Happy Birthday to Bob and Justin! Another wonderful month featuring birthday celebrations, FS2BD project progress, goat shenanigans, thriving gardens, wetland exploration, market purchases and a glimpse of village life.
BILL AND BOB ARMANTROUT – GHANA, 1972
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Bob’s father, Bill is facing the camera, deep in discussion at a Christmas party in Tema in 1972. Fourteen-year-old Bob is peering towards the camera in the standard issue eye glasses of the day.
BIRTHDAY BOYS
Bob turned fifty-four on the 25th and Justin became twenty-three on September 21st. Coincidentally, Camille was born in 1954 and turned 58 this year and Bob was born in 1958. Some photos of how we celebrated both birthdays here: A Two-birthday month
FS2BD
The Biodiesel plant at Dompoase is taking shape. See more photos at: FS2BD Project Progress
COOKIE AROUND THE HOUSE
Camille poses with a woman, Affia Atta, who came to harvest some of our lemon grass and writes in the airy office we’ve set up in the octagonal solarium on the ground floor.
GOAT HERD
Jeremy added a third goat to his little herd which stirred things up a bit for a couple of weeks. Goat watching, or Goat TV is one of our favorite pastimes. For the whole story, please check out: A New Goat
BUSY GUYS
There’s always something happening in the yard. Jeremy and Bob work on the garden fence. Bob brings in a branch of Moringa to use to start our own tree. These and many more photos can be found at: Around the Yard and Gardens
KUMASI FOREST RESERVE
On a bright Sunday morning, September 9th to be precise, Jeremy, Bob and Camille wandered beyond the neighborhood to see what’s going on back there in the green belt. We had seen on an old map that most of Adiebeba and Ahodwo was once designated Kumasi Forest Preserve. We found rice farms, vegetable gardens, cattle and glass. More on this page: Wetland Walk
COOKING AND GETTING MAIL
Camille cooks over propane using light that Bob rigged up – a flashlight atop a water-filled ground nut paste jar. We sometimes go for weeks without a power outage and then there are weeks when the outages occur daily and sometimes for 12 hours at a time.
We got mail! Camille holds our first piece of mail, a letter from friend Carolyn Lemon while Justin shares the happy moment.
TO MARKET, TO MARKET
Wow! Bantama market was quite the experience! We are continually amazed at the places Eric finds to bring us. On this day we were searching for bambara beans. And then we went and bought some tables for the kitchen. More great pictures here: Bopping Around the Kumasi Markets
DE. J G WOOD LANE
At 7am on September 19, we were treated to an ear-splitting tirade of political propaganda. A car fitted out with loudspeakers drove slowly around the neighborhood making sure no one had slept in. Our next door Jean had not slept in apparently as he followed the car down the street on his way home.
AYOUM VILLAGE
Dr. Mensah invited us to tour a composting project in a small village and we happily went and found many things to interest us, especially the people. More photos on this page: Ayoum Village
VISITORS FROM LAKE BOSUMTWI
Elodie and Alex dropped by on one of her shopping days. Alex’s dog was of much interest to the goats. Here they stand in front of the moringa tree which hangs over our wall from the neighbor’s yard.
AKWAABA
Spot photos are always a must. Alex is here for three years on a Peace Corps mission and went to Bob’s alma mater, University of Colorado, Boulder. Elodie and Camille share much in common and are fast becoming friends.
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THIS MONTH’S QUOTES:
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” – Henry David Thoreau
“We’ve created a way for the entire population of the USA to not pay attention to what’s going on in our society. It explains a lot about how paralyzed we are and how unable we are to form any kind of plan of action for what we’re going to do. You’ve got a whole nation now that’s mentally masturbating for huge amounts of time every day.” – James Howeard Kunstler
“I added that is was no fun to grow old, but that the compensation for it was that time turned your mental shit-detector into a highly calibrated instrument.” – Paul Theroux from Dark Star Safari
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