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!