May 21 - 23. Beer, Burgers, and Burns

After work on Friday I met up with a group of ex-pats including a friend of Kathy’s from work. We had dinner and drinks at Citizen Kofi, an upscale entertainment complex in Osu. The rather garish purple and orange building has a bar and restaurant on the top floor, another bar on the ground floor, and a lounge area and two separate nightclubs on the three floors in between. After dinner we headed over to a nearby bar called Bella Roma for a few more drinks.

Saturday morning found me headed back to Osu for a brunch consisting of fries and an Egg and Cheese Burger – the latter served with a fried egg, just as I came to enjoy while travelling in New Zealand. On Saturday evening I met up with Duncan, a British Department for International Development worker I’d met the night before, to watch the Champions League Final between Inter Milan and Bayern Munich. While the wrong team – i.e. Inter – won, the atmosphere at the Honeysuckle Pub was good, and it seems like a great place to catch some England matches during the World Cup. For Ghana’s games I figure it will be more enjoyable to watch them on the street at a local “chop bar.”

On Sunday the 23^rd I joined Keith, Kathy, Ella, Megan, and Megan’s friend Hope for a relaxing day at Kokrobite beach, about an hour’s drive to the west of Accra. It was a lovely spot, and I managed to return slightly less burned than I was after my previous trip to the beach.

May 17 - 20. Early Nights and Uno

Down to work this week researching and writing the speech for the Speaker of Parliament. The internet connection here at Kathy and Keith’s has been fairly reliable so far. Not too much to report to my faithful readers. We generally have quite early nights here as the girls are up around 5:30am. Evenings this week were dominated by games of Uno.

May 14 - 17. Megan Turns the Big 0-8

On Friday I worked on my project for WiLDAF from home, as office space is low and I have a laptop and fairly decent internet access from Kathy and Keith’s.

On Saturday, the 15th, I headed back to Oxford Street in Osu, the main tourist drag. I met a couple of Canadian guys from around Ottawa and we watched the FA Cup final at an Irish pub.

Sunday was Megan’s 8^th birthday, which was held here at the house. The highlight was probably the post-cake dance contest, where I acted as one of the judges. One duo even scored a perfect 19 out of 19 on the Copenhagen scale!

Don't Even Think About It...

May 13. Sampling the Local Cuisine

Back to work today where I met with Bernice Sam, the National Programme Coordinator of WiLDAF Ghana. She gave me an interesting project writing a speech on recent successes and current challenges in the field of women’s rights in Ghana. It will be delivered by the Speaker of Parliament at an upcoming conference in July.

I tried banku with fish for lunch today. Banku is a fermented corn or cassava dough that’s cooked in hot water into a smooth whitish paste. It’s generally served with a spicy soup and often fish. I found the meal quite tasty overall, but the banku itself was rather bland. I was also given about a grapefruit size portion of it, but I could only manage to eat less than a quarter of that as it’s quite dense and starchy. Next time I’ll tell them to give me an ‘obruni’-sized portion.

May 12. Work Begins

My first day of work at WiLDAF, which also happens to be my 28^th birthday. Having scoped out the building the previous day I was able to find my way to work without any problems. I met first with Patricia, my immediate supervisor in the Information Management sector of WiLDAF, and then was introduced around the office. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. I spent my work day doing background research on a speech I will be writing for the Speaker of Parliament, which she will deliver at an upcoming meeting of the Women Speakers of Parliament.

Back home via tro-tro, overcrowded and generally fairly dilapidated minivans that are the favoured means of public transit. To get to and from work I take one tro-tro halfway, then get off at Danquah Circle (a large roundabout) and catch another for the last leg. Each ride costs 20 pesewas, or around 15 Caanadian cents.

In the evening Kathy, Keith, Megan, and Ella surprised me with a nice card and a delicious cake. The cake was accompanied by an extended round of “Happy Birthday” – a song which has 4 verses here, one of which is sung by the person celebrating the birthday, and is then topped off with three cheers.

May 11. Hitting the Streets

In a way, today was my first real day in Accra, since I had spent pretty much all of my time in the city so far either leaving it by car or at Kathy and Keith’s house. After breakfast and taking the girls to school I was dropped off at the WILDAF offices where I will work while here. After checking out the building I went to Oxford Street, the main drag in the Osu neighbourhood of Accra. I spent about an hour walking around there and seeing the sights, and I bartered for some flip-flops in the colours of the Ghanaian flag. The heat, humidity, and hustle and bustle all reminded me of my travels in Southeast Asia, although I was pleasantly surprised at how little I was hassled by vendors compared to what I experienced walking down similarly busy streets in Asia.

Then, fairly drenched in sweat even though it was only 10:00am, I decided to have a bite of lunch at a roadside stall/restaurant. I figured if my stomach was going to toughen up and handle the local street food here I might as well jump right in. The fried chicken and fried rice was pretty tasty, and so far tonight my stomach has only been mildly to moderately unsettled. A victory of a sort?

After returning from Osu on foot, and getting slightly lost in the process, I visited Kathy at Wold Bank headquarters, where she was giving a talk to a group of Brigham Young University students interested in international development. It was a treat to get to hear Kathy’s take on the work of the World Bank in Ghana and the challenges the country continues to face as it tries to increase the standard of living for all its people.

May 10. Down the River Volta

This was supposed to be my first day of work with WiLDAF Ghana, but unfortunately most of the office was away on a training retreat, so I was asked to come in for a meeting on Wednesday instead. With my schedule thus cleared for the day, I tagged along with Keith and his friend on a drive out to Ada Foah, where the Volta river meets the sea. We took a beautiful boat ride along the Volta river to the mouth of the sea, and then visited nearby Rum Island. Unfortunately, (or not, depending on your perspective) the chief was not around and so we could not sample some of the island’s (in)famous home-brewed rum. We did get to knaw on some fresh sugarcane, which was deliciously sweet.

The area looked more like the South Pacific than the West Africa I had envisioned before coming here. Beautiful palm trees and golden sand.

May 9. This is the Life

After a delicious breakfast at our guesthouse we set out for White Sands, an incredibly posh resort on the coast. There we spent a rather hard day suntanning, swimming in both their beautiful pool and the ocean, and generally doing nothing much of anything.

May 8. On the Road

My first real day in Ghana started early (as mostly everyday here does), with a 7:30 departure westward along the coast to Kakum National Park. Kakum is a protected rainforest area about a three hour (slightly harrowing) drive from Accra. At Kakum I joined Kathy’s husband Keith and a friend of his that was visiting them in Ghana for a beautiful walk above the treetops along rope bridges.

After our canopy walk we headed a little further west to Elmina, home of a beautiful, 500 year old castle. The castle – more like a fort really – had been built by the Portugese explorers in the late 15^th century as a trading post. When trade in human beings as well as goods began, the castle became a holding place for slaves bound for the Americas. Touring the dungeon areas of the castle and hearing about the absolutely appalling conditions in which slaves were kept was truly a sobering experience.

After our tour of Elmina Castle the three of us rejoined Kathy and the girls at a guesthouse near Cape Coast, where we spent the night.

May 7. Arrival in Africa

Touch down in Accra! When I get off the plane onto the tarmac I am immediately struck by the heat and humidity, even though it is 7:30 pm and the sun has been down for an hour.

Retrieving my bags at the carousel was a bit of an effort, as everybody crowded as close as possible to the baggage track. I actually saw one of my bags go by but had no room to step forward and pick it up, and had to wait until it came around again and I’d wormed my way closer to the front.

My (sort of) cousin Kathy and her two girls Megan and Ella were waiting to pick me up at the airport and drove me back to their beautiful place in the North Ridge part of Accra. Once there I had a quick visit and doled out some treats brought from Canada, and then quickly hit the sack. Fortunately, I was able to sleep solidly through the night from about 9:00pm to 6:00am.

May 6. And the crowd goes wild as the first posts appear

With great anticipation and just a touch of trepidation I set off from Vancouver for Accra. My first stop after three and a half hours was Minneapolis Minnesota. After a brief stopover of three hours I caught another flight to Amsterdam and two hours after landing there I was off on the last leg to Accra. In all, the transit time worked out to just about 24 hours, but I was only able to sleep for two of them.

The Volta Estuary and Elmina