A weekend in Ghana and life in Lome

I am not in this picture but it shows several staff members playing at the soccer game.  I also played and didn't do anything awful.  I actually ran around in the hot sun for quite a bit longer than I would have thought I could.  We lost 2-5 but the really amazing thing for me was watching my co-workers - they showed an incredible amount of skill and drive for a bunch of office workers!  They must play on the weekends or something.

I went to Ghana in my car with Susan (at far left) to visit Laura (nearer left) who used to work in Togo but is now posted in Ghana for 2 months. We left Friday afternoon and only managed to get through the formalities at the border by 3pm.  It was supposedly a 3 hour trip but it took us 7.  We got severely lost close to Accra (the large city which is the capital of Ghana) such that we actually ended up west of the city without ever realizing we had gone by it.  I have no idea how that happened but it was dark and we got stuck on some road under construction in amazingly bad traffic.  We had heard that the traffic was bad in Accra so we thought we must be in the right place.  Eventually we figured out where we were (we asked at gas stations mostly and mostly got the right answer) and after maybe another hour finally got to our destination.  We went out that night for dinner to Frankie's which replicates the menu of a typical diner - I had a burger which was the best I've had since I came to Africa (I can't recommend them in Togo at all) and fabulous french fries which you can also get in Togo.  It came with coleslaw that seemed extremely heavy on the mayo so I skipped it.

Ghana is a favorite destination of the volunteers I have to assume because it has all the comforts of home.  The streets are paved.  The buildings look like those you would see in any spread out city.  There are a lot of townhouse type developments.  The highlights are there's a mall with a movie theater (but not great movies) and a food court and there are many quite good restaurants with all kinds of food.  It's like a little taste of the US and a break from the hardships of Togo which I realized, while I was in Accra, are many.  On the other hand, I'm glad I wasn't posted in Accra or I wouldn't appreciate that West Africa is quite different from the US.  There isn't a whole lot to do in Accra - we went shopping and I bought a shawl and some fabric and walked around although the distances are far there so you can't really get around that way too well.  On Sunday (Easter), I convinced my friends to go to a botanical garden (the picture above) in the the mountains north of Accra  - about 23 km away but, of course, it took 2 hours to get there due to the roads we ended up on which were paved but with tremendous potholes like in Togo.  Most of these roads would be much improved by being only dirt which they probably will be one day since I doubt the potholes will be fixed.  The botanical garden and the little town it was in were very nice and we had a delicious lunch there of red red - a bean dish made with palm oil and served with fried plantains and moist chicken that was not tough (for a change).  I also had some gelato (coffee and chocolate) back in Accra that night which was terrific.  Our trip back to Togo the next day included a stop at the beach below.  You couldn't really swim there - it was rocky and there was a tremendous undertow which is common on the beaches around here - but the water was a wonderful temperature for wading before our car trip back to Togo (only 4 hours in that direction).

So my sister has asked me some specific questions which I will address here in case they're of general interest.  They mostly relate to my life here - what is typical.  I get up Monday through Thursday at about 5:30 am so that I can take a little walk before work before it gets too hot (can't do it at lunchtime) or I'm too tired (after work).  So I listen to my MP3 player (either music or stuff I've downloaded like NPR's Selected Shorts) and do a little walk around my neighborhood.  By the time I get back, I'm hot and sweaty (just from the still air and the humidity) so I have to give myself at least a half hour before I take a shower or it won't "take" (Seinfeld reference).  I eat breakfast which is coffee, fruit (mango, pineapple or banana) and a muffin (I made some date ones and froze them) or a cinnamon roll (my cook makes) or, right now, I have bagels (I think my cook made them but I'm not sure) - they're decent.  I read or I listen to French language news which I eat breakfast.  I make my lunch - usually leftovers but sometimes I made a sardine sandwich and go to work - a five minute walk (fabulous!). 

My work hours are insanely long - we start at 7:30am and go till 5pm (though lots of people stay later - I have no idea why) Monday through Thursday.  Friday is a half day - we leave at 12:30 (though lots of people stay later then too - go figure).  I never go out for lunch - it's just too hot.  I go home and, unless I'm doing something that night (not usually), I eat dinner and watch TV or read.  I go to bed pretty early cause I get up so early.  It's a decent, tolerable routine.  On weekends I sleep later and go swimming in the late afternoon when, again, it's not so hot.

Mah jongg has taken off - I have 4 people I play with.  Sometimes we play 3 handed but usually there are 4.  We don't really have a set day - we usually play one weekend afternoon and sometimes a weeknight but that has to be at another house because I don't have consistent electric service in the evening - lots of brownouts that make mah jongg impossible.  The bookgroup was meeting once a month but had sort of a breakdown in April so we're going to meet next week.  It's not really about the books - it's more of a cocktail/snack hour followed by chit chat about what we've read.  I do most of my reading on a Kindle but I read a hard copy of something every month so I can share a book which is the idea.  You can't get English language books here but of course you can order on Amazon.  The international dining group is also on some kind of hiatus which, frankly, is okay with me - the restaurants here are nothing special and you kind of get stuck with whomever you are sitting next to.  Good local food - an oxymoron as far as I can gather so far.  The best things I've had are pizza (made with a thin crust in a woodburning oven) and falafel - both imports.  The Togolese like to eat starchy things like foufou (mashed up manioc or yams), rice or pate (a cornmeal thick porridge) with sauces of various kinds - only the sauces have any flavor and the ones I've had have been remarkably oily if tasty.  I just keep thinking that what I'm eating has zero nutritional value.  And yet the Togolese are very healthy looking overall - lean and muscular by and large. 

