More photos from Ghana

Sunset at the EDYM village.

A typical tro-tro (overloaded boot'n'all).

Laundry day at the farm.


Our humble abode.

Ho, the regional capital and home to the Anointed Internet Cafe.

Seeking shelter from the storm at the library.

Paul, casually waiting it out.

A hungry mommy Mona Monkey, at the Tafi Atome Sanctuary.


In front of Wli Waterfalls.


Right under the falls.

Eating with your hands for dummies

Food

Let it be known that I love food. At least I love food that I love, which I am aware is as useful as it is informative. Bearing this in mind a trip to Africa, and possibly beyond, held for me a particular thrill in the promise of foreign savory dishes and exotic culinary delights. I remember thinking that, what can only be described as living in Ghana (at least for a short while), would provide the opportunity to become well acquainted with new and exciting local cooking. And acquainted we have become.

Japanese sushi - I crave, Chinese noodles - I hunger for, Indian - I delight in, Korean BBQ I have defeated; all of these cuisines (and many others) I have conquered with the care of a gourmet and the appetite of a gourmand. To Ghana I say, "touche" and respectfully bow out of the ring.

To say that Ghanaian cooking, and more importantly Ghanaian eating etiquette, is strange and foreign to me would be at least a slight understatement. Suffice it to say that living in this indomitable heat without electricity or the certainty of running water finds Anne and me dreaming, both day and night, not of air conditioned luxury, but of egg salad sandwiches (with crispy lettuce of course), pink lemonade, and chicken wings. Our meals instead consist of a variety of dishes that are made, predominately, from the pounding and mushing of a variety of bland root plants. The results are foufou, banku, and at least 2 or 3 other dishes that have sounds in the pronunciation not found in the English language (ie. I have no idea how to write them down), all of which are served in a large communal bowl and accompanied by, either on top or aside for dipping, a stew-like soup of meat broth and herbs, the favorite of the locals being a sloppy fish dish (the resulting stew is sloppy, I'm not sure what a sloppy fish is). The meal is then eaten with your hand, mind you the right hand only - most likely a tribute to times when the left hand was strictly regulated for other purposes, but now merely represents a taboo. The design is to take a small amount of the dish in question, approx. 1/4 of a handful, and roll it into a ball (anyway you can) and then dip it into the soup and slurp it noisily from your fingers. The important skill to remember, especially when dealing with foufou (as told to us by our hosts), is not to chew but to swallow whole whatever you put in your mouth. This can be seen in some ways as a godsend as the taste is lacking and chewing foufou would be an act of futility as it has the consistency of somewhat congealed fat, yum!

This somewhat colourful introduction to Ghanaian cooking complete, it is important to note that not everything we're served is a pile of communal goop and is often palatable. Everyday we are served 3 square meals from our somewhat indifferent cook Florence. Breakfast consists of oatmeal of varying consistencies, an omelette made with the local miracle plant moringa, and bread that tastes as though it was made with sugar rather than flour. If you so wish you can also 'butter' your bread with Blue Band 70% fat spread, which will invariably have a few dead ants in it that somehow bested its seal. Lunch can be one of the aforementioned Ghanaian delights or, and to our salvation, a dish of rice or thin spaghetti mixed with a tomato relish and finished off with either papaya, bananas, or orange slices - a note on fruit in Ghana: though very fresh everything tastes just a little less juicy than the imports at home. Pesticides? Western genetic tampering? Dinner and lunch are essentially the same and either could be substituted for the other. Our favourites are the rice and pasta dishes with a little chopped up (bones and all) fried chicken or mystery meat. Throw in fried plantains and beans and you have the complete menu at Chez EDYM.

The difficulty that we have is that we are not satiated by the food and are always harbouring slight pangs of hunger. We don't think we're starving by any stretch of the imagination but our trials have lead us to believe that there is a direct correlation between feeling satisfied with a meal and the amount of chewing that was involved. This leads to our deeming dishes such as jolif of rice (rice with some spices), which would generally be described as good or at least passable, to be instead delicious and a triumph of Florence's skill.

