Trying To Game The System

First there is nothing wrong with what I am doing so far as I can tell, at least not from a legal standpoint. Yet after a few false starts, Vodafone's offer finally started to pay off for me until I hit a little snag yesterday. Please bear with me.

Vodafone offers mobile phone service in Ghana, and they also offer internet service through USB Modems that attach to your computer. After I got to Hohoe I chose Vodafone since another provider at the time dropped all service for multiple days running and that just would not do at 'tall' (as the Ghanaians say it). In Ghana you do not pay a monthly fee, you purchase credits that you redeem through the provider and when you speak for a certain amount of time you run your credits dry and must buy more. Equivalent to pre-paid phones in America. The great thing about Vodafone was that if you buy credits in higher amounts they add bonus time to your account. If I bought 5 cedis of calling time, then they would give me a 50% bonus, making my purchase in effect, seven cedis and fifty pesawas (7.50).

Only later did I find out that if you put down major money, you could get a 75% bonus. Now that is some serious texting and talking there. If you bought 10 cedis of credit, you had on your phone 17.50 of time. To call the U.S. from Ghana would run about 1 cedi for 7 minutes of chatter. Not too bad, and calling local phones here was a little cheaper still.

There was one small catch. Your 10 cedis had an expiration date, maybe two or three months from the time you entered it on your phone. The bonus had a separate expiration date, usually earlier than the full value you added to the phone. So 10 cedis would expire in three months, the 7.50 would expire in less than half that time. Not a problem, since when you called or texted it came off the bonus credit first.

Now, enter the Internet modem. I can get a full month's service on my computer for 45 cedis. The small catch was I needed a new chip to make the modem work, I couldn't just use my phone SIM. I pay the full amount (45), add it to the SIM chip for the internet modem (am I losing you at this stage?) and get my internet connection, but then I don't get a bonus for spending 45 cedis – the internet modem doesn't have that same offer.

Transferring credits to the rescue. You can transfer credit from one phone to another and that is how a lot of people here buy their time on the phone, they just pay someone else a small fee and that someone else will transfer their credit to the other phone. I have two SIM chips, and I have two phones to place said chips into. My goal was to pay 45 cedis, two twenty cedi cards and one five cedi card, add them to my phone SIM chip, then receive the bonus minutes on my phone card. After that, I would be able to transfer the 45 cedis over to the internet SIM chip which was temporarily put in my extra phone. It sounds convoluted, but this worked.

I would get my internet modem charged up with the 45 cedis, and my phone had a bonus amounting to 32 cedis. Two birds, one giant stone.

Up until yesterday.

The internet modem credit expires after 30 short days. The phone credit expires after what appears to be 37 days (give or take). I have to wait these seven days before I can repeat the process, as when I add credits to the phone chip now, the bonus expiration date does not extend beyond the 17th of May. I found that out the hard way when I plugged in a five cedi credit to the phone. My perfect plan to game the system has a slight kink in it, but I am very thankful I have a computer lab and free internet still on campus.

I have found myself doing strange mental calisthenics to pass the time. Congratulations for reading this far.

Peace Corps Ghana Descends On Ho

We started on Sunday night, but really we started much earlier in Hohoe before the All-Volunteer Conference got underway in Ho. I had a trickle of volunteers come and go last week prior to all of us traveling to the regional capital Ho on Sunday morning. Many volunteers were making their way to and from a few places so the house stayed busy over the course of five or so days with maybe twelve visitors in all. Upon returning Thursday I realized how much cleaning I have to do.

The All-Volunteer Conference (All-Vol for short, but for some reason we do not use AVC even though it is a Peace Corps-sanctioned event) is a time for every volunteer currently serving in the country to meet up at one place and learn about programs, PCV-led initiatives, committees, and gobs of information regarding HIV. It was great to get there a bit early, enjoy the pool, and see some very familiar faces stroll into the hotel compound where we were staying. Of course everyone was there from the group that I traveled and trained with, but this also includes the volunteers who have been here more than one, two, and three years. Lots of PCVs and plenty of catching up to do from all areas of the country.

The major funder of the event is PEPFAR (see, acronyms) which stands for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which meant that each day we devoted a majority of our conference time to learning about HIV and AIDS by way of reviewing ongoing projects that are being down by other volunteers in the field, and what type of funding can be obtained through PEPFAR grants. Towards the end of the day on Wednesday, all of us could no longer hear the word PEPFAR as an acronym but rather, it became a sentient being unto itself with eyes and ears and a dry sense of humor. PEPFAR could be very subtle at times.

Humor aside, most of the conference presented all the PCVs with a pretty thorough understanding of what is being done and what could be done in the communities in which we serve. To put it mildly, the bulk of the subject matter would not make for good web logging material as it pertains to very particular details that only matter to us here. It did help to have a good night's sleep though before the day started to make it all the way through as some topics might are far from whimsical and light.

Beyond the HIV component, we were given many opportunities to learn about PCV projects in a variety of disciplines running the gamut from girl leadership camps to how to set up a computer lab. If there was time to fill, many participants were eager to speak about what they had found to be successful in their areas. We had very little time where we just sat and stared at each other with nothing to do.

Another chance to meet with the Volta volunteers happened at our regional VAC (Volunteer Advisory Council) meeting. We got together and went over the minutes from our last meeting and voted in a new representative for the area. I don't know how close the vote was but somehow I got the nod for the duties which are just a few, and then was briefed a bit on what it might entail. It seems to be just a bit of travel and making sure that all the suggestions from the volunteers make it to the regional meeting which also needs to be scheduled by me. Sounds familiar to a few things that I have done before, so it should be fun. A Robert's Rules of Order refresher is on the horizon.

Actually, after that meeting all of the new representatives from the eight regions of Ghana got together for the national VAC meeting. We went through the concerns and addressed them in a way that seemed to suit all assembled. The last order of business was to set the new Chair and Secretary for the national group where I got a nomination as did another PCV, Jonathan Schatz. When the votes were tallied for Chair we had an even split and after some discussion, it seemed easy enough to just rotate each meeting between Chair and Secretary between the two of us. I got the Secretary spot for the first joint meeting between VAC and our Country Director and the Director of Program Training. It seemed like a decent meeting and something that I am happy to take part in.

Lastly, after serving in the group that helped plan this year's Pre-Service Training back in April, I put in my application to become a Peace Corps Trainer (yes, PCT for short) and when the conference was closing on Thursday morning I found out that I had become a trainer. There were many named so I now forget who I will see at various times, but I am sure more will be revealed as the weeks pass by.

