Mole National Park (warning: long entry)

Kerry and I left for Mole in the pouring rain on Friday, forshadowing that this would definitely be an adventure. After running from my guesthouse to the truck that picked me up, I was completely drenched.

I had bought the tickets that morning and the bus driver said the bus left at 1:30pm- which usually means it will leave at least a half hour later. Well, we wasted some time in Tamale waiting for the fried rice man to finish frying the rice, so while we wanted to be at the station at 1pm, we were running a little behind. Instead, Kerry ran to the ATM and I ran to the bus and arrived around 1:20pm. To my surprise, the entire bus was full and practically getting ready to pull out. I had to hold the bus for the next 10 minutes while I called Kerry frantically asking what was taking so long- the bus was leaving. I kept repeating in my Ghanaian accent, “She is coming, she is coming!” (Keep in mind that the bus then hung around for about another 30 minutes before we left, just as we had suspected.)

In our hurry to make the bus, we both forewent going to the bathroom and were too afraid to ask them to let us go b/c we thought we were leaving. Big mistake. In our late arrival, our seats were given to someone else, so of course we’re in the last row of a bus that should hold around 35 people, but probably had 50. Good times.

After one hour of driving, you turn off the paved road onto a dirt road that is probably the worst flat road I have ever traveled. Do you know when a large construction machine makes little ruts in the road going horizontally? Yeah, those lovely bumps, crazy potholes, and fresh rain make for a very fun ride. I laughed and asked Kerry if this counted as a massage since every cell of muscle or fat on my body was vibrating. And for those of you who are also well endowed, you will completely understand the pain. This, combined with the fact that I was looking at the lovely scenery thinking- oh that would be a good bush to go the bathroom behind- maybe I should ask them to stop.

We also entertained ourselves by making fun of the crazy foreigners and planning our escape routes from the bus should it tip over to one side. We decided that Kerry was screwed since she was next to the window on the right side of the bus.

I did finally get to pee, thank God for small mercies, 4 hours later. I have the bladder of a champion. It was my first experience in a public urinal- basically a concrete slab with walls and a small trough for you to aim at. Hopefully your aim is good and you don’t have performance anxiety in front of the other women.

I could tell you very long stories about the bus ride that should be 3.5 hours and turned into 6, but I should get to the point where we actually got to Mole. I will say that the Mole bus has lots of sumese (white people in Dagboni). And I noticed right away that most of them had either not lived in developing countries for very long or were completely inept travelers. One girl had short, shorts on, and another was wearing a gold chain around her neck. Come on. . .I don’t care if it’s real, you’re just asking for it. A Belgian girl was asked by a young girl selling cheese to give her money- begging basically. She told her that if she gave her money then she would have to giver everyone money. She promptly pulled 5,000 cedis (way too much money to even give to a beggar) and gave it to the girl. You have just taught this girl that it is more profitable to beg than to legitimately sell something. If you want to give her money, just buy the cheese with the 5,000 even if you don’t eat it. Absolutely absurd.

Anyway, we arrived at the Mole Motel a little before 8pm and settled in for the night. The next morning I woke up early and sat on our veranda overlooking the foggy valley. The motel is set up on a ridge that overlooks the forest. It is more forest than savannah, so they have created a watering hole below the lodge and cleared some of the vegetation so that people can see the animals. A monkey came around to visit me in the morning, but he didn’t smell food so he left quickly. I was also greeted by a family of warthogs when I left the room.

We joined our walking safari around 7am and were able to immediately see a few deer-like species and a very large elephant that comes to eat around a group of houses nearby.

I was glad they forced those of with sandals to rent rubber boots, because we hiked down the ridge and through some bogs with lots of standing water. We saw monkeys, water bucks, and many different bird species on our hike through the clearing.

We ended at the watering hole with the hope that the elephants would be bathing. Unfortunately, Pekay (our guide) said it was late and they must not be coming that day. It’s hard during the rainy season because there are so many places for them to bathe and stay cool, whereas during the dry season you are sure to see them because most of the other water sources are dry. We started to hike up the hill towards the motel when we spotted three elephants approaching the watering hole. We decided to contract our guide for another hour and climbed back down to observe them getting in the water and swimming across to the other side. Very cool.

