Last Chance to Be…

The word Akwaaba was pasted all over the welcome hall at the airport in Accra. I have heard it many times since. It means ‘Welcome’.

I shan’t go on too much about the flight, suffice to say planes not having a reverse gear and a tractor shortage at Heathrow was enough to keep us on the tarmac for three hours before taking off.

Twelve hours later we arrived. As the plane lowered in altitude the outside air temperature rose steadily and kept on rising all the way to 28 degrees. Not bad for 1am. I expected to walk out into an oven but that’s not really how it was at all. The air was thick and hot but smelled sweet, like grass. It felt like standing in a sauna, in the middle of a swamp. The air is thick and wet and you can feel the moisture filling your lungs. It wasn’t altogether unpleasant.

In my smiley way I then proceeded to grin at everybody through check-in and was pleasantly surprised to be greeted back. I get the distinct feeling I am going to like it here.

It was not all roses, as arriving in Africa for the first time can be a daunting experience for the uninitiated. We were met by the VSO driver and followed through the car park by various men in uniforms with batons. ‘Police Escort’ I thought. Handy. It has since transpired here that lots of people here wear uniforms and carry sticks and few of them are Policeman. I should have worked it out sooner as the first one I met said ‘Euro? Dollar?’, while using the internationally recognised finger and thumb rubbing sign.

‘Get in the car,’ said our driver, firmly, so I did and rightly or wrongly, felt a little scared. The nerves continued until I was shown to my hotel room to be greeted by a flooded bathroom. I went to bed, exhausted but anxious and spent about two hours looking at the ceiling before trying to go to sleep. I think I was waiting for a giant cockroach to appear, but it never did.

A few hours later, around 5am, I was woken to something which sounded like a spitfire coming in to attack….my head. Neeeeeoooooowowwww right up to my ear. The loudest and most aggressive sounding mosquito ever just dive bombed me! ‘Welcome to Ghana, welcome to Africa, welcome to two years of this’, I thought to myself. Akwaaba indeed.

How wrong I was, for, after scaring me, it decided it didn’t like my flavour and went away never to be seen again. I have seen a few killer ants and some really funky lizards, but a whole day in and no creepy crawlies, yet anyway.

I woke up cold! My room is shabby with no mosquito net and ropey air con which decided to work to 5.30am. I turned it off, had a shower and got dressed (and got a free ‘foot bath’ at the same time) and by 7.30 am was a hot sweaty mess! Winner.

So anyway, I looked upon the rest of the day with varying degrees of scaredness only to have had a totally amazing day.

We went to the VSO office and everybody was just so unbelievably cool. How do you describe people who are so warm and friendly? It was like turning up to a new job and feeling welcome straight away. I felt at home. It seems wrong to describe somebody as ‘friendly, literate, thoughtful, intelligent, warm or articulate’ in a surprised way. I mean, why shouldn’t they be? Anyway, I guess it was less surprise and just relief that I wasn’t given a frosty reception.

Accra is not at all how I expected it. I expected a more modern city with perhaps rougher edges than your average capital. It’s not like that at all. It is all mingled into one. For example there is the poshest looking Bang and Olufsen shop I have ever seen, with goats outside. Goats just tend to stand around on street corners here. They don’t look too happy if I am honest. I wonder if goat happiness will become an issue here.

I’m not really doing this any justice at all, but I have only 15 minutes to write this entry. I don’t know when I might get to use the net again so I’m just getting stuff down in the order that it comes out. Also, I’m trying to describe this City fairly and so far, I haven’t left the confines of the VSO Jeep, the hotel or the VSO office.

We were driving down Oxford Street this afternoon, one of the main roads in Accra and I felt like I was making friends as we went. It’s as if everybody acknowledges everybody here. In my village at home when I walk to the shop and I pass a fellow villager, you are sometimes lucky to get a grunt when you say hello. Here, in one of the busiest streets in the biggest town of a country of 20 million people, you could stop and chat to everybody if you wanted to. I love smiling at the street vendors as we drive past – they always reciprocate. When I get a chance, I will go and speak to some of them in person but for now time is limited and I am only here for a few days before I head off to the sticks.

I received an email from a journalist here – Karen Palmer, who told me that if I think it’s hot and humid here, I will be in for a surprise when I get to the Volta Region. This place is like a fridge in comparison. Joy.

