry Season?

Posted on September 20, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

This has been a crazy day! I had only been in bed for a couple hours when Amber’s phone started ringing this morning. I was freaking out a little on the inside (as much as you can freak out in a mostly still asleep state) because I thought it was her alarm and couldn’t even begin to think about getting out of bed to go to the farm. I forced an eye open, checked my watch, and breathed a sigh of relief when I saw it was only 1AM. Amber gave a groan and then pulled together an impressive awake voice for a conversation that seemed to consist solely of her saying, “thank you.” I assumed that the call was about a delivery, but she didn’t get up so I didn’t worry about it.

I don’t know if you can tell how hard it’s raining in this picture, but just trust me when I say it was pouring.

Five minutes later, someone started banging on the door to the house. Avy got up to investigate and came back into the room to tell Amber that a taxi was waiting to take her to the hospital. Later on, Amber said that she didn’t remember anything about the phone call (which explains all the “thank you”s). Anyway, she pulled herself together, woke Tolu up to come with her, and got a chauffeured ride to the clinic. She’s kind of a big deal.

When Nico and I woke up at 5AM to go to the farm, Amber and Tolu still weren’t back… I guess the delivery wasn’t as urgent as they thought. The baby came around 6AM. Hooray for a healthy baby boy!

Nico and I headed out alone, and about halfway to the farm, it started POURING. It was the same as when we were hiking to the waterfalls. You could literally hear the rain getting closer and closer, and within a second it went from no rain to buckets of water getting dumped on your head. By the time we got to the farm, we were soaked and I was grumpy. Honestly, I was worried that they were still going to make us work outside, but luckily that wasn’t the case. We all sat inside the equipment storage room and shucked corn.

Part of the path to the farm… There’s always water to wade through at this point in the walk, but it’s usually maybe 4″ deep and now it’s probably around a foot.

The rain stopped before we finished, so Nico and I checked out the poop hole and did some strategizing before heading home. Guess what? We were maybe 1/3 of the way home when it started pouring AGAIN. The path home was totally flooded, and by the time we got back I had water inside my boots from rain running down my legs. Ick. We took rain showers since we were already wet and then attempted to warm up with some hot chocolate.

James, Amber, and Nico fully enjoying the new couch.

At that point, all anyone wanted to do was lay around, so we decided to take an extra mattress out of one of the bedrooms and make a couch. Best idea ever!! We’re going to leave it there until someone says we have to move it… hopefully never. I’m telling you, the couch changes everything because the only other seating we have is plastic chairs, and how comfortable can you really get on one of those?

Amber triumphantly holding Little Nico, our favorite pig. He lives outside of the pig pens because all of the other pigs kept stealing his food. Amber made it her goal to catch him. Not shown: Little Nico’s terrified squeals and the chorus of pigs who started snorting their support

The rain stopped again in the afternoon, so we headed back to the farm to do more poop hole work (our project to make a place for them to combine the pig poop with organic matter to create fertilizer for the farm). We had a pretty solid work crew because Isabel, Avy, and Sosane joined as well. The ground was SO wet, but it actually ended up being easier to dig (Amber mostly dug with a bucket). It was an awesomely productive afternoon! I think we’re going to be able to start building the walls next time. No more digging! Thank goodness because I hit myself in the face with a shovel today, so needless to say, I’ve had enough. I’m okay though. Mostly.

The flooded sludge pit that is our poop hole.

Let’s Talk About Food!

Posted on September 19, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

Nico working while I, obviously, am not.

With only one week until Nico leaves, we realized that we need to kick our hole digging efforts into hyperdrive (we’re making a hole for the pig poop on the farm to be converted into fertilizer). Until now, we’ve been doing all hole-related activities in the afternoon and have been doing the normal farm work in the mornings. Today, we decided to work on the hole in the morning as well. I always feel like we’re making no progress because with the clayey dirt and the horrible shovels, nothing moves quickly.
After breakfast, Nico and I went back to the EP computer lab to keep working on the computers. We’re up to a total of 5 of them that are mostly working now! By mostly working, I mean that they at least turn on, sometimes with error messages. It would be great if we could just wipe the computers and reinstall everything, but they obviously don’t have any of the installation disks to make that possible. Hopefully we can get a few more into at least usable condition.

