RIP Couch… and Another Mouse…

Posted on September 29, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

I’m really liking this whole school thing… and the not waking up at 5AM thing. I promise though, if someone comes this weekend who is willing to come to the farm with me, I’ll start going back. I still have to put the finishing touches on the poop hole, but it’s hard to find the motivation when I know that it’s just going to be me.

Song time at the beginning of class. The kids get super excited about this, so Avy likes to do it at the very beginning of class to encourage the kids to show up on time.

I went back to school with Avy today. I’m starting to feel like myself again, but my stomach is still a little out of wack. It was such a good day because the kids were well-behaved! It’s amazing how one day, the class is so bad and you leave feeling discouraged and exhausted, and the next day, the class is so good and you leave feeling elated and still exhausted. It usually seems like a good day is immediately followed by a bad day, so right when you’re feeling like maybe you have things under control, you get an aggressive reality check.
Today’s English lesson was about greetings: Good Morning, Good Afternoon, and Good Evening. We talked about what times you say each of them and then had the kids practice for about an hour. All of the things we’re teaching seem like they should take about 5 seconds to explain, but that’s never the case. It’s hard to tell how much of that is the language barrier, how much is the kids being behind, and how much is just because they’re kids and I’m not used to their learning speed. I don’t think they really know how to tell time either, so that doesn’t help when you’re trying to use times to explain something. It seemed like they were kind of understanding it by the end. I guess we’ll see on their homeworks tomorrow!

Baptist is part of a government program that provides lunch to the kids each day. It’s currently the only school in town that provides lunch, and because of that, the enrollment is higher than at the other public primary schools. There are women who cook for the whole school, and when it’s lunch time, one woman delivers bowls to the classroom and two deliver the food. It’s pretty cool, and it’s good to know that the kids are all eating at least one meal each day.

Math was more of the same number talk we’ve been doing for the last few days. If you’re wondering how many times you can teach the same thing, and have a bunch of the kids still be completely lost, the answer is at least five. It seems like they’re almost unlearning the things they already know because they try to make things harder than they are. For example, they definitely know how to say two digit numbers, but now they’re getting confused and they’ll say something like “two thousand, four hundred” for 24. Noooo!! It’s one thing when they struggle with the new concepts… it’s another when they regress because of the new concepts.

Avy and I had a mouse adventure today. When we were sitting around doing work after dinner, a mouse ran across the room into a kitchen. We managed to trap it under this bucket, but our plan didn’t go much past that. Honestly, I didn’t think there was any chance we would actually trap it. Anyway, we didn’t want Agnes to move the bucket in the morning without being ready for it, so we left a sign. I’m almost positive that the mouse is going to suffocate tonight though… I feel bad about it, but what are we supposed to do???

One of Avy’s big classroom management strategies is to keep a running score of the class vs. the teacher. When the kids are behaving and following the rules, they get a point. When someone breaks the rules or the class is misbehaving, the teacher gets a point. You pick an end point for the competition, and if the class wins, they get a reward. Today was the end of this round of the competition and the class won, so their reward was that we came back after lunch and did drawing time with colored pencils. It was good that we didn’t try to do anything that required a lot of concentration because the kids took their medications during lunch, and all of them came back feeling sick and dizzy. We spent about an hour trying to get them to draw things from their imaginations before heading home, totally exhausted.
The ultimate bummer of the day is that the couch is gone. I think Joe wanted it out, so Agnes said something about it removing it this morning. I am so upset. How am I supposed to get comfortable in a bunch of plastic chairs?!?! RIP couch. The ultimate awesomeness of the day was a hot bucket shower. I was dreading showering because the water is always freezing, so I heated some up in our tea kettle and combined it with some cold water in the bucket. I can’t even describe how incredible it was to take a warm shower. Life changing!!! What have I been doing for the last two months??? A warm shower is the answer to every problem.

