The exams at AGOTIME SECONDARY SCHOOL (where the court is being built). Too hot inside the buildings.

Akpeteshie distiller James. Palm wine goes through this twice to become Akpeteshie.

foundation of court filled w/sand

Michael's class only had 1/2 day of school so they came over to play catch.

Lately the Hammonton (I spell it differently each time I think) season has been in full effect. It’s when the winds change and the temperatures do too. After this it gets really hot. Right now the nights are cool and there’s a constant breeze. It sounds refreshing but lots of people, especially PCVs, get sick during it. I’ve been sick for like 2 weeks now but only 1 really bad night and day. That night I had to put on my longsleeve tshirt for the 1st time here and covered up with my lightly used sheet and was still freezing; it wasn’t fun at all. The next day I just stayed in bed, read, and listened to BBC and now am feeling a bit better.
As for the basketball court, our sand man (literally) finally found a new source and got us the needed loads. Now the foundation is filled and it’s a good spot to stop as both the school and I will be going on break and the sand can settle. When I get back we will get the backboards made, install the poles, lay the concrete, and paint the court. That will still probably take a while but overall we’ve moved pretty well even if it doesn’t seem like it to someone in the States.
All the required information for the visitors’ centre will be with my NGO as of Wednesday so hopefully by the time I get back things will be ready to roll on that too. Lots of stuff has been happening in Kpetoe so it’s pretty cool. Topping all of this we no longer have a “tv hut,” we now have a building with walls and a ceiling fan! Next thing you know that internet café that’s been “coming soon” since March will open.
With my trip home this close the last week has gone by so slowly! My friends here have given me presents for my parents and will cover for me on work, yardwork, and bills. I’ll miss them but I think I’ll be so busy catching up with family and friends that the 3 weeks will fly by. My computer lessons with my friends here haven’t quite reached the point where I’ll let them blog for me however, so this will be the last entry until I get back January 8th.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Our first try at the floorplans for the visitors' centre. All those years of Chuck Messengers Architecture class being used.

Poles for the basketball court at the welders.

This is my token cute African kid for the day. Ladies I'll be home in 10 days; I'm building him a court.

Our initial signboard, we'll see how much it changes.

Internet everyday last week was fun but once I found out I was healthy I was ready to get back to site. While I was gone there was absolutely no progress on the basketball court which was disappointing but we’ve made up for it lately. Still doesn’t look like it will be done when I go home but Friday Mukaila and I finally tracked down some poles! The welder did them over the weekend and yesterday Mukaila got them delivered all the way to the school. Now we just need to find some more sand (something my dad says Africa shouldn’t run out of).
I’ve also been getting kente ready to take home and meeting with our tourism group about the plans for the visitors’ centre. We get to design our billboards and pick 6 locations throughout the country to put them. We also got to design the actual visitors’ centre within given dimensions; this is the stuff that I love to do and the guys are excited about it.
I have only been weaving about an hour a day so progress is slow on my latest pattern but we did set a 1 day record with 28 visitors on Saturday. 18 were Ghanaians from Accra and spent more time watching me weave than any of the other guys. I thought they’d be mad but they were amused. Bright and Joshua also decided that it was insane that I had been here for 15 months without having the “meal of the chiefs.”
One night I asked what they did for Christmas since I had only been in my village for like 2 weeks last Christmas and didn’t know anyone. They said go to church and have a special Christmas meal. Worst decision I’ve made in Ghana was asking what that meal was.
Cat. Only men are allowed to eat it the “meal of the chiefs.” They wouldn’t let me go home without trying it. Joshua tracked down one and told me how feisty it was. They were so excited about it all week. Sunday rolls around and they come to my house to take me to where it’s prepared. On the way we did a shot of Akpeteshie to “grow our appetite.” Rule to live by from Danny V: “Anything you need to take a shot before eating can’t be good.”
Akpeteshie is by far the worst thing I’ve ever tasted. It’s Ghanaian Moonshine, double distilled palm wine that tastes like gasoline mixed with tequila that’s “industrial strength alcohol.” Seriously, it’s disgusting but it’s very cheap and gets the job done.
There was plenty of cat to go around especially since I only had 2 pieces. They made fun of me a lot for not eating much. By the time we were done I was late for my tourism meeting (usually I wait hours for them) but no one was mad, they were so proud that I’d finally had cat.

