Funny/Embarrasing Moments

Last week I had a few funny things happen to me (though some weren’t funny at the time) and so I would like to share!

So my first funny moment happened as I was walking to work.  Everyday I walk to work because its only around 15-20 minutes from my house, er hut.  Each day I pass what seem to be government soldiers who stop taxis to make sure that their paperwork is up-to-date.  I have befriended one of these soldiers and her name is Beatrice.  I usually stop and chat with her for a few minutes.  On this day she was also with another male soldier and so they both started talking with me.  The male soldier was thrilled to see a white woman because it turns out that he had dated a woman from
Finland in the past.  He told me that although he had done a lot for her, she just randomly stopped talking him and so he wanted to find another white woman to date.  After I made it clear that I was “married,” he asked me if I had any Canadian friends that I could hook him up with.  I told him that all my friends were married.  Then I asked him why he wanted a white woman so bad and then he told me that it was because he wanted his kids to be white!  I thought this was hilarious but I’m pretty sure he just meant that he wanted his kids to be lighter than him, which is still funny for him to say.

One day last week I decided to give a skirt I had another shot.  You see in Tamale Ghanaians, especially the woman, dress very conservatively because it is predominantly Muslim.   Although this particular skirt was very nice and professional looking, it came down to my knees but when I walk it goes up just a tad.  I really like this skirt and I thought that I might be able to get away with it.  WRONG! As I walked home that day I got stared at so hard I was cursing myself for not changing back into my field clothes before leaving the office.  When a girl on the back of moto turned her head around to give me a somewhat dirty look I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk into my village with this skirt on.  I was so embarrassed and uncomfortable that I quickly walked over to the nearest store and asked if they had a bathroom so that I could change because I was going to go on a moto and needed to put my pants back on. *WINK* They didn’t have one so instead they half closed their shop so I could change behind the door.  I felt much better afterwards and I went home I tucked that skirt at the bottom of my suitcase.

Ok this one was so not funny at the time.  So cockroaches in Ghana are actually enormous and I hate cockroaches in Canada so seeing Ghanaian mutant cockroaches in my room is horrifying.  In fact, my mosquito next is more used to keep out cockroaches and spiders that it is to keep out mosquitos, haha! Luckily, I actually don’t get that many, maybe one every third or fourth night… BUT STILL!  Ok so this past weekend I was in the store and I spotted RAID!! As soon as I spotted it, I swear there was a light glowing from all around the bottle and I walked over to it in slow motion in disbelief and amazement. It felt like winning the lottery okay, let’s just say that.  I bought it and I couldn’t wait to go home and douse my room with its sweet cockroach killing properties.  I went home and read over the directions but it didn’t say much other that I should stand 30 cm away from the area or bug you want to spray and that you shouldn’t injest it etc etc.  So I thought I was good and I went ahead and sprayed the entire perimeter of my ceiling with RAID.  I did so because I noticed that they come in where the cement and mud walls meet my thatch roof. However, immediately after spraying I felt how incredibly strong the spray smelt – like pure poison, because it is! I hadn’t thought that the smell would be so potent and so I panicked a little.  I left my door open and sat outside…for hours.  At the time I was supposed to help the woman cook but I was afraid that someone would go into my room and steal something so I just sat outside my room and guarded it and waited for the smell to go away.  After checking some 15 times, I didn’t notice any difference and only then it occurred to me that maybe if I put my fan on that it would push the smell outside.  I did this and waited another hour or so.  I was freaking out because I didn’t want to sleep in my poisonous room but I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone either.  It was already getting dark and so I had one last idea.  I grabbed the personal cleansing wipes that my mom had given me and thought that maybe I could wipe the RAID off.  When I ran out of those I used facial wipes.  I got a taller Ghanaian friend to help me and you know what? The wipes actually worked and I was able to sleep in my room that night! (But I woke up once during the middle of the night because I could smell a little RAID still and I panicked because I thought that I would go brain dead or become paralyzed or just die).

