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.