Stressed out on life!

I promise - this is the last cartoon I post for a while - serious posts to follow. I just thought this was my perfect super hero... I can relate!!!

Do you ever call someone and then wish you hadn't?

Thanks to Natalie Dee for the cute comic.

A Day in the Life... puberty initiation ceremonies, power outages, electrical fires and garden showers...

Having just returned from a well appreciated mini-holiday in Germany with a one day Dubai shopping stopover, I returned back ‘home’ to Ghana over the weekend. Back to the ‘expat life’.

Sunday morning we headed off to Somanya, a village about 90km out of Accra that holds a series of annual female puberty initiation rites ceremonies – called Dipo. (A more culturally sensitive and detailed post with photos to follow). My good friend had gotten us an official ‘obruni’ invitation to come and observe.

So the day started in true Ghanaian style, dodging church traffic and hawkers, through a maze of roads, avoiding road construction and trotro drop offs – and this was a Sunday!

Armed with full bottles of Voltic water, we were all set and arrived in the village just in time to realise we all needed to pee. Uh oh. This is not a desired state to be in, arriving as an obruni in a village in Ghana. You can’t just straddle the gutter unnoticed as others can... and the chances of finding an actual flushing toilet with – gasp – toilet paper - were slim. Luckily one of us had been here before and knew a trustworthy ‘spot’ (Ghanaian roadside restaurant). This one was indoors, WITH a toilet AND toilet paper. No flowing water though, but two outta three ain’t bad. We ‘dashed’ the waitress a tip for saving our butts literally, and headed to the ceremony.

It was about a million degrees in a tight little dilapitated compound, writhing with about 20 times the bodies safe for such a space, and we pushed our way in.
We emerged three hours later, after having offended half the village TWICE through some daft and semi-serious cultural faux pas, having nearly passed out from heat and over-crowding, and having witnessed quite a spectacle – shot gun salutes and all!
And with that we headed back to Accra, conscious not to be caught on the roads after dark...

As we came into the city we realised the entire spanse of Accra was bathed in darkness. ‘Light off’ is the affectionate term... A few spots of light here and there, accompanied by the deafening din of diesel generators led our way.

At home we followed the usual procedure, flashlights in hand, switching over to the generator. Only this time the lights danced and whirred and flashed and the
generator answered with a few gasps and sighs. And then in a millisecond the flames had lashed out and jumped fast – one of our trusted voltage regulators in the socket had turned into a hot orange melting fire block. JW calmly shouted orders, “Bring me a wet cloth, quick!”, and “Bring me a broom! Quick!”. And Q and I did as we were told. And within a minute the fire was out. The computer room had been reduced to a smoky, stinking grey cell, with a blanket of black ashes everywhere. The white wall, now mostly black, branching out in a fan pattern from above the socket.

We spent the next hour testing what had caused the generator to ‘misbehave’, and then started cleaning away the evidence of the fire. With all the windows and doors open, the smoke had cleared and everything was now in order, apart from the bloodthirsty swarm of mosquitos that had come in, taking advantage of our vulnerable position...

Then Q wanted his hair done – this involves a straightening chemical treatment from a box that I smear on his head every couple months, in the name of his vanity...this treatment tames his wild locks, and we’ve got it down to a science, but as the chemicals involved are actually quite serious, it must be rinsed out at just the right time or... or I just wouldn’t want to know. Visions of hair clumps and singed scalp come to mind.

So as Q headed up the stairs to get the gunk out, the generator started playing it’s tricks again and after a few coughs and spurts it died. And there was Q – up in the shower, in the dark, water having stopped (being powered through a pump it’s dependant on the electricity). Panic. Plan B was put into motion immediately. I instructed him to squeeze his eyes shut and get a towel. Marched him down the stairs, through the darkness and out the front door. We have a water tap that runs out in the garden, under the mango tree and mess of bouganvillia that is not dependant on the power from the house. He crawled under the trees, turned the tap on full blast and proceeded to rinse and rinse, down on all fours, knees in the dirt, the white chemical mixing with the mud, making a greyish sludge out of the garden. With the moonlight as our guide, I passed the special shampoo and conditioner down, one by one, until the job was done. Emergency averted.



Just then the power came back and the neighborhood came to light and to life. Great.
Exhausted I headed up to bed, stopping for a well needed shower. But on entering the bathroom, four – yes four – giant cockroaches decided to peek out from under the dark dank hole they occupy under the tub. Instead of my usual scream and evacuation, I decided they needed to simply be dealt with. It was that kind of day. I calmly got my weapon – RAID (Fast Acting) and let them have it. Half a can of it. I left the room feeling quite satisfied with myself and came back soon after to find them writhing uselessly on their greasy brown backs, limbs jerking wildly from the nerve toxins I’d subjected them to.

Another day in the life was over. The next day, Monday – back to work. With the memories of the crisp cool air, German perfectionism and view of the Alps in the distance fading faster than my cockroaches would succumb to their punishment...

Questional.com - Where were these guys when I was 16??!!!

The Internet continues to amaze me and yet at the same time, it keeps evolving in ways that address our perceived needs.

I remember vividly my teenage years, wanting to know so many things, and being so frustrated by the lack of a resource. From simple debates with friends and family as to whether the actor in the movie we’d just watched was the same actor we’d known from a TV show years earlier. There was just no way to solve the debates. No library resource could help. I was perceiving the NEED even then.

But I was no computer boffin – I couldn’t even figure out the Commodore 64 game my Dad has just bought, and the computer class that had just been introduced alongside typing was my most dreaded course. The flashing square on the black screen, with the robotic font and all that basic programming language was the farthest thing from a usable tool. I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined what the Internet would become. I realize these comments risk me dating myself horribly...

Today I look to the Internet for almost everything! I pull out my iphone around the table at a restaurant with friends and log in to the Web to answer the question everyone is hotly debating. It is so gratifying! This is what I wanted at 16!
(This statement is REALLY going to date me>>> The kids today are amazing. Their imaginations are in tune with what the Internet has become and what it can become.

They have been creating it, masters of it’s evolution… and some of them have become millionaires for their vision and their dedication to making those changes. Look at the history of Google, or Skype or even Napster. All of them have one thing in common – kids with a vision and the guts to introduce it to the world, with the result of changing our lives through the Internet.

My son has always been a dreamer, a creative soul. He is also an Internet baby. He can talk your ear off about Web 2.0 (those of you ‘aged’ like me may not know that Web 2.0 is the next phase of the evolution of the Internet). It is what is happening now. Web communities are developing and providing forums for people on every subject, every interest you could imagine, and many you couldn’t.

If you ask him about his friends, he might give you a list of people from around the globe, most of whom he’s never physically met. They are people he’s ‘met’ on the Internet. Yes all the parental red flags go off as we’ve all been brain-washed into believing the Internet is full of pedophiles posing as nice kids… but he’s proven me wrong.

In fact, he has teamed up with some of the kids that are making the changes to the Internet that make the news and enhance our lives in the end. These guys have worked day and night for over 6months on a new website that is a new concept for the Web 2.0 generation. He’s now involved with them on the design of the site and he’s having Skype meetings weekly. My son, ‘working’ at 16!

