How Jack became someone else´s husband and we ended up at the busiest little fishing harbor

Today was a day where our minds and bodies were drained and we couldn’t work on anything because we have to wait until Monday for an office to open again to get paperwork done. The weeks have been exhausting and we just needed a break… So we jumped into our car and started driving.We didn’t where we were going but ended up in a town by the sea we had been wanting to go to for months now. The sea breeze filled the air and we realized how long we hadn´t had a single moment to just breathe. It was extremely hot outside but it feels so detached to roll the windows up and turn on the air condition, so we embraced the heat and let our faces feel the breeze and humidity while exchanging smiles with everyone on the way. We saw children playing games in the streets as if they had not a single worry in the world. We drove through the town and parked our car in a little street close to the harbour. We wondered whether our car would still be there when we got back, but figured its pointless to worry about it and started walking.
We got to the packed beach where everyone was bargaining for fish, crabs, shrimps, massive shells, eels, devil fish, and other things that looked fishy! 
Everyone was very surprised to see fair skinned people strolling through the crowd in their flipflops and was cheerfully chatting away with us, mostly in languages we didn’t understand, but we all laughed together.
There was one man who was cracking shells to sell at the market and as I stood there watching him he smiled, paused for just a second and gave me one. He gestured that they are delicious!
We met this one old woman who was smitten with Jack and in her very few words of English she told me that he´s not my husband anymore, he´s her´s now! So I laughed and told her “alright, bye bye” and all the women were giggling and cheering.

After ages of getting our feet very dirty, we walked back to the car, which was of course still there, in one piece. We found another market, which was very quiet and it was lovely to hang out there, chatting with the ladies and buying heaps of fresh fruit.


We drove back just as the sun was getting lower, filled with happiness, half ready to be thrown into the madness of daily things to do again. 

Things you face when starting an NGO/Institute and moments that make it worth it

You know those days when nothing seems to go right? Well, we´ve been having a couple of weeks of that….
These are the struggles you have when trying to build something in a developing country that can´t quite handle the bureaucracy, which they´ve copied from more developed countries, yet but tries to impose laws onto you that don’t exist, simply because you have light skin …

Ghana is wonderful, and so are its gorgeous people, but sometimes things pile up and get frustrating. Since the rainy season is finally gracing us with its presence the electricity has been off most days (meaning no fridges, no laptops for work, no fan at night, only candlelight after 6 pm, showers in the dark etc), which is very tiring when you need to get work done, but it´s also not a disaster. The water has been switched off too, due to unclear reasons (meaning that we have to carry buckets around for showers, flushing the toilet, washing the dishes, etc), which is annoying especially paired with power cuts, but also it´s nothing terrible.

Other things make up for it. Like all the peanut flowers, chillis, basil and sunflowers that have started growing. A few days ago our dam was finally completely full, which is amazing for all the plants and animals. We were extremely excited and jumped in. It was the perfect temperature and so soothing. Feeling the water that we had managed to collect in a place where there wasn’t any water before, with colourful birds fluttering around, felt like the sweetest, most gentle victory on my skin. 


During the night the skies opened up and flooded the capital city so badly that gutters were flowing over, car showrooms had to be emptied and many houses and cars stood under water. The power of all that water in our dam broke through one of the walls and by the time we got there in the morning the dam was almost empty, with a river now running down the hill, making beautiful noises.
With the wall it ripped a tiny piece of our hearts out because unknowingly we had poured our entire hearts into this land and were lost for words for the rest of the day. We need to find money somehow to be able to hire a bulldozer for a day to fix the dam properly and it needs to be done before the rainy season ends or we´ll have an empty dam. 
Since we moved houses we´ve been cooking with coals outside. It´s romantic to sit outside together, making dinner at candle light but after a few days you´re just fed up. Mosquitos try to get in on the romance and it also takes hours to cook anything. We bought a stove now and are relieved that we can cook inside the house in our underwear again, dancing to Aretha Franklin. 

Our beloved but very very very old Landrover needed some mechanical love for the hundredth time yesterday and we spent 8 hours getting it fixed and 4 hours in traffic. But we ate a huge pizza on the way, so that made it okay. 
We work every single day without getting paid, and sometimes when things just add up (and money gets less and less thanks to heaps of paper work and bribes you have to pay) you get frustrated and wish that some people would donate some money to fuel the goodness were trying to spread! 

