September 29, 2009

A Series of Events......

The past few days have proven to show us different sides of ourselves and Accra.........

Let's start with the end of last week shall we:

We finally relocated out of the hotel and into Maxwell Court apartments in Osu. Osu is the vibrant, heartbeat of Accra where all things entertainment and shopping take place. We settled in on Thursday and decided to spend the weekend exploring.

And on to the weekend:

Friday night we tried dinner at the restaurant next door and were pleasantly surprised by the taste, quantity and price; all quite good. We headed back to the apartment awaiting a call from a friend on where to meet up later for drinks. However, we would soon come to realize that we were either a) old or b) cheap because we bailed on going out at 10:45pm at night, instead choosing to continue watching a film (Twilight). I’m going to lean towards option b) because the club we were going to started charging exorbitant cover charges at 11pm and we were not going to make it in time to avoid that. So yes, definitely b.

Saturday we walked around our new neighborhood and got a bit lost, but only in the beginning. As we wandered we stumbled upon a festival celebrating the coronation of the new king of Osu. I have to admit I was a bit sketched out at first, being that I didn’t know exactly where in Osu we were, and that there was a group of men standing around with large rifles. I think it only logical to be hesitant when you come upon a large crowd and some of those people in the crowd just happen to be carrying weapons. There are many unknown variables here. Now Brian, being the inquisitive fellow he is, continued to march on down the street right towards the group of men with guns. He joined the crowd of people gathered around a fence peering over to see the ceremony inside. I followed, bypassing the small canons sitting in the street, reluctantly. Brian said that from the beginning he knew it was a celebration and not a vigilantly mob……right.....

Brian could see my uneasiness so asked someone what was taking place. That’s when we learned the old king of Osu had recently died and they were crowning the new one. Soon thereafter they slaughtered a goat and proceeded to fire off the large rifles in the air. A parade was formed and the ceremony grooved down the street to the beat of drums and tribal chanting. We took some pictures and then we were on our way.

It didn’t take long to get our bearings. We strolled on down Oxford Street (the main street in Osu), taking photos of larger than life Obama posters still leftover from his visit earlier this summer. We grabbed some cash and then treated ourselves to gelato, a nice break from the sweltering heat. We finally made it to the main attraction of the day, a three-story local arts and crafts store, the African Arts and Cultural Development Center. This was the ultimate in masks, paintings, and beaded jewelry; everything Ghana. We ended up spending close to three hours here but it was worth every minute.

Fully loaded with goodies for friends and family we made our way towards home. We caught up with a friend to watch some football and have drinks. The rest of the evening was pretty low key.

Sunday morning we ventured out to find a nearby church. Not too far down Ring Road we located St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church. Overall, it was an interesting service. We expected a lot of singing and dancing, however, it was more like a traditional Missouri Synod service with one exception. The orderly service broke away from the structured hymnal singing, Apostle’s Creed reading for a brief moment when the choir unleashed into a Ghanaian music festival. Just following the offering, the choir stood up, a young woman from the congregation grabbed a microphone and then it was all hands up, all feet stomping, dancing and singing your heart out. When they came to an end, it was right back to business. It was like they had been waiting to break loose.....

The afternoon turned out to be a lazy one with just a few errands to run. Brian’s main objective was updating his Fantasy Football stats in time for the NFL games. The plan was to take in some American football at Honeysuckle (British pub nearby) but when we arrived and they couldn’t get the right channel to come in we had to resort to our backup plan. Another western style bar, Champs, wasn’t too far away and we knew they showed American football but unfortunately charged a minimum of 10 cedi / person. Brian was determined so Champs it was. To our disappointment they too were having trouble with their satellite and so no NFL viewing was to be had that day. But to our delight, next door there was a lovely restaurant called Paloma we decided to partake in. It was totally meant to be because every Sunday they have buy one pizza get the second one free - sweet! I was probably overly excited for the pizza but given my diet has recently mainly consisted of french fries, boiled eggs and tomatoes I was in heaven. They also had a cover band that swayed us through dinner to songs such as Lean On Me and Mack the Knife and The Lady is a Tramp, a real treat.