Strange how things change though. This morning I felt like I would never acclimatise. By the end of today, I feel like I might just make it. We’ll see.

I didn’t get a chance to be my usual ‘Douglas Adams’ funny in that lot but just wanted to let my folks know I am alright and the email I was able to send was rather brief. One for the nerds here, but the webcafe here is like running some sort of keylogger gauntlet. I have a cunning strategy whereby I type a load of random gibberish in amongst changing focus of the mouse. I read somewhere that it works.

Talking of Douglas Adams, those of you with the privilege to have read the book after which this website take it’s name, will be pleased to know the same cockerels on Galapagos who don’t know how to tell the time, also live in Accra. For the uninitiated they crow all night, clearly confused about when sunrise actually is. Just when you’re finally getting to sleep, they get it right.

I haven’t had a chance to take any pictures yet. I will do though – this place is a photographer’s heaven. Big fat green lizards with red heads, crazy street scenes and beautiful women everywhere. I don’t mean that in a sexual way. The women here glide down the street with such grace. I thought the carrying things on the head thing was a myth, or restricted to the rural areas but it’s not the case at all. Everywhere in Accra you see women with lots of items precariously balanced on their heads. They were stunning bright clothes and really drift along. Their bodies move but their heads stay so still. I could watch them all day long. If you are a Ghanaian lady reading this, I hope that doesn’t offend, I just think you all look beautiful – in the same way art does.

That’s all for now. I hope things continue the way they are going at the moment. I didn’t get time to tell you about the ‘Star Trek Parallel’, but that’s for another time. Suffice to say, I was served coffee by Ensign Harry Kim.

EDIT – after an unsuccessful trip to the Keyloggers’R’Us tonight, (Monday 27th Nov 06) I will try again tomorrow to update my site. Hope everything is really cold and miserable in England.

I decided to write a quick list of things I might miss instead.
The Internet

1) Email
2) Downloading Stuff
3) Surfing
4) Chatting
5) Playing Games

Battlestar Galactica Season 3
Several Coffees Every Morning
Chocolate (especially flapjack and muffins)
Stargate Atlantis Season 2
Lying Around on Sofas
Driving a Car
Prison Break Season 2
Several Cups of Tea a day
Lost Season 3
Watching TV

I have a new Sponsor Programme where you sponsor me for any of the above. A good friend has already shotgunned BSG. Any offers? I realise some may be a bit tricky but that’s what friends are for right?

A few more thoughts for the night.

David Guest will win I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.
Understanding Football Scores in Twii is really difficult.

Tuesday 28th Nov

 Another day, another go defating the web cafer at its own game. I think this time I cracked it. I am about to press submit on this post and have 16 minutes left on the clock. I should press submit soon.

Today I met a Doctor who told me to be aware of all sorts of things, including women who will chase me down the street wanting to get married. Mind you she also told me that ‘homos’ were ‘introduced’ into Ghana so a pinch of salt required.
 

If my youth was Chapter 1 and my career Chapter 2, then the third is about to start. I leave tomorrow morning.

My Outlook Task list is almost empty. One task I didn’t manage before I went away was to write an inventory of everything in my bag. Probably the main reason for this is the indecision which preceded the final packing.

Also I didn’t manage to send out an email to everybody before I left. After all the hype and the fundraising, I decided to slip away quietly.

I was also planning to write something about laptops, the subject of much discussion at Harborne Hall. A lot of the VSOs wanted the benefits they can bring but not many had the technical knowledge to get the most out of them. Time permitting, I will write a guide to prepping a laptop for a VSOer as I think it would be a very useful guide.

I did manage a lot of other stuff though, including the acquisition of a large quantity of Ebooks and Audio Books. With 120GB to play with, I figured they were the best bet to keep me entertained for a space/entertainment value ratio. All we need now is rain. With enough rain the Akosombo Dam may actually fill up enough to power Ghana enough for me to turn my laptop on for more than an hour a week. (Since I found this out I have become concerned how I am going to teach IT?!)

As any good IT Support Engineer will tell you, ‘Google is your best friend.’ Not in my case. I will have no Internet on a day to day basis (when there is electricity of course). Updates to this site will be done by proxy, by bicycle, or whatever it takes, they will happen. Google will no longer be my best friend. With this in mind, I have been having a very long conversation with her. I have tried to imagine everything I may need to know and planned in advance. Working in IT with no Internet certainly represents its challenges. I think I have yet to find out how challenging.