Baptist Primary

Posted on September 28, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

I feel mostly better today! Though I’m not sure if that’s because my body is actually recovering or if the meds are just masking the issues, and as soon as I stop taking them I’ll be right back to where I was on Monday (dramatically laying on the couch). For now, I’m just going to be happy and not question it.

Our classroom! When the weather is nice, it’s actually not bad. We brought rubber bands to tie the window shutters open so that there’s more light and air circulation, and that makes a huge difference. We’re trying to figure out a better way to hold them open that can be implemented in all of the classrooms.

When we got to school this morning, the place looked deserted. There were no kids or teachers anywhere to be seen. As we got closer, we could hear some noise coming from one of the classrooms. It turns out that first period on Wednesdays is Worship, and they had somehow managed to squeeze the entire school into ONE room. I seriously don’t know how they did it. That’s probably about 200 kids in a single classroom, plus the windows were closed so there’s no way it wasn’t 5000 degrees in there. It ended maybe 5 minutes after we arrived, and kids just kept pouring out of the room. Next week we want to get there early so we can see the whole worship and also understand how it’s physically possible.

One thing that’s in terrible condition is the floors. They didn’t have a lot of money when they built the second part of the school, so the quality of the floors is terrible. One of the teachers told us that they started breaking within 6 months. Avy is planning to use some of the money that she fundraised before coming to help fix the floors.

Avy worked with the kids on phonics again while I graded the homework. I actually really like grading. I think it’s fun to see how the kids are doing (though if they aren’t doing well, I start getting annoyed). Avy also said that when she first started with the class, she had a lot of trouble getting them to do homework. Now, more and more of them do it each day, and today, everyone turned something in! I can’t say that it was all good, but at least it’s a start. The homework we give them isn’t even that much of a time commitment. It’s usually 5 English questions and 5 Math questions that are exactly what we did in class, so if they paid attention and understood anything, it should take maximum 20 minutes.

Machetes all over the ground during the assembly. This is so typical, and I’m starting to just get used to it. I had to consciously remind myself that this is funny, not normal.

During the first break, there was a surprise assembly (as in, a surprise for us but pretty sure all of the other teachers were aware). First, they split the whole school into three teams which apparently they’re going to use to have a competition throughout the year. The headmaster kind of explained it, but I’m not too sure about how it’s going to work. I think it’s a way to break them up to do the different chores at school (such as machete-ing the grass, sweeping, cleaning up the school grounds, etc). Second, they appointed the class prefects. I also don’t know what that means, but I do know that each time someone’s name was called, the other kids cheered loudly, and the person who got picked didn’t seem thrilled. Third, they let the kids know that tomorrow there will be a mass drug administration to prevent worms and bilharzia (you can google them if you want, but if you don’t know I recommend preserving your ignorance). This whole thing took about an hour and a half, and then it was time for lunch… so much for math class. We let the kids eat, did a quick math lesson and assigned some homework, and headed home. Not the most productive school day, but I’m starting to get used to that.

Goodbye Nico

Posted on September 27, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

I skipped the farm again this morning, partly because Nico wasn’t going and partly because my stomach is still a total mess. All I’ve eaten the last two days is plain spaghetti, plain rice, and I had plain toast for breakfast this morning. What could it possibly be complaining about anymore? I’m thinking now that maybe it wasn’t food poisoning..? How long does that last anyway? It’s times like these that I really wish Amber was still here. We were sending her messages all day yesterday with our symptoms and such, trying to get a diagnosis, but it was way better when she was just here to stitch us back together herself.

So that I didn’t feel totally worthless (and so that I could pretend for a little longer that Nico wasn’t leaving), I went to school with Avy this morning. She’s been teaching P3 at Baptist because they still don’t have a teacher. They’re supposed to have about six different subjects, but she’s just doing English and Math during the morning, and the P2 teacher combines them with his class in the afternoon.

