Ada Foah

Ada Foah (pronounced ahh daa not a da) is a town that is located where the mouth of the Volta River meets the Atlantic ocean.  We had a couple of days in between meetings and did not want to take the 12 hour bus ride up north just to turn around the day we got back, so we took a little vacation to Ada Foah. There is a whole series of towns that start with the name Ada, such as Ada Kaasa and Big Ada. Ada Foah is a little bit different than Ada Oklahoma. Last time we checked Ada ok did not have a fishing village or coconut trees. We stayed at a beach camp in a little bamboo hut with sand floors and a thatched roof.

This is the view from our front door. The camp is located on a skinny peninsula not even 100 yards wide. we could look one way and see the Volta river/Ada estuary and then turn the other way and see the Atlantic Ocean.

 

The first night we were there it got a little chilly, so we had to wrap up in our 2 yards.

  For dinner we ate coconut banku with tomato sauce.  It was awesome, although it doesn’t look all that appealing.    We spent the rest of our time swimming hiking around, and watching birds.  We saw four new species of birds.  That puts us at over 125 species! When we weren't active we just lounged around in the sun and drank a few drinks, including so local rum that was made from sugarcane. We bought it off a Rasta. It was not the best drink, it could also be used to strip paint. Jennifer refused to drink it.

A Good Old Fashioned Floor Pounding

Just as the rains start to come, Dagomba women repair or refinish the floors in their compound.  They are community events.  Several women gather to help at each compound.  They bring in different layers of fine gravel and pound them into the ground until it is smooth.  They will pound the ground for hours at a time.  To make it more enjoyable they sing and dance as they work.  We both got a chance to try it out.  It is really hard work, and we found we don’t have very good rhythm.

The women got a kick out of us trying. 

The songs got more exciting as they pounded harder. 

The School Garden in Gushie

 Gushie is starting a school garden and we are helping them.  We had a bunch of trees in the shade cloth at the farm so we offered them to any of the schools that were interested.  Gushie has fenced off a garden area so we planted 22 lemon trees and 22 moringa trees there. Right now they have planted veggies in with the trees, but as the trees mature they will move the garden to a new area.  Lots of kids came to help with the tree planting.  School is vacating for a month break, so we will see how the trees do with out the teachers around.  The teachers seem really enthusiastic about the garden, so we hope to help them expand. 

Loading the trees at the farm in Dipale.

Offloading at the school.

That is one of the lemon trees.

Digging holes for the trees.

The headmaster is overseeing the planting.

We also got to see the kids eating food with the vegatables from the garden.  Ghanaian kids love veggies as long as they are ground up.  Big chunks are are really hated.

The cooks hard at work.  The woman on the left is pounding the bera for the soup.The Gushie cooks are awesome.  They make the headmaster come for the vegetables every week. 

Garden Update

The garden is coming along nicely.  We have been able to establish farm records to determine planting times.  This term we were able to provide veggies the first week of school.  We are also producing enough to provide vegetables to the schools two days a week.  Our biggest issue is still transportation to the schools.  We can get it there consistently once a week, but it is really variable on the second day. 

Here is some of our cucumbers and cabbage.  The cabbage is being attacked by snails right now.  Funny thing about northern Ghanaians is they are deathly afraid of snails.  In the south they eat them, but in the north they fear them.  We are the only ones who are brave enough to pick them off and kill them.

 

You can kind of see from this picture the difference in how the garden is looking.  We have twenty established beds now.  It’s getting bigger all the time.

Scott is making some organic insecticide out of the leaves from the neem tree.  We pound the leaves and let them soak in water over night and spray the next day. 

 

This is our new okra bed.  We just planted it.  We hope to get a good harvest this rainy season.

Our bera beds are looking amazing.  Previously we thought everyone was calling it bra, but we found out it is actually bera.  We thought it was a lot funnier when we called it bra.

 

This is ayoyo.  Ghanaians put it in soup.  It gives the soup a nice slimy texture like snot.  The flavor is good but the texture is not the best.

 

Here are some of the local kids who come and help us on the weekends. 

Overall we think the garden is going well.  We have days of major frustrations, but we are glad to know that a thousand kids are getting to eat fresh veggies at least once a week.

 

This is the most massive birds nest we have ever seen.  It is right on the outskirts of the garden.  It is so big a human could probably fit in in. Two hamerkops are building it.  We haven’t seen any babies yet but we will try and get some pics.

Our Drawing Crew

We have several groups of kids who come by the house every day to draw.  Every time we go through town the kids say “Madame, master we will come for drawing”  They absolutely love it.  If it a large group that comes we just use chalk and draw all over the porch.

 

We have started painting with a few of them, but it is too chaotic if there is more than three.  Our Dagbani is not good enough to manage lots of kids with paint.

We also draw with crayons and colored pencils.

      

We have started to hang some of the drawings and paintings on our wall. The kids love to come and look at their masterpieces. 

What we really do everyday

So we realize that our blog may be at times a misrepresentation of what we do everyday.  We do get to go to cool places and see neat things, but most of the time we are just hanging out at the house if we are not working.  Here are some of our typical activities:

Mowing the lawn: There are no lawn mowers so we use a cutlass to slash the grass back.

Reading Books: We average about a book a week each.

Listening to the radio: It has had a few spills, and yes those are twisty ties being used as wires,  but if we position it right, we can still get the BBC in the afternoon.

Washing Clothes:  This may be our most favorite thing to do.  It takes us all afternoon to do our laundry. On a good note our forearms are getting strong.

If it begins to rain or if it is particularly humid, we string it up all over our house at night.

 

Burning Trash: If we don’t burn the trash as soon as we take it out, the kids will ransack it.

Sweeping :  They don’t believe in handles in Ghana so it is quite the work out to sweep the house. During the dry season it gets so dusty we get to do it every day. 

Sorting the rice for rocks: Believe it or not but rocks are not good for your teeth so sorting rice is a must.  We also enjoy sorting the beans as well!

Lake Bosumtwi

We had to travel down to Kumasi for a Peace Corps meeting. It takes about +7 hours to make it there. So we decided to take a little R and R. So, we decided to go to the near by Lake Bosumtwi. Lake Bosumtwi is the only natural lake in Ghana and it was formed a long time ago when a meteor impact created the lake. We were not the only ones who thought this was a good idea because four of are other friends decided to tag along. We all had a great time! We did a little hiking and when that got hot we went for a dip in the water. There was also some nice paddle boat action. After that we just lounged around in the summer hut by the water.we also drank some refreshing beverages and ate some good food, one of which included french fries and catsup.

Rob helping Sonia and Jason to shore

Stom over the lake