Fury on Shipment Day!
The morning started out quiet then all hell broke loose! To send out shipments here everything must be brought certain days and certain times to the customs officer at the Accra airport. We were recruited by Renae and Elisha to separate scraps. Each time a garment is made the scraps are returned to the shop and the scraps are separated into different sizes to either be made into different crafts or to be sold in the states as quilter's fabric. And when we are talking scraps we mean ALOT! Speaking of, i
f anyone wants quilters scraps drop us an email and we can bring some back. BTW our email is
wipghana@gmail.com Once the scraps were bundled into 5lb bags they were added into the shipment. All the bags were loaded up in a hurry and taken out to Renae's car. All of these bags were being crammed, mashed, and strapped into the truck while street traffic and bystanders looked on in confusion. Young Ghanaian men offered to help but talk about girl power….we had it all loaded in minutes. Once Renae and Elisha were off, the office came back a
nd sat around in exhaustion. Tiffany is feverously planning our grand Ghanaian tour. Since the office is closed next week for the holidays we are planning on doing our traveling then and spend our last week working here. That also means that we will be incommunicado for the next week.
So the plan? First you must know that things in Ghana operate on a different schedule. The schedule is always up for change. “Yes, the bus is supposed to leave at noon, but for today, and today only, we decided as a surprise it will leave at 3. And tomorrow we decided it won’t run at all.” So all plans are tentative until actually executed and even then if there is an unforeseen circumstance such as a breakdown or just a detour so the driver can buy some bananas, it can change. We will be leaving Cape Coast tomorrow. Leaving on the first tro
-tro (a minibus that they use as public transportation) we will be heading to Kumasi. This is the heart of the Ashanti tribe region and we are currently unsure of what trouble we can find there but that is typically not a problem, it tends to find us. After Kumasi we will head north to Techiman and Nkoranza to see the Baobeng-Fiena Monkey Sanctuary and stay the night at Operation Hand in Hand which is a community-based project for mentally handicapped children run by a Dutch doctor. They have a small guest house there which consists of round huts with running water and a bed. From there we will continue northeast to Yeji. Now this is where the trip starts to get REALLY interesting. From what we know there are little to no accommodations or things to see in Yeji so hopefully we don’t arrive too early. The goal is to catch the yam boat (a large barge that runs the length of the Volta river carrying yams from the northern region to the south) that makes its way once a week. The boat arrives about midnight and then ships out again at 3am on Wednesday morning (once again all timetables are merely a suggestion). Passengers sleep, eat, and live on the boat deck for the length of its journey. Instead of traveling the entire Volta, we will be getting off at one of the few stops - Kete Krachi. There isn’t much published about this trip and of what is published, nothing mentions being able to get off at Kete Krachi. Taking the entire trip will end you in Akosombo and takes approximately 36 hours. So here is what we do know. You find a spot on the deck where ever you can. People are hospitable the accommodations however, are anything but luxurious. Ghanaian people are very friendly and enjoy good company so I am sure it will be a fun party. There is a stop in Kete Krachi but there is the chance there will be some swimming involved! Well, we signed up for an adventure and this assuredly is!
From Kete Krachi our accommodations and transportation are questionable but we will find a way to Bimbilla and head down the east side of the Volta. On the eastern side we know we want to visit Wli Falls which are supposed to be amazing. Then south to Hohoe (how very merry of them) to hopefully meet up with our fellow volunteers to celebrate the New Year! Circling back to Accra, we have the choice to take a flight back to the northern region and see Mole National Park for a safari or return to Cape Coast war torn and battered.
It goes without saying that we will not have access to internet to update our blog during this time. That will have to come after the holidays. We both wish you the best and have a happy New Year!
Today was a VERY slow day around the office. Our network and internet were on the fritz and the women were busy trying to
assemble a shipment. More than anything, we all just sat around and chatted. Some of the girls went Batiking this morning and we all stare blankly at our screens until the “no connection” screen comes up. Batiking is the type of fabric dying that they sell at the Global Mamas shop. Using wax to stamp in a design they
will dye the fabric, rinse out the wax, stamp again and then dye in a different color. I am sequestered to Microsoft word because nothing else is working. The moving of the furniture has been put off until the shipment is done as to not hamper production. Not to mention we still can’t decide how we want to arrange everything. Environmental considerations have us cons
trained i.e. the roof leaks with the slightest rain…and it leaks all around the perimeter. So there is considerably more space in the back shop than we can use. Dinner was at Ellie’s again and tonight us newbies were to try fufu which is a local dish made of Cassava and Plantain. It
has the consistency of raw bread dough. Eating it is amusing because you pour your stew on top and then scoop it all out with your hands. Tiffany has a stronger stomach than I. Now it doesn’t taste bad, actually it doesn’t taste like much but the texture was a bit more than I could handle. But you have to try everything once. Exhausted at the end of the day we crawled into bed tired and ready for a good night’s sleep. Note: I promise I am in some of the pictures...It just so happens the ones of Tiffany came out better. By her decree I must be in more of the blog pics....so pics of Amanda to come.