On the lighter side we are getting much better at making the required balls of goo and yesterday both agreed that banku "wasn't actually all that bad". Coke, Fanta, FanChoco (frozen chocolate milk that you bite the corner of the bag to drink while you melt it with the warmth of your hands and the Ghanaian sun), and Sri Lankan shortbread, though only available when we travel into a town, are a constant saving grace. There was a disagreeable incident with Digestive Biscuits and an invading ant colony that will always remain a sore spot.

I still love food, maybe even moreso. However, what began as an anticipated joyful culinary adventure has metamorphosed into a stoic resolve to weather the next few months and hold fast to the constant dream and hope that we will again see the Golden Arches on the horizon.

- Sam

A Slice of Life

And so here begins our new series in which we are pleased to bring you, armchair tourists, a taste of what everyday life is like around the world (but actually more specifically our limited experience in Ghana and maybe wherever else we end up).  We hope to explore a range of topics from transportation to telecommunication; waste disposal to wedding proposals.  Got a predilection for plumbing?  We might cover that too!  Tell us your fancy!  We live to tell you what little we know.  (In case you miss it here, look for all of the above in our surely soon-to-be-published Lonely on this Planet: A guide to not understanding cultures around the world.)

Waste Disposal
Let’s say that our observations are that Ghana’s waste disposal policy is decidedly DIY.  There is none.  Garbage is everywhere.  Once we saw a town with garbage cans near a tourist area.  (At that same tourist spot there were both very empty garbage cans and trash everywhere.)  Once we saw a group of kids picking up garbage along a town road, carrying a sign that read “Reduce Litter,” and on the same day passed what we guessed to be a town dump (a large area next to some homes and stores piled with garbage, some of which was burning).   Otherwise, garbage lies at the side of every road, clogs every gutter, and litters every green space all the way up to the top of Ghana’s tallest mountain.  Small garbage fires occasionally burn along the road or behind houses.  The best way to dispose of the garbage in your hand is to throw in on the ground.

To be fair, the amount of waste generated by a single person in a day is really very low, especially by Western standards.  The vast majority of food is bought fresh (sans packaging) and prepared at home; the notable exception to this being discarded water sachets.  Nevertheless, our delicate Western sensibilities being what they are, it is plain to us that the small print (“Keep Your City Clean”) on every sachet and food wrapper is patently ignored.

Recycling
Paul collects the plastic sachets from the water consumed on the farm and piles them in a storage hole in the nursery.  These are then sometimes used as planting bags for seedlings grown in the nursery.  (Sometimes, depending perhaps on the planter’s enthusiasm for tediously cutting open one side of every pouch.)  For all other plastic, cans, bottles, cardboard and the rest, see Waste Disposal, above.

*** Okay, editor’s note:  Clearly, my first assessment of recycling in Ghana was very low, but after being offered just yesterday a frothy green liquid (to drink?), obviously homemade and rebottled in a used one and a half litre water bottle, I decided it would only be fair to mention that here.  Water bottles are often reused for this purpose, and they’re not all.  Truthfully it is pretty clear that everything in Ghana (like our mosquito net, and our generator, to start; like peoples cars, bikes, clothes, furniture, tools, and building supplies) is milked for the absolute full measure of its usable life before it’s passed on, maybe for someone to fix and gain further use from.  Also, we have received warnings that if we buy bottled water we must check that the bottles are sealed, as some people make a business out of selling tap water under the label of “pure” simply in old bottles.  Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!

Another two weeks of fufu

So, two more weeks and what do we have to say for ourselves?  Well on the positive side we’re starting to get the hang of things and are really settling in.  On the less positive side our settling in has been sometimes tough going, with so many foreign things (the weather, the language, the food, the place, the culture) to adjust to all at once.  While these weeks (and consequently this post) have been somewhat dominated by a few recurring negative themes as we struggle over the first hump, even as I write this I feel the need to mention quite optimistically that I think in the last few days we’ve started to turn the corner.

