Craziest experience yet?

How to describe yesterday, that is the question.

Most of my blog entries are of the summary variety, updating the world (or at least those unfortunate enough to have been sent the link to my blog :P) on a whole list of things over the past week or whatever.

Well today, I’ll just write about one thing.

All week Nana had been talking about going to this festival for her ethnic group (or tribe). There are like fifty or a hundred different ethnic groups in Ghana, with ‘Ga’ being one of the biggest. They also originate from the oldest part of Accra, which is the really interesting ‘JamesTown’.

She made the entire office go. I even tried to get out of it because I had too much work, but she insisted upon us going. I’m glad she did, because it may have been the highlight of my trip so far.

The basic premise is that once a year, the Ga have this festival celebrating twins. I expected the twins part to be a bigger deal, but it certainly didn’t stand out.

Nana took us by taxi, all like 20 of us, to the area where it was going to be. We went to these random couple of houses where they were beginning to party. We saw this family, who had little baby twins, and they were making this ceremonial…I don’t even know what. If you look at pictures you’ll see, I want to call it a “stew”, but I don’t think that’s right.

It was a combination of random leaves, apparently part of a dead chicken, and who knows what else. Alcohol for one thing. The man of the house dipped his hands in to it and proceeded to wash his head with it. In other words he took an Italian shower in dead chicken, random vegetation and liquor.

Then we went to this other random place. It was really cool because with Nana (and our other Ghanaian colleagues), you kind of can go into the back alleys of these slums, not just look at things from the street.

Oh, and like usual, the kids love for you to take pictures. I’ve decided that taking pictures of kids and then showing them the picture is one of the best things you can do as an obruni. They are fascinated by the camera, love the attention and overall it’s just really fun.

Anyways, we then go and find a little “spot bar” to have a drink waiting for the main event.

The main event is basically what amounts to a….parade.…of people. It’s like the ‘running of the bulls’ in Spain….with people? I have no idea how to describe it.

Basically that ceremonial concoction (supposedly) has the power to make people possessed when they put it on their head. So this “parade” is basically this. Instead of floats, there are people walking with these bowls/buckets of dead chicken, vegetation and alcohol, on their head.

Only they aren’t really walking. They’re stumbling, unable to keep upright on their own (themselves or their pants by the way). Sometimes they run like zombies, other times they can barely walk. They swing around the street with a crowd guiding them. Liquid falling and splashing around.

The entire thing quickly became the most chaotic, craziest thing I may have ever seen. There aren’t a lot of people with these things, it’s at best a 1 to 100 ratio, but you get these people running down the street with this. And everybody’s watching. Hundreds of thousands of people watching I’m quite sure, as they barrel down what feels like the race course for the bull running (or the running of the Jew from Borat, nice!).

I really don’t know what else to say about it. You have men cross dressing, all sorts of people with their faces chalked in white. Then random people start putting random things on their own head. There is enough liquor flowing to keep Acadia wet for about a decade. One person ran with their ‘bucket’ also with a dead dog around their neck. People are doing random back flips. Twin children are paraded down on the shoulders of others.

And every time one “possessed” person comes near you, you have to be ready, because they may swerve right in to you. I even got a video on my camera of it, as we have to jump over the open sewer back on to the side walk so not to get leveled by a possessed Ghanaian man with who knows what on their head.

Ultimately the pictures won’t describe it. The videos probably won’t do it justice. But I’ll try and post both.

But suffice to say, it was crazy.

The Conference

Ok, so I haven't written a blog in a while, but I hopefully have a good excuse. In short, my two months of work in Ghana culminated into the last two days.

Since I arrived at CHRI, I've primarily been working on this big "international" conference that I've written about before. Anyways, I won't go into the details, and I'm too tired to write a long blog, but I'll at least ramble about it.

I must say though, wow am I relieved to have it over with. I had to work the entire weekend, meeting and greeting the foreign participants, setting things up, running errands and all that. Very little sleep, really long hours, lots of stress. But the conference went really well.

Day 1 started off really stressfully but really well. The Opening Ceremonies had some pretty major politicians from Ghana giving speeches, as well as the most famous scholar in the country I think. It drew about 40-50 members of the media. It was kind of crazy, but unfortunately I was manning the registration desk outside for much of it. I guess I missed some crazy political bantering between a couple of the politicians.

After that though things calmed down. Nana and the Minority Leader in Parliament did some TV interviews and whatnot, and then the real conference started. The entire morning went well, some interesting presentations, some decent discussion. But the afternoon things thinned out a bit.

We were supposed to have about 50 participants, and about 20 were supposed to be from outside Ghana, 30 from Ghana. But only about 16 of the foreign participants came (4 dropped out in the days before, including our unofficial "guest of honour". And by the afternoon, only about 10 Ghanaian participants were still there. So the dissapointment of the conference was the numbers. While we expected 40-50, we got 25-30.