After an exhausting three hour hike on relatively empty stomachs we were tired and went to have breakfast. Originally we had grandiose ideas of renting bicycles and riding down to Larabanga (about 45 minute ride- but uphill both ways on a bicycle with no gears) to see a very old traditional mosque. They are rare in the country and a great tourist attraction. We decided that our time was maybe better spent in the pool for the rest of the afternoon, which is exactly what we did.

I had asked our guide earlier about the baboons, would we see them on our hike as well. He asked if I was staying the night and I said, “Yes.” “You will see them,” he responded.

The baboons didn’t disappoint. They are little robbers and way too accustomed to white people who are too timid to scare them away. The adult male is especially vicious if he smells any food or sees anything resembling a shiny food wrapper. At one point he tried to grab a girl’s bag out of her hands.

I got this great shot of him as he passed our table next to the pool, just before Kerry went to hit him to scare him off. She has extensive experience with monkeys who like to attack you and steal your stuff. This is handy when your companion is too busy trying to get a photo and not paying attention to the stuff.

There was also a fun incident where someone left a few bananas on one of the dining room tables. A few monkeys swung in helped themselves before they could get out of the pool.

Overall, it was great fun and I’m so glad that I went. I don’t think I could leave Africa without saying that I had seen at least some wild animals and Mole was worth it. It was “expensive” by my own daily expenditures here, but $50 for transport, lodging, food, and entertainment is certainly not expensive by our standards. Most safaris cost a lot more than that nowadays, so this was a real treat.

So if you come to Ghana, you should go to Mole, it’s a bargain adventure.

(So once again my pics are not loading, so I'll try again later.)

Village Visits

I took my last water sample on Tuesday and finished my last water quality test with the solar water bag yesterday. I am so happy to be done with this portion of my project. I always knew that I wanted to do implementation work, but this just confirms that I’m not cut out for research. It’s not necessarily because I’m not meticulous enough, but rather because it’s kind of boring.

I started visiting the villages to set up the focus groups for the next week. I will be getting a feel for water practices and knowledge about water-related diseases and then explaining the technology and getting people’s opinions about the design of the bag.

In some of the more traditional villages it is customary to visit the village, find the secretary to the chief who will then send you to visit the chief. Frequently you need to offer kola nuts or a small amount of money ($1) when visiting the chief to ask permission to conduct your survey, focus group, etc. within the village.

I will digress a little here for some context. A few weeks ago I briefly referred to a time when I went to visit a bunch of dams with a Ghanaian working for the Guinea Worm Eradication Project. He showed me three dams and the last one we visited was the closest to Tamale and required that we ride the motorcycle through the village on a path to get to the dam. I took a GPS reading and some pictures before leaving. We were there very briefly, maybe 10 minutes or so.

I decided this past week to return to that village, Gbanyamni, to take a water sample from the dam. Most of the places we have collected water from are in urban areas where people don’t care if you take their dirty dam water or they are in rural areas directly off the road and don’t require any kind of village visit. I asked Wahab if we needed to visit the chief of Gbanyamni because I knew we would have to walk through the village because a taxi could not bring us directly to the dam. He said it wasn’t a problem because we weren’t really doing anything in the village with the residents.

So we arrived at the village last week, hopped out of the taxi and started to make our way through the village. When we passed by a group of men hanging out under a mango tree, one of them stopped us and started to talk to Wahab in Dagboni. Now, I could tell from the conversation that the man was not very happy with us. From Wahab’s reaction, sometimes a little too hesitant and timid, I knew we may be in some trouble. The man yelled at Wahab for awhile and then told him to translate for me.

