Tema Tech Weeks 2, 3 and 4

Our "office" at school

I felt good at the end of week 1 that we were really on track, had figured a lot out and were on a good pace.  Week 2 was the total opposite.  We began to experience the reality of the Ghana "work challenges" which are not very conducive to meeting deadlines.  During this week, we lost the internet b/c the cables were stolen, lost the power (it just happens and they were doing work in the area), found out about a teachers strike which was causing the school to close unexpectedly for 2 days and learned that our Principal/key sponsor would be leaving the country - as it turned out for the remainder of our project.

Each day, sometimes each hour brought a new piece of news compounding the previous.  The reality of the project work was that there were really only 16 true working days so losing a few days matters. But we figured it out and kept readjusting.  Our core guys that helped us coordinate everything were awesome and all the staff really responded well to the training for eSchool and the process of editing and administrating the web content.

For the Tema Tech team, they are used to such interruptions and delays with no clear understanding of when things will get fixed.  Each day it's a wait and see process. Interestingly, I have found since that stealing cables to sell the copper inside is also not so unique to Africa.  I had heard one version of this from an IBM colleague in Kenya explaining the unreliability of conference calls and phone lines in Kenya.  The doormen in my apartment building tell me people steal lines in the Bronx/Queens where they live, my parents tell me it's common in Puerto Rico and I've heard counts from others too.

So in the end we built a website from scratch with over 50 pages of content and dozens of pictures and we successfully expanded their ability to electronically store and track student information and financial information.  I feel good about the tangibility of what we did, what we left behind and hopefully the impact on inspiring how to work differently.  Obviously there are so many details under this but too much to write it all down.

Mr Mac-Kusi and his students = the photo team

I continued to really appreciate the fact that our project involved students, I loved each day interacting with them and talking to them.  The Photography team was really cool, they ran around the whole time taking photos for us to put on the website and would come in and give me their catch each day.  They had a student week celebration while we were here which had education, sports and a trip.  It was fun to see them having fun, doing tug of war and other contests.  It was nice to see their pride in their school.

I also had a really positive feeling from the teachers who seemed very genuine and involved overall.

Lunch each day was always a time usually with our core guys Mr. Inkoom, Mr. Nars-Saam and Tony and usually involved cultural comparisons and sharing b/w all of our respective worlds as well as catching up on next steps or things we needed to get done.  The kitchen staff was super friendly and went out of their way to make us comfortable.

Our Ghanaian outfits and Kente cloth gifts

The final week we wrapped and gave a final presentation summarizing the work that we did.  In addition to all the core management and department heads of Tema Tech we also had officials from the Ministry of Education, heads of other schools and the school chair of the board attend.

 We got to deliver our final presentation in outfits tailored by the students in the Tailoring department.  Tony (one of our core guys) took us to get fabrics from one of the main producers which the school is associated with and the tailoring department made us beautiful outfits.  It was a great way to showcase the products of the school programs.  And they gave us my favorite gift which was a Kente cloth weaving with our names in it as well as made us other pieces from fabrics that they hand made in the school called Batiks which is hand printing.  Really special items to help us remember them always...


Some additional scenes from the school below....

Weekly Monday morning school assembly

Blocklaying & Concreting (aka construction) class

I just love this pic, it was from one of their soccer tournaments. They are local champions!

Printing T-shirts in textiles class

Doris! Administration supervisor, she always wore gorgeous colors and here it shows just a glimpse of all the PAPER!

Student week, the winners of the tug of war contest

View entering the school, building ahead is administration block where we spent most of our time

Volta Region & Lunch with the Principal

Our second weekend involved a trip to the Volta region.  It was again 3-4 hours in a bus to get there with all sorts of scenery along the way.

Volta Region

Once we got to where were going...we saw a large dam on the Volta river.  We climbed a small mountain overlooking the region which is beautiful and green with a big cross at the top.  Then we went to visit a village where there was a funeral going on which was really interesting to see up close.  We had passed some during the drive but now we could hear the music.  The head of the village invited us to his home to drink palm wine (palm nuts are local and serve as the basis for soups, wine, oil and lots of other things) out of calabashes (which we got to bring home).  Then we went to lunch at this awesome place with the perfect view of the region.  On the way back we stopped at a monkey sanctuary where we lucked out big time and got a show immediately.  The monkeys come right down and eat banana's out of your hand, one of the little guys put his hand on mine while he was eating his banana, it was SO cute.  That was a real treat.

