30for bringing this to my attention. I Usually avoid The DC, but this was a great find. Boozy Boy, it is Arlen Specter. Can I call Petraeus “Peaches?”
a call to arms
I need help from a Gmail savant. Can I view multiple task lists at once? If so, how?
Comment, email, text, just make it happen!
Bill Swanson, former CEO Raytheon
Could this be more accurate? Too many people at Duke have a situational value system.
Nkrumah is a Mighty Man
Kwame is doing well. In case you don’t know, Kwame is my intestinal parasite. He is called Kwame Nkrumah and the rest of them are the CPP (Convention People’s Party). Let me tell you about my hospital story. I was 90% sure I had a parasite. I had been sick for a few days and it was getting worse (usually bacteria gets better after a while). One of the directors wanted me to wait and see but I could feel something was wrong. I called ISOS and they agreed. Clara took me to Nyaho Clinic in Accra and thus starts the story. You fill out a form, just like in the US. Then you wait half an hour for them to enter your information into the computer. It is literally like 4 lines of information. Then you pay about $30 to see the general physician. I went to the temperature room, waited to be weighed and have my temperature taken. From there you are moved to the waiting room for the consultation. I was there for an hour. I saw the Doctor for 15 minutes. Half of this time was spent talking about ulcers that I told him I did not have. Then you go back to billing and pay for the lab tests. Next it was to the lab to have the tests done. I waited for almost two hours for my results. After getting them I was sent back to the waiting room so I could give then to the doctor. He then took 15 more minutes to write a prescription. I went back to billing, paid for the pills and I spent 20 minutes waiting for the medicine at the pharmacy. Do not go to the hospital if you are on a schedule. That night was our going away dinner. John Collins came and played for us in a Highlife band run by a man I met a few weeks ago called Aaron Bebe. I was very nice. I couldn’t eat anything other than spaghetti noodles but it was good. Most everyone else went to Jerry’s that night for a goodbye drink(s). I stayed in and passed out.
My Vacation
Wednesday June 30th 2010 Everybody left me today. Well technically I left them. They had flights at 10PM but I left for my ocean paradise a few hours before. I dropped my huge suitcase at my homestay and only brought a small duffle that I managed to smuggle a 5L bottle of water in. I am staying in a place called Big Milly’s Backyard. It is right on a beautiful beach with great water. There is sometimes an undertow but not anything too strong. I am careful though, mom. I arrived very late at night. Traffic was bad and my taxi driver did not really know where we were going. We stopped to pick up his sister so she could direct us. Mistake. They just spoke ridiculously loud Ewe the entire way. My room is nice. It is very simple and small. A door, two windows, a fan, bed, bookcase, small desk, bedside table, lamp and mosquito net. What more do you need? Showers are bucket baths and to eat at 630 you have to order at 3. Since I arrived so late, a guy named Noah took me to dinner down the street. Thursday July 1st 2010 Today I discovered the rest of the backyard and some of it’s other residents. There is a little hideaway on the beachfront I climbed up in the morning. I settled with Bayo Holsey’s book and was content. A kitten came by and climbed on my chair. This was the first animal in the past month and a half that actually came up to me. A man behind me noticed and we started talking. His name is Jim, from Texas. I ate lunch with Jim and then ventured to the ocean. It was overcast so I swam for three hours — everyone at the beach wanted to be my friend, ugh. I napped and then took dinner with Jim and some of his friends. I stayed with these friends until midnight talking. There was Anne and Robert from Holland. Anne was traveling with Johnny from England, Yorek from Denmark and James is from California. They are all older but I fit right in. Friday July 2nd 2010 I woke up late so I didn’t take breakfast but instead I decided to tan. I am a little pink but it will be ok. Later that same day: LIES. I am sunburnt. life blows. The big game, the won that knocked Ghana out was today and I could’nt even stay up to watch it because of th burn. I leave tomorrow. Saturday July 3rd 2010 I shared a hired taxi back to Accra. I went back to my host family. Vacation ended for now. On the 7th, its back to the Cape Coast.
Kwame Nkrumah
My parasite shall from now on be refered to as Kwame. Named for the first president of Ghana, Kwame is some sort of protozoa living in my interstines! Great! (Pictures to come soon). I will write more about him once I settle down in my next home.
Well, everyone is leaving today. I am sort of in a rush to get to my next destination, Krokrobite beach.
John Collins is a Super Sweet Bro
“FROM ACCRA, LEGON &AIRPORT Take Nsawam/Kumasi Rd from Achimota, Pass Saint John’s School at Dome Junction- then over Tantra Hill - and after descending, Taifa Junction is on right and Bokoor House a bit further on left. (please go on the left of the low wall recently built by the Chinese engineers to separate the main road).”
This is how he told me to get to his house. So meaningless to me. But I got there, fifteen minutes late. He didn’t care. That’s Ghana.