Ultimately though it went well I think. Edmund made a mess of some things, but Steve and I tried to clean things up. The conference room was great, I think we did our best and that's good.

I also got to meet some really interesting people. None of the foreign participants were celebrities, but they were all big and impressive members of various civil society organizations. Meeting people from South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and so on and so forth was really interesting.

We also went out for this really cool dinner on Monday night. It was supposed to be to show the foreign participants a good time, but I think myself and the other interns (only Steve and I worked on the conference, but the others were invited because of low numbers relative to the original reservation) were about as amused as them. We went to this gorgeous outdoor restaurant on the ocean just outside of town. The moon was out, the waves were big and spraying mist over the big patio.

The highlight was this cultural group we hired to perform for us. It was basically like a 'busker festival' combined with west african drumming. It was sweet, I wish my camera wasn't out of batteries.

But it was still great. There were a couple great moments, but I'm not sure if retelling them would do them justice. A video might, perhaps, but not a blog entry. But it was really cool to see the foreign participants go from serious and intellectual to relaxed and fun.

The second day was good, again low numbers, but overall fine. Some presentations were really interesting, including from two different guys from South Africa. Then there was discussion and all that.

Finally, I was asked to give the closing thanks. Steve and Florence joked about me doing it because they know I'm shy about public speaking. I thought it was a joke, and i was running around the entire afternoon session, passing the microphone and stuff. Then Nana pulls me over and asks if I'm ready. I say I thought it was a joke, but she says it's too late. She scribbles a few sentences, and then I have to go. I have no idea how I sounded, probably terrified, but I kind of winged it and didn't completely embarrass myself.

And then it was over. I'm still at the hotel today, making sure all the guests leave alright. But I get tomorrow off (i guess because I worked all weekend) and will rest and relax. I honestly have no idea what i'll do the rest of my work time here in Ghana. Probably start some new project and not finish it. I only have two more weeks left of work (maybe less if I decide to do some continental travelling), so I guess it's kind of winding down.

People are leaving too, it's getting quiet and really feels like it's winding down. That I have one month to go is crazy. I feel like I've been here forever, but in good way.

Stressful week

Ok, I haven't written much about work, but here's a little summary, more because I need to vent a bit. None of this changes that I'm really enjoying myself, having a fascinating experience and all that, nor even that I dislike the work. But man has this been a hard week, and it's not even over.

My primary task since I got here, in fact pretty much all I've done, is help organize this conference that CHRI is hosting. It's not some small conference either, it's an "international conference". We have a major budget, are flying people in from South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Cameroon as well as India and London. It's a major two day conference on Freedom of Information, with at least 50 participants and all that. Huge deal, and really important for our office's reputation as well.

I'm part of basically a four person organizational "committee" I guess. When I came it was just two, Florence and Edmund who are Ugandan and Ghanaian respectively, but both permanent staff. I was assigned to them to help organize this thing, and later Stephen, an intern from Denver, begun to help as well. Slowly though I've become more of the centerpiece of this organizational committee, with almost all e-mail correspondence going through me. All the major documents are on my computer and my responsibility to update and all that. It takes up just about all day every day of my time. It's amazing how time consuming this kind of thing is.

Anyways, this week became disastrous after Edmund tried to take care of the flight reservations. Now Edmund's a great guy, lots of fun and I really like him a lot. But his only task was to book the flights for our international/non-Ghanaian participants. And he messed it up big time.

First of all, he booked most of the people on Ethiopian Airlines (6 of them, conveniently all of whom need Visas, meaning we did NOT have time to spare in getting their reservations completed). But he booked them all on the wrong day. So we had to go back and rebook them all. This I realized before we sent anything out.

Then I realize most of the names are spelt wrong. Minor errors, but nonetheless enough that they could be problematic. Then I realize some of them have major layovers, including three of those six having 15 hours in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). Essentially, Edmund hadn't looked at their travel itineraries at all. I asked him if he'd looked, and he said he didn't really understand them much at all.

But we sent them out anyways. Then we get a reply back, and one of the participants has a flight leaving from Johannesburg (South Africa), but he's from Cape Town, a two hour, 500 dollar flight away. Already looking dumb, we tell him we'll pay for both flights, but he expresses concern over having to take three planes on two airlines with a 15 hour layover in Addis Ababa, so he calls about the layover at least.

Then this Cape Town participant is informed his flight isn't even confirmed, it's just been waitlisted. Of course, Edmund paid for these flights, without confirmation or knowing they were just waitlisted. So we scrapped it all, cancelled that guy's flight and told him to book his own and we'd reimburse him.