It's in the bag...
Note: Everything is in a bag here. Your water is in a bag, your coffee is in a bag, your porridge is in a bag. Kind of strange but you quickly get used to drinking all liquids out of the little chewed corner of the baggy. Will keep you posted on other liquidous edible items I see in a bag.
Different day, same clothes...
Note, we each brought three outfits so don't think you are having deja vu.
Work Work Work...
So the work week began for us on Monday. Tiffany and I have hit the ground running.
Our first task was to work with Serpil, who is a fellow engineer, to design an access database to track each business's improvement and also their Free Trade certification. Three engineers and one piece of butcher paper
can spawn a few heated discussions but by lunch we had the entire system diagramed out. Then after lunch we were given our task....much more daunting. We are to reorganize the shop - "Lean" out the process. Currently in-shop inventory is a disaster and their inventory tracking system needs
rework. Unfortunately, to get to that point it meant a good bit of cleaning. Tiffany is the master of the garbage bag and the phrase, "Just throw it out", and I am quitely in the corner building some drawer dividers so that supplies stay organized. The Ghanaian ladies are not happy at all that we are moving things but by the end of our time here I am sure they will like it. I have to get back to work but here are some before pics of the backshop.
Arrived just in time for the weekend!
We have had a super busy weekend and absolutely no time to write. It seems that we arrived just in time for the weekend. It was great for being a tourist, but terrible that we had to wait to start work on our volunteer project.
We arrived to Ghana on Thursday late in the evening so we stayed the night at the women in progress flat in Accra. It was nice to have a wonderful cold shower and a bed to sleep in after 16+ hours of flight. Renae, the head of women in progress here, picked us up in Ghana, so we were happy to see a friendly face.
On Friday we set out early for breakfast at the “Sunshine Café” in Accra. A wonderful breakfast of eggs we were both happy for. After breakfast we were on a mission to see about Renae’s car, which was in for service. The mechanic never showed up so we decided to go to a local hotel to hang out while our driver was off running some errands. It gave us some time to enjoy the air conditioning, as we were not accustomed to the heat yet. Our driver returned for us and we were off to Cape Coast.
It was a harrowing drive, like most developing countries. The wonderful part is that the street vendors are a common part of life and a necessity for your grocery shopping. Women with enormous baskets of fruit or water balanced on their heads would come to the car. We tried mango, FanIce (ice cream), and some peanut butter cookie thing all from the comfort of traffic congestion. Three hours later we arrive at the Global Mama’s store in Cape Coast to a busy work environment trying to get the U.S. wholesale catalog out by the end of the weekend. Tiffany and I were in a dazed state from all the travel but one of the other volunteers, Serpil, offered to take us to the market to find food for the weekend since the cook wouldn’t be around. Maybe the FanIce didn’t sit really well with the bumpy road but it seems that the market was not a good place for us on our first day. There is a lovely food item here in Ghana called Stinking Fish. Yep, you guessed it….it stinks! It is some sort of smoked fish that they use to flavor the food. There is no way to describe the smell though. Needless to say the shopping trip didn’t last long. Tiffany bought a mango. We headed back to the volunteer house.
Dinner was at Ellie’s, the cook for the volunteers. We had a great vegetarian curry so I was happy. There are about 8 volunteers here right now, though some are leaving as we speak.
Saturday morning we meandered around the house and then rallied a group to head over to Elmina Castle. There was Tiffany, Serpil, Elisha, and I. Since we had all skipped breakfast we started the day with lunch at the “Castle Café”. Since it was hot out we decided to eat on the
rooftop patio. Serpil, who’s parents live in the Netherlands began chatting it up with a couple next to us who was from her town. Next thing we know hoards of Ghanaians in traditional dress begin to filter in and we end up sitting in the middle of a wedding reception. Feeling extremely out of place, we ask the mother of the bride if we should move downstairs and she emphatically said no. We became part of the entertainment. They all looked amazing and we were sitting at the front next to the elders. We were all grinning at the sight of twin toddler boys when the mother comes over with them. She picks one up and asks Serpil if she is married (we have learned to always say we are…) and she replies, yes. Then she thrusts one of the boys into Serpil’s arms and exclaims, “Then take one!”, and the child began to cry. We all die laughing.
After lunch we head into the castle for a tour. The Elmina Castle was the main African trading post. It was an emotional and shocking tour that is difficult to explain if you can’t see the enormity of the operation.