John Collins is British but his father moved to Ghana and John followed him when he was a young boy. He rarely goes back to the UK, he is now Ghanaian. In his father’s old house, well his old land, John Collins runs a Highlife Institute. Nakrumah was a big fan of Highlife because it is so pan-cultural, however during the military coups it became endangered and almost extinct. There were very little in terms of goods during the military era. Guitar strings were by far a luxury. So with a few of his musician friends he created this Highlife museum.
I arrived and he showed me around. The grounds are much smaller than what his father once owned. The backyard is an oasis with a pond and palm trees. It is highly walled off. To the right side and behind, there is an illegal saw mill housing 500 people without bathrooms in a malaria infested marsh. This has created problems for John and his family. These people are lawless. The father’s of these young kids are different beings entirely. In the villages they act completely different, but in Accra, they are lawless. They bribed to get rights to create the sawmill and then problems with the police started. They throw literal shit into John’s house, beat and chase off police. After an altercation in which one worker died, the compound blocked the main road with burning tires creating a traffic jam all the way to the North. The police used tear gas and rubber bullets, coming into John’s compound as well.
We was astounded that this happened in Ghana. He once lived in Nigeria and obviously this kind of stuff happened. He was great friends and traveled around with Fela!!
We chatted for two and a half hours about music and politics. He recited so much communist banter that I felt like I had to take a shower afterwards. We obviously are not aligned politically but my respect for him was never greater than after this talk. He doesn’t support the War in Afghanistan or even think that the Taliban is a terrorist organization. I understand him, but he is still wrong. We did agree about the sickness of the West. Americans have a disease, we live only for tomorrow. We create divides in our lives: work/ play, healthy/unhealthy, politics/personal. Our lives are not whole but many parts that we loosely bring together to describe ourselves. That’s one thing I enjoy about Ghana. People live today. They stop you on the street to talk.
I left just as the Ghana Germany game was starting. Getting a taxi was a challenge.
The Mensvic Sucks
Sucks, Sucks, Sucks, Sucks. We pay $70 a night for a hotel room in Ghana. That BLOWS MY MIND. At the beginning I was floored by this hotel. Its beautiful. It has AC and balconies and a great breakfast. But after about a week, I slowly realized how much this place sucks. It is not worth more than $20 a night. The Staff: The staff is just dumb. I’m sorry if that’s mean, but its so true. My roommate Andrea and I switched rooms, we told them but they still have other people’s name on our room. They call our room asking for them and are mad when we remind them to switch the room names. When the ask our room number and we tell them they demand that it isn’t our room because our names on it. We have told them for over a week that they need to change the room names. They also don’t take your number when you order food so they call every room in the hotel until they find who ordered it, even if it is 8 AM. Cleaning: After returning from the big trip (four whole days), we walked into our room to find that it had not been cleaned the entire time. Dishes from room service were still there, the floor was not swept and worst of all there were no clean towels. I had not washed my hair in two days, shit was about to get real. Food: The kitchen makes the spaghetti unbearably spicy. I told the waiter and he did not believe me, I thus made him smell my spaghetti. Breakfast now is terrible. You can eat oatmeal or eggs. I can’t eat eggs anymore after last summer’s 8 weeks of omelets (I’m working on this though). And they just hate to do anything more than they absolutely have to. If you ask for something once you have to ask for it 3 times. Also, change is such an issue in the nation. Everyone expects you to pay in exact change. No one has change and they blame you for that. It’s ridiculous. I’m not sure what they expect but if anyone gives me attitude now, I just threaten not to pay — they shockingly find change after that. I have become such an asshole here in response to bad customer service. I will never complain about slow service in America again. I wait on average an hour for each meal and another 30 minutes for the bill and change.
I’m kind of excited for this program to end so I can move to a more realistic hotel.
Togo! Togo! Togo!
So I spent my week back in Accra sick. We did attempt to see the new Sex and the City movie. But the power went out 45 minutes in. Then on Thursday I left for Togo to visit Charlie Piot in his Kabre village. Charlie is a Duke Professor in Cultural Anthropology and my thesis advisor. His life be like ooh, ahh.
Thursday June 17th 2010
We woke up early and went on our way. Took a taxi to Tema and then a bus to Aflao, the border town were we would cross over to Lome. The bus we took was a tro-tro (if you have been to East Africa, it is a matatu) but we paid for all the seats so we wouldn’t have to share. The driver decided to take a “shortcut.” Bad choice Mr. tro-tro driver. The shortcut was under construction so he hit speed bumps every 5 seconds. I am not exaggerating. I know you think I am, but I’m not. There were concrete mounds spaced every ten yards. I was so car sick I could cry right now just thinking about it.
At the border was a fun experience. We went to the Ghanaian immigration office, filled out a form, gave our passports and they stamped them wrong. They stamped as if we were entering Ghana instead of disembarking. Ugh, struggle. We waited about an hour at that office. Then we walked across the street amongst a ton of pickpockets and men who try to act like police officers and direct you were to go and then ask you for money in return for their “help.” I can find the office, directly across the street with obvious guards and signs in front of it by myself thank you. We filled another form, walked through security (they only stopped the guy in our group) and got hassled by the dumbest guard ever. He could not read very well but he was the man that checked everyone’s forms.