Questional.com is the site and it’s the brainchild of Robert Newcomb aka ‘Bobbo’, a 21 year old from Philadelphia who has been doing web design since early 2003. He realized that there was something missing in the traditional search engines, in that they are simply designed in an ‘ask a question, get an answer’ format. He decided he wanted to build the frontier website about questions and answers. He created a clean layout (only showing you things you need), easy to use by anyone with an Internet connection, and ensured there was zero spam. He approached his friends with the idea in October 2008. They are now a team of five.

After working 14-hour days, he released the site in February this year to a tremendous reception. The site is called Questional.com. Questional.com has the strength, motive, and the dedication behind it to produce something that will, in time, become the leading source for answers on the web. Despite the site still being early in its expansion, I can see the potential it has.

Questional.com is not a search engine, but provides a community, giving you real contact with real people who are willing to answer your questions and give their views. The Googles of the world can look through something that's already been written, but an entire community, devoted to organizing their thoughts one subject at a time, is truly amazing.

Instead of searching all over the web for your information, you can directly ask your questions on the site and get direct answers by other members. When you’re not asking questions, you can then browse around and answer questions that you have certain expertise in. With enough growth, you have a powerful machine at your disposal. Where were these guys when I was 16?!!!!

The site has a true sense of community, and quite a number of regulars.

The team is working round the clock with new upgrades and they are coming out with a tagging system to increase the organization of the questions, and to allow members to be fully enveloped in subject matters that interest them.

To go the way of Google and the others that mushroomed to success, they need some financial backing and some exposure - and what better place to find exposure than the World Wide Web!

I think it’s amazing and I’m proud to have anything to do with it – even if it is living vicariously through my son’s involvement. Go guys!!!



You can find Questional.com on:
Twitter page
Facebook Fan Page
Facebook Group

And of course, Questional.com

Melting in the African sun...

Oh what I'd do for a grape popsicle....

After yesterday's heavy post, I just had to put up this adorable light hearted comic - borrowed from the great Natalie Dee.

There is nothing harder than the softness of indifference - Ghana shows it's darker side

I’ve been blogging a lot lately about the perils of the health system, or lack of it, in Ghana. Combined with corruption, horrendous driving (with the resultant high rates of car accident deaths), and a general lack of respect for life, Ghana has a serious side that so many of my fellow bloggers choose to ignore or are simply naïve about.

One of my cyber friends, the Irishman in Ghana, recently took a trip from Accra to Kumasi – which is generally known as one of the most dangerous roads in Ghana He was in a tro tro at night. BAD idea.

His blog post HERE is worth a read. I of course chimed in on the comments section with my jaded reply.

As a foreigner it is a common reaction to assume a car would stop if it hit or ran over a person! And an equally normal assumption that someone should call emergency services. In this case however, the tro tro he was in kept driving, and to his amazement all the passengers were fine with that. When he reported the incident to the police later, nothing was done about it (except for the police no doubt bribing the driver).

The next day when he asked his fellow colleagues who were Ghanaian what he should do about it, they told him to drop it. Today I shared his story with some Ghanaian friends and colleagues, and people laughed. Not a happy laughter but once of futility and despair. Their responses were all along the lines that he was naïve to think anyone would care.

Over the weekend in Accra, a man was hit at about 4am by a taxi which did not stop. By 6am the body had been run over by no less than 3 other vehicles. That means no one stopped – and even once they had crunched and bumped over the mass of a body under their tires, they carried on. This article was published in the local paper, but when I tried to find it online today, I realized it wasn’t important enough to make it to the online news in Ghana.

Recently a friend of mine came to me to tell me that his 36 year old brother was missing after having a minor argument with a fellow tenant in the compound where he lived. It was discovered that three thugs had ‘beaten’ the man and since then he’d not been seen. Two weeks later, thanks to an article the family had run in the newspaper about their missing brother, his body was identified at a local hospital. They had been about to bury his body in a mass grave. No investigation, no questions asked. Luckily the family had closure. But now there was a murder case to follow surely??

You would think so, but then you would be a naïve foreigner. In fact, the three people responsible were taken reluctantly into custody, but bailed out within a day. Now the family is being asked for installments of money to ‘help the inspector’ with his investigations. Yet nothing is happening. No one shows up at the court for the case. The family is not wealthy or well connected and they cannot afford the bribes... the case will die. And that is the sad fact. A 36 year old man beaten to death – no repercussions for the perpetrators.

We went to the funeral and across the crowd, who sat on the rented chairs straddling the open gutter in the heat of the midday sun, fanning themselves with the funeral pamphlet, I made out the dead man’s mother. I saw the genuine grief in her eyes. A grief I know too well. A parent should never outlive their child. I realized though, as I watched the neatly dressed men load the coffin into the ambulance, as they do here (ambulances being used for bodies as opposed to the sick but alive), that in Ghana it happens all the time.


You could be a toddler in a village and catch malaria, or an unfortunate cyclist on the road to Kumasi at night. You could have an argument with the wrong guy or stumble out in front of a car. In Ghana you will probably die. And there will probably be a funeral and Ghana will move on.

My Irish friend likened the reactions of his fellow passengers to fear, assuming that it was this fear that stopped them from forcing the driver to stop and assist the person he’d hit.

But I’ve been thinking and come to the conclusion that is the opposite that is true. What happens in society when there are no consequence for our actions? When we have nothing to fear from authority and also nothing to gain. No welfare from the government, no protection from the authorities. It makes people lawless and also concerned with themselves only. Why help an accident victim on the road if you will be asked to pay his hospital bill or watch him be ignored? Why stop to help someone you’ve hit when the police don’t care and will not persecute you in any way?

I guess I’m the Thomas Hobbes in this discussion, with Ghana representing humans in a state of nature - in a 'war of all against all', without a controlling authority… I'm definitely thinking far too much, far beyond my reach…

All these sad events have made me a backyard philosopher. Time to indulge in some soft fleshy mango and slices of the sweetest and best pineapple in the world – and remember some of the things I love about Ghana!

"We can't all be heroes - someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by"

The most inspirational thing I did this weekend was manage to leave my computer in it's bag, while we took off to a friend's beach house for some family time (read: lots of Scrabble, walks on the beach and over indulging)...

On my return to 'civilisation' I got a mail from a friend who is also one of the greatest teachers at my son's school (sadly he'll be leaving next school year, but that is the nature of International schools!). It appears some people accomplished a wee bit more over the Easter holiday!

I figure everyone can appreciate the inspirational value of a true story like this - of a regular guy with the right amount of determination and positive energy - achieving a lifelong dream! Excellent - have a read below. Go Johnny!!!

Friends!

Years ago, I swore that I would run a marathon before I turned 40. Well, I never really got around to it and I never really pursued this dream, partially because I don't really enjoy running. I've always liked running after a ball or a frisbee but simply running for the sake of running always seemed a little futile to me - and boring. And, if I'm honest, I've had a standing policy to avoid pain at all costs (which explains my steadfast reluctance to get any tattoos or piercings) and running for such a long distance looks and sounds painful to me.

