Obroni - our story from our stay in Ghana

Food of the week update

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 12:30:00 +0000

As promised, maybe not as fast as could be – I’m presenting new food of the week. This time something sweet, something 105% Ghanaian – made from Ghanaian cocoa, made by local company “Golden Tree” – Milk Chocolate!

When we came to Ghana I knew coca was growing here – since Ghana is, I think biggest exporter of cocoa products. I did not expect that taste of coca products will be such different from what we have in Poland and Europe. I liked polish sweets, but it turned out our ones are not made from purest cocoa – and here they are!

So when I first tried local chocolate I was surprised how good actually it was. Anyway check pictures to see how it looks – there are also different kinds – like black chocolate or fruit flavoured – I have not tried all.

So if you ever come to Ghana make sure you try it. It's available almost everywhere (including hawking).

From other things - it's only few days before we go back to Poland for our holidays! Will try to post something then - I have tons of material, but no time to write.

It's again getting hot here after rain season - but not that hot as it was in February/March. Generally it tourns out comming to Ghana in summer months is not good idea - weather is much better during winter season:) Recently it's been mostly cloudy and around 30 degrees.

See you all next time!

New stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 10:01:00 +0000

Another month has passed, where does this all time go? Anyway as usual there is plenty to write about, hard to decide what to write about first…

Let’s start from – news from Ghana:) – New Cedis have arrived. Yup – we have re-denomination of local currency. Since July 1^st banks introduce new currency (notes and coins) by exchanging old one to new.

With new currency we now have old 10 000 Cedis = 1 Ghana Cedi, 5000 Cedis = 50 Ghana Pesewas (Pesewas are new coins). New Cedis are smaller and somehow I find them better looking than old ones.

Anyway below you will find pictures of new notes and coins (so far I have only seen 1 Cedi note – see third picture).

“Value is the same” (name of the campaign under which new Cedis are being introduced):

BTW I figured out I have not posted pics of now old currency (I have some packed to give out to my friends) – I took pictures of all old notes:) and I’m posting them too!

What else – since we are here since beginning of February we decided to take short break from work – yes! Holidays are coming – from August 17^th till September 7^th we are resting in Poland!

Returning to recent events – weather lately is not that bad. We managed to adopt to temperatures and we hardly ever use air condition now (we kept only one fan – but this even local people use). Anyway rain season brought several heavy storms, which turned out to be, well not that friendly – below you will find pictures of how our courtyard looked like after one of this storms.

Many parts of Accra were flooded and several people have died. It’s worth mentioning that from what we heard and learned not many people here can swim! Way all is build here also does not help during such situations – many shops were simply carried away by water and goods were destroyed. I have read in newspaper article presenting comments of person responsible for city construction plans (development, etc.) complaining about lack of responsibility taken in building. In many occasions flood could be avoided if new buildings were constructed in proper way

Also as most of sewers system is open here (usually going along the roads with covers only by main streets and in town center) lots of filth got out… you could see many different things (mainly garbage) being carried by water…

Water did not only damage shops or warehouses, but also many, many houses – just to show you an example. By our wall there is small, what I would normally call shed – which we found out was a house, habited by family of 5-6 people (husband, wife, 3 kids and sometimes grandmother). They were lucky that during storm someone was inside to put more valuable stuff higher to prevent flooding.

I think that will be all for today. I have problem with site counter (one on the right sidebar) it’s not working like it should – if anyone knows good site with free counters plz leave me a comment. Anyway site has over 1000 visitors so far – thank you all who came here to read what I write! I hope you enjoyed it.

What’s coming new? For sure new food of the week, than I have 2 big reports to write for you – one from opening of chop bar we’ve been invited too, second from our trip to Kakum National Park and Elumina where we saw old fort and learned about slave trading.

See you next time!

Meet Meat Pie!

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:55:00 +0000

By popular demand...

I'm presenting new Food of The Week!!! :)

Everyone - meet Meat Pie!

Some of you already read about it in one of previous notes (about Fan Ice), where I wrote that you can buy it along with Fan Ice - from Fan Milk seller.

What is Meat Pie one can ask? Well it's made of extremely dry pie with “surprise” inside (by dry I mean I can’t eat it alone without drinking). Surprise can be: unidentified meat, onion (as on the picture), sausage (than its called sausage roll). It’s worth mentioning that usually you don’t know what you get inside - you discover it while eating (exception is sausage where you can tell by the look). Another important thing is that each meat pie consists about 95 to 99% and 1% of filling ;P Honestly I don’t know why they call it meat pie, when sometimes you can’t find anything inside… On the other hand what do you expect for 2000 Cedis:D

Below pictures of our new celebrity:

This one came in plastic bag, but it can also come wrapped in paper (newspaper being specific)

PS. New food of the week is ready too, but I will let you enjoy this one for a while!

What to write about?

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Tue, 29 May 2007 17:36:00 +0000

I was thinking about it for a while now. More and more things happen – many worth mentioning. Easiest way (I suppose) will be to start from…

Electricity problem in Ghana.