All told, things worked out fairly well and no one was injured during the conference which was a prime objective of those organizing these events. Everyone had a lot of fun and we got to say our good-byes to those who will soon be closing out their service in just a few months. “Alls-Vol” was a resounding success in my book.

Happy Easter

Of course my updates have not been what they used to be here and it is not for a lack of time on my hands, it has just been that I have not stopped by the computer lab often lately. The students have departed for another of their vacations and in their place there are adult students who are busily studying various subjects to obtain a degree or certificate which they can take and use to advance their careers. I don't believe that they have an exam this time around, but they will be taking copious notes in classes upwards of 80 or more individuals.

That is one long paragraph to introduce an apology for a lack of updates, but that is the way things have gone lately. There is not so much going on around campus so I have made this time useful by cleaning up the house daily, having a few more shirts made and conducting errands to town and back to keep myself occupied during the day. I went so far as to even buy natural gas to cook with which had its own story.

After hailing a taxi with my empty tank in my manly grip (not quite so, but it sounds nice) I headed to town and a turn off that I had never traveled before lead us to the filling station. Tropical Gas was the name, and there didn't look to be a serious line whatsoever. Just one man, one cylinder, and one attendant doing the filling. I take it that the method is as follows: hoist the empty cylinder onto a large industrial-sized spring scale and take a measurement of the weight, then attach the nozzle to the tank and run the pump to fill the tank up to a heavier weight. Looked straight forward, and after waiting for about three months to do this simple chore I was feeling a bit satisfied to complete the task.

Then the power went out as I stood next in line. The man filling the tank jumped to a wall and flipped a switch off as if it really mattered a lot to do that, and he turned and said, "Lights off," which means that the power was off in town. I looked at the taxi driver to find out if this had a negative consequence on our mission. Yes, it did. We would not be getting gas then and there, but I could leave the tank behind and come back later when the power came back on. Small things like that could be an irritant of course, but given how long I waited to do this in the first place it seemed entirely justified that I wait a bit longer. I went home, paid the fare, and then waited until the power flowed freely again before heading back to the station to pick up my tank. All told, just twenty cedis for the entire affair including the bonus taxi ride to and fro.

But back to Easter. You can have yourself a very good time for Easter if you wanted to travel to places here and there. Most people that I knew felt that the best place to be was in a town in the Eastern region where a great big hill serves as a launch pad for paragliders. I even saw a news clip from the event and sure enough, lots of white people were waiting in line to try the trip. If you were inclined to drop 80 cedis, you could fly, but I opted to stay closer to home.

Here in Hohoe you could choose from any of the dozens of church services held at 7, 9 and who knows when else. Easter as a holiday has a lot more festive feel than it did in America where it was celebratory but not party-esque in nature. There is still music playing this Monday evening as the holiday goes for most of the weekend and then moves on into the first day of the week. As a national holiday most families take a trip somewhere and picnic or visit friends. I spent my Easter not paragliding, not going to church, and not picnicking. Rather, I talked with the family back home via Skype.

It was definitely better than all of the above as I got to see my aunt and uncle, as well as my grandmother who may or may not have understood what Skype was or did, but certainly recognized her aging grandson on the computer monitor. It was great talking about the time spent here, how things were going on back home, and generating ideas for more blog posts in the future. Further, I got a chance to wish a happy Easter to my lady-friend before I closed shop for the evening and tucked myself into bed. To cap off the day I got a text message from my brother that the Philadelphia Flyers prolonged their season by another game with an overtime victory. Sweet!

Not a bad holiday at all.

My First Visitor

All is quiet at the house again as I have returned by my lonesome from the airport in Accra today. My girlfriend Damla paid me a visit in Hohoe and spent ten days in the country with me to see first-hand what it is that I am doing and what it is like to live here in Ghana. I wanted to see the country through her eyes as someone who has not been here before. I gather the first impression was the heat and humidity of Accra and Ghana in general. For some reason the week was quite warm with very few interruptions in the heat index. Not that this was a bad impression for someone just getting away from one of the colder more snowy winters in the northeast of America, but it can really hit you like a ton of bricks.

I spent most of my time in the tro-tro ride home pointing out things that I thought might be of interest – the typical tourist stuff of which I have minimal knowledge. I know only what someone else has told me, and for most of the ride to Hohoe there is little to remark on besides the lake and the farms. As we were going over a few speed bumps I could see from my seat that the oncoming tro-tro had a goat standing on top of the roof. This happens but it is not something that I get to see everyday, so I told her to look out the passenger window to catch a glimpse, expecting her to be surprised by the very sight of a goat riding on the roof as it passed to our left (you would really not want a goat riding in the passenger area as you might guess). Unfortunately, this was the least-sure-footed goat in Ghana, and those speed bumps that we were were rolling over gave it a run for its money. She looked out the window the moment it fell off the roof. Good thing though, or bad thing depending on how you look at it, the goat was leashed by its neck to the metal railing that was welded on to the top of the tro. I told her to look at the passing vehicle the moment a goat was strung up by its neck, wailing and crying for its very life while one good Samaritan inside the car was grabbing a leg trying to help the tormented animal.

We kept driving right along. Nothing to see there.

Things like that are great stories to have on a trip, aren't they? It did not throw her off in the least, and we continued to have fun while running about. There was market day where she and I trailed off into the labyrinth of stalls that occupies about a football field of space near the taxi station in town. She found some jewelry and I found a neighbor to chat with and introduce, and off we went to explore further. People who know me would come up and I would do my best to greet and they in turn would look at her and say the pleasantries all in Ewe, which I failed to instruct her on before and after she got here. “Yo” is never a bad guess when someone says something that sounds nice but unfamiliar. I use it all the time and it will either be correct, or get me a good laugh.

We did manage to find the Wli waterfalls which is a must for anyone that comes to this region. A simple walk of about forty minutes gets you to a lush mountain side with a steep and beautiful waterfall as your reward. It did not disappoint us as the water was bounding over the edge and making a nice splash at the bottom. Many people were out for the afternoon to take in the sight, and we got some nice photos and videos of the scene to take back home.