Challenges

Today marks exactly two weeks since I moved in with my host family and this is my second week of work. However, I feel like I have been in Ghana a lot longer than this. In fact, I feel like I have been here for around a month but maybe that’s just because we had one week of in-country training before we all went off to our host families in different districts. Or maybe it’s because living in Northern Ghana has already proven itself to be a huge challenge.  I have been challenged on every front from poor sanitation conditions to gender dynamics and even in the workplace. I am pushed outside my comfort zone on almost a daily basis and I have had some really rough moments.  I thought that my previous trips to Latin America would have certainly prepared me for many challenges that I would have faced in Ghana…I was dead wrong.

Being in Ghana made me realize that my trips to Latin America hardly even compare to what it’s like here.  Somehow I totally overlooked how easy it was to be in LA since I speak the language, love the food, know the culture, practice the same religion (for the most part), have been many there times and have never been there for more than a month and a bit.  In Tamale, everything is super foreign to me and that makes it ultra-challenging especially since I have a long way to go in my placement.

First of all, I seriously underestimated how homesick I would be and so I am so thankful that I have access to the internet and even a cell phone so I can call and skype with loved ones and friends back home (con mi novio particularmente).  Secondly, language has been another big barrier for me.  Dagbani is a tough language and aside from the greetings, I am unable to have in-depth conversations with the women I live with and with whom I spend most of my time with.  I also have a ton of questions I am dying to ask but they all speak next to no English since they did not attend school.  Fortunately, many of the men speak English in my village so I am able to have deeper conversations with them.  I am also lucky that the kids I live around all speak some English, especially the older girls (from my pictures) so they are a magnificent help, especially when I am around the women.  Although I know only the basic greetings, goodbyes, a few other phrases and words and just repeat them everyday, the people are so happy to even hear me even speaking Dagbani and that serves as a great motivation to invest more time into further my learning.

Thirdly, sanitation and cultural norms have really been a challenge for me.  You see, my entire community only has two latrines, none of which are close to me.  This means that in order to do “my business,” I must go outside and find a well hidden bush or tree.  During the night, I can just walk across the street where there is a field of small bushes and I’ll go but during the day, it’s a lot harder. During the day, if I want to go number two, I have to walk a lot further out and find a conspicuous place and go.  If I want to pee, I go in the bathing area.  This has been a really big challenge for me, not only because it’s uncomfortable, but because it’s terrible for the environment and for people’s health in general.  It’s also really bad since EWB has a program in Malawi called CLTS (Community Lead Total Sanitation) which aims to help Malawians understand health hazards that come from defecating out in the open and trying to facilitate a behaviour change. Health hazards include feces leaching into water systems and flies that land on it can then spread germs through direct contact or by settling on food.  So, for number two I try and wait till I get to work in the morning so I can use a toilet and sink but it doesn’t always happen and I can’t always make the long trek out to the brush in time so I have had to resort to other measures.  The last few times, I had to go in a plastic bag in my room and then throw it out.  We also don’t have a proper waste disposal system so all the garbage in my village gets thrown everywhere…and kids don’t usually where shoes when they are home so yeaa…it’s not good.  My neighbour is the Assembly Man for my village (which is called Vitting) and I have heard that he is responsible for organizing the garbage pick-up and possibly for getting more latrines built around the community.  I plan on talking to him so I can get better insight into what exactly is going in the community and why such things are lacking.  I am sure there is important information that I am not aware of.  I was also thinking
that maybe there is an opportunity for me to have some sort of impact here within my community so I will keep you posted.

In terms of cultural norms, there isn’t an emphasis placed on washing your hands here like there is in Canada so I feel like that poses other challenges for me too.  Many times, people don’t use soap to wash their hands after going to the bathroom in my village so food preparation worries me.  What’s more, is that if there is no toilet paper (which many don’t use) and if there is no other type of paper, people will use their left hand to wipe themselves.  This is precisely why eating with your left hand is offensive.  Waving a cab, shaking someone else’s hand and giving money with your left is also offensive for this same reason.  Perhaps a lack of information plays a large role in this circumstance so a program like CLTS could really have some value here in the Northern Region.  For a more in-depth look at what CLTS is, please check out:  http://my.ewb.ca/site_media/static/attachments/group_topics_grouptopic/83112/CLTS%20Role.pdf

As for the other challenges, I think I’ll leave them for my next post since this is a lot to take in at one time. But here is a CHALLENGE QUESTION: what are some basic things that we learn in school and that we use on a daily basis/frequently? HINT: washing our hands in one. NOW THINK how you might live or act differently without having learned these things.