After the tour we were all exhausted so we headed back to the volunteer house to clean up before dinner. Since it is some girl’s last week in town we all headed to the local resort, Coconut Grove, for dinner. It was beautiful and oceanfront. We ate outside under a grass-covered awning. We feasted on lobster and red snapper.
On Sunday Tiffany and I awoke early and got a start towards Kakum National Park. It was about an hour taxi ride to the park office. We paid our cedis and waited for a tour group to form so that we could venture across the canopy bridge. The venture up proved that us lazy Americans are out of shape, but at least the others in our tour group from Ivory Coast were just as winded as us. The bridge was amazing! It is 120ft in the air and 1050ft long suspended between seven trees. I am not scared of heights but this really threw me. Tiffany went racing across. I got halfway across the first bridge and, wow, vertigo set in. I made it to the first tree and to take a breather.
Tiffany thought it was the funniest thing…yea, poo on her. The view was amazing up in the rainforest canopy, but my eyes were on the next tree. J After the bridge Tiffany and I decided to take the nature tour where the guide told us of all the medicinal purposes of the plants in the forest. Hey, did you know that mahogany bark is a natural viagra? Yea, me neither. Prince, our guide, told us to never take it alone. Make sure your partner takes it too or you will likely kill them. We saw Rocket trees, ebony, and amazing termite built structures.
After the tour we start walking down the road to eat lunch at the Hans Cottage Botel. There we meet up with a Ghanaian and a Londoner who we had an amazing lunch with discussing everything from politics to local culture. Hans Cottage is an interesting place that is actually awnings built on stilts over a crocodile pond. There sure were friendly crocs, they wandered right up to us. We didn’t give them the benefit of the doubt and kept our distance though.
Lunch ended and we decided to hit up the Sunday market in Cape Coast. This was the clothes shopping day and was even more chaotic than our first trip there. We didn’t find much, but I bought a skirt to get me through the week. Exhausted and sweaty we headed back to the volunteer house for some R&R.
A nap in front of the fan and then we headed back to Ellie’s for a dinner of egg stew and boiled plantains. After a long day, an early bedtime was needed.
Today is Monday and our first real day of work. Our first assignment was working with Serpil who is a fellow engineer on creating a database to track each business’s progress and prepare them for Fair Trade Organization certification. Three engineers trying to build a database together can get hairy but after a whole morning’s work we finally have the structure mapped out. Serpil has some errands to run in town and Renae wants us to look at the supply chain management so we will start plugging it all into MS Access tomorrow.
We are having a fantastic time and adapting well. More to come soon!
WE ARE HERE
And we are safe. Since internet is in short demand on the weekends we will tell you all about it on monday. Don't worry pics will be included.
f anyone wants quilters scraps drop us an email and we can bring some back. BTW our email is wipghana@gmail.com Once the scraps were bundled into 5lb bags they were added into the shipment. All the bags were loaded up in a hurry and taken out to Renae's car. All of these bags were being crammed, mashed, and strapped into the truck while street traffic and bystanders looked on in confusion. Young Ghanaian men offered to help but talk about girl power….we had it all loaded in minutes. Once Renae and Elisha were off, the office came back a
-tro (a minibus that they use as public transportation) we will be heading to Kumasi. This is the heart of the Ashanti tribe region and we are currently unsure of what trouble we can find there but that is typically not a problem, it tends to find us. After Kumasi we will head north to Techiman and Nkoranza to see the Baobeng-Fiena Monkey Sanctuary and stay the night at Operation Hand in Hand which is a community-based project for mentally handicapped children run by a Dutch doctor. They have a small guest house there which consists of round huts with running water and a bed. From there we will continue northeast to Yeji. Now this is where the trip starts to get REALLY interesting. From what we know there are little to no accommodations or things to see in Yeji so hopefully we don’t arrive too early. The goal is to catch the yam boat (a large barge that runs the length of the Volta river carrying yams from the northern region to the south) that makes its way once a week. The boat arrives about midnight and then ships out again at 3am on Wednesday morning (once again all timetables are merely a suggestion). Passengers sleep, eat, and live on the boat deck for the length of its journey. Instead of traveling the entire Volta, we will be getting off at one of the few stops - Kete Krachi. There isn’t much published about this trip and of what is published, nothing mentions being able to get off at Kete Krachi. Taking the entire trip will end you in Akosombo and takes approximately 36 hours. So here is what we do know. You find a spot on the deck where ever you can. People are hospitable the accommodations however, are anything but luxurious. Ghanaian people are very friendly and enjoy good company so I am sure it will be a fun party. There is a stop in Kete Krachi but there is the chance there will be some swimming involved! Well, we signed up for an adventure and this assuredly is!