Starting with the positive; things we are getting used to…  We have definitely come to consider the EDYM Village our sanctuary – our home away – to which we’re always pleased and comforted to return.  We are generally untroubled by our relatively sparse accommodations there and have even learned to bathe – relatively happily – African-style (with a bucket) when our shower water shortages extend for longer than expected.  (I will admit, though, for all my camping know-how, that I exhibited some consternation upon my first African bath at being instructed by Sam to wash my hair by sticking my head in the bucket.  This is done, I will say, with very little grace.)  The only real complaint we have is that Florence’s cooking continues to leave much to be desired.  But it should be said that to this our approach has remained one of steadfast politeness and so, given our host’s oft-stated request for honesty, we only have ourselves to blame.

The heat – our foremost foe early on – improved greatly after our first week and, although we seem in these last few days to be in the thick of another wave, our bodies and minds have become much more accustomed to it.   We’ve also benefited from some nights of stormier weather which have brought the perfect combination of cool winds blowing in from nearby storms accompanied by actually very little rain (all the cooling of a storm with none of the sogging).  In fact, the reservoir is so empty that the frogs have nearly all shut up!

When he’s not too busy with all the business of the farm or tearing around town on errands on his motorcycle (sometimes with us on board), Paul laughs a lot and has been kind to let us enjoy a good deal of his company.  He has been very generous with his time with us, especially given all of his commitments, and has helped us greatly with whatever assimilation into this community we have managed.  A highlight are our refreshing trips to a small hotel in the next town (owned by a friend of Paul’s and consisting of a few nice small buildings in a gated property, located preposterously at the end of an extensive lane of mud huts) where we have been a few times to enjoy bottles of local beer, a refreshingly air-conditioned room, and occasionally television programmes from South Africa’s AfricaMagic! Channel (which really deserve a blog post all their own).

I’m still going to the library each day and, after a few days of chaos, I have managed to establish a relative calm and a generally good rapport with even my most snot-nosed patrons.  The crowd is kept to a minimum and kids are, good-naturedly, kicked out often, and everyone gets their turn and is invited back tomorrow.  The small group of children who so vexed me in my second week (who’s staring at the door turned into a great game of who could get me most worked up, climaxing in sticks being thrown repeatedly through the entrance) leave me mostly alone, or actually visit the library properly, after I told on the oldest girl to her mom.  Maybe it was that, or the progressively more mundane regularity of my appearance there, or possibly some more forceful instruction from their teachers (who also visit regularly), but the children are treating me much more like an adult of consequence rather than an alien with no bearing on their behaviour or, if necessary, punishment.  I cannot tell you what a relief this is. Still, for good measure, I’m practicing my “Keep Quiet,” “Go Home,” and “Come Back Tomorrow” in Ewe.

Sam’s life continues along the relatively same path as in our last update.  A notable change to his poop-shoveling routine is the addition of a helpful club (the discarded handle of an old hoe, found by Chachu), which Sam uses to pulverize the more reticent clumps of dirt.  To the outsider observing Sam – sitting by his poop pile, spade in one hand, slowly thumping the poop dirt with the club in the other – this gives him the rather amusing appearance of a somewhat depressed caveman.

Just as I am the subject of much curiosity (especially from children) at the library, Sam too occupies his little zoo habitat of the nursery, for which the nearby road is a ready observer’s gallery.  He is also practicing his “Alright, yes, hello, that’s enough, clear off now!” in the local dialect.

Chachu still provides most of Sam’s company and when he’s not – sort of subtly – asking Sam for money to start his farm or – expressly – asking Sam to take him back to Canada (because “Chachu is a haaard worker!”) he is using seemingly any excuse to take time off work to rest or complain (about life, love, or work we guess) to any passing friend who would likewise, presumably, appreciate a break.  Chachu also takes Sam frequently to gather water at the local water pump where they stand around and watch everyone else pump water but never take their turn, while Sam takes abuse from the local women and children while trying to figure out just how the order of water-taking is decided.  They often wait a long time, likely more out of Chachu’s mild enjoyment of being the procurer of such a strange curiosity as Sam rather than out of any ladies-first politeness.  The charms of Chachu’s company are endless.