Challenges

Today marks exactly two weeks since I moved in with my host family and this is my second week of work. However, I feel like I have been in Ghana a lot longer than this. In fact, I feel like I have been here for around a month but maybe that’s just because we had one week of in-country training before we all went off to our host families in different districts. Or maybe it’s because living in Northern Ghana has already proven itself to be a huge challenge. I have been challenged on every front from poor sanitation conditions to gender dynamics and even in the workplace. I am pushed outside my comfort zone on almost a daily basis and I have had some really rough moments. I thought that my previous trips to Latin America would have certainly prepared me for many challenges that I would have faced in Ghana…I was dead wrong.

Being in Ghana made me realize that my trips to Latin America hardly even compare to what it’s like here. Somehow I totally overlooked how easy it was to be in LA since I speak the language, love the food, know the culture, practice the same religion (for the most part), have been many there times and have never been there for more than a month and a bit. In Tamale, everything is super foreign to me and that makes it ultra-challenging especially since I have a long way to go in my placement.

First of all, I seriously underestimated how homesick I would be and so I am so thankful that I have access to the internet and even a cell phone so I can call and skype with loved ones and friends back home (con mi novio particularmente). Secondly, language has been another big barrier for me. Dagbani is a tough language and aside from the greetings, I am unable to have in-depth conversations with the women I live with and with whom I spend most of my time with. I also have a ton of questions I am dying to ask but they all speak next to no English since they did not attend school. Fortunately, many of the men speak English in my village so I am able to have deeper conversations with them. I am also lucky that the kids I live around all speak some English, especially the older girls (from my pictures) so they are a magnificent help, especially when I am around the women. Although I know only the basic greetings, goodbyes, a few other phrases and words and just repeat them everyday, the people are so happy to even hear me even speaking Dagbani and that serves as a great motivation to invest more time into further my learning.

Thirdly, sanitation and cultural norms have really been a challenge for me. You see, my entire community only has two latrines, none of which are close to me. This means that in order to do “my business,” I must go outside and find a well hidden bush or tree. During the night, I can just walk across the street where there is a field of small bushes and I’ll go but during the day, it’s a lot harder. During the day, if I want to go number two, I have to walk a lot further out and find a conspicuous place and go. If I want to pee, I go in the bathing area. This has been a really big challenge for me, not only because it’s uncomfortable, but because it’s terrible for the environment and for people’s health in general. It’s also really bad since EWB has a program in Malawi called CLTS (Community Lead Total Sanitation) which aims to help Malawians understand health hazards that come from defecating out in the open and trying to facilitate a behaviour change. Health hazards include feces leaching into water systems and flies that land on it can then spread germs through direct contact or by settling on food. So, for number two I try and wait till I get to work in the morning so I can use a toilet and sink but it doesn’t always happen and I can’t always make the long trek out to the brush in time so I have had to resort to other measures. The last few times, I had to go in a plastic bag in my room and then throw it out. We also don’t have a proper waste disposal system so all the garbage in my village gets thrown everywhere…and kids don’t usually where shoes when they are home so yeaa…it’s not good. My neighbour is the Assembly Man for my village (which is called Vitting) and I have heard that he is responsible for organizing the garbage pick-up and possibly for getting more latrines built around the community. I plan on talking to him so I can get better insight into what exactly is going in the community and why such things are lacking. I am sure there is important information that I am not aware of. I was also thinking that maybe there is an opportunity for me to have some sort of impact here within my community so I will keep you posted.

