Monday 10 January 2011

We received a bunch of Christmas cards this week, most of them postmarked early to mid  December.  Thanks to all of you who thought of us and sent a card.  We have enjoyed reading each one.   

Here is what’s happening in the neighborhood.

Garrett is visiting us.  He is on break from law school.

It hasn’t rained for three weeks.  Everything has turned brown.

The flame trees are starting to blossom.

They bloomed in March last year.  Are they early this year, or do they bloom more than once a year?  We'll find out. 

Gas, or petrol as the locals call it, has increased in price from Ghc 1.169/liter to Ghc 1.520/liter.  No one can explain why there has been a 29% change.  I wonder if it has to do with the recent opening of the oil industry in Ghana.  Oil started shipping from Ghana two months ago.

I was finally able to photograph a gray headed kingfisher, the beautiful bird I mentioned in one of the blog entries last month.  He/she was sitting on the radio tower outside our kitchen window.

We have not seen him/her since I took this photograph.  We did see a similar species this week but slightly smaller and dark purple in color.  I have not been able to identify the second bird nor find an example on Google photos.

The holiday season is over.  Is this how Ghanaians take down their Christmas decorations?  This is the holiday photograph of the grinch type Christmas tree at the intersection of Independence Avenue and Achimota Road.

This is the same decoration last Tuesday.

The metal support for the branches is all that is left standing.  The grass is scorched ten feet peripherally around the base.  I do not know if the fire was intentional but I bet it was quite a sight.

We might have some new construction starting in the neighborhood.  I have previously described the empty lot we can see looking out our kitchen window.  I showed pictures of it shortly after our arrival (blog entry dated 7 Feb 2010) with all of the cattle that would graze across it every two or three days.  I then described the concrete and cinderblock fence/wall installed around the periphery, presumably to keep the cattle out. (blog entry dated 8 May 2010.)   Last week a second fence was erected outside of the concrete/cinderblock enclosure.

It consisted of 3 x 3 framing and ¼ inch plywood.  In the two weeks prior to the installation of this second enclosure we noticed a lot of garbage being dumped onto the site.

The big trucks would come in and dump their load and then we would watch people rummaging through the garbage hauling off anything that could be used.  It was sad to see the garbage and even sadder to see the rummaging.  Based upon our previous experience with construction projects I doubt that we will see any construction activity for months.  Hopefully the second fence will prevent more garbage activity. 

I mentioned the harmattan in my last entry when I posted the picture of the red/orange haze at sunrise on Christmas day.  Note the difference in the two pictures above that were taken about two weeks apart.  The haziness is due to the harmattan, a yearly phenomenon when the sand of the Sahara is blown southwest over the continent toward the Atlantic Ocean.

NASA photograph of sand blowing over West Africa.

This annual phenomenon begins in Nov/Dec and continues for several months.  The sky was gray/brown when we arrived a year ago in January and did not turn blue until April.   In 1999 Marsha and I were in Luxor, Egypt, and our guide described this yearly sandstorm.  She indicated that the winds deposit up to six inches of sand each year in Luxor.  I didn’t believe her then.  Now I do.  Fortunately we are far enough away from the Sahara that the sand, at our location, is high in the atmosphere and doesn’t accumulate six inches on the ground.  It does, however, leave a very fine red/brown residue on the car every two to three days.  Where does the sand go?  Does it all fall into the Atlantic?  I don’t know.  Could this be the real reason for global warming?  Or does this answer the question of where does the sand on beaches come from?

