End of February

[This entry is not complete.  I am trying to figure out how to load an audio clip.]

This is a follow up photograph of Thomas the wood carver.  I made reference to him in the last blog entry. He is working at his workbench.  He gave me permission to take his picture.  

We have just returned this morning from ten days of traveling in Nigeria.  When I have time to review my notes and think about the trip I will try to write about it. 

Marsha and I had a new experience about two and a half weeks ago. The harmattan started clearing the first part of February and with the gradual clearing of the atmosphere the temperatures have increased.  We are back into the HOT season and stepping outside at any time of the day, or night, is like stepping into a steam room.  Ghanaians say this is the “dry” season (steam rooms aren’t dry??) and cooling of the temperatures is not anticipated until the rainy season begins in May.  About two and a half weeks ago the morning started hot with a slightly overcast sky.  By mid day ominous dark clouds had moved in creating the feeling of an impending storm.  Marsha and I decided to drive home.  We pulled into our parking lot just as the storm started.  The rain was torrential.  The thunder and lightning rivaled any that we had seen at home.  And it continued all afternoon.  We could look out from our porch and because of the heavy rain not see the vacant lot across the street.

Note the street light that is on in the middle of the afternoon.

We watched the rain on the front porch. 

At about four p.m. a muddy brown flood of water started coming under the gate in front.  It flowed down the driveway toward us.  It then split around our apartment and moved toward a storm drain to the east.  Our car was parked near the storm drain.  The water came up to the top of the wheel wells on the car.  At about six p.m. the storm let up and the flood water starting receding.  Marsha and I stepped outside onto the back balcony to get a better look at the mess.  As we did we experienced something completely new for us here in Ghana.  The temperature had dropped so quickly with the storm that we were actually COLD.  (It was not that cold, probably 60 – 70 degrees F, but after 14 months of hot and hotter, it was the first time since arriving in Africa that we did not feel some degree of hot.)  It was an unusual sensation.  We looked at each other and both commented on feeling cold, a sensation we had forgotten.  It was refreshing.  The temperature felt like those days in September when the sun is shining and it looks nice outside but you need to wear a sweater or light jacket to enjoy the day.  We could have enjoyed it for several days.  We didn’t need to run the air conditioners that night.  By morning the temperature was back to steam room. 

While we were on the balcony enjoying the cool temperature and surveying the storm damage we observed, in the fading light, a change in the evening bat routine.  I have mentioned before that each evening, starting about 6 p.m., the bats leave their daytime resting places in the trees near 37 Military Hospital and fly to the north, almost in formation, for a night of feeding, or whatever they do all night.  (Two wonderful childrens’ books have been published that explain what bats do at night:  Bats at the Beach and Bats at the Barn.)  We can observe their overhead flight for about fifteen minutes in the diminishing light of the day and then it is too dark to see them.  I have tried to record this mass movement in flight on video but have not been able to do so successfully because of the inadequate light and the distance the bats fly above us.  I would estimate that they fly about 50 – 75 meters above the ground, just too far above me to capture them on my inexpensive GoVideo recorder or on my point and shoot camera.  I have tried many times.  Each time the bats, if visible on the video at all, look like little unrecognizable dots in the sky, like specks of dust on the lens that need to be cleaned off.    More commonly the bats are not even visible and the recording looks like some idiot is slowly taking a random video of the evening sky and the tops of trees, radio towers, buildings, etc.  Trying to record this incredible phenomenon of thousands and thousands of bats flying through the sky has been unfulfilling. 

The bats were different on the evening of the storm.  Maybe the cold temperature messed up their navigation systems.  Or maybe the moisture was still so heavy in the air that they couldn’t get altitude.  But for whatever reason they were immediately above the apartment flying haphazardly in and around the trees.  They were so close that with enough attempts and some luck I probably could have thrown a tennis ball and hit one of them. They were not in formation at all.  They were totally random.  They all looked like bats that would have failed sobriety tests.  And they were making a lot of noise.  We watched them for the fifteen minutes of fading light.  And I tried, again, to capture them on video.  I was a little more successful this time.  You can actually see them!

I want to share a few other observations about the harmattan.

It is an unique phenomenon I think best described as a continuous dirty haze for two months.  Just like el Nino, or global warming, I have heard Ghanaians blame it for everything from illness (“put vaseline on your lips to prevent pneumonia”) to unusual human behavior (“crime always increases during the harmattan.”)  For the two to three weeks when it is at its worst it is like a dense smog indistinguishable from air pollution except for the lack of the acid smell.  It is like a Los Angeles that doesn’t burn your eyes.  It is a miserable two to three weeks.  The only benefit is the temperatures are cooler because of the blanket effect of the sand in the atmosphere that cuts down on ultraviolet penetration.  One of the doctors at Korle Bu, when I asked him to compare this year’s harmattan to other years, commented that it did not get as cold this year as it has in the past, recalling one of his years at boarding school when the nights were so cold that he had to sleep under several blankets.  Personally, the most disturbing aspect of the harmattan, having now experienced two seasons, is the change in the color of the sky.  When the harmattan is at its worst the sky is brown.  Compare these two photographs of the same palm trees taken six months apart.  You can easily tell which one was taken during the harmattan.

