Africa continued, by Joanne Lloyd-Triplett

A word on Internet Access: As a group we have been coming to terms with the local internet access, or lack thereof. As each day passed it became more and more common to see white Americans walking around the hotel, laptop outstretched in front of them, trying to pick up a wireless signal. Greetings changed from ‘good morning’ to ‘have you been able to get online?’ with the local dialect greeting response of ‘naa’ instead being a resounding ‘no’. As word spreads that the internet is working there is a spurt of activity as everyone races to their laptops.......
AUPAP Day 1 & 2:
Today things became more intense as the heavy work load of the grant becomes a reality. Not only are we to complete a detailed proposal for our water project but we must backstep and create a Terms of Reference document along with an Action plan detailing how we arrived at our apparent pre-mature stage. We are too eager it seems to get to work – first we must write. We are also brought up to speed on creating the tender; discussing local laws and observances that may come into play as we work towards an open bidding process and evaluation procedures. As we navigate our way through the grant speak and technical red tape it becomes clear that we are in a great position, not only with our team here in Accra, Mohammed Haroon and Kaleem Jehanfo but also with our local Tamale connections in the TAMA. With approving nods from the Washington and Accra offices we dive in to our paperwork load with enthusiasm and even find time to outline plans for the next proposal – a Womans dormitory with a toilet and shower block. Things are starting to take shape.
Day 2: Woke up feeling rather delicate, perhaps a good idea to skip breakfast and concentrate on fluids for a while. The mood this morning is one of concentration; each city group huddles in corners of the conference room; discussing, planning, writing. The Tamale-Louisville group is feeling particularly confident after our achievements yesterday. By midday we are almost at a stopping point in terms of what we are trained to complete. Perhaps there will even be time for some sightseeing this afternoon - the hotel walls are becoming a little boring and after all, we're in Africa!
Tomorrow; monitoring and evaluation – a sigh can be heard around the room….

Ghana - First Impressions by Joanne Lloyd-Triplett

With eleven new vaccinations and malaria pills in hand I set off for my first visit to the continent of Africa. After vigorous sprints through Atlanta and JFK airports to catch connections with minutes to spare I finally touch down in Accra, Ghana, luggage and all. It seems that many of my fellow Delta travelers have similar reasons for visiting Ghana: a missionary group here to build a maternity ward; a gap year student volunteering at a local orphanage. The wave of heat that hits me as I exit the plane is a far cry from the three inches of snow I left behind in Louisville, Kentucky. I take a moment to look around and take it all in. The ride to the hotel is not that long but offers a feast for the eyes; groups of people sitting relaxing under trees, a football match (the British kind), roadside stalls offering freshly cooked foods; a lady carrying a huge basket on her head, full of what look like bananas. We pull onto a dirt road and the hotel appears on the left, the building reminds me somewhat of Buckheads on the river with its roofline imitating mountain peaks. The lobby is right out of a 1980’s Spanish hotel; small, marble and without AC. I’m already in love with this place. The room is very spacious and clean and as I start to unpack I hear singing coming from the conference rooms below. Before we get to work on AUPAP (African Urban Poverty Alleviation Program) there’s time for a quick look around……

Morocco to Mainz; the Holidays abroad

This is my first contribution to the Sister Cities of Louisville blog during my stay here in Mainz, but late is certainly better than never! I have been living in Mainz for a little over four months and have become rather accustomed to things here - and I have to say that a warm bed and a hot shower at my place in Mainz are a welcome sight after a few weeks of backpacking.

I just returned last evening (well... actually about 1:00 this morning) from spending 8 days in North Italy. My friend Liana (from Columbia) and I flew down to Venice (thank God for budget airlines!) for New Year's Eve, and I have to say that midnight in Piazza San Marco was certainly 'once in a lifetime experience,' in no small part due to the foot of ocean water covering the ground; you see, Venice during the winter has this wonderful little characteristic of, well, flooding. Now, when I say "flooding," I do not mean sporadic puddles of rain, or the occasional overflowing canal - I mean real, unadulterated, unquenchable flooding - and my salt stained covered shoes can attest to this dreary fact. That memory will last a lifetime!