Thanksgiving in a small World

Congrats to Lumen Christi football for their 8th state title!!
Grand Valley is moving towards another national title too so that helps me deal with Arsenal's falling apart of late.
Thanksgiving at the Ambassador’s was very fun. I was the first to arrive at embassy employee’s house of the 3 of us staying there. You might not think much of it but it had Armed Forces Television, hot water, and AC in every room. I watched Home Alone 2 one morning!
Me-What state you from?
Host-Michigan.
Me-What high school did you go to?
Host-You wouldn’t know it because it’s not around anymore but it was St. John’s.
Me-Which combined with St. Mary’s to form Lumen Christi.
Host-…yes
Later that night we figured out that he’s friends with my aunt who is now a nun. If you met Sister you would know why after he found that out he was even nicer to us.
Thanksgiving had awesome food that I have never been more thankful for. It was open bar with actually good drinks too. Before I knew it the Ambassador was mixing my drinks and from there it got fun. I did lose my Adidas sandals that I had worn for over 430 straight days here. My feet have so many blisters from this new pair I’m trying to wear now.
While hear I also sold a lot of kente to other PCVs or Expats that I’ve met. I’m getting to know more and more Expats and they are an extremely interesting bunch. I feel pretty lame compared to most of them but they can’t weave kente so it’s ok.
I’m stuck in Accra for Midservice Medical so I can’t really do too much for the court. I did what I could so they could get some stuff done while I was away but we’ll see. It’s Hammaton Season which means the changing of the winds and I’ve got a cold. This is the first time I’ve been sick in Ghana.
Today I have a meeting with my supervisor about starting work on our visitor’s center! The plan would now be to break ground by February. There are a few steps we have to do until then which should keep me kinda busy when I get back from the states! 17 days!
Happy December!!

The fully blocked foundation. This court ain't going nowhere.

Entire court dug out

Getting the trench dug

The court is moving along nicely. They finished the blocks which will make for a very strong foundation. We are still having some issues locating poles but everything else is going well. Next step is to have the kids fill in the space between the bricks and then comes the laying of the court itself. It’s cool to ride out there and see where the project is each day.
The Trade Fair in Ho last week was pretty nice. Think Jackson County Fair but without elephant ears or a Vainner winning largest sunflower head. I’m not sure how much our district sold, it wasn’t a ton, but we got our name out there a little more. I didn’t do too much work for it but was still in Ho for a little bit of most days. That cut down on my weaving but was still fun.
Meg Hub’s dad sent me a package which was perfectly awesome. I mention this because it also had tons of pictures from when Meg Hub visited me here for the kids. Pictures might not seem like much to us but these kids were going nuts. Singing and dancing and showing everyone nuts. I guess you have to realize that theses are their first picture of themselves and will probably be the only pictures they’ll have of their youth. That’s sad but makes these mean a ton to them.
Wednesday I head down to Accra for Thanksgiving! Last year Maria and I killed the turkey for our group and this year the US ambassador is having some PCVs come to his house for dinner AND we get to stay with embassy employees! A little different than last year. That means super nice house probably which could mean NFL game on satellite. I can’t watch the huge Grand Valley or Lumen Christi games which stinks but watching the Lions would be awesome. I’ll also be purchasing the rims for the court at the mall while I’m there. Then I’ll go back to site on Friday to take care of stuff for the court only to have to come back to Accra on Sunday-Thursday next week for my Mid-Service Medical.
They do a few tests, send us to some dentist, and just check up on us now that we have under a year left. One of my best buds Marcus will be down there with me so it’ll be fun. We’ll probably go to the only movie theatre and to the only sports bar in the country and have internet every day. Does life get any better? Oh it does, it’s almost Christmas Season!!! Christmas is always amazing but this year it means home for 3 weeks!

Taken this very morning, setting african blog posting records. This is Bright's loom set up at the Trade Fair. He stole my seat pad because mine is a lot newer than his, jerk.

I am under orders from some big donors to take LOTS of pictures of the Basketball court being built so here are some:

Bricks for the foundation

Truck dropping one of the loads of sand.

This court is for them and they're glad to help.


Land after clearing

Part of the planning committee

Land before clearing.