Then I heard about the Two Oceans Marathon in Cape Town, which is not really a marathon at all. It's two races: a half marathon (21.1 km) and an ultra marathon (56 km). The idea is that one has the opportunity to run by two oceans, along the Cape Peninsula, which features some of the world's most stunning scenery imaginable. I decided to try my luck at the half-marathon, which seemed like a happy medium: not too long and hopefully pretty enough to warrant some reward beyond simply finishing. I had wanted to do it last year, but got sidetracked in my planning. Then, I wanted to do it this year but it turned out that I would be taking 14 students to Cairo the previous weekend, which seemed like a difficult combination of trips to make (Cape to Cairo in reverse, Rhodes must be turning in his grave). And yet, almost in the last moment (mid-February to be exact), Amber and I talked once more and decided that it might be worth spending our Easter holidays in Cape Town, a town we've always loved for its climate, scenery, amenities and friends. I registered for the half-marathon and suddenly I was faced with the daunting task of getting into running form in less than 10 weeks.

As I mentioned before, I've never run before and it was a whole new experience for me. But I conscientiously got up before sunrise three times a week and ran before school. At first, I ran for 20 minutes, then 40 minutes and finally I actually ran for 70 minutes a few times. All in all, I only ran on 16 occasions and only once in the two weeks leading up to the race because I was traveling. According to my estimates, the longest distance I had run in training was 10 km - about half of the distance of the race. But I started to get better and actually felt OK about trying this insane experiment (I still maintain that running makes little sense unless you have a destination in mind or at least the possibility of scoring/preventing a goal). Nonetheless, I arrived here in Cape Town full of great ambitions: the cut-off time for the half-marathon was 3 hours and according to my calculations, I was hoping to complete the race in about 2 hours 45 minutes - just enough to qualify but not so fast that I would hurt myself.

A couple friends of mine had also registered for the race and they had each run several full and half marathons, so they were clearly well ahead of me in many respects. I had no idea what to expect and the 24 hours preceding the race, I became increasingly withdrawn and pensive, as the anxiety of attempting (and possibly failing at) this challenge approached. On the morning of the race, we woke up at 4:00 a.m., ate some granola bars, drank lots of juice and water and headed off to the start of the race, which was scheduled to kick off at 6:00. By 5:15, there we were, with 10,000 other contestants, in the pre-dawn dark, eagerly awaiting the start of the race. When the gun finally sounded (in the distance, because we were a good 500 meters from the starting line), I was almost bursting with anticipation because I simply had no idea what to expect from this crazy endeavor.

The start of the race was a bit hectic, as everyone jockeyed to establish their position in the line-up and within minutes I lost sight of my friends. From then on, I was on my own and it was a strange type of solitude, among thousands of strangers, both in the race and along the side of the road, cheering us on. At first, the only ones cheering us on were the volunteer marshals showing us the way, a few prostitutes plying their trade in the early morning hours and quite a few homeless, who rubbed their sleepy eyes in disbelief as thousands of panting athletes intruded upon their sleeping quarters. But as the sun rose over Table Mountain, providing us with a majestic view of this stunningly beautiful natural monument, the first spectators stumbled out from their homes, many still in their pyjamas, clutching their coffee cups and breakfast croissants, nodding approvingly and perhaps offering a word or two of encouragement to this or that runner. But as the sun rose steadily and the day began in earnest, the streets started filling with an increasing number of spectators and soon the roads became alive with the sound of cheering people, bands playing music and open barbecues roasting bacon and eggs. The race numbers pinned to our chest and backs had our first names printed on them, so every now and then, I would be spurned on by the seemingly random call of a "C'mon, Johannes!" or "Lookin' good, Johannes, keep it up!", which was truly encouraging. I could usually barely muster more than an acknowledging nod and a smile but it really made you feel special to be recognized - even if it was temporary and fleeting.

I am not a fast long-distance runner. Literally thousands of people passed me and I was astounded at the various body types that participated in this race. Normally, when one thinks of runners, one thinks of lean, thin and diminutive statures; you know, the stereotypical Ethiopian or Kenyan athletes, who are little more than bones, sinews and aerodynamic calves. But every single type of body was visible in this crown of runners - and most of them were significantly faster than me. But that didn't matter because my goal was to not stop to walk at any point in the race, even if it meant running at a snail's pace (which was definitely my speed going up the hill on Southern Cross Drive, which in my mind will now always remain synonymous with the term "hell"). But I kept running, even passing some other runners, much to my (and their?) surprise. By the time I reached the finishing straightaway, I was more tired than I had ever felt before and felt pain in parts of my legs (and biceps, strangely enough) that I had never even knew existed.

But as I approached the final 100 meters or so, I could not help laughing out loud, pumping my fistin the air and clapping exuberantly because I was so extremely proud of what I had accomplished. Granted, there had been thousands of people finishing before me and people probably thought I was a little pathetic in my childish joy (and maybe I was) but I couldn't care less because I had made it! I cannot describe the feeling I had crossing that finish line and I don't know if anyone will ever understand but for me this was a great personal triumph. I couldn't contain my happiness and went around patting other runners on the back, simply because I had this irresistible urge to share my joy with others. We congratulated each other and I simply could not stop smiling, despite the throbbing pain in my legs and the aching in my entire body. I was rarely as proud as I was when I was filing by the race officials handing out the bronze medals that all finishers receive, even though I was one of thousands. Oh yeah, my finishing time was 2 hours and 33 minutes, faster than I had expected, which was also cool - but totally secondary to the achievement of reaching the finish line in under 3 hours.

I soon ran into my friends, who greeted me with a great big hug. We exchanged high fives, congratulations and soon found the beer garden to celebrate with a cold drink. We then watched the winners of the ultra marathon arriving (only 30 minutes after me, even though they ran almost thrice the distance!), which was inspiring as well. But in the end, it was simply a great experience to have been a part of. I don't know if I'll ever run a full marathon because I don't think I would have the discipline necessary to train for it. Then again, I still have another 20 months before I turn 40, so perhaps I'll get crazy again and feel the urge to embark on such an adventure. For now, I'm basking in the glory of having completed this task and that is plenty of gratification for me at this point.

Now I gotta put my feet up and do something really unhealthy, so I can feel like myself again. Yours,

Johnny Enzian
Irreverent Reverend (Johannes Schwerk)

A toast to you Johnny -


for giving us all a kick in the proverbial butt - what are our dreams? Live them!!!!

Failed hero - Oprah's school continues to abuse young vulnerable girls

Oprah’s infamous South African School in the news again for a sex scandal…. Just makes me wonder… as I do… why the Hollywood heavy hitters get involved in all these ‘aid’ and good will projects by throwing heaps of money at the problems and taking snapshots for the press with semi-starving, but eternally grateful looking poor kids – when they are clearly in over their heads. There are cultural and systematic problems of epic proportions that they could not hope to understand when they ‘reach out’ in their naïve self congratulatory efforts to raise the quality of life of the poor in the ‘developing world’.

Oprah Winfrey has quite an impressive CV – according to her wiki profile, she is an American television presenter, media mogul and philanthropist. Her internationally-syndicated talk show is the highest-rated talk show in the history of television. She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and was once the world's only black billionaire. She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

And yet, the most important philanthropic project of her life is an absolute disaster. Since it’s inception, the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls, has been riddled with scandal and controversy.