I spent my New Year's Eve in Venice, but that wasn't the first stop during my brief winter break. I spent a few days backpacking in Morocco with my friend Danae from the U.S. I have to say that as different as Germany can be from home, Morocco is worlds away. Seeing snake charmers in the streets of Marrakech and the Arabic words "God, Country, King" inscribed on the side of a mountain in Agadir really makes an impression! It was a very interesting experience, and I really can not wait to return to Africa. We returned from Morocco on the 24th of December, the first day of the three days of celebration in Germany. I was lucky enough to spend the three days with a wonderful couple from the Mainz Friendship Circle, Frau Ursula Bell-Koehler and Herr William Bell. It was a wonderful time, and I really appreciate the time I was able to spend with them - not to mention all of the wonderful home cooked German food! It certainly was different from my usual Christmas at home with the family, but I enjoyed myself and the wonderful company all the same!

Duloglana Ebenezer Adam

Wednesday, July 22, 2009, the day before my departure from Tamale to Accra and about two hours before our "Good-bye" dinner given by our host, I had the pleasure of meeting Ebenezer Adam. Last minute is the description the event and anxious was my state of mind. I was a bit nervous because I didn't have his phone number to schedule a meeting time. Thoughts of rejection and of being turned around at the door rattled me. "But how am I supposed to get in touch with someone who does not have a telephone," I thought. Once again I was proven to be the Americanized foreigner whom induces her own anxiety such as, being nervous about showing up to some one's home unannounced in the Ghanaian culture. I had to tell myself "Relax, this is the way they do it, it's fine." Of course it was no big deal. And my soothing process began when Ebenezer walked in excited and very welcoming. He has a smile and eyes that carried the innocence of a child and the joy of a grandfather every time he sees his grandchild. I felt the warmth of his welcome as he did my visit. At ease I felt.
Duloglana Ebenezer Adam of Tamale, Ghana is a sub-chief; Duloglana represents the region or neighborhood of Tamale in which the Chief resides. The Duloglana is eighty-nine years young and will be ninety in December. The Duloglana began his career as a teacher in Kumasi which is about three to four hours south of Tamale. His career then took a turn in 1948-49 in favor of politics, particularly, in the advocation of independence for Ghana. Chief Ebenezer Adam has worked closely with the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, in the establishment of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) in both the southern and northern regions of Ghana. Later after serving as a member of the the UGCC, he then became the General Secretary of the UGCC.
About six years after Ghana's independence was won in 1957, Ebenezer Adam became the Regional Commissionor for the Northern Region of Ghana in 1963 to 1966. He was also the NP for the Tamale. Chief is also known for his mastery work of facilitating, along with three other translators, a complete translation of the Old and New Testament Bible into the Dagbani language. The conception of the Naawuni Kundi Kasi was around 1980 and it took approximately 28 years total to translate both Old and New Testaments into Dagbani. The first Dagbani written bible, the Naawuni Kundi Kasi translated as God's Holy Bible, was published in 2006.

Missing Tamale

As the last of seven weeks comes to a soggy close, I pause to reflect upon this city of Tamale. It holds so many memories, experiences, and I am happy to say, friends. Now that I am getting ready to leave in less than 3 days, I look toward my departure as bittersweet and I reflect upon the things that have made this place so special.

Opening my eyes in the morning to the sound of 30 or more girls singing as they start their school day. “Taking breakfast” of “eggbread” at Fuseini’s. Traveling with strangers in a packed taxi cab, dodging a medley of farm animals and motorbikes. The constant
accessibility of cheap, tasty, freshly-made foods carried by beautiful women and children atop of their heads as well as the knowledge of precisely where your food is coming from as the air is packed with the scent of butchered and burning meat and the bleating of goats and sheep.

