A Day at Dipale School

Tuesday we went to Dipale school and visited Mr. Babamo's P5 class. They drew pictures of their houses, family, and things around their homes. We will send their pictures to our friend Blair's 5th grade class in Moore, OK.

Dipale school Kindergarten classroom, surprisingly there is only one goat on the school ground.

The students drawing their pictures.

Mr. Babamo talking to the students.
The students with their final works of art. We took pictures of a few so you could see all of their hard work.

We had a lot of fun with the kids. The kids loved it. There are no art classes in the school, so it was a great opportunity for them to exercise their creativity.

Fire Festival

We may have a new favorite holiday! Last week was the Dagomba fire festival, Bugum Chugu. To celebrate,the whole village assembles in front of the chief's palace around eight. Everyone has long torches made of bound grass. The kids in each family spend the day making them for their relatives. Our counterpart Ibrahim's children made them for us. The drummers begin to drum to announce the arrival of the elders. Traditionally the chief would come out and light the first torch, but since our chief is sick, one of the elders started ours. Then everyone lights their torch off of the first one and begins to march through town, singing and dancing. The young men of the village are at the heart of the parade with the drummers, dressed in traditional clothes. There faces are covered in ash and they carry machetes, guns, tools, or juju sticks. Every so often the parade will stop moving and the young men will test their strength by screaming and pushing each other over. It is really crazy and the women, children, and everyone else backs away during this time. At the end of the procession there is a tree in which everyone throws their torch on to light it on fire. After the tree is set on fire everyone walks back to the village. They gather fresh branches from shea and neem trees raising them while singing and dancing all the way to the chiefs palace. After the chief's palace, the drummers lead everyone to different compounds. People run into the compounds and water is thrown on them. We went all through the village, sprinting through the dark. It was a blast. Living in a village with no electricity made this celebration that much cooler. So our videos kind of really suck, because it was so dark and dusty. Also it is really difficult to film while holding a giant torch and it was way more exciting to participate than record it. We went ahead and posted them for you to look at. There is no way to show how amazing this was.

The Garden

We haven't taken nearly enough photos of the farm. Here are a few before and after photos.

Right now we are growing okra, cabbage, aleefu and bra. Aleefu and bra are both leafy greens used in soup. They both can be used like we would use spinach.

This is the garden/farm just as we began weeding

Here are two beds we built

Scott and Ibraheam harvesting aleefu from one of the beds a few monthes later

Jennifer with Ibraheam carrying aleefu to be sent to Tunayili school

This is bra just before harvest

Some girls from Dipale Primary School harvesting bra

HIV/AIDS Education Event

We helped put on an aids awareness event in a nearby village. The first day we went to the school and held some basic education classes with the kids. The next day we had games for the whole community, a dance and movie. It was a blast!

Some of the kids at the school during our lessons.

The kids made cards for people living with HIV in the hospital

Water baloon toss (actually it was a thin plastic bag full of water toss)

Condom demonstrations
This guy processes honey across the street from our house. They call him "the muscles." He is with our closest Peace Corps nieghbor Katy.

Bean bag toss

The bat spin- first you spin around the bat three times then carry a book on your head. These kids have been carrying things on their head since they could walk. It really wasn't much of a challenge.

The local youth group put on a play about HIV. Ghanains love their dramas!

We had a bunch of relay races too! Some of the new trainees had a team. They started out really slow but came back for the win in the three legged race portion.

Sallah Day

Monday was the Muslim holiday Sallah or Eid-Al-Adha or festival of sacrifice. It commemorates Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son to God, before God stopped him. its is a celebration of obedience to god.

In the morning they went to prayer, which occurred on the soccer field because not everyone could fit in the mosque. After prayers everyone went to the chief’s house to slaughter two rams and a cow. there were more prayers inside the chief’s house. Then everyone goes home to eat. We went to several other peoples houses and ate lots of food. Also people bring food to neighbors and family. Our friend Ibrahim took us to the chief imam's house to greet him and to eat. The imam has the best food because everyone sends him food. he looks at all the food and eats and shares the best ones. The food was really good.