I don't think I am going to let anyone leave Ghana without getting something handmade for them to wear. Part of the fun of being “Ghanaian” is dressing the part and when you see the prints and the colors and the fashions that most people here will wear, you don' want to stick out too much with T-shirts and shorts. Hence, you go buy two or three yards of fabric (the more colorful the better) and have a tailor take your measurements and do their thing. Voila! You have yourself a Ghanaian outfit. Damla had a few choices to make and did very well for herself. There isn't a lot to compare it to back in the states: you see that there is a pucker or a loose spot here or there, and you just tell the tailor that that needs to be fixed and they have at it. I can't imagine what it would cost to have your wardrobe tailored directly to your body back home, but here it runs from about six to nine cedis, or $4-6 American. Not bad, yes? She looked beautiful in all her attire here, that is for sure.

To state that I was a beneficiary in this deal is the world's largest understatement. She brought along so many snacks and goodies that I will be fat before I know it. Jelly beans, licorice, breakfast snacks, I could go on and on. My sweet tooth better get a check-up and soon because there is plenty for my molars to gorge themselves on here. She also packed and left a hard drive full of movies (dozens and dozens of my favorite odd-ball show, Mystery Science Theater 3000) and digital goodies. I might even speed up my learning of Turkish since she left behind audio lessons for me to digest in addition to the sugars.

Speaking of foods, I believe we both figured out what was edible and inedible as each day passed. While not getting her sick was the main focus, one might want to just dabble a little bit in the “danger zone” of foods to see what is good and delicious here in Ghana. Banku and Face-The-Wall were successes, but maybe not groundnut soup. So each day we added a bit more to the rice diet to see what was going to work. By the end I was so proud of her when she told a seller standing by our tro-tro “What is that?”, pointing to the top of her head, and being told what it was kindly said no to her. Braver than I was by a mile and a half even after my first two months here. Cow tripe on kebabs worked, so did the ice cream and frozen yoghurt that comes in plastic bags. Plantain chips were a “go”, but raw lettuce was never an option. By the end, she could say “Medi fo” and mean it (but maybe not understand it – I am satisfied).

Sadly though, trips like these have beginnings and the requisite endings, so we had to part ways as her job beckoned back on the other side of the lake. We made the last leg of the journey together on one more bumpy tro-tro with suitcases and glum feelings about the ten days that were now behind us. Emotional goodbye? You bet. But this goodbye was as much about knowing how happy we were together and how much fun we could have no matter where we were that it was a bit of gladness wrapped in with the sadness. Sneaking in to the customs line I was able to wave one last bye-bye through a wall of plate glass and wish her the safest of journeys (she made it back in one piece but a suitcase didn't) and then find my way around Accra all by my lonesome. It was a great visit and while I learned a few things about how to play host, I also found out one very important lesson: I am darn lucky to have her!

Thank you Damla for everything!

Kukurantumi Again, Planning Aplenty

When the call came last week, there was something about a planning session that might be happening. It came from the woman in charge of my ICT group whom I refer to here as my APCD (Assistant Peace Corps Director), and she asked if I had time during this week to participate in a planning session for the next class of Peace Corps Trainees. It seemed like a nice thing to be a part of, and I told her that I would ask and see if the school was all right with it.

They said, "Yes." I said, "Yes," and that put me on a tro-tro to the Eastern region on Sunday of last week. It is different now coming to the hub site here in Kukurantumi. There were so many sessions and so much work done here, but each time I got to see people who made me smile, and friends who made the whole experience enjoyable. Coming back brought many of those good times come back, but when a fellow volunteer and I arrived, the hub site was empty. Off to the For You bar for some sodas and time to pet two very fuzzy puppies who were romping around the grounds.

People did show up, and we reconnected with some volunteers who we haven't seen since maybe Thanksgiving. There were just eight volunteers here, seven from my group so we got to hang out and relax quite a bit in a low-key environment. Scott from my town was also here, but he is a year ahead of me and re-upping for another year. Added to us were the two volunteers who operate the sub-offices in Kumasi and Tamale (TAH-mah-lay). Then all the staff that we knew from our training days here showed up and it was much like old times. Even the food tasted the same.

So the idea for this session is to plan the next events for Pre-Service Training (PST) for our future volunteers. They come as Trainees, they leave as Volunteers. During that process, there are about 80 days where many things get planned and the PCTs are asked to be here, then there, and back to here again. Finding the schedule is important as it will give the trainers different windows to begin planning some of the excursions and book some of the places that we will need to train the new group.

Four days of understanding the process and then planning the weeks and days was a bit of a struggle. As the number of volunteers goes up then we also need to factor in new hires to train the volunteers, so we also were given a crash course on personnel decisions from the Administrative Office which, oddly enough, was rather enjoyable due solely to Bob Gingrich being energetic and clear with his presentation. He didn't even use Powerpoint to make himself understood. Impressive.

By Friday we were ready to go. One last trip to the hub site for breakfast and the few remaining staff and volunteers headed their separate ways. I rode home with Scott and we were fortunate to find a tro-tro that filled quickly straight back to Hohoe. All told, I think the venture was a success. I have a better idea of what goes into training us, and I feel a bit more energized about my service and position here in ICT at St. Francis. I am going to submit a statement to Peace Corps declaring that I would like to be a trainer for the next group if it works out for my schedule. If not, then there is certainly other PCVs that are up to the task, no doubt. First, I think it would be fun and exciting to see the 50th class of volunteers land in Ghana, and second, I think it would give me a much better perspective on my own service. I will be sure to post an update on that front.

Sure I'll Have A Mango

My confession for this week is that I never knew mangoes were extremely sweet and tasty. I had an inkling that they were good, (why would all those fruit drinks which have eight different flavors add in mango as a prime ingredient if it didn't taste good, yes?) but intensely sweet and juicy, no. Now I know different.

There may be a difference between the mangoes that are sold in the states and the ones that are here in Ghana, but again my knowledge is not quite sufficient to say what the ones we get in the stores in the U.S. are like in comparison to here. Maybe if I describe them well here, someone back home can comment on how close they sound.

On the tree, and the campus here has maybe a dozen fully-grown mango trees to choose from, the fruit has a light-green colored skin. They will hang in clusters and most of the ones you would be able to reach and pluck by hand are too small and not yet ripe. Those that fall on the ground roll in awkward patterns due to their oblong shape are also rarely ripe. Green is not good. We need the skin to turn a bit yellow first in one place before we can obtain the sweetness. The trouble is how to get then out of the tree when they are ripe.