Finally we made it to the other side and Charlie picked us up. We went to our hotel (Royal Hotel on Jean Paul II Street). It was a nice place and so cheap. $10 a night compared to the $70 we pay in Accra for the shitty Mensvic Hotel. There was AC, a fan, and an alright bathroom. There was no actual “shower” per say, just a drain on the ground and a shower head. So you get the sink/toilet a little wet when you bath. We then went to a fufu bar for lunch. I like fufu, its just so darn filing. I ate it with bush meat and a wonderful sauce, just a little too spicy. I like the sauce here better, the spices are nice. (note: bush meat is a rodent for those who did not realize, but its really tender and not like city rats of anything)
We went back to the hotel and watched the France/Mexico game, went to the internet café and had some FanJoy. FanJoy is a discovery I made in Lome. There is ice cream in West Africa. It is made by “Fan.” There is FanIce (ice cream in vanilla, strawberry and chocolate), FanExtra (with vitamins), FanYogo (frozen yogurt) and FanJoy (popsicles). All Fan products come in bags that are frozen You bite the corner and suck.
We went to a roadside restaurant and ate fries, guinea hen, beef kabobs, salad and beer. It was this night that I realized that I can buy beer at Water Country USA. Water Country USA is now the most amazing place EVER. I returned to the hotel, watched Happy Feet in French and went to bed.
Oh yeah, Togo is a former French territory. I cannot communicate here. I am so frustrated by this, you have no idea.
Friday June 18th 2010
We woke up early again. I showered and realized the hotel does not have mosquito netting on the windows. I had a minor freak out because since I have been so sick, I have not regularly taken my medicine. Its ok though, I killed a ton of those blood suckers. We had breakfast mmm French bread and we hit the road to the north.
We stopped for another breakfast. Omelets, bread and Milo with the sweetest condensed milk (Milo = favorite chocolate milk ever). The place was literally roadside. Three walls, the forth was the curb. There were flags hanging from the ceiling to give it that IHOP feeling. Breakfast costs under a dollar. We drove more and stopped for lunch in Kara, 45 minutes from the bottom of the mountain. We had the best ham and cheese sandwich ever, the bread, oh the bread. A girl, Whitney, in Charlie’s program in Togo joined us for the trip to the village. We drove to the base of the mountain, put on our packs and started our hour hike up the mountain side. Oof. It was so hot. The hottest it has been since I came to Africa. No clouds, no breeze. We arrived covered in sweat and then toured the village. Sounds easy right? False. Each homestead is on separate peaks, so we hike for another hour. My homestead was a total of an hour and a half up the mountain. The last half hour was so steep.
We ate at Charlie’s BBFL’s house. I will look up the spellings of everyone’s name in his book when I get home. Ok, rewind. As soon as we arrived we drank beer. It is made from Sorgam and is so delicious. Then we toured and drank more beer at my homestead with all the men who got back from the field. It was getting dark so we went to eat dinner at the main house of our stay. There was ground rice pads, pasta, fish sauce and salty, salty tomato sauce. No fufu, its out of season now. It was so dark so Bazile (the young man of the homestead) came and led us to our homestead. Kimi and I shared a hut. The hut had a tin roof. The tin is considered nicer than the straw huts so they let the guests stay in them. Tin is expensive. The other huts have straw huts so they are not a sauna by the time you go to bed. We set up our mosquito nets and passed out at 9pm.
Saturday June 19th 2010
I woke up at 6AM and took a walk around the compound. So much cooler in the morning. We met at the same place we ate dinner and had breakfast. Oatmeal, tea, coffee, and “pancakes.” The pancakes were made from beans an covered in palm oil and cooked onions as syrup (not the same).
We took off down the mountain and across the flat land to go to market. Beer, beer, beans. We ate these fried balls of ground beans. They were ok. Not much flavor. Someone invited us back to their house for more beer. They sat us in a hut with a straw roof and handed us calabashes of beer. We drank, left and made our way up the mountain. Lots of beer and little water makes Angela a dehydrated girl. We chilled on the rocks at the top of the mountain, they are arranged like lounge chairs. I want huge rocks like these next to my future pool.
The same was served for dinner that night as the night before, but with less salt. This night our homestead family fed us paste again, I was too full to eat. Its just this flour paste that you take in your fingers and dip in sauce and eat. Not a fan.
Sunday June 20th 2010
530 AM and we are heading down the mountain for the last time. We stop for the same breakfast we had at the crude IHOP. Lunch in Lome was at a great French café and then it was across the border again. We had to fight for a bus as they attempted to rip us off over and over again. He were flat out dishonest and thought they could just trick us into paying anything. That is one of the many things I do miss about America, honesty. People lie constantly here.
The trip back was not easy after that. I had to pee the entire time. We were stopped at every police check point and at one point were asked for our passports. My guess is she thought we would not have them and just wanted a bribe because they never ask for them here. And then the rain. The rain flooded a section of the road home and almost washed out the bridge. We had to be pushed through the flood of water that smelled of gasoline. It was such fast moving and deep water, very scary. But alas we made it.