The site of the court, directly behind the Secondary School
The court is coming along very nicely, well for Africa. The land was cleared and fairly leveled by the school kids in no time, which was awesome to see them all out there excited about the project. Mukaila wants this to be around for a long time and is making sure things are done correctly. That means right now they have formed bricks that will be the base for the court so that it doesn’t sag and crack. We’ve had 10 truck loads of sand and stones delivered and have a platform made for all the cement work. Things were flying until we ran into our current problem. There are no poles to be found in all of southern Volta region for some reason. Today we’re going to look some more but we have to have the poles before we lay the cement so this could be our first (of many I’m sure) delay.
It’s extremely weird to be on the other side of things. I’ve done construction in the States for like 7 years but started as the grunt and then ended as crew chief, never the guy paying for it but rather building it. If I wanted things to go faster I would just work harder. So far I’ve lifted 2 bags of cement and they yelled at me for doing that. They call me “sir” or “Mister Daniel” and have me look at things and approve them. I don’t like it, give me my 20 ounce Craftsman hammer with straight claw (think I miss my tools much?).
On the weaving side of things today we packed up Bright’s loom and hauled it to Ho for the Volta Region Trade Fair. Not sure how it’ll all turn out but they have a very nice set up at the parade grounds and people are coming from all over. They were just opening the stalls this morning but I thought it was really cool. This week I’ll be splitting time in Ho and Kpetoe. I don’t think I’ll actually be doing too much work in either but it’ll be nice to mix things up a little.

Things are starting to get going on the basketball court. Mukaila has been so clutch. He sets up all the meetings with the artisans and even drives me to see them and when appropriate he negotiates stubbornly all while continuing his big man job at the District Assembly.
The nice thing about working at a school, especially in Ghana, is that the kids are used to doing work. Usually they do work for others but this is so they can get a court so they don't complain a bit. I can only imagine if Lumen asked us to clear ground for a new football field (good luck in playoffs this week!). They cleared the entire area of bush, trees, and weeded it in a day. Today and tomorrow they're leveling the land. Bright and Joshua were almost upset when they found out they wouldn't have to organize the weavers to do daybreak labor. I'll try to get some pictures but I've been running around getting stuff.
I was very impressed with my Barclay's bank. Usually if I go in to get money out they see I'm white, see my name isn't Ghanaian, give me my money, and say "Thanks Thomas" (they don't do middle names much here so they get confused. However when I went in to get more money than I'll make off my living allowance for my 2 years here they didn't just hand it over.
They kept apologizing about having me do my sloppy signature one more time. Then I went and talked to the manager, and he said I wasn't wearing glasses, I showed him I had contacts in. He called Peace Corps. In typical PC manner the first 5 numbers we tried didn't go through. Finally our awesome secretary answered. She verified I should be getting money out and that I was "very tall, white, and had the bushiest hair." I don't think my hair is that bushy.
Plan is to get materials delivered this week and hopefully get going w/the concrete on Monday. This is Africa however so if we do it within 2 weeks I'll be happy. Either way it's great to be moving forward.

Hippo attack stops vacation

Adam Luck's man purse pattern woven by Dan Vainner, watch out Coach.

Aladdin and Jasmine. Actually he wasn't supposed to be Jasmine but his costume was so close it had to be.


Creepy huge statue of Mary on the mountainside at the Grotto.

This is Julie next to the SMALLER statue and that statue is on it's knees.

October was the hardest month I’ve had since February. We were between steps on all our projects and it’s been miserably hot. I thought I needed a vacation so Kevin, PCV, and I were planning on going to the coasts of Togo and Benin and relax for a few days to break out of it.
Nothing here is easy or goes to plan however. It took 3 entire days for me to collect and submit the stuff for my vacation request due to signatures, printing (lack there of), power outages, and emails. After some discrepancy it got approved; we’re ready to go. Not so much. Kevin calls me on Friday and is like “I don’t think I can go man, a hippo bite me.” I thought he was joking; not in Africa.
There was a hippo in his village and everyone was watching it when it started to come towards them. Kevin tripped while people were fleeing and doesn’t really remember much after that. Hippos kill a lot of people here so we are very lucky Kevin is ok but he is pretty shook up (rightfully so). The big bite on his butt required lots of stitches. Boys will be boys and Adam Luck and I call him “Hippobottomous.” Too soon? Anyways, no go to Togo. To make myself feel better I decided to use the money I woulda spent on visas to go to the mall and buy lots of stuff. My entire bill, with lunch, was only 22 Cedi (~$17) not even close to a visa. I’m pretty used to this PC living apparently.
Not going is fine however because as of this morning I have the funding in my account for the basketball court! I got all the official paper work from Washington and was reminded just how many people donated and how fast it filled. The generosity of people back home is enough to break any bad mood.
A few articles have been published on what I’m doing over here. It’s a lot of pressure because I really don’t do much but they are much appreciated. The Global Connections one I submitted a write-up for and was the only one I was aware of before my parents read it. I have no idea who did the Lumen Christi Alum Newsletter one or the Faith Magazine one. Whoever did didn’t miss a beat about my projects and I’m impressed, very. My quotes are pretty cocky but I like that. I’m not some saint and people give me too much credit.
Speaking of Saints, Julie and I visited Amber one day and went to the biggest Catholic Grotto in West Africa which was really creepy/cool. There were all the Stations of the Cross life-size and a statue of Mary that was GINORMOUS. It looks like November will be a much better month than October. And how many people can say that a hippo biting someone's butt prevented their vacation!