Enter the children who either live on the campus or very near to the school grounds. They are all free to employ, and they have pretty decent arms for not having the sport of baseball at their disposal. There is really nothing you can use the hard green mangoes that fall to the ground except chuck them up at the ripe fruits stubbornly fixed to their stems high up in the tree. The tree closest to my bungalow is probably fifty feet tall so the good ones don't come off the limbs without this subtle coaxing. I typically take just one of the mangoes that the boys offer me since my guess is that they are going to sell them to others in town.

A brief aside: the senior house-master at this morning's assembly implored the students in his typical rascally way that they are not to be taking rocks, mangoes, or sticks and catapulting them skyward in order to get the fruit. He made one exception to this rule for the mango tree outside of his house. He figured he could partake in the mangoes liberated from his tree by the students. Everyone laughed quite a bit to his exception.

Eating the fruit is quite simple. You just cut into the skin and peel the tough layer off and gnash your teeth into the pulpy yellow-orange fruit. The pit is flat and big and clearly inedible. Depending on how ripe the mango is, you may be able to put your mouth on the meat of the fruit and almost drink the meat in all its sugary goodness. But if it is not overly ripe, then you have to use the teeth a bit to take bites out of it. My only problem is that the strands of the mango wedge themselves efficiently in between my teeth and gums. The mango is an excellent tool to encourage flossing.

So that is my first-hand account of the delicious mango. Does it sound familiar? I will put you down for 30 when you come and visit.

Back On The Teaching Train

It has been a few days now, and I think I know my schedule well enough to comment on the new semester. I again have seven classes a week to teach which is by far a fairly tame schedule for teachers in Ghana. I know some who are teaching at the high school level who have close to thirty periods a week which boggles my mind. As it stands now, I don't have much in the way of classes, but I tend to spend my time in the lab for the bulk of my days and teaching students new things just flows throughout the day. Still, not much of my time is devoted to classes.

With that out of the way, our first class was held on Monday. That class was not present unfortunately. All the students had to go searching for their desks and chairs as all the furniture was moved out of their classrooms and into an empty laboratory due to the SHS students who lived on campus for their sports week. Classrooms were turned into boarding rooms, and to prevent widespread loss of school property, all of the students possessions were moved into that one giant room. At 8:00AM the students were permitted to retrieve said furniture, but that was also the time for my class. I had five students show up so it was not quite an official beginning.

Tuesday was not much better. I went to the administration building to check for my schedule which we did not have distributed on Monday morning. For my next class I learned that I would be having two classes at once. That is not quite possible to do. Two classes to meet at one time (2:15PM) won't work as there are 70 students and only 40 chairs in the lab. I spoke to the teacher who set up the schedule and he said that he would try to fix that problem, but I am aware that it might not be possible which would mean some further complications for teaching both classes. Maybe one time each week I would need to have one or the other class come to learn during their prep hours which run from 7 to 10 in the evening. Not the best option, but still, better than having 70 people in one room at a time.

Some more fun yesterday was the fact that the power was out from about 10 in the morning all through the rest of the day. Not only could I not teach both classes (due to the size just mentioned), I couldn't even teach one class without power flowing. The power did not return until early in the morning today, Wednesday. Small things of course, but nothing is completely straightforward here. Something can go wrong, and Murphy's Law will always apply here it seems.

My hope is that by next week we can have almost 90% of the machines running and useful for the students. Currently we still have a few machines that A) won't start at all, B) start but are not functioning well, and C) work but won't get online in their current state. So if I could get 9 out of 10 machines working and networked I would consider it a victory.

On to make-up classes and a brief introduction to the internet. This week the students must create an email account and send me a message to complete their assignment.

Our Computer Cup Runneth Over

With just a few days left before classes resume the computer lab looks like, well, a computer lab. Not only are there many machines displayed on the desks for all to see, but now they actually work. There was supreme satisfaction on Wednesday when the folks who had the equipment showed up at the front gate of the campus asking if they could come in and replace all the broken parts. Finally, a way for the students to learn on their own computer during our lectures.

Of the twenty brand-new machines that we received at the outset of the semester, only four worked at semester's end. Each one would have a fault with the power supply inside the computer case and our friends at the manufacturers would not replace the unit - the inconsistent power in Ghana meant that they would not cover its replacement. They even had the gumption to tell us to check the current in the building to see if that was the culprit. The nerve.

Except that when the people came to repair the lab the electricians came and checked the power to the it. It was actually under by about 70 volts which is low for the machines and that might actually make a difference to the power supplies here. Instead of being at 220 to 240, our lab was running at 170 volts. I didn't know, and I was not about to lick my fingers and touch bare wires to figure out if we had just the right current or not. That was fixed up, and then the new power supply units arrived this past week and we were back in business. To date, none of the computers have exploded or failed to come on.

Aside from a few extra computers being crammed onto the desks, the lab looks pretty much the way I wanted it to look. Before there were two columns of desks that sat too close together. I could walk between them when there were just empty chairs pushed in, but when students arrived the space behind the chairs was too narrow for me to easily get by, thereby preventing me from walking the length of the desk to see a student's screen and answer their question. I made sure that each desk was an equal distance from its neighbor and aligned them correctly before putting out any computers. I cleaned the dickens out of everything with all my free time. A toothbrush and a paintbrush became my friends as dust disappeared from all of the equipment (I even dusted in those hard-to-reach places on the ends of cables and plugs), and arranged the units in a staggered pattern; new machine, old machine, new machine, old machine, ad infinitum. Best of all, each of the old machines (there are twenty of these as well) has a new wireless card installed so that we do not have to run ethernet cables everywhere on the floor.

It was all so rejuvenating. A phoenix out of the fire if you will (forgive the hyperbole please).

Which means that the students can now sit at forty different machines and access the world wide web simultaneously, over a connection that at maximum offers a download speed of 60 kilobytes per second. For the record, that isn't very fast and that is on a very good day does one see that speed. I shudder to think of all the students simultaneously opening up Yahoo Mail and seeing nothing but spinning icons and blank screens. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Right now things are looking pretty. Best of all, the sports week has come to a close so I will be able to sleep soundly at night again. What a week here.

What The Week Will Bring

Today we had a staff meeting at the school's administration building and while the sounds of a football and volleyball matched droned on below the windows of the second floor staff common room, we spoke about what was to come for the returning students. They arrived on Monday (and it is still nice to see the familiar faces here and there) but they have no where to assemble for classes. All the participants of the sports competition have taken up residence in what was their classrooms.

