Brian.McCollow's blog

Talk about entrepreneurship; the men in this picture are working in one of the most entrepreneurial districts in Africa: Suame Magazine. There are over 5,000 businesses in this quarter-mile by half-mile section of Accra!

The children in Ghana seem like any other children in the US. The children here are literally playing in the dirt. They poured water in the dirt and are stirring it around with sticks then play with the mud; and they are having the grandest time! I think this creates an interesting argument on happiness; it enforces the viewpoint that you don't need very much to make yourself happy. It also reminds me of that golden rule of 'Making Do' with what you have.

This is our driver Felix and Chris, being approached my a group of grade school children at Mount Olivet. This was the first school we visited, and we had to immediately get used to attracting lots of attention! I can't remember exactly what they were talking about, but they were all very excited to see us and learn who we were and what we were doing there. Something I thought was interesting was that every single child who is in school wears a uniform. I wonder where they get the uniforms from..

This is a view overlooking a neighborhood in Kumasi. There seems to be a norm of metal roofs which is, interestingly, the same in the villages. I'm not sure where they get the metal, possibly from Suami Magazine? I wonder if it's tin, or some other type of metal, but all the roofs are rusty.

This is the picture I was talking about in my last blog entry, now I can upload pictures! So, I'll try to put one up every day or so, enjoy!

Hello!

It’s been two weeks since my last entry, and sorry for not updating for so long! It took me roughly 36 hours to finally get back to my house; and surprisingly, the whole trip went through with no problems until we got back to the US, which is pretty impressive. I know I had promised, multiple times, that I would put pictures up, and I’m finally getting around to it! I will do my best to upload a picture a day for a few weeks, and I’ll also continue sharing updates from GlobalResolve’s end.

Today we went to Gamoa Daga which was by far the village in the most dire need of assistance...

Today we went to the village called Fawomanye. It is roughly an hour and a half outside of Accra. This was by far my favorite village visit. Fawomanye had a population of 300-400 and we all gathered under a large, low hanging tree in the center of the community. We met up with Mary Kay Jackson, her husband, and three interpreters and we did a village survey with a modified PRA focusing on water issues. About a year ago, GlobalResolve, along with Pure Home Water, was able to donate 300 water filters to the village. Their water source is generally a pond where all the rainwater collects.

This is what Nalini wrote about the past two days. Nalini left early this morning, and it was sad to see her go. But, last night, John arrived, and tomorrow morning Jack leaves as well.

Oh! I meant to give two quick shout-outs.

One to Nalini Chhetri, a researcher with the Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, and a lecturer with the School of Letters and Sciences, who took the picture that is on the home page.

And two, to the School of Sustainability for relieving some of my travel expenses!

Thanks!