Training is almost like being back in school… no wait I take that back… training is being back in school. 6 hours a day of language and 2 hours of Ghanaian environment… grueling. There are papers to complete, projects that are due and having to be presented, tests are being given, and we are being graded on every aspect of our days… did we participate enough, comprehend enough, complete our assignments, and pass the exams?

PPP – Personal Presentation Project – we were given a month to prepare, but adapting to the Ghanaian culture (moving super slow), and in part that none of us really wanted to be back in school, we are cramming to finish for the final presentation. As it turns out PC also upped the due date (is that even allowed?) So in final preparation, my group consisting of Jon (from Colorado) and Dylan (from Utah) all gathered as we will all be in the Volta, to give a presentation about Palm Wine.

Palm Wine, is more common, and also considered the best in the Volta Region (woot woot Volta), due to its distilling process, was our topic of choice. Being made from the sap in palm nut trees it is only good with in the first few days of making. It really cannot be bottled and kept for further use and if its not consumed then palm wine is distilled further to make apitsi… the moonshine of Ghana.

Having the vaguest idea about the who’s, what’s, where’s, when’s, why’s, and how’s about Palm Wine we set off into the bush to see if we could find someone making it…

Ok so brief history… or what we could gather… the sap from palm nut trees was discovered when elephants would eat the branches and a sap would then seep out from the trees. This has been going on as long as anyone can remember. In Ghana, the tree must be killed to extract the sap, where as in Nigeria they have mastered the way of extracting the sap without killing the palm nut tree… don’t understand that one.

But the process is a rather fast fermentation process… Depending on the season and how intense the heat is palm wine can be extracted 7 to 14 days after cutting down the palm tree. And for up to 40 days after the first extraction, wine can still be extracted. We were told that the alcohol content is 25% - that’s a load of bull – maybe 2.5%. Palm wine is this sweet, milky color water, and after a few days of sitting it gains this sweet and sour taste.

We did the 40-minute walk to Masse, where the SED (Small Enterprise Development) people have been placed during training, knowing of a spot there where a few palm trees were lying on the ground. And as luck would have it we found the guys extracting some palm wine. They looked at us ‘obronies’ and with delight, (like we bring good luck with the extraction of Palm Wine?? Or it just looks cool to have some white people hanging around??) offered us some freshly extracted palm wine… simply delicious as it was still warm from the fire pulling the sap from the tree and sterilizing it as is ran into a gas canister (now that’s sterile…right?).

They looked at us, and then motioned for us to follow… we walked for about 20 minutes into the bush where they had about 4 more trees on their side. We watched as a little boy (they are called small boys here) poked a burning stick into a cut box at the top part of the tree, and as another small boy pumped air onto the fire to start the extraction of the wine.

Product sampling was had, project was completed, and presentation was given… A+