I have mentioned before the frequent highway accidents involving trucks.  In the past month we have had two near miss accidents.  The first one was on our way home from Tema.  We were in our car sitting at the light waiting to go over the Tema highway overpass.  We were in the outside lane of two lanes with a raised concrete median separating us from two lanes of oncoming traffic.  While waiting for the light to change a truck came over the overpass toward us, obviously out of control.  The truck jumped up over the median and crashed head on into three cars in the lane to our left, stopping within ten feet of us.  We could see the wide eyes of the truck driver as his truck came to a stop in the midst of these cars.   The sound of the collision was not the sound heard on TV or in the movies.  It was much lower pitched, like cardboard boxes exploding.  The driver of one of the cars slumped over his steering wheel obviously injured by the impact.  It all happened in a few seconds.  It was very unnerving.  We scooted around the carnage and drove home, grateful to have been preserved.  The second near miss occurred on the Cape Coast highway just outside of Accra.  We were traveling about 50 km/hour behind an eighteen wheeler.  It was a flatbed with a heavy load tied down and covered with tarps.  We heard a loud bang which seemed to come from the front of our car, toward the right front fender.  We couldn’t determine a source for the noise.  Within seconds we noticed the truck in front of us starting to wobble and then veer toward the right.  The truck went onto the shoulder of the road and flipped on its side.  It continued on its side for 30 km until it came to a stop, making a loud grinding noise and pushing up a cloud of dirt and dust.  Once again, this entire accident took only seconds to happen.  We never did see a brake light come on.  I am grateful that the truck went to the right and not across the median into the oncoming traffic.  Christopher was in the front seat of the car and had been taking photos of scenery.  He quickly took this picture.

Let me describe a less disturbing incident.  I mentioned in November that the bats had returned to the trees on Independence Avenue.   About three weeks ago I was coming up Independence and stopped at the Independence Ave/Achimota Highway intersection right next to 37 Military Hospital.  This is the same intersection where I had the disturbing experience last May trying to take a video of the vendors (see blog entry dated 8 May 2010.)   I had come to a stop and was leaning against the driver side window looking up at all of the bats hanging from the tree branches.  I heard some shouting outside the car but ignored it and continued looking at the trees.  The shouting continued and came closer and closer to my car.  I didn’t look around because I knew I wasn’t doing anything inappropriate, like photographing the vendors.  The shouting continued.  I tried to see from my periphery why everyone was shouting.  I noticed that they were yelling at me and pointing to my side of the car.  I then noticed something bobbing up and down slightly toward the back window on the driver’s side.  When I turned to my left to look at it I came face to face with a bat, obviously dead, strung up by one leg and held by a young man with a full grin on his face.  The young man was bobbing the bat up and down for me to look at.  I didn’t know if he wanted me to put my window down and touch the bat, or if he wanted me to purchase it for dinner.  The bat was beautiful.  It was about 14 inches across, a sable brown color with a streak of gray/black down its back. Its fur appeared to be soft like cashmere.   I am sure it would have been very soft to touch.  I acknowledged the display by giving the bat vendor two thumbs up.  He grinned even wider.  And then all of the other shouting vendors broke into grins.  I guess they wanted to show the inquisitive white guy who was looking up into the bat trees what a bat actually looked like up close.  Or maybe they had bets on whether I would buy it and were pleased to see, predictably, that I wasn’t interested in it for dinner.      

In late November I had reason to sit in a patient waiting room at Ridge Hospital for an hour.  I was accompanying an elderly Ghanaian to an ophthalmologist to see if cataract surgery was an option for treatment of his diminished vision.  We had arrived at 8:00 a.m. along with forty or fifty other patients.  We were all crowded together in a small room waiting for our turn.  A small television set was in the center of the wall we were facing.  It was showing programs from a local station.  I could not understand most of the programs.  However, one program was very understandable and quite informative.  It was ten minutes of instruction for an upcoming local election.  It was mostly visual with very little audio.  I didn’t recognize the district, I assume it was in Accra, but the program listed all of the candidates running for election.  It showed a picture of each of the candidates, a picture of his or her name, and then a symbol representing, I assume, either his or her political party or some kind of an emblem of identification.  Some of the symbols were animals.  One was a red chicken.  Some were geometric designs.  One was a star, one was a pentagon.  There were about ten individuals.  The ballot was then shown listing all of the candidates and their symbols.  The camera very slowly panned the ballot from the top to the bottom, showing each candidate’s name and each candidate’s symbol.  A box adjacent to each candidate was noticeable on the right side of the ballot. The program then demonstrated how a person would vote by putting black ink on his or her right thumb and placing his/her inked thumb in the box of his/her candidate of choice.  The thumbprint had to be entirely inside the box.  The program demonstrated how ballots with thumb prints outside of the box would be rejected.   The program ended by showing an individual holding up his inked thumb and smiling.  I am sure that this election demonstration was repeated many times during the day and night.

