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Work. Ohhh man.
I finally started (after a small delay) on Wednesday morning. I got up to meet Jessica (my coordinator) at 8 am. I didn’t actually meet up with her until 8:30 am. Then we waited on the side of the road, behind a large cart of coconuts, until 9am, when our contact arrived to take us to my new editor’s house. We drove through what seemed like the entirety of Legon to get to his apartment and arrived there at 9:30 am. There, I met him, and then proceeded to sit out a massive thunderstorm with Jessica in his living room watching Ghanaian music videos, in between power outages, while he got dressed and ready for us to go to work.
We dropped off Jessica a little later and then drove to Labone (a prime residential/business area in Accra). We were meeting a man there for an interview and after we waited for him for over 45 minutes, I then had to wait outside while they had their meeting.
As I’m sure you can already tell, work is somewhat of a great big waiting game.
After the interview, we drove another 30 minutes through traffic to get to Tesano, another part of Accra where the newspaper’s offices and printing press are located. My editor is amazingly generous and has offered to pick me up on his way to work every day. This will save me a lot of money, and a lot of headaches.
After we got to the office, I met everyone (I’m the only obroni), and familiarized myself with the workroom, etc. Then, the real fun began.
Well, if I had pictured what my first lunch with my co-workers would be like, I surely would not have pictured it accurately. Lunch is a group affair that takes place in the unfinished underground garage-type area outside the office building. A local lady comes by every day and brings a variety of traditional Ghanaian dishes to choose from. So, I sat down with my lunch, and my editor sat next to me. When I glanced over at his bowl, it contained a green soup, a ball of fufu, a small eel, a small crab, a cartilagey knuckle of what I’m guessing was a piece of goat, and a chunk of fish.
Boy oh boy. Not surprising to anyone, I opted for rice and beans.
To top my first little meal off, all the while we were eating, there were two orange kittens circling our feet. One had half of a tail, and the other was helplessly choking on a fish bone stuck halfway down its throat.
Needless to say, I packed my own lunch on Thursday.
During the remainder of my first day of work, I busied myself with getting up to date on the goings-on in the Ghanaian media world. The headline story for almost every media outlet on Wednesday had to do with the uproar that took place after a radio commentator called the president of Ghana a chimpanzee. Boy oh boy. This is going to be interesting. Here’s a quote I found whilst doing my research on the subject: “It is not good for anybody to say that our president looks like a chimpanzee even though… we all came from an ape.”
Despite this “essential” piece of front page news, there are actually tons of very interesting and important things going on in Ghana at the moment. There has recently been some refugee movement between Ghana and Togo due to unrest in the regions in the far north of Ghana, there is a lot of development taking place in the realm of Ghana’s oil riches, and of course, the World Cup is just around the corner.
On Thursday, a photographer and I set out to track down the venue where a European Union children’s drawing competition awards ceremony was taking place. It took us about 40 minutes to get to what ended up being the opposite side of town that we needed to be on. En route to the wrong location, the photographer jumped on a double-decker metro bus (which I have always sworn I would never get on) and proceeded to climb to the top story. How that thing doesn’t just tip right over is beyond me. Well, after asking six different people for directions, and one taxi ride later, we concluded our wild goose chase in the correct location, albeit an hour late. We didn’t miss the actual awards section of the ceremony though, which was the most important part. We got our interviews and photos, and I even got the chance to listen to a representative from UNICEF and the ambassador to the European Union Delegation to Ghana speak. It turned out to be a pretty great day. After the ceremony, we returned to the office and I wrote my first story for The Chronicle.
On Friday, my editor didn’t have much at all for me to do, thus, I pretty much spent the whole day trying to convince them not to put an enlarged photo of a severed penis on the front page of the paper. But, to no avail, it ran anyway, alongside the headline “Man severs own penis, after being told by deity…” Boy oh boy.
It will take me approximately an hour and a half to get home from work most days, and believe me, there is no way you can come out of that journey feeling crisp and clean. The traffic in Accra is awful - worse even than I remember it last time. Ghana is the booming hub of West Africa, and that fact is represented by the overcrowded, pothole filled streets during rush “hour.” One upside to my journey home - I must go from work to Circle tro-tro station to catch another tro tro to bring me back to Legon, and Circle station has anything you could ever imagine needing. It’s kind of like dropping by the store on the way home after work. Kind of. Also, my immune system is slowly adjusting back to Ghana life. It’s a hard thing to jump ahead in time 9 hours, and completely, flat-out change your diet as well. I end every day absolutely exhausted.
Well, it’s the rainy season in Ghana at the moment, no doubt about that. The rain cools things off immensely. The only catch 22 about this season is that in return for cooler weather, all that red dust that usually ends up covering me, is now red mud that usually ends up covering me. Thursday night was the craziest storm I’ve ever been in in my life. Forget cats and dogs, it was raining elephants and horses, and the thunder was so loud it sounded like my hostel was in the middle of a war zone. ISH was instantly flooded with rain and all the obronis were running around like crazy people who have been in a drought for the last decade. I was running around like crazy too, but mostly it was just in an attempt to save my clean laundry off the clothesline. Haha.
I have already seen a lot more of the city and its surrounding areas this time, mostly due to running around (or waiting around) during work. There’s a lot more to Accra than I had imagined. The city seems never-ending and I can’t seem to fathom how it’s possible to remember where you are going from one day to the next without any street names or traffic landmarks. I think I’ll find my way around eventually.
I have been meeting up with quite a few old friends here, and it’s amazing, amazing, amazing. When I left last time, I didn’t know for certain if I would ever see any of them again, much less so soon. Junior (from Tasty Treats in ISH 2) and I took a walk the other day, and Dankyi, the amazing painter, is once again selling his work in ISH twice a week.
I have started eating egg sandwiches for breakfast again, but I am quickly starting to wonder how long I can endure. I think there are only so many eggs one can eat in their lifetime.
There is a new 2$ cedi bill circulating in Ghana - it’s yellow with a bit of brown. It always throws me off a little when I see one.
At the moment I am reading the book “The Poisonwood Bible”. It’s simply brilliant. If you have the time, read it. You won’t be sorry.
I got a new mobile number (mine was shut off after a year without use) and in case anyone ever needs to call me its: +233.054.756.9732
I traveled to Ada this weekend to escape Accra’s craziness and relax a bit. It was paradise, as usual. Good weather (I don’t mind a bit of rain) and good company 😊
Slowly but surely, I’m getting back into the swing of things. It’s frustrating and fantastic all over again.
Meanwhile, I’m missing you all.
Much love,
Cari
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Sandy
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The little details!
Hi Daughter. Once again those of us left behind are eagerly awaiting each update you post! You paint a very visual picture for me! Can we access your newspaper online? Stay safe and happy. Love you.