There are further problems. One of the people from Nigeria is booked to leave from the wrong city. Edmund needed only to check the participants list (which I'd given him many many times) to see this. And then he went to buy a ticket (with cash, becuase you have to here), and didn't go with enough today.

All in all I spent two days this week running around Accra solving problems. And it forced me to take a lot more control over the organization of the conference. It is being held on July 30th and 31st, so it's very soon. And Stephen's heading to the North next week. So we're down to the three, with a super busy Florence and an incompetent Edmund. So now I have a major international conference that feels like it's on my shoulders.

The worst part is that this isn't even the most advanced stuff. Sure it's advanced executive assistant type of work, but it's kind of holding me back from doing more investigative, intellectual work. Overall I don't mind, because it keeps me really busy though.

So there, there's my vent.

Other than that, things are going pretty well. I've now hit the phase where I feel like a veteran. After tomorrow, I will be the oldest (in terms of time spent at CHRI and in Ghana) of all the interns, which will still be at a total of around 15-18 next week. It's pretty crazy, I now feel like I've been here forever, and yet I still have well over a month to go.

Oh, and no tequila this weekend. I don't think at least, lol.

One Love

Ok, I only have a few minutes left at the internet cafe but I'll throw a little blog up here, to explain the pictures on facebook if nothing else.

On Friday I was sent with a couple other interns and Edmund, my Ghanaian co-worker, to investigate a forced eviction just outside Accra that took place on Tuesday. I hadn't been briefed on it because I was so busy so I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

I got there and you just saw rubble. The government had bulldozed 420 homes around a river because it was a flood zone. Long story short, 420 homes destroyed, minimal advance notice (a few days, some didn't even know), some people were dragged from their home. No compensation was payed, rendering these people refugees in their own neighbourhood. They had nowhere to go or sleep.

So we had to conduct interviews. Some of them were pretty hard to listen to. One women was outraged she'd become a refugee, asking "are we not ghanaians?" Ghana's considered to be a relatively strong and legitimate democracy and whatnot. The pictures tell the story too. And yet the kids at least remained strong. Kids are resilient in that way I guess.

Also, a follow-up to my post about that parliamentarian I met. Apparently he's running for President in 2008. That's even cooler.

This past weekend I got out of Accra again. I went up to Kokrobite. It's this huge beach outside Accra but not too far. A part of it is dominated by obrunis, mostly 20-somethings looking for a weekend party spot. It was really really fun. But I drank way too much tequila, enough that I was up on the stage dancing to "One Love" and "You can call me Al" by Paul Simon. And I slept on a random mattress instead of in my hotel room.

Good times.

Slow week or two

This is the first blog in almost ten days, and that's because little worth writing about has happened in that time. Part of it's just been nothing and part of it's because I've been feeling sick for most of that time. Weirdly enough, after the first month of perfect health, now I find myself having serious issues with my stomach. It's kind of limiting unfortunately.

I didn't go away last weekend. Instead I stayed in Accra and just chilled basically, and watched Wimbledon. This coming weekend I'm going to Kokrobite. It won't be the most thrilling weekend, but it'll be nice to get out of Accra, breathe some fresh air and chill on the beach and do a little partying and stuff. It'll be a big group though.

It'll be big because about half the office leaves this weekend. After peaking at like 24 interns this past week, it'll drop about 9 I think. It's too bad, but I guess it makes the office smaller, which is a plus. Hopefully that means the internet gets faster and we can finally return to a 1-1 ratio of people to chairs.

Amazingly, as of next Monday I will be the second most "senior" intern in the office. It feels like just yesterday I arrived, and now like 19 of the 20 interns here when I arrived have gone home. That really makes me feel like I've been here forever.

Work has been pretty up and down lately. Some days I have a lot of work and am busy all the time and others I have little pockets of downtime, although they almost never last more than about 15 to 30 minutes. At the end of the month things though, the culmination of all of my work so far here in Ghana will take place. Almost all of my work has been towards this major international conference that our organization is hosting on Freedom of Information in Africa. It's a major thing, with people from all over the continent and even from India and the UK coming. It's taken up almost all of my work time and will be pretty cool to see actually happen.

Today was an interesting day as well. I along with Edmund, my Ghanaian colleague, went to the Parliament to deliver an invitation to the conference to the Minority Leader. First of all, security is amazingly light there. There was one guy with a hand held metal detector and then a paper sign-in sheet. I was asked for no ID whatsoever. And then you can roam Parliament on your own. First we had a 45 minute meeting with the Minority Leader (when we just wanted to drop off an envelope), and then saw their version of "question period". All without showing ID. Then I had a typical Ghanaian snack (breakfast for me): friend chicken, a donut and a Fanta. Oh, and all for less than a dollar.

