So since my last post a lot has happened.
PC held an All Volunteer conference where every single PCV in Ghana attended.161 of us were there. During the day we had food security talks and during the night many different things happened. Fund raising in the shape of...
Silent Auctions: It all started out civil. People milled about and wrote down what they were going to bid for whatever items were graciously donated. And then somebody donated a package of Double Stuff Oreos and two boxes of Cheezits. Whenever PCV's get together inevitably the conversation will eventually turn to food. Food dreams, food sent, food ate, food cooked, food missed, anything food. Well when these Cheezits hit the floor it was a bidding massacre. I think one Cheezit box topped out at 26 or so cedis (about 11% of our monthly "salary"). It was amazing. Personally I walked out of there with some ipod speakers and a cooling blanket (we will see how well that works in the months coming).
Date Auctions: Hilarious. PCV's allowed themselves to be bid on and had a bunch of "dates" lined up. Probably the funniest thing about this was how PCV's would sell (through hilarious dialog) their dates to other PCV's.The big one probably sold for about 400 cedis- a trip to a casino for a group of 4 I believe. Way to get after it PCV's (all the proceeds went to Gender and Youth Development activities so everybody justified it by saying, "it's for the children"). Ran and I pooled our money together and bought a trip from a volunteer in the Eastern region to go hiking in the mountains with some rock climbing involved. Really excited.
There was also a crafts fair where PCV's sold items their town was selling. I bought a painting on a whim (PC was so wise/cruel by giving us our transportation reimbursement right before the crafts fair. Who cares if I can't afford to get home! I have a painting!) There were ear rings, necklaces, kente, fabric, bagts, shoes, shea butter, t shirts, laptop cases, and a lot of other things I've forgotten.
Prom night! Theme: 2 yard togo party. A definite style here in Ghana is to buy "2 yards" of fabric and wrap it around you like a dress or towel. Really very extremely confortable.
My favorite thing of All Vol though- Talent Show. Man take a bunch of people who decide they would like to spend two years in a foreign country (let's say Ghana for example) and put them all into the same room.... it's sure to be an amazingly funny time. Magic shows, stand up comedy, fire twirling, singing, video, musicians, Irish dancing, poems... shoot I can't even remember them all. I was gasping for air most of the time trying to stop myself from laughing because my sides hurt so much. Maybe next year I will do something. Got some brainstorming to do haha.
All in all All Vol was alllll right. Very pleased with it all.
So also I've been building fuel efficient stoves. So far I've built 2, one in Yapalsi within my compound and one in Nyong-Gumah in Mary's village. Mary came to Yapalsi to help me build my stove and then I went to her village and helped her build her a stove. Team work!
The first stove turned out to be a challenge. The clay up in the Northern Region is different from the south and we needed to use some ant hills to add it to give it extra strength. This turned out to be a very tiring expedition and Mary and I happened to pick the hottest day to do it. We literally roasted and sweat our way through this stove. By adding the ant hill it made our mixture heavier/denser though and our stove kind of bowed out. The more we added to build the stove up the more it expanded. Mary was the first to notice this phenomenon. So we took a lunch break and wait for the clay stove to dry up a little and then built it up again. My family has been using it to cook so I think it was a success! Less firewood is consumed using this fuel efficient stove (you know, thus the name?) so hopefully it frees up a little time for my family.
The second stove also had its own challenges. This time around we were determined not to have our stove bow out again so we decided less ant hill. Making our mixture again we realized that it was extremely silty and sandy. It was very confusing because we just couldn't seem to add enough....something to make it sticky. Mary's counterpart recruited his two friends to go back out (on another incredibly hot nasty day) and find a new ant hill because the verdict was the ant hill wasn't good quality. Once they returned with the new ant hill it all went very smoothly. We pretty much used all ant hill and ditched our original plans haha.
With this stove we also made a few improvements. We added a larger hole for the smoke to escape, a bigger opening for firewood, and airpockets so the fire doesn't get smothered (all problems encountered with my stove in my compound). This second stove should have it's first trial tomorrow or so!
Shout out to Allahji, Mary's CP who definitely helped us poor light skinned people battle our way through making these stoves. Sunburned, sweaty, smelly, tired, and close to delirious, he definitely help keep us together.
Stove 1- dubbed "Fat Boy"
Stove 2- dubbed "Tall Boy"
Scaring children on a daily basis.
Mary, I, and ant hill
Jaw dropping sunset at Mary's Village after a hard day of stove making. I had a "this is where I should be" moment upon seeing this.
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