What Oprah hoped would be a leading school in the country, with state of the art facilities, at a cost of $45m, has been exposed as a shady den of sexual misconduct both by matrons, charged in late 2007 with various indecent acts on the students, and now the students themselves.

Yes, I’m on Oprah’s case again. I covered the earlier story in 2007 with my usual skeptical perspective, but this new scandal just throws the whole concept up into the light once more.

Oprah can be, and definitely has proven herself, as the hero of middle class women in developed countries who stress about their self esteem, yoga vs. pilates, low fat or low carb, and what book to read next.

Time has proven that despite her supposedly valiant efforts, she CANNOT be the hero of the poorest, most vulnerable girls in the world, who live halfway across the globe - who’s problems range from possible starvation, lack of water and electricity and the Aids epidemic - to physical, sexual and mental abuse in a crumbling increasingly corrupt country with a dubious future. Even the walls around her bright Academy couldn't protect them....

In the name of Love? U2 takes it a step too far

I stumbled upon a well written blog today, from NYU called Aid Watch. They actually have an objective perspective, which is quite refreshing.

Scrolling down I came upon this:



Album cover from a recent compilation with the following inscription below it:

"Not sure what to make of this, so I just state the facts: an African-American record producer arranged to have well-known African singers do U2 songs for this album. U2 obviously had to sign off on an album in which Africa thanks U2 with U2 songs, due to copyright laws, and in fact the producer thanks U2 band members." There is a great debate in the comments section below it, which can be accessed here.

I think it's pathetically self indulgent for the U2s of this world to gloss over the issues facing Africa, to glorify themselves and pretend to be making any sort of a
difference. Aid has not been working for decades and there are many reasons for it. Bono was not an economist last time I checked, but he knows that being the poster child for Aid to Africa has revamped his popularity as a pseudo mother Teresa of the popular media, and now he's taken it even further with this new album of African singers doing U2 songs in commemoration of their valiant efforts.

Well Bono, since you asked, Yes you've disappointed me and left a bad taste in my mouth.

Santogold - makes me smile

One day in a bank semi-recently, waiting impatiently, I saw this bizarre music video on the flat screen up on the wall, meant to distract you from the extra long and tedious wait. It worked - I fell in love with the song and the video. I became obsessed with finding who the group was, the song name, and ultimately getting the video in my hot paws so I could watch it again.

Well through the help of my son and other Internet sleuths (namely his online friends forums)I found it!!! This wasn't easy, given all I could explain was that it was a video of a girl on a horse in a forest...

Music makes me happy - but finding a song I've been yearning for makes me even happier.

What do I love about this song? The bizarre scene of the girl on a horse in front of an ominous forest, with the awkward sideline dancers... I guess I just can't explain it. Music is one of those things.

I might be the only one who likes this song... who knows! I wouldn't be surprised.

Over the years I've loved some pretty bizarre things (and people - but that's another story!). One of my fav movies is Gummo (everyone I know questions my sanity on that one). There are obscure little known movies I LOVE like Chocolat, set in the Colonial 1950's in Cameroon and The Lunatic about a sex crazed German and a local madman in Jamaica. One of my all time muses is Grace Jones. You gotta love her, or at least I do! But hey -

Today I share my weird found video - enjoy!!! (or not) :)

SANTOGOLD - Les Artistes



Turns out I don't like much else the group or singer has done, so I won't be looking for the album, but just wanted to pay my hommage to them for this one!

Free yourselves from Mental Slavery - Ghana's Mental Health in Crisis

I’ve been reminiscing about the good ol’ days, during my first few years in Ghana, when I lived an entirely different life… The days of the compound of 54 people, all Ghanaian except me, all living in single rooms surrounding the common space – a concrete square that at one time had a big tree growing out of the centre for shade. (That was hacked down in the rage of one of the adult sisters in the family along the way, no doubt getting back at others for some or other trivial dispute). But that is another story.

We had quite motley crew of family members and random tenants among the 54 of us, and there are definitely stories enough to fill a novel… maybe one day!
Today I remember Sistah Konadu. A sweet and well-meaning girl in her mid-twenties, with a large frame and a tiny voice, she wasn’t actually living full time with us, but apparently had problems with some other members of the family who lived elsewhere, and sought refuge with us many times.

Konadu was slightly ‘mad’ as the family affectionately described her. I found out later, mostly from observation, that she was clinically a schizophrenic. I imagine the medicines in Ghana are expensive or not available, had there even been a proper doctor to make such a diagnosis in the first place.

One afternoon as we sat in our little room, bathed in sweat, fanning ourselves, there came a big noise from the compound. A woman’s voice shouting frantically, “You! Think you can hide in a chicken disguise?! You are the devil! I see you! Evil chicken!” We peered through the dusty slat windows to see Konadu, dressed in her best cloth and jewelry to match, running in circles, chasing some benign neighborhood chickens with the fury of an exorcist. The children were running behind, jostling and poking each other, falling in tiny clumps of laughter. Some of the adults poked their heads out into the yard and called for Konadu’s mother to fetch her to the asylum. It seemed the illness had reached some sort of peak and she was dragged, warning us all of the dangers of the little devils among us, with the help of some strong guys around the area, into a taxi and off to what they called the Asylum. Sounded pretty scary to me. Little did I know.

Konadu disappeared for a few weeks. When she came back she was dull, thin, her skin grayish and the corners of her mouth sagged. She looked highly drugged. The fire in her eyes was gone.

What we didn’t know at the time was that she had been chained by her ankle to a large heavy metal ball on the floor in what constitutes a cell. Some patients are chained to car batteries or any other heavy unmoveable objects.


This is rehabilitation?! The conditions in Accra’s only Psychiatric Hospital – the Asylum – make the horrors at Korle Bu and others look like a hotel. There is even less funding for these hospitals around the country, not to mention a huge stigma. The patients are fittingly referred to as inmates and as I read in an article published on AllAfrica.com, the regional director of CHRI (Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative) explained:

“the treatment includes chaining, denial of food, verbal and physical abuse, isolation and forced medication. According to her, their research revealed that the incidence of chaining up the mentally disabled constituted a feature of the healing process.”

What is equally disturbing is what I read on the front page of the Daily Graphic (whose website is currently under construction), Ghana’s largest newspaper TODAY. Ghana’s ‘Mental Health in Crisis’. The article goes on to explain that for the 22 million people in Ghana, of whom they figure 30 -40 % will suffer some form of mental health problem during their lives, have 2 – that’s TWO qualified and practicing Psychiatric doctors to attend to them. Statistically that is one doctor per 11 million people. Do I need to write how dismal that is? Apparently there are actually 4 doctors in the country, but two are lecturing at Universities rather than practicing.

So what happens over at the Asylum to the thousands of ‘inmates’? No doubt they are guarded. Doubtfully they are fed, (unless family members come to visit and bring meals to them), but no chance are they being treated by a doctor. And that is sad.
I haven’t seen or heard from Konadu in ages. She had a baby and got married and was on her ‘medicines’ that last I knew. God forbid she relapse and need medical attention.