Our small, sad family picture.. James, Avy, Nico, and me

In English, they’re just working on phonics. Avy went over the short vowel sounds today. Watching her in action is kind of crazy. I don’t know about you, but I definitely don’t remember anything about when I was learning how to read. Teaching that to kids is a HUGE job! She’s really good at it though, so I was happy to have a chance to watch and learn (while simultaneously grading their homeworks). I was planning to teach Math, but my stomach wasn’t up to it, so I just observed that as well. It was good to have a day to figure out where the class is and see how she manages the kids. Assuming that I feel better tomorrow, I think I’m going to take over Math. They’re learning about saying numbers in words (for example, 5,698 = five thousand, six hundred and ninety-eight) and I’ve already taught that multiple times, so I think I can handle it.

Me and Nico with his hand washing bucket creation! We all talked about making a bucket with a nozzle for washing hands (they have a larger version of this at the clinic), and he actually made it happen! It’s probably my new favorite thing because one of my biggest complaints about being here for the first few weeks was never feeling like my hands were clean. Now I can!!

After lunch, the moment I’d been actively ignoring for the last couple days finally couldn’t be ignored any longer. Nico left. This might have been the hardest goodbye, partly because Nico and I spent so much time together, but also because aside from Avy, he was the last of our original group. He’s also the last of the people that I came here with, and I think you have a special bond with that group because you’re all figuring out and experiencing things for the first time together. It feels like the end of an era.

The house is so empty now. We’re down to just Avy, James, and me, at least until Saturday when we’re supposedly getting six new volunteers (I say “supposedly” because we can never get a straight answer from anyone about who is coming or what program they’re doing, and anything they do tell us ends up being at least a little wrong). It’ll be interesting to see the house dynamic with so many new people. Fingers crossed that it’s still good! They said we’re getting two new agriculture volunteers, thank goodness, because I’m really not into the idea of going to the farm by myself every morning. Maybe this week I’ll just focus on teaching and get back into the farm groove next week.

Sick :(

Posted on September 26, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

I’m pretty sure that I got food poisoning yesterday… I don’t know how, but I feel horrible and it makes the most sense.

The only picture I have from church… I don’t really like taking pictures there, but I’ll try to get a better one next week. You can see how cool the setting is though. I love that it’s outside (except for when I’m sweating my brains out, then I momentarily hate that it’s outside)

We woke up around 8AM, ate breakfast, and Nico, Isabel, and I went to church. We went back to Agnes’s church since Amber and I liked it so much last time. Somehow, in two weeks they made huge changes including adding a sound system, drumset, keyboard, and electric guitar into the mix. I was a little bummed because I think I liked it more when it was so simple, but I still enjoyed the service. This week, they talked about how we all have a purpose. God knows what the purpose is, and he’ll reveal it when the time is right. We just need to trust Him, even when it seems like things aren’t going well, because the promise of the future is better than any pain and hard times in the present.

By the time we left church, I was already starting to feel a little icky. I thought that I had a stomachache because I was hungry, but that definitely wasn’t it. After lunch, I just started feeling worse and worse. My stomach felt out of sorts in both directions, I had a headache, and my whole body hurt. Nico, Isabel, and I tried to play Monopoly, and I lasted maybe 20 minutes before saying that I couldn’t keep going. I laid down on our “couch” and passed out. I had a fever and don’t remember much from the rest of the night, aside from people coming over, touching my head, and saying “oh yeah, she’s definitely warm.”

During the night, my fever broke, but we James, Nico, and I still went to the clinic this morning to get tested for malaria, just to be sure (Nico isn’t feeling great either, and James was kind enough to chaperone the invalids). The test for malaria is a finger prick, and they put some dyes on your blood and check it out under a microscope. Nico and I were both negative, thank goodness. The final decision was that it’s something food related, so they gave us some antibiotics and fever reducers and sent us on our way.

I’ve been a total bum today, but I feel like it’s acceptable because I still feel horrible. During our time at the clinic, I was pretty sure my stomach was going to fall out. It’s like a washing machine in there. Nico and I went to soccer training with James just to watch and get out of the house, and I had to leave after about 30 minutes. Hopefully these meds start to kick in soon.