I was fascinated by this television program.  Think about it for a minute.  When you and I vote we obtain a ballot by showing our identification and signing our name.  We then look at the ballot listing all of the candidates and read the names and choose the one we want to vote for.  And then we read each of the legislative issues being considered and decide either yes or no to support the issue.  How do you hold elections when a large percentage of the people voting cannot read or cannot sign his or her name?  You do it the way I just described.  And you demonstrate it on television (everyone has TV) for weeks ahead of the election.  Very ingenious. 

By the way, I found out about the red rooster party.  This is a billboard with a red rooster candidate from a previous election.

I also discovered the red rooster party slogan:  “Backward never.  Forward forever.”      I think someone needs to come up with an ingenious slogan for our two political parties.   Maybe one of them (you choose which party) could use as its slogan:  “First fix the blame.”     

        

Here are a few fun photos.  I have described the kapok trees in Ghana.  They are huge, standing above the other trees like Manhatten skyscrapers.  This is what they look like when cut and loaded on a logging truck.

It is unnerving to see one of these coming toward you knowing the number of trucks on the highway with brakes that are waiting to fail.  Each time we see a large truck approaching, especially a truck carrying a tree the size of a tennis court, we take a deep breath and look to which direction we would have to go should the truck cross into our lane out of control.

The next photo is one of the current orange harvest.

These piles of oranges are along the sides of the roads waiting to be loaded and transported into the towns/cities.  It is easy to see why we can buy oranges for Ghc 1 per dozen (about sixty eight cents.)

This third photo is a display of women's hats for sale.

Isn’t this a beautiful display of hats that would have been popular in the US about half a century ago?  When you see one of these hats on a Ghanaian woman you can see why such beauty never goes out of African style.

Ghanaian women make any item of clothing look beautiful.

Last item.  What’s in the news?  This week’s article comes from alert reader Kevin Page and is entitled “Cure for Malaria Discovered in Ghana.”   You can click on the article to see it magnified.  

The article gives details about two entrepreneurial women, “Mrs. Lily Amoa . . . [who owns] the Kiddy Centre, a nursery school” and “Mrs. Bade Nkwankpa . . . a lawyer/pharmacist by profession and a pastor”  and their startling discovery of Chanca Piedra “a small, erect weed-like herb that grows 30-40 centimetres in height and . . . spreads freely like a weed.”  The article relates the fact that Mrs. Nkwankpa had been ill with malaria and had been advised by a friend to drink some tea made from the Chanca Piedra plant that was growing in Mrs. Nkwankpa’s yard.  She did so and in three days was cured from her malaria.  She even went to the hospital to confirm she was well and the doctors there “certified that all malaria parasites were flushed out of her system.”   Flushed?  Is that what it takes to cure malaria?  Maybe Drano would work.  Based upon this experience the two women “read widely about the plant and at the end of the day sent the result of their findings to the Nogouchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research, University of Ghana, Legon, where the efficacy of the Chanca Piedra plant was certified through a series of scientific tests.”  Isn't it commendable that these two women spent an entire day researching this finding?  The best part of the article is the list of secondary medical benefits from the plant.  “The Chanca Piedra has been identified as potently effective to reduce excessive cholesterol in the human body, lower blood pressure, reduce blood sugar, expel stones and support kidney in its functions.  In addition, Chanca Piedra has also been known through scientific tests as having the potency to increase urination, relieve serious pains, clear obstructions, kill viruses, aid digestion and reduce inflammation.  Other diseases that a well-prepared Chanca Piedra can combat include killing bacteria, preventing mutation, reducing fever, expelling worms and it can be conveniently used as a mild laxative.”