It’s on everyone mouth. “Light off” you can hear in radio, read in newspaper, talk with other people. Considering recent events I will use word – crisis – to describe situation here.

Only last week we did not have lights (at all) for straight 4 days. Rarely they bring lights back for straight 24 hours. Many parts of town suffer same thing, plus, situation is same in whole country.

In the meantime Ghana has biggest power supply crisis ever:

- looks like Ghana is still selling electricity to nearby countries (insane situation);

- government best idea so far is to bring 5 mln energy saving light bulbs! (no comment), same time they desperately bring back old ideas of building new power plants (who could suspect situation could turn out this way)

- existing power plans, generators, lines are OLD and tend to break down on frequent basis

- there are rumors telling that if you pay your lights won’t be cut off (want lights for wedding or funeral – just pay)…

- there are no signs of improving situation earlier than by end of this year (short term activities) and in next 5 years – great isn’t it?

- each time lights go off I call power plant asking what happened and when they expect to fix the problem – I must say every time I call I get different answer (that’s true art of lies), you simply can’t believe any word they will tell you.

Same time many small enterprises have gone bankrupt, prices of certain products have risen – this does not look good for economy…

Anyway how this situation affects us? Personally I feel helpless; lack of lights means no air condition, no internet, no power to charge my cell phone. My work is much harder atm. We get used to sleeping without air condition but it’s not always easy (thx for beginning of rain season – it’s much more cooler outside in general). Also when we are done with our work, there is not much we can do. If we have some power left – we watch some movies on our laptops… but imagine situation when there is no power in 2 laptops, palmtop, ipod and camera – sux isn’t it? And yeah I’m addicted to electronic devices!

What Ghana people do when lights are off? Generally I admire their patience. Although recently in radio voices raise that people should go and protest in streets, if situation won’t improve I can’t say what will happen – I suspect not nice things for sure.

Side note: about power supply problems and other Ghana issues you can read through 3^rd link I have just added on sideboard. This site is one I use to get some inside Ghana information.

Side note2: more notes incoming –as promised.

Ok enough complaining – I have good news too – today we finally got power generator – so now we have lights whenever we want. **** mr. Power Plant I say

Isn't it beautiful?

Changes, changes:)

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Mon, 28 May 2007 22:28:00 +0000

Recently we have almost constant problems with electricity, well whole Ghana has:)

I have tons of new materials I want to post, but lack of time mixed with lack of light when I want to use my laptop is not helping;/

Hopefully by end of this week I will manage to update everything - cross your fingers!

New house and stuff;P

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:13:00 +0000

We finally changed our place of stay – and now it’s more than a month we are living in new place. New house is located about 10 minutes by car from our old one, but same time, length of our trip to town center is much faster – I would say, approx 30 minutes.

Anyway here is surprise for those of you who know and use google earth. You can find our home on their maps – pictures let you see, in good quality from about 500m, so it’s not bad. Big part of Accra has really good pictures in google earth - it's worth checking them out:) I will add some nice places from time to time so you can see them on google earth too.

Here are coordinates of our place:

Latitude: 5°38'47.92"N
Longitude: 0°14'1.15"W

You can easily find this place by adding new placemark (ctrl+shift+p) in google earth.

Side note: placemark will point on house with red roof. I’m getting coordinates from my GPS so I have no reason to think they are not accurate, but on the map I think our house is one next to “red roof” one – it’s house with dark roof. I can’t tell why there is such difference – I will try to get on our roof with laptop and check everything with mine own eyes.

Coordinates for our old house are:

Latitude: 5°39'22.66"N
Longitude: 0°14'44.80"W

But you will see that they take you to part of map where pictures are in much worse quality, making it impossible to see anything actually worth seeing.

Now something about the house. It’s smaller than the old one. It has 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 2 big halls and kitchen with small room for storage. It was recently renovated and being ones we are both quite pleased about it. It has two strong “features” old house did not have:

Solid mosquito nets in windows – haven’t seen mosquito inside our room since we moved in.
House has connection to water system – which means no more salty water from well, but sweet water whenever we want (yeah I wish – we had to buy polytank to store water for moments when pipes are dry as desert, which happens more often than we would like to)

Naturally there are some flaws of this place too. Just to name few: there are two churches located near our house – it’s sometimes hard to sleep when they are still doing something there abound midnight or even later! Two plots next to us are not leveled and after rain we have small lakes of water there, which gather tons of mosquitoes and other bugs, making it impossible to stay out in the evening. Finally there is nowhere near, small, cute shop where I could buy my beer (comforting comments appreciated).

Side note: another unpleasant thing, this time sponsored by Ghana government are power shortages. This means each 2 days we don’t have electricity – one time during day, other time during night (earlier it was once 3 days, than each 5 to end up once each 2 days). That’s really frustrating, I personally try my best to get used to it, but fail each time I have to sleep without air condition, or sit at home without possibility to use my laptop as long as I want.