He had said that we should have asked permission to visit the dam because they don’t know what we’re doing- we could be poisoning their water source, etc, etc. I told Wahab to apologize for the misunderstanding, we didn’t mean to offend them, we would like to fetch some water from their dam for an experiment and if it was not convenient at this time then we would happily return at a more appropriate time. Wahab promptly translated for me and the man accepted our apology and sent us on our way. It wasn’t scary per se, but I just knew we were going to have a problem because of the location of the dam. Wahab said the man was being too traditional and it was not customary to ask permission to fetch water- but that’s beside the point.

Now, back to today…we decided to conduct the focus groups in villages where I had tested the water. Wahab thought it would be a good idea to return to Gbanyamni to do a focus group. I asked, “Are you sure it’s a good idea to go back to where the scary man is?” And then I thought, yeah, but what’s the probability that we’ll run into this man again anyway- the village looks pretty big. (This is when you want to knock on wood.)

We took a taxi to the village and sent it away- because I didn’t want to pay for it to wait for us, I figured we would just walk back out to the road it’s only about 40 minutes or so. We asked a group of local men if they could direct us to the secretary to the chief or an assemblyman. They told us to turn around because the assemblyman was right there. Low and behold, I know it’s pretty predictable, it’s our good friend that gave us a spanking the week before. I almost died.

Of course he remembered us, who could forget the white lady fetching dirty dam water. He seemed suspicious of us still because he wondered why we sent the taxi away. Wahab told him that they would return to pick us up, because he thought it would be suspicious if we said we were walking back. Hmm..ok.

We explained to him what we needed and asked to see the chief. He sent us with some men to visit the chief, but he had traveled far to farm, so we were unable to speak with him. We returned to talk to the assemblyman and he agreed to help us organize a group for Monday of 7-10 women for the exercise. Because we spoke to the assemblyman and not the chief, there was no need to exchange money. He asked a few questions about where I was from and such and then we were on our way.

So maybe this story is anticlimactic, but this man makes me feel uncomfortable. He is stone-faced and very serious and while Wahab says he speaks English, he will only speak Dagboni and wait for Wahab to translate. It simply makes things a little awkward especially if he is as well-educated as Wahab seems to think he is.

I’m not gonna lie. . .I’m not looking forward to going back on Monday, but what can I do now.

Off to see animals tomorrow. . .I'll try and post pictures early next week.

Here’s a week in pictures for your enjoyment. . .

Homes recently burned in the continuing conflict between Dagbon clans in Yendi.

Sara's House
(From Left to Right: Hassan, Mary, Sara, Me)

Transport- Africa style (Aren’t those goats so cute?)


Market Monkey- I love monkeys! Ok, maybe it's a little sad that he's chained to a pole. But wouldn't you like a pet monkey?


Diare Dam- site of a lot of guinea worm, although I believe that Savelugu is higher in reporting this year than Diare. Doesn’t that water look great to drink with all those sheep right there?


Mosque in progress- the mosque in each village is usually painted a bright color and is by far the nicest building in each village, courtesy of the Saudis and Iranians.


We went to visit the secretary to the Kukuo chief on Friday and were able to see a potential clay source and factory site. Here is our guide digging out the clay with a machete. Should they go ahead with the manufacturing facility, Pure Home Water, will pay the local women of Kukuo to dig out the clay with picks machetes to supply the clay for the filter.

Trip to Yendi

I had a change of plans this weekend because Jessica didn’t feel she would be the best host as she was vomiting and had diarrhea.

We had a presentation for the Department of Education for the district of Savelugu on Friday morning and I met a Canadian volunteer, Kerry, who is here for a year working with Girl Child- which is the division in charge of increasing retention and enrollment for girls within the school district. She lives near a Peace Corps volunteer, Bill, and a JICA (Japanese equivalent of Peace Corps) volunteer, Mary, and they were taking a trip on Saturday to visit Yendi, the seat of the Paramount chief for the entire Dagomba tribe.

The Dagombas are one of the largest tribes in the country, reside in the northern region and speak Dagboni. I am really bad at Dagboni and have only managed to pick a few choice words and the greetings. If in doubt, just answer, “Naaaaa,” you will almost always be right. (Except for the times when you’re not right and they laugh and mumble how you don’t really know any Dagboni.)