Which, I guess, brings us to some of the things we’re not getting used to.  This is most prominently (before or after the food?) being gawked at all the time and our every movement being followed by curious stares and a chorus of “Yevou! Yevou!” coming from, mostly, children. (Literally this means, “White man! White man!” but apparently it’s hollered at any foreigner.)   One little girl yelled herself hoarse about ten feet from us with just this word the other day while we waited to catch a tro-tro from our language lesson at the library. Sam also had the distinct pleasure this week of being addressed as White man” in English by a man he was meeting. Suffice it to say, what little charm the words hold in Ewe doesn’t translate to English.

Perhaps more aggravating than the ever-present “Yevou!”s (they’re only kids after all) is the readiness with which adults justify this habit to us, particularly by explaining the curiosity we must see that people find in every conceivable (and inconceivable) difference between us and them, which they will readily and earnestly point out.  In fact, it is perhaps this readiness to point out our differences (physical curiosities mostly) that has taken us most by surprise and which sometimes leads us to believe that people must think we are nothing short of extra-terrestrials landed, most curiously, in their community in Ghana.  At the very least, it’s tiresome and awkward; at most, it can really tax even one’s most charitable and enduring feelings about a universal brotherhood of humanity, which you might begin to wonder if they would even conceive of here.

On the bright side, any negative encounters (and there are many positive ones too) only increase our esteem for Paul and his incredibly warm and welcoming family, who are outstanding ambassadors for the community and his work.

To break up some of the routine, we have enjoyed a few excursions to local sights.  Some are planned (like out trip to Ho two weeks ago, where we used the internet and ate pizza) and some are unplanned (with every day comes the hope of one of Paul’s impromptu motorcycle adventures – I’ve gotten to go up to see a town in a mountain with a view, and Sam has been to the lake).  After our first successful independent trip (to Ho) we had our first and only pre-paid, Village Volunteers-organized “Tour of the Volta Region” this past weekend.  The highlights included visiting a wild monkey sanctuary at Tafi Atome, swimming under the highest waterfall in West Africa at Wli falls (which was truly sublime), and climbing Afadjato, Ghana’s highest mountain (right next to and across the border from some taller mountains in Togo).  The lowlights included almost everything else, mostly on account of our “guide” Edward.  Let’s just say about him that when it was not his seemingly singular and determined preoccupation to wrest us of as much of our money as possible, he was utterly unhelpful, uninformed, aggressive, nosy, obtuse, and inappropriate, not to mention completely ignorant and wrong-headed in his approach to tourists and volunteers.   A real prize.

Paul (who genuinely understands and appreciates the value of tourism and volunteers) expressed some reservations about Edward, but in the interest of not interfering with the arrangements made we decided to go ahead with the tour as planned, trusting the presumably good judgment of our sending agency.  Perhaps needless to say, in such a foreign environment our frustration in stressful situations can sometimes be out of proportion with what the situation merits, but we think we saved our griping for each other.  At any rate, with no more like-torture planned we will look forward to Paul’s knowledgeable guidance on our future tours.

Otherwise, we have started our language lessons with a teacher from the town and goodwill seems to follow our mangled attempts at communication in the local Ewe.   So far, apart from having difficulty hearing – let alone producing – some of the required intonation and sounds, we are progressing decently.  (For example, all of our Ps sound the same, whether they’re Ps or KPs, we have trouble with anything coming out of our noses, and the not-quite-a-W-not-quite-an-F-sort-of-WH-as-in-whale-“open F” is an eternal enigma.)

Also progressing decently, if not too quickly, is the speed at which we’re burning through our novels.  Sam’s breaks on the farm have seen him all the way through all 1095 pages of The Count of Monte Cristo.  I’ve burned through all 930 pages of Shantaram, all 125 pages of The Time Machine, and over 300 of the 550-odd pages of The Cider House Rules, not to mention a good part of Britain in the Twentieth Century: A Documentary Reader (all except the first courtesy of the Have Community Library).  Together we’ve also covered all of Bill Bryson on Shakespeare, most of the Bradt Guide to Ghana, the Lonely Planet Guide to Africa (at least the relevant bits) and have started in on Journey to the Centre of the Earth.  With all the contents of the library at our disposal, we can safely expect to run out of time or patience for reading before we run out of material.   So far, I’m winning at Rummy.