Top of the mountain

part of the funeral

drinking palm wine in a calabash

feeding the monkeys

On Sunday, before the Principal left on his trip to Austria (the Austrian government had invited a select number of school heads to come to Vienna along with the Ghana Education Service and there was already an agreement that they will be doing renovations at TemaTech later this spring for 3 of the departments) he invited us to his home for lunch.  We were expecting just us to be there and didn't realize he had actually invited all of the key school leaders and our project leaders to join too.  It was a beautiful lunch and we enjoyed the social time with them.  The principal gifted Shin with some kind of crazy alcohol, I will use the analogy of moonshine or grain alcohol which I haven't touched since "fruit punch" in college.  Smelling it was enough to keep me away but Shin liked it : ) and we got some cute pics of him trying it.

lunch at the Principal's house

Sunday evening we had been invited to a beach party back at the same beach we had been at the weekend prior.  One of Samantha's friends was having a birthday and was sweet enough to include us.  This trip the beach was not nearly as crowded and a little calmer but still very lively.  We had fun dancing and walking on the beach.  Some of the girls went for a night swim and loved it.

Independence Weekend

We had 3 weekends in Ghana and got to do some exploring locally and in other parts of the country.

The first weekend was a holiday weekend celebrating Ghana's 54 years of independence.  This gave us 3 days off.  On Friday night half of us went into Accra to a club called Bella Roma.  Francis negotiated with the doormen for the ladies to get in free but funny enough the price for the guys to get in doubled as a result - forced chivalry, LOL : )  It was good people watching and fun dancing.

Saturday we made our first trip into Accra, the capital.  It wasn't the first trip for the team working with ECG (Electricity company) as they had to go to Accra a lot and during traffic which was a nightmare, 1.5-2 hours each way.  Fortunately no such craziness on a Saturday.  We stopped at several artist shops and the Accra market.  This day added lots of color and good photos on market life.  We had an amazing lunch - turned out to be the best meal of the trip.  The local red snapper was amazing and this was the only time I got it as a grilled fillet (vs fried with head or tail and all the bones).  YUM.

Accra Market

Kakum National Park canopy walk

Sunday (early) we boarded a bus that drove 3-4 hours west to Cape Coast.  This was one of the main things I wanted to see in Ghana that I had read about in advance.  This part of Africa was known as the Slave coast and Ghana is one of the only places where you can still witness the buildings (called castles) where they used to trade.  In most of the other ports/countries along the coast they built temporary structures which are long gone.  But before we got to the castles we first stopped at Kakum National Park where they have built swinging bridges to allow you to walk high up in the canopy of this park.  It was fun and a big feat for Kristina!  She conquered her fear of heights and did all 7 bridges instead of taking the short path and just doing a few.

Coconut Grove in Cape Coast

Then came a lovely lunch at the beach, really nice setting and a pina colada that hit the spot...better than the pre-made frozen ones we usually get in the US.  It was made with fresh pineapple juice, had to have 2.  This beach was what Ghana is known for, very beautiful and scenic.

Elmina Castle main courtyard

Last but not least, we toured Elmina Castle.  This was the largest of the buildings they used to trade in human life.  This was obviously a sobering visit and I was struck by the juxtaposition of the sunshine, beauty of the beaches and lightness that surrounded this castle with the darkness of what took place inside.  It reminded me of visiting Aushwitz where I just couldn't wrap my mind around the mass participation that had to take place to make the stories we were hearing true and how one man treats another in such inhuman ways...  Two spots in the castle I remember the most, a small room where as we stood on the floor learned it was for warriors who all died there and the room of no return which was the final exit point to the slave ships.

Final door that led to the slave ships

When I travel I like to read books that have something to do with where I am so am reading a book called "Someone Knows My Name" about a girl who is taken from Africa, sent on a ship to South Carolina and her return to freedom.  I had just started the book and was reading the part where she was captured, marched to the coast and sold on to the ships, so this visit to the castle was perhaps even more vivid in my mind.

