Email Number 4
Email Number 4
Accra, Ghana
June 28, 2006
Dear Friends and Family,
Well as you know, both the USA and Ghana are out of the running for the World Cup, and for a while here it was pretty exciting. After we lost to Ghana, we of course were rooting for Ghana, even wearing shirts displaying the colors of the Ghanian flag. After the US loss to Ghana, we got caught up in a drunken mob and it was a bit scary for a while, but ended up ok.
Imagine global warming here on the equator in Equatorial West Africa! We can tell you that global warming is not such a good thing, we are here in the rainy season but the rains do not come and the water level is down and the heat just keeps up.
Anyway, we are not writing to complain, but to let you know what we are doing, how things are going, and to ask you to participate in a small project that may in fact help in a very localized way to deal with this problem of global warming.
Talk about global warming, heat, and high humidity, one day a week or so ago, we discovered that the vitamin pills that we were taking developed green mold on them. So now, everything edible stays in the refrigerator.
We are in the process of moving to a new apartment not too far from where we were living. Things just didn’t work out there and we decided to leave. Hopefully this new place will be better, and it is also cheaper which is good. We’ll let you know.
Here is a lesson: The house maid got too busy to do all of the ironing one day, so she gave one of Peter’s shirts to the gardener to iron. I know you are asking why a gardener would be ironing a shirt. When Peter went to wear the shirt, it had gone missing and after a long search, the house maid found it hidden and crumpled up in a corner with several holes burned in it. The gardener had hid it. They agreed to have a seamstress fix it by embroidering over the holes. When we got the shirt back, the holes were indeed covered, but not by embroidery, but with the tags and labels from inside the shirt cut out and sewn to the outside. Now it says “Do not dry clean” on the front pocket. Don’t give ironing to the gardener!
Bribery is everywhere and is done by everyone, so rather in many cases, it is just the cost of getting things done and is not so much a bribe but perhaps a commission. Nevertheless, in the cases of traffic police stopping cars to check licenses and insurances, it is most certainly a bribe and easier to pay that small amount than go to court for hours and hours and pay a much larger amount.
Here are two good stories, and then we’ll tell you about work and the project we have in mind.
We spent a 3 day weekend in Akosombo, where there is a hydroelectric dam which dams up the Volta River and creates Lake Volta, the largest man made lake in the world – 400 kilometers, about 250 miles long. When we got to the hotel and turned on the AC, after about 20 minutes there was a loud noise, kind of a grinding sound, and then from the AC vents, three tails from some gecko’s came flying out and when they landed on the floor, they continued to wiggle for 3 or 4 minutes. If this wasn’t bad enough, the same thing happened again about 20 minutes later, but there were only 2 tails this time. A family of gecko’s probably took up residence in the AC which hadn’t been used for a while. Not to worry however, gecko’s can grow their tails back. Needless to say, the next time we are in Akasombo, we probably won’t go back to that same hotel again.
This is a little funny, but has a great ending. Here, people like us are called “whiteman”, and in the local language – Twi, the word is “Obruni”. It is just a descriptive word and not a negative word at all. When we first found the new apartment that we are about to move into, Peter noticed that the owner’s eyes were extremely red. While he didn’t want to be rude, he asked nicely if the man had something wrong with his eyes, and was told that they were bothering him. Peter suggested that he go to the hospital and have them checked. When we returned 3 days later to check on the progress of the repairs he was making to the apartment, he greeted us with dark glasses and told us that he had just removed bandages from his eyes and still needed to protect them from bright lights. He did go to the hospital and discovered a fairly serious eye infection which they treated. Now the landlord – Samuel – told us that he goes around telling everyone “that the whiteman saved his life”. A good story with a good ending. Peter’s reputation continues to grow!
Now, we want to describe a project that you can participate in a modest or little more substantial way, and if it is completed, it will make a fairly big impact in a number of ways.
Keta is a town several hours drive east of Accra on the Atlantic coast. It is bounded on one side by the ocean and on the other by a very large lagoon. Fishing, fish smoking, and fish mongering is the major source of income for the people who live in Keta. Over the years, the ocean has overrun the narrow strip of land between the ocean and the lagoon, and thus has destroyed many of the houses where the fisher folk live and work. Last February, Pro-Link, our organization planted 2,700 coconut seedlings on the beach separating the ocean from the lagoon, and these seedlings are doing very well. (See the photo on this blog posting). As they mature they will keep the beach from eroding; provide coconuts for sale and consumption, and the chaff from the coconuts will be added to the feed of the ducks that most families keep for food. Most importantly, the fishing industry will be able to survive providing employment and all that entails to the residents of Keta. The District Assembly of Keta wants 10,000 more coconut seedlings to be planted to insure that the erosion will be stopped and provide coconuts, etc. The total cost of the project is approximately $1,100 - about $1.10 per tree. So for a pretty small amount, much can be done. The District Assembly will pay all transportation costs to bring the seedlings to Keta, and a volunteer group and the Keta residents themselves will plant and care for the seedlings. The seedlings will be divided up to be given to families who will then be responsible to plant and nurture them.
For those of you who are Jewish and who know how the Jewish National Fund collects money from individuals to plant trees in Israel, you can see how similar this is. In any case, we hope that all of you will want to help to the best of your ability. Together, we can literally save Keta!
We are going to make a contribution to this project, and we hope you will join us. We can make arrangements for how to send your money, and we will try to see that it can be a tax deductible donation.
At work, things are going very well. We did a 3 day training for the main office staff on fundraising, marketing, needs assessment and income generating activities. Next week we’ll do some more training for a full week in Hohoe – one of the project sites several hours drive from here. We are working on grants and reports – editing rather than writing. We are trying to build capacity and not just do things. There is also a lot of informal one on one mentoring that goes on that may have as much, if not even more impact. We finally got most of the computers virus free and virus protected, and all this week, not a single virus has been discovered. Also helping people learn more computer skills. And, a big one: we got a wireless internet connection set up that is relatively fast and not too expensive and it is making work much easier for those here who need to browse and send and receive emails. Finally, Peter has set up a digital photo archives and will teach a short course in photography, and digital photo editing. So, all in all, we are satisfied.
Thanks for listening to us once again, and we sign off for now with love.
Peter and Hinda
Accra, Ghana
June 28, 2006
Dear Friends and Family,
Well as you know, both the USA and Ghana are out of the running for the World Cup, and for a while here it was pretty exciting. After we lost to Ghana, we of course were rooting for Ghana, even wearing shirts displaying the colors of the Ghanian flag. After the US loss to Ghana, we got caught up in a drunken mob and it was a bit scary for a while, but ended up ok.
Imagine global warming here on the equator in Equatorial West Africa! We can tell you that global warming is not such a good thing, we are here in the rainy season but the rains do not come and the water level is down and the heat just keeps up.
Anyway, we are not writing to complain, but to let you know what we are doing, how things are going, and to ask you to participate in a small project that may in fact help in a very localized way to deal with this problem of global warming.
Talk about global warming, heat, and high humidity, one day a week or so ago, we discovered that the vitamin pills that we were taking developed green mold on them. So now, everything edible stays in the refrigerator.
We are in the process of moving to a new apartment not too far from where we were living. Things just didn’t work out there and we decided to leave. Hopefully this new place will be better, and it is also cheaper which is good. We’ll let you know.
Here is a lesson: The house maid got too busy to do all of the ironing one day, so she gave one of Peter’s shirts to the gardener to iron. I know you are asking why a gardener would be ironing a shirt. When Peter went to wear the shirt, it had gone missing and after a long search, the house maid found it hidden and crumpled up in a corner with several holes burned in it. The gardener had hid it. They agreed to have a seamstress fix it by embroidering over the holes. When we got the shirt back, the holes were indeed covered, but not by embroidery, but with the tags and labels from inside the shirt cut out and sewn to the outside. Now it says “Do not dry clean” on the front pocket. Don’t give ironing to the gardener!
Bribery is everywhere and is done by everyone, so rather in many cases, it is just the cost of getting things done and is not so much a bribe but perhaps a commission. Nevertheless, in the cases of traffic police stopping cars to check licenses and insurances, it is most certainly a bribe and easier to pay that small amount than go to court for hours and hours and pay a much larger amount.
Here are two good stories, and then we’ll tell you about work and the project we have in mind.
