What have I been doing the past 5 months? A lot.
Back in January and February I began contacting all kinds of
borehole people to ask for their help in getting a borehole installed for
Yapalsi so we could all have clean water to drink. All information about this can
be found at www.youtube.com/user/DianaHsieh1
I spent a lot of time running around my backyard (miles and
miles into my backyard, also known as, the bush) hunting for different animals
to accompany my family and my own evening meals. I had it in my head I was going to catch a rabbit one day. The best I ever did was a bush mouse.
There was a random week I spent translating for a Chinese
man who had been living in the town I go to to buy groceries (Savelugu). He had
been living there for almost two weeks and spoke only Chinese. He had there to
assemble a machine that a Ghanian man had bought to make soda products. Apparently
there had been a language barrier between Dagbanli and Chinese. Enter 3 Ghanian
men at my house in Yapalsi at 7pm at night. They came and asked for my services
and I vainly hoped that they were confused and it was actually a Japanese man
that was here. But they were correct and it was a Chinese mandarin speaking man
there. So I spent a week being driven to my market town and I learned a lot
about how soda is made. Did you guys know that soda bottles come in little test
tube looking things that hot air will be blown into it to shape it into the
shape of the bottle? It’s pretty cool.
Then I went home for a month and ran all over America
putting a little over 5,000 miles on my Mom’s car (Thanks Mom!!). I went to South Carolina and
met my best friends from college, I went to Utah for a week of backpacking, and
then I went to Chicago to meet my boyfriend’s parents. All went well.
Now I’m back in Ghana and I had just gotten back from a Shea
Tree Training event held in Tamale (the capital of the northern region). I
brought one woman from my village (Sanatu) and I think she really got a lot out
of it. The process of making Shea Butter is well known here in Ghana, however
the process of making high quality Shea Butter is less known (or practiced). We’re
going to have a meeting where she passes on her knowledge to the other women
here in Yapalsi.
The borehole grant has been funded so that will be what I
will be working on the next few weeks. Some of you have expressed regrets that
you were not able to donate before the grant was funded, but let me tell you there
will be another chance! The funding may not be sufficient (inflation and unforeseen
costs) and I will therefore need to alter the original budget. If and when that
happens I will cry out again for all of your wonderful donations that you weren’t
able to give yet.
Pictures on the next post. The internet isn't able to upload anything other than text today.