August 2nd, Day 11 - last day of the training. We began with finishing the processing of honey, then reviewed things and wrapped up. The prefect came again, this time in green fatigues and a green beret. I'm so bad at recognizing people i didn't realize it was the same prefect that was at Ibro's yesterday (nor at that time that it was the same ( Read more... )

Saturday, July 30th - Just after i hit post on the previous post our driver emerged out of the surrounding fog, and simultaneously, the restaurant guy emerged with the carafe of hot water and a tea bag and presumably the invention to take our breakfast order. I burst out laughing because now we had to go. But Damba assured me we had time to wait ( Read more... )

So I woke up this morning bright and early planning to make an update about yesterday (nothing dramatic happened yesterday, just the usual observations), sat down at my usual place at the tables in front of the hotel, opened my laptop and...


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Wednesday, July 27th, Day 5, Today - Just after nine we began our first day of training here. Normally I'm accompanied by one "program assistant," but because I'm the first since covid I'm accompanied by the entire staff right now -- two program assistants, two drivers (the Organization's drivers themselves aren't "just drivers" but are long term ( Read more... )

July 26th - Departed the hotel at 8am after being picked up by the organization's Program Assistant Ousman and driver (?) in their white landcruiser. It was raining, of course ( Read more... )

July 25th, today - Ibro the country director came with one of the drivers to pick me up today. Ibro himself has only just recently come back from his own vacation in which he traveled to Mecca to make the hajj, and now can append "al-hadji" to his name. I think it's kind of cool how unlike in Nigeria where you primary get to add "chief" or " ( Read more... )

July 23rd - Quick flight From Accra to Abidjan in neighboring Ivory Coast (11:00-12:50), was slightly stressed because my onward flight was scheduled to leave at 13:05 but also felt confident that if I was unable to make it on account of my flight coming in late (it had departed Accra 35 minutes later than the original departure) they'd have to ( Read more... )

   If I may interrupt the ongoing travelogue to fly wildly through time and space... there's this writing contest to win a trip to Argentina and travel writing mentoring, and the deadline is in 12 hours actually I just realized the autoloading count down on the webpage is counting down from Melbourne time but in the time zone of the deadline as far ( Read more... )

Thursday, July 30th,
Labe, 0700 - Ibro, Damba, Daniel, driver Mamadou and I got started bright and early on our trip back to the capitol, leaving the hotel promptly at 7. Monica had gone back to the village she's posted to the day before to pack for her upcoming trip to the Peace Corps training village near Conakry (to welcome a new group of ( Read more... )

Monday, July 18th, Labe - Arrived in Lafou about half an hour north of the town of Labe. The highway was really shockingly well made here -- no potholes at all. Apparently its part of a new road that goes from Labe to Senegal and will eventually link all the West African countries together ( Read more... )