My cook makes lots of different things - a lot of vegetable melanges, rice based dishes with vegetables, chicken, fish (too many bones - not my favorite), quesadillas (with a swiss cheese inside), pizza (also with swiss cheese).  I believe he studied cooking in Ghana where there are many different kinds of cuisine.  I know he prides himself on making western type foods so he hasn't made me anything Togolese per se but then I don't have a real hankering for that kind of food.. He also is a baker - bread, cookies, biscotti, mango and apple pies.  I actually am amazed that I have lost some weight since coming here - there are no processed foods to speak of and no junk food of the type I can't resist (chips) so maybe that's helping. 

The French is not going all that well - I'm tongue tied although I can often understand a lot.  At other times, I can't understand it at all.  The local language here is Ewe and I feel like there's a lot of going back and forth between that and French so I'm not feeling too bad about it.  My teacher hasn't been available lately and she's my main practice partner so it is what it is.

I had an interesting chat with my fellow PCMO today.  We have 4 beds here in the Health Unit for volunteers to stay when they are too sick to stay at their sites and a cook/housekeeper who sometimes cooks for the volunteers when they are staying here if they are too sick to go out and get their own food.  On the weekends this requires her to work overtime which is exhausting for her and expensive.  So I've been saying to Aurelia (the other PCMO) that we should stock canned soups or frozen foods for the weekends so that Rose, the cook, doesn't have to come in.  We've actually had this conversation a few times.  It was only today that Aurelia said I would have to talk to Rose about this because this concept is foreign to the Togolese.  They only eat food made fresh each time!  She said she would have no idea how to freeze food or how long it would keep.  Imagine!  So I'll be in charge of the dietary department here from now on.

Playing games

As requested by my brother I finally attended a soccer game (le futbal) played in a village between two school teams.  It was 2 lycees which are comparable to high schools but the students range in age from 15 to well into their twenties.  I guess there's no social promotion here.  The game was arranged by some volunteers and was actually a pretext to promote the use of the moringa tree which is a fast growing tree many parts of which can be used to suppliment the diet which in many parts of Togo consists of little but refined starches.  In the picture below the woman at the left is holding a branch of the moringa tree.  The easiest way to use it is to dry the leaves and then pound them into a powder and add it to a sauce (which is put on the rice, cornmeal and yams that are dietary staples).  Moringa is very high in many vitamins, protein and calcium.  It's pretty much a miracle food for a place like Togo.  I haven't had it myself but I hear it doesn't taste bad and that added to a sauce you hardly know it's there.  So before the game and at half time, a verbal presentation was given in Ewe (the local language) and French on the benefits of moringa to bunches of mostly small children as in the bottom picture. 

These children were standing right in front of me and didn't seem to be paying much attention but I guess you never know what is getting through to people at a presentation like this.

Today, in honor of the Peace Corps's 50th anniversary, the female volunteers and staff members (yes, me too) are playing a soccer game against the English department female students at the University of Lome.  A number of the volunteers have played soccer either in high school and college so we might have a chance against English students!  There will only be one staff member on the field at a time and we don't have to play longer than 5 minutes which is good cause the game is at 3pm and it's going to be hot as usual.

I finally got my car yesterday and actually drove in Lome.  It wasn't as scary as I've been imagining even on a Friday when there tends to be quite a bit of traffic.  I picked up the car at the embassy and drove immediately to the supermarket so I could get some things that need refrigeration like ice cream and butter.  I always forget that everything is closed between about 12 and 3 and I got there at 2 so I had to go back later.  The Super Ramco is the biggest supermarket in Lome but I'm always surprised by what isn't there.  One week you can find something and then you'll never see it again so you need to stock up when you find things you think you might want.  Yesterday there were no eggs.  I can easily get eggs in my neighborhood but I found the lack quite surprising.  They also didn't have the roasted peanuts that are ubiquitous here as a snack.  And they had no Ben and Jerry's vanilla (though they had a bunch of other flavors for $7 + bucks a pop).  I wanted vanilla because my cook made me a delicious apple tart which is actually fine without ice cream but old habits die hard, I guess.  My cook convinced me to buy an ice cream maker which I agreed to do because ice cream is really expensive here (even the less fancy brands) and it's so hot that ice cream just seems like something you must have.  He hasn't used it yet though I guess because I already have a dessert in the house (the tart!).

So one last observation about Lome and maybe this is generally true everywhere but here there is always something not working.  This week my computer didn't work on several days.  When it finally got fixed on Wednesday my office air conditioning was out for 24 hours (it was my first extended experience here without A/C and actually it wasn't so bad since I started the day without it.  I could only open one window though because the ceiling of the balcony outside the other window was being painted and the smell was awful.  I was also a little worried that my lizard friend would get confused and come in the window but that didn't happen).  I was so happy that my A/C got fixed yesterday AND I found out that I could get my car.  I thought everything was finally running smoothly but when I got home with my car I found out that there is a padlock on the gate for the driveway and no one seems to know where the key is so I had to park at the office a few blocks away.  When I got home from the office I discovered that suddenly my TV wasn't working.  Electronic things make me very apprehensive but I pushed every button I could find till I finally got it to work.  Later, when I went to the kitchen to wash my dishes, there was no water (an ongoing problem in this area).  I still have no water today.  I came into the office this morning to find that I had locked the key to the padlock on the outer gate of the office IN the office.  Nice!  I couldn't find anyone to help me so eventually I just took a paperclip to the lock and popped it!  Now I'm going to go home and work on the one that's locking my driveway.  Although I have found people here to be very helpful I'm also becoming a bit more resourceful than I've been before.