Yendi has been the site of unrest in the past because of a dispute involving the succession of the Paramount chief between two rival clans within the Dagomba tribe. In March, 2002 a group of men from the Abudu clan murdered the chief, 5 sub-chiefs, and 28 family members/associates. Since this time there has not been a Paramount Chief for the tribe. In place is a regent that is acting as a mediator and is trusted by both clans to select the next chief.

There have been flair-ups of violence between the tribes since 2002. Here’s a picture of some of the homes that were burned more recently in the continuing clashes between members of rival clans. (ok, no picture this thing doesn't like pictures today.)

Yendi is about an hour and a half by bus, southeast of Tamale and is about an hour west of the Togo border. We were welcomed by Sara and her boyfriend, Hassan, to her very cute home on the eastern side of town. Hassan is also a foreigner, originally from Sudan, they met while working in Rwanda together.

Yendi is a fairly quite place and there isn’t much nightlife- probably because the town is primarily Muslim. We relaxed on Sara’s veranda all afternoon swapping stories and then went to the only restaurant in town for some beers and French fries. Our lodging was a small guesthouse where Sara spent her first five months in the country and cost $3.50 for one night.

Sunday morning we had breakfast and then took a walk through town and the market, enjoying the clean paths and roads. Yendi is very conscious of the garbage problem and keeps the streets and roadsides very clean- surprisingly! People were very friendly and we were able to meet some of the people Sara works with as we took our Sunday morning stroll.

The best part about meeting Kerry is that she is able to go to Mole National Park this weekend! Thank God for travel companions. Elephants and baboons. . .here I come!

Engineers Without Borders Canada

I spent Monday evening with a group of volunteers from Engineers w/o Borders Canada. Sara and I took Susan's MIT class together this past spring and she is conducting a survey for the home office about volunteer experiences in a number of African nations. She is a public policy graduate student at the Kennedy School- Harvard School of Government.

I have to say that I didn't know much about Canadian politics, but it was interesting to learn about some of the issues on the minds of our neighbors to the north.

Their volunteers spend 10-12 months doing mostly capacity building with district assemblies and the agricultural ministries.

It's great to go out with other foreigners who have been in the country longer than I have. I am learning that it is appropriate to speak in Ghanaian English so that the locals are able to understand you better. This involves leaving out any contractions and pronouncing your t's. As well as saying things like, "Brother, you will take care of my sister," when being sent off in a taxi in the evening. I have not found that people here at World Vision have difficulty with my accent, and I feel somewhat ridiculous speaking in Ghanaian English- but if that's what's best, then I'll be happy to adjust my accent while I'm here!

Weekend Plans

I am off to Dipali this weekend where the PC volunteer Jessica is located. She has a graduation ceremony for the first part of a training that she is conduting in the community on Saturday afternoon. Hopefully she will be able to send the bike out to the road, otherwise I'll get up early to take a car about 45 minutes north of Tamale and then hike 6 miles to reach the community. Located on the White Volta River, this is the site where they harvest river sand to sell at the hardware stores for construction projects. (I know nothing about harvesting sand from the river for construction projects- it's bad for the health of the river, but it is free.)

It will be great to get out of the city for a day or two!

Local Fisherman

Wahabu bought that boatload of fish for 20,000 cedis or approximately $2. This is Libga Dam, a source of drinking water for the town of Savelugu. By far the best in terms of contamination that I have surveyed, but by no means drinkable.

These two probably earned more by selling the fish directly to Wahabu than they would have if they had sold them to a local distributor.

What day of the week were you born?

How many people actually know the day of the week they were born? I know that my brother, Shawn, was born on a Tuesday because it was election day. I have looked up the day before, but I can’t remember for the life of me. My best guess is Wednesday, but I’m not certain. Mom, can you shed some light on this?

I didn’t realize that this was an important fact in Ghanaian culture. When I went to mass for the first time, they had a special collection at the end of mass that they collect on the first Sunday of the month. Each person files up by the day of the week they were born. I said, ok…I was born on Wednesday- sure.

