Chillin in Chereponi

Hello everyone who has continued to read this!

First of all if you were waiting for the next entry I am flattered,but also I'm sorry I made you wait so long. The suspense must have been killing you! I've been having some internet problems, so Brian Venne broke into my modem and now I can use MTN, thank you Brian and thank you MTN!

So I've been in Ghana for a little over a week now, and it is beautiful here. I also want to mention that the saying "so hot you could cook an egg on the road" is just reality here! The people are very friendly and always willing to help, despite the fact that only 1/5 understand the whole of what I'm saying to them. The Junior Fellow group spent a week in Tamale for "in country training" with the African Program Staff, where we learned some Ghan-english (Ghana's take on english, which is pretty hard to grasp at first) and alot more about our placement and our role on the Ministry of Agriculture team. As one of the four members of the Tech Adoption team, my role is to research the tech adoption field in Chereponi and then to work on a prototype of a Tech Adoption extension tool of my choosing. The tool would be a simple to use and understand teaching/facilitating technique or device that could be used by extension agents to inspire larger scale technology adoption in their district. As a part of the MoFA team my addition is the increased efficiency and production on farms through the use of technology on farms, with a tool the extension agents can use on their own and farmers can easily understand and embrace.

Now that was pretty lengthy and wordy, so if you have any questions about my place on the team, please fell free to ask me!!!!! In fact I'm more or less desperate for questions!

I arrived in Chereponi yesterday, with the aid of the District Director of Agriculture! So far he has show me the office, which is a two room set-up minus a roof (a powerful storm took it away). Right now the office work is done on the Veranda, and so we sat there for about an hour upon my arrival, we chatted about Canadian and Ghanain agriculture, and I also got some info on tech adoption specifically concerning row planting! Then today is a holiday, African Union Day or so I'm told, so I took a long walk through the market to see what I could see and I saw quite a bit! A busy market center with everything I could need including bicycles (funny story below)! Finally I was supposed to receive a call from my Director about looking through the community for a family to stay with, but he didn't call me @ 9 am when he said he would lol, so I will be calling him every hour or so because I cannot stay in this expensive guesthouse any longer!!!

Finally a funny story: So I see two bicycle vendors and I approach the first. I smash my head on the low handing lean-to he has set up @ the front of his shop, then I ask "how much for a bicycle?". The vendor tells me "90 Ghana Ceti" (like 75$ canadian). I say "ok I will keep looking! Thank you!". I walk over to the other bicycle vendor not 25 meters away, with the exact same bicycles for sale, and I ask "how much?", and he proceeds to tell me "100 Ghana Ceti". What a crazy market where a short walk saves you 10 Ceti (like 6.50$).

Thanks for reading everyone and stay tuned for more blogging fun times! Also feel free to ask questions, I would love some Qs!




PS: I will post pictures tonight when I have more time to load them!!!!