Dagaabaland

2006-07-15T13:02:00.000Z

It rained today. Thats a big deal here, because the rains have been sporadic this year, and the crops depend on the rains, which usually last from June to September. The yields will be low. But right now the land is green and after the rains the children are happy and people celebrate. The storms over the savannah come fast and fierce with incredible lightning and thunder that shakes the houses. Its great.

A couple of days ago, as a storm passed us just a bit too far north. The lightning was terrific, and as I was coming out of my house to watch it, a sparrowhawk flew out from a tree and smacked into the wall. They hunt the bats that hunt the insects around the eaves of my house, but this one must have missed. It lay twitching about twenty yards away as I tried to process what had happened. It was upon closer inspection, with a West African Birds reference book in hand, that I identified the limp sparrowhawk and noted its condition as deceased. I took a picture of it and called over Vic Dak, the night watchman, to share in this incidental curiosity. He picked it up, declared it was still warm and edible, and carried it off to prepare a fire.

Fever Pitch

2006-06-22T11:19:00.000Z

World Cup Fever has gripped Ghana! After a terrific win against the Czechs last week, Ghana's Black Stars will be facing the USA this afternoon. Sorry all you US Soccer fans, but I'm rooting for Ghana. People here are so excited it is infectious. Its a level of involvement and passion than is unseen in American soccer. I blame the extereme capitalist ideology of the US for not allowing for a sporting event to play uninterupted by commercials, thus quelling the popularity of soccer in America. Meanwhile baseball, football, and basketball have many convenient opportunities for words from our sponsors. Go figure. If we were talkin' baseball, I'd surely go for the good ol' US of A - we always win the World Series. (ok, Canada, you won a couple of times too)
So I've got my Ghana flag waving and I'm cheering for the Black Stars all the way! Besides, I always was a sucker for the underdog.

Update: Ghana won 2-1! Everyone here was dancing in the streets!
Great game, but next they'll face Brazil.

I moved into my new house.

2006-04-24T17:51:00.000Z

This week I moved into my new house. It is a guest house opened by my NGO, out in the savannah. The idea is that workshops can be held there, and people can stay for the duration. They hope to make money by doing this, also by selling food and drinks. The place is really nice. It is rather secluded, which is also nice. Living in the center of town has benefits, but it is hard to work or concentrate with children poking thier noses in my door all day...still, I kind of missed them when i first moved, then I got over it.

This week, we are beginning to set up a nursery on the premises, which I will manage. I am also getting seeds for my own personal garden. Long term plans include a rabbit hutch and beekeeping projects. Junior Secondary School (JSS) students will be involved in these. I am launching JSS clubs in four communities when the new semester begins in May - they were founded by the last volunteer in Hain but need to be reestablished for the new students coming in. I am working on a proposal to continue a project making books about the local traditional society...encouraging the students to talk to community elders about the local heritage. If anyone knows any teachers in the US interested in doing some kind of cultural exchange, let me know. We will also do some art projects to encourage appreciation of the environment outside of its value as a resource, and I am planning world map mural project, but I have to meet with some school headmasters to discuss this.

My living quarters were set up in some derelict buildings, abandoned by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA), but now renovated. We work closely with MOFA, they are an excellent resource for information and technical knowledge. They also provide some seeds and saplings promoted my the Ghanaian Government. They leased the buildings to us, initially to fix up and use for 5 years. I am really happy with the place. In the evening, peregrine falcons come to hunt in the shea trees around the house. I also see hornbills, rollers, and lots of other brightly colored birds. Other than that, the wildlife maily consists of goats, sheep, and cattle.

The cattle are looked after by a family of Fulani - nomadic herdsmen that live throughout Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali. They are often descriminated against, and even despised, by native Ghanaians. But many settle and integrate into th Dagaare culture. They often live on the outskirts of villages, and lend their expertise in animal husbandry; local people will pay them to look after their cows. They speak Hausa, a language that is as broadly spread as the Fulani themselves. They have a particular style of round hut architecture; impermanent and made from mud and straw. They are a beautiful people, with very defining features. They sell fresh milk from time to time, though I have yet to encounter this outside of Wa, the regional capital.

I have a recipe to make cheese if I do obtain some Fulani milk, I hear that around May it starts to show up. Everything is seasonal here - mango season, for instance, has cme and is almost gone. For about a month we were awash in mangoes. I was almost sick of them...almost. Right now, the Rainy season is coming. Guinea Fowl eggs are availiable, and the shea fruit is ripening.

