Video Monday

While doing some strenuous tasks today, I fell into a rhythm that allowed me to zone out and think about some things.  I've been trying to figure out a way to best share my experiences here with all of you back home.  I think about so many of you everyday and want to share these new things with you in the most informative, most efficient way possible.  I decided I would post something every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (and a bonus on the weekend if it happens).  Mondays (like today) will be video day- just to make the typically terribly Monday a little more fun.  "24 in 24" is the format I'm going to follow: my last 24 hours in 24 seconds.  The first of these is here for you to view:

Now you may be wondering what exactly I was doing today (or maybe not, that's fine too).  We started off the day with a walk through the corn field, checking out the quality of the corn and documenting along the way.  To the right here, you can see where some birds got to the corn.  This is not always typical, so we took a picture to document.  We actually spent quite a bit of time in the field; if you can see in the video, the corn is well above our heads, making it difficult to navigate your way out after awhile.  Eventually we found our way out and decided to start making preparations to plant sweet corn next to the feed corn as a test to see how it would grow.

We ran into some problems, though, and had to do some major fixing of the roto-tiller.  One of the local village boys dropped by during the process to give Prosper (the lead farm hand from the village) his lunch.  He's pictured below while watching part of the overhall.  Kris, the farm manager, is teaching all of us everything.  I'll be sure to write more about him later!

While Kris took some more time to teach the other workers, he put one of the other guys, Hamza, and I in charge of cleaning the house.  We scrubbed, squeegeed, and mopped a large part of the house, leaving behind the lemony scent of Pine Sol.  We finished just in time to have Kris and Prosper teach us how the planter works and see it in action.  Kwasi and Prosper are standing behind the planter in this picture (right).  Kris had them ride on it to make sure the seeds were falling into the planter correctly (video).  They only planted 1/4 of an acre to see how the sweet corn would grow in the conditions.

As they put everything away, I set off to prepare some notebooks and pens for the English lesson I will be teaching each day.  George and Prosper, two of the full-time workers on the farm, speak English quite well.  They helped me teach the other farm employees some English basics (right).  We went through the ABC's, each wrote our names out several times, and walked around the farm.  As we walked, I would point at something and say, "Naomi, what is this?"  And she would reply, "That is a mango tree."  "Kwasi, what is this?"  "That is a rubber bowl."  (He eventually got that it was a bucket.)  They did not always know what the object was at first or might say, "That is the mango tree..." when that was not the article needed for that question. These exercises were fairly elementary for Prosper and George and so I apologized for not doing something geared for them.  They only insisted that this was helping them too and said it was good practice to learn particular words.  At this, I thought it would be a great opportunity to teach the use of articles and the difference between "a" and "the."  As I tried to explain, I realized I didn't even have a good grasp!  If you have any ESL (English as a Second Language) resources that I could access online, I would very much appreciate it!

Wednesdays will be "Americans, what is this?" So be prepared to see some different things!

Me and AAFF

To start, I thought I should show some more pictures and background from my first couple days here in Ghana.  I arrived on Saturday, June 23rd.  By Sunday, Jon and I were headed to the farm.  Our method of transportation was shown in the last post.  To the left is one of the first things I saw on the farm- the irrigation.  It rests in a clearing that allows us to perform any needed maintenance.  Since the system is on a pivot, it rolls in a circle, not allowing you to really ever move it out of the corn field, unless you have a clearing like this.  Jon and I drove up the clearing and had a climb up to the top (below left).  It was actually a great view.  From there we could see the path down to the lake to the south, the farm off to the south west, and the rest of the impressive crop (below right).  The corn stands about 8ft after having been planted in late April.  Jon and the rest of the crew are super excited at the current status of the crop and after hearing all their stories of bad luck and tough work in Africa, I can't help but get excited with them.  I uploaded a 360 view that I took the day after this.  Since it's a video, it's on YouTube here.

 

While atop the irrigation system, we stopped for a photo-op.  I thought I could take this time while I have Jon’s face here to give you a little bit of his background.  Jon started his professional career on Capitol Hill after graduating from Hope University.  He spent 15 years on the Hill in different roles, ultimately ending as a consultant for African countries.  He decided that that wasn’t enough for him.  So in 2009, after making several trips to Ghana, he moved his family out here for a year.  He now travels back and forth at least once a month to check up on the farm status and to move the business forward with different organizations, Ghanaian government agencies, and other corporations.  

To the right, Jon returned the photo-op favor.  Here's proof I'm still alive, mom!  Our common mode of transportation sits below me as the sun sets to the west.  A setting sun means it's time to go indoors.  Gnats, mosquitoes, and the like come out in swarms at night.  I'll be sure to share some proof of their intense existence on the farm.

The next day we got up early to decrease the length of the hoses on the irrigation.  Since the corn grew so high,  the hoses were sitting in the leaves, not allowing water to be dispersed efficiently.  Jon sits in the front loader (left) while Andrew drives him to each hose.  (Jon and I switched after awhile, so don't think I only take pictures!)  This process took a great deal of time, but luckily it really only needed to be done this once.  At this point, on a farm in America, we would flip a switch and the irrigation system would start pumping.  But since we're in Africa, several water pumps, generators, and precious time are needed to start the system.  I will share the precise process later, but just know it's very involved.  Instead, below, you see the finished product of our time- a working, running irrigation system.  However, we weren't done here.  The nozzles were not spinning correctly, so Jon hopped in the loader again and had to manually adjust each one- getting him quite wet.

