Friday, April 17, 2009

Mr. Brobbey at His Moringa Farm, Adugyama, Ghana

This is Mr. Brobbey at his Moringa Farm. He has one acre at this site planted with Moringa trees. We harvested the leaves on this day, April 11th and spent a couple hours taking them off the branches. Mr. Brobbey will then dry them for 3 days or so and then pound them with a pestle and mortar into a fine, green powder.

The leaves are incredibly nutritious and is used for healing many ailments. They call this tree the Miracle tree because of all of its uses and cures. Mr. Brobbey boils the little branches to make tea which he says allows him to sleep wonderfully. You can learn more by googling Moringa or go to www.treesforlife.org.

On the day we were harvesting the leaves, there was a nice breeze. We sat under a shade tree and a beautiful flourescent blue and black butterfly landed near my foot and rested for a while. The neighboring farmers were burning their fields in order to plant more maize and cassava. They need to do this now before the rainy season begins.

Mr. Brobbey is trying to promote more Moringa farming in the area and sees a lot of potential. Moringa is very popular in Ghana. It is packed with vitamins and protein. There are many places that sell Moringa as a nutritious supplement and also as medicine. He hope to find markets to sell his Moringa and other farmers' Moringa in the area.


We walked through some fields to get to his farm. As we walked through one field, Mr. Brobbey commented that there was a large cobra here last week. Maybe I'll see one and hopefully from a bit of a distance.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Adugyama (Dwinyama), Ghana

I'm staying in the village of Adugyama (Dwinyama), Ghana. It's on the Sunyani Road about 30 kilometers northwest of Kumasi. I'm staying in a house with the Atta family. Bea and Paul are the parents and they have threes daughters and one son. Their son, Yaw Bimbe goes to school in Abuakwa and return home for the weekends and vacation. He's been showing me around the village and I've been watching him play a lot of soccer. Their three daughters are living away at school or at University in Kumasi. I was introduced to them by Andrew Roberts who stayed with them while he was in the Peace Corps.




There are many rooms in the house. I have my own room and there's a hall where we spend a lot of time. I've been doing drawings with the kids. They're enjoying that. I'm also starting to learn Twi, the language of the Ashanti region.

Bea's mother, Nana, lives at the house along with their nephew, Kwaku Ba. Bea's sister, Rose lives there as well with her daughter, Sondra. The Atta's also have a couple farm laborers that live with them They farm cocoa, palm, maize, plantain, teak, moringa, yam, tilapia fish, and probably many other things I haven't yet learned about. Mr. Atta's frequently away. He works for the government at a large cocoa farm.

I've been getting to know the former chief's son, Mr. Addo. He is very active in the community and is doing a lot of projects to help the village. He worked a lot with Andrew when he was here. Mr Addo also work for a literacy program for adults at the Non-Formal Education Division. In his district, there are 3,619 people involved in the reading program.




Here' is Mr. Addo and Kwaku Ba leading me to the farm Mr. Addo owns with his partner, Mr. Brobbey. They have Teak trees, Palm, Maize, Moringa, Plantain, and a fish pond.

Mr Addo told me about his vision to someday create a large fish pond in the low part of the land. He would make the place into a tourist attraction by having various boats people can use such as the boats you can peddle with your feet. People from Kumasi and people traveling on the Sunyani Rd. would stop and picnic, go for a boat ride, and would be able to fish. They would pay for the fish they caught. Eventually, Mr. Addo would like to build a guesthouse near the lake to attract people to the village.

I'll be working with Mr. Addo on some projects. One project I plan on doing is planting Moringa trees. You can google Moringa to learn about it. It's a tree that's often called the Miracle Tree because of it's many healing properties. The leaves of the tree are packed with many vitamins and protein. It's being used all over Ghana for nutrition and for health.

This will be my address for awhile now.

Mr. Addo
Attn: Daniel Kerkhoff
P.O. Box 13
Adugyama (Dwinyama), Ashanti Region
Ghana, West Africa

Mr. Addo is trying to get school uniforms for some of the children in the village. He said two school uniforms would cost about 10 U.S. dollars. If anyone is interested in helping purchase school uniforms, you can send money to the above address. Books and school supplies would also be helpful. Thanks.