About time for another round of photos. This time a somewhat random collection of pictures we took over the last couple of weeks. Enjoy...
http://picasaweb.google.com/torsten.herbst/Test#5534320852343026674
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Friday, October 22, 2010
Ghana Talk
Walking around the streets of our neighbourhood in Labadi most people like to greet us.
“Hello”, “Good afternoon, how are you? I’m fine”, “Where are you going?”, “white lady/man”, “give me one cedi” are some of things we hear.
Kids chase us for several yards calling out “obruni obruni obruni”. They also walk with us for a few meters (or for as long as we let them) holding our hands and, if given the chance, they hug us. The adulation is a little disconcerting at first and you wonder why they treat us so. Is it what they see on TV? My supervisor’s explanation sounded a little obscure: Jesus is depicted as a white man and so, by virtue of skin colour, all white (and relatively white) people are blessed.
The men are also somewhat friendlier than back home. “I love you” shouts a stonemason I pass every morning. I wave politely and shout back a “thank you”. My reserved Western upbringing somehow prevents me from returning his affections. The following week, he accepts my daily walk past his shop as a positive sign and our relationship moves up a level, “marry me”, he shouts. Again, I wave politely but this time reply, “no thank you”. My objection made no difference; since his proposal, his morning greetings have been “My wife, how are you?”
Abena
“Hello”, “Good afternoon, how are you? I’m fine”, “Where are you going?”, “white lady/man”, “give me one cedi” are some of things we hear.
Kids chase us for several yards calling out “obruni obruni obruni”. They also walk with us for a few meters (or for as long as we let them) holding our hands and, if given the chance, they hug us. The adulation is a little disconcerting at first and you wonder why they treat us so. Is it what they see on TV? My supervisor’s explanation sounded a little obscure: Jesus is depicted as a white man and so, by virtue of skin colour, all white (and relatively white) people are blessed.
The men are also somewhat friendlier than back home. “I love you” shouts a stonemason I pass every morning. I wave politely and shout back a “thank you”. My reserved Western upbringing somehow prevents me from returning his affections. The following week, he accepts my daily walk past his shop as a positive sign and our relationship moves up a level, “marry me”, he shouts. Again, I wave politely but this time reply, “no thank you”. My objection made no difference; since his proposal, his morning greetings have been “My wife, how are you?”
Abena
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Another tro tro story
“Please” the lorry station master indicated to the last remaining seat. I hesitated for a moment: the half bent seat was already occupied by another man but apparently if I squeezed myself in it was worthy of a full fare. The seat at the back of the van was bent in such a way that I could fall out the backdoor at any moment. The station master reassured me by showing me a small latch that held the door to the rest of the car.
It’s amazing how quickly your standards drop when you adapt to your environment. I jumped into the van wrapping my fingers around the seat beside me for security. I prayed that someone would disembark soon so I could claim their seat before we got to the highway where the driver would accelerate to 100km/hr.
Ten minutes into the journey, the sky turned black and the wind picked up. A storm was brewing but it didn’t take long before the clouds broke loose and torrential rain came down. The wind and rain beat the van ferociously as the passengers on board struggled to close the windows. The door barely shielded me from the rain and the roof started to leak. The kind man I was plastered next to pulled out his rain jacket and covered my legs. Another gentleman tried to hold up the carpeting on the ceiling of the van to stop it from leaking on me. I smiled with gratitude trying to take no notice of a leak behind me that was travelling down my back and into my underwear.
But getting wet was the last of my worries. My eyes were fixed at the driver who skillfully carried on with NO WIPERS and, what I imagined to be, semi-functional brakes. Mind you, activating the wipers would have been a perfunctory gesture in the torrent. With slippery and flooded roads to navigate; potholes to negotiate; open gutters to avoid; (By His Grace) the driver miraculously managed to arrive at the destination with his cargo intact.
Abena
It’s amazing how quickly your standards drop when you adapt to your environment. I jumped into the van wrapping my fingers around the seat beside me for security. I prayed that someone would disembark soon so I could claim their seat before we got to the highway where the driver would accelerate to 100km/hr.
Ten minutes into the journey, the sky turned black and the wind picked up. A storm was brewing but it didn’t take long before the clouds broke loose and torrential rain came down. The wind and rain beat the van ferociously as the passengers on board struggled to close the windows. The door barely shielded me from the rain and the roof started to leak. The kind man I was plastered next to pulled out his rain jacket and covered my legs. Another gentleman tried to hold up the carpeting on the ceiling of the van to stop it from leaking on me. I smiled with gratitude trying to take no notice of a leak behind me that was travelling down my back and into my underwear.
But getting wet was the last of my worries. My eyes were fixed at the driver who skillfully carried on with NO WIPERS and, what I imagined to be, semi-functional brakes. Mind you, activating the wipers would have been a perfunctory gesture in the torrent. With slippery and flooded roads to navigate; potholes to negotiate; open gutters to avoid; (By His Grace) the driver miraculously managed to arrive at the destination with his cargo intact.