With all the hue and cry about the atrocities of slavery during the early colonial days, here we are in modern Africa, where citizens are being enslaved, in their minds and by the literal chains that bind them. The treatment of the mentally ill in Ghana is one of those dirty little societal secrets, on the bottom of anyone's list in terms of making changes, and in the dark ages in terms of cultural attitudes. God help them, those who cannot help themselves, for no one else will.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother - the health care saga continues

The health care saga continues in Accra… So after his horrible ordeal in the North, our engineer flew down to Accra yesterday morning with multiple breaks in his arm, and was admitted to the 37 Military Hospital, which is close to the airport and was recently renovated with German government donations and expertise.

Our engineer is a professional with money and a company supporting/backing him. (Which is very important in seeking service at a hospital in Ghana). Yet it is not enough. He does not ‘know anyone’ who works at, or has clout with the hospital.

What does this mean? Even though he has money to pay for any treatment he would need – like immediate x-rays and a long overdue plaster cast, they have refused to serve him as of this morning, and he sits on the bed, with his mangled arm hoisted above his head in a ridiculous sling. No medicine, no cast. Meanwhile the bones are healing over, without having been reset and the long term implications will be evident. Imagine he had needed surgery, or that his injuries were more life threatening?

We are making arrangements to take him now to the main and largest government hospital. But I don’t hold out much hope for that. I’ve seen many people die there with my own eyes, all completely preventable. One vivid example comes to mind.

Years ago in the late 90's, during my wild and free days as a volunteer in Accra, when I was the ‘obruni with the blue motto (Vespa)’, a friend and I were mugged one evening and dragged along the road by thugs in a car who wanted my friend’s bag. Only the bag was slung across her body and it was difficult for them to pull it off, while driving alongside us in a car, the passenger’s torso hanging out of the car…

It must have been quite a scene actually – me concentrating quite hard on the handlebar/steering wheel as the car bumped and nudged my little motto from the side, with a huge open gutter on my other side, my friend holding onto my waist for dear life as her bag was being torn from her, until finally they yanked hard enough to pull her to one side, my balance thrown, we skidded into the gutter, the Vespa cracking as it slid out from under us, and the two of us grinding along the gravel as the car tore off ahead.

Once we’d semi-recovered from the shock and picked ourselves up, we hobbled towards a nearby restaurant to assess our wounds and make some calls to get us to the hospital. My hubby came immediately and we headed to the infamous Government hospital. Emergency ward. We were pretty bloody but luckily it was all surface wounds that just needed cleaning out.

On arrival at the place, (I was still a bit new and naïve in Ghana) and I have to admit I was just stunned. It was dark, a few fluorescent tube lights flickering here and there, the rest dead. Dirt and dried blood everywhere – on chairs, benches… thick grime on the windows and corners and dirty, grimy walls. You couldn’t tell what colour they once had been painted. It was night and there were only a few people around, but from the moment we walked in we heard screaming. Loud, high pitched screaming. After a nurse gave us some forms to fill we came around a corner into the hallway.

On a metal guerney there lay a woman in complete and utter agony. Blood was soaked through her wrap cloth and pouring literally down the metal legs of the guerney and had started pooling on the floor. She was the screamer. Being the 'nosey obrunis' that we were, we could not bear to watch her without knowing why no one was helping her, and what had happened etc., so we rounded the corner to ask the nurse. Conversation went about like this:

Us: Please, the woman in the hall, what happened? Why is she screaming? Can you please come and see if anything can be done for her?

Nurse: (Looking up very slowly with a look of extreme annoyance) Don’t mind her! She is shouting too much but doesn’t want to give out the coins in her cloth. We told her! Here, you buy the medicines. You don’t pay, we won’t mind you.

Us: But what is wrong with her? She is bleeding!

Nurse: She is an orange seller. They shot her driving by. In the leg. But she is stubborn! Since they brought her here, only screaming. We tried to collect money from her for the drip, but she only holds tightly her cloth, greedy with the coins. We ask her if she has family. Nothing. We are not paid to fight the people, oh! So we are not minding her. The family will come soon. Now come, here is your list for the pharmacy.

With that she sent us down another hallway to buy gauze and sterilizing solution etc.
After a very rough treatment of scraping all wounds and scrubbing the both of us through a few silent tears of our own, we were sent off.

By the time we came out to the main hallway the screaming had stopped. The lady on the guerney lay silent and lifeless, crumpled bright designed Ghanaian cloth around her, soaked dark with blood, her one leg limply hanging from the side… I just knew she was dead.

I came around the corner to look where the nurses could be, and there they were. Two of them, sitting at an old brown desk, eating something. They gave me the ‘what-do-you-want-now look’.

Me: The lady in the hallway? Who was screaming?

Nurse: The boys are not in yet. They will bring her to the morgue.

With that they turned away, back to their chat and their snack. And we hobbled out, bandaged, clean and devastated.

The road is long
With many a winding turn
That leads us to who knows where
Who knows when
But I'm strong
Strong enough to carry him
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

So on we go
His welfare is of my concern
No burden is he to bear
We'll get there
For I know
He would not encumber me

If I'm laden at all
I'm laden with sadness
That everyone's heart
Isn't filled with the gladness
Of love for one another.

It's a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we're on the way to there
Why not share
And the load
Doesn't weigh me down at all
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

He's my brother
He ain't heavy, he's my brother.

But say a prayer, pray for the other ones... Dismal health care in Northern Ghana

The only gift they'll get this year is life... (Bono and the Live Aid Band chiming in)... That's if they're lucky. The Northern Region of Ghana, which is about the size of that state of Louisiana or the entire country of Czech Republic HAS ONLY ONE AMBULANCE.

The population of Ghana’s Northern Region is roughly two million people. Honestly, this is insanity. We came face to face with the dismal reality of the non-existent health care system of Northern Ghana this weekend.

Despite years upon years of development projects catering to the North, and many specifically at building the capacity of the hospitals and clinics (one only has to Google Aid Northern Ghana to see), there is absolutely NOTHING there. On the ground, in the district towns and capitals, let alone the villages. Nothing. No skills, no supplies, no knowledge or any care at all for the value of human life.

On Sunday one of the drivers from our office managed to ‘kill’ a seemingly unbreakable and reliable Nissan Patrol, on route with some of the company engineers to do a customer installation at a site in the North. From Accra, with the bad roads, this drive can be 17 hours. They called from the side of the road with the bad news that they were now stranded in the middle of nowhere with a massive hunk of non-functioning metal and rubber. And all their equipment. The plan was to find a tow truck, which they miraculously did within an hour, and they set off again.

Within an hour we had a call that they had hitched up the company 4x4 to the tow, and then had ever so brightly gotten right back into our car, with no brakes etc. and embarked on the next few bumpy hours journey being towed along.