I passed out again after lunch, so there’s not much else to report about today. I realized recently that I haven’t talked much about the food here. Below there are some pictures and descriptions of some of the food we have here. We have a weekly menu schedule that repeats, and for the most part, I like the food. There’s just a different concept of what would be considered “spicy” here, especially compared to my opinion. I have NO tolerance for spicy foods, and I’ve just had to suck it up (we’ve even asked Agnes to tone down the spiciness, and I think she thinks she has). Pretty sure I’m losing taste buds daily. Anyway, here we go:
Also, disclaimer that I have almost no clue how to make any of these things, so take my descriptions for what they are (aka total guesses).

Peanut soup – my favorite! There’s a piece of chicken, a rice ball, and peanut sauce. My favorite part is the rice ball because come on, how funny is that? It’s rice, squished into a ball! Genius! Like a snowball but even better.

Waakye with cooked egg – hard boiled egg, rice mixed with beans, and a red sauce.

Jollof rice with chicken – I know this looks similar to the fried rice, but it’s definitely different. I think that the rice has tomato paste or something mixed in because it’s stickier and redder than the fried rice.

Spaghetti with egg sauce – pretty self explanatory… Angel hair spaghetti with a red sauce mixed with egg.

Rice with vegetable sauce – don’t ask me what vegetables are in the sauce. I’m pretty sure that in normal life, I don’t eat most of them, but here I don’t ask questions.

Rice with bean sauce – okay yeah, this looks identical to the last picture, but they really are two different dishes. This sauce just has beans in it rather than a mystery assortment of vegetables.

You might be thinking that all of these things are really basically the exact same. My response to you is yes. Somehow I manage to fool myself into thinking they’re all such different meals, but it’s basically: rice with red sauce, spaghetti with red sauce, rice and beans with red sauce, rice with beans and red sauce, rice with a different sauce, rice with vegetable sauce, rice with vegetables mixed in. There are a couple things I don’t have pictures of, including ramen noodles (aka indomie) with vegetables and egg mixed in. So yeah, variety! But I’m not complaining, trust me. You’re looking at a girl who ate the same thing for lunch for two years. Carbs on carbs on carbs for every meal? This is like a dream come true!

Goat, Cake, and Computers

Posted on September 15, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

I had a chance to redeem myself at the farm today. We had to finish sowing the rest of the field, so I promised myself that I would be more careful and went for it. Today it felt like I was born with a machete in my hand, and I made it through the morning without any major injuries.

Nico and I stayed after again to keep working on the poop hole (a place for them to convert pig poop into fertilizer for the farm). It must seem like this is taking forever, but you have to understand our circumstances. First, the dirt is more like clay, so it’s heavier and stickier than regular dirt. Second, the tools we have aren’t exactly ideal. We consistently have two shovels. One is sharp and somewhat effective at cutting through the soil, but it has a broken handle which is only about 1’-6” long. The other is completely worthless for cutting through soil. It has to be really loose and soft in order to get anything onto the shovel. We also have a pickaxe, so usually we use that first to dig up the ground and then go through afterwards with the shovels. It’s slow work. One time, we also had an unbroken, effective shovel, but apparently someone borrowed that one and hasn’t given it back yet. I honestly think that with good shovels, we would finish this hole in half the time that it’s taken us. But alas, we don’t have good shovels, and so here we are, making progress at a slow crawl.

Once we couldn’t take any more digging, Nico and I headed back to the house, ate breakfast, and headed back out, this time to EP. During our meeting on Tuesday, the principal brought up the fact that only two of their computers (out of either 8 or 10, I’m not sure) were working by the end of the year and asked if anyone could help fix them. Nico and I volunteered even though neither of us would claim to have advanced computer fixing knowledge, but we figured that we probably know more than most people in Frankadua. Either way, it was worth seeing what we could do to help.

When we got into the “computer lab”, it was pretty clear why none of the computers were working. I don’t think that a single one of them had the computer connected to a monitor, and half of the computers and monitors weren’t plugged in. The other half were plugged into power strips that didn’t work. We managed to get three working right away, just from correcting the plug situation. We opened up another computer and basically played spot the differences with one of the computers that worked. Each time we saw something that was different, we stole a part from another computer or tweaked whatever needed tweaking until it matched. Neither of us had any clue what we were doing, but we got another computer to start working! Now we have four that turn on, and all of them have some software bugs that need to be worked out. I’m feeling pretty good about what we’ve done so far though, and I’m confident that we’re going to be able to get them running smoothly.

