School Time

New Uniforms, new books thanks to a wonderful donation from American,

Time to clean the school, sweep the dirt to get all the trash out

and sweep the porches to get animal deposits off, park you bike in the shade, and get set for the day.

 

                                                                         

Friends of Barbara’s have sent paper to write and keep up with the school work

 

                                

With paper the need of a new pencil with a good eraser!! That

is for all the primary students, pens for the JHS students.

 

 

                                                                                                              

Big Brother and Sister get new uniforms so….I get a new hair due

which probably took 2 hrs. and a new dress.  Am I cute or What!!

                                                           

Its Official

Our close of service was this past week.  Some ways so hard to believe 2 years have passed.  I have about 10 more weeks and with all the plans I hope I get them all done.

Lisa has already set me up with appts. so I will look good for Thanksgiving.  My one regret is I did not get to come home for Erika’s and Justin’s Birthdays!!! I will be able to give the a belated birthday hug though.

Went to lunch with friends the start of saying good bye.

Mary, Suzanne, Emma (third year PCV going home), Chase and Rob

 

The whole gang is here, except for a few we lost during the two years for different reasons.

Here we are leaving Chances Hotel after 4 days of good food, air conditioning, swimming, interesting and meaningful meetings, and a real live wireless internet that worked!!

    Megan, Suzanne and I leaving.

Pizza night – owner of Chances treated us to a beer.

Dennis, Caitlin, Suzanne                                              Diana, Terri, Ran

 

 

Chase, Dawn, Rob, Mary                                        Josh, Van, Jeannette , Megan

  

 

Grace, Nicco, Driver from our training group    Danny, Richie, Chris

    

 

Cara, Brittney, Kendra (my first roommate)      Playing games in the wonderful pool

   

Suzanne and Kendra enjoying the pool        Our panel of judges

           

 

Must Answer all the questions Suzanne, Dennis and me.

  Fun time and good memories of two years.  Just a few weeks to go and so many things we want to get finished.  As we do things I will post our last weeks.  Thanks for all the support from family and friends.

FINISHING THE COMPUTER LAB

We had lots of volunteers from Whole Food give their vacation time to come help finish our Computer lab at the girls school.  They were such good sports even learning how to carry things on their heads.

Lots of discussion of what was next.   

Of Course like most projects something gets in the way.  Here it was the rain we have been waiting for the last 6 weeks decided to visit us when we were in the middle of plastering so….
Off we went to the Craft Center

 Everyone gets into the action with lots of laughing .   I am helping unroll the reeds from the rolling they do to make the bottoms of the baskets so they start the posts.

  Everyone gets their own teacher to show them how.Time to cut the ribbon at the school.  All the girls leave class to watch the ribbon being cut.

Time for celebration and dancing.     Community members were invited to help celebrate.  Many people came for the ribbon cutting and dancing. 

It is a wonderful addition to the girls school.   They have 5 computers here they are being tested by MuSa. 


before being moved to the school.  Now if the Assembly Man will do this part and get the electricity, using a generator now, nothing will stop these girls learning computer skills.

Step 2 in Building of School

We are well on our way to getting our computer lab built at the Girls School In Nyariga.

 

                                

 Everyday depending on the work of the day we have plenty of villagers willing to help.  This labor part of the construction is done by volunteers, Blessing Basket/Whole Foods is paying for the “parts”.  Notice all the pans on the ladies head.  They will be filled with dirt, rocks, cement, water, whatever is needed at the moment.

 

The villagers work from morning until it gets dark.  I love this picture.

 

 

 

 

 

If you remember they put the foundation down by making ditches filling with concrete then started the walls moving up.  How do you get the floor in?  You have the ladies bring you the cement on their heads and then you put in the room and smooth out.

 

 

Time to start work on bracing the roof:

                                                           

 

June is so close..they want to start putting the computers in the room and have the volunteers from Whole Food start teaching the girls on June 20th!!  Less than a month.  Bets being taken!!  Oh yea the electricity will follow up with that in the next blog.  Yea we have no lights in this part of the village.

 

 

Building a Computer Lab for the Girls School

Blessing Baskets (from now on BB) and Whole Foods has purchased computers for the girls school BUT there is not a safe place to keep them, there is no electricity, and the girls need to learn about Computers.

So BB and Whole Foods has set a date.  They would pay for 75% of the building (this like everything is from your purchasing of the baskets) and the village needed to contribute the rest.  BB asked Whole Foods if they could send some volunteers to the village to set up the computer room and teach the girls.  So this has all been set for June 2013. 