In terms of cultural norms, there isn’t an emphasis placed on washing your hands here like there is in Canada so I feel like that poses other challenges for me too. Many times, people don’t use soap to wash their hands after going to the bathroom in my village so food preparation worries me. What’s more, is that if there is no toilet paper (which many don’t use) and if there is no other type of paper, people will use their left hand to wipe themselves. This is precisely why eating with your left hand is offensive. Waving a cab, shaking someone else’s hand and giving money with your left is also offensive for this same reason. Perhaps a lack of information plays a large role in this circumstance so a program like CLTS could really have some value here in the Northern Region. For a more in-depth understanding of what CLTS is, check this out: http://my.ewb.ca/site_media/static/attachments/group_topics_grouptopic/83112/CLTS%20Role.pdf

As for the other challenges, I think I’ll leave them for my next post since this is a lot to take in at one time. But here is a CHALLENGE QUESTION: what are some basic yet very important things that we learn in school and use on a daily basis? HINT: washing your hands is one. Now picture how you might live or act differently without that basic knowledge…post answers/comments here or on my facebook!

A Little About Me and My Purpose in Ghana This Summer

¡Hola! My name is Tania Sanchez and I am a third year university student at the University of Windsor.  I major in International Relations and Development Studies and I am also doing a minor in Latin American studies which might force me to stay an extra semester in school which is totally fine because I love school and I love my minor! I have been actively involved with my EWB chapter since 2010 and my first role in my chapter was VP Member Learning.  I first came to learn about EWB from a club day way back in 2008 at my university.  The EWB members were hammering a nail into a piece of wood and each nail represented something about poverty.  I thought it was a really interactive way to get the student’s attention and I participated and even signed up on the mailing list.  However, I didn’t get involved until two years later when I finally decided I wanted to be more involved in issues that were important to me (and when I realized that you didn’t have to be an engineer to actually join the group).  In 2010, I decided to apply for the JF position because I wanted to see for myself how EWB was carrying out its work in Africa and how it differed from the mission work that I previously had been involved in in Latin America with the church. I also wanted to gain a better understanding of what sustainable development work consisted of and how EWB’s African Programs were being a part of it. 

Now I am in Tamale, Ghana seeing firsthand how EWB is trying to build capacity for developmental sustainability!  My placement is with the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) of the Metropolitan Agriculture Development Unit (MADU) or in other words, MoFA at the district level.  Since 2008, EWB has been implementing and scaling up the Agriculture As a Business (AAB) strategy in districts across the northern and eastern regions in Ghana.  The goal is to help farmers start looking at farming as a business rather than relying on subsistence farming.  More directly, AAB is aimed to improve and build the capacity of Agricultural Extension Agents (AEAs) by training them on AAB so they can serve their famers better.  AEAs are MoFAs direct line to farmers so by building them up, EWB can help farmers raise their standards of living.  In a nut shell, EWB is trying to help farmers make money. 

This is where I come in.  This summer, my goal is to assess the impact that AAB has been having on farmers and AEAs to determine where EWB should take it.  First, I will be working hard to gain a better understanding of how AAB is being carried out at Tamale MADU.  I will also be determining the successes and challenges of AAB for both farmers and AEAs so I can then make recommendations to both Tamale MADU and EWB based on my analysis.

So how exactly will I be gathering all this data and information?  I will be taking several different approaches
in order to gather the information I need to make sophisticated recommendations that are well-grounded and well researched.  I have already begun to interview AEAs on their experiences conducting AAB to better understand their successes, challenges as well as suggestions for improving AAB.  These interviews also provide me with insight on whether or not their FBOs (farmer-based organizations)
have benefited from the AAB training.  In addition, I will be going with AEAs to the field to observe AAB being carried out and how it is being received first hand.  I will also shadow AEAs for entire days to better learn of their other activities and pressures.  To better understand the field realities from the farmers’ point of view, I will be going to stay with a farmer 2-3 days to collect evidence.  To better understand rural realities, I will go on a 1-week village stay in July.  Finally, I will be interviewing at least 10 FBOs to determine the type of impact AAB has had on their groups.

JF Marc-Andre, Long-Term volunteer Don and B, Me, Erin and JF Bill (who is also from the University of Windsor). This is the morning of the DDA Fellowship that took place at the end of May.

