Tamale

So after two seven hour flights, an eight hour lay-over, a thirteen hour bus ride, and very little sleep, I have arrived in Tamale. Today was the first of two days of in-country training with the long term volunteers.

We had six hours to go and explore the city and had a list of things to try to do. I managed to go to the bank, pick up a cell phone from a man named stefan who happens to live with one of our volunteers, and talked to many women in the market. One of the projects we are working on is to encourage more Ghanaians to eat the locally grown rice. The market is flooded with imported rice so Ghanaian rice does not recieve the price it deserves and rice farmers are more vulnerable. Ghanain rice is actually more nutritious, but it has stones in it because of the processing techniques the farmers use. Shay, a long term volunteer is working on an "Eat Ghana Rice" so hopefully the intervierws we conducted today will help her in her work.

I spoke with a someone my age named Rafik who is studying electrical engineering in Accra. He is very bright and offered us some good insights into Ghanain culture. He shared a proverb with us...

"If a lizard jumps from the high Oroko tree to the ground, it prasies itself if no one does."

There is so much more I would like to write, but I am at an internet cafe and they were supposed to close already so I will have to fill you in later.

One thing I would like from all of you is questions. Ask me anything you want, about the culture, rural livelyhoods, development work, or anything and I will try to come up with some answers or at least my own hypotheses based on my experience

I will not have internet where I will be living but I will try to write soon

Take care