Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The past 3 months

Hello everybody! It's been a busy past few months so let me catch you up right away.

So since harvesting what have I been up to?

1. I have given a discussion on the importance of keeping records to farmers in my village. The rabbit project is going well and some houses are on their second litter of rabbits (mine included)!

2. My mom came to visit me in my village! We had a great time together. My Mom spent 3 days in my village where she got to experience a local festival, eat local cuisine, and respond "Naaa..." to everything asked of her in Dagbani (well almost, "ney" sounds close to "naa" right?). She got to watch people carry water from the local watering hole and take bucket baths. She got to experience the pleasantries of a latrine and the joy of listening to animals talk to each other at all hours of the day (night). She was able to combat malaria by taking slightly hallucinogenic malaria medicine and she was able to reorganize my entire room (thanks for that Mom).
      She was ready to leave.
      We went to Mole National park where we got to see a bunch of different animals- baboons (man do they have red butts), warthogs (Timon!), monkeys of all types, antelopes of all sizes and stripes, birds of varying colors, but no big cats (no Simba) or elephants.
      She survived the trotro riding experience where it's always a fun game to see what somebody next to you will be carrying (chickens? their 3 children? a goat?).
      She participated in making local pottery! Any ceramics teacher could learn a thing or two from these very talented pottery makers.
      Then she had to wave "byebye-yo" to everybody as she flew back to the land of promises and dreams, though some people still think she drove home...

On that last point....

3. I've started working on a world map to be drawn on our elementary school. 6.5 feet by 13 feet.
 4. Fire Festival! There is a festival to celebrate the end of harvesting everything and that was a blast. Pretty interesting to watch everybody dance with fire. I tried my hand at it and was not good. I almost set a child on fire. Yeesh.