Thank you all for your ideas and suggestions. We will certainly make sure Patrick is able to finish his school year and I will speak with Mavis about other opportunities for her to start her business. In the meantime, we have made two small investments in Tafi. The first: Mo, John and I decided to donate the supplies and our time to repaint the main office building. The tour guides helped, and the seven of us had a blast!


Second, John and I purchased three bikes last week. These bikes will primarily be for our use until we leave; however, we bought them because Sylvester had mentioned he wanted to set up a bike rental in Tafi to help himself through school. So we are in the process of entering into a business contract with him wherein we will maintain primary ownership of the bikes but he will be in charge of the rental company. This benefits four different parties: we can get around easier while we are here, Sylvester can learn the basics of running a business (he is interested in pursuing this), tourists have another entertainment option, and the Sanctuary benefits from the tourists' satisfaction. We've had the bikes less than one week and I think we've already gotten our money's worth!

We also cleaned up the office a bit. We added a donation box and a "tips are appreciated" sign (both of which paid off within the day) and arranged the brochures for other tourist attractions in the area. We have a big meeting with both the committee and the chiefs and elders on Thursday morning. The goal of the meeting is to get the green light on some imperative goals (the committee seems to be on our side; it's the chiefs we have to convince).

As it is now, the old committee members are the only ones with access to the sanctuary's bank account, the chiefs constantly take money from the office without recording it, and there is one lump percentage of the profits that is assigned to the chiefs, committee, sanctuary upkeep/improvements, and community development combined. Basically, according to the books the sanctuary is pulling in a ton of money but the bank account is empty.

These are simple- not easy, but Simple- problems to fix. Our two main objectives right now are to get the names on the account changed to the members of the present committee and set up a separate account in the chief's name, into which the community's and chief's money will go. If we can successfully separate the percentages and book keeping and give the correct people financial power, Tafi Atome would be completely financially secure. Here's the trick though: we are not the first, second, or probably fifth person to explain this to them. When I cleaned out the desk in the office, I found some very well written documents by organizations and volunteers alike proposing the same things, frequently in the same manner. Frustrating. The guides seem to believe that the three of us have what it takes, and I really hope we do, but we are just amateurs going on common sense and making it up as we go.

On a lighter note, here are some great shots from our everyday life in the beautiful Volta region and the beautiful people (and animals?) with whom we live!