​Fresh water is a major focus of daily life in the village. Access to clean drinking water is directly related to reduction in poverty.  World-wide over 2 billion people are affected by water scarcity.  In 2010 the United Nations recognized a human right to drinking water.  This is an important step because there is often a conflict between human need versus commercial or agricultural water consumption.

The village I stayed in was fortunate in that they have several pumps, or boreholes, that provide fresh water throughout the year. ​ There were two pumps in my location and they were almost always in use.  In sub-saharan Africa the work of acquiring and transporting water falls largely to women and girls.  

An experience I highly recommend is to try hauling your own water for a couple of days.  To get the full effect you should fill a couple buckets from a hose and then carry them around the block.  Try limiting yourself to those two buckets for everything.  I managed to get my consumption down to 5 gallons per day, which is what the UN considers minimal.  That included drinking, cooking, cleaning, and one bucket bath per day.  5 gallons weighs about 40 pounds which is about as much as you would want to carry in one trip.

By comparison, the average American consumes 80 gallons per day.  That's a big difference.  If you had to carry 80 gallons it would weigh 640 pounds. You would not be hauling that by hand.   If you flush a toilet 3 times in a day, you have already exceeded the 5 gallon limit.  If you take a shower for more than two minutes you have exceeded the 5 gallon limit.  You can start to understand the stark differences in water consumption and why simple transportation of water is such a big deal in an african village. 

It is also important to remember that clean water is a finite resource on our planet, and a resource that is particularly threatened by climate change.  We don't think about it too much in Ithaca, but when you live in an area with no precipitation for 9 - 10 months of the year, it is always in your mind.

In the U.S. we laud "farm to table" as a sort of elite social movement, but in african villages it is a way of life.  The village I stayed in, Pelugru, is up in the northern part of Ghana and is fairly remote.  They only get three months of rain during the year, so all their crops and food have to be adapted to that climate.  Of course that's precisely what people in that area have been doing for hundreds of years, so they are pretty good at it.  Most meals consist of a starch and a meat soup or stew. During the rainy season there are also vegetables like okra, tomatoes and peppers. Starches include plantains, cassava, millet and taro roots (believed to be one of the very earliest cultivated crops), all of which grow locally and store well (for the 9 months of dry season).  And the meat comes from pretty much anything that moves: chickens, guinea fowl, goats, sheep, pigs, cows and donkeys.  These are all animals that can fend for themselves and graze on what's available, so of course all their meat is organic, "free range" and "grass fed."  In the U.S. we pay a premium for that, but in africa that is just what is sustainable.  

In addition people make their own cooking oil, from ground nuts and palm nuts.  They also make their own alcohol: pito is fermented millet and there is also palm wine further south.  Villagers even make their own charcoal by burying smoldering wood under dirt.

I don't want to romanticize village life, it is not an easy existence, particularly during the dry season.  But it is interesting to me that over centuries people have developed an agriculture that is well suited for their climate and sustainable.  It is equally interesting to me that in the U.S. we are only just discovering the benefits of such a lifestyle.

This summer I went on a trip to Ghana to visit my son who is in the Peace Corps (teaching math!).  I myself was a math teacher in the Peace Corps, many years ago in Central Africa, so this trip provided plenty of opportunity for reflection and remembering.

Ghana is located in West Africa.  In a way it is the "center" of the world, the longitude is close to zero (meaning it is on the great meridien) and the latitude is about 5° north.  Ghana is anglophone, but it surrounded by French speaking countries: Cote d'Ivoire, Burkina Faso and Togo.  Of course English is only one of many languages spoken in Ghana.  There are 11 main languages with about 80 dialects total.  Most people you meet speak multiple languages.  

The Ashanti Kingdom in Ghana dates back more than a thousand years and was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Africa.  In modern times, Ghana was one of the first of the colonized african countries to gain independence, back in 1957.  A majority of Ghanaians identify as Christian, but there is also a large Muslim population.  Every town I passed through had at least one mosque.  

The climate in Ghana is tropical in the south, where there are two rainy seasons per year.  However in the northern part of the country (where I spent most of my time) there is only one rainy season and then it is dry for 9 months of the year, more like savannah.  In December through February a dry dusty wind known as the harmattan blows from the sahara desert.  

​The capital of Ghana is Accra, located on the coast.  That is where my journey begins.