August 26. A Comprehensive Victory

Thursday night being Quiz Night, it was time for redemption. Having finished a distant fifth last week, we brought a large team this time round, adding another Canadian, an American, a Czech, and a South African. The international flavour paid off, as we not only won the Quiz, but also took the beer and tequila rounds – the hallowed trifecta.

August 23 - 27. A Quiet Week at Work

This week was a bit of a quiet one at WiLDAF, as most of the staff was in Cape Coast training women on political participation as part of WiLDAF’s We Know Politics program. I’ll join them for week two near Takoradi on Sunday.

August 19. An Off Week at Quiz Night

Thursday being weekly Quiz Night, it was off to Champs again. The team was largely unchanged from last week, so our confidence was understandably high. However, the competition was shockingly stiff and we tumbled down to a staggering fifth place finish. We figure we’re left with no choice but to increase practices to three nights per week. And if we can’t improve significantly by next week it may even be time to fire our coach.

August 17. Pin Pals

On Tuesday night a group of us went out for Lebanese food and then played a couple games at what I can only imagine is Ghana’s only bowling alley. I complained loudly and often about the lane, which seemed to take every ball I threw to the left just as it got towards the pins, and bowled a fairly miserable 83. During the second game, however, I aimed to the right on every shot and managed the high score of the night with a 133.

My grumbling aside, it was quite a nice bowling alley, and certainly unexpectedly nice for Accra. It’s too bad it’s a good way out of town or else it would be doing a roaring business.

August 15. Ping Pong

On Sunday Duncan and I spent the afternoon at Ashley and Matt’s, where they were hosting some friends and having a table tennis tournament in their yard. It was good fun, although I went 0-2 in the competition.

August 12. Trivial Pursuits

Tonight Duncan and I thought we’d once again bring our encyclopaedic knowledge of trivial things to Champs for Quiz Night. This week the group included Gabrielle and Andrew, as well as Greg, a half English, half French journalist, his Uruguyan housemate, and our friend Ashley from California. Our international ensemble blew away the competition and walked away with a well-deserved first place finish. We look forward to defending our title next week.

August 9 - 13. The Work Ahead

This week at WiLDAF it was decided that I’ll create a number of further Question and Answer documents for uploading to WiLDAF’s website. For now I’m working on the general structure of the legal system, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Property Rights of Spouses Bill, the Universal Periodic Review, and the rather excruciatingly named Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa.

August 7. Weekend Getaway

Saturday morning found Duncan and I picking up Gabrielle and Andrew, a New Zealander volunteering in Accra, and heading out west along the coast to Bojo beach. Once there we crossed an estuary about 80m wide and were deposited on a long sandbar made of almost white sand. The water was surprisingly cold at first (much colder than I’ve experienced anywhere else in Ghana) and there was a bit of an undertow, but overall it was nice for swimming.

We had a nice lunch at a restaurant on the beach, played some cricket on the sand, went for another swim, and then headed off a little further along the coast to Kokrobite Beach, where we stayed overnight at a popular guesthouse called Big Milly’s.

August 4. We have Lift-off

Today was the official launch of We Know Politics II. The festivities were set to kick off at 9am, so naturally three of us – myself and Richard, who were in charge of playing the slideshow I created yesterday, and Samuel, the WiLDAF driver – headed off to the Ministry of Local Government at about 10:10. Our mission was to inquire as to whether the Minister would be attending later that morning. That’s right, three of us went to do this job, while any one of us could have accomplished it in a fraction of the time with one phone call. In any event, we managed to arrive back at the launch just as things were kicking off – over 90 minutes behind schedule.

The launch itself went quite well, and the slideshow and Bernice’s speech were well-received. There were probably over 300 people in attendance, including the Minister for Women and Children’s Affairs, a female Chief, and a bunch or representatives from Western aid organizations that are contributing to the project financially. There was even a live band. Overall it was a very celebratory atmosphere.

August 3. Countdown to Launch

At work today things were a little hectic because of the impending launch of “We Know Politics II”, a three year campaign to increase the number of Ghanaian women in decision-making positions. I was asked to create a movie/slide show to provide a look back at the successes of the first phase of the project, “We Know Politics I”, and write a speech for Bernice Sam, the head of WiLDAF Ghana, to deliver at the event.

I was able to get both tasks done to my satisfaction, despite the fact that I’d never used Windows Movie Maker before, and despite the version installed on my computer being a French one (not much good to this Anglophone, nor to any of my Ghanaian colleagues). I look forward to attending the launch of the project tomorrow, as I’m told it will be attended by hundreds of people, including representatives of donor organizations and members of the press.

After work Duncan and I decided to combine a trip to the grocery store with dinner and a movie. The theatre is at the Accra Mall, which is a really nice, modern mall on the north edge of town. We figured we’d eat at a pizza place there that does 2-for-1 pizzas on Tuesday night, only to find that the wait time after ordering was over two hours! Not willing to wait this long, we went elsewhere, then did a rushed shop before the movie started.

The film we saw was Inception, with Leonardo DiCaprio, and it was quite good. There was a brief, unscheduled intermission as the power went out for a few minutes, and there were two rather loud and vulgar verbal arguments that broke out during the course of the movie, but it was a beautiful, comfortable theatre just like any back home. I definitely plan on going back to see another movie or two before leaving Accra in October.

July 31. The hills are alive...

This Saturday night Duncan and I met up with Gabrielle, a fellow CCI intern working in Accra with Abantu for Development, and went to see The Sound of Music at the beautiful National Theatre. That’s right, The Sound of Music done by an all-Ghanaian cast. There were certainly a few slightly surreal moments, for instance watching Ghanaians yodelling and portraying Nazis, but all in all it was a great experience. Maria held the show together, and could actually act and sing, something that couldn’t really be said of most of the other cast members.

One of the biggest problems was the sound quality. Only some of the players had microphones, and the distribution of the mics seemed almost random. Further, there was a fair bit of distortion and feedback, which, combined with the Ghanaian accent, made it quite hard for me to understand the lines. The audience too was an integral part of the experience, since, while they seemed to enjoy the performance whole-heartedly, they felt no compunction about hooting and jeering if someone really missed a note, or cat-calling the Baroness when she came on stage in a particularly tight dress.

July 28. Back on the Pitch

After work today I made a successful return to football. The leg was a bit sore but overall fairly well healed.