Day 2 of Installation

We left the Gold City Hotel right at 7:30 this morning.  I shot a video of our brief drive to the CoE from the hotel.  Patrick and I are going to work out something for when we get back to the US to put all of our videos up on the web at like a YouTube or other video hotel and tie it back to the blog.  There is not enough internet band width at places we have been and now in Kibi to upload video via internet, so we are going to have to wait till we get back to the US.

Today was much like yesterday, so I am not going to fill the page with a lot of words - but instead with pictures!

Health & Hygiene Training - Shari is doing a GREAT job!!

This is the afternoon session where the trainers that Shari trained are getting the opportunity to practice that training with real students.

Water System and Room

WATER SYSTEM 100% OPERATIONAL BY 5:00 PM TODAY.

Odds & Ends

Preparing for the dedication plaque.

The plaque installed

IntraMural Football @ Kibi

I watched this game while trekking between the building where the water room is located and the building where health & hygiene training was taking place.

This is serious, these guys are playing hard and taking no prisoners.  I saw more head balls this afternoon than in a world cup game.  When the players run by you - it's like they have jets on their feet!

No subs - goalies have no gloves - field is a field, hard dirt, dips, and uncut grass.

I thought about asking could I be a striker for one of the teams and then I saw I guy get taken out by a defender and realized there is no Campbells Clinic in Kibi!

BTW - check out that hillside in the background.

Odds & Ends

It takes 2 of these to make a cup of coffee

Power station set up for recharching

How do you bend PVC in Ghana - well of course, you fill it with sand and heat it

The plaque - nice looking thanks to Rev Assante

Patrick makes friends everywhere we go

Kibi Installation

The Idlewild Team is off to a good start.

We left the hotel at 7:30 this morning and headed down the road to the College of Education (CoE).  Everyone helped Shari get her room set up and decorated for her class to start at 9:30.

Forrest, Patrick, & Michael headed down to the water room to start the build.  Michael's pickup (should have gotten a picture) was like a little Home Depot moving down the road yesterday with plywood, plumbing pipe, fittings, tools, etc.

Shari's morning class started a bit late, but the group of trainers the CoE education provided is excellent.  Jim & I were in/out of the class all day and her group was very engaged.

Shari's afternoon class was configured different as CoE students were brought in for the trainers (that were taught this morning) to teach to the students what they had learned earlier in the day.  Tomorrow's format will be the same.

The water team - well what can I say - Forrest and Patrick were teamed up with the Michael Jordon of water system technology, information, and experience, i.e. Michael Asiamah.  Add to that they had 3 people from the CoE (future system operators) and the team was lights out in terms of what they got done today.

Jim, Charles and I spent time this afternoon with Rev Benson, CoE principal, and his vice-principal, Marius, going through various documents and plans - verifying timelines for Saturday and Sunday and so forth.  Both Rev Benson and Marius appear to have a good undersstanding of what is going on these few days and how they need to "grow" into utilizing the system after we have departed.  The most encouraging part of the day was Rev Benson's line of questions around how the CoE can and cannot distribute water out into the community to those in need.

The Golden City Hotel, Kibi Ghana

Here it is!

Going into our second night we think we have figured out the following:

1) Each room has an air conditioner, but if last night is any indication, when several of us turned our a/c on - the Kibi city power went out....for the hotel to kick on the generator, we had to turn off the a/c.  About 90 minutes later the city power came back on, but by that time you didn't need the a/c!

2) When we tried to use the water last night, there was no water out of the faucets.  This a.m., there was water.  A little while ago when we got back to the hotel, there was not water - however, Sammy was able to get a BIG bucket of water from one of the outside faucets for him to wipe down the van.

Suposition - the ultimate utility cost control process - the hotel manager just turns it off at the building until the guests change their behavior...

Kibi - Arrival

We're here!

The main purpose of our trip is to install a new system at the Kibi College of Education.  We arrived around 2 p.m.

We met with Benson, the headmaster of the college, and his staff for formal introductions and updates.  We spent about 1.5 hours getting the "layout" of everything, i.e. where Shari is going to teach the health & hygiene, progress Micahel Asiamah has made preapring the room where the water board is going to reside, and so forth.

We are not staying at the college, we are staying down the road at a hotel, I think it's called The Golden City Hotel, not sure because there is not a sign on the building - but that's what it says on the pillow cases in my room!

We had a team meeting late yesterday afternoon, Patrick, Shari, Michael, Charles, Forrest, Jim, & myself to lay out the next few days in terms of what each group was going to be doing every morning and afternoon and the timeline (milestones).  We also identified all the place holders in the schedule for the "little things" like labeling bottles, decorating for the celebration, and so forth to make sure they were not lost.

Post the team meeting, we ate dinner (the college brought it over) outside in the quickly falling darkness (except for Jim's red light on his headlamp flashlight) until Jim said "I think I just felt a mosquito" and then Patrick said "I'm out of here...".

Begoro

We traveled back south from Abetify to Begoro yesterday morning on the main highway between Accra and Kumasi.  After about an hour or so we came to a rest stop named Linda Dor - you may remember this place from the '14 blog as it is the place we had lunch and I was all over the Tilapia Soup...

Lunch at Linda Dor 2014

At Linda Dor you take a left and start to wind up & down the hills on the prtially paved roads (and that's being generous sometimes) for about 30-40 minutes before getting to the township of Begoro.

The LWW system at Begoro was installed in 2007 by Advent Presbyterian Church.  We arrived at the PCG Girls School, a small campus, positioned on the back of the PCG property on top of a hillside.

The principal of the school, Christina, received us and we moved into her office for formal introductions and updates.  The school is a vocational school, much like the school in Nsawam, where there is another LWW system.  The school teaches the girls a trade like: baking, cooking, dress making, etc.  The PCG has targeted that beginning in Sept '16, the school will shift it's focus from the current vocational types of training to nursing - sounds like a good move.  Christina will be retiring and a new principal will be coming on board.

The LWW system is being used by the school, but at very low volumes.  The main drivers of the low volume production is that the number of giels attedning the school has dropped to about 30.  With the low enrollment, the budget is tight and therefore needed supplies, filters, chlorine tablets, etc. are a struggle.  This is also a location where the larger 20L (5 gallon) bottles with no dispensers has been a struggle.  We talked to Christina about introducing a smaller bottle, 5L, to the students hoping to get them established before Sept '16.  Dispensers for the 20L are jsut out of the question right now given the low enrollment.

The resevoir of raw water is beneath the entire foundation of this buildiing.  The building was built by the Germans in the 1800's and uses rain water collection to fill the resevoir.

We left Begoro to head to Kibi and yes we stopped at Linda Dor for lunch and yes I had the Tilapia Soup again - in fact Jim had it too! 

BTW - found this guy making a dash into the water room...

"Bon Appetit"!