The entire afternoon was spent on laundry. I finally think I’ve perfected the technique. Step 1 was an overnight soak of EVERYTHING which helped with the smell issues. Then I had three buckets, one soap and two rinse, so that I can actually get the suds out of everything. Finally, I bought a laundry bar (basically a bar of soap) that smells awesome, and I scrubbed the crap out of everything with it. After I was finished, my clothes actually smelled good! Unlike last time, but we don’t talk about that anymore. I’m a hand washing laundry pro (though all of the kids still laughed at me because it took me so long).

Right as I was wrapping up my laundry, the new volunteers arrived! We have two new people, Isabel (US, 10 weeks, teaching) and Tolu (Canada, 1 week, medical). I’m feeling good about them already. They kind of had to just jump right in because we were celebrating Evans’s birthday (he’s on staff with the organization). Sosane found a woman in town who could bake a cake (apparently she has a tin oven in.her house?), and she and Avy shopped for ingredients for a birthday cake for him. It looked funny, but it tasted awesome.

Somehow, the mini birthday party evolved into a real party because James, Nico, and Amber bought a goat and they were cooking it on the front porch. I guess everyone invited a few people because before we knew it, the entire porch was filled with people, some from the farm, some from the clinic, some just from around town. There, of course, was also a bonfire. I don’t think anyone was planning on having an actual party, but I’m glad it happened because it ended up being a lot of fun. There’s nothing like an impromptu goat party to kick off the weekend!

An Action Packed Day

Posted on September 14, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

I’m finally starting to feel like I hit my groove at the farm, and that’s usually when things start going wrong. As soon as you’re feeling too confident, something happens to put you back in your place. We sowed another corn field this morning, and I was actually managing to move at an acceptable pace! I think I have the technique figured out. Things were going great! Anddd then I was an idiot and started being overconfident and managed to cut my pinky finger with my machete.

I was so embarrassed and we only had about 15 minutes left and I didn’t want the guys to know what had happened, so I was planning on just pretending nothing was wrong and finishing the work. Great plan except that apparently fingertip cuts bleed excessively. After about 1 minute of trying to keep going, I had to stop and signal to Amber to come help me. We didn’t have a band aid and didn’t want to ask, so she took the random objects (some string and a water bag) I had in my bag and pulled something together. Once we got back to the house, she cleaned it out and put an actual band aid on. It’s really not that bad (so Mom, stop freaking out).
After breakfast, we went around to the three schools we’re working with. We’ve spent a lot of time at EP, but I hadn’t been to Baptist or the junior high yet. We met the headmasters of both schools and talked a bit about what we can do to help out. Baptist still doesn’t have a teacher for P3, so that’s good…

Anyway, today was still a cleaning day so the kids were outside, chopping down some of the tall grass around the school with machetes. I’m glad that a bunch of 10 year olds can handle their machetes better than I can. It was a good morning for my ego.

In the afternoon, James had plans to go to the orphanage to train their soccer team, and we all decided to go with him. I haven’t been yet, and I was interested to see it. That’s where the food from the farm goes. It’s about a 20 minute tro ride and a 15 minute walk from our house. I was actually pleasantly surprised by the situation there. They have about 35 kids, and they all have their own beds and there are flush toilets and running water. They definitely aren’t living in luxury or anything, but it’s actually probably a step up from our house. The floors are even tiled!

WAIT. There’s more. They have a washing machine. Yes, an actual clothes washing machine. And it works! I almost lost my mind. I actually had a dream last week where we got a new house with a washing machine and I almost cried I was so happy. It’s funny the things you end up missing… I don’t think I would have put that on my list ahead of time. I probably would have mentioned running water, but I’m actually doing just fine without that. Anyway, they also have an oven and a microwave and a couch. Mmm I also miss my couch. It’s okay though. We’ll have a beautiful reunion in November.