And thank you for all of the comments and the well-wishing emails!  We appreciate the notes immensely, even when we have not the time (what with all of this blasted blog-typing) to respond.

The Storm

First came the pollen then the rain.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009.  Anne and I had just finished discussing the particulars of our Ewe language lessons and were prepping to return to EDYM Village, Anne via a tro-tro, me on the back of Paul's 125cc one banger.  The first thing we saw was a wall of white dust coming from the north.  This dust, which obscured all in site, turned out to be a cloud of pollen that we have since learned forecasts an impending storm.  The next thing to strike was the fast low flying, pitch-black, clouds guided and funnelled by the mountain that backs Have.  It then started to rain, rain soon turned to water literally pouring from the sky in sheets, to a borderline hurricane.  The wind, racing down the centre of Have, was deafening and terrifying in a very real and "Oh my God, I am so small" kinda way.  It came howling down the main road threatening to rip anything and everything in its path apart.  It's a complete wonder that all the shanty houses, of which Have mostly consists, weren't torn from the ground and tossed away.

We, and a few unfortunate pedestrians, sheltered in the concrete walls of the library to wait the tempest out.  The rain lasted the better part of an hour in which time the road was turned into a river and visibility reduced to less then 30 feet.  The sound of the storm was as intense, if not more severe, than the wind.  The whole event felt so primal; savage.  Everything here does.

The storm finally abated and Paul hailed a tro-tro for Anne while I collected myself for the motorcycle ride home.  I almost had to hold my breath and close my eyes for fear as Paul tore down the slick streets as though they were smooth and dry.

The events of the last hour had pulled down a large tree and felled it across the road which would have forced us to stop had not a group of young men, in an effort and zeal so contrary to what I have so far experienced in Africa, sawed the tree in half and cleared the debris before we even arrived at the obstacle.

The tree wasn't the only damage that the storm had caused and this was evident on the ride home.  In many areas I could see the remnants of what used to be thatched roofs strewn along the ground of the now flooded villages along the side of the road.  The storm seemed not to phase Paul in the slightest and I can only assume that it is a common occurrence during the rainy season.

We caught up with Anne and passed her on the long dirt road into the farm.  We barely recovered from a slip in the last 20m to the door but arrived without incident and I jumped off the back the bike thanking both Paul and God for a successful return.

- Sam

Chachu's Prayer

Chachu: "Dear Lord, Thank you for this work, we are happy to do it, but we go on break now."
Sam: "Amen."

A few pictures for flavour

We are new to this blog, so what follows is a taste of our life in Ghana so far, in no particular order:

A nearby town on the mountain, with a view of Lake Volta. (Have sits below this mountain.)


My lunch at the library: beans, fried plantains, and mango.


The Have library.


Being a daredevil on the back of Paul's bike.


The paved road by the farm. Straight ahead for Kpandu.


Sam at work on the EDYM farm.


On the way to town in Constant's car.


A nice house in Have.


The Have junction. Left to Hohoe, right to Have, back to Kpandu.


This way to the EDYM Village.


An African sunset, from the farm.


One of Florence's culinary delights - seen here: Banku in a fish stew.


A view of the nursery.


The Holy Farmer himself.


Our place (the south-west wall) with the EDYM logo: "Love for environment is life."

We're in Africa

Yes we are.  How did we get here?  Well, about a year and a half ago or more we started pining and planning for an adventure and, in an effort to prove we weren't all talk, we decided to actually do it.  Sam quit his job in Vancouver (my job helpfully quit me first), we packed up all our belongings, and drove ourselves back to Toronto into welcoming arms and homes.  One month later, we were on our way here.  Our adventure starts with two and a half months of volunteering in Ghana and continues, we hope, for at least as much time again traveling through West and North Africa, and on to the Mediterranean.

