First few days at FoN

Hey friends,

FoN, or Friends of the Nation, is where Sara and I are doing our internship. We've been here since Monday now, and I'm really enjoying my time here so far. The office is about a 30 minute drive from our home, so we take a taxi each way. The office is surrounded by gardens, and behind the building is a road that goes up a steep hill to a secondary school. Sara and I adventured out for a bit, but got stuck in the red clay before too long. Sara and I have our own office, which is large and sunny. The people at work are incredibly friendly and sweet. They go out of their way to do stuff for us. So far, it’s unclear exactly what we’ll be doing, but it seems that I’ll be working with Kyei (pronounced Chay) in Natural Resources on a Fishery project called Hen Mpoano (Our Coast). Sara might be working with Kwesi in Population, Health, and Environment, perhaps doing some work in reproduction and maternal health. We have mostly been reading so far, and I have learned a tonne, and I mean A TONNE, about fisheries in Ghana.  I especially love that as I read I recognize concepts and organizations I have studied at school. I feel so in my element, and I am both applying my degree at school and learning new material about natural resources in Ghana and fishery issues. Kwesi also had be edit a proposal for a program on Child Labour, as everyone in the office has English as a second language, which I really enjoyed as it kept me busy and I learned about the issues as well. Lunch at work is awesome. A woman comes with buckets of rice, salad, pasta, hard boiled eggs, and so far either chicken or fish. For only 1 cedi (66 cents) I get a large plate of rice, salad, and an egg. Today we got to get out of the office for a bit. We had a staff meeting outside under a tree, for all the new interns. There are five of us in total. They have about 5000 mango trees that need transplanting near a lagoon, that suffers soil erosion, pollution, and water shortage. We checked out the area where we'll be transplanting in a couple of weeks. From the shore line we could se the new oil rig. Oil was discovered in Takoradi a few years ago, and many people have great hopes for the wealth this could bring to the area. Many are worried it will bring over exploitation and poverty as well, as gold, diamond, and bauxite mining has. The oil rigs are also causing additional problems for fisheries, and it seems from the articles I've read, the fishermen are troublesome to the oil lines as well. We then headed to a slum area off the shoreline where FoN has recently implemented a new latrine project. We asked people in the community if the latrine worked, if they were being used, and if they'd like more. 

My lunch break is just about finished and as always, I have loads of material to read!
Caroline

Reading about Hen Mpoano