Even as the harmattan clears, as it has the past several weeks, the sky remains a gray color for several more months.  If this sky were portrayed in a landscape painting you would ask why the artist did not put enough blue into the sky.  Gray just isn’t natural.  I reviewed my journal from last year and noted that the first time the sky looked blue – sky blue --  was in April.

Final comment about the harmattan.   I need to bring up the LGU in order to describe this.  (In case you’ve forgotten, LGU stands for the List of Ghana Unexplainables, my record of observations of life in Ghana that defy logical explanation.)  Here is what I am adding to the LGU:  during the three weeks that the harmattan was at its worst, when the haze was thick and brown and the atmosphere looked like a major health hazard, it seemed so stupid to do it but everyone started burning things – garbage piles, 

grass along the roadside, 

and community trash.

It was as if someone in authority commanded the residents of Accra to make a miserable condition even more miserable.  Why?  I have no explanation.  Hence the addition to the LGU.

I have a follow-up to a previous blog posting.  Several months ago I mentioned the significant number of light posts that are damaged in one car accidents here in Accra. (Blog entry dated 5 December 2010.)   Marsha and I recently observed another demonstration of this unique phenomenon.  This most recent accident occurred on Independence Avenue, probably the busiest street in Accra.  The vehicle that took out this light post hit the fence that divides the two lanes and took out a fifteen foot section of the fence, 

crossed the two lanes of oncoming traffic, pushing the fence section the entire way, and then hit a light post 20 meters away, dead center.

  

The light post has paint on it from the vehicle that straddled it.   Amazing accuracy! 

 Yikes.  I just read the last few paragraphs.  It sounds pretty depressing.  Unusual weather, fire, smoke and car wrecks.  It sounds like script written for the NBC Nightly News, or what I remember of the evening news not having seen it for 14 months. 

  

Let me share something more uplifting.  Let me talk about birds.  We have made some wonderful ornithology discoveries during the past two months.  Late last summer I described some of the exotic bird sounds we hear each day. (Blog entries dated 14 and 28 August 2010.)  One of the four distinct birds we hear is the one I described as the Machine Gun Bird.  [sound bite]  Much to our gratification, and to our pleasant surprise, we recently heard this sound coming very loudly from outside our kitchen and discovered that this staccato call was coming from our Most Favorite Africa Bird, the Gray Headed Kingfisher.

It was a moment of pleasant discovery.  We hear the staccato call most every day but had only visualized the kingfisher three or four times in all the months here.  The bird is obviously not seen as often as it is heard.  Now that we recognize the source of this sound we are pleased to know that the Gray Headed Kingfisher which we had thought was so rare is actually around us a lot.  He/she must be very shy.  

Here is another discovery.  I showed a picture of this bird two months ago.  Click on the picture to get a better look.

I didn’t know its identity at the time of posting its photgraph.  At that time it was sitting in a tree having a lunch of palm berries.  I have subsequently learned that it is the Western Grey Plantain Eater.  As I read about this bird I discovered that it is everywhere in West Africa (we noticed it in Nigeria last week) and it eats “fruits, especially figs, seeds and other vegetable matter.”   Several weeks ago we observed this bird in the tree directly outside of our living room window.  It was not eating palm berries.  It was not eating fruits or figs.  It was eating the blossoms on the tree branches.  Here is a photograph of the Western Gray Plantain Eater consuming tree blossoms.    

I guess tree blossoms qualify as “other vegetable matter.”  We watched it on a Saturday eat all of the blossoms on the tree, not just a few but all of them.  It made for great fun trying to take photographs as the bird moved from branch to branch. 

On that same Saturday we had a second ornithology experience.  We were entertained by a flock of birds, unknown species as of this moment, that flew into the tree that the plantain eater had just deflowered and demonstrated the most unusual bird behavior we have ever seen.  I took a dozen pictures of these birds, in one flock but looking like two different groups, that landed on adjacent limbs, faced each other, and proceeded to make a lot of noise, almost as if they were shouting at each other, and bobbed up and down on the tree branches, just like two groups of rivals taunting each other.  The back and forth chatter and body bobbing lasted about five minutes and then the whole flock flew off.  We mutually decided that this bird behavior reminded us of the encounter between the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story.  Finger snap, finger snap, “When you’re a jet you’re a jet all the way . . .”   Maybe they were arguing over territory.  Or maybe they were upset about the plantain eater that had just cleaned the tree and each group was  blaming the other group for the blossom loss.  Who knows.  Here are just a few of the pictures that capture this gang behavior.  Click on the picture to see the birds more closely.

This is the unusual bobbing the birds would do while chirping loudly.

We have seen these birds one other time and they did the same thing:  two groups faced each other, and made a lot of noise and a lot of body bobbing gestures.  I am still trying to find out the bird species.

Here are two more recent birds, yet to be identified.  

