May 12th 2009

One thing that will help the financial situation is the favorable exchange rate from Dollars to Cedis. Last year, the exchange rate was 1 to 1. This morning I bought cedis at 1 to 1.43. To my surprise, prices don’t seem to have inflated at all. Everything is the same, if not cheaper, than it was a year ago. It’s nice to catch a break on that.

After exchanging currency, Akunz took me around Accra to look for some of the materials that will be difficult to find in the north. It's obvious where the US has left its mark on Ghanaian culture. This is a billboard along a major street in the city.

We stopped briefly at a warehouse selling drip irrigation supplies. They offer a half acre system out-of-the-box for about 600 cedis. While this is what we need, I’m hesitant to simply buy a “project” from a private vendor and then turn it over to the farmers in Yua. Serving as humanitarian delivery boys does no exactly meet the rigorous engineering challenges characteristic of this organization.

Our next stop was the Solar Light Company. They have a website advertising a household solar system for 2500 cedis. That’s less than our current solar budget, so I thought I’d at least give it a look. As it turns out, the system they refer to on the website includes just two 100 watt panels. Even if you could buy all the components of the system for 2500 cedis, which you can’t, a 200 watt array is not half of what’s necessary to power any reasonably sized home.

There were, however, some components they offered for an affordable rate. The charge controller, batteries, and lights were all comparable to what we’d pay in the US. Panels here go for around 9 cedis per watt. That would be about 9000 cedis for the size array that is actually needed for the system I have in mind. We’ll be much better off shipping our own panels over for around $1500.

I took* dinner this evening with Akunz and his family. Dr. Akunzule is a veterinary doctor, born in Yua, and educated at Cornell University in the US. He is a well respected elder in both his home village and in Accra, where he currently resides. Akunz’s claim to fame is that he was the first man in Ghana to perform surgery on a lion.

His daughter prepared a traditional meal of riceballs and groundnut soup. The soup contained bits of what appeared to be snake. I thought it might be rude to ask. Honestly though I didn’t want to know.

*Local idiom. You “take” meals rather than “have” them.

-John Yatsko

May 11th 2009

I was met at the airport in Accra this evening by our good friend Dr. Akunzule. I suppose he’s just my good friend now. Of the 8 NAU volunteers who embarked on the last implementation, I am the sole returner. The rest have graduated or moved on. It won’t be a problem for me so much as for the new volunteers. They have big shoes to fill.

The new team will break up into four groups to tackle the various tasks we have planned. Bryce Gillies will lead the Drip Irrigation team, Conner Ricket the Borehole Repair, Jessica Lum the Assessment, and I the Clinic. Kate Dorrel will serve as Documentarian and Dr. Aaron Denham our cultural advisor.

The construction at the clinic will occupy most of my time for the coming weeks. Considering the scope of the task at hand, I’ve chosen to stay in country for a full six weeks, two weeks longer than the rest of the team. So, this time I travel alone.

It’s a familiar scene at the airport. The flight was late and so was the baggage. I’ve learned by now to pack as though I’ll never see my luggage again; so I was prepared for it. In three years, our bags have never made it to Accra on the same day that we did. Today, however, both of them made it safely to the conveyer belt at Kotoka International…even if they were two hours late. I take it as a good omen.

For those unfamiliar with the project, our chapter of EWB has worked in the remote village of Yua, Ghana for the past three years. The community has no electricity, plumbing, sanitation, adequate medical care, and very limited access to clean water. On the previous implementation trip, the team constructed a mechanized solar well at the Yua market, a solar lighting system at the junior high school, and sponsored the drilling of an additional borehole at the clinic.

This year we have a larger project, 3 fewer volunteers, and half the budget. We’ll have to run things a bit differently on this one.

-John Yatsko

EWB-NAU IMPLEMENTATION TRIP, PHASE I

Hello,

Below you will find our blog for the first half of our implementation trip in Ghana. The team is doing great and the project is coming along wonderfully. We promise to get more photos up as soon as we can! Feel free to leave comments!!

-Yua Development Project Implementation Team