Fast food that comes from a giant cauldron served in open air without the million dollar advertising. A satisfying meal of guinea fowl and jolof rice at prices that put the dollar menu to shame. For when there is more time, sharing a bowl of TZed and groundnut soup. Enjoying the company of one another as you both dip your bare fingers into the piping hot ball of dough and then into the scalding soup before scooping the spicy mixture into your mouth unencumbered by the senseless taboo of “double-dipping.”

Bonding over laughter and music as cultural differences melt away and you are no longer where you come from, but who you are.

The beauty of the people. The women in their brightly patterned, tailor-made dresses which hug every curve and complement the figure of a woman. The men with their toned physique developed through years of skilled labor, not manufactured in a stale health club. Their uninhibited practicality and grounded reality.

Above all, those beautiful people I will miss most are the ones that showed me the real side of Tamale and who shared with me their culture, their passions, their hopes and dreams, their laughter, and most of all, their friendship.

How to Lose Weight in Africa

Losing weight is much harder than I had anticipated. Not that I was trying to shed some major poundage this summer, but I wasn't going to complain if I could fit into the favorite pair of jeans that much better. Being in a new location always makes me finicky about food for some reason. This has nothing to do with different tastes or textures, I just don’t normally eat a lot when I’m not in my comfort zone. So I expected to keep my meals to a healthy size and time. But it didn’t take long for me to forget that idea once I got to Tamale. Tamale is rich with flavor experiences, such as my new favorite poultry, the ever-popular guinea fowl. This tough little bird is an excellent meat choice to Red Red, a bean and tomato dish served with fried plantains, which I can’t get enough of. But this is just one of the many options of local dish. Jolof rice and fried fish can be purchased on the street corner in quantities that would make U.S. restaurants blush and at prices that can’t be beat by the McDonald’s dollar menu.

Besides the local dishes, Chinese food is served at most every sit down restaurant. Non-Ghanaian food is typically referred to as “fast food” thought it is anything but. What is meant by “fast food” is that it is the type of food one can get at a western fast food restaurant. No food is pre-made and left to sit under a heat lamp. When you order pizza here, they begin making the dough.

So amongst the fabulous flavors, plenteous portions and petite prices I was starting to wonder if I would fit into my tailor-made traditional dress. Then I came across a natural way to avoid those pesky pounds: a stomach virus. Indeed, I have discovered that a constant threat of nausea is the only thing to keep oneself from over indulgence.

Zero Visibility

So it was my second day in Tamale, Ghana about 6:30am and I am ironing my clothes outside. I saw one of the wives or at least I assumed she was a wife; there are two wives from what I was told. It was funny because I have met everyone under the sun in Tamale except for these two women whom are supposed to wash my laundry and cater to my every need; however, I have not met them yet, Why?! Subconsciously, about a hundred and one questions were crossing my mind. Why hasn’t anyone introduced them to us?! So she walks out of her room which is separate from her husband and the other wife and so I wait. And I wait. Why has she not spoken to me yet? Do I speak first? I’m the guest?! Does she see me standing here? Anyway, I initiated the first greet by saying, Dasiba, which means “good-morning,” and so she replied, Naa and then she reciprocated Dasiba and so I replied Naa. So it was confirmed she did in fact see me and could hear me. However, there is this odd distance and odd transparency in her personality almost like a personality does not exist. I don’t feel as though my greeting opened a window for a possible conversation of getting to know her but I feel as though she accepts me. After our greet exchange, the morning fell socially silent and time continued and daily duties followed. Awkwardly, I continued to iron my clothes with this permanent substance-less smile on my face (that of a confused foreigner.) Professor briefly enlightened me about Muslim marriage and explained the rank of women. They don’t matter. They are invisible in a sense; they do their duties and go on about the day, he says. Wow! I thought. His explanation greatly sufficed and moved me. Today’s life experience made an imprint on my conscious mind, subsequently, signifying the beginning of a very enlightening journey in Ghana.