A Day In My Life

It almost seems impossible to write this blog, no day is the same and they certainly aren’t typical. Even if I think I am headed for a “normal” day, something will happen to break my theory into a million little pieces.
At about 5:00 a.m the friendly family rooster starts doing its thing. Stupid rooster. I stay in bed. I realize I could get out of bed, but the night owl in me thinks 5 a.m should only exist for sleeping. At about 6:30 a.m I get up and spend some time in prayer. Some mornings I go for a run or I do some exercises that some of the EWBers are doing. Morning is my favourite time of the day here – it’s relatively quiet and the temperature isn’t ridiculuous. At about 7 am the husband leaves the compound on his moto, this is my cue to roll off my sleeping mat and out of my mosquito net, grab my cup and greet the family. I greet my family with a hearty “Blika!” and get shy smiles and gigles from Shaman, Amelia, and Godfred and warm smiles and questions regarding my health and sleep from the adults. For some reason, the children are shy around me in the morning and it is all they can do to respond “nambah”. Evelyn (the mum) starts to heat water on the charcoal, I go get some bread or “bowl fruit”. Bowl fruit is as delicious as it sounds, but it’s not fruit at all. It’s fried bread dough and Tim Horton’s has got nothing on it. I exchange morning greetings with my neighbors as I walk the dirt path to the bowl fruit ladies house, her name is also Clara! I love my morning walk because I pass people who know my name and greet me with “Sister Clara!” or “Blika!” and a smile. I also get to go past my favourite little boys house, his name is Michael – most often seen sporting snow suit pants, hot pink sunglasses and a mischievous grin.

I help prepare our morning “tea”, which is actually Richoco (Cadbury instant hot chocolate looks like instant coffee), dried milk, and a bit of sugar. I put the ingredients into the cups and stir while Evelyn adds hot water. After a round of “Sister Clara, you’re invited.” and “Npusia, you are also invited”. We silently drink and eat, the girls using spoons to scoop it into their mouths. I love this. It’s me 20 years ago…or last week when nobody was watching! Haha. Often Evelyn will also prepare a more typicial breakfast, ground millet, pepe (chili pepper) and water. I prefer the kids breakfast as the later tastes like taking a bite of wet spicy flour -it sits in your mouth and is hard to swallow. Every morning the woman go get water from the borehole but they don’t let me come because it’s the rainy season and the path is “not fine”. I have stopped asking to come because the answer is always a smile and no. I have gone to get water twice when I was first here and am definitely not as graceful as they are – in fact, I don’t need a bucket shower after I help get water ;)
I take a bucket bath and stand in front of the fan until I’m relatively dry. I have no mirror and two pairs of pants.

I hop on my bike and head to the office, it’s about a 10 minute bike ride made longer by the frequent greetings and maneuvering around pot holes full of red/brown water, goats, chickens, and the odd biker, moto or taxi. When I arrive at the Office, the watchman takes my bike and parks it for me, locks it, and gives me the key. We talk and I climb one flight of stairs to a big empty room. I come here to work because there is nobody here, there is a ceiling fan, and I keep hoping that someone else will come to work. Most of the Agricultural Extension Agents (AEAs) spend their time in the field or goodness knows where. Occassionally someone will poke their head in and greet me. I get picked up here by Extension Agents and we go to the field together. This usually involves a lot of waiting…waiting for the AEA to show up and waiting for the farmer groups to be gathered together. Each farmer that shows up will bow and greet you and take a seat on a bench or a root or the ground. The AEA and I are given plastic seats or a bench for ourselves. Refusing this is futile, although it feels incredibly strange to be sitting on a bench when an 80 year old is sitting on the ground. Meetings start with an opening prayer in Fra-fra, I’m not sure what is prayed and to whom it is prayed as the groups are composed of Christians and Muslims – I guess since both faiths believe there is only one God so they are ok with this. I have a hard time picturing this happening in Canada. After working through the Curriculum card and different issues that the group is having, the meeting is ended with a closing prayer and some dancing. The woman are so lively and sing and dance with so much Soul. This dancing usually involves me trying to copy them and everyone laughing. I look and feel pretty ridiculous, but when in Rome…
Some days I ride my bike into Bolga (downhill on the way there!) to meet farmer groups. The bike ride in is a bit scary, you’re sharing the road with a lot of things and I often find myself distract by something happening on the street and hit a pothole. I have taken to wearing my sunglasses on the way to town for eye safety – the cars and trucks and tros pass at such speeds that eye protection is definitely necessary. After meeting with farmer groups, I take this opportunity to go on the internet (the only building that I’ve been in with AC!), buy some fruit, stock-up on things, etc. Bolga is busy and full of people and I am always happy when I’m leaving the city heading back to my host family in the country. It’s uphill for most of the way home and I am always sweating like a maniac by the time I reach home. Despite being hot, I head into my room and put long pants and a long sleeve shirt on – no mosquitoes please!
By the time I arrive home, it is normally time to eat dinner “together”. You find somewhere to sit on the ground or a bench. Nine times out of ten, we eat TZ, which is hot fermented millet. It sounds a lot better than it tastes…In the words of Crocodile Dundee, “You can eat it…” TZ comes with a soup or a stew (one contains oil the other doesn’t). You take off chunks of TZ and dip it into the sauce. You aren’t supposed to chew it, but I haven’t figured out how to swallow the lump whole yet. They always give me a lot more than I could ever possibly eat. I stopped asking for less when I was told , “We can’t give you less or you’d look like a beggar.” I eat until the third gag reflex and am silently thankful that we eat in the dark. If I bring home plantains, we occasionally have these for dinner and tonight I had a rice ball with ground nut (peanut) soup. This is my first interaction with a rice ball and I ate half of one. Evelyn tells me that she eats three –I have a hard time picturing that and laugh. I think I would literally EXPLODE if I ate three rice balls. I told her that my pants won’t fit when I get home and that I can’t possibly eat any more. She laughs. I enjoy eating with Evelyn. We have slow discussions, each of us picking our words carefully and laughing when we’re unsure how to explain to one another. I have learned that she met her husband during secondary school. He was at Polytechnique and it was an arranged marriage. She got to know him for three years before they married – basically she met him in what we would call 10th grade and married him after 12th grade. I try to picture myself married at the end of high school – yikes.

