Back to Frankadua

Posted on September 18, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

Is it weird that I really don’t mind how long it takes to get from place to place here? I know that some people like the weekends away but hate the traveling that it takes to make it happen. I, on the other hand, almost like the time in the tros just as much as the time at the destinations. I think it has to do with being able to feel like I have some time alone, even though I’m still surrounded by people. That’s why I’m all about the back seat, window spot. You can look out the window, put some headphones in, and block out everything else. It’s good for me to have a break sometimes.

Anyway, today was another long travel day. We planned to leave Kokrobite at 2PM, but as is the tendency with large groups, we left way later… we weren’t on the road until 4. So what did everyone do with all of that time during the day? Well, some people went to the beach and enjoyed our last few hours of vacation. What did I do? I slept. I woke up in the morning, ate breakfast, contemplated doing something, and instead sat on my bed and passed out for a few more hours. This seems to be my new habit… I don’t sleep as much as I should each night and force myself to function throughout the day anyway. Eventually it all catches up to me, I hibernate for a day, and I’m back in action. Sounds healthy, right? Okay, I’ll work on it…

Tro #2 with the back open.. It made us feel very secure.

When we finally left at 4, I was in need of some “alone” time in the tro because from 2PM – 4PM I got progressively more and more annoyed that we weren’t leaving. Luckily, there was plenty of tro time in my future, and we went back on our fun journey from Kokrobite to somewhere in Accra to Atimpoku and finally to Frankadua.

We ate dinner on the road. This is actually one of my favorite things, and it’s something I’m going to sorely miss when I leave. I don’t know if I’ve talked about this before, but when tros go through a town, a toll, traffic, etc (anything that slows you down), there are always a bunch of people selling things on their heads. A lot of it is food, but Amber and Nico even bought headphones off some guy on our way. We’re all currently obsessed with bofrot which is basically a big donut ball. VERY healthy. You can also buy Fan Ice (the ice cream in a tube we got on our first day) off of people’s heads, and we’re obsessed with that too.

Like I was saying, when the tro tros slow, people swarm the car trying to sell you the stuff on their heads. If you want something in particular, you just say it and someone will go find the person who has what you want. So we asked a woman selling laundry washing powder for bofrot, and within 20 seconds the bofrot lady was at our window, bagging warm donut balls for us. Yum. And fantastically efficient. I think my laziness level will be at an all-time high when I get home. Going into a store is way too inconvenient.

We didn’t get back until 7:30ish, and I am exhausted (you know, from all of the hard work I did today). Time for bed! The weekend is over and it’s back to the farm tomorrow morning. Hello, 5AM. I’ve missed you (NOT).

Kokrobite

Posted on September 17, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

There’s really not much to say about today because I did almost nothing, and it was awesome! The day started when I woke up at 10, a welcome break from my usual 5AM alarm. We had a leisurely breakfast, headed to the beach (right outside of our hotel), and kicked a soccer ball around. Once other people started joining in and it developed into a game, I decided it was time for me to duck out and just watch.

I worked on my tan (aka fell asleep on the beach) until everyone was overheated enough to go in the freezing cold water. That lasted probably less than 10 minutes… the water was rough and it was hard to do anything except dodge waves.

To complete our action packed day, we decided to go on a hike in the afternoon, left during the hottest part of the day, got 15 minutes into it, realized that it would probably take 10 times as long as we expected, and turned around. So yeah… very productive today. Anyway, I’ve said all there is to say, so rather than rambling on about nothing, here are some pictures!

The well and bucket for fetching shower water

The outside of the shower. Using this one was pretty weird because there’s no door, and the walls are about neck height so you can see everyone walking by.

The inside of the shower “room”. As you can see, no showerhead. Yay for bucket showers!

Off to Kokrobite!

Posted on September 16, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

Another weekend, another adventure! This is Amber and Sosane’s last weekend, and they decided we should go to Kokrobite, a beach town about 30 minutes west of Accra. I’m just happy to be somewhere away from Frankadua to have a chance to finish my mental reset. I feel a lot better than I did at the beginning of the week, but I think that it will be good to have a couple days of a change of scenery. The group for the weekend is Amber, Nico, James, Sosane, three soccer guys, and me.

The trip here was NOT simple, and I honestly don’t think that I could do it again on my own. We had a few guys from the soccer team with us who knew the way, and thank goodness because there was a lot of walking between tros and weaving through crowded streets. We took one tro from Frankadua to somewhere around Accra, another one from there to another somewhere around Accra, and the last one from there to Kokrobite. I know, that was so amazingly detailed that you’re thinking you could probably do it with your eyes closed.

Kokrobite is located just outside of Accra.

We didn’t leave home until probably 11AM, so we got to the hotel around 3PM, took a little time to get organized, and went to dinner around 5. James has been to Kokrobite before, and he led us to this food stand about 10 minutes away where we got some awesome fried chicken and rice. Afterwards, we played cards until it got dark. Sosane and James aren’t all about President like we are, so we played a game that they called Blackjack (as far as I can tell, it’s basically Uno with regular cards). What do people do for fun without cards? I love that that’s our go-to activity. This really does feel like summer camp sometimes.