When I went to the World Vision office for the first time that following week, someone at the security gate asked me what day of the week I was born and I said, “Wednesday.” I was subsequently named by the day of the week I was born, Wednesday in Twi (the most common language in the Ashanti region farther south.)

Now, I am called Equia. It seems easier for people to remember because it is in their own language and while Melinda is not difficult, World Vision staff members take a lot of pleasure in calling me Equia and saying, “Etisen?” meaning, “How are you?” in Twi.

Weekend Activities

I had a great time this weekend meeting up with the local Peace Corps volunteers and learning about PC Ghana. Their system is slightly different than PC DR, which is interesting to learn about. First of all, volunteers are placed in a community and then 2 more volunteers will follow them from the same sector to ensure continuity and sustainability of the projects. In other words, one community will have three different Americans for a total of 6 years. They found it shocking that PC DR didn't want to place volunteers in each other's communities back to back. Personally, it would be terrible to be that last volunteer because either the project has failed or succeeded by the time you arrive.

The world turns out to be fairly small, because the volunteer that is leaving Ghana, who the party was for, graduated from Northwestern in 2003 and was in the Integrated Science Program. Basically that means we probably passed each other in Tech a whole lot. He is now starting a PhD program at MIT in August. It turns out that another volunteer in the Northern region also graduated from NU in engineering in 2004- as a coop so he would have started in 1999. Crazy! This is a volunteer I was going to contact because he apparently lives in a great traditional village.

I'm planning on visiting a volunteer this weekend, who has a 2 hour walk or 35 minute bike ride from the main road to her community. She's going to send her bike out to the road for me on Saturday. The village is on the White Volta River and has no electricity and a newly installed borehole (courtesy of the people in my World Vision Office) that no one will drink from because they like the taste of river water better. Have I told you all how much I love behavior change?

I've already determined that there is no hope for these solar water bags. Maybe I'm a bit of a pessimist when it comes to behavior change, I guess my development experience has done that to me. I am in the region of the world with the second largest number of guinea worm cases (Sudan being the first.) If you can't get people to pour their water through a cloth filter (which prevents guinea worm) that is free then how are you going to get them to put alum in the water and stir, let the water settle, pour clean water into the solar bag, place solar bag on the roof for 4 hours, take bag off the roof and let water cool before drinking said water the next day? I think it's a little too much to ask. Oh, and did I mention that the water bag would not be free.

Here are the pictures I wanted to post on Tuesday, but wasn't able to.

Market Day- Melinda with the Filters (the ceramic filter sits inside the top of the bucket inside a hole created in the plastic cover, you can see it on the bucket to the right of me.)

Fiila FM DJ- a humble radio station

Hamdiyah and her sister making fufu.

Melinda's New Clothes

I decided that I needed a Ghanaian outfit both for church on Sundays and to remember my time here in Ghana. I bought some fabric in town and then Hamdiyah’s seamstress helped me pick out the design and took my measurements. In less than 4 days my outfit was ready and I was able to wear it to church on Sunday. So maybe this is not the most flattering picture of me, but it will give you and idea of the traditional dress.

Savannah Picture

To give you an idea of the scenery, here’s a picture of the savannah at sunset. The brother of the caretaker at the guesthouse works for the Guinea Worm Eradication Program and offered to take me to look at some dams in another rural district. I got some great pictures because it was a couple of hours before sunset.

Networking Success

After tracking down the local Peace Corps volunteers, I think I may actually have some semblance of a social life these last few weeks in Tamale. I will be meeting up with a group of volunteers on Saturday evening when they are having a party at their house here in town. Because Ghana is such a large country and Tamale is a regional hub, there is a Peace Corps house for volunteers to stay the night on their way to or from the capital. One volunteer, Jessica, has invited me up to her site for a visit, which is about 45 minutes north of Tamale. She lives in a rural, traditional village with no water, electricity or other amenities. Sound familiar? I think I’ll be taking her up on that visit to get out of town for a change.