Of despair and hope

If you read till the end and visit our website for 10 seconds I will plant a tree for you!

So we work every day with very little money to build a place for innovative sustainable design, to help locals with their basic needs, for collaboration with communities across west Africa, to preserve wildlife, to welcome guests from all over the world for workshops on various global issues and makers projects and it is like a stab into the heart when I am reminded of what´s happening in this world.
There are so many things that are actively destroying the planet, that’s why we decided to start The Sun´s Harvest, for people who want to make a slight difference. Yesterday I read picture accompanied reports and advertisements once again for these elephant and lion hunts that you can book online. It made me feel helpless and utterly hopeless.
What´s the point in trying to do something good, putting every last bit of my energy into living a life in Ghana where the electricity goes out every other day, where some families live in the dirt, where faeces run through the gutters of the city next to where food is getting sold, where sometimes there is no water for a week, where the dry season lasts for half a year in which people don’t know what they can grow and harvest, where people with money drive cars many of us can´t dream to afford in Europe or the US and enjoy their swimming pools while young children work so their family can eat that day? What is the point?
The answer is hope. I have hope. Not naïve hope for a better world tomorrow, I´ve experienced enough to know that there are no fairy tales, but hope that maybe we can create awareness, by having realistic expectations and trying to reach people who care and support us. It feels pointless sometimes to see everyone care about the next i-phone, the newer laptop, the newest trend in hair & make-up, the newest app to alienate us all even more from each other, about working in a corporate job that makes sure their children´s future is “secure” on a planet that the human race is plundering at a pace that outstrips its capacity to support life.
It´s understandable that we are wired to avoid problems until they stare us in the face, but we can´t keep living like nothing will still happen in our life time or the next, because the problem won´t be staring us in the face by then, it will take the air out of our lungs and there won´t be anything we can do about it. The truth is miserable and depressing but we have to stop running from it. But it´s not all dark, there are some people who care to make a difference beyond sharing “meaningful videos” on facebook.
It doesn’t matter which (overpriced) Triple Soy Half Sweet Non-Fat Caramel Macchiato you´re having every morning but where the coffee beans are from. It doesn´t matter which fashion trend you´re following this season but whose hands stitched your clothes. It doesn´t matter if you want to wear diamonds, but whether someone had to die for you to look pretty. It doesn´t matter which dietary craze you´re following, but whether the food needs to be shipped from the other side of the world.
If we want to see a future for this thing that we call home and want to keep breathing in 30 years time then we have to start living a different lifestyle. Not everyone needs to live off the grid, but every single person needs to make more conscious choices. Stop putting it off. Your career won´t matter when everyone is dying of lung disease and cancer. Stop and think for a moment about how you can start living with a clear conscience. Maybe there are more of us who care out there than we think…
Im not going to ask you to donate on our website because there are so many vital causes everywhere. But maybe you can spare a few pounds, dollars, euros, pesos, yuan, cedi, króna, etc. that you would have used for an extra piece of clothing, an extra gadget, an extra pair of shoes, an extra app, an extra Monsanto owned food product, an extra crystal ergoripado vaccum cleaner (for 20,000 Dollars) or for other things, to give to an environmental cause today. Look for one thing that you would like to support and give a little. Or plant some trees and veggies in your garden!

Thank you for reading!

Website: http://www.thesunsharvest.com Email: thesunsharvest@gmail.com

Building an Institute

I had written this some months ago but wasn´t sure whether to share it yet. But it´s our Institute´s story and maybe it will inspire some people to join the idea…

Ever since I was sixteen and had packed my bags to move to India for a while, I felt restless. Restless for change. I watched children living in the dirt, eating whatever they could find, only learning from each other, begging in the streets, BUT sharing. They shared everything they had. From food to knowledge and most of all smiles. And I felt embarrassed to live in a society where none of us take care of each other anymore. Here are these children, our children, living without water, not knowing where their next meal will come from and then there´s us, living close by, having hot showers every day, flushing our toilets with drinking water, wasting roughly 1.3 billion tonnes of food every year and worrying about how long the charge of our i-phone is going to last. I felt helpless but inspired.

