Just Another Day

I've been thinking I should do a post on a typical day. Each day, I think "today was an anomaly, XYZ happened and it was so crazy, it wouldn't happen again, so I shouldn't write about it as a typical day". Then I realized that literally every day is an adventure. Here are the highlights of today - a "typical" day in my life in Ghana:

6:00am - woke up early to have a few quiet moments before the kids wake up. No use; Xavier is already up & doing math (he's obsessed with math problems and stays up late at night doing them and likes to wake up early to do more) and I'm greeted with the usual "I'm hungry". As I'm trying to make coffee for myself & breakfast for Xavier, Sophie stumbles out of bed shortly afterwards and the chance of a quiet few moments is gone. She was sick to her stomach again yesterday & is hoping to get through the school day without any "accidents". Hopefully, the results from the doctor will come tomorrow & we can find out what's making her belly so unhappy.

7:45am - Patience, the housekeeper, walks in & I give her the list of stuff I need from the market for the day, Japha, the guy who helps around the house has already washed the car & I explain to him the plants I'd like him to buy for the pots at my front door and the night security guard is being replaced by the day guard. As I'm walking out the door drive the kids to school in my very large Mitsubishi Pajero (size does count when navigating Accra traffic and, mine has a full bar across the front so I can run into stuff without sustaining damage to my vehicle) a man shows up at my front gate. Turns out he's the plumber & here to fix several plumbing issues I'm having in many of my 4 bathrooms.

8:05 - I've dropped the kid off at school and have pulled up to the nearby hotel that has a small, rectangular pool where I swim in the mornings. I can get about 7 strokes in before I have to turn - my flip turns are getting very good! My phone rings & a friend from the States is calling & needs advice (it's 1am for her). I'm happy that she's been able to reach me & we chat. I'm amazed that we can call each other as if we're in the same city. I go for my swim - it's the only time in the day I am alone & can be with my own thoughts. I notice that my hands are sticky. There's some sort of substance on the pool ladder that looks a lot like body oils skimmed off the top of the water that are stuck to the metal ladder. I've been sneezing a lot after swimming and wonder how they maintain the pool. I decide it's my only place to swim nearby and I'm going to take a "don't ask don't tell" stance in regards to what's in the pool. I'm just going to try to swallow as little water as possible.

9:15 - I head home to take a quick shower & find that the plumber has taken the porcelain sink off the wall in my bathroom & dropped it - shattering little shards of glass all over my bathroom. Hmmm, seems I have a new plumbing issue. I shower, trying to dodge glass shards as I'm getting ready for the day.

10:00 - I drive the 2 blocks to the office. My main mission for the day is to get cash. I've been trying to access cash for a couple of weeks. Everything here is cash based. We're setting up a new office, so it requires purchasing paint, air conditioners, furniture and a variety of other things. I need more than the 400 cedi (about $270) I can access at the cash machine in a given day. I won't get into all the details around the what's and whys of it all. I'll just say that the bank is getting to know me. Today is the day. I've opened a personal account at a local bank, wired funds from my US account and I am ready to get my cash. One of our fantastic drivers takes me to the bank. I sit around waiting for a while and then talk with the rep., Evans, who's been helping me for days and, after much phone calling, he is finally able to verify that I have funds in my account. Since I don't have a checkbook, I have to write a letter on a piece of scrap paper explaining that I want funds from my account. Finally, Evans tells me to come back in 30 minutes. I leave and head to a couple nearby stores. I walk into one and it reeks of gasoline & I immediately try to figure out how much damage I'm doing to myself by continuing to look at what they've got (generators, air conditioners). Hmm, not exactly the same effect as the stores in the States that pump in artificial smells to make you buy more stuff. I walk into another store and there's a cute little old man from Damascus who owns it. I chat with him and end up getting his life story about living in Ghana since he was 18. By now, it's time to head back to the bank. I stop at the car & ask the driver to come with me. I'm feeling a bit anxious about walking out with bricks of money.