Prayers on the soccer field


Scott and Jennifer with the Cheif


Slaughtering a ram



Jennifer with the Chief Imam and one of his wives

Prayers at the Cheifs house. We had a really bad storm a few weeks ago and a tree fell on his house so that is why there is a big hole in the wall

Baby Naming Ceremony

Within the last two weeks we have gone to two different baby naming ceremonies. They occur seven days after the baby is born. They are just a big celebration for the friends and family. The first one we went to was in our village. I was a boy and they had a lot of traditional dancing. The guy in the multicolored yellow smock and purple hat is our night watchman E.D. The dance they are doing is called Taki.

The other baby naming ceremony we went to was in Gushie, a nearby village our friend lives in. This one was not as big as the one in Dipale. A girl in the family dyed our friend's and Jennifer's feet with henna. The family grows it and sells it in the market. Women use it on their feet and hands for different ceremonies like baby namings and weddings.

Scott greeting the newborn girl

First they dry out the leaves of the henna and pound it.

Katy and Jennifer's feet. It looks like pesto!

Just Some Really Cute Kids

Fleece jacket and a hat, no pants required. P.S. it is a chilly 85 degrees outside

Our friend Jake with a kid with some cool shades

Just really cute




Jennifer's first baby on her back. All Ghanaian women carry babies on their back wrapped in a 2 yard piece of fabric. This was at our homestay house.

Shea What

Have you ever wondered where shea butter comes from?

Well it comes from the nut of the shea tree. This tree only grows in a narrow strip throughout Western Africa. Ghana is the second highest exporter of shea butter.

Shea nut collection and processing is only done by women and is an important source of income to women in the northern part of Ghana. During training, we visited a women's group in the Upper East region and they showed us how it is made.


First the shea nuts are collect from under the shea tree, and the outer flesh of the nut is removed.This is done by hand or by eating it. The flesh has an interesting taste. If you eat an unripe one it tastes like eating a unripe persimmon. Then the nuts are boiled and left to dry.


The nuts are then cracked. This often involves singing and dancing (see video below, sorry you have to turn your head)

Next the cracked nuts are milled. Then the women roast the nuts over an open fire.

Then the roasted nuts are mixed with water and stirred by hand.

It is mixed for about an hour. We both mixed some and it is very tiresome. Our shoulders started hurting after only 5 minutes. After about an hour the shea butter will separate from the water.

Then they skim off the shea butter and put it back on the fire. It is cooked until it boils.



Although it looks black and nasty when it is cooked, when it cools it will look a creamy white color. It can be used for your body or to cook with. It is a pretty amazing process.

A Little from our Training

We visited a women's shea processing group in the Upper east. This is some women crushing the boiled and dried nuts. They sang and danced the whole time they were working. They were truely amazing. We have some video we hope to upload when we get a faster connection.

This is the Sirigu pottery center. It was started to raise money for school fees for local girls. They offer art classes to generate extra money.


Here is some of the pottery. They sell these pots for less than 5 US dollars. Most of the crafts people do here they drastically undersell because they do not factor in labor or time.

Here is Jennifer sitting on her very first crocodile in Paga!
So most villages have a totem animal they believe is sacred. In Paga it is the crocadile so they do not kill them. It is considered a great luck if a croc gets one of your goats or chickens.

Scot was a little less afraid to sit on it. Who says you should never smile at a crocadile!

Yea We are Official Volunteers!

Well we have traveled all the way up to the Burkina Faso border and back for our training. We were sworn in on August 30, 2011, 50 years to the day the first Peace Corps volunteers stepped of the plane in Ghana. Our swearing in ceremony was at the U.S. Ambassadors house in Accra. It was really fun. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ghana spoke. Later we both were able to greet him in his native language of Dagbani. He asked Scott if we had any kids and he didn't know how to say we would later so he told him we would have them tommorow. It was super funny. We were supposed to go to our site the next day, but they kept us in Accra one more day so we could meet the President of Ghana. We got to go the presidential castle and had a nice reception we he spoke to us and we all took a photo with him. We should get a copy of it later.

Us at the U.S. Ambasador's house

That's right, we have matching purple and gold outfits our host family had made for us!





Scott drinking real coffee out of official US China

H. E. John Atta Mills

The president of Ghana

Scott's presidential beer

bathing bucket for Mel This is the one of the cleanest showers we have had.
Wli Falls, the largest waterfall in Western Africa.
Jennifer stirring Fufu with our host mom Jennifer Owusea
Banku, boiled plaintain, ocro stew, and wakye
Our house in Dipale. It is totally the nicest house in the village, most people live in compounds of round mud hut that open up into a courtyard.