Making the best of our last months in West Africa with nine weeks to go before returning to the industrialized world, we busied ourselves this month in celebration of Bob’s 55th birthday, by working on the FS2BD project, running around the streets of Kumasi, doing a little pre-packing, working in the garden and enjoying our friends.
BLAST FROM THE PAST – 1975
Bob turned 55 this month and still has his boyish good looks. Here he is in his dorm room at TASIS, The American School in Switzerland. And again nearly 40 years later in Ghana.
IT ISN’T A BIRTHDAY UNLESS YOU HAVE A CAKE
Camille learned of a cake baker in the neighborhood and ordered a Black Forest Cake with pears to further legitimize Bob’s birthday celebration.
TAKING THE BAD WITH THE GOOD
When out and about, we are often subjected to ear-spitting evangelism. This is what a one-cedi church looks like. A woman with a big loud speaker saving souls for one cedi a piece (the equivalent of fifty cents.) While this kind of abuse is supremely annoying, we just as often encounter nice people like this vendor that Bob frequents. More at: The Streets of Kumasi
RAINY SEASON HAPPINESS
The collard greens, basil and chard are enjoying cool temperatures and lots of rain. Once a week, Camille makes one big pot of tasty, nutritious greens which we enjoy over several meals.
GLAMOUR SHOTS
Recipe for bliss. Wander out to the garden with a camera. Capture the perfection of a drop of water on a collard leaf or the texture of a smooth, purple eggplant against healthy green leaves.
LINDA
Linda came over to look at our garden, shared a cup of tea and met our Troutsfarm avatar, Spot.
SELF HAUL TRASH SYSTEM
What we don’t compost, we burn, hand off to landfill ‘pickers’ or throw on the landfill pile. Here BJ and Wilson take care of this semi-weekly chore.
FECAL SLUDGE!
The digesters at the landfill biodiesel site are in overflow mode. Up close, the sludge resembles an oily milk shake. But that’s the good news. One needs fat to make biodiesel. Find out more about the reason we’re in Ghana on this page: FS2BD September, 2013
HIDE AND SEEK
Bob got tired of being spied on by the neighborhood kids who often entertain themselves by peering through our gate at the Obronis inside our compound. So he grabbed the Nikon and chased those camera-shy boys away.
BJ’S PLOT
BJ thinks growing food is a great idea, decided to make her very own garden plot and got to work. Here she adds compost to the tilled plot.
SNAKE!
While she was working in the garden, BJ scared up a 2-foot snake which made everyone run down to see. By the time we got there, it was long gone, hiding under the broad leaves and tangled vines of a sprawling squash plant. A little later she found another, much smaller snake which had us scratching our heads over whether it was a worm or a snake. Camille thought it resembled the little blind snakes we encountered in Hawaii and looked it up. The pictures matched and so we knew that what we saw was a blind snake from the Typhlopidae family.
NESTING AND UN-NESTING
We found a Bronze Mannikin nest, complete with eggs laying on the garden path. It must have blown down from the eaves of our house where they like to build nests during a boisterous rainstorm. Meanwhile, Bob has had packing crates made to order, delivered and we are filling them with goodies to ship home. Nine weeks to go!
REAL FOOD
Here is some lovely coco yam and turmeric that Bob grew in containers on the deck upstairs. The coco yam is delicious boiled and served with parsley and vegan sour cream made from a smoothie of soaked, raw Ghana cashews blended with lemon juice. We have made several meals with the turmeric, adding it to stir frys, tofu scrambles and stews.
The tahini-lemon wheat berry and beet salad on the right is what we brought to Steve’s birthday party.
KUMASI FRIENDS
Bob and Steve share a pre-party beer the Saturday before both their birthdays. Mano and Camille see each other one last time before she and her family leave Kumasi. Check out many more pictures at: Fun with Friends
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THIS MONTH’S QUOTES:
“The problem is the relentless, rapacious, and unquenchable appetite for ever more money and power by dynasties that are already extremely rich and powerful and do not know the meaning of the word “enough.” And they have any virtually no limitations on their actions.” – Stonefruit.blogspot.com
“Make no mistake. We are in war with entrenched vested interests to shift the world to a sustainable energy path. And the first casualty of war is the truth.” – Glen Estill
“Climate change is scientifically complex, politically divisive, economically costly, morally contentious, and ever so easy to deny or defer to others at some later time. But the continuing failure to anticipate and forestall the worst effects of climate destabilization in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence is the largest political and moral failure in history. Indeed, it is a crime across generations for which we have, as yet, no name.” – David Orr from State of the World – Is Sustainability Still Possible?
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