some picture updates:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/BiakpaWliWaterfalls#
http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/BotiFalls02#
http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/LakeVoltaAkosombo#

The dinner on Sunday turned out great. It ended up being much less expensive than I thought it would to buy all the groceries for it. The only dish that didn't work was the goat cheese and blood orange dumplings. The spring roll wrappers were too thin, and the dumplings exploded when I dropped them in the oil. Apparently I have inspired other people to start cooking, and some want me to teach them some basics.

On Wednesday night we went out to dinner at a place called Tribes for two of the volunteers that were leaving (goodbye Mary & Natasha!). Tribes has both traditional Ghanaian cuisine and "continental" dishes. I had a bacon cheese burger with onion rings. This made me very happy.
After dinner we attended a drumming workshop at the National Cultural Center, which is a market in Accra focused on selling traditional crafts and art. After the drumming we were treated to a performance by musicians using guitars from Mali. Shortly after that we headed to La Pleasure Beach for reggae night, which ended when the tide came in.

At work we keep losing power. We lost power on both Friday and Tuesday. On Friday we ended up going to an internet cafe to keep working. On Tuesday we just went home. I can't really argue with that!

Monday was the submission deadline, and we fell far short of the target of at least 200 proposals. There are several things that went wrong. For starters, most of the promotional work was done far too late for the competition to get any tracking. The World Bank did not allocate a marketing budget, and did not follow through with promises to take out ads. I am not letting myself off the hook for this issue however. Given how religious this country is, myself and the other volunteers should have attempted a grassroots-style outreach through the religious bodies. Several of us had lunch with a very prominent pastor in Takoradi, and none of us thought of asking her to talk about the competition in her sermons.

Several sponsors have expressed interest, but have indicated that since it is near the end of the year their budgets are shot. As a result, the final judging event will probably not occur until early 2010, long after I'm gone. The hope is that we can nail down some key sponsors by mid-November, and then at least plan the event far in advance.

This weekend I am headed back to Kokrobite Beach. There has been a lot of turnover among the volunteers this month, so there is a fresh batch of volunteers looking to experience Ghana.

I gotta go, beer pong awaits!