Except not. Disaster struck. The story, like many Ghana stories, seems unfathomable, yet the outcome pretty disastrous. Apparently a group of motorcycles (somehow I just can’t picture a gang of menacing Harley riders up on the roads of the North, lined by mud huts, shepards and families of emaciated cows and goats…)

The motorcyclists abruptly drove into the lane of our tow truck driver, who swerved violently in reaction. Somehow both the tow truck and our Patrol rolled three times and landed in the bush upside down. Interestingly car accidents are one of the main causes of death in Ghana and fatalities (from a 2006 survey) are double of that of South Africa which has double the population of Ghana, and over 4 times that of Canada which has a third higher population. (I’m guessing a big reason is the way the injured are dealt with after the crash).

When the dust settled our guys all climbed out of the vehicle and it was discovered that one had suffered some facial injuries, while another of our engineers had broken his arm in numerous places. Both needed medical attention immediately. But there was none.

They were taken presumably by a taxi to the closest ‘hospital’ (I use this term VERY loosely), in a town called Bole. On arrival they were told there were no doctors, no medicines, nothing to build a cast for a broken arm, and no equipment at all to test for anything at all. Just a dirty, dusty concrete building with some women sitting at a table. I can just imagine the treatment rooms, where the women and children lie on mats on the floor, no beds, no services… just a place to die.

Eventually – a few hours later – despite the extreme pain and suffering of our engineers, they were brought by taxi to Wa – the district capital, for treatment. It was 8pm on a Sunday night. No doctors. Without doctors, the nurses claim they cannot deliver first aid… So the guys waited it out until morning.

Only when morning came there were still no doctors, and once again they were told – nothing with which to cast a broken limb, no medicines, no supplies. They waited all day Monday, while down in Accra we called frantically around for a solution. They needed to get the 100kms to Tamale – the bigger town, where they could fly on a commercial airline back to Accra to be treated. By this time we had heard that the engineer with the broken arm could not sit (possibly due to internal injuries), and we needed to find an ambulance to bring him to Tamale. Apparently there was no ambulance available. This is when we discovered the hideous truth about the one ambulance for the whole region, which was ‘busy’ in Tamale. Knowing Ghana, it was being hired for a funeral… go figure. What we discovered was that there was not even a vehicle in the town of Wa that could take them…

So in our desperation, knowing the dangers of internal injuries, and the very real possibility of the bones in his arm healing in the wrong shape, we tried to find a way to fly them back to Accra. We called a local aviation company who said they could charter a flight for USD $12,000. Only they couldn’t get the plane organized until Saturday – 5 days away!!! We called on a foreign owned and run medical rescue company operating in Ghana that services International companies who are members. We are not members. They responded that they could send a fully medically equipped plane first thing in the morning. It would cost Euro14,000!!!!

Eventually they did manage to find a car and made the bumpy journey, all their injuries notwithstanding, back to Tamale and this morning they caught the commercial flight to Accra. They are now both admitted to a local hospital. Even these Accra clinics and hospitals pose serious questions about the quality of health care.
But the question is – what do the locals in Northern Ghana do in these cases? And the sad but true answer is that they suffer and they die.

Billions of dollars in Aid has poured in… Where has it gone? Why is there nothing?

Why doesn’t the government stop building palaces and start building real hospitals? Why did they spend over $60 million in largely unaccounted for sums on the 'Ghana @ 50' Independence Celebrations when the real needs are ignored completely? What exactly are we celebrating? What indeed.

Sweet 16

Today my baby turns 16. I got up early with him this morning and hugged him as he was gathering his things at the door. I watched him walk away, out the gate and pictured him on his way to school. He's nearing 6 feet tall and his voice is getting low and he corrects me on so many things these days, but he is still my baby.

There was a time when he and I made up a family on our own, and despite the many changes that have happened, siblings that have come and gone and relationships, spouses and various others who have touched our lives, some days I still feel that special bond between us - the feeling that it's us two against the world.

He has always made a great companion. From the time he was born he observed so much around him and had a sense of calm that comforted me. He has always been comfortable in his skin and I admire that. Now, in the middle of adolescence, when kids struggle with identity, he knows exactly what he likes and what he doesn't and he has his own moral code which no one can compromise. All very admirable to me.

There comes a time in kids' lives when they finally see their parents as human beings, with faults and weaknesses, and can admire them for their true talents instead of the blind love that a child gives. They also say that parents will always see their child with the eyes of blind and unconditional love.

Between my son and I, I believe we've always seen each other clearly - faults, weaknesses, strengths - everything. And maybe because of this, I feel we share a love that is honest and open and real.

I am so proud of him.

He's been 'into' graphic design in a way that I could only imagine passion, dedication and patience in myself. He can put in 10 straight hours on an art piece - forget to eat or drink or speak. He thinks this is what he wants to pursue and judging by his talent and enthusiasm, I think he's on the right track. I'm still amazed though. Who knows at 16 what they want to be when they grow up?! Hell, I still don't know what I wanna be...

I've decided to share here one of his recent 'pieces' - he used two stock photos (below):





And came up with this:



Excellent if I do say so myself. Happy birthday Q!!! Love you.

GHANA: This Week in Aid...

Well it seems there is no end - the floodgates are open and the Aid money continues to pour into Ghana. I think I will try to keep a running tab of publicly announced International donations to Ghana...

For the week of March 8th, 2009, donations covered by the mainstream media are as follows:

1. Spain donates $44.4m for the 'socio-economic development of the country' with no specific projects or areas in mind. Looks like a windfall for the new Government. What will be the accountability and follow up of the allocation of nearly fifty million US dollars??

2. Japan continues to fund Ghana, this week through a grant of $3.5m, under the loose title 'Multi Donor Budget Support' - again no specific projects targeted...

3. The Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (BADEA)has today signed a 'loan' agreement for $6m with the government of Ghana 'at a gala' in Cairo. No doubt there was no expense spared in sending the government delegates from Ghana to the event... This money is targeted at "financing Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine Treatment Services project". That is pretty ambitious considering we are talking about a country where the main government hospital has troubles with rats chewing newborns sleeping on the floors in the maternity wards, due to the fact there are not enough beds...

That comes to a grand total of approximately $53million this week. I would expect that in a year or even 6 months we should be reading articles about how these monies have been put to good use, and full transparency about the allocation of the funds, and ultimately the success of the projects, measured through benefits to the citizens of Ghana.

Are you holding your breath?

Stay tuned...

Bono, Angelina and the Hollywood Causes Brigade - Watch Out!

Finally a voice is being heard, speaking out against Aid to Africa, and against the trivialization of Aid through the Hollywood circuit. And this time people will listen because it is an African voice. I read with interest in the Sunday Times Magazine a few weeks ago, and again last week about the upcoming release of the book ‘Dead Aid’ by Zambian Lawyer Dambisa Moyo. Some out there in the blogosphere, like Africa Unchained also highlight the issues, and wrote THIS excellent post highlighting Moyo's point of view. Angel at Woman Honor Thyself has a pretty strong view as well... have a read!

I have been sounding off for years about everything from the pathetic Aid campaigns headed up by ‘Bono and the league of Hollywood Heros’ to the MAC AIDS fund, with spokespeople L’il Kim and Mary J. Blige, and the warm fuzzy feeling it gives girls to buy $20 fire engine red lipstick for their crazy boozy nights on the town, while still feeling like they’ve done their bit to ‘help the poor in Africa’.

