February 5

Yesterday we traveled from Accra to our destination for the next 10 days or so, Tafo and Bunso, where Barry and I will be working with 3 credit unions. Our drive was quite spectacular once we got out of the city. We drove inland, up and over one of the mountains and down some terrific jungle-like valleys. The air was cooler and the views magnificent. The smaller villages up on the mountaintop reminded me of the towns in Europe with small, tight roads flanked by two- or three-story buildings.

We are staying in Tafo. This is the home of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana. This was once a very large employer, over 1,000 staff, but has seen significant cutbacks in recent times. We are staying in a part of the complex called the guesthouse.

The rooms are large and clean with private baths, but the décor is very old. It is outside of the town core, and we are a little more remote than we would prefer. One activity that I liked from last year was being able to walk the street and talk to the vendors which isn’t really an option for us here.

However, it has one of the few golf courses in Ghana. We might play 9 holes on Saturday.

Internet access is intermittent, so I apologize for not being able to send earlieer. I hope to upload some great pics tomorrow.

February 6

We are at a closed bond credit union that is successful -700 members and 4 billion cedis in assets. They have not had an AGM in 3 years, and the board members have all exceeded their term limits. So we have some recommendations and observations for them. They need some help with delegating authority to the capable manager. The credit union is sound; they have just taken it on their own to bend some rules.

The credit union is in the research institute and the grounds are quite something. We’ll be going for a full tour tomorrow.

We were talking today with the asst. manager, Jacob, about hairstyles and he said that God cuts Barry’s hair – he is bald on top.

Good thing I have prepared for everything – got a bad bug and had everything happening at both ends last night. I can’t recall being that sick before. I am only about 50 percent today.

Hopefully I can recover fully for tomorrow -

Cheers from Tafo, Ghana!