We arrived in Accra, via London, on Sunday February 1st at night.  I've probably never been more scared than I was during our first night in Accra.  The ride from the airport to the apartment of the Village Volunteers In-Country Coordinator, Gunadiish, where we were staying the night, put the fear of Africa in me pretty substantially in the short 15 or 20 minutes it took us to get across the city.  The streets weren't busy with cars but well after dark there were still people milling about, sitting beside the road in little ramshackle booths lit with kerosene lamps, and listening to music on their portable radios - a scene which, in the dark, gave Accra the look of one extensive shantytown.  Sam and I both reflected later that we felt totally and utterly lost, and that if we were let out of the cab right there we would have had absolutely no idea what to do.  Furthermore there were the smells (exhaust, diesel fuel, dust, and smoke from roadside fires sticking in the backs of our throats) and the heat, which was absolutely oppressive.  To make matters somewhat worse Gunadiish's sister, who met us at the apartment (Gunadiish was, somewhat ironically, out-of-country) had to spend the night at the hospital with her baby and so, all alone, we locked ourselves into the strange place for the rest of the night.

Needless to say it wasn't a good night and, when the panic closed my throat enough and the heat made me dizzy enough, I started to be sick.  By the time Paul, our host, arrived in Accra from Have village by the next day midday I was in rough shape (Sam, holding it together partly from taking care of me, was faring better).  Though, once we left the "death room" (as we will now affectionately call it) and started to get on our way, things improved immeasurably.  We visited a medical clinic to be sure that I was well, and I was prescribed some of the drugs I'd brought with me to combat a mild stomach bug that turned up in my blood test and which may have, but likely didn't, cause my vomiting.   Finally, around 6:00 pm Monday evening with the sun going down, we were ready to head on to Have.

In the daylight the roadside huts of Accra were all little shops selling everything from water (in the ubiquitous 500mL plastic sachets) to food to cell phone credits to flags to clothes to haircuts to anything else you could imagine.  As we drove along (Paul's friend Constant from Have picked us up in his car) kids and adults alike would weave in and out of the traffic on foot selling, it seemed, whatever they could get their hands on.  During our drive through the city and on to the village Constant bought two drills, a belt, and a brush, and gave a man an iron, Paul topped up his cell phone balance, and they both had an evening snack on this drive-through shopping mall of Ghana's roads.

Where we are staying is the EDYM (Environmental Development Youth Movement, pronounced "Edim") farm, about 10 minutes beyond the town of Have, towards Kpandu ("Pandu") in Volta Region, Ghana.  EDYM was founded and is run by Paul Kpai, a man in his late 30s, maybe, or early 40s, who was born here in Have but has been educated as far away as Cuba.  Paul started his studies in Agronomy but now studies Social Science because he believes very passionately that a solution to both some of the poverty and the environmental degradation in the area (caused by deforestation and unsustainable farming practices) can be solved by engaging with the youth of the community and teaching them about the environmental problems and their solutions.  Paul has also started a bit of a trend in Have, and seems to be at least partially responsible for encouraging some of the more affluent, educated, and successful members of the community to settle in Have after having business success elsewhere, and contributing to the growing prosperity of the village.  (As Paul eloquently said, We cannot all go to work in the city.  The city, after all, was a village once where somebody decided to stay.)

In fact it seems that Paul is also a sort of gardening consultant to the whole town, where we constantly met people who said "Paul told me to plant these trees here, for shade" or "Paul grafted these trees for me, for this exotic fruit."   Paul hopes that the EDYM farm will soon serve as a training centre, though at present it works mostly as a nursery where Paul's particular specialty and passion is the Moringa tree.   (Moringa apparently has very many nutritional and health benefits, but I'd encourage you to google it rather than take my poor explanation.)

