on “Ghana Time”
Day eight of no running water. It takes a long time for anything to get done here, whether it is getting breakfast or fixing the water. This is not specific to the hotel. This is something that is true throughout the country. Everything is on “Ghana Time”. Unlike the united states where we try to have everything working as efficient as possible, Ghanaian culture is extremely laid back. For example: I am not sure if there are any other guests staying at my hotel at the moment because I haven’t seen anyone else coming or going. Assuming that I am the only guest here, the ratio of hotel employees to its guests is 5 to 1. There is no reason for the hotel to employ all of these people. Most of the time they all simply sit on the couches in the lounge and watch TV. Even though they have 5 employees, it still takes 20 min to get my breakfast ☺. (toast, jam, butter, juice, hot water for coffee)
Today I was in class 4 for the vast majority of the day. I taught Environmental studies. We have been going over what makes a balanced meal and what foods belong to the specific food groups. I ask the kids what they eat for dinner for examples and then break up the food into categories like preserved and not preserved. The kids think it is hilarious what I eat for dinner. Because I eat dinner at Charles’ house every night I eat traditional Ghanaian food. They all expect that I will say that I had French fries or some other American food. When I say I had Kenke and Okra soup they all begin to giggle.
Today Mr. Abbey got me a Twi (one of the Ghanaian dialects) language book “Twi expressions at your finger tips”. He is going to go through it with me as well as read it over to a recorder so that I can go over it at home and know the correct pronunciations. Many of the sounds are very foreign to my mouth so this will be an interesting process.
After school Moses and I went into Accra to visit the ATM and a fast internet café. It took so long! It was an hour and a half trotro ride to get there. After we finished, it was around 6ish so it was rush hour. It took over 2 hours to get home and we even took a taxi, which is faster than a trotro and cost more as well. I paid ¢40,000 for the two hour ride (about $5) while a trotro would cost somewhere around ¢3,500 (about $0.40) even though it took forever to get there an back I was very happy to be able to upload a couple of pictures. From now on I will be shrinking my pictures down to about half of their original size before I upload them so that I can upload more each time I go. So if anyone wants to download one of the pictures they should be informed that it is a smaller version. If you would like the original size email me with the picture number ex: DSC00982 and I will email it to you, if you are fine with the smaller size then don’t bother. Dorcas, one of the teachers at school told me about another internet café that is much closer than the one in Accra and it is supposed to be fast as well so I think that I will try that one next.
Tonight when I was dinning at Charles’ house he informed me that a man approached him today about the school project. He wanted to help, with strings attached. He wanted Charles to write up a report on everything that had happened and how much money he got from where. (Charles has already done something of this sort) He also wanted to help not only out of charity but also out of political aspirations. He wanted to take credit for building a school so that he could say that the current government/local officials had a strong influence on the building of the school. He was going to try to get some cement donated. Charles told him that he didn’t want the school to have anything to do with politics. He also didn’t want the government to take credit for its completion. Personally, I would still like to meet with him. I don’t care about anything except the completion of the project so that the community can have a badly needed primary school. Plus I am familiar with politics so maybe I could work out a deal with the guy that would be very beneficial for both parties, but we will see.
I have failed to mention the sewer system here. There are ditches along side the roads that flow into the river and then into the ocean. They are wide open so they smell, some more than others.
Today I was in class 4 for the vast majority of the day. I taught Environmental studies. We have been going over what makes a balanced meal and what foods belong to the specific food groups. I ask the kids what they eat for dinner for examples and then break up the food into categories like preserved and not preserved. The kids think it is hilarious what I eat for dinner. Because I eat dinner at Charles’ house every night I eat traditional Ghanaian food. They all expect that I will say that I had French fries or some other American food. When I say I had Kenke and Okra soup they all begin to giggle.
Today Mr. Abbey got me a Twi (one of the Ghanaian dialects) language book “Twi expressions at your finger tips”. He is going to go through it with me as well as read it over to a recorder so that I can go over it at home and know the correct pronunciations. Many of the sounds are very foreign to my mouth so this will be an interesting process.
After school Moses and I went into Accra to visit the ATM and a fast internet café. It took so long! It was an hour and a half trotro ride to get there. After we finished, it was around 6ish so it was rush hour. It took over 2 hours to get home and we even took a taxi, which is faster than a trotro and cost more as well. I paid ¢40,000 for the two hour ride (about $5) while a trotro would cost somewhere around ¢3,500 (about $0.40) even though it took forever to get there an back I was very happy to be able to upload a couple of pictures. From now on I will be shrinking my pictures down to about half of their original size before I upload them so that I can upload more each time I go. So if anyone wants to download one of the pictures they should be informed that it is a smaller version. If you would like the original size email me with the picture number ex: DSC00982 and I will email it to you, if you are fine with the smaller size then don’t bother. Dorcas, one of the teachers at school told me about another internet café that is much closer than the one in Accra and it is supposed to be fast as well so I think that I will try that one next.
Tonight when I was dinning at Charles’ house he informed me that a man approached him today about the school project. He wanted to help, with strings attached. He wanted Charles to write up a report on everything that had happened and how much money he got from where. (Charles has already done something of this sort) He also wanted to help not only out of charity but also out of political aspirations. He wanted to take credit for building a school so that he could say that the current government/local officials had a strong influence on the building of the school. He was going to try to get some cement donated. Charles told him that he didn’t want the school to have anything to do with politics. He also didn’t want the government to take credit for its completion. Personally, I would still like to meet with him. I don’t care about anything except the completion of the project so that the community can have a badly needed primary school. Plus I am familiar with politics so maybe I could work out a deal with the guy that would be very beneficial for both parties, but we will see.
I have failed to mention the sewer system here. There are ditches along side the roads that flow into the river and then into the ocean. They are wide open so they smell, some more than others.
posted by joshua | 1:38 PM
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