Abena
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Exercise Patience
Each morning, you are ripped out your dreams of blue cheese and Australian Shiraz with a ‘Marioooooo!!!’. Aunty Sylvia is in a really bad mood today and she continues to bellow out ‘Mario, blah blah blah blah blah’ (something I imagine to mean ‘get your school uniform on you little rascal and make sure you brush your teeth, we don’t want you losing your teeth before you’re 12’.) Your alarm is not supposed to sound for another hour at 6.15am so you decide to place your head under the pillow to muffle the racket outside.
When you eventually get out of bed, you rush around dressing, eating breakfast and packing your things simultaneously. 'If I get out as soon as possible, maybe the tro tro will be there'. So you rush out the door, waving hello to everyone in the compound as you run to the lorry station. You reach the station to discover the tro ro is not at all there. Instead a queue has formed - 25 people deep - anticipating its appearance for the last 30 minutes. You have grown accustomed to waiting, so you join the queue and open your book to kill time.
Hang on, it’s Monday. You won’t really be able to read your book because you notice the local Pastor setting up. Plugging in a set of huge speakers and adjusting the dials of his 3D Audio Professional Mixer, you’d think he’s organising a bloc party. To him it may be a party, but to others, his street sermon is deafeningly loud. There are moments when you’re glad you don’t speak Twi. Nevertheless, his sermon is lively and tolerated by the crowd, even well received by some. The fact that he plays music probably increases his popularity and passersby dash him a cedi or two.
Some 40 minutes later, the tro tro finally arrives and people board the 1970s van in an orderly fashion whilst a few impatient men use their physical build to their advantage by jumping the queue. As on all tro tros and taxis in Ghana, this one has a motto plastered on the back window ‘Exercise Patience’.
To avoid peak hour traffic, the driver decides to take a slightly different route but the passengers won’t have a bar of it. ‘I have to alight at Airport area’ protests one lady, ‘if you go this way, you won’t pass my stop’. ‘Don’t go this way, the traffic will be worse’, shouts another. After a group discussion involving almost all of the 15 people on board, the driver accepts group consensus and sticks to the usual route.
A bumpy 40 minutes later, you arrive at your stop which you signal to the conductor by shouting ‘mate, bus stop’ and jump out the side door of the van. A quick check of the watch indicates you’re half an hour late to work and you curse the tro tro. Sweating and hot, you arrive at work and apologise for, yet again, being late. Your colleagues don’t react and look at you confusedly as to why you’re so flustered. ‘Lateness is not a crime’ they’re probably thinking.
It is difficult to judge how productive your day will be. Ghana Electricity may turn off the power with no apparent warning because the landlord hasn’t paid the bills. Or the water may run out. Perhaps the meeting you scheduled, may start one hour late. No matter what happens, you come to appreciate the infectious Ghanaian laugh and to EXERCISE PATIENCE.
Abena
When you eventually get out of bed, you rush around dressing, eating breakfast and packing your things simultaneously. 'If I get out as soon as possible, maybe the tro tro will be there'. So you rush out the door, waving hello to everyone in the compound as you run to the lorry station. You reach the station to discover the tro ro is not at all there. Instead a queue has formed - 25 people deep - anticipating its appearance for the last 30 minutes. You have grown accustomed to waiting, so you join the queue and open your book to kill time.
Hang on, it’s Monday. You won’t really be able to read your book because you notice the local Pastor setting up. Plugging in a set of huge speakers and adjusting the dials of his 3D Audio Professional Mixer, you’d think he’s organising a bloc party. To him it may be a party, but to others, his street sermon is deafeningly loud. There are moments when you’re glad you don’t speak Twi. Nevertheless, his sermon is lively and tolerated by the crowd, even well received by some. The fact that he plays music probably increases his popularity and passersby dash him a cedi or two.
Some 40 minutes later, the tro tro finally arrives and people board the 1970s van in an orderly fashion whilst a few impatient men use their physical build to their advantage by jumping the queue. As on all tro tros and taxis in Ghana, this one has a motto plastered on the back window ‘Exercise Patience’.
To avoid peak hour traffic, the driver decides to take a slightly different route but the passengers won’t have a bar of it. ‘I have to alight at Airport area’ protests one lady, ‘if you go this way, you won’t pass my stop’. ‘Don’t go this way, the traffic will be worse’, shouts another. After a group discussion involving almost all of the 15 people on board, the driver accepts group consensus and sticks to the usual route.
A bumpy 40 minutes later, you arrive at your stop which you signal to the conductor by shouting ‘mate, bus stop’ and jump out the side door of the van. A quick check of the watch indicates you’re half an hour late to work and you curse the tro tro. Sweating and hot, you arrive at work and apologise for, yet again, being late. Your colleagues don’t react and look at you confusedly as to why you’re so flustered. ‘Lateness is not a crime’ they’re probably thinking.