There you go.   Scientific journalism doesn’t get any better.  I would suggest buying stock in whatever pharmaceutical company starts making this Wonder Drug available to mankind.     

In one week we will have been in Ghana for a year.  I would like to say that our time here has passed quickly.  But it hasn’t.  It seems like we have been here forever.   It has been a challenge.  But it has also been very rewarding.  Many of our initial fears and concerns have faded.  We are not worried about our safety.  The traffic doesn’t create as many heart palpitations as it did in the beginning (except for the trucks coming at us with a load of kapok trees.)  It doesn’t seem as unbearably hot as it did in the beginning.  The food is better as we have learned how and where to shop.  Our living accommodations are more comfortable, not that much has changed in the apartment but because we have become accustomed to the shortcomings.  (Having a dryer installed in the apartment has made things a lot better.)  The best part, as I have mentioned so many times, is the people of Ghana.  They are kind, loving, sincere, friendly, and helpful.  They have made our stay worthwhile.  And the children.  Oh, the children.  They are the most beautiful children we have seen anywhere in the world.  We have to continually suppress our impulse to gather them up and bring them home with us.

I will write the next entry about the wonderful month we have had with Christopher and Garrett.  A Month of Sons.

Christmas in Ghana

Some photos and comments about our Christmas in Ghana.

Christopher joined us for the holidays.

This tree reminds me of the one in Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  At night the vertical strands of flashing lights on the upper one half of the tree make it appear to have illuminated ants running down the surface.  

All dressed up for the holidays.

Christmas shopping.

Last minute gift ideas.  Note the white curb.

Accra's idea of a White Christmas.  All of the curbs along Independence Avenue were painted white during the week before Christmas.  Oops.  Looks like the painters were a little sloppy.

Note the holiday hours.  (click on the picture if needed.)

Christmas dinner.  The chicken doesn't get more fresh than this.

Goat doesn't get any fresher, either.  The goats are tied at the roadside for sale.    

More goats for dinner.  

Sunrise Christmas morning.  The red/orange haze is the harmattan.  I will explain it in my next entry. 

Christmas brunch at the Ghana Accra mission home with the senior missionaries and area presidency/wives.   No goat.  

  Good food and good company.

Here we are taking a Christmas day swim.  We are lounging around the pool, enjoying the heat and talking about our dear friends and family.  

AND WISHING YOU WERE HERE!   Holiday greetings from Ghana.  We send our love.  

5 December 2010

The Ghana Tomato Project is done.  Here is the final report:  Justice died early, Mercy produced a lot of blossoms but very few tomatoes, Charity (never faileth) produced tomatoes but they were tasteless, and Hope fizzled.  We’ve decided to grow a flower garden instead.  Here are pictures of what is growing to date. 

The shrub is an orange blossom bush.  It is from the orange blossom bush alongside our stairwell that blossoms every 3 – 4 weeks and gives us two days of olfactory bliss.  I doubt this one planted in the pot will mature enough to blossom during the remaining time we have here in Accra. 

I was driving down Independence yesterday morning and was slowed by this group of people marching down the avenue.

They carried picket signs and were chanting/singing.  I fully expected to discover that they were upset about some perceived social injustice and wanted to demonstrate their support for a solution.  I was delighted to see, once close enough to read their signs, that they were demonstrating their support for an organization that was advocating prevention of violence to women.  I wish I would have had the convenience to take more photos.  And I wish I could have audiotaped their chanting/singing. 

Here is a photograph (compliments of Google, I’ve not been able to get a personal picture) of our current Most Favorite Bird in Africa.  

This is the gray headed kingfisher.  We have seen this bird three times, now, each time near the swimming pool.  It is as beautiful as the Google picture shows.  The bird’s wings are various shades of turquoise and his/her beak is red/orange.  Twice, the bird has flown from a tree branch on one side of the pool to the surface of the water, touching the surface briefly, I’m assuming to catch a bug, and then up into the branch of a tree on the opposite side.  I have tried to get a photograph but the bird has flown away too quickly to get a camera, get it turned on, and get the picture taken. 