On top of AAB impact assessment, I will also be working on planning, organizing and helping to facilitate the next several DDA (District Director of Agriculture) Fellowships in June and July.  This will include researching appropriate group activities, topics, putting together a PowerPoint presentation, finding outside speakers and determining the goals and purpose of the workshops.  The DDA Fellowships are one-day workshops meant to improve the managerial and professional capacity of District Directors as well to provide a forum for sharing and learning amongst each other.  Also, I will be looking for other opportunities for innovation in my workplace and/or community so I can maximize my impact in Ghana!

First Day at the Office, 8th With the Family

Today was my first real day at the MoFA (Ministry of Food and Agriculture) office. I was sort of nervous because I had to give a short presentation about who I was, what my role was at the office and what my goals would be this summer. I had been to the office several times last week and met some of my co-workers so it wasn’t actually that bad. Plus I liked the office. It is a different setup than your regular “office” setting.  In the middle of the building there is a big atrium with trees inside and the offices surround it in a rectangular shape, so whenever you open your office door, you face the atrium and see across into the other offices.  I’ll take some pictures. Inside the offices is not too officy either.  The floor is tile and there is not too much furniture other than a desk and some plastic or wooden chairs. And no one decorates their office with pictures of their family or dog or other personal things, maybe because all different people may occupy the office at one particular time…but then again certain people have their own office…I’m not sure…but what I am sure of that it’s still hot. The offices just have a ceiling fan but its better than nothing.

My presentation went well. I kept it short and spoke slowler than usual and in a Ghanaian accent.  To Ghanaians we speak fast and our lack of intonnation makes it harder for them to understand us. So all the EWB volunteers have adopted a Ghanaian accent, its pretty cool actually. The Director, who’s real name I don’t know becuase everyone just calls him Director (note: its very hierarchial in Ghana so titles are very important) did a really nice job of introducing me and making me feel welcome and important so that make me feel more relaxed. I could also that meetings were really informal so I was able to losen up. If you would like to see my presentation here it is! It is basically a breakdown of everything I will be doing this summer and what my placement actually consists of. Intro presentation for MADU

Enough about work! Let me tell you about the family I live with! So I live with the familyof the chief of the village, of Vitting village. The chief has four wives and 30 children!! And I’m pretty sure that the fourth wife is somewhere around my age and he, well he’s definitely not. I live most closely with one of his older son’s named Mumuni and his wife Amriya and baby son Yousef. The whole community is like a compound where much of the family lives together and carries out daily chores together like cooking and watching each other’s children.  The family is really good to me. They gave me my own hut all to myself which normally an entire family of at least 3 would live. They even fixed me a light and put a lock on my door. They also feed me well – too well. I love hanging out with the women! As I already mentioned in an earlier post, the women are really strong and living alongside them showed me just how far their strength really goes.  Everyday the women carry out 101 different activities from watching and feeding their children (and each other’s) to washing clothes by hand, to cooking all the meals and even helping each other carry HUGE aluminum bowls on their head full of maize or shea nuts to the mill to be processed.  The children are very obedient and help with a lot of the chores too espcially cleaning and the older children will usually be yelled at to watch the younger ones, haha.

Cooking in Ghana is not like in Canada where we can throw left overs in the microwave.  Everything is made from scratch each day because things won’t keep over night. My family eats yams every night with a reddish and brown sauce that has tomatoes and dried fish mixed in.  The yams are first peeled and boiled in metal pots over charcoal. Then then are pounded with a big wooden stick called a “telega” in Dagbani. One woman uses their hands to continuously turn the smooshed yam while the other pounds it with a telega inside a wooden dish called a “che-ole” to smooth it out. It might sound pretty simple but it takes a lot of arm strength to flip the yam dough over and over. Then more hand worked is needed to make it round and without any lumps. This is called “sakuro” and it is eaten with your hands. You take a small piece off and dip it in the sauce.  Sakuro cannot be kept over night so everything is eaten. A lot of work for one meal huh?

I help out every night but I know I just slow them down so I try to be funny about it. They find me pretty funny and I think they like having me around.  They always try to teach me words in Dagbani and laugh when I mispronounce them. I spend a lot of time playing with the kids when I am not needed in the cooking. We play a lot of hand games so if you know of any good ones, let me know because I have run out.

