Where is the time going?!!!

This week has been much better than the last two! Things have officially settled down and life in Hohoe is getting back to normal. Last weekend was really sad because I had to say goodbye to many of the friends I have made this last month. About half of our volunteers left that have been here for the last four weeks. But with goodbyes at CCS come hellos and later on Sunday we welcomed 8 new volunteers to the house. There were also about 30 ROTC and 6 Naval Academy volunteers in the second CCS house that just opened up across town. We do some of our programing with them so it has been nice to meet even more people this week. 

As far as the conflict in Hohoe goes, the tension between the groups has lessened. However, last Friday I was with 4 nurses from the Hohoe township and they were telling me how there were rumors that the Muslim community was poisoning the food that they were selling. As a result, they are not allowed to sell in the market. On the other side of things, I was at the micro finance business today, walking around the Zongo (Muslim) community collecting money. Firstly, their community was significantly less populated. The amount of clients we met and the busyness that should have been present on a week morning was drastically less than when I had been there before the conflict. Many people we talked to were also struggling because they were not allowed to sell in the Hohoe community anymore so they were making very little money. Some of them were also quite irritated with Hohoe because they told Zongo this week that they should come to the market to buy things but they could not sell. This frustrated the women I talked to because it showed that Hohoe was obviously struggling too, but they were still limiting their interactions.

The curfew was extended this week to midnight! We were so happy on Tuesday that we took all of the new volunteers out to Obama Gardens! It was so nice to be out at night again. The military check points are still here, but it seems that the group running them has changed from the Ghana Military to the police. Their presence has also been a lot less conspicuous this week and they no longer cruise through town with their tanks and caravans of men with very large weapons. 

I am having a really hard time believing that this is my second to last week here! I may not be doing much more blogging until I am heading home because I want to soak up every minute! 

Thank you everyone for you prayers and kind words these last two weeks. I think they have really shown!!

Elizabeth