Just to add to the great feelings, Isabel left today for the Gold program because she wants to do childcare and teaching, and we only have the option for teaching here. This last week has been too much. Everyone is leaving, and it’s all happening too close together to give any time to emotionally recover.

Tonight is Nico’s last night, so we were planning to have a mini-bonfire. I’m not sure that’s going to happen anymore since it’s been raining for a few hours now. We’ll probably just hang out on the porch and play some games while pretending that he’s not actually leaving.

Goodbye Amber, Hello Monkeys

Posted on September 24, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

Well, there was no putting it off anymore… Amber left today. You know what though? The mind is a powerful thing, and I’m convincing myself that she’s still here. It’s easier to do than usual because we didn’t actually see her leave.

Here’s the location of Tafi Atome. It’s not quite as far as the waterfalls we went to (Wli), but it’s still quite a hike considering the roads to get there.

Nico’s final wish was to see some animals before he leaves on Tuesday, so James, Nico, Isabel, and I decided to get out of the house and do a day trip to the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary. It’s only about two and a half hours away, but you have to take two different tros and then motorbikes for the rest of the way. We left around 10, and Amber walked us out to the street to catch a tro. It was weird that we were the ones leaving her and knowing that when we get back later, she’ll be gone.

James, acting like he doesn’t think this is awesome

We got a tro pretty quickly, and when we started getting close to the first transfer point, the mate (the guy who collects the money) told us that they were willing to take us all the way to the sanctuary, wait for us to go through, and then drive us all the way back to Frankadua. Sounds like a good deal, except when we asked him how much, he said, “we’ll negotiate in Kpeve” (the first transfer point). We got there, dropped some people off, and kept going without a negotiation. Then we started really pestering him until he finally gave us a number: 100 cedis for the rest of the round trip. We quickly did the math and realized that, according to the fare estimates we had, we would save 7 cedis each, and there would be no transfers to worry about. We came back and agreed on 100, he tried to up it to 150, and we shook our heads and said 100 until he conceded. Score one for the yevus! Oh, that’s another thing I don’t think I’ve talked about. In Ewe, “yevu” means white person/foreigner, so when we’re walking anywhere, everyone yells it to get our attention. The kids will just keep repeating “yevu, yevu, yevu, yevu” until you acknowledge them.

Isabel, looking like she was born with a monkey on her arm

Anyway, we made it to the monkey sanctuary after asking about 15 people for directions and getting stuck behind a funeral procession. We got assigned a guide at the welcome center and he walked with us to buy some bananas for the monkeys and explained how the monkey sanctuary came into existence. In the town, there used to be only traditional religions, and they worshipped the monkeys. After Christianity entered the town, the Christians tried to attack the traditional religions by attacking the monkeys and the forest. Eventually, some external groups found out about what was happening and started working to protect the forest. Now, there’s no hunting or cutting or taking wood in the forest. Dogs also aren’t allowed in the town because they don’t get along with the monkeys. The money that they make from tourists goes to conserving the forest, various community building projects (library, computer center, day care, etc), scholarships for further education for exceptional students in the town, and a few other places. It’s a pretty cool setup!

Me, smiling despite the banana goop all over my hand

Now, if you know me, you know that I HATE bananas. That’s not just when it comes to eating them… I don’t like to touch them or smell them or look at them. Monkeys, on the other hand, love bananas, and that’s how you lure them out of the trees. You can even get them to jump up on your arm! But, of course, you have to be holding a banana. I fought through my internal struggle, decided I could sanitize the heck out of my hand afterwards, and went for it. So worth it! The monkeys jumped right out of the trees onto your arm! We got to walk through the forest a little too. The whole thing was pretty awesome. We were only there for 45 minutes or so, but I still think it was worth it.

Afterwards, the driver brought the tro around to pick us up, and he drove us home! Best agreement ever. The house felt a little emptier when we got back and Amber was gone. I’m feeling pretty drained, but I think we’re going to try to watch a movie before bed. I anticipate falling asleep.

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!