First day of deployment

While this is being posted later, I wrote it
Monday evening (the Internet going out of
Accra to the rest of the world was down, or
so we were told).

First, to fill in the blanks a little
concerning Saturday and Sunday. Saturday was
kind of leisurely, wandering down to JFK
with a rental car. No real problem; we
were on the plane, ready to go at the
appointed time. But (again!) the plane was
not ready. This time it was a broken de-icer,
definitely considered a no-go item. So they
moved us to another terminal and gate, and
after they got a different flight out of
the way, we boarded and left, with the crew
nearly reaching their legal time limit,
four hours late.

We arrived about 3 hours late, and had no
difficulty with immigration, claiming bags,
clearing customs, and linking up with our
driver. We were kind of squished in the car
with all that stuff, and we added Eric Havor,
a man who teaches in Accra but was out in Mafi
Dove and worked closely with Nell Todd when
she was here during her time with the Peace
Corps. But Eric's knowledge of the people
and ability to translate was invaluable.
(English is the official language of Ghana,
and many, perhaps most, learn it in school
now, but many in the village are not fluent
or speak only Ewe, one of the several
African languages with many Ghanaian speakers.)

The Sunday welcoming worked out moderately
well, since a longer one would have been
hard for us coming straight from the plane,
and they would have expected something like
a real sermon from me, rather than a brief
exhortation.

I was a little bit wrong about the cloth
they gave us. Monday morning on our way to
the village we went to a tailor to be
measured and have them run up shirts for
the three men on the trip. It turns out
that for that they really needed only one
of the three pieces of fabric. So Nell
will get a dress from the second piece,
and the third piece we hope to make some
vestments from for St. John's (the church
I serve), at least a priest's stole, but
perhaps a chasuble (a circular over-the-head
thing sort of like a poncho in shape).

Monday morning we gathered for breakfast
at 7:30 (eggs, toast, that sort of thing).
After stopping by the tailor shop (to
visualize it, more like the porch of a
poor person's house), we proceeded to the
village. We completed formalities with
the chief, which did not take long, and
it was easier than we thought to have
agreement for the computers to be in the
school. (We heard the chief about what
he would like on a future visit.)

We saw the room, which is pretty suitable
actually: concrete floor, louvered glass
windows, locking doors, electricity. And
they had obtained a surge protector
power strip (we suggested they hold it
in reserve). The XOs set up pretty easily
(we were mostly trying to get them all
with a "clean" setup from our memory
stick) and we got one of the printers
going, both locally connected and over
the mesh network.

Then some of the teachers and school
officials played some and we went off
to lunch. Kids got on the computers
later, and it's working great! They're
absorbed right away and getting a lot
out of it. It was all boys today, but
they will make sure the girls are there
tomorrow as well.

Concerning lunch, they kindly remembered
the sort of beer each of us had the day
before and provided that, and the food
was akple with okra stew/sauce to dip it
in. Akple is made from cassava (also
called manioc) and corn meal, and is like
a moist sticky heavy bread. You tear a
chunk off (we had personal loaves, but
it can also be communal; in either case,
right hand only!), dip it, and put it in
your mouth. It was tasty and filling.

We continued with the computers until
something like 4:30. Then we visited the
site of the partially completed clinic.
It looked designed to have something
like 10 in-patient rooms around the
outside and a good-sized out-patient
area in the center. It is right near
the electricity and water hookups. A
good part of the walls are up, but no
roof yet, etc. The development committee
told us that 8000 Cedis might be enough
money to complete it. (At present 1
$US = 1.4 Ghanaian Cedis, or so.) Also,
if the village completes the building,
supposedly the government will outfit
and supply it, and provide medical
staff. This all sounded good, and to
us a project perhaps within our grasp.

We were curious and concerned about
the fact that, while the chief directed
our attention to the clinic, most
recently he had been directing resources
towards a police station, which is
nearly complete, while the clinic
project is stalled. We do not see that
much need for a police station right
there (it's not a high crime area) and
wonder if it's a status thing of some
kind.

We came back to our hotel and this
time saw it before dark and had dinner
here as well. Having seen a new structure
down the road, we cruised through and
"experienced" the Holy Trinity Spa and
Health Farm, a truly wierd place even
by local standards.

We had dinner (mine was shrimp and
vegetables, slightly spicy) and a good
team meeting. We had brought a couple of
XOs and one printer back to continue
zeroing in on our configurations. One
thing is that we wanted to add some more
activities given what we saw the kids
doing with the XOs. The other is that
we wanted to simplify the installation
related to printing, a matter that is
still the weakest part of the overall
deployment I think, but we'll see how
it works out.

Well, that's enough for now; off to
sleep for a good rest before another
day in the village!

Oh, one thing I forgot: even though
it's the dry season, we got an afternoon
rain shower not unlike those of the
rainy season. I think the villagers
considered it good fortune.