Sunday 6 December 2009

Farming with my host family

Moi and my host dad...


Me, Sam and kirsty were lucky enough to go to a rice farm. We were told that there wasn't a rice farm in the kasapin village, but after watching a rice cultivating video, i was really intrigued i asked my host dad and he took us to his friends farm...so much work goes into cultivating rice.

To think we can just go to our local Tesco's or sainsbury's to buy a bag of rice, we dont think what it entails to actually prepare the rice...

Rice grows in swampy waters, here are the rice shoots growing...


My host dad, moi and Kirsty drying out the cocoa seeds before it gets packed up to the middle men who he sells them to for peanuts then they send it to the manufacturers in Accra, the capital...


We were all allocated a host family, this meant every Thursday we would do everything they done. Mine, Kirsty's and Sam's host family was elder Isiah, he is the chief's elder brother. In African tradition there is what you call a chief and a queen of every village (very much like the Mayor of a town).

My host father was a coco farmer. It would take us an hour to walk to his farm and we would spend about two hours coco farming! Hard work but exhilarating to know how chocolate is born!

We also saw how plantains, bananas, yams, rice are farmed...

These are casava, similar to yams...

My amazing host dad on the left, that's his worker on his right...In their hands they are holding cocoa pods, chocolate at birth :-)


My host dads worker sharpening his cutless...

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