Here is a picture of another bird.  

I was able to take this photo while this bird was having a meal of palm berries.  The bird was very content to sit and eat while I took photographs.  The bird looks like a hawk with its curved beak.  I have not been able to determine its species.

On the first Monday of each month the medical service at the US Embassy hosts a CME program for local physicians.  I have attended most of the presentations this past year.  Fifteen to twenty Ghanaian physicians usually attend along with three to five non Ghanaian physicians. The Embassy physician in charge plays a CME presentation that has been prerecorded, usually a month or two earlier, from somewhere in the US.  After the presentation he or she leads a discussion on the topic presented.  Some times the topics are relevant and there is an informative discussion.  Other times there is a significant disconnect between the topic and its relevance to medical practice in Africa, such as the presentation last summer on the workup and treatment of pediatric meningitis in the USA but no mention of malaria, which is the number one pediatric CNS infectious disease in Africa.  The topic in November was treatment of evenomations (dangerous snake/spider/insect etc. bites) presented by an ER physician from Chicago.   Think about this topic for a minute.  You can immediately imagine the disconnect.  The Ghanaian physicians did not seem too interested in learning about dangerous North American spiders/snakes/insects and were obviously disappointed that the lecturer, in describing dangerous snakes, did not mention the African black mamba, a snake that can grow to 14 feet in length, can raise it’s head three to four feet off the ground, can strike from 10 feet away, can travel at speeds up to 12 mph, and has venom so potent it has been known to kill giraffes.  It makes the diamondback rattler look harmless.  (We don’t have black mambas here in Ghana; we have a cousin, however, the green mamba, a smaller snake which is not as dangerous as the black mamba and is usually not as feared, except by Marsha who is fearful of anything snakelike.)   The Ghanaian physicians also unanimously disagreed with the Chicago ER doctor’s description of the “deadly” black African scorpion, which, in reality is the Emperor Scorpion a rather ferocious looking critter but actually quite harmless, so harmless that there is a growing market here in Ghana dealing with the illegal exportation of these scorpions to pet stores around the world.   So much for November's CME.  

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving week.  Dan and Joyce Jones came to Ghana to visit us.

Can you believe that?  It is indeed true friendship when someone will skip a traditional American Thanksgiving celebration and travel a great distance (approximately 7,500 air miles) to spend a week in an impoverished, uncomfortably hot country.   But they did it.  It was a tremendous boost to us.  We cherished each day with them.  We tried to show them the best of Ghana (hard to do) and minimized the worst (harder to do.)  We spent four days in and around Accra, including a visit one day to a village school near Dodowa

and then two days in Cape Coast.  I’ve mentioned Cape Coast before.  When you are in Cape Coast you can almost imagine you are in Hawaii as you look through the palm trees at the sandy beaches and the rolling surf.  You just have to ignore what is behind you (poverty) and disregard the garbage and the goats in front of you.  It takes a little imagination but it usually works.

We walked the beach the second morning,

enjoying it for about fifteen minutes until we each were so soaked with sweat that we might as well have gone swimming in the ocean.

A second shower was needed to face the remainder of the day.   

It is hard to do it but we are trying to get into the Christmas spirit.  Most of the merchants have had decorations up for two weeks.  The mall has some outside decorations, including this set of reindeer anchored to the edge of the building. 

The cinder blocks add such a lovely touch to the display.  Christmas carols are played on the overhead.  I wonder what pops into a Ghanaian’s imagination when he/she hears Bing Crosby singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas?” 

The bats are back.  And the mangos are back.  I think we are as excited about the mangos as we are about the bats.  We’ve been watching the bats in the overhead sky each evening this week and have thought that the numbers of bats are diminished compared to last January when we first noticed them and saw the sky darkened by their presence.  On Friday night we drove down Kanda High Road at 6:00 p.m. and discovered that the majority of bats were flying west from their trees and not north over our flat.  That is why we have been seeing such fewer numbers.  The sky over Kanda High Road was filled with bats.  I wonder if they will change their flight patterns as the season progresses and return to a northward direction in January.    