My new pattern

The maroon and gold pattern is the hard one that I used to break like 37 strings while doing.

Let’s see this week I wove, worked out, and read…a lot. That’s about it. Really changing the world eh? Highlight of the week was probably the Spam sandwich I had compliments of Mrs. MegHub. It was delicious; which I think means I need to go home.
Still waiting on the transfer for the basketball court money. We did finalize, or at least I think we did, the location for our visitors’ center which took months. We’re hoping to be able to start building the court after I get back from Togo and Benin Nov 8th if we have the money. Hopefully around then the construction manager will come and approve the site for the visitors’ center too. Ideally the court is built by the time I go to the States for the holidays but that’s not very likely. I want to be able to show people who donated the finished product that they funded in like record time.
Togo and Benin should be a nice break though. Kevin and I don’t really have an agenda but they are French colonies so the food is better. We’re gonna stay close to the coast and there’s voodoo villages, who doesn’t love witchdoctors and beaches? I know I do.

My closest PCV neighbor, Julie, works with an NGO and found this as proof of the amazing work and cultural understanding she been able to promote in her time here in ghana. the following is a VACANCY flyer she found this morning that her counterpart typed up. this is how the counterpart views her job:


If not for her hard work there would be nothing crossed off, though she does need to work on their speaking good english.

Friday night in the Under 20 World Cup Final the Ghana Black Satellites (Sr national team is the Black Stars and Women’s team is the Black Starlets) played Brazil. This match was HUGE here; everyone stopped whatever they were doing to watch it. Ghana didn’t play their normal exciting game of quick crosses and athletic deflections, Brazil was in control. Just before half Ghana even lost a man due to a questionable red card and would have to play down one man the rest of the match. They somehow held on for regulation and 30 minutes of OT to force a shootout. Tension in the TV hut was high.
Twice during the first 5 attempts it looked like Ghana had lost. All Brazil had to do was score but our keeper stopped one and a player kicked the ball inches over the net. After 7 shots finally Ghana won and the chaos started. Singing, dancing and chanting while the showed them receiving their medals and then it all moved to the streets. Parading up and down our main street with drums and any noisemaker they could find. In Accra apparently the partying didn’t stop until 4 am. This was the first time an African nation had won any World Cup. Keep your eyes on the Black Stars come South Africa 2010, we’re ready.
Other than that it’s been extremely hot and power has been out a lot. Sunday the entire country didn’t have power. We’ve been trying to find a better location for the visitors centre but have really struggled with that. The current spot is almost 5k out of town and is just ridiculous if you ask me. If we build there it pretty much will be useless so hopefully we can secure better land. Between waiting on that and hoping that PC transfers the funds for the b-ball court I’m lucky we’ve had some fun guests lately and that I have hobbies. It took me a few days to get the hang of it but now my next pattern is coming along nicely. A guy from Accra said I was the “hottest weaver in town” since lots of people stop in to watch a white guy weaving a medium level pattern.

“It may be the strings are not strong.”-Bright from his loom on why my strings kept breaking while I tried a hard technique.
“It’s you.”-Bright after pulling on the strings to test their strength.

Some of the strips of Obama sewn into a cloth.


Yesterday I was typing a write-up and a guy comes up to my window and explains to me that there is a big snake just on the other side of my house. My Eve is horrid but “snake” in any language will get my attention. He was just wearing a pair of flip flops and shorts and was holding 2 big sticks. Apparently one of these lethal armaments was for me. “I don’t think so Tim.” I hate snakes more than the Yankees. I went and spun threads the entire morning so I didn’t have to come home.
I wasn’t in too good of a mode last week and some of it was because I was between patterns and not weaving. I walked into the centre and the oldest weaver (like 70 years w/7 teeth) starts giving me a hard time about how he hasn’t seen me in days. I got the message and started getting set up again. You should see my loom now, it looks like an X-Wing cockpit. I went from 4 shuttles, a set of pulleys, 2 crossbars, 16 bobbins, and 4 colors to 8 shuttles, 2 sets of pulleys, 2 pedals, a weight, 4 crossbars, 32 bobbins, and 8 colors. I understand about 65% of my tools right now but it’ll come.
Joshua and Bright keep pushing harder patterns at me and I love it even if I am incredibly slow again until I get the hang of it. They have shown everyone my Obama cloth including tourists. Joshua woke up at 2 am yesterday morning to finish threading my loom for me so he could teach me some techniques before he leaves for the weekend. Then I go to the thread store to get more shuttles and bobbins and the guy won’t take money from me. He says I work hard for them and that he likes my weaving. I don’t work that hard and my weaving is a work in progress but alright.
Ghana is in the Friday finals of the Under 20 World Cup. The games have all been really close and in the afternoon so we listen to them while we weave and when there’s a goal we go find the nearest TV. Grand Valley, the Tigers, and the Red Sox all lost last week so I need Ghana to win this thing.

