Author's Note: This is the first part in a series about my time abroad. Take a look at why I decided to travel to Ghana in my introductory article.
Welcome to the ~official~ first installment of Adventures Abroad! Here, I’ll share a bit about my experiences visiting a new country whenever I visit one! I am spending the month of June in Ghana! So many people living here have asked me, so I figure I should let you all know that this is my first time in Accra, my first time in Ghana, my first time in West Africa, and my first time in Africa at all. I’ve heard Ghana is a great first-country to visit in Africa because the people are incredibly nice. So far, this is true, much to my appreciation. Alright, here goes nothing!
Day 1: June 13, 2016
Apparently people are generally awake by 6 a.m. in this country. My host, Kwami, warned me about this on the drive over from the airport, but I wasn't sure that he was being serious...until I found out he was. It’s understandable that people would wake up so early. The sun is out by about 5:30 a.m. so that work can begin as soon as possible. For us at MoringaConnect, that means 7:30 a.m. to clean the office and factory before the day begins. Luckily, Kwami’s house is right above the facility, so we don’t have to travel very far at all.
At 8 a.m., to start the day, the group silently prays for a few minutes and then one or two team members will lead a collective prayer. Most people here are Christian, so praying together is very common.
After that, someone leads a group discussion around a quote that person wrote on the whiteboard the evening before. However, on Mondays, someone teaches a lesson instead of writing a quote. The lesson can be about anything at all. This week, someone taught us how to fold a paper airplane, but in the past, there have been dance lessons, magic tricks, and many other lessons. I have to come up with a lesson to teach before I leave. Let me know if you have any suggestions!
When the lesson was over, we dove right into work for the day! I had meetings with my bosses and colleagues, toured the facility to learn how things operated here, and had opportunities to interact with much of the staff at this small company.
Turns out, my project and role here have changed from what I anticipated for it to be. The facility we were intending to build in January is not likely to be in the originally planned location for several reasons, so it is no longer a priority for EWB to study rammed earth techniques using the soil near the location we were scouting, which is almost 8 hours away from here! With the traffic in Ghana, it probably ends up being closer to 10 hours away.
Instead, my project revolves around.... Wait for it… BIOLOGYYyYyYYyyYyyy! I am helping Kwami’s team revise the current operations plan to minimize the potential for pathogenic contamination of the moringa products.
Though plants are not really my area of expertise or particular interest, given that I study biological engineering, this is waaaay more my style than trying to design a structurally sound building out of dirt. I get to design and conduct experiments from start to finish, which I gotta say, feels sooo good! It’s really exciting to see your ideas come to life and answer your own questions using scientific inquiry and experimentation.
In addition to that main project, I will be helping for a redesign of the layout of their current facility and will begin CADing up what we would like to see in a future structure at the end of this trip.
At the end of the day, we finish with another prayer. Some people stay, some depart for the day. Though I am not religious, I do love that we start and end the day in the same way. Prayers put minds in a positive space, looking towards growth, kindness, and productivity while simultaneously bringing everyone together to enjoy those things. I think every workspace can benefit from something of the sort.
Another thing I have been particularly excited about since I get to travel to a new country is trying the local food! Right around the corner from the house, there are street vendors who sell tons of dishes made all around Ghana. Each month, the MC team pitches in for lunches and orders from a local vendor. We usually have some sort of stew with a rice or some other starch option. For dinners, I can go out to restaurants or eat from the local vendors, but the best option is definitely home cooking. Kwami’s dad is the sweetest ever and insists on cooking for me. Tonight, I had a stew with rice and chicken and a spicy sauce called shito. When I say spicy, I mean spicy. I love spicy foods, but man, this has quite a kick!
The most difficult part of today was definitely understanding the different accents. I am sure I’ll get better at understanding after a couple of days, but today was tough. I felt bad asking people to repeat themselves several times. Nevertheless, everyone I met and worked with was incredibly nice. I am excited to get to know each person better over the course of my internship.
Day 2: June 14, 2016
Good news: I had zero trouble brushing my hair during a bucket shower! I also am pretty sure I just assumed the water wouldn’t be running when it actually was, so I took a bucket shower for no reason. Hey, might as well prepare myself.