Paul lives on the farm now, as does Chachu (or "Mr. Richard" a 24-year old farm hand), but Paul hopes to move the EDYM offices (now in town) and his brother Emmanuel's Moringa tea operation (now at the family complex in Have as well) to the EDYM farm.  Paul calls the farm the "EDYM Village" or sometimes, with a laugh, "Our Holy Village," but so far Paul, Chachu, Sam and I are the only villagers.  Florence, a middle aged woman who does our cooking, comes to the farm each day.

In our first days here there has been much to adjust to and more than a few surreal experiences.   I would say that the heat was absolutely intolerable except that, somehow, we have been tolerating it and continue to adjust to being constantly wet.  Sam's thermometer perpetually reads about 35 degrees Celsius, but he thinks it's broken and surely hotter, and this is also in the shade of our room.

Until recently Paul rented a couple of apartments in Have for volunteers but this was expensive, particularly in the sometimes long months between stays, and so Paul has been endeavouring to improve the accommodations on the farm so that it can be a home to volunteers from now on.  We are the first, and so not everything is in place yet and some kinks are still being worked out.  The first night we had no mosquito net and when it arrived the second night and was installed, with some concerted and confused effort by Paul and Sam, it proved to have several holes in it (like most things here, it seems, it was bought used), though we've mostly figured out the technique for blocking them.

The water for showers (stored in a tank outside the building) ran out our first Thursday, causing a mild bout of panic and frustration in Sam and me (we didn't have much except the guarantee of a shower) forcing us to realize that we still had some settling in to do in this very foreign place.  Paul was away that night and so the refilling of the tank was put off until the next day.  Since then, we've come to realize that this is a fairly commonplace occurrence and soon enough Constant will show up with the water truck (his pick-up loaded with barrels of water) and, one bucket brigade later, we're back in business.

The same night as the water fill-up a volunteer electrical crew showed up to hook up the generator to power our much-needed fan (maybe needless to say, the farm doesn't have electricity).  Sam and I watched sheepishly as the group (some young guys from the town, starring Mike, an electrician and teacher at one of the schools) worked hard to get the motor running for us two pathetically sweaty white folks.  The generator runs very erratically and guzzles fuel (Sam guesses it's about 30 years old, at least) but it's enough to run a fluorescent tube light outside and send a little stand-fan spinning like crazy.   It's loud too and stinks of petrol and exhaust (which, mercifully unlike Accra, none of this countryside does) but just as we've learned to sleep with the other incredible noises, we've learned to sleep with that too.

And then there are the night noises.  About three meters from our room the farm has a water reservoir (a big hole that collects rainwater and where frogs live).  The frogs are nocturnal, we figure, because as soon as it gets dark they start wildly croaking at an incredible volume, and birds start squawking, and crickets start chirping, and the farm dogs start howling all in what can only be described as an unholy racket.  I've only ever heard sounds like this before on the (heretofore absurd) sound-machine "Jungle" setting, and never at such an alarming volume.  It's ridiculous, to say the least, and you will share in our stupefaction just as soon as I can post a file from my handy sound recorder.

On the food front, Florence is slowly introducing us to Ghanaian food.   (To call Florence a cook might be giving her too much credit but she cooks for us and works hard, in small fits between naps, to feed us three meals a day.)  Her specialities and our favourites so far include chicken (hacked up into little pieces bones and all, as near as we can tell, and fried) with spaghetti, fried chicken and rice, and fried plantains and beans (once the beans stop tasting like dirt, it's good-ish).  We have also had the privilege of trying the Ghanaian staple of fufu (mashed cassava with yam or plantain in a veerry gooey ball) which you eat out of a communal bowl with your fingers and dip in a meaty, brothy soup.  To quote the author of our of our books on Ghana, "It's probably fair to say that while you wouldn't want to travel in Ghana without trying fufu, you're unlikely to miss it when you return home."   Let's say, we're getting used to it.

As for our activities, within a few days of our arrival we were taken to meet the chiefs of the local village (adjacent to the farm) and all of the traditional authorities in Have.  We were also taken around to meet the teachers and headmasters at all seven local schools, since the children will be coming to see me each day at the library.

