13 Feb 2009

Hello friends and family!
It is hard to believe that I have already been in Ghana for three weeks! It sometimes feels like I never left!
I arrived in Accra on Tuesday, January 27th and spent the following day retrieving my supplies from port. I now have this system down to a science and I am happy to report my analysis supplies arrived intact. My faculty contact at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), Dr. Amankwah, was in Accra for a meeting so we met at the hotel and drove back to Tarkwa together on Thursday.
Since then, I have been staying at Victoria’s house while I search for more permanent accommodations. Victoria is a doctoral student at the University and her husband works for one of the gold mines as a safety manager. Unfortunately, the search for other housing is not going well. Either the rooms are far out of town or have poor basic services (water, electricity). I considered staying at the UMaT guest house like I did last year, but the place was expensive, had poor water service and no cooking facilities. All this information has led me to negotiate with Victoria and her husband to stay at their house for the duration of my time here in Ghana. I have my own room and the water service is good. I would say we have flowing water 90% of the time. Unfortunately, there is no hot water, but I am adjusting to the cold showers. I can cook meals for myself in the kitchen, although I have to admit Victoria does most of the cooking.
With my supplies already here in Ghana, I have been able to do lots of work in the last couple of weeks. One of the students that I was working with last year took some water samples in November and January from the communities I am studying and I am working with a different undergraduate student to analyze the samples for metals and nutrients.
I have also moved forward with plans to work with a community to do some remediation studies. I have met with community leaders of a village called Samahoo and they are very interested in implementing some simple filtration at their borehole site. There is still some red tape to get through with the Samahoo Chief, but I believe they will come to trust our efforts with a few more meetings and assurances. From my study of the site, the borehole water is severely polluted with bacteria, metals and suspended solids. Filtration and aeration can help alleviate some of the problems at this site, but any remediation will need the support and education of the community. In the upcoming weeks I will be doing some lab-scale filtration studies and meeting with more representatives from the community. I believe that the work is progressing nicely.
On a more somber note, my grandmother passed away this week in Minnesota. She led a full and healthy life, finally passing at the age of 94. I tried to get a ticket back for the funeral, but the expense and travel time was too much for me to handle. I know my grandma, and she would see it foolish to spend several thousand dollars to travel all the way back to the US, but it is still sad that I cannot be with my family. I love my work here and the feeling of being independent, but I am also realizing that this will be my last extended trip to a developing nation. Life continues on, even if you don’t feel connected to it. I have been hesitant to look for permanent jobs in the Midwest (mostly because I hate the cold weather), but I miss my sisters and mom. I miss my nieces and nephews and feel like I am failing to see them grow up. I am still open to faculty positions on the east coast, but I am also looking in Minnesota and Wisconsin. I haven’t seen any great postings as of yet, but I am sure something will come along!
Next time I will post some pictures…