After dinner I go into Evelyn’s room – this is where the TV is and this is where everyone goes after dark. It’s a small room and it is seriously 10 degrees hotter in her room than outside. I stay here playing with the kids, talking and trying to catch some of the news before retreating to a bucket shower and sitting in my room in front of the fan and read, write, type or listen to some music.

Making Shea Butter

Last week I got to help my host family make shea-butter. The experience was…long! and awesome! It’s too bad you can’t share scents with people over the internet because the smell was ridiculously delicious.

DAY 1
Step 1: Buy de-shelled shea nuts that from the market.


Step 2: Wash said shea nuts


Step 3: Wait for the sun to move so that you can work and only be dripping beads of sweat rather than baseballs of sweat.
Step 4: Watch grandma sit down and take a rock and start pounding one shea nut at a time. Ask if you can help and wait for the laughter to die down. “Do you think you’re able?” My options are to be amused but slightly insulted (I know I can’t carry 50 pounds of water on my head, but how weak do you think I am?!?) and watch her pound or take up the challenge and show them what Canadians are made of (thank me later). I am excited to work on this because I will be spending time with Grandma. Grandma doesn’t speak English and I see this as a chance to bond with her. So I pick up a rock and hit the first nut. The rock comes back up and I look at the nut – it looks the same. I have to use more force. I try again and examine a squished nut. One down, a big bucket full of nuts left. Grandma and I, and occasionally Amelia and Shaman (the two four year olds) continue pounding the nuts until we are interrupted/saved (depending on your point of view) by a rain storm.


When we are about half way done, Grandma asks to see my hands, touches them and laughs non-stop. “Hey! What’s so funny?! Let me see yours!” I exclaim. She shows me her hand and I start to laugh too. No wonder it doesn’t hurt when they pick up coals or put their hands into boiling water – they’ve got some seriously awesome thick skin. When the rain lets down we continue pounding shea nuts until dinner. After a short break for dinner I want to go to bed but I am determined to show them how stubborn I am.


We continue working in the dark. We finish and Grandma smiles her million dollar smile, “toma, toma” (work, work) and I respond “nam-pah”. Despite sitting on the ground pounding nuts for an entire day I am so happy because the Grandma and I are friends now!



DAY 2
Step 5: Fry the pounded shea nuts in a big pot so that they are ready to bring to the grinding mill. They use the word fry but no oil is used, you basically just heat them up and stir a lot.


Step 6: Go to the grinding mill and bring back what looks and smells like a delicious pot of chocolate frosting. I want to eat it. I act out eating it to see if we can, but am told no, it doesn’t taste good. I guess it’s like when I open a bottle of vanilla at home.