Oh, and one random little anecdote...I took a weird taxi ride home yesterday. It was only from the internet cafe near my house, but it was strange and eventful. First of all I walk towards where all the taxis are. The first one is empty so I kind of look to see if there's a driver. Then I see a guy coming up from out of the sewer, trying to pull his pants up. He flips me the motion and I tell him where to go. So basically I get in a taxi with a guy who just took a dump in the sewer. This is common practice in Accra, but I still felt weird being driven by that guy.

Then, as he's trying to pull out, he reverses and almost runs over a guy. The guy hits the car out of surprise, and the driver starts yelling at him. He starts challenging him to a fight. I was just like, what are you mad at, that he didn't let himself get run over. The driver pulls out but kind of stalks the guy down the sidewalk. When he finally gives up, he swerves into the outside lane and almost causes a major accident.

And things have been quiet enough that *that* was interesting and noteworthy apparently.

Happy Canada Day

Well as of today it’s been exactly a month that I’ve been in Ghana. To me that’s pretty crazy. In some ways it’s gone by really fast, and in other ways it feels like I’ve been here forever. The latter is probably because in some way, every minute of every day feels like an experience. Nothing feels like a routine yet, even going to work every day still feels kind of new every morning.

So this past weekend was definitely the biggest weekend I’ve had here so far. While everybody at home was celebrating Canada Day on Sunday, July 1^st, Ghana was celebrating Republic Day. While I didn’t see any sign of real celebration (suggesting maybe it’s kind of an arbitrary day for a holiday here), it did mean we got a three day weekend because Monday was a national holiday. So myself and a group of 9 others set off for the weekend.

The plan was to leave on Friday night after work but fatigue and a conference running late meant that we left Saturday morning instead. The weekend was to include a visit to Cape Coast, Elmina Castle and then Kakum National Park.

We set off in a tro-tro to Cape Coast by around 9:30 or so. You get tros like that, for distances like the two and a half hour drive to Cape Coast, from Kaneshie Market. Even being at Kaneshie on a Saturday morning is crazy enough. I’m really not sure anything I’ve ever encountered has quite as pungent (or repugnant) an odour.

Then the tro ride is kind of crazy. I’ve developed a bad habit for ending up with the truck’s wheel taking up my leg room. Long story short, I spent two and a half hours watching my feet lose all circulation as they were forced to be curled back under my seat.

Cape Coast is one of the most famous sites in Ghana. It’s a huge castle where the British (and others) held and then shipped out West African slaves as part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. It’s also placed in an amazing spot right on the ocean, making for some breathtaking pictures.

Seeing the castle, with the held of an extremely good guide, was kind of eerie if nothing else. What I can’t get over is how people, colonizers I guess, could do this to other human beings. The even worse part is that the most logical answer is that they did not consider the West African slaves to be human at all. All in all it was upsetting and memorable for sure.

That was our Saturday. Between the tro-tro ride, finding our guest house, the Castle and eating two meals at a restaurant (it takes forever…honestly, Ghanaian sit down restaurants take forever), we filled a full day, and amazingly, I went to sleep at about 10PM. For those of you who know my sleeping patterns, you’d be amazed at my schedule here. I almost never stay up past midnight and am awake by 7AM every weekday morning, and even on Sunday morning.

Sunday we left early to go to Elmina Castle. While Cape Coast was spectacular and is a bit more name-worthy, Elmina is perhaps more spectacular. It’s billed as the oldest European building outside Europe (and south of the Sahara or something). In short, on Canada Day, the celebration of our independence in 1867, I walked around a building built in around 1482.

Elmina as a castle wasn’t more amazing than Cape Coast. The building itself wasn’t that amazing, though it did have a sweet bat cave that you’ll see a picture of in my facebook albums. What was amazing was the view of the surrounding area that you get. You are surrounded two thirds of the way by this amazing beach and ocean and palm trees. The other third is the town of Elmina.

Now the town itself was pretty cool too. From the castle it looks like total chaos, with a mix of street vendors, wandering kids, goats and just normal Ghanaians out for the day. What’s amazing about it is that the town still has some of the colonial architecture, with the classic shutters on the windows of most buildings. It was kind of surreal. I’m not sure how many towns in Africa are that photogenic. Check out the pictures for sure, and I have a few videos I’ll try and find a way to get up online.

Our last destination on the weekend was Kakum National Park. Now this I wasn’t quite as keen on. Kakum is a rainforest about an hour past Cape Coast. What we were doing was going on a night time nature walk to look for animals, sleeping over in the forest and then doing this canopy walk early in the morning. I got worked up in advance because people talked about how many (very poisonous) snakes were in the forest, among other wildlife. I don’t like snakes, particularly not when they’re known to crawl along the forest floor, the same floor we’re going to be walking along, sometimes in the dark.

The nature walk was kind of a disappointment. We saw the eyes of a couple antelopes apparently, or at least according to our guide, but that’s it. We expected a little more, though it was still nice.