My favorite part of the day was walking on the beach at night. I think it was something about the moon and the clouds and how they looked from the ground, but as soon as I walked out onto the sand, it took my breath away. The moon was bright and directly overhead, and the clouds were kind of splotchy and made the sky really seem like it was a dome. I felt like a tiny molecule inside a water droplet. Sometimes it’s nice to feel small because it puts life into perspective. I’m just a little bitty part of a much bigger picture.

Anyway, I’m excited for some chill time tomorrow. I’m going to pass out any second, so I should just do myself a favor to go to bed.

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.

Another Sunday

Posted on September 11, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

Church today was awesome!! Amber and I went with Agnes, our cook. I don’t know if the one that we went to last week is atypical, but at this church, they had someone translating. We asked after the service if they usually say everything in Ewe and English, and they said, “if we have visitors”… so they just did it for us. It was so nice! Actually understanding some amount of what is happening makes a huge difference. Nico went to another church, and he said that when he got there, they asked for a volunteer from the congregation to sit with him and translate. I guess the one we went to last week really wasn’t the best place to start.

This service was more similar to what I’m used to at home. The whole thing was about an hour and a half. We started off by praying individually about a few different things. I prayed silently but everyone else was shouting theirs out which was pretty cool. I obviously didn’t understand any of it, but you could tell that they were praising God wholeheartedly. We moved into some singing which was all in Ewe, and Amber and I joined in with the clapping. Next, they asked any new people to stand up so that they could be welcomed… it was nice and awkward because it was just Amber and me… and there was some time to walk around and shake hands and greet one another. Then there was more singing, the sermon, singing and offering, and the end!

The church location was cool too because it was just a bunch of chairs outside under a tree, and there was a box of instruments that people could take to participate in the music. The whole atmosphere was really chill, and I felt comfortable there, unlike the last church where I felt out of place and lost the entire time.

Our backyard chickens hiding from the rain

The sermon was also exactly what I needed to hear. The pastor talked about how when things are going poorly in your life, it’s easy to remember and call on God and the people who support you through the hard times. Then, once things are going well, you forget about God and take those people for granted again. It’s completely true, and it was a good reminder for me right now.

After church, the rest of the day was mostly uneventful. We went to half of the soccer game until it started raining, and then we sat at home, ate cookies, and drank hot chocolate. Those are the best rainy day activities, in my opinion. If only I also had a couch, fuzzy blanket, and big screen tv…

Saturday Morning Adventure

Posted on September 10, 2016March 14, 2019 by Lark

We went on an adventure today! A couple weeks ago, we were walking to the farm, and Amber and I decided that we were going to climb one of the random mountains we could see in the distance. Since we stayed in Frankadua this weekend, today was the day! We asked the rest of the house if they wanted to join us, but the two of us were going to go either way. The group ended up being Amber, Nico, James, Avy, and me, plus one of James’s friends, Peter, and a kid, John, who James enlisted to help us get there. I’ll admit, I was a little annoyed at first that he didn’t trust us to make it on our own, but it ended up being helpful to have them there.

Our “mountain”. I’m not going to say that it was tall, but I promise you that it’s taller than it looks in this picture.

They let me lead the group to the mountain because I was determined for it to be an adventure and not just a boring hike where we followed blindly. I got us to the base of the mountain and let John take us from there. We went up the most ridiculous way… basically just ducking under tree branches and walking through tall grass and hoping for the best. I don’t think he had any idea where we were going, so he just kept walking uphill. We really should have brought a machete with us.

When we finally made it to the top, we found a farmer working on his field on top of the mountain. At that point, I was thinking, okay, there’s NO way that farmer comes up the mountain every day using the route we just took. Sure enough, there was a completely clear path from his farm to the base of the mountain. Perfect. At least we had a good way down!

We weren’t finished though because there was still no view. Nico was convinced that there was no view, so we should just turn around. The trees were too tall and they blocked everything. I was determined to prove him wrong (as if I had any control over it) and was planning to just keep walking until we saw something cool.

Luckily, the farmer was there to point us in the right direction, and we climbed up a little higher to get an awesome 200 degree view of the landscape. It was beautiful. I was so happy that there was actually something to see at the top, partly because it proved Nico wrong and partly because it made the trip so much better. It really could have gone either way since it’s not like we knew anything about the mountain when we picked it. We hung out and enjoyed the view for probably 45 minutes before doing the world’s easiest hike back down. Hooray for a successful adventure!

Dysfunctional attempt at a group picture

The rest of the day was nice and relaxing. I cleaned a little and napped and before I knew it, the whole day was gone. That seems to happen to me quite often. Where do the hours go? Anyway, time for bed. Relaxation and renewal weekend continues tomorrow!

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.