Monday, June 14, 2010

Today when I got to work I did some more work on the stamp library. Pretty much I just went through last years catalog and figured out which stamps were used for which garments and entered it into an excel document. It took forever. Sarah is working on a template to put them all in. its going to be sweet when its finished because it will have everything you could ever want to know about a specific stamp in one file. Once she finishes the template I’ll have to go through and add all the information I have into the template she created.

After working on the stamp library I took a lunch break. Usually for lunch I eat in the office and pretty much work through my lunch. By the end of the day I am so sick of being stuck in the office I cant stand it. I decided I'm going to start using my lunch to walk around Cape Coast. I feel like not only is it good exercise and a good break from work, but it will also allow me to see more of the city. I’m just going to walk a different way each day.

The rest of my workday I put together a template for the capacity building. The capacity building project involves going on site visits and getting to know the seamstresses and batikers and what they are good at. In the end we want to have a file that has profiles for each woman, what they’re strong skills are and what their weaknesses are.

After work I made the best pasta I have ever made in my entire life. I really think I’m becoming a better cook since I’ve been here. I even put fresh garlic in it. Nick is a really good cook and he gives me tips. He says I should start making sauces and soups because they’re easy and then I can eat them for a while. I might try something like that tomorrow.

I’m starting to feel like I don’t have much time left. Even though I’m only about half way through my trip I feel like there aren’t many weekends left to explore Ghana. Most of the places left to go are kind of far, which is why we’ve been putting them off. This weekend I think we’re going to try to plan a trip to Mole, which is a 10 hour drive north. We don’t want to have to travel with so many people because then we’re pretty much a walking target so there are 4 of us trying to plan a trip kind of behind everyone’s back. I feel bad because we don’t want to leave anyone out, but it makes more sense for us to split up and not travel in such a large group.