To sleep over, we were on these planks of wood with an aluminum roof and a mosquito nest. It was three or four us to a plank. I expected not to sleep at all, but did ok. Again, aside from lots of geckos and lizards, no major signs of wildlife. But the entire idea of staying overnight was to be able to do the canopy walk really early in the morning when things were most peaceful and we might see some wildlife. That….didn’t quite work out.

Apparently because it was a holiday, all sorts of school and church and recreational groups showed up at the park early in the morning. So the canopy walk was anything but a quiet experience. It was still interesting though, so it’s all good.

After that we headed home. I was glad to get some food and a shower. I hadn’t showered in a couple days and felt beyond gross. Even though it was only three days, it felt like such a lengthy trip. I got a nice little sunburn to boot.

Nana’s back in the office this week. I’m not quite sure how I feel about that, but I guess it’s fine.

I hope everybody had a great Canada Day. I walked around all weekend with a Canadian flag tag on my backpack. I got a lot of positive reactions because of it too!

Long week, long weekend

First of all I never wrote a blog about last weekend.

Last weekend I went to Ada. It's a gorgeous beach area about two hours out of Accra. What makes it unique is that it's where the Volta River meets the Atlantic Ocean. So if you saw the pictures on facebook, you might have noticed two very different beaches. In between the two was beach and a camp ground with huts.

Unfortunately it wasn't the best weekend to go there. Saturday was kind of dark and gloomy until the Sun broke through mid afternoon. Sunday was even worse, we left really early because it just rained all day. But I found it pretty relaxing. I slept a bit on the beach, listened to my iPod in a hammock for a while and we all just talked all night. It wasn't quite paradise as it had been explained to me before, but it was still really nice to get out of Accra. The air quality in Accra is just laughable.

This weekend should top last weekend though. I'm going to Cape Coast, which is kind of the #1 tourist attraction around this part of Ghana it seems. Among other things, it has the slave trading forts that you may have heard about if you read Zach's blog last year. I'll definitely take lots of pictures and write about it.

I've also realized there are lots of funny little anecdotes I haven't yet written a blog about, so here are some funny ones that pop to mind.

For one thing, the interns keep coming. We have 22 this week or something. One new one who showed up last night is from Toronto. Within a few hours, he suggested the Sens choked in the playoffs. I can't believe anybody would seriously suggest that, but whatever.

On a less frustrating, perhaps funnier note, I've begun to almost enjoy bantering and bargaining with taxi drivers here. Sure they are relentless, honking at you whenever they can see you. And I mean that's kind of funny in itself. I mean the other day, I got out of a taxi and immediately other started honking at me. Like, do they not see I just got out of a taxi? Perhaps I don't need another. It's funny.

You develop your own techniques for bargaining as well. I often just use the line, "no, no, it's 20, I take it every day, no more than 20". Or one of my new ones, "I only have 20, so I can't pay anymore, sorry, I'll just find another one." Almost all the time, unless you're being really cheap, if you threaten to walk away, they'll cave. Most people ask how much to pay, but I personally just tell them. "Osu, ok, 20, ok?". They'll almost invariably say, "no, 25", maybe throw in a couple, "I beg of you" if they're going to play the beggar card, but not always. I find it pretty funny though, even if some find it infuriating.

Anyways, it's been a long week at work. None of the work I'm doing is overly taxing. It's not really more complicated than the stuff I did last summer for whatever reason, but I'm pretty busy, so the day usually goes by alright. But the problem is that lately I've been responsible for sending out lots of e-mails and attachments. Now, our internet is amazingly slow. So I can literally spend all day sending out a handful of e-mails, because that's actually how long it takes. Sending an attachment is a minor miracle, because it times out at least a few times before it finally works. Nana blames the internet company, but it's more just because there's so many freaking people connecting in the office. But it's actually made my days extremely stressful and frustrating because it's important, often urgent stuff that I need to send out, and I can spend an hour trying to send a 50 word e-mail. In fact I'm writing this as it tries to send one now.

Also, my adoptive Canadian diplomat family took off for their summer holidays back in Canada last weekend. So I've got a kind of big house to myself. It's weird, sometimes nice and sometimes boring and lonely, though half the time I don't get home until almost bed time anyways.

For the weekend I'm heading out to Cape Coast. Among other things it has the slave trading forts left over from obviously the slave trade. Should be really interesting and kind of surreal. Plus it's a holiday on Monday. I don't know what, so I'll just pretend it's Canada day. There's no Canada Day party at the High Commission though because everybody's busy with the African Union summit next week.

I'm gonna take lots of pictures this weekend, so check for pictures on Tuesday. Also, my e-mail doesn't work at the office because the internet is SO slow (sorry, but unless sending an e-mail is part of my job, I'm not going to spend an hour clicking Send, being told it timed out, pressing the Back button and going through the thing over again). If you need to get in touch with me by any chance, you can call me or text me. A few people should have the number.