Pretty average week at site and it was great. Yesterday I finished my “Obama” cloth which took almost 3 months to do due to travel and my weaving speed. I put in about 5 hours/day in the loom this last week to finish it up. All the guys had bets on when I would finish so I had to make sure Bright or Joshua won. It took over 70,000 passes to make the 12 strips. This cloth is a thicker pattern than most so progress was extremely slow. It was based off a traditional pattern and it’s customary to fire a musket in the air while you’re cutting one of those from your loom. We were in the weaving center so cheers and mock firing of guns (fingers) had to do but it was great. The palm wine guy in town just tapped another tree so we had a calabash each to celebrate. The guys at the thread shop didn’t think I’d be able to do one this hard so I can’t wait to go buy threads for the next level up this week. This one should look pretty sweet, I’m pumped.
On the way back from my morning exploratory bike ride (I’m cutting back on the running so now I go down bush paths on my bike and check out the tiny villages which is really cool) I ran into some Germans here for kente so I showed them around. After lunch they went to leave and a girl gave me her email address and I said, “Oh I’ll email you in case you want more kente.” She laughed and said, “No, that’s in case you ever find yourself in Germany.” Real smooth Dan, real smooth. Maybe it was because this time I didn’t try my German…
When Harry Potter 6 was coming out the kids and I did a HP movie marathon on my front porch. The girls really loved Emma Watson, the girl who plays Hermione, because she was smarter than the boys and better at magic. They think I’m famous cause I met Obama and hang out w/the big men in town so they asked if we could write her. We did and today when I checked my mail I had an autographed picture from Emma in it! The kids are gonna love it when I go back tonight.

some pictures of twister fun!







Really cool sky one night that I tried to capture...not so much


Marathon route
PC hasn’t said a word about it yet but I think the basketball court is fully funded! My mom, the best PCV ever, called me 2 days ago saying the website says it’s funded. AWESOME. They had predicted 6 months to fill one that large but my family and friends did it in 2.5 months, very impressive guys, you rock. We’ll see how long it takes PC to get me the money but hopefully we can get going on this.
Between that and the talk of the visitors’ center and sign boards it’s very exciting at site. A lot of PCVs say how much I’m doing at site but really in a day about all I do is a few hours of work and weave a lot. (I should be starting my next pattern within a week.) People back home funded the court and NCRC is funding the visitors’ center, I’m just the bridge.
Last week was no running water, this week looks like no running water and no power, gotta love dry season coming back. Now with the marathon out of the way I got my bike fixed up and can start lifting again. I’m working on planning a bike ride through Togo into Benin and back but working out the details is pretty hard here. We gotta start traveling because we’re almost ½ done with our service.
Mukaila’s going to visit a friend of the guy I replaced in Washington this January and he’s really pumped about that. I can’t wait until he sees snow. Some of his questions are pretty awesome.
Under 20 World Cup is going on and the Black Satellites, our team, are doing great so far. They just whopped England 4-0. The TV hut was bopping. They won the African Continent earlier this year in some thrillers; they’re a fun team to watch.
Another month down and another record month of sales. The festival helped that however. Hopefully we can keep this up into the tourist off season.