We head to the bank and Evans asks me to have a seat. I wait a while, he then takes me to a teller (cutting in front of about 15 people) and tells me I'll have my money in 2 minutes. About 20 minutes later, as I've stood at the window, watching the teller dole out bricks of cash to others, handing it to them in black plastic bags, I'm wondering when my cash will come. I see that there's a room marked "Bulk Cash" and I wonder what's the least conspicuous - the white woman walking into the "Bulk Cash" room and walking out with a big bag, or the white woman standing in front of the teller window in plan view of anyone who chooses to watch getting the cash doles out & stuffed into a black plastic bag. I decide I should just stay where I am an hope my driver can double as a bodyguard. Finally, my bricks are counted out, I stuff the money into the bag I've brought just for the occasion, I hand the bag to my driver and saunter out of the bank realizing I have to get used to working with cash and looking confident when carrying large sums of it!

1:30 - We arrive back at the office & I begin doling out money to the various places that need it - the paint store, the gardener, the mobile phone purchases, etc. Between the work expenditures, giving money to the housekeeper for groceries and constantly paying for kids' books, uniforms, activities, I am feeling like I am no longer a woman. I am a cash machine. I spend the rest of the afternoon trying in vain to catch up on email and being on conference calls. Doing business with the West Coast of the US means that as I'm winding down my afternoon, they're ready to get going for the day.

5:30- I get home late, due to a conference call. Patience has made rice & beans for dinner. Xavier is watching The Flintstones and Sophie is working on some of her approx. 2 hours a night of homework. It ranges from "numeracy" to German to French to literature. Since it's all based on the British system, both kids are learning phrases like "a block of flats" and, from an Oliver Twist comprehension piece a "foggle-hunter". Sophie, clad only in pink underwear, demonstrates some techno-hip-hop moves she's learned at dance class at school. Xavier uses his plastic handcuffs to cuff me to my chair. I look around at the scene - Sophie in her underwear, me handcuffed to my chair and my ex-husband sitting across from me laughing at our children (Cedric is staying at my house while he looks for a job) and wonder if all families are like this or is mine just seriously affected by the heat?

7:00- I have a bi-weekly US conference call. I call in via Skype. Have a side conversation with someone else on Skype & then need to call him (he's in New York) after this call to deal with another work issue. The kids come in and out at various times, making faces & parading through my room. Thank God for the mute button.

8:15 - I get off my calls and read a funny chapter from a Roald Dahl book to the kids. Sophie again reviews her dance moves, Xavier rolls around on the floor being a little brother and the day is nearing an end. Sophie has been relentlessly picking at her mosquito bites, so I've been covering them with ointment & small pieces of medical tape. I do the night time check to see if there are any that need attention before she falls asleep. I've made an agreement with her that if she stops picking them & lets them heal, I'll let her get her hair braided - Ghana style. I am exhausted and decide I have to get this day down on the blog before I no longer think it's interesting. I'm writing this blog and all of a sudden a nerf bullet flies through the crack in my door and lands on the floor. I hear a mischievous little laugh and footprints running off. Xavier obviously hasn't yet fallen asleep.

9:08 - I'm signing off. Hoping the rest of the night is uneventful and wondering what tomorrow will bring........

A Shift in Perspective

Ever notice how in the US most world maps and globes are turned so the main focus is on North America? Here, when I see maps, Africa is front and center. It's a perspective that literally makes your world view different. As I was sitting here on my back porch tonight, I realized how many little indicators I have everyday that my perspective has shifted - hugely.

Xavier is in the backyard, playing in the dirt - a common occurrence even in the US. Except it's 6:40pm and dark and the bats are squeaking and flying around eating mosquitoes. I just saw one fly by and thought "cool". Not the response I would have had a few months ago. The other night, I noticed that, marching across my white tile floor, was a colony of probably thousands of minuscule ants carrying a dead baby gecko towards the back door. I called the kids and said "look, it's a science experiment right here in our kitchen". Again, probably not the response I would have had a few months ago.

I also noticed that I no longer look at people and instantly delineate between them being black and me being white. I hadn't realized how much that was still a subconscious filter for me until I came here and realized I was struck by the fact that the kids were the only white kids in their school and it was something that didn't even phase them. They were more concerned about kid stuff - who they played with that day, what was for lunch, how they did on their homework and neither gave a thought to the skin color of the people they were interacting with. Wish more of the world thought that way. Perhaps things would be different.

I hope our perspectives keep on shifting and that everyone has the chance to so dramatically shift theirs at least once in their lives.

Photos

Finally, some photos of my house & the kids in their school uniforms! Check out the link to the albums to the right of this post. More posts soon.......

1 Big Month and 1 "Small" Lesson

It's been barely over a month since the kids and I landed in Ghana, wide-eyed and pale. In that time, we've all had our weak, old Western belly bacteria switched out with a more rigorous version of Africa bacteria, the kids have learned that teaching styles here are a bit more "rigid" than on Vashon , we're all a couple shades darker (or redder, in Sophie's case) and I've learned to embody the phrase "small small" as much as my type A (ok, in the past couple of years, I've probably downgraded to Type A-) self can possibly stand.



I keep hearing people say to me "small small". At first, I'm thinking "what, am I eating too much?" Hardly. Then, I thought they were saying something specific was small and I was constantly looking around to figure out what, exactly, was so small. Then, one day, as I was lamenting about my house not being all put together and organized, my housekeeper looks at me and says "small small. you do too much. you've only been here 3 weeks." And, I got "it". I got much-needed perspective on my very Western expectations and I understood that "small small" means one thing at a time, take your time, slow down. Since then, I have heard "small small" sometimes several times a day. It's become my little mantra and my reminder to stop. Slow down. Take a deep breath and know that everything will happen in its own time.

One Question Answered

Many things here are great mystery. I can live with that and it's always fun to discover the answers (e.g. why is it so important to have a water tank at your house? Because the municipal water system turns off seemingly randomly). So, when I looked at houses I wondered why all the expat houses have so many bathrooms. My house is relatively small by expat standards and I have 4 bathrooms. Now, I know why. As mentioned earlier, Sophie had serious tummy troubles a couple days ago. She's gotten better, but it has persisted. Yesterday, Xavier started complaining of his tummy "pulsating" he started having fevers well over 102 and by the end of the day was spending a fair amount of time in the bathroom. This morning, his fever was way down, but he came into my room at 5:45 saying that his lungs felt blocked. Next thing I know, he has puked all over my bed - good morning, Momma! The morning continued on this way, Sophie and Xavy each running to the bathroom. All of a sudden, I understood why foreigners need so many bathrooms in their houses :)

Taxi and Tummy Trouble

I woke up excited this morning. I was planning on taking advantage of the fact it was Labor Day in the US and therefore people I correspond with at work in the US would be out and that it was not a holiday here, so the kids would be in school. I tracked down the one "spa' in Accra and booked a massage. I dropped off the kids at school and headed towards my few hours of bliss. The massage & spa were great - better than I had expected. I stumbled out of the spa, feeling very relaxed and tried to flag down a taxi. It was on a somewhat remote road where there weren't many taxis. After waiting a while, I finally took a taxi that already had 3 people in it. Mistake #1. It was very crowded & as soon as I got in the driver asked me if I had change for a 5. I looked in my purse. Mistake #2. I took out my phone to make a call. Mistake #3. All of a sudden, the woman in the passenger seat in front of me pushed the seat all the way back into my legs, cramming the tall guy next to me even closer to me. Things got chaotic at that point and I was more concerned about the seat than anything else. Mistake #4. Next thing I know, the taxi is pulling aside at a busy intersection & the passengers are telling me to get out, saying they misunderstood & they weren't going my direction and I should get another taxi. Totally confused, I got out. Mistake #5. I promptly got into another taxi. When I arrived at my destination, I took a deep breath and reached for my phone. It wasn't in my purse. I assumed I had left it in the 2nd taxi. When I replayed the whole scene from the first taxi, I realized I had been robbed. Classic taxi scheme that happens here with full taxis. You have to buy phones here, they don't come with the "plan" like in the US. I had just purchased a very nice approx. $500 phone so I'd have internet & email access. Ugh!!!! I spent the rest of my day trying to get my SIM card blocked & get my number reinstated.

So, I didn't have a phone the rest of the day. I went to pick the kids up from school only to find out that poor Sophie had been struck by the "coming out both ends" tummy troubles. The school had been trying to call me & of course couldn't get a hold of me. So, Sophie had to lay on a miserable cot waiting for me to get there, while she was running to the bathroom - which, of course, had no toilet paper. The poor girl was a mess by the time I arrived.

Spent the evening sitting with Sophie and getting fluids down her, trying to give Xavier some sort of attention & pledging that tomorrow will be a better day. Good night.

The Black Stars

Like much of Africa, football (aka soccer) is huge. The second night we were here, the kids each got Black Stars (Ghana national soccer team) jerseys. Today, the kids and I went to a Black Stars game vs. Sudan. It was an early qualifier for the 2010 World Cup. I have to admit, if a similar game had been in Seattle, I probably wouldn't have attended, but this seemed like too good a "cultural experience" to pass up. The VIP tickets were sold out, so we got 4cedi (about $2.50) cheap seats. We were in row Q (the stadium goes up to Z) and had a birds' eye view. The evening was warm & slightly breezy - perfect! We quickly learned that the seat # on your ticket doesn't have anything to do with where you sit. We crammed into a row & waited for kick-off. We had a GREAT time. I must say that Ghanaians are probably the most "civil" football fans on the planet. I was fully prepared for pandemonium & even wrote my cell phone # in permanent pen on the kids' bodies in case we got separated! However, people were enthusiastic, but polite & Ghanaian spirit was huge.

Ghana won 2-0 against Sudan. Someone mentioned to us that because of Darfur, Sudan needs to hope of winning, but we still had to cheer on Ghana. It felt amazing to be in a stadium with thousands of Ghanaians, cheering on our new little country & seeing a "real" football match.

Water: going with the flow in Ghana

Here's a little story about getting water that pretty much highlights the way life is here for new obrunis (phonetic sp. but means white person).

We can't drink the tap water, so have a need for bottled water. I've been buying case after case of 1.5 liter bottles & feeling guilty about the amount of plastic we're using. I've been looking for weeks for water coolers. Every one I find is about $275 and that seemed steep. Finally decided we'd used one too many plastic bottles & went out to buy a cooler. I wanted to use my Visa card because I needed to buy 3 for myself, another colleague and the office (most everything is cash & you can only get about $350/day from the cash machine, so a large purchase like this would take days of going to the ATM). So, went to 2 major electronics stores that had water coolers only to find that they did not take Visa. Went to another store that had the coolers, took Visa but found out my Chase card was declined because they're on a "blocked vendor" list. After the owner was really clear that they don't have anything to do with the US - they were obviously from the middle east - I finally clued in that they probably somehow were on the US financial institution list of companies that have questionable links to terrorist orgs. By then, I had to get ack to work, so called off the coller search.

The next day, I was able to find a place that had the collers (although only 2 not 3), took Visa and took my Visa - SCORE. Figured it would be easy to get the large bottles that go on top of the coolers. Wrong.

The super market did not have the bottles & sent me to another supermarket. They didn't have them & sent me to a mini-mart. They didn't have them & told me to go to the supermarket that told me to go to the mini-mart. Finally, with the assistance of our driver, found out that you have to go out to a little store near where the Voltic water company has their main facility. Took about half an hour to get there, found the store & they had many bottles in front. We went to buy a few and found out that it's not possible to buy the filled bottles unless you return empty ones. So, how do you get empty ones? Best guess was to go to the Voltic facility. Went there and they told me they were out of bottles. I asked how it was possible for the water factory to be out of water. The guy smirked and said "we're not the factory, we just sell it". They did have 3 dirty, empty bottles. I asked if I could buy those. They finally agreed & said I had to pay 18cedi (about $13) for each. I asked if I could get a receipt & they seemed doubtful. A sure sign I was getting the obruni price. I called the driver to help out & lamented about having to pay so much for dirty, EMPTY water bottles. We finally got the bottles for 15 cedi each, but then had to take them to the store down the street to exchange them for filled bottles. Paid 3cedi each for the filled bottles & finally went on our way.

Once home, I plugged in the water cooler. Plugged it in, left it overnight and......room temperature water. So, we have our water, we have our cooler & I hope that one day the water will be cold............