My belly feels weird, like I met a girl I like, or I made an arse of myself at a party. Perhaps I did both those things recently anyway. It feels like I am about to go on stage and perform Shakespeare, in French.

I don’t know why Africa seems more intimidating than elsewhere. It shouldn’t do. I wonder how I would feel if I was decamping to New Zealand. I have only been out of Europe twice. I went on holiday to New York 12 years ago and Morocco for a week 15 years ago.

I did consider that Morocco is probably my nearest developed nation, but using Google Earth have worked out it is probably the Canary Islands. I may have to go there for cheese as it’s only 1700 miles. I am looking for challenges to this presumption if you can find a country with Pasteurisation closer than that.

At the Post Office today I tried to post a 6.5 KG parcel to myself. Everybody laughed including those in the queue behind me as I was told it would cost £110. After some ‘jiggery pokery’ and repacking I created two parcels under 2kg which went for £7 each. I won’t let on what was in them. I am trying to forget so if and when they do arrive, I will get a nice suprise.

Finally, a promise to myself. ‘Whatever I write here, whatever I see, whatever makes me laugh or cry, I will not portray Africans in a way which reinforces racial stereotypes.’ I may be a White Man, going to Africa but that is not the subject of this blog. The point, is that I have things to share with Ghana, just as Ghanaians have much to share me. We are not black, we are not white we are just we. Those inimitable words will be mentioned once more on this site then I will move on.

                Me……………..We

See you on the other side.

(ps never let a spell checker tell you that pokery is not a word)

This will be my penultimate post before departure so I shall take the moment to say a massive THANK YOU to everybody who has donated so far. I am always amazed by your generosity.

Some more good news is that my insomnia problems disappeared mysteriously a few nights ago. I fear they may come back though. Have a look at this - it’s a video of the Ghanaian Giant Black Millipede. This one is a baby apparently.

Ghana has lots of interesting bugs, most of them tend to be rather large. Here are two more oversized nightmare bringers, the Emperor Scorpion and Giant Scarab Beetle.

Personally, snakes don’t bother me as much but here is a picture of what Ghanaians call the fifteen foot snake - the Black Mamba.

It’s called the fifteen foot snake after the amount of steps the average person takes after being bitten by one before dying! The Green Mamba is also found in Ghana and has the same nickname.

That’s all for now - back in a week or so, just before the final push.

I should also point out that I have added email subscriptions to the site, so if you wish to be receive an email when I have made a new Journal Entry you can do so. The link is just on the menu on the right.

I haven’t slept in a month, not properly anyway. I tried to get drunk the other night and slept 7 hours straight but that was the exception. Most nights I have had between one and four hours. My mind is buzzing with thoughts and ideas, checklists, shopping lists and ‘To Do’ lists. I can’t stop thinking about them. Slowly, I have started to cross things off and I feel like tonight is the night. My ‘mini umbrella’ and last minute ‘Deet‘ purchase arrived. I went through my Outlook tasks list and what was once a huge list of 74 things I had to do before I leave, now shows only five tasks. I have everything that I am taking. I even packed and weighed my bag and it came in underweight.

Apart from the thoughts about the placement itself, there should be no reason why I should wake up in the middle of the night tonight.

I have started taking my Larium and have not suffered side-effects, which is nice, quite the opposite in fact. In the short hours I have slept, I keep having really funny dreams since I took my first dose. Last night I was ‘pussycat racing’ which I might explain one day, when I am having a really long equatorial night.

I am not a keen artist and Microsoft Paint with a laptop trackpad thing is not easy. I did manage however, to produce the following works of art during my recent long nights.

This is my preconceived idea about how my placement might look. That’s me on the left standing near some chickens. My house is on the left with school buildings on the right and a water tower in the background. I think this shows you how much information I have about where I am going. It will be interesting to see how this compares to the real thing.

The second masterpiece is called a stakeholder analysis and is loosely based on a Venn Diagram. After a while on my placement I will draw it again. It may help me to understand my placement in a way which may make me a more effective volunteer. I think it is self-explanatory. I wonder who I have missed out.