I went to IST, and then converted to Catholocism for the Easter Holidays

2006-04-13T17:44:00.000Z

I just returned from In Service Training in Sunyani, where all of the environment sector volunteers from my training group met for the first time since dispersing to our sites. It was a week long, and i don't have anything to say about it really...lots of flipcharts and activities and talks. There was a local hotel with a swimming pool, though, so many of us went and crashed the pool. It was a nice break from the village.

After IST a couple friends and I went to Kristo Buase, a Franciscan monastary to mellow out for a couple of days. I took my meals in silence with the monks; for desert and breakfast we ate yogurt! (yogurt is pretty rare here). It was peaceful. The grounds of the monastary are home to some inredible rock formations, and one night my friends and I climbed up the rocks to watch a lightning storm pass overhead. Kristo Buase is a great example of permaculture in action. It is relatively self sustaining, with plenty of fruit trees and food grown by the monks, who also make jams from all sorts of fruits and some excelent cashew liquor. They sell these things, and also accept donations from travellers who pass the night there.

On Easter Monday (Easter is 2 days here - one day for church and one for picnics), I attended my community picnic at the local Catholic Parish. I went with my neighbors, and everyone exchanged dishes and wore nice clothes. In the afternoon we had many competitions. I judged a dance contest. It rained a little, but just enough to cool us down on a hot and mostly sunny day.

People in Hain

2006-04-02T14:26:00.000Z

Here are some pictures of people from my old neighborhood.

Email Archive - Ghana Tales 5-8

2006-04-02T14:07:00.000Z

Ghana Tales #5

Hi everyone!

The only internet cafe in Techiman lost its connection so we were all cut off from email. Alot has happened since my last Ghana Tales. We celebrated thankgiving, i finished training and I'm an official PCV, and i got a puppy.

For Thanksgiving, all of the volunteers threw a potluck dinner. my group killed 2 turkeys and cooked them in a giant bread oven, made mashed potatoes, greeen beans, and gravy. We were able to make due with limited ingredients and it came out well. it was interesting to be involved in the entire process of slaughtering and plucking and preparing the turkeys. someone made a great sweet potato pie.

I swore in as a Volunteer on friday, and proceeded directly to the beach with a few friends..we met up with a friend in Accra who works for Ghanaian parliament (an american on an internship) and he is giving us a place to stay in accra as we pass through. The beach was amazing! We stayed at the African Academy of Music and Arts and got a bungalow on the campus. They gave us a Ghanaian drumming and dancing show that blew our minds...it was really awesome. I will try to send pictures from the trip.

My homestay family gave me a puppy! I named him Francis (after Frank Black) and i'm going to train him to follow me on my bike..the dogs here will follow thier owners for hours going from town to town, it must be the breed...i also have to train him ot to eat chickens. I am returning to techiman tomorrow and i will bring him to the upper west. it is an 8 hour tro tro ride but i'll put him in a sling. I should arrive at my site in 3 days.

Others are waiting to use the computer, so until next time,
Nmena ga ne fo. (god watch over you - a dagaare farewell)

Michael

Ghana Tales #6

Fo Nmena,

I have made my way to Jirapa to visit the District Assembly today. Just finished meeting and greeting all of the local politicians and directors and found some time to get online. So I had a house, but just before Christmas I had to vacate because of some landlord drama. But I am here today to see if we can lease a building from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MOFA) for me to live in. My dog is growing fast, I renamed her Taco in order to be culturally sensitive. (Francis is a people name and people named Francis could get offended.) She responds better to Taco also. I bought a guitar in Kumasi (Ghana's largest city) on my way to the Upper West (where my site is located). Things are going very well, though i haven't been able to pick up any packages or mail...I'll need to travel to Accra (takes 2 days at least) but thanks in advance to all the people who sent them. Oh, i recieved it a while ago, but thanks Annie for the boomerang (which i have almost lost many times, but i hope to get it to come back to me one day) and thanks to your mom for the Paul Theroux book. It is next on my list. I have to go - my colleagues are leaving, but stay tuned....

Michael

Ghana Tales #7

Hi everyone,

It's hot here.

