Busy busy wirlwind

Oh man I dint realize April was such a long month! I have not had a full week or for that matter, a weekend to myself. This is such a difference from every other month Ive been at site. I have posted about reconnect, after that I traveled for Easter then AllVol, then my week was taken up by meeting the new trainees for wat/san telling them a little about FSAC (food security action committee), to finish up we had our eastern region GLOW camp (girls leading out world) and the last week will be recuperating from the month. I have lots of things to check on now that I'm back at site for awhile.

The tree nursery is starting to move forward nicely. We have filled 5000 polybags with dirt and compost. John, the man taking care of it has planted seeds and are soon to be transplanting into the bags. I need to work on getting more species from the forestry department that will be suitable for reforesting the river. I also want to get some more citrus trees out there because bees really like citrus flowers, which leads to the fact that I really want to get a hive out there. I want to be able to learn how to keep bees as well as have an active hive to train farmers on if they are interested in doing so.

New Agriculture volunteers are coming in October. It’s still a long way off but I need to get some sites around me developed soon so I can get some buddies. I really think this area can benefit from agriculture volunteers that are going to do similar things as me (landless projects/ alternative livelihood). Personally I think it is what Peace Corps is all about. Little things to help increase the development of the community have the largest impact, it’s sustainable because it’s a few smaller projects instead of one big one.

Jata, my puppy is getting bigger and along with that she eats more but pees less! She is starting to sleep in my room because she can hold it the whole night but just like Daisey my pup back home she likes to wake me up early and get petted. I will take her to the vet soon to get rabies shot but I still need to research how to get her fixed in this crazy country that doesn’t really care about pets or controlling canine or feline populations. 

Now that I am pretty settled in my home here I am realizing little improvements that would make life easier. I would like to make a shelf for my desk so I can get all my supplies out of a USPS box.  I also need to make a large shelf with plastic bins to store things so ants and mouse poop doesn’t get on them.  I have added some things to my walls as decorations so my room actually looks fun now! Oh and my awesome mother sent some chalkboard paint to me so I need to make a plan to where I'm going to use it!  So excited!

I haven’t really returned to the bead office since leaving for reconnect except for a few days before allvol to gather things to sell but I'm still trying to get them to put things on-line for sale overseas. The thing that is slowing the process down is that the head of the NGO is so busy trying to finish the new office site. They build very differently here, save a little, build a little until funds run out then save again, not the most efficient. So that is actually getting in the way of the beads project as well as the landless farmers project. But don’t worry its coming…

During this month the popular question for the group that is leaving soon is “so what’s next?” and being a new volunteer it’s already a scary thing to think about. Conveniently for the group leaving they can take the GRE back home with plenty of time to apply and relax. The timing of my group is a little off making it necessary to take the GRE here in Ghana and apply to schools before we leave country in December and fiddle around until the fallowing September. As it turns out taking the GRE here isn’t bad, quite a few people have done it and said it all worked fine.  So this kind of stuff is also in the back of my head.