Weekend of Promotions

It’s been a busy week of investigating the manufacturing option. We had the opportunity to visit a local village, Kukuo, that is well known for its Pottery Association. While the entire country has clay soil, some of the clay is better for use in pottery than others. This particular village is located on land that is high quality clay. We took a tour of the former kiln, now dilapidated and no longer in use. Unfortunately, the kiln used too much firewood and it was not economical for the association to use it.

We are waiting to hear from the secretary of the Pottery Association for the day and time of the meeting we will have with the chief. We would like to take samples of various clay deposits to send to the U.S. to be tested. If any of those samples prove useful, Pure Home Water would consider negotiating with the chief to buy that parcel of land to use as a clay harvesting center. The local women would be willing to dig and harvest the clay as paid laborers.

In the midst of the manufacturing research, I managed to test two more water samples this week and on Saturday we had our first promotional event since my arrival here. We went to the local radio station, Fiila FM 89.3, to see if we could have airtime on their morning radio show. We prepared a small script and had 15 minutes to talk about Pure Home Water’s current products- the ceramic filter and safe storage vessels, why they are beneficial, cost, and sales locations. I’ve never been on the radio before- it’s pretty entertaining! Even more so when people told us that they heard us on the radio. I came home to the guesthouse and Sule, the main caretaker, said, “Melinda, I heard you on the radio this morning.” He thought we did a very good job.

Saturday afternoon, Hamdiyah and her sister cooked me a great Ghanaian meal. We had fufu and lye soup with ocra and guinea fowl. I really enjoyed the guinea fowl. The meat was similar to chicken, but a little darker. It fell right off the bone in the soup, so good! Fufu has a very interesting texture- it’s sticky and stretchy in your mouth. It doesn’t have much of a taste, but is quite good with the lye soup.

On Monday, we organized a booth for market day. There are vendors at the market every day of the week, but every 6 days there is a regional market day when most of the women from the outlying villages come in to sell their goods. Our stall was located near the taxi stop, so there was lots of traffic. We were able to sell only 3 filters, but we had some good interest from consumers and gave out our contact information for prospective buyers. This is such a high priced item that it’s a good activity to familiarize people with the filter, but typically people do not have that much money available to buy the product immediately.

More to come. . .I'm having trouble uploading the pictures I want to post.

An Ode to Cheese (and red meat)

I have not eaten a piece of cheese since I left the country on June 5, 2006. Actually, I don’t think I had cheese the day I left either, so let’s say the last time I ate cheese was brunch on Sunday, June 4, 2006. That’s 33 days ago today.

Now it could be argued by some that I eat too much cheese. I think my mother is still disappointed for not being vindicated by a high cholesterol reading before I left for undergrad. Perhaps I have passed such a love for cheese onto my current roommate, Rachel, who probably never ate so much cheese before this year.

I remember telling my counterparts when I met them in the capital before going to my Peace Corps community that my favorite food was cheese. Little did I know that they would tell the whole community and I would be forced to eat cheese at every house that first weekend I was there. It was a cheese that I learned to love, but it was an acquired taste. (I think the turning point was when they fried it…yum!)

I am craving cheese- in case you hadn’t figured that out. I don’t think I had prepared to go cold turkey. It’s not a Ghanaian delicacy, certainly not for lack of cows or goats to make cheese. People just don’t really eat it. I’m told by Hamdiyah that it does exist and this is my quest for this weekend, because quite frankly I don’t think I can go another day without cheese.

Besides cheese, I seem to be craving a big juicy burger as well. I think this is more a reflection of my anemic state than my love for hamburgers. The only thing that could possibly make me a vegetarian is if I was forced to face the butchering of these animals on a daily basis. It’s so easy for us to completely block out that stage of how meat shows up in the grocery store. Unfortunately, that reminder is usually staring me in the face every week when I have to enter the market. Thus, I don’t cook meat and am therefore severely iron deficient. Multivitamins to the rescue, right?