Just to add interest the owner of BB Theresa and her fiancée Joe will be getting married at the end of the trip in our little village.  Not just a wedding a traditional wedding. So Plans are being made.

Except when I went by the school to visit the end of April the ground had been laid out that is all.  I was worried so Abdulai took me out to visit.

I went on May 7 around 5:30 to see what had been done.  WORK!!! BUSY LITTLE BEES!!

                                    

 

Yes you are seeing right the women are carrying the cement and men are building!!!

 

The pan is full of cement.  The women are waiting for the sand/cement to be mixed before they will all be carrying to the men.

This is the walls going up around the office and the actual computer lab.  Floor will be cement when time comes but now just the foundation for the walls is in place.  They had been working all day and getting ready to finish when I got there.  VERY HOT!!! today but they just smiled at me when I said something.

Girls school will have a wonderful addition.  Now if Theresa has any pull with the gov’t to get the electricity to the building.  Saw the poles as we drove in but they seem far away to me but …..

Will keep you up with the excitement for the next 6 weeks or so.  Oh yeah I have told the village people that my white skin will have much more company when June gets here.  I tell them I think the village will be more white than black.  They laugh but we shall see in picture form!!!

 

 

 

Fun with the Kids!!

This morning I went to fetch water and was greeted by Paul and Francis.  They were playing, singing and dancing.  Notice the cans that drums are tomato cans.   When they saw the camera Paul came running so Francis followed.  When I showed Paul the pictures he had a BIG smile, however, Francis ran away, looked at me and when I tried to show him again he screwed up his face to cry.  Just can’t win a 100% of the time.  Ha!!

 

Paul is Texas Orange shirt Francis has grin!!!

 

Francis before he really understood what I was doing.

LOVED HER HAIR …..

While at one of the craft centers I saw this sweet little girl.  I loved her hair and she was fine when I sat down beside her to take her picture…but then realized it was the white woman and she just fell into tears.  I felt so bad but she did get to nurse to make her feel better.  Can you see her tribal mark on her right cheek.  It is still being done especially in the Northern Regions. 

 

Peter wanted his picture notice his teeth are yellow from eating the stuff inside of the bean you see on the ground.  The  kids suck on the inside then spit out the seeds!!!

Camera is very important to the kids all they want to do is see it and laugh!!!  Peter now wants to carry my small bucket of water just encase I might have a taffy for him. 

 

While reading outside Mubarak drove up with Tahiru’s youngest daughter and son.  Yes no one wears a helmet in the village just when they go to Bolga HOWEVER the children are not required to have a helmet even if you are tied to your mothers back.  Armenia HATED getting near the bike with her Uncle but even she has grown up and will go with him.

 

Then there is Abbas with his Ideal powdered milk package calling me like he is on a cell phone.  EVERYONE seems to have a cell phone and they make them last forever.  You should see the condition some are in and they still work. 

 

Enjoy my Kids!!!

 

 

 

 

 

My Work

In November I suggested we get a catalog together so the Peace Corps Vol. could order baskets for All Vol - they would be the ones that we knew we would sell then we would bring others to sell for those that still wanted but had not purchased.

Well when I got back from South Africa I lite a small fire and got Nyariga Craft Center get one together.  PC was very sweet and emailed a copy to all the PCV's for me since I do not have everyone's email.

We got about 15 orders but they were not ready when we left for All Vol.  The craft center did a show on Saturday at the Farmers Mgt at the Embassy that I had set up and then came to Bunso where we all were at the college.

Emma made sure she was first in line oh yeah no line just go and grab!!!  Emma is one of my Upper East Children that has moved to Takoradi! 

Emma wants to have this one please BUT please bring to her because she doesn't want to lug around!! My children are all the same!!! Love them all!!!

Sarah is sporting the most popular bag at the show.  I think they lasted maybe 15 minutes and I brought about 10 more down to Accra and they were all gone the same day I was here.  Sarah and her husband Jordan shared the same ex pat until they went back to America.  Fun getting to know my Upper West Children.                                                                                   

Here is Richie from cashew country.  He designed a picnic basket and Tahiru is going to see if he can have it made.  Richie was the hit of the talent show if all my information is right!!! Yes, I went to bed before the end of the show, sorry Richie!!








Since the ordered baskets were not ready I came down to deliver what I could and left the rest at the Accra Rest for them to pick up and pay for when they are in Accra again.  Everyone was so good about being able to pick them up.  The baskets will keep me busy until the end of my service.  They are fun but it is more fun getting pretty things that people love.