If you were wondering about the marathon here’s my thoughts, it’s long. I put it separate so only people who really wanted to read it would have to:
Running your first marathon in Africa probably isn’t the best idea ever. Despite being a quick twitch athlete (sprinter) I think I trained pretty well with my long weeks of 20 and 22 miles. I was aiming for under 4 hours. We woke up at 3am and eventually ended up at the start line around 5 with the race starting at 5:30. It was quite a variety of runners there. Like 10 of us PCVs, Kenyan runners, Ghanaians, US marines and some expats. It started pretty late with the African sun already up, not good. It was delayed because they didn’t have water ready yet, also not good.
We started off and I settled in about middle of the pack. About 5 mins in I was running with a cute PCV from Mali and she had this satellite watch that told you your mile split. She ran in college and we were at a 8:30. I held that for my 20 miler and it hurt so bad so I knew I wouldn’t make it for 26.2 miles. Push your body to try to stay with cute girl or drop back and play it safe…Rower Dan wouldn’t have thought about it and stayed with her but I told her cya later and dropped back. A German tried to stay with her and I passed him about an hour later, he finished a long time after me.
Most of the run I was completely by myself which I’m told isn’t normal. How do I know what is normal? It’s my first one. Our veterans were not happy with the marathon and it’s very randomly and misplaced KM markers (not miles), drastic ups and downs and obstacles, lack of food (I had 2 halves of bananas the whole run), the hills, heat, lack of direction, and it’s course which lead us through a developing nations capital without closing anything. Dodging tro-tros, venders, and women wider than buses in Accra is a rough way to end a marathon. Also pacing yourself with KMs is much harder than miles. I did the math in my head and knew I had to do 5:40 KMs but try multiplying 27 x 5.40 then convert it to hours and mins after 3 hours of running.
About half way through I felt great, like really great, I had paced myself and passed a lotta people that went out too fast. I don’t think I picked it up but I had long given up on even looking at the wrong markers or my clock. A few kms later I was passing guys on their 17th marathons who said this was by far the worst one ever, thanks guys, very motivating. The whole time I’m expecting Kimmie, our running pro, to pass me with a smile on her face telling me to keep it up. After ages between markers I come up to one that seems way too far from the finish and they only hand me ½ a cup of water. I need electrolytes or something and I’m out of the amazing GU packs. I’m slowing down and hurting like crazy but still passing people and turn a corner and there’s Andrew, a PCV whose goal was 3 hours a ways ahead but barely moving. Catching him had to be the most hilarious site.
We were only 2 white people in the packed streets of Accra and our bodies are cramping and we can barely move. Eventually I catch up with him and I’m dieing, like chest cramping, worst pain ever dieing, but going faster than he is. We’re both competitive and we look at each other. Then my leg massively cramps again and I say “Let’s walk” something I never thought I’d say but I had no choice, my body was done. He was like “Thank God” and we started the most painful and humbling hour of my life. We were 3:32 into it and had we continued running at our average pace would have been done in 28 minutes.
Walking sounds easy but we could barely do that. Every once in a while we would try to “shuffle” but one of us would pull up with a cramp. The KMs seems like an eternity and the streets were packed. I had nothing left. The thing was everyone else must have died too because I think a total of 3 people passed us in over an hour of walking. We turned a corner and could see a far ways and couldn’t see the finish, horrible. Not too much farther there was a hidden turnoff and Julie and Andrea were there cheering for us. These are my only 2 friends within hours of my site, so we do everything together. Julie yells “Only 10 miles left guys!” and I gave her the bird. Just before that we had started shuffling again so when we passed them we picked it up. It was the last like .1 mile and I’m a sprinter so we sprinted. In rowing we used to do 7 ups, which was up a beat every 7 strokes so we did that with steps and crossed the line together looking strong with a time of 4:43. We came in 40th place, 3rd of Ghana PCVs. They got my numbers and the cheering section came to take care of me. Sinae, Julie, Maria, Andrea, and Marcus all took care of me while the rest worked on others finishing. I couldn’t breathe without pain. The rest of the PCVs started to trickle in. When Kimmie came in we knew she had been hurting, she was 1.5 hours over her previous worst time.
At first I was pissed and swore I’d never do one again. That night I partied it off and was the only runner still going somehow at 1 am. The next day we were in tons of pain but I was feeling better. I asked Andy, who had to stop to use the lack of facilities twice why we ever did it and he said, “I dunno but I’m not gonna let Africa beat me like that, I’m gonna get it next year.” I won’t make any promises but I think I will too.
I gotta thank Jen Shen, KTP, and Anne Varner. Without their help I never would have came close to finishing.

a year in africa by the numbers

exactly 1 year ago today we stepped off the plan in Accra
42 Peace Corps Trainees arrived
40 Peace Corps Volunteers Swore in
40 are still here
I've had:
4 hot showers (3 of which when Meg Hub paid for hotel rooms)
44 books read
18,061 pages read
49.48 pages/day
261 games of minesweeper won on expert
1 woman driver out of all the cars I've been in
1 cell phone tower
20 hours longest time in a tro tro in a day
1 cinnamon roll
200+ morning runs
1 marathon ran
4:43 marathon
43 minutes off my goal
0 times wearing jeans
368 days without hugging mom
15 months since Tripp and I have lost in darts
over 25 countries represented in tourists at my site
5,836 cedi sold of kente (recorded)
2 bear fights with Adam Luck
1 US presidents hand shook
1 first ladies hand shook
1 goat hit on bike
1 crooked nose from hitting goat on bike
1 chicken break in
1 lion attack near my village
3 Skype conversations with family
0 baseball games attended
$4,000ish donated towards basketball court so far
1 kente pattern designed and named by me
365 days in the same Adidas sandals
75 ish buckets of laundry by hand
1/3 of my clothes ruined until i learned how to wash better
5 languages attempted to be used in conversations in 1 day

My water’s been out for a few days which just means living off the water in my barrel for a while. I only have a few cups since usually I do dishes after each meal because the ants will attack if you don’t. With water out I didn’t do dishes after dinner last night and only had one cup for this morning. After my run I made up some Propel and a neighbor boy about 6 years old comes up to me. They like to try American things so I go to make him some Propel and realize I’m outta cups. So I grab my Michigan double shot glass and fill it up with Propel (which is clear) for him, hand it to him, and we hit glasses on my front porch. As soon as we go to drink my neighbor comes out of his bungalow. “For Daniel, It is too early for that and he is too young!”

Some Kente Festival Pictures (before batteries died and I picked a fight with Brits and Germans)



Yes, that is strips of kente

Bright's speed caught in picture


imagine this on a full court.

Being away from site for almost 2 weeks can be overwhelming. It was refreshing and reminded me of how great I have it in Kpetoe. However, it also exposes just how daunting of a task that PC and the likes have taken up. I’m very partial but I truly believe PC goes about development the right way. It’s definitely not the easy or short way.
We don’t come offering money, we offer trainers/facilitators. Often we don’t get to see our results and yet we spend the longest time here. While we’re forming groups and trying to transfer knowledge NGO’s are constructing buildings and donating vehicles. It can be extremely frustrating when people don’t want to work for something because they think that someone else should come and do it for them. Luckily I don’t deal with this too much but lots of PCVs do. The others leave infrastructure and buildings, what will we leave?
These are just the tip of what PCVs deal with. If you don’t like sports or carpentry and want to have a long conversation with me pros and cons of development is a good choice. With this much time to think sometimes stuff just gets to ya. I say all this because I just got to catch up with about half of my group and I’m hoping it’s just a phase but overall we’re just not that happy. No one has gone home yet but it looks like that will be changing relatively soon. A year away from home is a long time especially when you don’t have that many concrete accomplishments. We all miss people and know we’re not even half way done.
At the same time I look at how our group has changed and what small changes we’ve helped to bring about and I’m honestly pretty proud. We can eat just about anything, picked up new hobbies, languages, and friends and really have had some successes. The cultural exchange is there just by us living alone in our communities. Our health volunteers have done HIV/AIDs camps, programs, and even dramas. Our environment volunteers have planted millions of seeds and aided in alternative livelihood projects. We business volunteers have the most range to our work but we’ve had our share of things to write home about too. I may not have done much but when you add it to the little things the rest of the group has also done…then we’re making progress. It’s slow and frustrating but we’re going about it the right way.
You’re probably like after all that dependency talk you’re getting your family and friends to build a basketball court? Defense: It’s not something they need to survive, it’s for the kids, and HIV/AIDs awareness is something that I truly believe we need to continue to do. I want to do that in a fun way. Also, have you seen “The Air Up There”?.

“Local bands in California sing about Michigan.”
“Really?”
“Chh...no”
-Marcus after asking who sang a song about California of mine.

Conference has been kinda long but very legit overall. Marcus and I have won 2 best of 7 Euchre series making us the best players in the country and it’s been great to catch up with some of the group. The hotel we’re staying at is hilarious. I call it an IKEA store cause everything looks really awesome but doesn’t work.
We had a person living with AIDs here in Ghana come and talk to us a few days ago and that was probably my favorite presentation so far. She was very calm but very powerful. Oscar forgot to bring a belt so on our way here he bought one with a belt buckle that says “NO!” in huge levels. We call it his chastity belt. Some of the statistics and whatnot are really staggering.
I know I’m still no HIV/AIDs expert so when I do the basketball gala and presentations I’ll have some of our more medically inclined PCVs come and present, I’ll ref the games. Gotta do what you do well.
We watched Game 5 of the NBA finals tonight and the commercials were almost as cool as the game.