On a lighter note, we met the most enterprising kids outside this castle.  They asked our names on the way in and as we left showed up to give us seashells with heartfelt messages addressed to our names.  I had to give them props for good marketing and spelling my name right so I gave them a cedi (Ghana money, 1 cedi = 65 cents) and then got persuaded to donate to their school : )

Independence Day at Labadi Beach

On Monday the original plan was to do a beach day back in Accra but everyone bailed except Jorge and I.  Beach vs staying at the hotel didn't seem like a hard choice but we were in the minority that day.  Really glad we went, it was a cultural shock!  Not the relaxing day at the beach we would have had along Cape Coast but highly entertaining.  Francis and his girlfriend Samantha took us to Labadi Beach which is party central - especially on Independence Day.  I've never seen so many bodies in the water or jammed together on the beach.  I felt like we were in a human version of the Serengetti, watching the great migration of people walking down the beach towards the party.  Tons of soccer playing, people building sand sculptures, dance parties all over.  I also got my first understanding of how aggressive Ghanaian men can be, I learned not to walk by myself in crowds anymore.  The other interesting thing was no one was in bathing suits, everyone was wearing their clothes.  Happy Independence Ghana...

Things that make you go, Hmmm.....

I am really behind on the blogging.  Internet is a challenge and finding the time to do it is a challenge...probably a good sign I shouldn't take up blogging permanently, I am not timely enough.

So lots of cool stuff has gone on over the last few weekends and during the work week which I will write more about later.  For now, a quicker blog (with no pics which is half the battle on blogging from here) on the things that have surprised me the most/that I wasn't necessarily expecting.  They sort of all make sense once you know the context...but anyway....

1.  Where does the chicken breast go??
I kept noticing that when one orders chicken, without fail it's always the thigh/leg.  Anywhere I asked if they had chicken breast, they didn't have it.  So I started to wonder what on earth do they do with the rest of the chicken?  After 2 weeks, last weekend I finally found the answer.  It turns out there isn't much of an agriculture or farming industry (another surprise) so they important most of the chicken.  The breast is obviously more expensive so they tend to import the rest.  I was told they only carry chicken breast in certain grocery stores, usually that cater to foreigners.  If they do get a chicken locally (ie the whole bird) the breast meat goes for the father.  Kids usually get a leg and if you are a more senior kid you get the wing.  Even the chicken eating has a hierarchy in Ghana.

2.  No credit cards.
In order to host the website for our school, we need to pay a hosting service.  We decided to go with one outside Ghana for the reliability and service.  The only methods of payment are credit cards or Paypal.  So when we ask about credit card payment, the Tematech team says there aren't any.  What? Really?  They don't have them in Iran either so I have heard of it before, but wasn't expecting it.  We came to learn that no personal, no business cards, they simply aren't issued in Ghana.  Paypal we found works in places like Swaziland (tiny country next to South Africa) but doesn't work in Ghana (or Nigeria).  Speculation on their website being too much credit card fraud.

3.  [Name] P.O. Box [XYZ] Church
While working through student data in the eSchool system, Shikha noticed many students had addresses of a church listed as their mailing address.  She couldn't imagine all these people live in a church so asked why?  It turns out there is no mailbox/address system as we know it so the most reliable way to get mail is have it sent to the church and after services you pick it up.  This leads to the next surprise...

4.  Church + State, Church + Everything in Ghanaian Life = Not so separated
Each day you realize more and more how ingrained church and leading a "moral, upright" (a phrase I've heard repeated often) Christian life is in the every day life.  The weekly school assemblies are mostly worship, they have preaching and it's organized by the chaplaincy of the school.  It is nearly all Christian and highly unusual to not belong to a church.  Religious sayings are printed everywhere from a piece of paper hanging in someone's office to the back of a bus to any literature you pick up.  Their weekends are mostly filled with weddings or funerals and always church services on Sunday.

5.  I never knew I liked mango
I don't know what they do here to grow the mangos as sweet as they do but I usually don't eat them in the US, they always taste not so great to me, kind of bland even a little bitter at times, so I always thought I just didn't like mango that much other than as a mixer in a martini.   I will miss having mango's for breakfast when we leave!

6.  Milk & Cereal
Similar to the above on the manufacturing issue, the same goes for dairy and milk (and many other industries, they import a lot).  I found it odd they gave us this weird highly condensed sort of milk in very sparing portions at breakfast for our coffee and even for cereal.  A trip to the grocery store in search of some plain yogurt (which I am really missing) revealed how expensive milk is.  A container of milk less than a half gallon was twice the price of what I pay for a half gallon of organic milk in NYC (3 times the price of non-organic which this wasn't).  Special K was twice the price of a box at home.  The yogurt for a smaller container was more than what I pay at home for a larger container too.  Wow.

