Happy New Year! We had a great end to 2011 here in Ghana and celebrated the new year in style at Tamale hot spot, Sparkles. The Fellows started off the last day of 2011 by visiting some of CWS current villages.
Matt, Nester, Alex, and Laura by the Jerigu dugout
In the afternoon the Fellowship team rotated through the lab, where they learned how to do water quality testing with the samples that they took in the CWS villages that morning.
Tim and Janna working hard in the lab
When teams were not in the lab, they were back at the guest house taking part in some awesome team-building exercises. Our Fellowship Leader, Stef, was very involved in summer camp growing up and had a whole toolkit of activities for the teams to participate in!
The spider web - this activity involved a lot of trust in your teammates!Matt was a pro at the army crawlA blindfolded race against other teams? Definitely requires a lot of trust in your teammate
After a long day of orientation, the we were ready to ring in the New Year! Everyone had a great time celebrating the end of 2011 at Sparkles!
Michelle, Laura, Zander and Janelle on NYE at SparklesLaura, Michelle, Luke, Caitlin, Kelly, Sarah, Katie, Emma, Mark, Kristen and Brittany getting ready to ring in 2012Sauf, Mohammed, me (kate), Hamza, Stef, Sarah, Janna and Larissa Laura and Lindsay practicing the West African dance moves that they learned the previous night!Walter, Peter and Alex on NYE at Sparkles5...4...3....2....1..... HAPPY NEW YEAR!
So it was our first full day in Tamale and we were so excited to finally get the ball rolling after long flights, long bus rides, and lots of jetlagged fatigue to overcome. Everyone was ready to get settled in and really begin the CWS process. The morning started off with some fun icebreakers and get-to-you-know you games for our new 33 Fellows; and people are really starting to come out of their shells and now that they are adjusted to Ghanaian time, starting to let loose and let their personalities shine. It was a great way for all of us to be officially introduced to one another and to start forging friendships.
Caitlin showing off her moves!
The morning was also filled with some orientation and CWS training, including an introduction to Ghanaian history and culture, some information regarding the global water crisis and on water-bourne disease prevention. The afternoon however was a huge surprise for our Fellows…we sent them on a challenging scavenger hunt in the Tamale market, which they have never even seen, let alone been to! They had to bring back items including cola nuts, groundnut paste, spices, guinea fowl eggs, they had to pound fufu, play the drums and even find a movie starring Harrison Ford. However, the best part about it, was that it was a complete surprise…the looks on their faces when we started the countdown for them to pile into cabs were pretty hilarious and great!
Boyd getting his groove onLuke, Lindsey Asia and Kelly with their loot from the scavenger hunt
Afterwards, Kate gave a few more presentations on the CWS mission, organization and implementation process so the Fellows could really grasp what it is that they will be doing in their villages. So far, all the Fellows have been incredibly engaged, curious and learning a lot!
But the night wrapped up with a surprise performance by traditional African dancers and drummers! They were fantastic! They danced, sang, and played all night long! And of course, they pulled us all up one by one to dance with them…semi embarrassing, semi awesome! It was the perfect end to a great first full day in Tamale.
Mark, Sarah, Larissa, and Brianan showing off their scavenger hunt finds!
Just checking in to give a quick update. Our Winter Fellows arrived in Tamale tonight safe and sound, are all checked-in at the guest house and enjoying their air-conditioned rooms!
Michelle (who was on our only delayed flight!) will be arriving in the morning just in time for Orientation. The Fellowship Leaders and I can’t wait to start teaching the Fellows all about CWS and are so excited for our busy day tomorrow! We’ll hopefully have some great pictures to start sharing soon!
I think this has been the one of the luckiest travel days in the history of the CWS Fellowship Program! 30 of our Fellows flew to Ghana today and only 1 was delayed. Considering its the middle of the winter, I’d say we’re pretty lucky! Our 1 delayed Fellow (Michelle) will be landing tomorrow and will head up to Tamale with Shak on Friday. If all goes as planed Michelle and Shak will also be bringing up the four pieces of luggage that didn’t make it to Accra with their traveling Fellows!
Can’t wait for our whole group to be together in Tamale!
Welcome to Ghana! (the view from the plane when landing in Accra! Parents and Friends - this is probably the very first taste of Ghana our Fellows will experience!)
The first small group of Fellows (Alex, Emma, and Brittany) have arrived safe and sound in Accra and are relaxing at the guest house with our awesome Fellowship Leaders. The the rest of the group arrives tomorrow and then everyone will head up to join me in Tamale on the 29th. I just can not wait for everyone to get up here!
I’ll be sure to post on the blog tomorrow night once everyone is here safe and sound – so parents, you can check back tomorrow for a quick update!
Happy Holidays from your friends at Community Water Solutions! This time next week our 2012 Winter Fellows will be enjoying their last day at home before heading over to Ghana. We’ve had a busy month preparing for their arrival and are counting down the days until December 27th! Stay tuned from some exciting posts from our biggest-ever Fellowship Program.
-Kate
*Since this blog will soon be filled with pictures of our Fellows working hard in the hot African sun, I thought it would be nice to post this image of a beautiful winter wonderland as we sign-off for the Holidays.
Our CWS Holiday Online Auction was great success! Thank you to all of our bidders! We are so thankful for your support during the holidays and hope we provided you with some great gifts for your friends and family!
On another note… the Spring Fellowship Application is due Monday Dec. 12th at 5pm EST! Whether you are a recent college grad and still unemployed OR work for a company and looking for an amazing opportunity, then this is the program for you!! The Spring Fellowship Program will take place from April 2nd to the 23rd. Join us in Ghana this Spring and do something awesome!
The CWS Holiday Auction is definitely something to check out!! The items vary– from a handsewn patchwork quilt right from the local Ghanian market to a David Ortiz Hand-signed Official Red Sox Game Jersey to a Private 2 hr Sail on a Yacht around Newport, Rhode Island.
You are bound to get a great gift for someone on your list while also supporting CWS’ work towards eradicating the need for safe drinking water in rural Ghana.
You can’t solve a problem if you don’t know what exactly your problem is. For this reason ‘baseline data’, or information about your problem before you start fixing it, is key. In our reality of limited financial and human resources, however, collecting baseline data presents logistical and ethical dilemmas for small organizations like CWS. Quantitatively evaluating the effects of drinking dirty water on community health is extremely complicated and often impossible, even with unlimited resources. And our resources are not unlimited. Every dollar we spend doing surveys on diarrheal incidence, for example, is a dollar NOT going towards a new center or monitoring. So we don’t do them.
Just because it isn’t feasible for CWS to collect baseline data before partnering with a community does not mean we’ve given up on the approach! Continue reading →