We spent a 3 day weekend in Akosombo, where there is a hydroelectric dam which dams up the Volta River and creates Lake Volta, the largest man made lake in the world – 400 kilometers, about 250 miles long. When we got to the hotel and turned on the AC, after about 20 minutes there was a loud noise, kind of a grinding sound, and then from the AC vents, three tails from some gecko’s came flying out and when they landed on the floor, they continued to wiggle for 3 or 4 minutes. If this wasn’t bad enough, the same thing happened again about 20 minutes later, but there were only 2 tails this time. A family of gecko’s probably took up residence in the AC which hadn’t been used for a while. Not to worry however, gecko’s can grow their tails back. Needless to say, the next time we are in Akasombo, we probably won’t go back to that same hotel again.
This is a little funny, but has a great ending. Here, people like us are called “whiteman”, and in the local language – Twi, the word is “Obruni”. It is just a descriptive word and not a negative word at all. When we first found the new apartment that we are about to move into, Peter noticed that the owner’s eyes were extremely red. While he didn’t want to be rude, he asked nicely if the man had something wrong with his eyes, and was told that they were bothering him. Peter suggested that he go to the hospital and have them checked. When we returned 3 days later to check on the progress of the repairs he was making to the apartment, he greeted us with dark glasses and told us that he had just removed bandages from his eyes and still needed to protect them from bright lights. He did go to the hospital and discovered a fairly serious eye infection which they treated. Now the landlord – Samuel – told us that he goes around telling everyone “that the whiteman saved his life”. A good story with a good ending. Peter’s reputation continues to grow!
Now, we want to describe a project that you can participate in a modest or little more substantial way, and if it is completed, it will make a fairly big impact in a number of ways.
Keta is a town several hours drive east of Accra on the Atlantic coast. It is bounded on one side by the ocean and on the other by a very large lagoon. Fishing, fish smoking, and fish mongering is the major source of income for the people who live in Keta. Over the years, the ocean has overrun the narrow strip of land between the ocean and the lagoon, and thus has destroyed many of the houses where the fisher folk live and work. Last February, Pro-Link, our organization planted 2,700 coconut seedlings on the beach separating the ocean from the lagoon, and these seedlings are doing very well. (See the photo on this blog posting). As they mature they will keep the beach from eroding; provide coconuts for sale and consumption, and the chaff from the coconuts will be added to the feed of the ducks that most families keep for food. Most importantly, the fishing industry will be able to survive providing employment and all that entails to the residents of Keta. The District Assembly of Keta wants 10,000 more coconut seedlings to be planted to insure that the erosion will be stopped and provide coconuts, etc. The total cost of the project is approximately $1,100 - about $1.10 per tree. So for a pretty small amount, much can be done. The District Assembly will pay all transportation costs to bring the seedlings to Keta, and a volunteer group and the Keta residents themselves will plant and care for the seedlings. The seedlings will be divided up to be given to families who will then be responsible to plant and nurture them.
For those of you who are Jewish and who know how the Jewish National Fund collects money from individuals to plant trees in Israel, you can see how similar this is. In any case, we hope that all of you will want to help to the best of your ability. Together, we can literally save Keta!
We are going to make a contribution to this project, and we hope you will join us. We can make arrangements for how to send your money, and we will try to see that it can be a tax deductible donation.
At work, things are going very well. We did a 3 day training for the main office staff on fundraising, marketing, needs assessment and income generating activities. Next week we’ll do some more training for a full week in Hohoe – one of the project sites several hours drive from here. We are working on grants and reports – editing rather than writing. We are trying to build capacity and not just do things. There is also a lot of informal one on one mentoring that goes on that may have as much, if not even more impact. We finally got most of the computers virus free and virus protected, and all this week, not a single virus has been discovered. Also helping people learn more computer skills. And, a big one: we got a wireless internet connection set up that is relatively fast and not too expensive and it is making work much easier for those here who need to browse and send and receive emails. Finally, Peter has set up a digital photo archives and will teach a short course in photography, and digital photo editing. So, all in all, we are satisfied.
Thanks for listening to us once again, and we sign off for now with love.
Peter and Hinda
posted by Peter and Hinda Schnurman at 11:26 AM
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