We hailed a taxi for home as it was too late and dark to walk. We hopped in and made our way down Ring Road, under the bridge and turned right near Ringway Estates. We made the first left not too far from the apartment when all of a sudden I could smell and see smoke emitting from the dashboard. My immediate reaction was to get out of the vehicle. So, while driving down this side street, still moving at a decent clip, around 10pm at night, I started opening the door saying, “I’m just going to get out here…....” Right then Brian also realized that the dashboard was smoking and all of the interior lights had gone out. The driver was slowly bringing the car to a stop but right before the car came to a standstill, I jumped out (which upon reflection later surprised me). As you may have already guessed, like the situation with the Osu king celebration, I have a wild imagination, and in those very few seconds in which I had realized the car was smoking and had lept to my escape, I envisioned a massive explosion in which I would come away unscathed because of my quick thinking…. Now maybe I’ve seen too many movies lately or secretly think that I have superhero powers, not likely but still to be determined, but who jumps out of a moving vehicle? I’m going to chalk it up to the lessons learned as a child in grade school: Stop, Drop and Roll in the event of (real or potential) fire.

Reveling in my sly maneuver from the taxi I peered back awaiting to see Brian joining me at my side but to my dismay he was still in the car! He was knocking on the window motioning for me to open the door so he could get out. I am not a superhero. I left my husband inside the smoking car. I immediately ran back and relieved him from the potential flames that fortunately never were.

We had no choice but to walk home at this point but Brian, being the nice guy he is, gave the driver the full fare.

And now for this week:

This week has taken an interesting turn with today's events. As I mentioned, we moved into Maxwell Court apartments last Thursday. Upon move in, Brian spoke with the landlady, Maxine, to negotiate the final price of the 1 bedroom apartment we were awaiting to be finished before moving over from our temporary 2 bedroom. Until that time, she would charge us the daily 2 bedroom rate which was fine. In each of the several conversations Brian had with the landlady, she would immediately begin to yell and rant about the price of the 2 bedroom. It was a non issue as it was temporary and we needed to sit down and determine the lease and price for the 1 bedroom. Basically, Brian could not even talk with her on the phone because all she did was yell and never get to the part about the 1 bedroom. So today he tried calling her again just to set up a time to meet to resolve everything and was cut off with the yelling yet again, so he hung up. It was clear that this woman had gone over the deep end and was taking out some sort of pent up frustration on us. We liked the apartment complex and neighborhood and just wanted to finalize things; TechnoServe was going to pay for everything. We even brought in another TechnoServe volunteer who is occupying a different 1 bedroom. This just wasn't going to work out so we decided we were going to leave and just have TechnoServe pay for last few days we were there (obviously). The crazy lady called back, this time in a professional manner, and said that she would like us to vacate today. Brian responded with a firm yes that is our plan, glad we're on the same page.

Around lunchtime I went to the apartment and packed up all of our belongings and then spent over 2 hours scouring the neighborhood to see if I could find another place to live. Unfortunately, I didn't have any luck so it was back to Airside Hotel for the interim, our original home.

Brian and a TechnoServe driver met me at Maxwell Courts and just as we loaded up the truck, ready to leave the premises the guard wouldn't open the gate. He and some other staff members said that Maxine would like to see us before we left. The driver backed up and Maxine came down. Brian met her at her office and all I could hear was her yelling. I walked over and she was yelling for Brian to pay the bill for the days we stayed. Brian said to invoice TechnoServe and they would pay for it as already discussed. She said that's not the way we do things in this country or in yours, you have to pay now. Clearly she was thinking we were trying to get out of this.... probably because that's what she would have done - why else would she not let us go? We told her to bill TechnoServe and reminded her that she told us to leave and that's exactly what we were doing. Yet she wouldn't allow them to open the gates until she had someone from TechnoServe on the phone. We called and got the office manager on the line and handed it over where Maxine proceeded to yell at her. Ridiculous. She finished her rant and then let us leave. Unbelievable, Maxine really burned some bridges today.........

Brian's thoughts: "I guess it's a case of transference; misguided resentment being blind to its target...either that or she's nuts."