Festival was pretty slow all week until Friday when all the chiefs and big men went out to a small village with muskets and home brewed Akpeteshie. I didn't think this "Firing of Musketry" sounded all that safe and I ran 22 miles that morning so I took a rain check. When they came back and I saw what state they were in I'd say I made the right choice but they gave me a hard time. Should PEACE Corps volunteers be firing guns anyways?
Rest of the day was just awesome. The national breweries sponsored a street Jamboree Fri and Sat nights. The roads were packed and I won a towel, t-shirt, and Guinness jersey. Saturday was the Grand Durbar complete with VP of Ghana and South Korean (Chrissy musta sent him) Ambassador. They carried all the chiefs and a small girl in canoes from town to the grounds which is now Julie and I's long term goal for next year. There were at least 20-30 obvious tourists and 1,000s of Ghanaians so hopefully the ads we put up helped.
The only negative would be the quality of some of the people that came. I love the people of Kpetoe but not always the big city people. 2 characters from Accra tried to make me pay to take pictures. Our strength is that we don't do crap like that to our tourists so I was not happy. All in Eve (somehow) I asked them where they're from, told them I lived here, and that I'm sure my personal friend, Paramount Chief Nene, would be intrigued to hear about his personal photographer being harassed. They seemed to lose some authority. The next day a friend of mine had 2 phones stolen from her. That stuff never happens in my village and if I would have told Michael and crew they'd still be looking for the culprit.
The next day Oscar and I took off for Kumasi for the HIV/AIDs workshop we're at now The hotel has wifi!!! Doesn't always have water but still awesome. Kpetoe to Kumasi is like Jackson to Grand Rapids. We left at 8:30, 7 cars, 2 breakdowns, and 10 hours later we arrived.
I think I need these 2 weeks of conferences as a break but I'd still rather be at site. Around the 1 year mark it's not supposed to be easy and lately I haven't been quite as excited about being here. Others in my group are similar. We all love it here but have been here so long and are still not even half way home.
Today we had to say what we're doing for HIV/AIDs awareness and I talked about the basketball court plan and how my family raised $1,000 via garage sale. The whole room applauded, wish you guys coulda been here for that. I'm getting some great ideas for how we can maximize the effectiveness of the court once it's built. Alan and Marian are trying to beat me to filling their proposal. They're retired so their friends hopefully don't still have college loans like mine!

It’s Kente Festival time. All over the Agotime Traditional Ruling Area people have pitched in to help. Sounds like a lot of fun but 8 hours of preparation debates in Ewe gets a little old, over 2 hours were spent on the prizes for the Ms. Kente Pageant, they decided not to have a Mr. Kente since no one could challenge me. It’s still going to be really cool with the speed weaving and design contests. The guys want me to enter the speed weaving competition because I’d be the fastest white weaver ever (big accomplishment). It was weird promoting something that you’ve never been to however; we’ll see how it turns out.
The more I work with the big men and Queen Mothers the more I appreciate my weavers. Bright, Francis, Richard, Oscar, Joshua, and the likes are just all around good guys. Joshua weaves all day 6 days a week and then sings in the choir at his church on Sundays. He and Bright are also the first guys to help with any manual labor for our projects or to come cut my grass. If he sees me struggling in my loom he’ll jump out of his and come over and set me straight which can take a while. There are up to 20 weavers in the center at once and they pretty much just weave and chat. They don’t compete against each other for sales but rather sell for each other if they’re not there. When tourists come they just hang up their cloths and get back to work. Their laid back attitude and quality of work are our best selling points. Some strips take up to a day to weave and then they’ll sell them happily for like 4 or 5 cedi (~$3). I’m glad that I get to work with them the most because as much as I’d like to complain they got it rougher and they’re still happy.
Football season has started again and that really helps. Weekdays I’m usually great but weekends alone with nothing to do can get to ya. Back home weekends were nonstop fun, sometimes too much so. I really get into some of the football matches which makes up some for the lack of social life. I was legitimately depressed after Man U came back and beat Arsenal last week, like I was really into that game and so was the rest of the packed TV hut. My dad wouldn’t be too proud to hear that but I promise if the BoSox make the series I’ll go watch the games in Accra, which will start around midnight here. Until then the Blackstars’ World Cup Qualifier Saturday will have to do.
August broke the streak of consecutive increase in attendance months at 6 but still had a solid 50 guests. We did set a new record in sales with 1055 Cedi.
Megan successfully smuggled bootleg Harry Potter 6 DVDs home, my little sister is using hers a ton.

A PCV that just left told me it's great to get guests from home cause they take lots of pictures of stuff you wouldn't at your site. It's true, here are a few(she took like 500) of Meg Hub's pictures. (used completely w/o her expressed written consent)