7.  Care for some Nespresso? oh sorry make that Nescafe...
Given the amount of coffee that is exported from Africa (including Ghana), I was surprised that there is no brewed coffee to be found in any of the places we are frequenting.  There isn't much of a coffee or tea drinking culture that I've noticed at all, but they do like their fruit juices.  So it's been Nescafe or Lipton black tea at breakfast.  I did bring a stock of tea w/me.  The funny thing is I am acquiring a taste for Nescafe (I know shocking) but will gladly give it up in favor of my favorite coffee from Local in NYC.

8.  Do you want some food with your spice and your rice?
I was definitely not expecting the food to be so spicey.  Especially after being here and knowing how hot it is all the time, the spice seems even more surprising to me.  I've never had such spicey food actually.  And they eat a lot of stews and soups which I always associate with winter weather but here it's every day food and every day it's like the worst days of humid DC summer in July/August.  They also eat a ton of rice.  Many days I have it at lunch and dinner, served all sorts of ways.  I like the rice dishes a lot but it is interesting how much it is served.  I never associated rice as much with African food but more as Asian and middle eastern. 

Week 1 at Tematech

School emblem; students in photography class; front of school; students in textiles class

Mr. Provincal, the school principal, picked us up from our hotel and there started our journey with Tematech.  I like the commute to and from work, it sort of makes you feel like part of the city.  Many people walk, we see school students and people walking to work which might be a "shop" on the side of the road or an office. In the evening we often see soccer games.

What we've learned so far is Tema Technical Institute is a technical training school established in 1964 with the first department of textiles.  The Japanese govt helped establish the school and it has now grown to over 13 departments and has on average 1000 students in the school each day across the classes.  The training programs are either 2 or 3 year programs with Certificates awarded at the end of passing their exams in their field of study.  The exams are mostly administered by the Ghana Education Service or some other 3rd party.  From what we can tell Tematech appears to be one of the better technical level schools in Ghana.  When we first saw the name of the school we all thought we would be working with a computer technology school, then we came to realize that here technical = trade like carpentry, mechanics, construction, tailoring, photography etc.  So it's a mix of what we would consider a trade school and 2 year community college because they also offer Business Studies and all the core classes like science, math, english and ICT (their term for computers).  Some students go specifically to learn and work in a trade.  Other students who do not qualify as well for universities or the Polytechnical Institutes right out of the Junior or Senior high schools will go to technical schools to improve their grades and skills to be more competitive for getting into the higher education schools.

Getting feedback from students on the website

The school has an interesting history that also tells how foreign governments get involved in Africa.  The school beginnings were based on support from the Japanese government including a lot of machinery, other departments were started under guidance and equipment donation of the Soviet Union and also Germany.  Just this month the Austrian govt will be starting a renovation project for the electrical installation, motor vehicle and welding departments including installing all new equipment.  I found this really fascinating.  But in some ways, it has also created a culture of expectation that nothing new can happen unless someone gives it to you.   We've been trying a lot to give a message of self sufficiency and how to think differently about controlling their own destiny.  Even small things like fundraisers or proactively developing proposals for budget support from an organization. For example, the textiles department has really old machinery now, they are still using the equipment donated by the Japanese.  There are many organizations that may sponsor support for what they are doing to advance the field of textiles - especially because it is a unique government accredited program in Ghana but this type of thinking is not obvious here.  

The students we've met so far are really cool, very energetic and eager.  We had a meeting with student representatives (about 40) from all the departments to get their input on what they want on the website and then smaller reviews once we had some content to share.  They were right on in terms of what should be shown, came prepared with written lists and were very vocal...much more so than the staff/teachers who do not use the internet or computers that much.  Most of the department write-ups for the website I have gotten in handwritten form.  For the school staff there are 4 primary computers and there is an ICT (computer) lab.  I guess this is true in any school, the young are always up on the latest : )  Most of the room raised their hand when we asked who uses Facebook.

Kitchen staff makin g Banku for lunch

Our routine has developed: The Principal picks us up every morning, we have a debrief meeting in his office and then go about our day.  On the first day we got a tour of the school, were introduced to the entire staff in a staff meeting.  Our "office" is 2 long tables inside of Mr. Nars-Saam's office.  The chairs are made by the carpentry and joinery department, very well constructed but not a lot of cushion!  We have lunch each day in the cafeteria.  The matron is really sweet.  Her husband and children live in Wichita, Kansas, she is hoping to see her son graduate this year.  Lunch is always Ghanaian food, so far we've had Jollof rice, Beans and Plantains, Red fish and rice and more...dessert is always fruit, usually really sweet pineapple or mango.  The mango we've had in Ghana is the best I've ever had anywhere.