I have learned a lot about birds in Ghana as I have researched each new discovery.  You will probably be excited to know that Ghana has 754 species of birds, including two species that had been thought to be extremely rare or extinct and are now found only in Ghana.  (For comparison Idaho has 417 species.)   Some of the birds found in Ghana have wonderful descriptions such as the Red-throated Bee-eater, the White-crested Helmetshrike, or the Yellow-headed Picathartes.  (I wonder if the Idaho magpie has such a graphic description, perhaps it is the Black-and-White Winged Nuisance.)  I have discovered that Ghana has so many species of birds that it is very high on the list of hot destinations in the world for bird watching.  You could have blown me away with that discovery.  I have read every tourist guide book on Ghana available in Accra.  Bird watching isn’t advertised in any of the ones I've read.  I have not once seen an invitation to come to Ghana to see the birds!  I’ve never thought that some of the tourists wandering around Accra might actually be here on purpose, intent on observing birds, instead of here on accident thinking they were coming to a destination resort.  I now look at the tourists walking the streets in a different light.  I try to see if they are hiding very expensive binoculars.  And I watch them to see if they are frequently scanning the trees.

 If you are so inclined to further your education about the birds of Ghana, or possibly want bird watching in Ghana tourist information, or if you just want a well written summary of birding in Ghana you might check out this web site: http://www.tropicalbirding.com/2010/08/30/trip-report-ghana-2009/.  Click on the link "View the full report."   It is an entertaining and informative read.  Note the discussion on the extremely rare Yellow-headed Picathartes found only in Ghana.  Here is a picture of it.

The Yellow-headed Picathartes appears to me to be the bird that served as inspiration for Kevin in the animated movie “Up”, just smaller and different colors.

To demonstrate how much we have become accustomed to living here I want to mention that we had another cockroach encounter.  (Encounter number four in the apartment, number five if you count the one at Mama Mia's.)  I was in the office/bedroom when Marsha yelled (controlled yell, not a scream of fear) for me to come to the bathroom.   The quality of the yell was consistent with one that might have been a request to help in looking for a dropped object, or perhaps an invitation to observe a new water leak.  It was not a frantic call.  There was no fear in the yell.  As I arrived at the bathroom door Marsha calmly pointed to the cockroach in front of the sink.  It was upside down, and obviously in the process of dying, undoubtedly because of an encounter with the cockroach paste that we have put down around the perimeters of all the rooms.  The cockroach had obviously just smelled, ingested, or bathed in it, whatever method is required for producing death.  As soon as I had observed the dying cockroach, and without even a request for assistance from me, Marsha smacked the cockroach, scooped him/her up in a Kleenex, and disposed of him/her down the toilet.  We both commented on how far we have come since our first terror producing cockroach encounter.

Here are some fun photos.

If you look closely at this second photo you will see three men climbing this radio tower.  There were actually four of them but the one on the bottom was out of the picture.  What you don’t see in the photo is the paint brush and bucket of paint each man is carrying.  These four men were painting this radio tower by hand, starting at the bottom and painting to the top.  I wish I could have remained long enough to see how these men were to get down from the tower when they had finished its painting.  Talk about the proverbial “painting oneself into a corner.”  How does one climb down a ladder when one has just painted all the rungs?

Last photo.  

Ghanaian women do a lot of cooking in big pots but these are the largest I have ever seen.  I wonder what they cook in these???  They look big enough to seat two.

One last humorous incident.  As our plane from Nigeria was approaching the Accra airport this morning we were advised to "make sure your tables are locked and your seats are in the upright position for landing."  Routine message. We've heard it a thousand times and don't even think when it is announded.  What we heard next was something new.  Our ears perked up.  The head flight attendant announced that one of the attendants was going to "spray the plane with bug spray."  At that moment we could see a male attendant start briskly walking from the front of the plane, in the first/business class section, with two arms overhead, each hand holding a cannister, down the aisle toward the back of the plane spraying into the air a mist from each cannister.  As he was doing this the head flight attendant assured us that the spray was "non toxic, but if you are concerned you might close your eyes and hold your breath."  We closed our eyes and held our breath.  We hypothesized that either Ghana didn't want to receive stowaway bugs from Nigeria, or that Nigeria didn't want one of its airplanes to be contaminated by bugs from Ghana.  While we were discussing this new in flight experience, and making sure we didn't have any evidence of toxic damage, we noticed in the front of the plane, in first/business class, on the valence that comes down from the ceiling containing the "toilet vacancy" sign, a gecko running around the face of the sign.  We watched the gecko for a minute or so.  We both concluded that either the bug spray was so nontoxic that it didn't even stun the gecko, or, possibly, the gecko might be one of many geckos purposefully placed on board as back ups to eat any of the bugs not killed by the bug spray.  Just as we were concluding that our hypotheses might be stretching things a little, we noted a winged insect, obviously not stunned by the spray and big enough to be seen from row 16, flying around the first/business class cabin.  The gecko disappeared, we presumed, trying to get the bug.  

Oh, the adventures never cease.  

We will be leaving Ghana in less than four months.  Is it really going to happen?