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............

Humanity

Just back from a weekend on the "Gold Coast". More on that in the next blog. For now, I'm just going to focus on our visit to the Cape Coast castle. The Obamas just visited there on their trip to Ghana. It's an old slave fort where thousands of slaves who were captured from their villages were "stored" until they were sent on slave ships to other lands. It was stunning to feel the energy of the place, walk into the dungeons and see real shackles used on people. We were able to touch a rock that the slaves used to pray on before heading onto the ships. It was truly amazing. Standing in the "male dungeon" where hundreds of male slaves were held with only a couple of tiny holes in the rocks for air and light, I was stunned to find out that the Europeans had built an Anglican church directly on top of the dungeon. So, while hundreds of humans were sick, scared, tired, in pain and in hell, the Anglicans were singing songs of praise to the heavens. Unimaginable.

It made me come to the simple conclusion: this has to stop. Whites have to stop enslaving blacks. African tribes have to stop hurting other African tribes, in order for us to have a lasting and loving world, we all have to stop hurting each other - and using God as the excuse.

A plaque on the wall said it all "In everlasting memory of the anguish of our ancestors. May those who died rest in peace. May those who return find their roots. May humanity never again perpetrate such injustice against humanity. May we, the living, vow to uphold this."

Almost Like Home

We finally got our furniture. We ordered cane furniture from a furniture maker on the side of the row in section of town where there are loads of furniture makers. Sophie & I picked out material for the couch cushions & a tailors made them. We've now got beds, a couch, table & chairs and a few shelves. Feels good to be a bit settled. Last week, I broke down and bought a small TV and got satellite hooked up. I know, that's a minor miracle. For those of you who know me at home, I haven't had TV for a couple of years. I was desperate. I needed something to keep the kids occupied so I could breathe for a moment!

Tomorrow, we're getting out of the city and staying at a small beachfront bungalow place. Sounds very off the beaten path & we're looking forward to breathing some fresh air and swimming in the ocean (and I can't wait to pass out in a hammock!). The place looks great http://www.ko-sa.com/ and is only about $35/night for a bungalow. I'll report back after our weekend.

When we return, the kids start school on Tuesday. They just got their uniforms yesterday & they look so darn cute in their little green outfits, white socks & brown shoes :)

Hopefully, I'll get around to posting some pictures next week. Missing home & all of you.

What are you doing?

I realize I haven't written much about my actual work here. I'm the Project Manager for a Grameen Foundation project called MoTech http://www.grameenfoundation.org/what_we_do/technology_programs/ict_innovation/community_health/

It's a Gates-funded project designed to figure out ways we can use mobile phones to help women get better information about prenatal care & help health workers enter & access better information about the moms and newborns they are serving.

Using technology, such as mobile phones, is becoming the next wave of ways organizations are trying to address some of the major issues related to poverty. Cool work - I'm excited to be a part of it.

Fun in the Rain

Every day is filled with gazillions of new things. Today, we had the first "real" rain. When the sky opens up here, it opens! The kids were at the main market (traditional African market with 100s of stalls and 1000s of people) with Patience, the housekeeper. We discovered that Sophie is claustrophobic. She had a bit of a panic attack when everyone huddled under cover. I was trying to get a taxi and noticed a swarm of birds above the trees. The closer I looked, I realized it was actually a swarm of bats! Never seen so many bats and certainly haven't seen so many in the middle of the day!

There's just too much to try and convey. Here's some random info. about our lives here:
- Sophie had to get French, German and English dictionaries for school
- Sometimes phone numbers work, sometimes they just don't
- Minimum wage is 2.653 Ghana Cedi a day, less than $2 (I know this because I am having to brush op on Ghanaian employment law to be sure we're following the law with hiring)
- A couple of the main "western" superstores are South African chains - the electronics they sell have plugs that work in S. Africa, but not in Ghana - you have to ask to have the plugs changed to make your appliance work
- When it rains - it POURS and in some places it's not raining at all
- When airplanes fly over, they're so low you can't even talk to someone right next to you (our neighborhood is in the flight path - luckily it's not a busy airport)
- The opening of a major oil field has made prices skyricket - my house is just over $3,000/month - it's nice, but not a palace. Anything "western" or imported is really expensive. Anything made locally or labor intensive is pretty inexpensive - a housekeeper 5 days/week from 8-5:00 makes about $200/month.
- Overall, people are really nice, patient and kind.

We're starting to feel more and more settled. More soon.