As a result, I am anxiously looking forward to August 16th when I arrive home, head to the Thirsty Scholar for a juicy cheeseburger with a cold Magic Hat #9, and enjoy some good conversation.

Cost of Living

I think Hamdiyah thinks I’m crazy because I’m always asking her how much everything costs. Sometimes it’s for my own benefit- how much can I expect to pay in the market for this particular item? Other times I’m more interested in getting an idea of how much things cost in relationship to how much people are earning.

The truth is that people in general are not earning very much. It seems to me that the most stable and best paying positions are with the international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like World Vision. They are paid a monthly salary, which in and of itself is a huge benefit, and they pay very well, relatively speaking. My guess is that they are paid between $250-500/month, depending on the position.

When Hamdiyah and I were in the capital we went to the Areeba office to buy my cell phone. We happened to bump into a friend of hers from university. I was later told that her colleagues from school who are doing customer service type work for a stable, growing company earn about $170/month. Even Hamdiyah found that number to be prohibitively low for an individual working in the capital and university educated.

So, for the gross majority of Ghanaians, if they do not have a job paying a monthly salary, where do they work? Quite simply, they work in the informal sector trying to sell whatever they can in order to make a days wage. This is why the markets and street vendors are so active in trying to entice you to buy whatever they are selling. These individuals range from young girls trying to sell bags of water that they’ve filled and chilled for market-goers to the numerous vendors selling phone cards for any of the three major cell phone companies. It’s a race to make enough money to eat the next day.

It’s the beginning of the rainy season now so farmers are planting and will expect to harvest in the early fall. This will be a “rich” time for families and when Pure Home Water hopes to be able to sell more filters because people will have money to spend.

To give you an idea of prices, here are some of the costs I’ve gathered over my four weeks here: (We’ll use a loose exchange rate of $1 = 10,000 cedis, but it’s closer to 9,000 cedis.)
1 egg = 1,000 cedis ~ $.10
Clove of garlic = 2,000 cedis ~ $.20
300 mL Coca Cola = 2,500 cedis ~ $.25 (small bottle)
1 pineapple = 10,000 cedis ~ $1
Seamstress cost to sew outfit (top and bottom) = 35,000 cedis ~ $3.50
250 unit phone card = 75,000 cedis ~ $7.50 (this is the most expensive card you can buy)
Fabric for a new outfit (top and bottom) = 75,000 – 250,000 cedis ~ $7.50 - $25
Monthly Rent = 100,000 ~ $10 (for one room in a compound of perhaps 4-5 rooms)
Pure Home Water ceramic filter = 170,000 cedis ~ $17
Sewing Machine = 350,000 cedis (starting) = $35
New, pay as you go cell phone = 390,000 cedis ~ $39
Private University Education Tuition (1 Year) = 10,000,000 cedis ~ $1,000

My daily food budget thus far is coming out to be about $2/day. Keep in mind this is not local fair, but rather high priced items such as peanut butter (45,000 cedis for one jar) and corn flakes (31,500 cedis for a mid-size box). The average family probably feeds the entire family for about $1/day/person, possibly less.

It’s a difficult life for people here in the north, little stable employment leading to economic instability for most families. It seems a daunting task to try and encourage economic development with few businesses willing to invest and create jobs for a largely uneducated population. It’s one reason why I’ve chosen health as a tangible way to help improve people’s economic opportunities. It still doesn’t make improvements inevitable and seems much more difficult when looking at the population and not the success of the individual. This is why Peace Corps was such a valuable way to achieve development; you were working with one population and saw the improvements in their lives as your projects came to completion. Population level projects can make an even greater impact, but it’s difficult to see the impact you make on individual people’s lives and that for me is less satisfying.

How to legitimize your NGO

In order to create a legitimate non-governmental organization (NGO) in the developing world, there is one major requirement. Upon arriving in country, go to the nearest auto dealership and purchase, preferably a white, Toyota Land Cruiser, but any white pick-up truck or SUV will do. Promptly return to headquarters with the vehicle and place your new logo on both the passenger and driverside doors. Poof! You have a legitimate NGO. Congratulations!