All my cynicism is highly disregarded as the jaded perspective of a long term expat, and the complicated issues are glossed over by most. The truth is that Aid does not work. It is an industry that perpetuates itself with no end and no solution in sight. I am so happy that an African scholar has vocalized the issues and hasn’t been shy to point the finger at the culprits as well as looking at viable solutions for Africa – from within.

Below is an interview and an excerpt from Moyo’s interview with the New York Times:



Q: As a native of Zambia with advanced degrees in public policy and economics from Harvard and Oxford, you are about to publish an attack on Western aid to Africa and its recent glamorization by celebrities. ‘‘Dead Aid,’’ as your book is called, is particularly hard on rock stars. Have you met Bono?
A: I have, yes, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last year. It was at a party to raise money for Africans, and there were no Africans in the room, except for me.

Q: What do you think of him?
A: I’ll make a general comment about this whole dependence on “celebrities.” I object to this situation as it is right now where they have inadvertently or manipulatively become the spokespeople for the African continent.

Q: You argue in your book that Western aid to Africa has not only perpetuated poverty but also worsened it, and you are perhaps the first African to request in book form that all development aid be halted within five years.
A: Think about it this way — China has 1.3 billion people, only 300 million of whom live like us, if you will, with Western living standards. There are a billion Chinese who are living in substandard conditions. Do you know anybody who feels sorry for China? Nobody.

Q: Maybe that’s because they have so much money that we here in the U.S. are begging the Chinese for loans.
A: Forty years ago, China was poorer than many African countries. Yes, they have money today, but where did that money come from? They built that, they worked very hard to create a situation where they are not dependent on aid.

Q: What do you think has held back Africans?
A: I believe it’s largely aid. You get the corruption — historically, leaders have stolen the money without penalty — and you get the dependency, which kills entrepreneurship. You also disenfranchise African citizens, because the government is beholden to foreign donors and not accountable to its people.

Q: If people want to help out, what do you think they should do with their money if not make donations?
A: Microfinance. Give people jobs.

Q: You just left your longtime job as a banker for Goldman Sachs in London, where you live. What did you do there, exactly?
A: I worked in the capital markets, helping mostly emerging countries to issue bonds. That’s why I know that that works.

Q: Which countries sought your help?
A: Israel, Turkey and South Africa, primarily.

Q: Why didn’t you get a bond issue going in your native Zambia or other African countries?
A: Many politicians seem to have a lazy muscle. Issuing a bond would require that the president and the cabinet ministers go out and market their country. Why would they do that when they can just call up the World Bank and say, “Can I please have some money?”

Q: I keep reading about a new crop of African presidents who are supposedly free-market guys, including Rupiah Banda, the president of Zambia.
A: There are lots who are nominally free market, but they haven’t been aggressive about implementing those policies.

Q: What do your parents do?
A: My mother is chairman of a bank called the Indo-Zambia Bank. It’s a joint venture between Zambia and India. My father runs Integrity Foundation, an anticorruption organization.

Q: For all your belief in the potential of capitalism, the free market is now in free fall and everyone is questioning the supposed wonders of the unregulated market.
A: I wish we questioned the aid model as much as we are questioning the capitalism model. Sometimes the most generous thing you can do is just say no.

To Catch a Thief - A follow up to the Guard and the Gardener

Over the past few days I’ve read two blog entries from fellow foreigners in Ghana. Both concern the serious betrayal and incredulousness they have felt as sentimental things have been stolen from under their noses by the Ghanaians they know and trust. My close friend was also over a couple days ago and told me the same thing. The most disturbing aspect of these stories is that each person had demonstrated time and time again that they were happy to share and if asked would give the shirt off their backs for the people they share their personal space with.

The first blog entry I’m referring to was by Barb – an American married to a Ghanaian, living in Ghana with her husband and kids. The second entry was by Wes, an American secondary school student who is spending a school year in a village in Ghana.

Both people are quite open-minded and trusting.

Both have the very best of intentions in Ghana, and neither have flaunted wealth nor treated their Ghanaian families with anything less than respect and love. Yet both are finding themselves reeling at the ability of the people around them to steal and lie, straight faced, with no remorse.

Both stories are so sadly familiar to me. They reminded me of the story I posted a year and a half ago, regarding the ongoing theft of diesel from our house by our trusted gardener Eric and the guard who represented a highly respected and trusted security company. During that whole fiasco our gardener defiantly protested the accusations and insisted he was innocent. He counter accused our cook, who has since been let go.

The whole thing was sad for me. He had been someone I had a soft spot for, and I commonly gave him cash advances which we both knew would never be paid back, as well as clothes, food etc etc etc. Once he was gone the letters started. First was a letter in his broken and pleading English, asking for his job and housing back. He insisted that God would redeem him and one day we’d regret accusing him. Next came a letter from a lawyer’s office in Accra, threatening us with legal action for dismissal without cause. That we laughed off, but I took the time to write to the lawyer to explain that we had witnesses etc. and they backed off.

A few months later Eric came back with a vengeance, waiting at our gate as we left for work in the mornings and leaving letters with the (new) guard. These letters continued with the theme that he saw us as his family, as his mother and father, and that he would never have betrayed us in the way we accused him. He wrote that he had been praying every day that we would one day see the truth of his innocence and let him return.

Now in our relationship, JW is the softie at heart. One of the letters got to him and he called for Eric to come and see him. The next week Eric was back. Smiling as ever, ready and willing to help with anything, assuring us it had all been an ugly misunderstanding with the evil, jealous woman who had been our cook. He assured us God would bless us for seeing the truth and giving him this new chance.

I was skeptical, given what I’ve seen happen in Ghana, but yet I went along with it, and to this day, he is back at the job and staying in a room at the back. I still give him little presents etc.

Yet a week after his return a friend of mine who has a gardener that had filled in at my house during our months without Eric, casually mentioned that Eric had admitted to the other gardener that he had indeed been stealing the diesel, with the guard, just as we’d suspected, for over 2 years. He however told the guy he was happy we’d taken him back and wouldn’t do that again…

So where is the deterrent to stealing again? How does a Christian who references God and the bible and uses his religion as a tool, then live with the lies? Is it simply a matter of poverty?

As both Wes and Barb's stories corroborate, this is not always the case... Is it a cultural acceptance of dishonesty? Why is it ok to betray people who trust you? Where is the remorse? How can we expect anything less than corruption at a national level when this is the behaviour you find inside homes? Who is brave enough to talk about it, to confront it? To change the culture that expects and condones it?

It’s a case of honesty in Ghana – or lack there of…

Thank you for the music

I am a bit obsessed with Arabic music and food as well as Indian, so I was really looking forward to sampling both delights on last week’s impromptu trip to Dubai. As far as the music goes, I’ve had a healthy obsession for Asian music of any kind, ever since I was a WASPy kid in the suburbs of Ontario. Sunday mornings would find me entranced in front of the TV, watching shows like ‘Asian Horizons’ that would showcase Indian movies and live musical performances. The sound grated on my parents’ nerves but enthralled me from the first time. When I first heard Im Nin Alu by Ofra Haza as a teen I realized that music from the Middle East was something I loved.



