9 March 2009

Hey there!

I certainly hope everyone is doing well and surviving the cold and snow. Ghana, on the other hand, is hot and humid!
I recently spent an afternoon at one of our study site villages called Samahoo. It is a village of about 300 people approximately 15 miles north of Tarkwa. I met with the village chief, Nana Kofi, to share the results of the water quality analysis with him and to ask permission to do further study in his community. I also wanted to try to implement some sort of water remediation technology and a community education project in his village. He agreed to allow more study, so I traveled out to the site to collect water samples with my colleague Dr. Richard Amankwah. We had made arrangements to meet Nana Kofi at the site, but I did not know he was going to bring along everyone on the community council to meet me. Although unexpected, I was happy to meet everyone and emphasize the importance of getting the entire community aware and on board with the project. I need their input as to what type of purification technology may work for the community and have some feedback mechanism to assess the success of the project. Dr. Amankwah acted as the interpreter and we spent at least an hour discussing how the borehole is used, where the community latrine is located, and how much water is used by the community in a day. The only downside to the interaction was the pouring rain we all had to endure while we were meeting!

In true African fashion, water is carried on the head:

Here is a picture of the community members:

This is a picture of the kids waiting for us to get the heck out of thier way so they can get the water:

They were also happy to pose:


The borehole site we have been studying is near a living complex used by local school teachers. The entire site, including the borehole, was built by the area gold mining company as compensation to the village after a large cyanide spill into a nearby river, which happened to also be the sole source of community drinking water.
Nana Kofi also asked us to take samples from another site in the community. This borehole is located near the KVIP, which is the village latrine. I can’t remember what KVIP stands for…something like Kumasi Very Improved Pit latrine. Anyway, samples were taken and analyzed. There is an unsafe level of bacteria in the water of the borehole near the teachers’ living quarters, but surprisingly, the borehole near the KVIP doesn’t have much bacterial contamination.

Samahoo is also sometimes Samahu:

Around the KVIP borehole there is a lot of trash:

The building behind the pickup truck is the KVIP building:

Here I am earning my keep and getting rained on:

This is a close up view of the KVIP...I am thankful for the plumbing in my house:

Work is going along well, but there is still a lot to be done in my limited time here!
I am getting used to the traffic noise around my house and the construction of the second floor has ceased. This enables me to sleep until 7:30 or later!! The roof has also stopped leaking when it rains!
I really learn to appreciate the small things in Ghana…