What a week!

We were without Internet for a few days so I was unable to update the blog...sorry in advance if this is an extra long entry as a result.

I decided to stay in Manso Nkwanta this past weekend so that I could organize the large amount of data that was suddenly my responsibility. The office was very quiet. Myself, two drivers, and one data clerk were the only ones here. They were very cute about taking care of me though. Every few hours they would ask if I had eaten something, and they were always sure to see I had a ride if I wanted one. In fact, I got two calls Saturday morning, one at 7am and one at 7:15am seeing if I was ready to go to the office. Don’t Ghanaians know Saturday is a day to sleep in? Luckily I had gone to bed early so I was up anyway. I went into the office early Saturday and surprisingly got a lot done, so much so that I even decided to leave the office in time to walk home. It was the first time I had been home before 9am, much less dark, which is 6:30pm here. All of the Ghanaian’s think it is weird that I like to walk the 1.5-2miles to the office. One morning last week I told them I wanted to walk, and they sent a car to come find me on my way. I also discovered this weekend that washing clothes by hand in a bucket is a very good workout!!

Sunday the phone call came even earlier – 6:30am! This one was informing me that my ride to church would be coming at 9:30am. Did he think it was going to take me 3 hours to get ready?....I have come to accept the fact that it is fair game for my phone to ring any time after 6am here. Church was in Twi, but since it was a traditional Presbyterian service I could follow along somewhat. Something I thought was unique was the way they collected the offering. The day of the week you were born is socially very important here. In fact, the first part of your name is the day you were born. So they collected the offering by day of the week you were born, and had a competition to see which day gave the most. Of course there was no prize, but they literally tallied each days giving’s and announced the standings. That’s one way to encourage people to tithe! Ian what do you think about implementing some friendly competition in your church? J

My attempts to cook on our two burner gas hot plate have been slowly improving. My highlight this weekend was vegetable curry – of course I don’t know if it technically counts as cooking since it was made from a can of vegetables and some curry seasoning mix, but it tasted pretty darn good. In general I think I’m a pretty good cook, but some of the things I have tried to make with the limited ingredients here have been pretty bad!

This week has been very busy like the last. Although, when I say “busy” I should make note that a good portion of the time is spent waiting around. I have discovered that Ghana time is 2 hours after whenever you say you are going to do something. I’ll wait in the morning for the car to be ready, and I’ll wait in the afternoon for the other staff members to be ready to leave the village. They are at least pretty consistent on being 2 hours behind. I try to make good use of my time though...playing with the kids :-)

I went out in the field every day this week, and it was just NOT my week. On the way to the cluster one day all of the Palm Oil that we were carrying for the school meals spilled over in the back of the truck. It could obviously no longer be used to cook with, but there was a frantic rush by the villagers to collect the oil to make soap out of it. It was a big deal for them to get this much oil for free. The next day on our way into the village the tire of the truck got wedged in between the planks of one of the wooden bridges. It was not coming out any time soon so 3 of the data entry clerks and myself walked the 5k left to the village we were suppose to be interviewing, Apenimadi. We were already late (no surprise) to survey the parents, so I carried all the surveys and my measuring tools on the 45 minutes walk. The car finally got unstuck about 2 hours later so we did at least have a ride home. The biggest pitfall to my research this week though was the fact that they did not have food to cook on two of the days that I went to observe the cooks and measure all of the food quantities. I will not get into the reasons as to why there was no food, but it was thankfully sorted out by Wednesday.

This week in Apenimadi, we again surveyed the students, parents, and cooks. The entire community wants to be involved in whatever happens through the Millennium Village Project, and as a result we had a few parents get very upset that they and their children were not selected to be surveyed. Unfortunately, trying to explain to them what “random selection” means is useless. It is nice to see them all so willing to help though. The teachers and the parents both talked about how they would do anything to help their children out, and that they are so thankful I was there to help improve the school meals. I often get approached just walking through the villages as well. One woman this week, who I did not even recognize as one of the parents, came up and just kept saying “thank you so much; thank you so much!” That was all she could say to me in English, but the huge hug she gave me was worth more than any words. I sure hope that my research has the positive impact the communities assume it will, with the obvious faith they are putting in me.