And now for some pictures which always makes things better:












September 22, 2009

An African Thunderstorm in the Volta Region

Covered in gnat bites, tending sore muscles, and still kicking the mud off our shoes we have returned from the Volta Region.

Our travels took us about 3 hours outside of Accra to the small junction of Fume on the road to Hohoe where we headed down a dirt road about 4 km to Mountain Paradise Lodge. This was an inexpensive, middle of nowhere escape from the hustle and bustle of city life. More like a hostel than a lodge, Mountain Paradise allowed for magnificent views of the Avatime Hills near Mt. Gemi.

We arrived early afternoon on Saturday and as soon as we settled into our room, the rains came........

(Courtesy of Aunt Kathy - thanks!)

It's the rainy season in Volta and boy did we know it! Coming from Kenya where we experienced rain only once while in Maassai Mara, this was a real gift. We took residence in the bar/lounge for the rest of the afternoon and enjoyed the sounds of the raindrops hitting the rooftop overhead.

A lazy afternoon was had that first day. Brian, not being a cat guy (according to him), immediately befriended the local cat, Joy. She nestled in with him as he enjoyed his Hemingway novel and took turns going from his chair to mine, purring all the way. I napped for a bit and she joined me. Soon after snuggling up with the cat, we noticed these red spots all over our arms. They didn't itch or sting but they did multiply. Of course we blamed the cat, thinking she had fleas and transferred some to us. We later learned that tiny gnats were having their way with us. By the end of the day I looked as though I had some kind of weird disease. In Kenya Brian was sweetmeat for the mosquitoes, in Ghana I am sweetmeat for the gnats......ugh....

Once the rain ceased we walked around the grounds a bit. There was an enclosed area featuring three tortoises (with a sign spelled, "tortise"). There were tons of spiders clinging to every building corner. Huge termite mounds were scattered about. We took a stroll down the dirt road and rested on a large boulder and enjoyed the serenity of the mountains.

That evening, after dinner, we took in some drumming lessons from one of the staff members named Believer. Believer is a young Rastafarian, Bob Marley music playing, lover of humanity, peaceful guy. He used to work at the Cultural Center in Accra as a drummer and was happy to give us a lesson. We played for about an hour and a half and during the last few sessions started to really get the hang of it and played some good beats.

The following morning we awoke to a view of mist covered mountains, kind of like Rwanda but not as cool in temperature. We would soon discover that Sunday would turn out to be a big day as we had ambitiously planned to hike Ghana's highest peak and West Africa's tallest waterfall all in the same day! We met our driver, Samuel, around 8am to head up towards Wli Falls and Mount Afadjato, just over an hour's drive. We stopped at the Wli Falls office and a guide, Alex, lead us to the trailhead of the mountain. He ended up joining us for the full day. Samuel, who had never hiked Mt. Afadjato before, decided to give it a try. That was his first time and probably his last as the hike turned out to be quite steep. We managed pretty well though and completed it round trip in just under 2 hours. The site at the top was supremely rewarding. We had a view of Tagbo Falls and the Togo border nearby.

After the sweaty but enjoyable hike we needed to refuel on some lunch and found a local hotel with some great food. Energized by pasta and local fare we embarked on our second journey of the day, to the upper part of Wli (pronounced 'vlee') Falls. The entrance was nearby and we were soon off, this time Samuel hung back by the car.

No more than 5 minutes had passed and we were in a torrential downpour. The sky had opened up and was dumping buckets of water on our heads. Some local kids ran past using large banana leafs as umbrellas. Our guide acted quickly and borrowed their machete to cut us some as well. We ventured on, the banana leafs helping a little, but proceeded to get drenched. We were truly in a rainforest ;) It was about 45 minutes to Wli's lower falls. As we approached, we could hear the booming sound of the water hitting the pool below accompanied by the shrill of hundreds of straw bats clinging to the side near the falls. It was incredible!

Taking photos near the falls proved to be a challenge. With both the spray and the rain it was tough to keep the lens dry long enough to get a good shot but Brian prevailed gallantly.