Michael

Ghana Tales #8

Hi everyone,

I guess GT #7 is the short and obvious version. But really, it's
hot. We are just going from the hot season to the hotter season,
which fortunately coincides with mango season. Work is still just
starting up, I've been visiting communities and next week will go out
to visit some area schools. My housing situation is still unresolved,
stuck somewhere in the beurocracy of the District Assembly, but my
nieghbors are really great where i'm at. As a matter of fact, they
helped me put out a small fire i accidentally started in my room.
Left a candle burning to close to the curtains on a breezy night.
Nothing important burned, except the curtains...
My dog died. She became suddenly ill and died in two days, before
the vet could even make it. I took her out to the bush and buried her
under the biggest tree visible from my house (its a REALLY BIG tree),
lined her grave with stones. At a local herbal clinic, a traditional
healer told me that the symptoms sounded like a snakebite; or maybe
she ate something poisonous.
Much of my time has been spent getting to know people in the
community. Many huoseholds brew Pito, a local beer made from millet.
it is very traditional, the pots are made locally and you drink it
from a calabash - which is a half of a hollowed out gourd. So mostly,
I go around sitting with people and drinking pito. This is considered
a very important aspect of community. It is a good way to meet folks,
at least. plus, pito is pretty good. especially my neighbor's... i
met a neighboring village chief and he invited me for pito in the
market, and we ended up at my neighbor's stall. it is always the most
crowded and i think the best - and so does the chief of chapuri!
The market is every 6th day in Han, and all of the local pito
brewers set up stalls. but throughout the week everyone serves the
pito at their homes. It is always the women who brew the pito, but i
want to learn the process. I also am trtying to get the woman who
makes the traditional pots to show me the process...i have learned to
gather clay, and when i get a proper house i will make a system for
processing the clay to refine it more. One of the PC training staff,
Moses, is an Art teacher in Accra and a potter. I talked to him quite
a bit and he showed me pictures of his clay processing setup and his
kiln. I got alot of good advice on how to filter and refine the clay,
but I am interested in learning the traditional method of pit-firing
I have learned, back in Twimia Nkwanta, my homestay village, how to
make clay ovens, called mookahs, that are more efficient and require
less fuel wood...a few of us made many of them throughout the village
there and conducted workshops on them. I am trying to get the local
chief to donate the lumber to build a frame for building mookahs in my
community. Its tough to squeeze funds out of local governance, but
its a small amount and i want them to invest in the betterment of the
community...its sort of the principle of the thing.
My time is short, I am headed to a Upper West Region PCV meeting.
They're putting us up in a fancy hotel...by fancy i mean indoor
plumbing and flourescent lights. It really does sound luxurious
though.

Happy Trails,
Michael

Email Archive - Ghana Tales 1-4

2006-04-02T10:43:00.000Z

Team Environment Go!

Ghana Tales #1

Akwaaba from Ghana,

I am in a group of 50 Peace Corps Trainees (PCT's), all focused on environment, health/water sanitation, and small enterprise development. Today is my first day on my own in Accra, the capital city. We are doing kind of a scavenger hunt, but i took a little break to duck into an Internet Cafe. My fellow PCT's are all very great and talented; the Ghanaian people are so warm and friendly. They really see the world much different than Americans. The pace of life is much slower and based in everyday personal interactions. Tomorrow I am going on a "Vision Quest" meet a volunteer at his site in the North. I will spend a few days there to get an idea of what living at post will be like. Then I am off to training in Techiman, where i will stay with a host family for 3 months. Eventually i will have my own house in the villiage where I work. I am learning Twi, the most common language. We are learning orally for now, so I don't know how to spell anything yet...the tainers say it would confuse things at this point. For instance, the "J" sound is written as "Dk" Many people speak english but the cadence is so different that it requires speaking and listening differently. Last night we had a reception with the (interim) U.S. Ambassador. I am about out of time but I will write again when I can

With Love,

Michael

Ghana Tales #3

Ma Jo Everyone,

I am in training in Techiman, and all is going great. I am staying with a host family in the village of Twimia Nkwanta; my father is a Chief, or Nana. His name is Nana Peter. There is an extended family system in the villiage so it would be hard to list all of my family...its hard for me to figure out in the first place. Yesterday I went to church with my family and I wore the traditional cloth...it was fun. It was the harvest celebration so everyone bought baskets of stuff: plantains, rice, live chickens, more plantains, various vegetables, casava, yams, etc., and the church auctioned it all off to benefit christendom and such. Some wealthy samaritan donated 50 bags of concrete, and there was great rejoicing. I had fun. Nana Peter bought 3 chickens and a bunch of other stuff, and he says he'll kill a chicken for me tonight.
I recived my site assignment last Thursday! As of swearing in on December 2, I will be in the Upper West Region in a town called Han. It is in the top left corner of Ghana, close to the border with Burkina Faso to the north and Cote D'Iviore to the west. I am replacing a voluteer. My primary job is organizing youth groups around environment issues - at the junior high level (Junior Secondary School) and working with farmers in the area to promote agroforestry systems and sustainable livelihood alternatives. It is mostly open savannah in the north, fairly remote, few paved roads, great for bicycling. I will have another volunteer two villiages over; I will have my own two room house probably without electricity or plumbing. I have begun to learn a new language, because Twi is not spoken there. The regional language is Dagaare, and sounds like it has more Arabic influences. I like the way it sounds.

A few people have asked how they can help, so here are a few things it would be nice to recieve:
Photographs - of family and friends, vacations, whatever. Good Contemporary Books -ask me if ive read something before you send anything. (Annie, Moneyball is a great read, are you trying to convert me to the East Bay?) A 2006 Calendar. games. Duct tape - i cant find it anywhere!, Speedball Acryllic Ink, Speedbal Nibs / Standard Nibs.(art friends help me out here). Letters. Candy. Gatorade Mix.

Send any letters or care packages to:
PCV Michael Fravel c/o Peace Corps
PO Box 5796
Accra North
Ghana, West Africa.

Thanks everyone, I am out of time.

Love,

Michael

Ghana Tales #2

Hello again,

Okay, so i forgot that my #2 Ghana Email never was sent due to
internet issues. But I had a chance to get back to the internet cafe
so i'll send a quick one today, and say a little about the food.
The most popular food in Ghana, hands down, is Fufuo. It is made by
mashing casaba and plantains into a gooey mush with a seven foot
stick. The end result is a starchy, flavorless, gum - Fufuo! It is
served in soup made from groundnuts, palm nuts, fish, and pepe (spicy
peppers), and eaten with the right hand. Then there is banku, served
in the same fashion, but it is a thicker texture and made from corn.
Also, rice balls are popular,also served in soup, usually with some
chicken.
My favorite meal is red red. It is fried plantains with a bean stew
(sometimes fishy). It is called red red because it is red plantains
and red beans, but most of the time it is made with yellow plantains.
Also, fried yams are popular, and tasty.
Often for breakfast I have a kind of omelette with scallions and
peppers with good tea and bread (pano). Thats about all the time i
have...oh two more things i forgot to mention for care packages - Art
Supplies (drawing paper especially) and pens. Just standard bic round
stic pens or something like that....the pens here just don't work.
I will have more opportunities during training for email since i am in
Techiman every day now, so expect more posts soon!

Love, Michael

Ghana Tales #4

Fo Nmena,

Hi everyone! My introduction is "good afternoon" in Dagaare, the new
language I am learning for my stay in the Upper West. Only 5 of the 50
volunteers will learn this language, but there are some similarities
to other northern languages. I just returned from a 5 day field trip
to the Upper East Region in northern Ghana. It is beautiful up there
and I am looking forward to visiting my site in 2 weeks. The northern
part of Ghana is African Savannah, dry grassland spotted with trees.
It sort of reminds me of the central valley and foothills of Northern
California, except with baobab trees. Baobab trees are sweet! Some
of the older ones have trunks that look about 15' to 20' in diameter.
The branches are large and low to the ground. There is a PCV in the
Upper East who sleeps in one every night, I hear. Many people,
because of the heat, sleep outside or on the roof of their house. The
architecture is mostly round mud huts with thatched reed roofs, often
layed out in a circle with connecting walls to create a courtyard.
There is not as much variety in the produce, but there are mangos in
mango season and alot of watermelons, which are not found in the
south. They vary in cost by season, but a large watermelon cost me
4000 cedis, which equates to less than 50 cents. Also, 50 Cent is
huge here. I have been asked if I know him. Oranges cost the
equivalent of 3 cents. I eat alot of oranges. They have a staple
food in the north called TZ. It is a bit like fu fuo, but made from
either millet or maize. It reminds me a little of soft polenta. I
had it from corn with okro (okra) stew and it was good. I am happy
because fu fuo gets old really fast.
On our field trip, we gained alot of practical experience. We made
raised and sunken seed beds, we learned polybagging (basically putting
dirt in a bag), and we also top and side grafted mangos. We further
discussed composting techniques, visited a crocodile pond (they fed
the crocs live chickens), and visited a slave camp. The slave camp
was interesting because a group demonstrated the rock drumming and
songs that the slaves would sing while in captivity. I will send
pictures if i can get to a better computer sometime. We also came
across a cobra on a hike to some beehives. It reared up and spread
its hood, but we gave it a wide berth and it ran away. We also
attended community meetings to get a feel for organizing and
motivating groups. That was educational, by which I mean frustrating.
Today we have organized an ultimate frisbee game. Tomorrow we will
visit bat caves and have a haloween party. My time is running short,
so I will end here. Thanks for the emails, it is always nice to hear
from everyone. More Ghana Tales to come.

Michael Raymond Frave

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