When I was back in England finishing school, teachers were trying to fit me into career boxes and I felt more and more lost each time because I didn’t feel passionate enough for any of the choices but there wasn´t a real option for development and creativity either. Any money that I had saved up since I was 13, I used for travelling and seeing different cultures. I learnt so much about different ways of appreciating nature and life from different perspectives. I returned to India, because my heart was pulling me back there. It wasn’t much, but I was teaching at a school for half a year, experiencing real joy about learning and feeling reassured in the knowledge that one of the most important things in the world is to build schools and to give every single child the right and possibility to acquire knowledge. Young children do not deserve to work every single day to support their family instead of getting an education but to put on a backpack and head to school. Trust me, they will hike far to get to a school if you only let them.

My path took me to Germany and Argentina, trying to figure out a way to combine my passions of education, art, development, environment and sustainability in a way that would make sense. I was pressured to go to University and felt inclined to give in every once in a while, and while I believe that it is a valuable system, I don’t think it’s the place for me (at least not right now). Im not made to go to an institution every day that produces similarly shaped citizens who feel pressured to fit into a society. And I know that’s not every college or university but a large amount and I know so many people who used to have big dreams before they went to University but gave them up along the way.

I felt so inspired to build schools, to give children a home, to build housing for communities, to feed the homeless etc. etc. but every single idea required heaps of money to start with and usually people want to see someone with a university degree in order to support a project. So I contented myself with small projects until I finally decided waiting around, or getting a PhD is not going to change anything and that we are on this planet to create our own dreams. Sending clothes to poor countries doesn´t change a thing, neither does playing the “white person saviour” (because no one is asking us to save them), but educating people will have an impact. Education about the world, about health, about jobs, about freedom.

A long while back I found someone who shares my ideas and after a few years of gallivanting across the globe together we decided to move to Ghana. Off we went leaving all things behind. First we worked at an NGO for education, which was insightful enough but not exactly what we wanted and after a few months of learning and planning out our own ideas to become reality we figured being young may be an advantage. We are filled with inspiration, willing to work hard, are ambitious, maybe naive, open minded and ready for a challenge. So we made connections, emptied our life insurance and bought land in Ghana. It is surrounded by small rolling hills, has a couple of sweet mango trees, a forest with monkeys right next to it, fertile soil and is 15 min away from the beach. That is basically all we´ve got right now. That, and a dream.

Our deepest wish is to create a home for people who want to come together to teach and learn. It will be an Institute for Permaculture (which is an ecological and environmental design based on natural eco systems which is 100% sustainable) Education and the Arts.
We have registered an NGO and a company and are allowed to commence business right now.

– Trying to be aware of issues around us, we are going to be teaching locals and international people how to grow enough food to feed their own families and communities.

– We will be having lectures and workshops on a vast variety of topics ranging from permaculture, across architecture, fine arts, bead making, philosophy, nutrition to herbal medicine, music and preservation of wildlife. All of which we will invite you, international lecturers and enthusiasts, to for teaching or participating.

– We are going to produce organic products (such as oils, pesto, soap, shea butter etc.) to sell, with the proceeds going towards developing this place.

– It will be an oasis for anyone who wants to escape their busy lives for a while and just be surrounded by nature and quietness.

– The place will be a sanctuary for all the children and adults living around us who will be creating this place together with us to welcome people from all over the world.

– Volunteers will be welcome to stay and work on the organic farm, in the kitchen, on building things or on other developing projects.
In January we are going to start building basic housing so people who would like to be a part of this or help out can come and stay.

– In addition to all that, we will be having one Bungalow only for Philosophy, mainly the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian Philosopher who has founded many wonderful schools and stimulated many people to learn more about themselves, to explore truth within ourselves, to dive into the complexity of the unknown and to free ourselves from conditioning.

If all goes well we will be teaching concepts that people can take away and share someplace else.
We have leapt into something we believe in and are pouring our hearts into it. We may not have the money to secure our future or have any security about it, but we are doing our part in doing something that we think is right. We want to broaden horizons and create dreams and hopefully there will be some adventurous people who´ll join us! Maybe things don’t always need to make perfect sense or be logical but it just takes a few people who believe in something.
This is just the beginning…

Thank you for reading a million words, feel free to share your ideas!
All of you, near and far, are welcome to visit any time,

The Sun´s Harvest