Friday, August 21, 2009

Graduation complete!

Hi everyone,
I talked to my Mom Friday August the 14th and she did in fact graduate, they had a ceremony and all!
(I am a week behind and I am here in the US) She passed all her tests with a 95% and had to give a speech in her "new language" at the graduation, she said it was a very short speech LOL.
She was on her way to the beach with the rest of the group for some much needed relaxation. She was drinking a beer which thankfully she can drink there with no Migraine, SUPER! She received my "care package" and was excited to hit the beach for 2 days with some books and coffee from coffee works. It has been pretty grueling and she sounded very happy and glad that this phase was done. She is excited to move on to the next adventure, I am so proud of her I can't even tell you how much!
By now she is probably getting settled into her new digs at her new project. Once settled she will figure all the stuff out and hopefully be able to get to the Internet regularly to keep us all updated........More later, Kelley

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Dorothy the Graduate

Hi Gang, it's Colleen this time with the latest on Dorothy's adventures! She has passed her Peace Corps Training and her language course and she graduates on Thursday.
Good work DeeDub! The rumor is that she and a few other volunteers are going to sneak off to the beach for a couple of days before heading to their new assignments on Monday. Sounds like she is leading those young people astray. Typical.

Next week she will move to her new home and begin work. Her first project is to find a way to get electricity to her end of the village. It's hard enough to deal with utility companies here...must be a real treat in Ghana. Good luck with that!

She's glad to hear from all of you so keep those letters and emails coming. More news as it happens, stay tuned!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Hi, Bryant here with an update on Dorothy's escapades.
I spoke to Dorothy last Saturday and she is doing well. She was visiting the village where she will beliving and working, beginning in two weeks. She was happy with the living conditions there and thinks they are much better than where she has been staying. She has two rooms in a nice, clean guesthouse. There are separate kitchen, outhouse and shower buildings, but they are all fairly new and nicely maintained. She will be working on a project at a coco plantation near Adjeikrom (I hope that's right) in the Fanteakwa district in Ghana's Eastern Region It's a ecotourism project started by Cabury-Schwepps, Earthwatch and a Ghanian nonprofit organization. If you google Earthwatch Ghana or Cadbury ecotourism or any combination, you should be able to find out about this project and maybe see some pictures of the village. It sounds like Cadbury buillt a nice visitor center and the guest house, left the keys and said see ya! Dorothy will be working with employees of a non profit organization and with Earthwatch volunteers to make it a working tourist attraction. This may involve getting local crafters to give examples of their work and, of course, selling it.
There is no electricity at her end of the village yet, but the Chief has electricity at his house and he will provide a room for Dorothy to work in at "The Palace". She likes the people she will be working with and is anxious to get started after all the moving around she has done during training. It will also be nice to have her own home after living with host families for so many weeks.

If you would like to write to her, use this address:

Dorothy Wooldridge
Peace Corps
P. O. Box 5796
Accra North
Ghana, West Africa

This is the central Peace Corps address in Ghana, they will distribute the mail from there. I know she would love to hear from you.
Her email is deedubsmf@gmail.com, but she doesn't often have access to a computer.