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Published: April 13th 2008
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tropical paradise
cool, clean and virtually on our doorstep! “Small, small” is the Ghanaian way of saying “don’t rush” or “it will happen slowly”, and although it is intended to be reassuring, as well as accurate, most of you will understand that, in the workplace, this is quite frustrating for me.
Some days I count myself lucky, if someone I had previously made an appointment to see, actually turns up! This is not any discourtesy on their part, but generally due to the practice of only organising meetings a day or two before the event (at the most!!!...”so people don’t forget to come”), so they are never able to commit to anything in advance. Just as frustrating is that nobody maintains a diary or tells others what they are doing, so again a lot of time can be spent waiting to see if anyone will turn up, or trying to look in offices / meeting rooms for people. On the positive side, if someone is in their office, you are free to just go in and wait to be seen… but don’t expect a private conversation because a queue of others will do that also.
An exception was a person I met in Special Education who had whisked
kebab- sharing
its lovely to have visitors me around a special school, a visit to a family with a disabled child, and to meet a University professor…all within 2 hours of meeting her.
There is no systematic support for disabled people here, and doing much about it will be a real challenge…but it is still early days…maybe “small, small” is getting to me too.
“Small, small” also describes our recent travels around the country. Week before last we were back in Accra for a Disability Sector meeting. We opted to travel with one of the “safer” travel companies…the only problem being that they do not run to a timetable, and they only leave when they are full…so after 20 min walk to bus station, we then had 40 min wait for bus to arrive, and a further hour and 10 mins before it filled up and left. This then meant that we hit the beginning of the rush hour in Accra, so the journey took at least 40 minutes longer than we had hoped. Fortunately our return journey was much reduced, having left early and getting to bus just as was filling up. 4 days later we were back to Accra again, but this time
are you new here?
darren makes a friend only to stay overnight before catching bus to Tamale, in North of Country, with all the other volunteers who arrived here between November and February. This time we decided to risk a “tro” ..( affectionate name for Tro-tro!)…to Accra but it ended up being 3 as the first two only took us part of the way each before deciding not to go any further as they were not full enough to make enough money from fares. Happily though, they take responsibility for getting you and your baggage on another one…so it was quite pleasant and easy really. Pleasant was not the term for the journey to Tamale though!! Scheduled to take 12 hours it actually took over 14…due to morning rush hour in Accra, major roadworks / lack of roads for large chunks of the journey, and a punctured tyre that took an hour to replace. So we decided to return via a different route…7 hours to Kumasi on the Saturday where we stayed overnight and a 4 hour trip to Cape coast on the Sunday…seemed much more sensible and any opportunity to avoid Accra definitely should be taken. So we have now seen some more of the country and
at the bottom of our hill
the beginning of my walk to work experienced the hotter…but much drier…North. Within minutes of being “home” we were perspiring from all orifices…but nevertheless it did feel reassuringly familiar! We have done some other shorter excursions..to Ankaful (where we thought we were going to live - which is beautiful (being effectively part of the National Park) and to a beach resort at Anamabo which was idyllic and would satisfy the fussiest of you in terms of cleanliness, quality of meals, lack of insects and brilliant beach…you don’t even feel the humidity there.
I now have first batch of Indian Spices and coffee, courtesy of Christy and Sarah, and hear that a further parcel is on its way from my sister…so we feel very well cared for by you all. Hard to believe its 2 months here already!
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Sam
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hey Gloria, enjoying your blog, it's great to read about how you're getting on. take care :) sam xx