School drumers practicing for Independence Day parade

Students practicing march for Independence Day parade

In terms of our project, we started the week evaluating their requirements against the system they already use called e-School which was developed by a local solution provider.  It turned out most of what they wanted was there, they just didn't know it.  Each user used a very specific part of the application and had no reason to look at the other parts and only a very few people actually use the system.  It's a relief b/c creating a new system from scratch would have been really time consuming and not as good as what they have now.  The website will be brand new, most of the technical schools don't have one, so it will be a good asset for the school and holding up their image.  A lot of my time has been here interviewing departments, organizing and gathering content.  We are trying to involve those that will take it over from us along the way as much as possible.  We felt fairly on track by the end of week one.

Nitsumo Kpakpa He Ye Seenamo is the school motto.  It means "Hard work deserves a good reward" in Ga, the local language of Tema and Accra.

Orientation, Akwaaba!

Mr. Mensah, IBM Country Mngr & Mr. Ezeh, Min of Education

On Monday we got all dolled up in our professional attire and were taken to a nearby hotel for an orientation.  This was our first opportunity to meet key representatives from our project clients in person.  Barbara (our overall Ghana liason through NGO CDC Development Solutions) kicked off the day, the IBM Country Manager said a few words (he grew up in Ghana, lived in the US for many years and returned to Ghana to take this role as the Ghana office opened last August...he is also an ex-Loti).  Then we got an overview of the Ghana education system and some of their challenges from Mr. Ezeh from the Ministry of Education.  The rest of the morning the clients presented overviews of their organizations and what they hoped to accomplish through our projects.  The afternoon we broke out with our clients to discuss the SOW's (Statement of Work) which were given to us a month or so ago.  We revised as we better understood their requirements and could map that with our skills and available time to deliver.  We got our schedule worked  out for the first week and then all teams shared their results with each other.

Akwaaba means Welcome, each speaker and nearly everyone we've met since here begins by saying to us " You are very welcome "

Orientation, IBMers and Leaders from our project Orgs

There are 3 clients that my team is working with:  Tema Techincal Institute (called Tematech which is my project) which is a vocational training school.  They teach 13 different courses ranging from carpentry and construction to photography, textiles and business studies.  They are hoping to add catering and fashion to their curriculum soon;  SOS Villages is an organization I had never heard of but love what I've learned so far.   Instead of the traditional orphanage, they build a family unit with a mother and siblings for children that have lost both of their parents.  They raise them in 'villages' until they are legal adults with the love and structure of a family.  They have branched out into education (and they offer the International Baccalaureate or IB program which I did in high school, they say its still well used) and have prepared/sent many kids to schools like Harvard and Yale.  The 3rd organization is ECG, the primary electrical supply company for Ghana.  They are the most like a regular IBM customer - large with lots of politics.

3 of us are working at Tematech to help them build a website/presence and figure out how to help manage student data and accounting information.  The SOS team of 2 is also building a website and the ECG team is helping IT with a series of governance, risk and IT policy/processes.  There was a 4th organization but they dropped out last minute so ECG got 2 project teams for a total of 6 working with them on 2 different projects.

Shin & Shikha with the Principal and key Tematech team

Tematech had 4 people at the orientation: Mr. Provencal, the principal of the school, Mr. Narh-Saam, the project coordinator, Mr. Inkoom who heads the ICT (their term for computer department - teaching not internal IT though they do some double duty), and Mr.Tony  the head of the Textiles Dept where they teach weaving cloth, design and printing of fabrics.  The Tematech team was eager to work, brought energy and ideas to what they wanted to accomplish.

One of the funny stories of the day, over lunch Tony was telling us his normal work schedule, several evenings during the work week he attends church services (which I have noticed in general church is an extremely prevalent part of life here).  I asked what type of church he attends and he said "Charismatic".  I have no idea what this means, we all look a little confused and he proceeds to explain, "Charismatic is you know...a lot of jumping and clapping and singing..."  Writing this out doesn't do the moment justice w/o the physical demonstration but I quickly got I think it's something like what we'd know in the US as a gospel church typical in the south.  He offered to bring us so we are hoping to take him up on this offer after work one evening.