DAY 3
Step 7: Invite Grandma’s friends over so that they can help be human electric mixers. Uhh, I realize this is the wrong word choice. Basically they are about to stir like maniacs for an insanely long time.
Step 8: Use your hands to mix the frosting-like shea nut mixture. While doing this you are breaking up any clumps that you see and making it smooth. This is awesome – it’s like playing with your food! We mix and kneed while hot water is being added.

At some point I stop helping because this stage takes talent. As water is added, the material changes in colour and texture. It’s quite incredible to watch. The women keep mixing and adding water. Occasionally the water is separated from the solids. Each time the solids look more and more grey in colour and more and more oily looking. After several hours of adding water, stiring, and separating material, they are left with something that looks a bit like quicksand and smells like a mild chocolate.


Step 9: Sit infront of a fire (fires are hot) on a hot day in a structure that retains heat and stir a pot of quicksand.

Slowly the quicksand melts into a brown liquid and it starts to boil and bubble. We stir and sit and wait for about 2 hours and slowly white bubbles start to appear.

Eventually the women know it is done and scoop off the foam that has formed. The liquid below is “shea butter”. At the very bottom of the pot are the dregs. Both the dregs and the foam are discarded of and the oil is sifted and left to harden.

The shea butter before it hardens:


The shea butter after it hardens:


What an experience! Shea butter lasts for up to a year and the family will use it in cooking. I just had a bowl of rice for dinner that had shea butter in it. You can buy balls of shea butter in the market for about 10 cents. Considering the cost of the shea nuts and the cost of bring them to the grinding mill, there is literally no cost for the labour.

Second Glance

Perspective changes perception.

I spent this past weekend in Tamale with EWB friends, Carissa, Jody and Hasan (He was a JF this summer and stayed on for an extra four months). The return to Tamale was bizarre. I felt like I was in a the height of civilization. Where am I? This isn’t what Tamale looked like four weeks ago when I was fresh off the plane from Canada. Did I get off the tro in the wrong spot? Haha. The reunion with Carissa and Jody was a joyful one – when I saw them down the street I started pretend running (my backpack and the heat prevents real running) towards them and smiling like crazy. The man on the other side of the street exclaimed, “white lady, you look happy!”. I was. I am.

Saturday morning we went into the Tamale market with a list of things to buy. Last time we took tentative steps, shyly looking into booths or at goods on tables, not sure what to buy or what anything was or how much to pay for it. Not this time. This time we were relaxed, laughing, joking. When I first spent time here I couldn’t believe how little there was to buy, but now the amount of fruits and vegetables astounds me. Cauliflower! Eggplant! Cucumber! Oh my! There is SO much in this market and in the surrounding streets.



We stayed at the "EWB House" which is two rooms in a compound that they rent out. Each room has a mattress, a mosquito net, random stuff left by volunteers, and one room has a lot of books!!! The tree of us spent a lot of time looking at the books and talking about how wonderful books are :)

Rain Days and Flooding

I wake up Tuesday morning with plans to meet several AEAs and talk to them one-on-one about their background as extension agents, their farmer groups, and their expectations of the AAB Curriculum. I also have expectations. I wanted to meet with them to get to know them and get the program rolling. I hope that they will each pick at least two farmer groups to work through the curriculum with and to come up with a plan of action. Anyway – I wake up to pouring rain (the sound of rain is extremely loud on a tin roof!) and realize that my 9 a.m meeting isn’t going to happen. If it’s raining you don’t really go outside.

The view from my room:

Nobody goes to work because the roads are extremely hard to navigate in the rain. I smile and go back to bed. Rain days are awesome in my opinion and sleeping in is something I rarely get to do at home. The rain day reminds me of growing up in California, where we had two rain days from School and went puddle jumping on both occasions. Rain days feel like snow days in Canada, except I’m in a room in Africa with nothing that I have to do (we’re so busy doing what in Canada?). All this to say that I was very content with the rain day. My family knocks on the door with a hot cup of Richchoco (a Cadbury product of chocolate deliciousness). I spend the morning reading, lazing, relaxing and generally enjoying this excuse to sit and not sweat. At about noon I get a call from my 9 a.m extension agent, “Uhh, with the rain, I don’t think I’m going to make it to our meeting.” Haha.
Nadia, who does the same work as I do in a District just north of mine, and I call each other several times throughout the day, “What are you doing? Sitting? Yeah, you? Yeah. Okay, I’ll call you later”.
When the rain lets up, my host family and I meet in the centre of the compound and talk and laugh, but when the rain gets going again, we all head into our rooms. My sense of glee is quickly brought down when I get a call from my director asking if I could go with him on Wednesday to visit with farmers who live and work in areas that have been affected by flooding from all of the rain today.