I leave it at that for now but check out some of the pictures I uploaded on my “photo gallery.”

 

 

Ghana, My Marriage Proposal and My New Dagbani Name!

Soo…. Africa is quite hot!

I have been in Ghana for three days now and I am still amazed at how much I sweat.  Actually, I think it would be pretty accurate to say that I haven’t stopped sweating since I got off the plane! I sweat while I eat, I sweat as soon as I get out of the shower and I sweat while I sleep. SERIOUSLY. Even Central America wasn’t this hot…

Apart from the heat, Ghana is beautiful!! When I first got to Accra (the capital) we drove to the guest house where we were spending the night and as I looked out the window I couldn’t believe how similar Ghana was to Latin America!! The many shops along the streets, the red clay, the material used for building schools, the roads, everything!! Just the people looked different! However, as we travelled to the northern region the next day, things started to look a lot different. There were less billboards advertising American products, the road quality decreased and the toilets became less toilet-like. I was amazed by the amount of market activity carried on along the roadsides and in the markets we passed…everyone looked like an entrepreneur. The women amazed me the most by far! These women carry everything on their heads with such ease that to me, it defies the laws of physics! Some carry really large plates on their heads with an ENTIRE WATERMELON cut up with a knife sticking out! Others carry groundnuts on large plates too, stacked perfectly and when someone wants to buy some, they just use their hand, grab a handful and put them into a bag…no bending down or nothing and everything stays in place! If that wasn’t enough, I was shocked to see women who tied their babies onto their backs with cloth while riding a motorcycle!!

The Ghanaian people are some of the nicest people I have ever met! One moment that really speaks to this was my first trip to the market: when I wanted to find a tailor to sew me some African clothes, instead of just giving me directions, a Ghanaian woman, without even thinking, walked me over to the tailor. Everyone is really polite too, including the children.

 In Tamale, (where I live and will be working) the language mostly spoken is Dagbani but many also speak English. I have picked up a few words in Dagbani and my Ghanaian accent is coming along pretty nicely if I do say so myself, haha! I can’t wait to come back and speak to my friends in a Ghanaian accent actually! The intonation is really different but the Ghanaians like that we try because they say that we speak to fast, haha!

Bepong at its finest!

I wanted to tell you all about two hilarious moments I have had during these past few days…

The first was I was proposed to on my very first day in Ghana! YES, SOMEONE ASKED TO MARRY ME! I think it was my hair to be honest because when this man walked up to me, he began touching my hair and then speaking in Dagbani. The two ladies around him translated and told me that he wanted to marry me. During our predeparture training I had been warned that this would happen to all the girls so I expected it to happenat some point but not so soon so I was really surprised. I told him that I had a boyfriend back home in Canada but the ladies countered that by looking at my left hand and saying that I didn’t have a ring on so that my relationship with my boyfriend wasn’t that serious. LOL. I think I managed to escape by just walking away…

Yesterday was my second funny encounter. My friend and I saw a two women sitting on some benches under a tree and decided to go and talk to them. A little ways into the conversation one of them asked if they could have my water bottle. She told she didn’t have one and that you can’t find water bottles in Ghana. This also hasn’t been the first time that someone asked me for my water bottle so I stuck with my regular response, “I’m sorry but I cannot, it is a gift from my moda (moda=mother, Ghanaian accent remember?) She then understood and then asked if I had brothers or sisters. I told her I had a sister and then she asked if I was the youner or older one. I told her I was the younger one and then both ladies burst out laughing and then spoke to each other in Dagbani. I asked what was so funny and then the other lady explained that because I was the younger one I am also the spoiled one and my water bottle was an example of that, hahahaha! The word they called me was ‘bepong’ which literally meant ‘pampered’ or spoiled. My friend and I started laughing too because I could totally see the logic in that. I toldthem that bepong should be my new name and they joyfully agreed. The lady that named me Bepong then told me that because she had given me the name, she was now my Ghanaian mother. I was also totally fine with that too!

