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Field Rep Voices – Team Swapnil, Erin, Julia, Alexis and Peter

Team Peter here reporting with an adventure in Ghana Time! We joke all the time that no day would be complete for our team without some sort of mishap to throw off our schedule, and today was no different. After previous baboon attacks, dumping contaminated water on our driver, and some stomach ulcers, today we have a car problem that blew all of our previous flat tires out of the water (pun intended).

We were on our way to the village after early morning mass and mosque for some team members when we woke from our naps to our normally calm translator screaming at us to get out of the car! We ran out so quickly that Julia forgot her shoes, but we all made it safely out…at this point, we could all smell the engine more or less burning. Apparently the wires had literally melted. Luckily, after a few minutes (during which time Swap and Iddrisu started working out at the side of the road), our fantastic program directors had made a bunch of calls and per usual fixed the problem with a new driver.

…until that driver also got a flat tire. Go figure.

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So, eventually, we made it back to our guesthouse, where we were in time for lunch (woo!). Julia is in love with jollof rice, and if you ever make it to Ghana, you have to try some.

FINALLY (after searching for the ever elusive Swap for like 20 minutes) we made it to the village with a new taxi. There, we got to do some monitoring of the water business we had just set up. We are so proud to be working with Sahada, Zenabu, and Miriam, and it was so exciting to see the community support them as well! Although there were a few hiccups with the households we monitored, it was good to meet face to face to deal with the problems directly. Two people were trying to find a time to fill their buckets, one did not understand that the water should be accessible to everyone in the household and locked it up, and one person had (ugh) tricked us into giving him a second bucket. Luckily, we were able to address all these problems, and we look forward to seeing even greater health for the village of Kpingyili in the future!

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Anyway, our normal taxi is back from the shop – we were missing Iddrisu! Wish us luck on our last day at the village. We are so honored to have been a part of the Global Leadership Program, and can’t believe it’s almost over. See you soon USA and Brazil!

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