I suggest clicking the picture to see it larger, you will see puddles and water drops

Jon and Andrew are searching for other messed up nozzles below right.

Throughout the rest of the day, we walked the grounds with Andrew.  He showed us the watermelon patch he planted a couple days ago (first below).  At the end of the day, the sunset was more than spectacular (second below).  There isn't much like an African sunset! 

African Style

This blog post comes to you "African style"- aka late, aka "Trevin time" (for those who know me before my time management skills matured).  It has been an absolutely packed week!  I keep forgetting which day of the week it is and how long I have been here.  I haven't even been here a week yet and I feel like its been three.  Anyways- since I posted last I actually got to visit the farm!  It was everything and nothing I expected all at once.

For starters, the trip to the farm did not take two hours as I had originally thought and did not take four hours as I was later told.  It took 4.5 to drive to a town called Kotoso- a town that does not show up on any map, and if you asked someone for directions, they'd point in a direction.  Then it took 30 minutes by boat to finally reach the farm.


In the first picture, Jon and I had just come to the top of the mountain that you must drive over to get to Kotoso.  He pointed across the lake and said we could see the farm from there.  I snapped a picture in hopes of circling the farm to show you, but I can't actually see it myself.  This should just give an idea of the size of Lake Volta.  As the road veers slightly to the right, Kotoso lies down there.  (As a side note, I apologize for the picture quality- something happened in the upload process.  Good ol Africa...)  I will post more pictures of Kotoso and give some background in the future!


This next picture, we are riding in one of the only forms of transportation to the farm- boat. The boats that are used on Lake Volta are anywhere from 10 to 40 feet long and are hand-made out of wood.  I was sitting on a plank that laid across the width of the boat, similar to the one in front of me.  The boy at the bow sits as far up as possible so he can signal to the "captain" where the fishing lines, debris, and tree stumps are.  Running a wood boat into a petrified stump isn't my kind of fun on Lake Volta, so I'm happy for the system!

Lake Volta was once a plain that had a large river running through it.  In the 70's, the British government decided to put a damn at the southern end of the valley to create a hydropower plant.  The plant powers most of the southern region- including Accra.  Meanwhile, the lake provides precious Tilapia and Baracuda for the fishing villages and a means for irrigation for farmers like Africa Atlantic.  To the right, here, a tree still stand mostly intact- loaded up with fishing nets.



When we finally reached the other side, we hopped in the farm Gator and buzzed up to the farm.  Since the photos were not loading correctly, I decided to leave you with a taste of the farm.  This is the first thing you see as you come up the hill from the lake.  The white spots on the right are the old and new farm houses.  The green line that stretches the majority of the horizon is the crop.  They are growing feed corn currently as a pilot run to see if an irrigated system can produce a worthy crop.  Once this pilot run of 15 acres is completed in September (and is a success), they will have the motivation and the investments needed to push the farm to scale.  "To scale" is somewhere roughly between 2,500 and 5,000 acres. They have the right to this much land- they just need the right equipment to farm it.

A Lot of Firsts

Before I describe my first day in Ghana, I wanted to share the other couple of firsts I had in Dubai.  To the right is a bathroom in one of the restaurants in the airport that I decided would be a great place to take a dry shower and change.  That was definitely a first for me!  It felt great to get somewhat clean halfway through the trip.  I had quite a bit of time before my flight left in the morning, so I posted up at my gate and started reading the Hunger Games (thanks for letting me borrow your book, mom!).  When the sun finally came up, I looked to my left out the window and saw the faint silhouette of something (below).  The first person to comment below and tell me what it is wins something sweet!

The guest house (right) was a little oasis after the long flight.  I was able to drop all my stuff in an air conditioned room and relax a little.  A shower was definitely needed!  I turned the knob on the shower and nothing came out.  I tried turning the sink faucet on and nothing came out of there either.  I couldn't believe it!  But when I told Jon he just said, "Oh that makes sense- the tank must be out."  At this point I'm thinking I'll never get a shower, but he has me follow him outside to these two big black tanks (below left).  So apparently in Accra, Ghana, the public water is only turned on about once a week.  During that time, each house owner must fill up their tanks if they want to have water.  A third tank is not in the picture because its on top of the roof.  I couldn't shower because the one on the roof had run dry.  When that happens, Jon comes out to these two tanks and turns on the pump (below right).  It sends the water up to the top tank (as expected) and also allows you to take a hot shower!  It's the only time when the pressure is high enough to get the water through the heater.  So on my first day I had my first and probably last hot shower in Ghana.  It was magnificent.

I decided to throw this little guy in here as an added bonus.  They're all over the place in Accra!  If I had more time, I probably would have tried to catch one but I'm already at the farm, located four hours north.  I'll share more about the farm tomorrow.  For now it's bed time.  We have a 6:30am wake-up call to start watering the crops.

I Made It!

Jon snapped a picture of me right as I arrived in the Accra airport (below).  It's a little blurry because I didn't stop moving- I was just too excited to get out of the airport!  From there, he took me back to their guest house where I was able to shower and change.  I'll share more about my first day later today, but I wanted to let you all know I'm here safe and sound!  Off to church we go!