Pictures

I've uploaded some pictures (I've been slow to take pictures) to facebook. I'll write about the weekend later, but just wanted to let people know to look at facebook for pictures.

"obruni bye bye"

Ok, people will stop reading this blog if I don't write at least once a week I figure, so here's an update before I head off for the weekend.

The past week of work has been interesting and definitely up and down. While working at CHRI is an interesting opportunity, it's not what I'll remember most from my time here I'd imagine. First an important development. They hired a new guy to answer the phone! He's hired as a receptionist, a Ghanaian right out of high school, and in theory he takes over that role. Oddly enough, he still puts the phone on my desk when he has other work he wants to do. Strange logic eh, he takes over my job so I can do my work, but when he wants to type up the address book, he needs the phone off his desk and on mine. Anyways, that's been a nice change already.

Most of my work so far has been kind of organizational work leading up to a major Conference we are hosting at the end of July. I've been in charge of the budget among other things (ya Nigel, I'm doing accounting work...shoulda taken those Excel training course you always blew me off shinny to go to). Anyways, I also got assigned this report which Nana's been jerking me around with. She ripped into me for not working on it on Monday, not realizing how busy I was with other stuff (I was assigned to work full time with this Ugandan lawyer Florence by Nana, so that's where my work comes from). She then reversed things, and now things are relaxed. Plus she's out of the office next week (Zach, you know what that means, lol).

Today was a crazy day. We began by going to this conference on African Legal Aid. There were some big people there, with the Assistant Attorney General of the United Nations as the moderator and the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court. The President of Ghana was supposed to give a speech, but he didn't show. We had to get out of there early though, because the entire group of interns (oh, all 18 of us) were supposed to go this school out in this rural area beyond Accra.

That was kind of stressful. We were supposed to meet this guy to leave at 11:15, but he didn't show up until 1:15. Then we got there, and it didn't start until almost 3. Now, it takes an hour to get back to Accra, and some people wanted to leave almost as soon as it began to get back to Accra by the time they were officially off work. Thankfully we didn't though, because these schoolkids were ecstatic to have a tro-tro full of obruni interns (that they were told were representing the Commonwealth, lol) coming to watch their performance. It was really good too, with some great singing and acting. We didn't get back into Accra until close to 6, but at least in my firm opinion, it was worth it because the kids would have been really dissapointed if we'd bailed really early (not to mention it would have really looked bad on us).

It was also interesting for me just personally. It was interesting to get out of Accra and see what it's like at a school in Ghana. The themes of the play were education, HIV/AIDS, drugs, stuff like that. And I dunno, they don't see obrunis every day like people in Accra. Even once we got back out to a more main road (this was a fair ways off the highway), you could tell they weren't used to obrunis. And I love the little dialogues with random Ghanaians for some reason. Like this street vendor who came up to me while I was in a tro-tro. He asked me if I wanted something, I said no, talked to him a bit, and as the tro pulls off, he just shouts out in a voice I'll never forget, "obruni bye bye". About two minutes later another little memorable one too, where this like 12 year old boy vendor comes up to me, asks me if I want what he's selling, and I say no. He then asks me how I'm doing, and then "where you going", to which I say "Accra". He then just flashes me this big smile and says "can you buy me something nice?"

Some people get hung up on the little things, like the smells or the taxi drivers or overdosing on rice or whatever. But the other half of people just roll with it and don't worry about those little things and just laugh about it. Like, I find the dialogues with the taxi drivers just funny to joke and laugh about and stuff. If you go to a developing country there will always be a billion little things to stress.

Anyways, I'm off for the weekend to this beach town about four hours away called Ada or something. I'll try and upload some pictures soon too, maybe after this weekend.

Until then, "obruni bye bye".

Friday Night in Accra

So far in my almost two weeks here I haven't done any travelling outside of Accra, I guess aside from the beach last weekend. I was planning on going to another beach this weekend with some interns, but last night happened, and I definitely couldn't wake up on time this morning.

I got invited out by a couple of the interns and gladly took them up on that. We went to this pretty big bar Epo's, where you mostly sit on the roof of the place. It was so cool, getting to sit up on the roof, on a beautiful night (not too warm, kind of a breeze) and look out on Osu (the "western" neighbourhood in Accra) and all that. Plus drinks were rediculously cheap. A "large" Star (the big Ghanaian beer), which is like 700 ml I think cost about 10,000 Cedis, so roughly one dollar. Double gin and coke cost 11,000.