Agriculture As A Business Curriculum

I have been talking about the AAB Curriculum in a very general way and several people have asked me for more details and here they are as best I can.

There are eight main points that comprise the Curriculum. The content of the curriculum has been put onto 8 cards containing pictures, stories and questions that the AEA can use to facilitate Farmer Group (FG) learning. Several AEAs have expressed frustration with teaching business skills to their farmer groups, they say that they tell their FGs what to do, but their groups don’t do it. Sound familiar? Who likes being told what to do. These teaching methods remind me of many teaching methods that I learned about while doing my Bachelor of Education two years ago.
My purpose in all of this is to be available to AEAs who would like to use this resource in their extension work. I do not teach the Curriculum. I go to FG meetings to help the AEA if they want any help and to provide feedback whenever possible. I have one AEA who is halfway done the program (she did this with Aaron over the summer) and I am starting fresh with several AEAs. I will not be able to finish the curriculum with these groups but there will be another volunteer available to the AEA after I leave and if I do my job properly the AEAs will be comfortable enough with the Curriculum to feel comfortable using it on their own.

The focus of this curriculum is two fold-
1.) To help farmer groups see farming as a business and as a way to make money. This is done by facilitating group learning rather than telling them groups what to do.
2.) To help AEAs strengthen farmer groups by giving them a resource and a structured way to facilitate learning.

With these two goals in mind, the eight topics that comprise the curriculum are described below, along with the expected output and outcome of each card:
1.) Group Strengths
Helps the group realize how strong they are and what they can do to become stronger.

Output: Group aware of their strengths and has a positive vision for the group.
Outcome: The group is making changes to help themselves and not just to keep their AEA happy.

2.) Group Meetings
Helps the group realize how important good group meetings are and what they can do to have more effective meetings.

Output: The group comes out with a plan that has them meeting in a way to suit their needs.
Outcome: The changes the group makes in group meetings are sustained has the group running productive meetings that help the group move forward.

3.) Finances
Finances are so important in groups of all sorts, especially farmer groups who often lack collateral and access to loans that may be required to grow a business. When the group finds a way to manage their finances, they become a lot more attractive to banks and lenders and people who are selling what they might want to buy.

Output: The group comes out with a plan that has them using group finances in a way to suit their needs.
Outcome: The changes the group makes in group finances are sustained has the group using finances to help the group move forward.

4.) Group Project
Often times the farmer groups have a lot of project ideas that they would like to do, this helps the group focus in on one project and helps them plan to make one of their dreams become a reality rather than talking about a lot of different ideas and not taking any action towards accomplishing any of them.

Output: The group comes out with a project that they can do that will put more money into all their pockets.
Outcome: The group project should help the group develop momentum. Through the experience the group will learn that they can design and implement a project that takes advantage of their strengths and opportunities.

5.) Business Plan
This allows the group a structure way to think about their group project, what exactly will they do to get from point A to point B. It makes sure they consider their profit (expenses and income) before continueing with a project. These help them learn basic cost analysis skills and to see the importance of performing one before attempting a project.

Output: The group comes out with a business plan that is well-thought out and considers profitability and risk.
Outcome: Farmers start to use planning as a way to think critically about their business and when making decisions.

6.) Record keeping
Helps the group come up with a method that they would like to use to keep records of their projects and actions.

Output: The group comes out with a way to keep records that suits their needs.
Outcome: In order for the group to sustain the behaviour of record keeping they need to use the records to evaluate profit and help them make business decisions. This occurs in Card #8.

7.) Marketing
When you’re producing something, the success of your business depends on being able to sell what you make. Being able to sell something is dependent on marketing – who are you selling to? Who would you like to sell to? What are ways to ensure that someone is going to buy your product? Often times, the farmers will work individually and then bring their product to the market and all sit in the market selling their goods. Imagine if one person brought the goods to the markets and other were able to continue working on the group project. Or if they were able to practice economy of scale?

Output: The group comes out with a plan to do marketing in a way that will increase their power in the market.
Outcome: The changes the group makes in how they market brings them more profit and has the group realize that if they work in a group they can improve their marketing.

8.) Evaluation of Project
This card goes through a series of questions to help farmers evaluate their business actions and to make changes for the next years to increase their product.

Output: Group evaluates their project and uses this information to continue moving forward.
Outcome: The group sees the value of business planning, recording and evaluating to help them have farming agriculture as a way to provide sustainably for their family.