Villages

So JB and I are finally starting to get down to business here in Zabzugu. School started this week for him. Although it raining both Monday and Tuesday mornings, so really not much was accomplished. Life sort of shuts down here during rain. Which is pretty understandable. (Queue side-tangent on rain)

The saying "when it rains, it pours" really applies here. There is very rarely a drizzle or light rain, it's totally a "go big or go home" mentality with the rain. I have very rarely experienced the force of rain in the US that we've been getting here. It's quite amazing actually. You can see the storms come in from a distance, just massive clouds rolling across the sky. But since you can see so far into the distance, it actually takes the storm quite some time to reach us, which is nice since you very rarely get caught unawares. And then you start hearing the thunder, which is so different that what I'm use to in the US as well. The lighting and thunder time delay seems very off here. I very infrequently see the lightning, which might have something to do with it. But when I do, there is a huge time gap between them. Unless it's right on top of us, and then it's instant. But the thunder doesn't really "crack", it rolls for at least 10 secs. Which doesn't seem like a very long time, but when it's loud and just going on, it's amazing. I love the storms here. Then there's the what seems like gail-force winds before it actually starts to rain which in itself will wake you from a sound sleep. When it actually starts to rain, it's as if the sky just opens up and dumps a bucket of water on you, there's not small warning that it's going to start, it's instant. Since we have a tin roof, the noise is almost deafening. And then it just stops, utterly and completely stops. Sometimes you hear the thunder rolling in the distance as it leaves you, but not always. And usually the sun will then come out. Crazy! Anyways, sorry about the ramble.

So, school has started for JB, but nothing really happened the first two days. Usually the first few days are spent cleaning up the school. This includes cutting the grass by hand with machetes by a hoard of children. The black boards are repainted. The school furniture is brought back into rooms. The hallways/porch-like areas are swept of goat and sheep poop. And finally school and officially begin. JB is definitely excited to get to work.

My work schedule has been a bit more random. Since I don't really have a set job with set times, it's been a bit more difficult to firmly tact down what I'm suppose to be doing exactly. I definitely have a job description and a goal, but that's about it. I'm also a "first generation" volunteer here, which means that I'm not inheriting a project from an existing volunteer. So I have to meet all these people and slowly work out with them, what I'm suppose to be doing and what they expect from me. But I'm getting there slowly. :)

I do have 4 outreach communities that I'll be working with and now with my bike I'm able to actually get there. However it's farming season, so it's very hard to catch people actually in their villages unless it's very early or very late. I'm working with the District Assembly (DA) so I've been meeting some DA people at my villages to do some assessments, which has been very productive. The bike riding has been a challenge though. My bike (although beautiful and orange) is not meant for this type of biking. The first village I biked to was an hour away and I crested 3 large hills, while my bike was stuck in high gear. Ugh, it was brutal. Also because it's raining season, the road is kind of similar to a river bed, filled with rocks, streams, and loose gravel. I'm hoping to find a mountain bike next time I go into Tamale, but who knows. I know that it's doable to bike to these villages, just not easy. So I'll survive either way, plus I hope it gets easier once raining season ends.

I've finally been given a Dagomba name here. It took some arm twisting to get it, but I succeeded. "Stephanie" as it turns out is very difficult for people to say, so they usually just ended up slaughtering it or saying something I could hardly recognize. Therefore a local name was needed. So my new name is Mandeya here. It's a proverbial name which from what I can gather means "I accepted, but be warned". I'll have to ask a few more people what they think it means to really lock down a solid meaning. It means that I've been given a hard task (leaving my home, moving to Ghana, and then come to the Northern Region, followed by being very far away from the city), but I have accepted it where other people have not. Kind of an empowering name. JB has yet to get a Dagomba name, partly be JB actually is a name here for Twin. So they've been slow on assigning him one, but we're working on it.

Ground nuts

Yesterday was market day here in Zabzugu, which is always an exciting day. Although there is a small market in town everyday, the actual market day draws people from all the surrounding communities as well as people from Togo. People will spend all day either walking or in tro tros with all their wares to get here. Although there isn't a lot of variety in the things that are sold, there's definitely a better selection. So still the only veggies to buy are tomatoes, onions, okra, garden eggs, and ginger, but usually they look a bit fresher and are typically in better shape. Market day is also the only time to buy plastic things like jugs and buckets or to buy clothes that aren't tailored.

Haha, I should point out that the clothes are considered "dead obroni clothes". Obroni being white people and the only way they'd part with what seems to be perfectly good clothes is if they had died. Sort of morbid, but makes you think about home much clothes we waste in the U.S. So basically it's like a big garage sale of clothes, you either sort through a pile or they sometimes hang them from the sides of their stalls. It's pretty fun to go through the clothes. I haven't found any good finds yet, but some of my friends definitely have.

Yesterday, there were many women selling ground nuts (peanuts) and lately I've been wanting to try and make peanut brittle. Why, you might ask, because it's amazingly tasty and I haven't found the one lady in town that actually makes it, so I figured I'd take matters into my own hands. I've run into a few problems with this though. First, all recipes I've found call for corn syrup, which just isn't going to happen. So we're going for the good old fashion kind, but without a candy thermometer, so I'll let you know how this turns out. Anyways, we bought 2 cedis worth of ground nuts, which turns out to be about 3 lbs...yikes! The second problem is that these 3 lbs of ground nuts are raw. So now I have to sort through all of the nuts for rocks and gross things, and then roast them. haha. This morning I attempted to roast a few cups of ground nuts. And now I would recommend that everyone try this, because fresh roast peanuts are by far better than store bought ones. These things are tasty and I'm sure in the U.S. you don't have to do the "sorting of rocks" step, so it shouldn't take you too long to make them. Try it, it's good. So once they cool I'll move onto the peanut brittle step...should be interesting.

Other news, JB has acquired a follower. We discovered him (or he us) one night when we were watching a movie. During it we heard a voice behind us through the window turns out to be a boy wanting to greet us and bring us yams the next day. I personally do not stand for people peering through our windows, so I told him that to greet us he'd have to come to the door and to get away from our window! The following day he came to our door, not wanting to talk to the wife, he asked for JB. Many awkward events followed with the end result of him, his name is Swali, now coming our door at least once a day, typically a few, to greet JB and to talk. It'll be interesting to see how this all ends up. He's a sweet kid, if a little pushy.

Orange Lightning

After much debate I have finally gotten a bike. I thought that I'd have to buy one in Tamale in order to get one that would meet my needs. Most of the bikes that are up here in the North are old fashion road bikes. They typically single speed with thin tires. Which would be fine for riding through the streets, however my four communities are all a few Km away on dirt trails. And my biggest fear at the moment is for this poor bike's life. So while walking to the market on Friday my eye catches this orange bike and low and behold it has 3 speeds! So, lets see how long Orange Lightning is going to last. The guy I bought it from gave me a basket for the front and put on new tire tubes, which was very nice of him. However my back tire is already flat after just sitting outside my door for a day...so...we'll have to go have another chat.

JB and I ran into a fun lapse of communication also on Friday. We talked to Hasa, our local Home Depot man, this past Monday and ordered 2 sets of shelves/bookcases. We got a great deal, essentially only paying for the cost of the wood and a little bit for labor. Each was suppose to have 3 shelves and be about 3 feet long. So on friday when we went to go pick up these shelves, we discovered that they just made us six shelves to hang on our walls. One main problem, our walls are concrete. So after some debate and confusion, Hasa will come to our place and supposedly drill the concrete for 3 of the shelves, but we're having him actually put sides on the other 3 shelves to make a book case. Although a little confusing at first, everything is working out. So far all of our communication barriers have been easily solved and very good natured. Our little home is getting more cozy every day!