A little clarification is needed. Apparently St. Francis was chosen to host the games for the district's senior high schools sports competition. I didn't know this was going to happen until a fellow volunteer mentioned it to me last Friday. His school was part of the teams participating. Since it was new to me it did not mean that it was a surprise to the school or the faculty, but with most of the competitors taking up residence in anything that had a roof, it seemed like the campus was turned inside-out by everyone's arrival.

With the campus crowded (I would hazard a guess of 300 extra students now everywhere on the school grounds) it seems pretty clear that there will be no classes beginning this week. One more week and I can return to teaching. I hope.

Which brings me to another point brought up at the staff meeting. There was recently a change in the pay of teachers across the country. They are government employees and after several years had passed without any change in the pay of teachers, the government decided to make a new system of pay go into effect. That change was begun with the police officers of the country. They saw a rather large increase in pay in their monthly salaries. It was presumed that teachers would also see an increase in their pay stubs, but apparently the new regime worked out for allocating funds made one thing apparent: not everyone was going to see large pay increases. Most saw very small increases as a matter of fact while others were even more surprised to see pay decreases. Talk has circulated that there will be a strike called for if the government does not change its position on teachers' pay. Our group has been asked to wait and see what happens. Right now it would appear that there will not be a strike on the campus, but Monday is a long way away.

So long as I get to come back to an air-conditioned computer lab and have students stop in to check email, I will be happy.

And Life Returns To Campus

Things are back to normal insofar as things can be normal when three hundred or so high school students have descended on the campus grounds. Life certainly picked up over the weekend, that is for certain.

There are athletic events all through the week that pit many different teams of Senior High Schools from the entire district of Hohoe against each other. The soccer field is the site for the bulk of these events, and given that my house is quite close to the field I get to hear all of the cheers and screams as well as the beating of drums and cowbells. It makes for a raucous place during the day.

What it makes for at night is another story entirely. The campus is housing all of theses students in any room not occupied by its own students. That leaves pretty much every room aside from the student dormitories as fair game for these youngsters to reside in. All of the first- and second-year classrooms are now converted to large bedrooms, and most of the desks and chairs have been moved outside under the shade of trees. It really has made a kind of mess of the campus. So far as those of us still on the school grounds living in our houses, we can safely say that these temporary students do not believe in the quaint notion of sleep. It can be a bit loud over the course of the evening hours. Since they are not students of St. Francis, then they're not under control of the staff or the facility. It is a touch more lawless than we are used to here.

Maybe the incoming students can help on this matter. I saw many of our students arriving on campus and getting ready for this next semester. I am sure they are a bit surprised to see their classrooms turned into makeshift barracks, but they are their classrooms so if they say clean it up and put it back the way you found it, maybe the interlopers will take the hint and do as they are asked.

Not to neglect on what I have been up to (aside from lamenting the noise-level and squatters), I made a trip out to Accra on Saturday and returned on Sunday. It was a quick trip for a meeting with some of my ICT (Information and Communications Technology) cohorts at the Peace Corps headquarters. We conducted a meeting and then went out to enjoy ourselves afterwards. I don't recall getting much sleep, but I was awake enough to keep a lookout on the way home to Hohoe. Maybe half-way home there was something standing by the road waiting to cross. My first inclination was to say a goat was being patient. As it was getting closer I revised it to somewhat large dog. At maybe 200 yards I put my money on what it really was: a rather large monkey. Standing on two legs and two arms, it seemed to find itself at a crosswalk and just waited for our tro-tro to pass. I didn't make out a lot of details as we were maintaining a fairly fast speed, but it was bigger than I was expecting and had a face that seemed somewhat darker than the coat of fur he was wearing. I would love to know what species I was seeing, but it was gone in a second. My first ape sighting!

So things are picking up. We have a staff meeting in the morning and I am sure we are going to be discussing when classes begin and what will be done while the sports competitions are ongoing. Maybe while that goes on, we can manage to get the computers fixed in the lab. They are ready and waiting to be fixed and my students will be very appreciative once they can get back in here and go online. It was really nice to be greeted by the familiar faces and the "Fo Koku" that I go by here. I am excited to get back to work.

Days Repeating Themselves Come To An End, Soon

While I have been doing a few things here and there on the campus grounds, one thing that I have not been doing is updating the web log. There are a few reasons for that: none of them worth a lick of salt though. Mostly, the days were very repetitive. I would wake up, do some small chores in the house if I felt up to it, take some tea and brew some coffee, read, get breakfast delivered to me from the family on the school grounds who see fit to keep me fed generously (I am still buying them gifts every so often), then I meander over to the computer lab to clean up computers which were buried in an insulating layer of dust and dirt, then surf the web for hours at a time.

As you can see, having eight posts about that cycle of life might bore the readers out there, and it would also affect the author's sanity to keep reminding him of the repetitiveness. So those days are boiled down to about six or seven daily rituals and summed up here in these short sentences. That will have to make do for the lack of updates.

On this side of groundhog's day, I now have a computer lab that is fit for America almost, if not tops for Ghana. The large room where the machines are housed and the students will be is mostly clean, filled to the brim with computers at each long desk, and has the look of a professional classroom. I really like how it turned out. Whether or not it had anything to do with me being here, I am certain the students will enjoy the space now when they come to use the world wide web.

There are computers, however, that are still not functioning. Maybe this week some components will come that can repair the new machines that had power supplies fail left and right, and then we might even be able to hook up the old computers which are still in service to the network via wireless cards which were recently purchased by the school. Things are moving right along here. I can hardly wait to have 35 machines all try and load Yahoo! Mail at one time. The speed will rival a snail with a bum knee.

There may possibly be a trip to Accra this coming weekend devoted to those volunteers in the ICT sector. I have some basic details of what we will be discussing, but any chance I have to compare notes with other volunteers in the same arena that I find myself in is a big plus. That, and I will have make sure to stop in and have really expensive pizza. Cheese tastes so good after you forgo it for a few months.

After I return the majority of students will be on campus. I need to get them running through software in the following fourteen weeks so that they are comfortable with Microsoft Office in full. Otherwise, vacation is finally over for me.

Have You Seen Any Mosquitoes In Ghana?

They are everywhere. One of the absolute worst sounds is hearing that high-pitched and piercing whine of the little wings beating one thousand times a minute next to your ear. It is just calling out to you, "I am going to land on you and dip my proboscis into your skin for a drink."