For a little context: on occasion, the water will not flow through the pipes, so homes are left without running water. This could be for a few minutes or a few days. To be prepared for such instances, especially the longer ones, we keep a drum of fresh water from which you can grab a bucket-full in order to shower, brush your teeth, do the dishes, anything that normally requires water.
At work, I shadowed the leaf processing team from start to finish. I got to visit one of the small moringa farms nearby and even pick some leaves myself! There was an adorable little kitten running around the area for a while. Smallest cat I had ever seen.
After we collected the leaves, we returned to our facility to wash and dry the leaves. This part was a bit more laborious. We wash off any dirt or bugs first, then we have to hang the leaves up on strings to dry. We tie bunches of 3-5 stems with rubber bands and fill up the room with these bunches. If there’s a big harvest, this can take hours to do.
Next, we let the leaves air dry for at least a few hours before placing them in the oven to eliminate all moisture in the leaves. Here’s what they look like before and after:
We didn’t get to it today, but we also mill the leaves into a powder and then package them to be sold! Today was so long for us because we actually went through the first experiment I designed for this project.
I convinced Kwami to work out with me tonight and tomorrow morning, so tonight we did the Insanity Cardio Abs regimen. It kicked my butt. Or my gut, I guess, since it was an ab workout. Operation Find Jasmin’s Abs is a go!
Day 3: June 15, 2016
Our quote for the day was “Think deeply, speak gently, laugh often, love much, work hard, give freely, and be kind.” We had to pick which we thought we focused on doing in our lives or were good at and which we would like to be better about, but we could also stray from that prompt as desired.
I said that I believe the most important one of those is “love much.” I believe that because of our innate desire as humans to show love to one another, but, more importantly, because love can manifest itself in different ways and fuel each of those other goals (I will call them “goals” because we strive to see them all in ourselves). If you were to love your work, and I mean be really passionate about it, you would want to work hard. If you have compassion for another being, you’ll give freely. Loving life itself will make you think deeply. Appreciating others lets you speak gently and be kind. Loving yourself will let you laugh often.
Before work ended today, Kwami and I took off to have a chat with one of the professors of biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology at the University of Ghana in Legon. It was a nice opportunity to get a small sense of what a university experience would be like in Ghana. We didn’t explore much, but overall, the buildings seemed much older or less maintained than those at American universities. However, there were many more departments than at MIT or many other schools in the US. You could major in much more specific fields, such as Distance Learning or Soil Science.
Later, we visited a nearby group of foreigners who are completing fellowships at Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology, also known as MEST. Daisy, Kwami’s wife, was a fellow and has remained friends with some. Wednesday night is game night, so we joined for a while. This gave me an opportunity to meet some great people with a sense for innovation and adventure, who decided to spend an entire two years in a country far from their own to gain more than academic knowledge.
Day 4: June 16, 2016
Last night, I found out about a little secret called TigerNut milk. If you know me, you know about my intense love of tigers and my lactose intolerance, so I was pretty excited to meet the creators. I googled it just now and found out that it’s the same thing as horchata… Oh.
During game night last night, we also retrieved two more dogs! We have a house with four dogs now. That’s right. FOUR. I love pups, so this makes me happy.
We had guests for dinner tonight! I met two really nice women who live right down the road from Kwami’s family. Joe, another MC employee and Kwami’s good friend, also joined us! I got to try banku, a dough made of cornstarch and cassava leaves! It’s served usually with a stew (this was okra) and you eat it with your hands. The meats in the stew were fish, beef, pig’s feet, and large snails. I feel like I ate so many new foods by eating a single dish. It was delicious.
Day 5: June 17, 2016
On Fridays, quotes to start the day are replaced with thanksgivings. We each speak about specific people and reasons why we are thankful for them. I think this is a great way to end a productive week.
Work went by extremely quickly, but the biggest event was that Kwami announced we would be doing a 3000/12 challenge: three thousand units of exercise in 12 days. To make it more reasonable, you can split it up into several exercises. For instance, I will be doing 500 minutes of plank, 1000 jumping jacks, 1000 sit ups, 250 pull ups, and 250 burpies. Will I die? Maybe. Will I cry? Probably. But most importantly, will I be swole in the end? Yes.
Tomorrow, I am heading off to Cape Coast, a beach town about 3 hours west of Accra. I’ll be traveling alone via informal public transportation vans called tro tros and staying there alone. This will be one of many future adventures, I am thinking.
I’ll have more adventures to share soon!