It is difficult to judge how productive your day will be. Ghana Electricity may turn off the power with no apparent warning because the landlord hasn’t paid the bills. Or the water may run out. Perhaps the meeting you scheduled, may start one hour late. No matter what happens, you come to appreciate the infectious Ghanaian laugh and to EXERCISE PATIENCE.
Abena
Friday, October 8, 2010
If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down.
The latest craze in Labadi is called H2O. Water? A luxury item? That's right. I too had foolishly thought that the ancient Romans had resolved this problem a long time ago with elaborate waterways and beautiful aqueducts, but here we are in Africa in 2010, back to square one. Turn on the tap... nothing. Not even a drop. I like to think I'm pretty easy going with most things. No electricity, bring out the candles. No Internet, read a book. No chocolate, eat some fruit. No water. I have finally found the one thing that blows my fuse, instantly, and it doesn't go unnoticed. 'Calm down', Abena tells me. 'It's not that bad. I'm sure the water will be back tomorrow.' I admire her optimism. As for me it's all gloom and doom. I have just come home from work and after sitting on the trotro on a hot afternoon I feel like having a shower. No can do. My next urge is to go to the toilet followed by the realisation that I won't be able to flush. Hang on, I think to myself, there should still be water in the cistern for one more flush. Unfortunately I'm not the first one to figure out the mechanics of the toilet. The cistern is empty. Instead of solutions my brain comes up with more problems. The 'I'm thirsty nerve' is next in line and fires off signals that make me head to the kitchen, get out a glass and turn on the tap. Today the only thing coming out of that tap is disappointment. You would think I had figured out by now that turning on the tap isn't going to magically produce water, but it takes my brain surprisingly long to adapt. To its credit my brain is slowly switching to solution mode. How about the milk in the fridge? Great! Great until the milk pores out in lumps, most likely the result of yesterday's power outage. Not to worry, here's another problem to deal with... I'm hungry. I turn to the fridge again and pull out a cold pineapple, get the knife and cut my finger. Back over to the tap to rinse off the blood and clean my dirty hands. Then I realise my hands are dirty because there is NO WATER. With a feeling of resignation and a sense of despair I sink into the chair behind me. Cocos comes in and tells me that Mama informed her that the water had been off since Monday. The reason why we still had water for the last couple of days is our water tank on top of the house. Until now, precisely, and the whole time we had no idea that we were depleting our only reserve. Abena comes in. 'I'm sure it will be back tomorrow', she says. 'Tomorrow!' I throw my arms up in desperation. 'It's been out all week!'. 'No need to panic', she tells me calmly. 'I'm sure it will be back soon. You just need to be a little patient.' 'There's a reason why they call their children Patience here', she adds wisely. 'Well, how about they start calling their kids Fixit or Yeswecan', is all I have to offer. I have learnt to cope with no electricity and for a serious Internet addict like myself I have coped admiringly well with the occasional loss of connectivity and resulting lack of zeros and ones. But water will be a real test of character. Or should I say 'test of survival'. After all there is a reason why there is no life on Mars and that reason is water. And as much as NASA is trying to find water on our little red neighbour I am convinced there would be more value in those boys looking for water in Labadi. That would give us some water and them, after decades of searching for water on Mars, a real sense of achievement.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Coconomics
So here's a little story from the street...
Got off the trotro in front of my work and stopped by my favourite coconut vendor. He greets me every day with a smile so big it makes the sun appear from behind the clouds. I sat down on his bench in the morning heat, drinking and munching on my coconut. I asked him about his business, which proved quite insightful. He sells 100 coconuts a day at 50 peswas each. So he makes 50 cedi per day, which sounds ok until I realised that the poor guy pays 40 cedi for his produce. So he's left with 10 cedi per day or somewhere between 200 and 300 cedi per month, which is not much considering he's standing by the roadside all day, chops 100 coconuts at 30+ degrees and has to pull his cart half way across the city.
Puts our complaint into perspective when we were asking for an increase in the allowance because we struggled to live on what we were payed! And the guy probably has a family to feed as well.
So I started paying him 1 cedi for the coconut and will think hard about haggling with street vendors in the future :)
Kwame
Got off the trotro in front of my work and stopped by my favourite coconut vendor. He greets me every day with a smile so big it makes the sun appear from behind the clouds. I sat down on his bench in the morning heat, drinking and munching on my coconut. I asked him about his business, which proved quite insightful. He sells 100 coconuts a day at 50 peswas each. So he makes 50 cedi per day, which sounds ok until I realised that the poor guy pays 40 cedi for his produce. So he's left with 10 cedi per day or somewhere between 200 and 300 cedi per month, which is not much considering he's standing by the roadside all day, chops 100 coconuts at 30+ degrees and has to pull his cart half way across the city.
Puts our complaint into perspective when we were asking for an increase in the allowance because we struggled to live on what we were payed! And the guy probably has a family to feed as well.
So I started paying him 1 cedi for the coconut and will think hard about haggling with street vendors in the future :)
Kwame
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