For the most part they come out at dusk and start to buzz around me or the computers in mini-swarms. Three or four at a time will circle around looking for breakfast. I don't know what it is about the computers, but they seem to think something smells like flesh so they dart back and forth near the vents and monitors finding little success. Should I want to kill them, and I cannot begin to express my desire to kill them all here, I have to be fast. They are super quick and quirky. Their zigs and zags mean that if you can track them for more than four or five seconds you are dealing with a terminally slow and lethargic creature. They often fly so erratically that they disappear from view in less than two seconds. But like a shark fin that dips below the surface, you know that the insect is still buzzing around.

My method is to just give a good hand clap in the air and hope that I accidentally caught the sucker between my palms. One loud clap and if I don't see a squashed body stuck fast to my thumb pad, then I can be sure that the mosquito is now lost again somewhere in the room. If I look down and see the flattened creature on my hands, the joy and pride is immeasurable. "I got you!"

For the record, the mosquito is the only thing that I seek out to destroy here in Ghana. I even was kind enough to save and release a medium-sized cockroach that crawled out of my bedroom late one night in the dark. I am not bloodthirsty by nature, but I can make an exception for the one who is actually bloodthirsty for me. In hindsight I should have created a spreadsheet for a tally of "squashes" had in Ghana. Sadly, I will just keep track day by day. So far today I have two kills, but my success rate is no more than 5% of possible squashes. I hope to get better before I leave.

And The Days Roll By

Students will be returning to the campus sometime around March 7th, and my hope is that we can get started right away with more software instruction and computer time for the young men and women. In the time that is leading up to their return, I have had to do my best to keep my mind focused on a few things.

One thing is the computer lab itself. I am not worried that the repairs and changes that are being made will be done on time; it already seems as though we are ahead of schedule and I am duly impressed by all the resources that have been spent on the lab and the building where the lab resides. It will look great once it is finished. However, what does concern me is the fact that we still have 16 machines that need repairing that are brand new, and a few more old machines that won't start. With all the equipment sequestered away for the time being, I am not working on fixing anything at the moment, and that makes me think that at the last minute I will be accepting my first class after the break ends with less than a full ensemble of machines. That will be the bigger challenge before the month of February is up.

Second, I still have yet to do any mastery of the language here. As someone pointed out to me, if I feel like I don't have a good handle on things by the one-year mark, I am going to be seriously tempted to just give up outright and get ready to head back home to America. There are a few things that I can do right now to practice my language, and one of them is to study more books that I have on the subject as well as use more Ewe when walking around and chatting with people. Lately, I have found that I don't ask personal questions at all when I speak to someone, which leaves me with emptying my reservoir of greetings and then awkwardly becoming silent as they Ghanaian looks at me. Even just a simple, "Where did you come from," or "Are you closed from work?" would be terrific. Small gains will keep me trying, and that is what I have been aiming for over the past three or four days.

Lastly, I will be ramping up on a few small projects that I hope to get moving when students return. I wish to start up the ICT Club, a place for students to get further material and education related to all things "communication", and create a night-class for teachers on campus to spur interest in a few things tech-related. Both of those are on the radar, but I will see if there is genuine interest in either once classes start anew.

These are the main things on my mind as of late. Further updates to come of course.

Surprise Visitor From Three Days Ago

Paint fumes have filled the computer lab as of late. The workers in charge of painting the walls a new color made quick work of most of the space over two days, and had put down a nice new coat of blue-gray by Friday of last week, but today was the day that I had to move a few things around in the lab, and I prepared myself by going into the small back room which typically houses most of our least-used equipment. That room, however, was virtually empty. No computers. No boxes full of cables and cobwebs. Nothing of the sort.

Save for two visitors. One was a common housefly that had landed on the still-wet paint. It was stuck pretty good there on the top shelf and I can only figure it had about an hour's worth of flapping before it succumbed to exhaustion and its fate.

Our second visitor met the same demise apparently. A poor hapless gecko wandered from the window onto the surface of the same wooden shelf (maybe in an effort to track down the flapping fly?) and expired right where he stepped. I felt bad for both of them, but more for the gecko. I then felt very bad for me.

I had a broom in my hand, one made from palm fronds that is wrapped into a bundle that will fit nicely into the palm of your hand. There is no broom handle so it is just the wisps of fronds that does the work for you. I took that and figured it was better to use it than my hand to push the gecko off the shelf. It was stuck there for a reason though, and he or she had been in place for a good few days unfortunately. My initial swipe at the creature resulted in about 60% of it coming off the shelf - mostly the front and upper half of it, plus the tail.

Oh did I see and smell the error of my ways. I had just planted an odor bomb in a very small room where I was going to be placing most of the lab's equipment inside. It was not the most carefully planned of missions.

After keeping my wits and my lunch, I decided on letting the remnants stay on the shelf to desiccate a bit and make a straight line out the door with the half that I did manage to dislodge all the while keeping my breath held tightly inside. The room still smells terrible, but the computers and monitors are safely stored in the back room away from the sanding that is going to be occurring tomorrow. You live and learn in Ghana.

Just A Moment To Reflect

This post was meant to go up yesterday, but I was a stuck in the house all day with the flu bug carefully lodged in my gastrointestinal tract. I am better today, so it was just a 24 hour flu.

Many years back my dad and I went out to the old Ford LTD and found a pool of fluid under the hood and on the driveway. Seemed that something was dripping out of the car and the likely suspect was the power steering pump. First, it was covered in fluid, and second the color of the fluid would match that purpose unlike black oil or something green like antifreeze from the radiator. It seemed to Dad that this would be a good excuse to go out to the junkyard and possibly hunt down a replacement.

Off to the junkyard where we asked the fellow in the office how much a power steering pump would cost. Something like twenty dollars was what he said, and we were off to go traipsing out into the field to find a suitable replacement. We stumbled upon a station wagon that was also a Ford LTD (to which I was not even aware that Ford made such a beast) and our guess was this might be a good candidate. Up went the hood and then lo and behold, there was a power steering pump that looked identical to what ours looked like, though not covered in fluid. Dad grabbed his small toolkit which had a few choice items and got out the socket and ratchet wrench to start removing the bolts.

Now a thing to note about where the power steering pump is located. It is close to the radiator at the front of the engine compartment. Being expertly designed, it fit into this space with a few inches of room between it and the frame that held the radiator in place. This is important to remember.