A couple of the kids insisted on borrowing Amber’s and my sunglasses and then begged me to take a picture

Okay sorry, I got distracted. Like I was saying, it was nice to see what we’re working for at the farm every day. We got home just before dinner and then spent the night assembling school supply bundles for the kids at EP and Baptist. Avy raised money before she came to be used wherever she saw a need, and after seeing how many kids don’t have what they need to be successful at school, she started looking into getting some supplies for everyone. Each kid is going to get a notebook and a pencil case with a pencil, pen, eraser, sharpener, and ruler. They’ll still need more notebooks and the pencils won’t last all year, but it’s a start! It’s also good motivation for the kids because who doesn’t love new school supplies? We all helped put the pencil cases together, and they’ll be distributed to all of the kids later this week.

“First Day of School”

Posted on September 13, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

Happy first day of school! Today at the farm, we did something new! A few weeks ago, Nico brought up the point that it would be good for the eggplants if we trimmed off the leaves that are damaged or close to the ground or aren’t really capturing any sunlight. Apparently then the plant can put more energy into growing bigger eggplants rather than wasting it on growing leaves that aren’t contributing anything.

One of the eggplants after Nico attacked it with scissors

This morning, he showed Amber and me which leaves we should be cutting, and we went through one whole eggplant field. I’m just hoping I didn’t kill any of the plants… When in doubt, I left more leaves (and then Nico trailed behind me saying, “why did you leave this one? It’s worthless!” and cutting off all the additional ones he thought should go).

After breakfast, we headed over to EP, the primary school where we held summer school, to have a meeting with the principal and see the kids cleaning. The meeting was mostly just a formality. Joe introduced us to the principal, who we’d mostly already met because of summer school, and he welcomed us to the school. That’s basically it. Meanwhile, the kids were all sweeping and moving desks and getting the classrooms ready. Everyone went to their rooms from last year, and the principal went one classroom at a time to relocate the kids who were moving up a grade. It might seem like that’s weird and that all of the kids should just move, but there are quite a few who don’t advance each year for one reason or another.

A cool bug we found on one of the plants

To give you a better idea of the school situation here, there are three public primary schools in Frankadua (EP, Baptist, and Roman Catholic) and two public junior highs (Roman Catholic and I don’t know what the other one is called). We don’t work with Roman Catholic, so we’re just in the other two primary schools and junior high. There isn’t a senior high school in town. Any kids who go to high school have to travel to Juapong. I talked to one of the girls and she said she walks every day, it takes about two hours to get there, and you get caned if you’re late. It would be 1 GHC (a little more than 25 cents) each way to take a tro to school. Can you imagine having to wake up at 5AM to walk 2 hours to school, spend the whole day learning, walk 2 hours home, and do your homework before going to sleep and waking up the next day to do it all again?

There are a lot of things with the school system that blow my mind. At home, teachers usually have to go back at least a week early to get their rooms ready and have teacher meetings and such. Here, during the first week, the teachers may not have their classes assigned yet, the class schedules aren’t made, and most kids don’t show up because they know nothing is going on. At EP, they’re having the teacher meeting on Friday… during school… to finalize everything. So that means an entire week of school will have gone by, and all of the kids will be sitting in their classrooms with nothing to do on Friday during the meeting. Like what?

Monday at the Farm

Posted on September 12, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

It’s crazy how clear the absence of one person in a big group can be. I guess I didn’t realize before how much our personalities all balanced one another, but something about the group dynamic has felt kind of off since Fernanda left. Besides that, I’m personally in a bit of a mental funk right now and I know it, but I’m not sure what it’s going to take to get me out of it. Hopefully we just need a couple days for things to balance back out, and my mood will follow.

The bed where we planted the eggplant seeds. We loosened the dirt, made little trenches with our fingers, sprinkled seeds inside, and covered them with a thin layer of dirt. After that, they get covered with palm branches to hopefully discourage the chickens from eating all of the seeds.

Otherwise, the day was good! We planted eggplant seeds at the farm and checked on the tomato plants that we planted in the bed a couple weeks ago. From afar, it looked like the chickens ate all of the seeds and that everything left in the bed was a weed, but after checking things out more closely, we found some tomato plants!! The stupid chickens definitely ate most of them, but HA! Take that, chickens! You may have won the battle, but we’re going to win the war!

Amber pulling the weeds around the tomato plants.

Sorry… phew… deep breath. The chickens really get me all riled up. They’re vicious! One time, I accidentally injured a frog when we were hoeing, and when I looked back at it 5 seconds later, it was gone. I thought maybe it had hopped away until that same day we saw a gang of them work together to kill a big frog. Another one snatched a cricket out of the air, mid-jump. We’re always throwing sticks at them and threatening them with machetes and hoes, and they move just enough to not get hit and then chicken laugh at us. Yeah, I didn’t know that chickens could laugh either, but just trust me on this. You can see it on their smug little faces.

The rest of the day was chill because school doesn’t start until tomorrow. We spent some time digging the poop hole at the farm (a hole for the pig poop to be converted into fertilizer) and then played outside for the rest of the day. I also went back to the clinic to weigh myself again, and I haven’t lost any more weight! Well, that’s not completely true. It said I lost 2 more pounds, but I’m not worried about it like I was last time. That’s just 2 pounds in 2 weeks, unlike the 10 pounds in 2 weeks from before.

One of the plants from Nico’s seeds. It’s so big!

Tomorrow, real school starts, and I’m excited to see what it’s like! Apparently the first day is mostly cleaning and getting the school ready, but it will be interesting to see how it all works since my only school experience here has been summer school. Also, it looks like I’m going to be helping James with the PE classes, at least until another sports volunteer comes, because he said it’s hard to manage all of the kids, and generally the girls just don’t participate because the boys are ball hogs. Ha. Some things are the same no matter where you are. I said that I’m more than happy to help out and work with the girls. We’re going to have WAY more fun. Anyway, that won’t start until next week probably, so I have some time to mentally prepare. That’s good.

Goodbye Fernanda :(

Posted on September 9, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

I’ve been doing a great job of mentally blocking out the fact that Fernanda is leaving, but today it finally reached the point where I couldn’t ignore the truth anymore. Her flight is late tonight, so she left here right after lunch. Being here feels like a time warp, so whenever something happens that makes it clear that time has passed, it’s a little jarring. When we got here, Fernanda still had a month left. Thinking about a month felt like a lifetime, but now here we are. I’ve been here for a month (!!!), and Fernanda’s two months are up. It really doesn’t feel like it’s been that long.

Front row – Avy, Fernanda, me Back row – Nico, Amber, James, Evans, Sosane

Saying goodbye to Maria was hard, but at least there were still five of us left. With Fernanda gone, all I can think about is how Nico, Amber, and Sosane are next. I know I shouldn’t focus on that, but right now, it’s hard to push it out of my mind.

Before lunch, Fernanda and I did one last lap around the town so she could say goodbye to some people and we could have a little time together. Then we ate, took a farewell picture in front of the house, and she started give out goodbye hugs. I was determined to hold it together, but let’s be real… I obviously cried, went into the house to pull myself together, and cried again as she was getting on the tro. And then that was it. She was gone, we walked back to the house, and I convinced myself that she was probably coming back in a day or so.

Everyone being sad that Fernanda is leaving, except Sosane who apparently missed the sad face picture memo

The rest of the day (after I stopped crying… come on, pull it together, Lara!) was just spent around the house until about 4:30 when we went to keep working on our poop hole (a hole for the pig poop to be stored and converted into fertilizer). We were there for probably 45 minutes before Avy showed up with a whole pack of kids and three volunteers from Gold in tow (they’re visiting the waterfalls this weekend and are staying at our house). Apparently the kids led the group to the farm (why the kids know how to get there is beyond me), and as soon as everyone showed up, our productivity went to about zero. One of the kids did help us out a lot by using a machete to chop up a root that was blocking our way. He originally gave the machete to me, but after I did about three hits, he shook his head, took it from me, and completely destroyed the root in about 10 seconds. The kids here really know how to use their farm tools.

We stuck around the farm for maybe 20 more minutes before the group made its way back to our house for dinner. Afterwards, we sat around and talked until bedtime. Fun fact – the girl from Gold went to my high school. Small world, right? We graduated 7 years apart, so we don’t know any of the same people, but it’s still pretty cool. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to talk about something familiar when you’re so used to everything being new and different.