The library in Have was built a little over a year ago with the help of Village Volunteers (our sending agency) and donations raised.  This was Paul's doing as well, I think, as he is engaged not only at the farm but also in helping to establish other useful programs in the community.  The library had been intermittently open, when volunteers come I think, but a volunteer from the community is being trained now and will be ready to begin in April, when I leave, and so the hope is that this is the official opening of the library for good.  This is where I will be every day.

Sam, on the other hand, has the slightly less auspicious and coveted job of working on the farm.  So far this has involved filling thousands of little plastic bags with poop (well, dirt and poop), lining them up, and pushing Moringa seeds into them.  The bags are small (little black plastic planting bags or sometimes the discarded 500mL water bags) and the pile of poop is big, but eventually he'll get to 5000 bags full and then the next job (planting vegetables maybe?) will begin, and so on.  All we know now - we think - is that 5000 Moringa seedlings will be grown and distributed, free of charge, to local farmers or villagers.  Things grow quickly here, we're told, and so we should start to see growth within six weeks.

Sam's company on the farm is Chachu, who is a bit of a character and speaks and understands only a bit of English, and so much hilarity (recounted to me upon my return from the library) and semi-constructive conversations ensue.  (Sam learned, for example, that Chachu is saving money to buy land where he will farm rice, cassava, and ginseng. When Chachu asked Sam if he knew ginseng, Sam said yes and began to describe the shape of the root and its nutritional properties.  Chachu looked confused, the conversation ended, and Sam only later realized that Chachu hadn't been saying "ginseng", but "Jason", the name of a former volunteer.  Only then did Sam reflect that saying "Ginseng is my good friend" was maybe a rather too far-fetched way for Chachu to say that he intended to farm ginseng.)

So, as far as we can tell, our days will continue on like this.  We'll rise by 6:00 am (when the sun comes up and roughly the time Chachu noisily sweeps the ground and deck outside of our room) and Sam will go off to shovel poop about 20 metres away.  I will stay in bed, like the lucky lazy bum that I am, or generally occupy myself showering, reading, or writing until breakfast.  Breakfast is ... whenever Florence serves it (she is not terribly punctual), usually by 9:00 am at the latest, and Sam will take a break and we'll eat together.  After breakfast, I'll walk down the long dirt road from the farm to the paved road, where I'll wave down a tro-tro (a 10-12 passenger commuter van) and take the 30 peswas (30 cent) ride, about 10-15 minutes, into Have.  Sometimes Paul will take me on the back of his motorcycle, and I will be equal parts terrified and exhilarated as we weave around potholes and beep at passersby.   I'll open the library and then sit and wait.

Sam will work on the farm until 11:00 or 11:30 am, by which time it'll be too hot to do any more work for another 4 hours.  He'll read, or sleep, or write, and eat lunch and then go back to work sometime after 3:00 pm.  Theoretically my lunch will be sent to me at the library (but there are some kinks to be worked out there too) and then the library will close at 5:00 pm.   Then I catch a tro-tro back to the farm, by standing at the side of the road, swinging my arm over my head, and pointing to my right (the driver's left) indicating that I want a vehicle turning left at the Have crossroads towards Kpandu, not towards Hohoe ("Ho-hwey").   I'll ask for Jerusalem, the town past the farm, and point to the EDYM signpost on the side of the road, where I'll be let off to walk back along the road to the farm, Sam, and dinner.

All meals are hot, all showers are cold.   Sam and I shower and go to bed pretty much as soon as the sun goes down and so we're rarely asleep any later than 7:30 pm each night.  We sweat all night, and start again the next day.  On Thursday we take our malaria drugs and for the next few night have weird and vivid dreams.  Weekends we have off, we hope, or else we will be making concerted efforts to get out of there like we did today, when we find ourselves (40 minutes or so in a tro-tro later) in the town of Ho.   In our downtime we write in our journals, read our monstrous 900-page books (for Sam, The Count of Monte Cristo, for me, Shantaram), or play what we have decided will be the longest on-going tournament of Gin Rummy, ever.   And every so often, as often as we can, we we will send updates to you.