Next we started our climb to the upper falls. Woah - now I thought the hike to Mount Afadjato was steep, this was 10 times worse! It took over an hour to reach the falls, legs burning, sweat dripping, adrenaline pumping, it was exhilarating! We passed a couple of girls who were heading back down, unable to complete the hike. There was another group, some people who were also staying at Mountain Paradise Lodge, heading back down but able to make it to the falls and said it was worth it...and that we were close.

When we finally arrived, the waterfall was all our own. There was a steady rainbow bent over the right side of the falls. Brian and I again tried our best at taking some photos but more than anything reveled in our accomplishment. It was about 4pm by this time and we knew that light would be fading fast in the forest below so we didn't stay too long and soon started our descent. The way down took just less than an hour and then it was back to the entrance where it all began. The rain had let up during our trek to the upper falls and tried to return on our walk back to the car but only amounted to a drizzle.

We were exhausted, wet, tired and elated from our tough day of hiking. It was worth every muscle ache and pain!

Monday came and we had to leave our little mountain paradise home. We enjoyed breakfast, checked out and drove to a nearby monkey sanctuary where we enjoyed the beautiful sights and sounds of the mona monkey. We both had the opportunity to feed the little wide-eyed creatures as they approached the banana's in our hands and skillfully peeled and bit. There are about 300 monkeys at the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary, consisting of a total of 4 troops. They are considered sacred and are protected under this community based eco-tourism project.

After the monkey sanctuary we were on the road back to Accra. Along the way we stopped and had lunch at the Volta Hotel that displayed a lovely view of the Lake Volta Akosombo Dam. Lake Volta is said to be the largest man-made lake in the world. It was a great lunch spot with good food for less than Accra prices which was nice.

We made it back to Airside around 5:30pm and said our goodbyes to Samuel. It was nice to be home to an air-conditioned, gnat free room with no large spiders hanging about. I did however, find a dead spider curled up at the bottom of our suitcase - eeek!

Driving through the Volta Region.


Relaxing in the bar area at Mountain Paradise Lodge after the rains.

Taking in the beautiful view.

Our new feline friend, Joy.

While having lunch our first day, I felt as though I was being watched.....

Snuggling up with a good book and cat.

Brian's new pal but he's not really a cat guy...

Gnat bites on my arm....ouch!

Close up and personal with a tortoise.

Creepy crawlies everywhere!

Brian touching a termite mound.

A beautiful bird on our evening walk.

Sunset on Saturday.

Drumming away.

Sunday morning.

Hiking up Mount Afadjato.

Big tree. Little Brian.

We made it to the top!

Breathtaking view.

Taking a break.

Professional outdoorsman.

Cool centipede.

Hiking to Wli Falls in the rain.

Lower Wli Falls.

View on the hike to the upper falls.

Upper Wli Falls.

Go Team Feth!

Brian and the rainbow.

Photo with our guide Alex and our driver Samuel.

Mona Monkey.

Feeding two Mona Monkeys.

Mona Monkey.

Brian at the Volta Dam.

September 18, 2009

Pictures - September -

This weekend (3 days - Monday is a holiday) we will be heading to the Volta Region (along the eastern border with Togo). We're going to see lovely waterfalls, do some hiking, and really see Ghana, outside of Accra, for the first time. We're sure to have some wonderful pictures to share from this excursion, but until then this is what we have so far from Ghana:

This is currently our kitchen table at our home, Airside Hotel. But this will change next week when we move into Maxwell House Apartments in Osu (yay!)

This is our 'kitchen' at Airside:

Our living room/bedroom/office:

I have no words for this:

Bathroom:

Big bonus is that Airside has a wonderful pool that we try and take advantage of every day. This is a view of Brian in the pool from our room:

On our 1 year wedding anniversary we went to watch the Black Stars of Ghana play Sudan to qualify for the 2010 World Cup:

Awwww......the romance...

It was so loud during the entire match with multiple bands and constant noise makers filling the stadium:

Brian was decked out in full Ghana gear:

I sat next to a guy decked out in female Ghana gear. He was wearing a skirt, bra and earrings......ummm

Superfan:

Ghana is in white and Sudan in red:

Go Ghana!

The fans:

The final score:

Back at Airside, Brian hard at work in his office:

Before:

And after: