Sunday, February 13, 2011

Hunky dory

It's hot here. Easily 40 degrees at noon, usually even higher. For those of you who use uncivilised units, that's 104 degrees.

I'm getting used to life in Bolga, slowly feeling out all the different bits of living.

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This means taking trips out to Navrongo and Paga where IDE's work happens, taking everything in, trying to understand it all and fit into the spheres of work I've been assigned to (in a blog, coming soon!).

It was great to finally see the countryside and put faces to the farmers that IDE's work in Ghana (so far) revolves around. Every time I go to "the field", I get a headache. I wonder if it's the heat, or sun, or dehydration. I try to drink as much water as I can, but I can get never my pee to turn clear no matter how hard I try....











the road to Burkina



















a desert oasis, complete with ornamental Baobab











a wild crocodile!



















this old man is an amazing farmer (and a total sweetheart)











just check out his farm!

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My humble abode is really coming together. This weekend, I went wild and bought a complete kitchen including a fifteen kilo LPG bottle, which definitely weighed more than fifteen kilos full as I carried it home on the back of a motorbike.

Next week: cupboards, beds and furniture.

My nutrition is probably twice as good now that I can cook for myself and no longer need to eat out. I can finally eat all the beans I want to, and loads of tomatoes and cabbages and vegetables that aren't cooked by boiling them in oil for an hour. I almost took photos of myself cooking but couldn't bring myself to (sorry).

Next time. Pinkie promise.

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Another thing I'm getting terribly excited about is revising the water systems in my house. Right now, the kitchen sink, shower and bathroom sink all empty to different drains and patches of dirt around the house, which is a pretty sad and inefficient system for a desert.

By my reckoning, I could build a vegetable bed for every water outlet of the house with just a little bit of water routing PVC magic. I hear that most plants appreciate the extra nitrogen, potassium, and other goodies in mildly soapy water.

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I'm also getting familiar with the neighbourhood, walking to corner stores and vegetable stands for groceries. I met by pure chance a gentleman on the street who'd just started a NGO doing water and sanitation infrastructure and education around the area. He was a neat guy. We sat and had soft drinks (since he's muslim) and talked about our lives and our work.

People here are amazingly friendly and good natured. The other day, a child stopped me on the street to tell me I'd dropped a few cedis (dollars), and nobody I meet here or who talks to me tries to sell me anything or gets in my face like people do in Accra and Kumasi.


Life here is nice.

Really nice. I tried to capture it in this blog but can't do it justice.

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