When he got the wrench on the bolt he started to work the bolts off. The first one or two came off without an issue. So easy in fact, that we both didn't quite pay attention to the one bolt that was being backed out from its hole towards the radiator. We must have been remarking on the luck we had in finding this pump in the first place. Oops.

The ratchet wrench allows you to loosen or tighten a bolt without having to constantly fit an open-ended wrench onto the bolt, turn, and then pull the wrench off the bolt and get it back on. The ratchet mechanism allows you to keep the wrench in place and just move the handle back and forth. The interchangeable sockets just fits right over the bolt, but it will extend the wrench's height by an inch or two, depending on the size of the socket. The means to reverse the procedure is controlled by a dial on the back of the wrench. Now, as Dad kept turning the wrench to loosen the bolt, it moved further and further away from the power steering pump, and closer and closer to the radiator.

And now the predicament. The wrench on its tenth turn or so was about 1/8th of an inch from the radiator. Too little space to set the ratchet back to the tighten mode, and thereby reverse its direction. The bolt was still not out nor was it going to come out. My dad and I had just succeeded in impinging the wrench into the radiator with no means to undo what was done. Nor did we have enough tools to remove any other part from the engine block to save the wrench. We also did not have a power steering pump, our main mission in coming.

Along walked a friend that my dad knew from work and we were in luck; he had his full tool set in his car which he kindly got for us. About thirty or forty minutes later, enough parts came off the engine that allowed us to get the wrench back, and then the remaining bolts on the pump. Finally success, but with some mild embarrassment.

Which brings us back to the driveway and the power steering pump. We removed the bad one in the car and knew very well not to use the ratchet wrench to finish the one bolt, and then installed the new pump, and lastly we connected the hoses to the pump and poured in the power steering fluid. Dad told me to hop in and get the car started which I did dutifully. He then told me to crank the steering wheel to give the system a test while idling. The hood was open and he was standing right near the pump when I cranked the wheel, and out shot a spurt of fresh power steering fluid. It might have even hit the house it went streaming out so violently.

I stopped the car and looked at my dad's face to figure out what was wrong. Unfortunately, we never checked to see that the leak was not coming from the power steering pump unit - it was from the hose that connected to it which apparently had a very minute crack. We laughed at the whole episode and made plans to get a replacement hose and fix the car the right way, though if we had done it the 'right' way to start we would not have had this fun story to tell.

So, this is a great memory I have of my father. He died five years ago on the 6th of February. I still miss him a great deal but you hold on to the memories of someone you love for a very long time. I felt like this was a good time to share just one of them.

Rain As Archetypal Hero

There were about eight or nine days where I felt like the weather was breaching the point of verbal complaint – it was getting so hot that the nighttime temperatures were not dropping low enough for a comfortable sleep. It was hot but not muggy, yet that is little consolation when your room is still near 80. I was looking for a hero or savior from the oppression, and lo and behold there it was: the afternoon thunderstorm.

Now, there are conflicting reports on whether these few cloud bursts are here to stay or if this is just a signal of the even hotter weather to come. I hope that it won't get hotter, but given the my location I really should not be feigning surprise at warm weather.

So while I don't know if the worst is yet to come, I do know to give thanks where thanks are in order. This past Tuesday came a power outage just before 2PM and I decided that I might as well go home and get some reading done with the afternoon sun waning before darkness set in. Normally the power comes back on before dusk, but that day it stayed off until just after 9PM for some reason. At 5 the ominous, billowing dark clouds were forming and the air began to whip through the tall trees, dead leaves rustling over the ground (trees still shed their leaves according to the season and with the arid weather of late, some species are practically bare). I pulled a plastic chair onto the front porch and decided to watch the show. Nature really knows show business. The storm rolled in and dropped bucket after bucket of much needed water to the ground. I had to move inside after the rains came crashing down just to avoid the soaking myself.

That was Tuesday, but each day since Monday we have been blessed with rains in the afternoon which has dropped temperatures by at least 10 degrees each time, probably more like 15 to 20 and the moisture has really cut down on all the dust in the air which is a plus. Hence the rains are playing the hero-role here in the Volta region. Long may they reign!

Drawing Can Still Pass The Time

There was room at night to bring out the sketchpad and do some light drawing over the past month. If I could find a way to do more drawings in the open air that did not involve me sweating profusely I would try that but that moment has yet to come. Instead when the evening breeze moves through I open the windows up, turn on the lights, and bring out a book of Roman art to find something of a challenge.

This one was pretty high up there in the challenging departments. Here are both pictures to give you a reference of what I was trying for and what I ended up delivering. The statue can be seen in its entirety on Wikipedia. So this is the photograph from the book that I have:

The fellow does not look happy to say the least. And all that detail in the beard and hair... I thought the last portrait I did of a Roman emperor was difficult because of a few waves of hair. This one took a lot of patience and I managed to miss some proportions as well, but it was a good stress reliever in the late evening hours. This was my version of the photo:

It was fun to do. Maybe twenty or more hours of drawing time spent getting all that hair untangled in my mind's eye, and then shading on top of shading. I can really see how a drawing at a fairly large size could take a month or more to finish - but mine would still look like something was slightly off. Only slightly though, that is an improvement.

What The Last Month Has Been Like

It has been a bit slow as of late. Actually, it has been a great deal slow this entire month due to the lack of classes. My days are filled with doing projects of my own accord, and helping myself to as much learning as I can while the first and second-years are preparing for the next exam. None so far have needed any help on ICT which is a bit disappointing but then again, the ICT exam has yet to be administered. Maybe they are saving up their questions for the night before.

This means that I typically find my mornings and afternoons free. I have chosen to do a few things with that time that are as follows (but in no particular order): reading books, reading even more books, drawing, learning another language, reading, and then some light reading. Oh to be sure I took some time to make a lesson plan or two for when the students come back to classes in March, but that will be a ways off before I make use of that.

On the book front, I have finished off two books that required a bit of time to get through and a third that was done in just three days. Two books by Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker and The Selfish Gene. I liked the second one better than the first, but both had many illuminating points. I might have made a half-decent biologist in another lifetime, but for now I get to comfortably be an armchair one and enjoy light trips into and out of the field. The Selfish Gene was probably my first understanding of life through only the principle of, “What's in it for the gene.” A very fine illustration of why nature is so very brilliant in its complexity and nuances. The third book that was pretty quick was Freakonomics which just came over courtesy of my good friends David, Kara, and little Eva (thank you so much for the care package!). That book was pretty good, though short. I could have used about four or five more chapters of odd data and confounding analysis. I seem to recall there was a follow-up book to it, but that will have to wait for some other time.

So lots of reading. However, when I am not reading and the laptop is nearby I have been spending some time learning a new language – not Ewe though. Sadly, there is no software or language course that I can find online that will help me learn the native language spoken here in my region; I need to find a tutor who can work with my brain to figure out the sounds and the grammar. No, I wanted to learn Turkish to make sure I don't sound like a tourist when I visit Istanbul after completing my service here. I hope my friend agrees to take me there of course so as to help me buy decent shish-kabobs. So far I have a small vocabulary saved up, but not much grammar and sentence fluency. More practice to come and Rosetta Stone is great if you can get your hands on it.

Lastly, drawing. That will be another post maybe in February when I get the scan ready for posting here, but I have been taking my time a few nights a week trying to refine my skills and proportion and rendering. While it might look nice, I know where I have plenty of work to do to get better. I keep reading of a friend's progress on his web log and it gives me some motivation to see what I can do to improve my own craft.

Beyond that, the month of January had been extremely cool in the nighttime hours. Blissfully cool you might say. I think in the past seven days the temperature has ticked decidedly upward, such that my wool blanket is no longer needed and I am a touch worried that by March I will be sleeping in the computer lab with the air-conditioner running. It is getting warm and the humidity is slowly coming back. It seems like I am finding out what Ghana is really like.

Our Computer Lab Is An Absolute Wreck

Yes, things look pretty awful around my "office" as of late. When the windows were replaced I had a suspicion that the school was serious about fixing up the room where all of the computers are housed. I just did not know that every other change was coming one after the other. My counterpart informed that there was going to be new flooring installed, painting to be done, a full check on the wiring system to eliminate any dangerous spikes that might be disseminated to the machines and components, and so on. I was told that a new whiteboard might be coming as well, which is needed because the one that occupies the front of the class room smudges too much when something is erased. It is a lot of work and from what I have heard about some institutions in the country, there are things that happen and other things that just never get started. It was refreshing to see that our lab was very quickly attended to and with some decent work to boot.

Of course that also meant that the things which I took pains to arrange and organize in the lab are now back to square one. All of the machines that were stowed away as needing repairs got mixed up with all the machines that worked flawlessly, and now I have no clue as to which ones work and which ones do not. My fault for not pulling out a piece of masking tape and labeling things accurately as was suggested to me by another volunteer earlier on in training. You live and learn every day here.

There may be a bit of obsessive compulsive in all of us, but I have it certainly when it comes to arranging and organizing computers. I like the wires to be arranged neatly, and for there to be a distinct lack of clutter. As it stands today, the main room where I would normally teach has every long desk crowded one next to the other, and boxes of mangled cables and wires stored everywhere, not to mention the CPUs and monitors occupying this and that spot on the floor and on dusty chairs. It is a bit sad to see this and look back at a phone a day before the students arrived for classes.

Yet this does meant that I have ample opportunity to improve upon the setup of the first installation of computers. There is even talk that the new machines (sixteen in all) will be fixed up for the return of the students. I desperately need them to make sure that most of my classes have a computer on which to learn. Lots of dust, plenty of sweeping and washing, and a bit of elbow grease will yield a lab twice as good as the old one.

Oh, and my cold has abated so my attitude is a bit more positive than it was before.

Oh The Humanities

[Belated post]

This day is just not as good as some others in the recent past. Around 2AM I found myself battling the feelings of a head cold with backed up sinuses, a dry throat, and eyes that were slightly burning around the lids. I hate that feeling, more so on a warm night where the temperatures forgot to dip down to the low 70s like they had been doing for the last month. Rolling around trying to will my cold away did me no good, and the fact that this was a Monday morning meant that I would be up in just a few hours to get ready for the 6:30 assembly.

That is a bad start to a day if I do say so myself.

I battled the snooze alarm until 6AM when I knew I had better be taking my shower in order not to be late to the chapel. It was the first time in a long while that I was not shivering while the water dripped down on top of my head. It was warm in the house and the slightly-cool water actually felt nice instead of like diving into a pond three weeks into the new spring season. Again, this was not a good sign. I had spoken to a volunteer right after I arrived and asked him how Harmattan was for heat at night. His response was that there were cool nights and warm days up to a point, but he just laughed and informed me that it got warmer. This may be the stage where things get cooking.

The students are now fully dedicated to taking their exams. The assembly belabored several points about what constitutes legitimate and illegitimate behaviors. At the staff meeting following the assembly the same protocols were announced and debated as to the invigilators, those who look over the students shoulders and ensure that no one is looking at another's work. One full hour later and everyone was off to their duties. Except me. I am not to be doing the work of invigilation for the probable reason that this is paid work for the staff, and I am apparently a volunteer not collecting a pay check from the school. No matter, I could just go to the computer lab and whittle away the hours.

Yet I was still stuffy and feeling lethargic from the lack of sleep. So something had to give and I retreated back to the house for a few naps. That helped the lethargy, but it didn't help the cold so far as I could tell. With little else to do, I figured another outing would be good for me.

I got dressed up and headed back to the lab to let students surf the web for a bit. At least, that was my plan. I met a fellow teacher who asked if I was going to see the renovation work being done to the lab. “Work?” No, there wasn't any work being done that I was aware of, just the windows that were installed over a week and a half ago. Sure enough though, I approached the building and I could hear the pounding. A new tile floor is being installed over top of the poured cement floor. All the computers were moved out, and the computer desks were everywhere. Presumably the modem and router were disconnected but I did not even bother to check.

No computer lab and no internet, a sun that keeps on shining through a thick haze of dust, and a head that is remembering that it is winter back home and ought to endure the season with a nice head cold. It wasn't the best day. With that out there, I am incredibly thankful that this may be what I call a “low day” on the scale of serving here. Many other volunteers have had bouts with actual sicknesses where they are worried about where things are going. They are posted to far more remote places where the weather is a heck of a lot more stifling than here, and the fully-functional air-conditioned computer lab with internet access just doesn't exist.

So what if I have the sniffles? I have a lot of things that are going well. This post was just typed out to remind me of that. I hope your January 24th has been a good one!