Barbara (left) and Edem (right) from CDC, the NGO liasons

Orientation ended and we regrouped at the hotel and went out for our next outing at trying Ghana food.  The universal hit of the night was the KeleWele (plaintain fried with red pepper) recommended by my friend/colleague Erica who was on Team 2 in Ghana several years ago.

Hello Tema

Everyone arrived on Saturday.  My room has a lot of space, air conditioning works well and I wasn't expecting it but there is a TV.  The hot water took at least 2 days to figure out how to use but now we've all gotten it down. 

There was a guy hanging out in one of the lobbies the day we arrived, he introduced himself as Francis.  I didn't get it then but he has been an awesome surprise.  We had no idea he would be part of the trip but he is our Tema liason and has been hired for our entire stay to work with us on all exploration of Ghana.  He is with us on the weekend and evenings and gives us the local understanding of what's going on around us. 

One of the main roads in Tema

Our first outing was to exchange money and then to lunch, we had our first Ghana dishes: I had Banku (a corn and cassava mixture) served with an Okra soup; Kristina tried fufu with fish (which we discovered comes w/the head, note to self for future ordering); Joanne had Palava sauce (sort of veggie/spinach mixture) with yams.  This was the first taste and has been reiterated since, they are seriously into their red pepper in Ghana, dishes are way spicier than I expected - everything is hot hot hot.  Every other meal has revealed that there is a lot of Chinese food here, everyone serves it!

Near our hotel, everyone carries stuff on their heads

I was really glad to see while Tema is a city, the third major city in Ghana, there is still a rural feel.  Most of the pictures online were of the industrial side so I couldn't tell that there is quite a lot of open ground, people walking on the road, unpaved (and paved) roads and it's not covered in buildings.  There are lots of merchants on the side of the road with all sorts of random things including a lot of leather couches, a plumber, baskets and baseball hats.  In a few short days I have seen everything you can think of and many things you never see being carried and properly balanced on people's heads.  Trays of food like bunches of bananas to bins full of goods and even these guys with their suitcases.  I am going to try and learn before I leave!

Sunday we had the whole crew together for the first time:  Kristina and Joanne from Canada, Kerstin and Heike from Germany, Shikha and Ranga from India, Shin from Japan, Jun from China, Jorge from Mexico and Denis from Brazil.  We had breakfast together and then took a tour of Tema.  We walked around the Tema market, very similar to bazaars in middle eastern countries though even a bit more run down.  We saw the beach along the Gulf of Guinea, I was surprised to see a ton of ships parked offshore and a zillion containers.  This hit home that Tema is a serious port city.  But then as you drive down the road the beach becomes more prevalent.  Boats and little drink type places start to pepper the landscape.  And then there was the random shepherd with his flock of sheep, it was very similar to what we saw in Morocco.  Seeing this flock elsewhere in Tema wouldn't have looked so out of place but surrounded with shipping containers, major paved roads and hotel resorts it was an odd site to see.

We then got to explore the Tema harbor and I could confirm that the picture I put up for this blog was in fact taken there.  I googled images of Tema to put up on the blog before I came.  Then after I published it, I noticed the flags in the harbor picture are clearly not the Ghana flag so I started to wonder if this was a mistake.  The picture was taken from an article in Ghanaian Journal and the caption was Tema harbor but I couldn't figure out the flags, maybe it's something local vs the country or maybe it's some other African country and they mistakenly labeled it.  In person the harbor looks the same and had all sorts of other flags flying.  I asked our driver and Francis what they mean, the answer: absolutely nothing.  The fisherman just pick whatever flags at random.  There were a lot of German flags flying this day.  I had a great time w/the kids in this fish market, they loved having their pictures taken and seeing how it looked in my camera.  I got a lot of willing models - some adults too.

Some of my new photo loving friends

We got a briefing in the afternoon from a doctor and the police commander to advise us on how not to get sick and how to stay safe.  That night one of the cabs our team was in got pulled over so the police commander's card came in quite handy.  We also met Barbara for the first time, she is the in-country liason for CDC which is the NGO who organizes the program.  She has selected the projects and made all the arrangements for our projects.  We also met Edem her assistant who makes sure everything works.

Sunday ended with a lot of Star beer and as we have quickly learned, meals that take forever to come out and at all different times.  The polite concept of everyone waiting for everyone to be served is quickly getting impractical here.

Monday was our project orientation where we met all the key people on our projects, heard about their organizations and agreed at a high level on our statement of works for our projects.  More on that next post and the start of our projects.

Ghana dishes, lots of soups and stews with serious red pepper. Muy Caliente!