I made a mistake though, once I'd had a few cheap drinks. All around these bars there are street vendors with street food. Outside this one, there was this guy selling kebabs (beef I think, but who knows). They are just coated with spices. I had one, and thinking I was tough and apparently getting a mild one without knowing it, went for another one. I ate a second one, inhale it almost, and then it just hits me. My stomach just started flipping out. I felt really sick almost immediately, and it took a 1.5 litre bottle of water to help my digestive system get through that crisis.

Then we took off for a club elsewhere in the area. It was weird to walk around at like 1AM in Accra. This like 12 year old Gypsy beggar kid followed me the entire way. When I got out of the club two hours ago, he was there again. The club itself, Mukumba's or something like that, was extremely western. It really was no different than what you'd find in Ottawa or whatever. Even drink prices were as expensive if not more pricey than at home.

It was a really fun night for sure.

Drinking with Nana

I get off work for the weekend in about half an hour, so I'll try and throw up a blog before I head out for the weekend.

My first full week of work was interesting. I think I got a little sun stroke on the weekend spending all day Sunday in the sun with no hat or anything. I was kinda woozy and out of it for the first two days, even taking Tuesday morning off. It's weird how when you're feeling sick you get homesick. Thankfully I kicked the sun stroke, and I think the homelessness by sleeping in on Tuesday.

Work was alright this week, pretty busy at times and not so busy at others. I'm still answering phones, which is really unfortunate considering other new interns have come in since I did, and none have been stationed at the phone. It's good for laughs more than anything else though, and I'm getting the accent down a bit better. It's still weird though when people refuse to give you their name when taking a message. I had one person who I was going to transfer to Nana (the boss), but just needed a name. They wouldn't give me their name, said they'd call back and then hung up, as if they wouldn't have to do it next time.

The highlight of the week was no doubt last night though. For those of you who haven't heard Zach's stories from last summer about Nana, she's a unique character. A dominating woman who is extremely moody and to be honest kind of scary, she's not somebody I ever expected to socialize with outside of work. Well last night, for a goodbye evening for a couple interns, we all went to this popular obruni bar, and Nana was there.

Now I knew in advance she'd show, but I figured it was like stay for 30 minutes then get going. No, she stayed the whole time, three hours. She had at least three or four Smirnoff Ice's, and even better yet, hit the dance floor numerous times. She was actually encouraging us interns to drink and dance. Then she drove me home. I definitely never expected her to drive me home from a bar. All in all it was really fun though. There were a ton of people my age there, great live music, it was fun.

Not quite sure what my weekend plans are yet. Hopefully something blog-worthy happens.

First Weekend

So it’s now been just over a week that I’ve been here, and I just finished my first weekend in Ghana. For a first week it was pretty good. The first 24 to 48 hours were rough, but after that it was all pretty good. Rip-offs, answering phones, I just kind of laughed it all off and it was a lot of fun.

The weekend wasn’t quite as much fun as I hoped it would be. I didn’t find anything in particular to do, so on Saturday I went to the birthday party for the boy from my adoptive Canadian diplomat family. It was fun, and kind of made me miss birthday parties out in Windsor Park.

Sunday they invited me to their little beach hut. It was this beach called Langma, just outside the suburbs of Accra. The hut was cool because it literally was just two picnic benches closed in with a roof over top of it. Very natural, very Ghanaian, although you could see some construction suggesting in ten years the entire place will be dominated by resorts.

The beach was amazing, I’ll post pictures when I get the chance. It was just miles of coast I’m sure, with some of, if not the biggest waves I’ve ever seen. And the water was really nice and warm. At the same time, the undertow was maybe the strongest I’ve ever experienced. The coast is pretty harsh, and I’m not sure I saw anybody go past their waist. But it was sweet for boogie boarding, even if you get bounced and bopped around a lot. I’m pretty sure I got kind of sun stroke, but whatever.

Other than that the weekend was kind of uneventful. I got pretty dehydrated and kind of sick last night, but I’ve still avoided any real sickness or anything.

I’m gonna see if I can find another place to live other than with this family, but so far what I’ve checked out hasn’t worked out.

Under African Skies

So, this is the first blog I'm writing from Ghana, and definitely a more interesting one than my ramble from Heathrow.

The trip over was long, exhausting and unique. Nine hour layovers in Heathrow suck, particularly if you didn't sleep a minute on the way over. I spent most of it talking (in french!) to this Belgian guy. Reminded me how horrible I am at being "bilingual". I flew Emirates (major airline from Dubai) from London to Dubai, and then Dubai to Accra. Emirates is no doubt the nicest airline I've ever flown, but beating out Air Canada, Westjet and the defunct Canjet isn't a great accomplishment. But anyways, it was fancy, clean, very new, best food, hundreds of movies and TV shows and everything.

The Dubai airport was as fancy and swanky and new looking as the Emirates airplane. I had four hours there, through the night, with literally thousands of people sleeping on the floor at the airport. Looked like a billion dollar refugee camp. The flight to Accra was kind of strange. The flight attendants actually walked up and down the aisles spraying deodorant/cologne because it smelt so bad.