It was soon mixed into numerous dance and extended mixes, and finally featured on American rap team Eric B. and Rakim's 80's hit 'Paid in Full'.



Middle Eastern music has been making it's way into mainstream pop music ever since...

Anyway, I'm sure my grouping of Israeli, Arabic and Indian music into the same category would have some people writhing at my stupidity - not to mention the political implications, but hey. I am am who I am, and in my little mind these musics are grouped together, and I love them all. There is also an undeniable history that links them...

All these years later, during the ‘courting’ year with JW, realising he had the same feeling about this music was one of those moments where you click on a deeper level. One of those - it was meant to be - feelings. I'm almost sure we are one of the only non-Arabic couples with the full discography of Amr Diab... We’ve built up quite a collection since then, and love to listen to the eery, powerful songs at full blast while driving, or on the house stereo on Saturday afternoons, with the walls shaking and no doubt the neighbors perplexed. It’s a good thing we have a big yard with high walls. Sometimes JW’s music fetish overcomes him at 1am and it’s time for stereo full blast… but I digress.

Dubai. We got the chance to hear Indian dance music because I booked us at a restaurant that promised a ‘conversion into a nightclub’ at 11pm, with the DJ playing Asian dance hits. We ate at 10pm (as most people do in Dubai) and stayed till 2am. We were the only non-Indians in the house and the house was ‘pumpin’ (as they say). It was excellent. Made me feel alive and possibly 21…

The next night was Valentines Day and we really got our fill. We stumbled upon a live Arabic band at a private party and managed to soak in about an hour of the performance before they packed it in. This was after a romantic supper in a restaurant/sports bar that featured an England-Wales rugby match (yippee – NOT), followed by a live trio of Brit girls singing pop love songs…We ended up doing the nightclub circuit, along with a few hundred others, and felt our hearts pounding to the Arabic/techno mixes. We left at 3am, only because the lights came on and the crowds were ushered out. We didn’t even embarrass ourselves the whole night… well except maybe the time I asked the DJ to play my newest obsession - Paper Planes by M.I.A. from the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack –



and proceeded to punch my arms in the air, squeeze my eyese shut and nod incessantly in true comraderie… only to open my eyes near the end of the song (and my rapture), and peer around at the entire crowd, who had not known the song, and abandoned the dancefloor, and were now just looking at me with odd curiosity…

The truth is - I don’t want to get old. Actually, when it comes to music I don’t think I have the capacity. It’s one of those things in life I cling to so I can feel connected, alive, in touch with the rhythm of the world.

We got back to Ghana with a new found enthusiasm for music. I LOVE MUSIC! It gives me energy and always has the ability to make a bad day great, a down mood deep, and take me from bored to inspired. So thank you for the music Dubai. For giving it to me.

The extravagance of Free Willy - or a weekend in Dubai

Today I decided not to post another intriguing/thought provoking photo or try to come up with anything profound. I’ve realized that what that does is simply hold me back from blurting out and sharing here – for fear of not coming out with a memorable post.

I’ve been thinking that I really created this blog to share my life, and the unique perspective of living as a long term expat in Africa, and all the trials and far more tribulations that involves. Not all of it is profound. By far!

The thing is thatI haven’t been sharing most of it. From week to week I am traveling all around the world, experiencing, tasting, enjoying, and not sharing all of this! Shame on me really.

What visiting other countries does is allow a new perspective on what you have around you - the good and the bad. Even the ridiculously indulgent.

I had the opportunity last weekend to take off to Dubai for shopping, eating, exploring, dancing, shopping, did I mention shopping? The trip romantically fell over Valentine’s Day, which was coincidental, but as I was going off to meet JW, it served as a ‘dirty weekend’ too! And we tagged it on to a business trip of his, conveniently.

I’ve had a desire to see Dubai for a few years now, after hearing all about it being the shopping Mecca of the world, and considering the only shopping offering in Accra is the new (and only) mall, located in the worst possible traffic centre of the city, with only ONE exit for cars…. It can take an hour and a half to get out of the parking lot. Dubai on the other hand sounded like shopping heaven. And it was. Sort of.

Dubai, in it’s very conception and roll out, is a contrived city. It is made of oil money, extravagant dreams and the arrogance of Arabic Sheikhs. The result is an Arabic Disney World.

There were over 10 shopping malls. Each with a theme. One had the world famous ski hill right inside the mall, with a full glass enclosure so the shoppers and diners could gawk freely at the spectacle. From the outside of the mall, the building looks like a strangely stacked chute. It’s quite the gimmick. Another mall has a full Olympic size skating rink as well as a 4 storey aquarium amidst the usual stores. Everything has the wow factor. Each mall trying to ‘out Disney’ the other. And then there are the hotels. The Hotels! There were just too many to mention. All with themes and perfectly stuccoed walls. Some had Venetian copy waterways, with tourists on small boats, passing through. They had simulation ‘souks’ which were supposed to be replicas of the authentic old markets at the centre of town, trading gold etc. However, no surprise - the hotel souks were more like extravagantly expensive boutiques.

Gold is just not my thing anyway, so passing window after window of ‘over the top’ yellowy gold didn’t do much for me. I did however discover that there is one fancy jewelry shop where I practically love everything! This is very unlike me for those who know me. Having said that, despite the fact that this shop is quite upscale - like where the lady brings out the ring you are asking to look at, and places it on a little velvet mouse pad thingy… (I felt very out of place!) - the actual jewelry was funky, bright coloured, distinctive, vibrant. The store is called Frey Wille but JW has given it the name FREE WILLY which will no doubt stick. It is German but has outlets around the world. Well, some part of the world. Read - not in Africa…
The ring I chose and now sport around like a peacock, is from a collection (yes, a collection!) honouring a famous Austrian Artist called Friedensreich Hundertwasser (no, I can’t pronounce it). Here it is in all it’s glory. Little Arabic looking houses! Apparently he’s famous for the little onion top houses, which a friend told me is a Russian and not an Arabic thing, but hey, artistic license should trickle down to the end user right?

So she proceeded to show me the earrings and bangle but I almost fell over when she told us the price, so I’ve settled for my completely self indulgent and glorious Valentines Day present.

And there were other indulgences - eating, drinking, dancing... Though I couldn't help notice that absolutely everywhere around us were workers from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Filipino nannies. The backbone of the whole society. Paid poorly and treated like second class beings. But the sad thing is that they come in droves, because the their opportunities back home are far worse.
The forex bureaus in the malls all have Western Union pay-in points, set up specifically for Manilla and Mumbai - to send home money "for your child's school fees" etc. With the back drop of pure opulence all around, it's a bit unsettling to say the least. There is a clear distinction between the locals, who cruise around town in long flowing white suits with the traditional headress and fancy phones/jewelry, and all the labourers who are seen at all hours of the day in dirty uniforms, walking, queueing, working in the streets, malls, restaurants, hotels... There is no denying the 'them' and 'us' attitude that prevails in Dubai.

This week it's back to the grind. Back to the hot messy reality of Accra and my real life where shopping is a weekly trip to the crazy supermarket or occasional trips to the REAL African market.