Hello all!
So Ive been in Ghana for almost a month now, and the cliche holds true, the time has truly flown by.
I would like to take you on a tour of my Africa life. Any good tour begins with home, my home is a bungalow situated at the southeast edge of the Tafi Atome village and bordered on two sides by a forest of huge buttressed Cotton trees, groves of the thickest bamboo you've ever seen, and vines that reach the canopy.
We share the area with a line of dorm-style guest rooms placed at a comfortable distance from our house and the shared bath house.
The bath house contains two showers (one male and one female) two sinks and two toilet rooms, all fed by a large water tank (similar to the one located in the picture to the left of the bungalow). All water must be carried in from the bore hole (well) 200 meters away via large pails atop the heads of sanctuary workers. This happens approx. twice a week.
Then there are our neighbors. The village is broken into 8 different "clans", and of the eight our bungalow is next to the Ghanias clan. This clan consists of about 20 families and their houses/huts, of which 4 butt up to our area. Each of the 4 families who occupy the spots have two children whose ages range from 3 to 12. These children quickly became our closest acquaintances and have since become invaluable friends. You will undoubtedly see pictures of them all either in a post or when I return home.
The village itself has a reported population of about 2000 but I would swear it was no more than two or three hundred by the amount of people I see on a day to day basis. But that seems to be more of a testimony to how hard the people of Tafi work. Many will leave for their farms (some 10 km away) around 4am and will not return home until well after dark. Its truly amazing. Every Thursday the community has a communal labor day when the entire population is assigned to a project and work from sun up to sun down. I will have the opportunity to participate in this next Thursday, now that my leg has improved. I am very excited to get the chance to do more than just observe on these days.
I have been reamed for not posting pictures yet of perhaps my most cherished friends in Tafi Atome, the monkeys. So this pic is for you Dana and Krista. I absolutely love that I get woken up in the mornings by 15 of these guys jumping on the roof and playing on our porch. They are a little more skiddish than the monkeys in India that will hang all over you but they will peel a banana in your hand and eat it. This has allowed me to get some really great shots and I look forward to showing you all back home.
For all that have asked about my leg, the infection is gone and the cut has been healing faster and faster every day. I will start running again in the mornings starting next week. Thank you for all the concerned emails I've received.
I will update you all on the work we are doing next post. We are really making headway with the project and have even taken on a few smaller development projects on the side. I am really itching to share these with you.
And finally, I appreciate all of your patients, it is quite difficult getting to the closest internet cafe, hence the lack of regular postings. I would like to say it will get better, but only time, and work, will tell.
Best wishes to you all over the holidays.
