Twofold

Friday July 2nd 2010

This post will be broken into two segments– the first for the two questions of the week, and the second for a photo-guided update of a few fun things that have taken place recently.

Questions of the Week

Q: What do you look forward to when you wake up?

A: I look forward to the fact that I’m working off of a clean slate, that I can anticipate new interactions with people to learn from, and that, as long as I keep an open mind, I’m unbound by yesterday’s challenges and frustrations. I also look forward to the small pleasures each day undoubtedly brings, like trying new food from interesting street vendors, shaking hands with colleagues that I trust and admire, and meeting new and exciting value chain actors through work. But really, I think most of all I look forward to the moments, the people, and the stories that occupy the unpredictable space in between what I woke up expecting to see and do, and what I realize I’ve actually experienced at the end of the day.

Q: What’s your favourite food in Ghana?

Ghana has lots of interesting foods (see Amir’s recent post for details), but I think my favourite so far has been a dish called Red-Red. Red-Red is composed of two things: kidney beans in a palm oil and pepe sauce plus a side of delicious fried plantain. Sadly I haven’t been able to find it consistently in Hohoe, so it’s a rare treat when I travel to a larger city and can order it. Most days when I’m cooking my own dinner I eat beans and gari (shredded, roasted cassava) with an onion, pepe, and tomato stew.

Small Small Update from Ghana

Last Wednesday, Trevor, the JF program manager, came to visit me in Hohoe. We had a spectacular time exploring the Wli Waterfalls outside of Hohoe, and climbing Akpafu Mountain. Besides acting like a tourist for essentially the first time since I’ve arrived, I also had a chance to share what I’m currently learning, some of my challenges, and receive new ideas for moving forward. Great time overall.

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We travelled down to Accra on Friday to watch the Ghana vs. Uruguay game with my coach Colleen and a few other EWBers. Accra was absolutely wild with excitement and nervous energy leading up to the game, which was pretty neat to experience. We watched it on a big screen in Osu, in a crowd of about 500 people, decked out head to toe (literally.. there was face paint!) in Ghanaian gear. Despite the games heartbreaking outcome, it was really fun to enjoy the festivities and to soak up the atmosphere in Accra.

This coming Tuesday I’ll head up to Tamale for the JF mid-placement retreat at Mole National Park. I’m super pumped to reconnect with the other JFs, and to spend time diving into how I can make the second half of my placement even more impact-filled than the first. I likely won’t be updating until the retreat is over, but guaranteed I’ll have tons of new pictures and stories to share once I return.

Remember that I’m looking for you to send questions for me to answer next week, so please feel free to do so!

Thanks for reading,

Erin

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