Funeral and Green Turtle
Hello to all,
Been a while since we have added to this so it's about time. Pics below after you wade through the boring stuff! No cheating!!
Village life - It's just us now. A second group of Danes has been and gone, and now we have an end date for our time in Tsyome too. We will be supporting the projects for a while yet, but just from a little further away on the coast. We spent Xmas at Green Turtle Lodge (www.greenturtlelodge.com) and after a random chat with Tom the owner about his and Jo, his wife's expected baby, we volunteered our services to help them out by managing the lodge while they give birth back home. We are here for charitable purposes after all. So in mid March we'll be moving a day's journey away to learn a new job and spend 5 months with white people on the beach. A little strange as currently we are in a minority of 2 most of the time. But it won't stop us working on the other things we have started, and there are plenty of ways to make ourselves useful in the new place. (We will have a free spare room from April and it's an open invitation for a cheap exotic hol. Food and drink is very very cheap so all are welcome. Bookings required!)
Back to Tsyome: Susie Maria was born on New Year's day to Evelyn (the sister of our ever present culinary support officer Sinorita). My mum was born on the same day a couple of years back and Maria was insistent on being in on the act, hence the striking name... maybe the story is a little different... Maria has just reminded me as I write that I was the insistent one and she was persuaded by the family that they would love to call her Maria. Either way, everyone seems happy about it now!
The computer centre is coming along nicely in spite of some cash flow issues and we are nearly up to roof level. The community are really supporting the project (as with all the other ones too) and have just raised money of their own to buy the fuel to cut the trees (donated by family heads) needed for wood.
The school roof funding is almost complete and we are going to buy most of the materials needed with Tobacco (one of the main elders in the village) in Ho next week. Hopefully we can finish this before we leave. Things can take so long to do with all the annoying little setbacks to deal with that to finish just one project would be a blessed relief! This will be plastered and painted thanks to donations by the rich 'sons of Tsyome' who have made good in Accra.
The photo below of Maria, me and Amalia was taken on the day of Tsiami's (the elder responsible for the IT centre) family funeral for his mother and sister. His sister died a few months ago after a long illness and his mother died about 2 years ago. Funeral customs are very different over here and they can last for over a week if the family is very large and wealthy like Tsiami's. Needless to say, palm wine features heavily and donations of money and food is made by the relatives (goats and yam). The talcum powder thrown over everyone is a symbol of purity and it is oddly all a little festive considering the occasion.
Been a while since we have added to this so it's about time. Pics below after you wade through the boring stuff! No cheating!!
Village life - It's just us now. A second group of Danes has been and gone, and now we have an end date for our time in Tsyome too. We will be supporting the projects for a while yet, but just from a little further away on the coast. We spent Xmas at Green Turtle Lodge (www.greenturtlelodge.com) and after a random chat with Tom the owner about his and Jo, his wife's expected baby, we volunteered our services to help them out by managing the lodge while they give birth back home. We are here for charitable purposes after all. So in mid March we'll be moving a day's journey away to learn a new job and spend 5 months with white people on the beach. A little strange as currently we are in a minority of 2 most of the time. But it won't stop us working on the other things we have started, and there are plenty of ways to make ourselves useful in the new place. (We will have a free spare room from April and it's an open invitation for a cheap exotic hol. Food and drink is very very cheap so all are welcome. Bookings required!)
Back to Tsyome: Susie Maria was born on New Year's day to Evelyn (the sister of our ever present culinary support officer Sinorita). My mum was born on the same day a couple of years back and Maria was insistent on being in on the act, hence the striking name... maybe the story is a little different... Maria has just reminded me as I write that I was the insistent one and she was persuaded by the family that they would love to call her Maria. Either way, everyone seems happy about it now!
The computer centre is coming along nicely in spite of some cash flow issues and we are nearly up to roof level. The community are really supporting the project (as with all the other ones too) and have just raised money of their own to buy the fuel to cut the trees (donated by family heads) needed for wood.
The school roof funding is almost complete and we are going to buy most of the materials needed with Tobacco (one of the main elders in the village) in Ho next week. Hopefully we can finish this before we leave. Things can take so long to do with all the annoying little setbacks to deal with that to finish just one project would be a blessed relief! This will be plastered and painted thanks to donations by the rich 'sons of Tsyome' who have made good in Accra.
The photo below of Maria, me and Amalia was taken on the day of Tsiami's (the elder responsible for the IT centre) family funeral for his mother and sister. His sister died a few months ago after a long illness and his mother died about 2 years ago. Funeral customs are very different over here and they can last for over a week if the family is very large and wealthy like Tsiami's. Needless to say, palm wine features heavily and donations of money and food is made by the relatives (goats and yam). The talcum powder thrown over everyone is a symbol of purity and it is oddly all a little festive considering the occasion.
posted by David & Maria at 3:50 AM
1 Comments:
Hey guys, wow, sounds like you're having an amazing experience out there! For my part I've recently been spending a lot of time in Milton Keynes, but I don't think it quite compares!
The beach lodge sounds like a lovely little number to me, you done good there!
Keep enjoying it, and look forward to your next posting!
Bob
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