Pre-departure Learning

The past week in Toronto has been nothing short of intense! Our days were marked by early mornings, late nights, little sleep, lots of learning and a whole lotta fun! There were twenty-five of us in total which inlcuded one person going to Malawi, another to Burkina Faso and the rest of us were Ghana bounded.  It was amazing to see people from all over Canada: BC, Nova Scotia, Alberta and Quebec.

Some faces were familiar and I knew a few people but for the most part I had no idea who the other JFs (Junior Fellows) were.  However, this was only the case for maybe a day. Everyone was super nice, friendly and just generally awesome all-around. We became friends almost instantly and we haven’t been able to get enough of each other all week! At this time I would like to thank all the Quebeckers (or Frenchies as I called them) for teaching me some French words and inspiring me to take up the challenge and learn the language even though I will have to have my all throat organs rearranged in order to speak French.

ur sessions would begin at 8:00 am and last until around 7:00 pm – not including homework (yes, we had homework, haha!). Everyday was different but equally as challenging and mentally exhuasting.  Topics discussed included everything from safety and health to gender roles to connecting back to our chapters.  We analyzed case study after case study of communities in Ghana to gain a better understand of the deep complexities of development and the challenges associated with being able to come up with viable projects that will benefit the people we serve.  We learned about different models and strategies to assessing different situations in hopes of utilizing these during our placements in Ghana. To be honest, I have never been more challenged mentally than ever before. Not only were the case studies complex and required tons of thought and required assumptions but it was the other JFs that really pushed me to think harder and probe a bit deeper into each activity.  These students are not just intelligent but they think critically and analyze deeply. To be quite honest, there were intimidating.  Those who know me know that I am not one to shut up but this group had me hesitant at one point to voice my opinion…true story.  I’m lucky to have gone through this experience with them and I thank them for challenging me this week.  Overall the combination of these very delicate and intricate case studies along with the highly intellectual group pushed me to think harder about development than ever before. 

(For those of you not really interested in development, I really encourage you to read the next paragraph a little more slowly)

The activities we did were so practical and really put things into prespective for me. One of my favourite sessions had us break into groups of 4-5 people. We all acted as EWB volunteers whose task was to visit different Zambian farmers in one community and interview them on a specific CARE project that actually was implemented some years ago.  Essentially, it was a project that aimed at getting a community of Zambian farmers to diversify their crops away from maize which is the principle cash crop and food staple of Zambia.  The project wanted to see these Zambian farmers introduce sorghrum into their fields.  Sorghum, as I quickly learned, is one of the major cereal crops that has a higher tolerance to drought – a very critical factor to this area in Zambia – and needs less rain than maize to thrive.  People who had been to Africa played the role of the farmers and although none (that I know of) were of African decent, their Zambian accents were pretty sick (sick in this context according to me means accurate/awesome).  We walked around the building to find the “farmers” and then interviewed them on their challenges and successes with sorghum; their lives and roles in the farmer coop and other relevant information. We had to extract as much detail as we could in order to link together the pieces as to why some farmers had not been as successful with growing sorghum as others and make recommendations to the project managers at CARE (roles played by other EWBers).  Challenges for us included language barriers, customs and norms and general lack of farming knowledge. It was a awesome activity and we learned a ton about the realities of farmers and the barriers to acquiring accurate information from farmers. Funny enough, interviewing farmers and making recommendations is part of the work I will be doing in Ghana.

Throughout the week we became one giant, 25-member family! We had so many good times and new experiences together and the first one that comes to mind is the day we all tried Ghanaian food for the first time! Val and Lauren (a long-term volunteer in Africa and a return JF from Ghana) made ‘Red-red,’ a DELICIOUS meal composed of red-eyed peas, tomotoes, onions and other veggies into some sort of stew and that were eaten with fried plantains that acted as your spoon. When all plantains are gone, you use your hands! So imagine a group of students hunched over bowls of food and eating with their hands and for fun, trying to name all the African countries, haha! - this is just one moment indicative of a week serious bonding and connecting. Love you guys!

STAY TUNED FOR PICTURES AND VIDEO OF US STUCK AT THE AIRPORT