I got into Accra around noon on Sunday. They'd cleaned the airport up a lot, it wasn't as wild and crazy as I'd been warned. Somebody from the office met me there (Kingham say hi back Zach...and on Kingham, he just got diagnosed with the mumps...so he's out of commission). I got to my hotel, bought some crappy food and slept on and off for the next 24 hours or so. I took the next day off, just going in to the office for a few minutes and then to register at the High Commission. The first 24 hours were nothing short of horrible.

My first day of work was extremely busy. I did work all morning, then ended up at a conference for this book launch at the Kofi Annan Centre for Peacekeeping Training, or something like that. I wasn't alone though, thankfully. The trip was the best part, taking a tro-tro (ask Zach, or google or something to figure out what they are) up the oceanfront to get there. There I also met an intern that worked there, and just to prove it's a small world, found out he lives at Sunnyside and Bronson. So it took 48 hours in Africa to meet somebody that lives in my neighbourhood in Ottawa.

Tuesday, the same day, I moved in with a Canadian diplomatic family. It's a different life, but still thought-provoking if nothing else. They're extremely nice, with their own links to home and life at home that I'll explain another time. I'm not sure how long I'll be staying there, if it's more than a few more days I'll pay rent, but I won't move out until I find another place.

Note for Stabs: There's a girl in the office from NYU who has been here three weeks and knows Anne, although they've never met. She's living at obruni house, jam packed in a two-bedroom with two others (so 3 in 2) and paying $250 a month. She sounded extremely pessimistic, but I'll still go talk to Auntie C anyways.

In any event, I'm happy at least I have somewhere else to stay other than the hotel. What I like about it is not so much the luxuries of living in a nice diplomatic house, it's just having a place to stay where I'm comfortable. I'm pretty sure I could be comfortable without the luxuries, so we'll see.

Anyways, work has been kinda busy since then. There are at least fifteen (15!) interns here, maybe more. So many that some have to work in the internet cafe every day. They almost all come from this TPA program (something Projects Abroad). They pay their way, live with Ghanaian families (so no help for accomodation), it's all set up for them but they pay. They come and go all the time.

Some interns are nicer and friendlier than others, but it's cool having so many people. I don't really work with them though, right now I work with Edmund (a Ghanaian staffer whose sweet) and Florence (a Ugandan staffer who gives me most of my work, also really nice). Then there's Nina, she's on the other end of the spectrum. They've had me doing, among other things, answering the office phone (and sometimes Nana, the boss' cell phone). That's horrible! I can't understand any Ghanaians on the phone, and sometimes they call and talk in a different language, or get mad at me. Nothing could be worse.

Ghana's a pretty interesting country, or at least Accra is. It's kind of cool just to walk around and take things in. If there are 1 million cars in this city, at least 3/4 of them are taxis. Honestly, they're everywhere. It's unreal, and another 3/4 of them honk at you. Apparently if you're an obruni (white person/foreigner), and you're outside, they don't think you'd ever walk anywhere. Every five minutes I walk on a main street outside, I wave off at least 20 of them. Today I waved off five straight, they were one behind the other, and I waved them ALL off. And they will pull over if you just ignore them. They NEED an answer even if I don't look at them once. Rediculously tedious, but harmless too.

I've been ripped off a bit, but for the most part, at least with taxis, I just err on the side of generosity. It wasn't until this morning that I had any dispute from a driver (who was just chancing it with me). I don't feel overly unsafe or hassled, though I haven't been in a market or out at night really yet. My biggest problem is just simply understanding the accent.

Also, as a side note, I love the food. I can live off of rice and chicken variations, and that's huge here. For lunch, the interns all go to this "Gina's Fast food" place, where you some combination of a few kinds of rice, fried chicken, macaroni, plantain and a few other options. It either comes in a bowl or a bag if you take it out. Honestly, it costs you 7000 to 10,000 cedis. That's about 70 cents to a dollar. Not bad.

Alright, this has been long enough. Work gets out soon. I demand e-mails from a few of you.

Sean.

Blogging in Heathrow

So I just set this up. Blogging's kind of weird already. It feels like some kind of public monologue, just me rambling to myself for all to see.

I'm not in Ghana yet, and to be honest I feel nowhere close. After driving to Montreal last night, I flew to London. I've been in London's Heathrow airport for almost four hours now, and I still have three more to go. The chairs are not particularly comfortable, nor have I slept in a while.

After this I head to Dubai, on Emirates. That's a long enough flight, but then i have a while to wait for my next flight in Dubai. I'll arrive in Ghana at noon on Sunday. I'm not sure I'll ever feel quite as tired as I expect to on Sunday.

That's it for now.