I have heard it said, and it is probably an exaggeration, that when a tornado strikes Texas there is always a trailer court destroyed.  Some will say that this Ghana truism is an exaggeration, as well:  when there is a traffic accident in Accra there is always a light post destroyed.  It is uncanny, however, as evidenced by these photos, the number of light posts that get taken out by single car accidents.  It is as if the drivers, when they know they are about to crash, focus on hitting the closest light post.

Note the damaged light post

Ditto.

This is a photograph of a new apartment complex that is being finished. 

It is about 500 meters from our flat.  Marsha and I look at this complex on our morning walks.  And we drive by it on our way home.  We think it is probably the only construction project in Accra that has actually moved along quickly from start to finish.  When we arrived last January the four buildings were two stories in height.  The additional floors have been added during our time, the exterior has been finished, as well as the interior, and the landscaping has been put in.  People are moving in.  It is a very nice looking apartment complex. 

If you look carefully at the picture of the complex you will notice that the penthouse suite has a hot tub on the deck.  I have pondered this luxury for the weeks since observing its careful hoisting by crane to the penthouse and its placement on the patio.  (All four of the penthouse suites have hot tubs.)   As I stood and took this picture this week I had to wipe sweat off of the back of my neck and my hands were wet from sweat.  My clothes were sticking to me.  At the time of taking the picture the thought of running out from the bedroom and jumping into a hot tub did not seem very appealing.  In fact, I cannot remember a day since we’ve arrived that I’ve wanted to take a hot shower, let alone jump into a hot tub. I’m usually looking for the air conditioner or fan.  I have decided that there are certain businesses that probably do not do well in Accra.  I am sure that hot tub dealers do not do very well here.  And I suspect tanning booth dealers struggle as well.  I just cannot see a big demand for either product.      

I will end with What’s in the News?  The topic for this week’s blog entry is “wandering goats” taken from a news article brought to me by Kevin Page.

This piece of astute reporting describes a certain woman, Florence Wireponwa, being fined for the killing of a goat that belonged to her neighbor, a certain Shaiba Musah.  According to the article the goat “found its way into the house of Florence who claims it had poured out the soup she was preparing.”  What, poured out the soup?  Such an amazing goat!  You would think that if this goat came into your kitchen and did such a thing you would probably take the goat on the road demonstrating the goat’s impressive dexterity.  But no, what did Florence do instead?  She “killed the animal, cut it into pieces, and smoked it for consumption.”   Such action seems to me very logical treatment for an intruding goat.  I probably would have done the same thing.  (On second thought, I doubt I would have killed this goat for consumption.  Goat is the number two meat consumed here in Ghana, second to chicken.  I’ve eaten goat.  You only have to take one bite and you say “yup, that’s goat alright.”  I didn’t want a second bite.)  She obviously did not get the job done quickly enough because the neighbor then “entered her house and recognized the goat was his.”   A disagreement ensued.  So this little case of a wandering goat went to court for a judgement.  I am sure that there are laws on the Ghana books delineating the protection afforded wandering goats.  Probably something described in Latin terms like ipso facto goato.   Florence was fined Ghc 120 and ordered to pay the neighbor Ghc 80 in compensation.  Poor Florence.  She lost her soup and a potential meal of goat, and then had to pay money to a neighbor who couldn’t keep his goat in check.  Doesn’t sound right, does it? 

This is our twelfth month in Ghana.  We are enjoying ourselves.  We awaken each morning with the birds singing and the sun shining.  Not a bad way to wake up in December.  

We have not determined a way to get Christmas cards out this year.  We will send our holiday greetings via the blog and pledge a card to all next season when we are home. 

Merry Christmas.  We wish you the best during this special time of the year when we remember the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Un Flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle