It's Not What You Know But Who You Know.

I’ll get to the title a little bit later, but I want to take a moment to try and describe some of the things here in Accra that makes it, well, unique. I’ve banged on a little bit before about tro’s. When you see one you don’t know whether to laugh or cry, let alone when you’re trying to get in and out of one. Each tro has a driver (obviously;) and a mate, and the mate is the guy who hangs out of the tro and shouts out which route its taking, for the benefit of those standing waiting for one. The mate is also the one who takes your money. One of the most common routes here is to a place called Circle. It has a Ghanaian name; I think its Nkrumah or something but don’t ask me how to say it. In Accra, it’s known mainly as ‘Circle.’ You know when a Circle-bound tro is coming, because the mate sticks his arm out the window and moves his hand, palm-side down, in a circular motion and shouts “Cir, cir, cir, circle,” over and over, until the tro is full. I catch a Circle-bound tro in the mornings to get to the Daily Guide, and it drops me off at a place just before the main stop. Another main stop is 37. I should say that Circle and 37 are major motor parks in Accra, and a lot of people have to pass through them in order to get to, or catch another tro, to their destination. You know when a tro is heading towards 37 when, in similar fashion, the mate is hanging out the window howling something along the lines of “thirsevn.” I got stuck one night last week when I told the mate I wanted to be dropped off at 37, he forgot and I ended up out near the airport. It was quite funny, where I live is quite close to the airport so I ended up getting a taxi back, but at the time I was like, um, where am I?

Getting a taxi is another ordeal altogether. While tro’s are jam packed most of the time, you feel like you’re about to spontaneously combust in the heat and getting in and out of them is nothing short of exhausting, the thing they have going for them is that they’re cheap, usually a few pesewas (cents). Taxi drivers here are a challenge, to put it lightly. Flagging one down isn’t a problem because they’re here by the millions, but then you have to tell them where you want to go and a lot of the time they either don’t understand or don’t know where it is you want to go, even if it’s the most common place in town. Then you tell them how much you want to pay, and they’ll always place it higher. And so the haggling begins. When you threaten to catch the next taxi they usually relent. Or sometimes you can get them a bit cheaper if you offer them cigarettes. This works quite well for Charlotte because she’s a smoker and most people smoke here, though you will never see them do it in public – it’s more a thing one does in the privacy of one’s home. The thing with the price though, is that while the Ghanaian Cedi is fairly relative to the Aussie dollar, it loads cheaper than getting one at home. Can you imagine arguing with a cabbie at home and telling him you won’t pay any more than $3.00 to get home? Ha! You do go through loads of money here though, so it’s just not practical to get taxi’s all the time, even though it would be more comfortable.

Back to the title! Charlotte works with a Ghanaian lady back in the UK who has a son here. His name is Sadet, and his mother, when she found out Charlotte was coming here, told him to get in touch with her, and make sure she was comfortable and if there was anything she (we, really) needed. So Sadet rocked up to Salima’s house for a visit earlier this week and, after establishing that everything was ok, told us he would come over later in the week and bring a laptop and modem, so we could use the internet here! It turns out that Sadet is the son of a gentleman who ran for the Ghanaian presidency recently, so he’s quite well connected. He has a house here and a house there, but he is also quite a nice man with a nice family. He is taking us this weekend to a place called Kumasi, where he has a house and a cocoa farm. It will be interesting to see how cocoa is grown and produced here, so I’m hoping it will be a good weekend. NB while it was very nice of Sadet to organise a computer for us, the fact is that the internet connection is nothing more than a laugh. After having lost an email due to a connection that drops in and out every 5 seconds, I’ve decided that it’s probably easier not to use it!

I had a malaria test yesterday. I was feeling a little flu-like, like I might have been coming down with something. I got to the office that morning and felt like I was on fire. It’s usually very hot here but I was really sweatin one out (that’s a Charlotte saying, for when it’s so hot you can’t think straight, and in her British accent it sounds really funny). I felt tired, unmotivated to finish my story and a little light headed. After a while I told Gomda I didn’t feel well, he said he could tell, and was it malaria?! I said I didn’t know, so I did an internet search for malaria symptoms and sure enough, they’re remarkably similar to flu/virus symptoms. I got a few mosquito bites when I first got here, and malaria has an incubation period, sometimes a week or 2, sometimes months, before symptoms start to show. Gomda told me to go and see a doctor which I did, and to cut a long story short I had a blood test which thankfully came back negative. It was kind of funny you know, there were posters all over the walls about AIDS which got me thinking oh my god, what if this isn’t malaria…what if it’s AIDS???? Haha, I can be a bit of a drama queen sometimes.

Last weekend Charlotte and I decided to pay a visit to Accra Mall, a very nice, brand new, western style mall with real shops! Having not seen a real shop for about 3 weeks, it was nice to get my fix of bookshops and chocolate shops and the like. However on the way out we saw something to remind us that yes, we are most definitely in Africa. Sitting at the main entrance was a man and beside him, tied to a pole, a monkey, eating chocolate, no less. The poor little thing looked so out of place, sitting in front of a mall eating chocolate when he should have been in the jungle, and eating whatever it is they eat in the jungle. This man informed us that his monkey was for sale, and would we like to buy him? Sure my friend, no worries! We’ll just wander through customs, they’ll have no problems when I bring my rabid monkey home to live with me.

That’s about the full extent of my news. Oh, I have to mention the fruit, it’s one of the (very few!) things Ghana has over our poor fruit at home, sprayed to within an inch of its life with – it’s absolutely beautiful! Pineapples, bananas, oranges, papaya, watermelon, its lovely and tropical and organic and just very, very yummy :) Have a good weekend everybody. Take care!