This power shortage is caused by lack of power plants in Ghana, but that’s a long story to explain and I’m not sure I see whole picture behind this issue. So I will just stick to my naïve: “FIX DAMN POWER PLANTS”.

Below some pictures of our new house and surroundings:

View from the front and back.

1st hall

2nd hall and kitchen:)

Left and right side - view from the roof. On the right picture you can see part of polytank.

Closing this note I would like to say we again have malaria parasites in our blood – but that’s just boring so I won’t write more about it;P
Also next note is going to describe opening of chop bar we have been invited to. Expect nice pics, short movies and lots of real Ghana stuff:)
Till next time.

Short update

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:27:00 +0000

We are still somehow trying to set up everything after change of house:) So no big updates so far (although I have made some pics already:) ).

Anyway I have just added Guest Book for everyone visiting my site:)

Feel free to sign in!

Rain season & new stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 17:32:00 +0000

Rain season has started. Yesterday we had biggest storm we saw here in Africa. It lasted several hours and caused big damage to the city. Several parts of Accra were flooded (remember how many trash are here everywhere and open sewers?), water destroyed many shops and warehouses. I found link to article about yesterdays’ rain storm:

Accra flooded article!

Anyway storm had direct influence on us, since it damaged power line and electricity was cut off for about 24h;/ (which sux – we really need to buy power generator). Not telling storm caused only bad things I have to say it did some good too.

First of all it helped with water shortage problem (we are after long and really hot dry season), even our well was short on water recently – which made us save it hard. To give you the picture our well is over 6 meters deep and recently there was only really little water at very bottom of it. Having in mind that many households in Ghana don’t have access to water and must buy it, it is really hard time for everyone.

Another good thing is rain cleaned everything. Now streets, houses, plants are cleaner – red dust getting on everything every day is gone for few days, plants are green again – they even started growing rapidly.

Below I’m posting 2 pictures:

On the left one you can see how green everything got after one rain! Right one shows our well - we have already pumped most of water to our water tower which provides whole house with water. Thanks to rain we will have water for at least 4-5 days, not for part of 1 like for last week;/

Let’s move on – our puppies are getting bigger (we kept 2 of 6 we had) – I don’t have to write how cheerful and happy creatures they are, so here I’m presenting for the first time Mars and JJ (Jupiter Junior – he’s almost like his father was, that’s why we gave him this name).

One the left one - Mr. Mars, Mr. JJ on the right one.

We’re still fighting with malaria – I’m thinking about introducing some table on this blog showing our current number of parasites in blood;) – Long story short Ana’s ok atm, I have malaria parasites again.

Finally last but not least – new feature on my blog. Short movies! Recently I remembered my photo camera can make them, so I decided (after learning how to compress them to avi) to present some movies here for you to enjoy Ghana and Africa even more!

If you find quality to low – tell me plz I will try to use smaller compression, I also cut the sound off to cut the size of files (I have crappy upload here so don’t blame me for doing that). Nothing more to add – enjoy and till next note.

PS. I will add my movies gallery to links on side bar – just have to decide how to make it even more sexy – so stay tuned. BTW if anyone knows how to set up online camera and implement it to blog plz contact me – I have internet camera here which I would like to use somehow to improve this blog.

Ghana 50th anniversary & Malaria

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 12:20:00 +0000

Today we have big celebration here in Ghana. It’s been 50 years since Ghana got its independence. Everybody hail to Ghana! :)

Celebrations started few days ago and will probably last few more days (naturally whole year is special). Today we have big event on Independence Square (hopefully I know the right name) with many VIP’s present from Ghana, other Africa countries and over the world.

People here have really strong patriotic spirit since I heard yesterday people came to Independence Square and stayed there during night to get good spots to watch main celebrations. Whole town and I suppose Ghana is celebrating. For couple of weeks we were asked to buy patriotic items such as: flags (whatever size you want), armbands, necklaces,
T-shirts, hats, etc; all in Ghanaian national colors. They are mostly made in China, quality is rather poor, but price is low so almost everyone can buy something!

Anyway at the moment TV is broadcasting live celebration from Independence Square, VIP’s are giving speeches – all should last till late afternoon. Than I suppose people will be walking streets and dancing (we decided no to go and see it own eyes because of traffic jams and part of city being closed for car traffic) – Accra will be crowded place today and tomorrow (today and tomorrow are free days so everyone can celebrate).

Below two pictures which hopefully will bring you a little bit of Ghanaian Independence Spirit.

I have counted 4 such flags just on adjacent buildings, imagine how many are there in whole Accra;). Being nice person;) I bought one T-Shirt, counting on modern medicine I hope to live next 50 years and come back to Ghana for 100th anniversary and sell this T-Shirt for lots of money;P

Let’s move on to second part of today’s’ note – malaria.

We (me and Ana) have it for the second time (I don’t know if I wrote about first, which was in November, last year). First time was, so to say, easy. We had our blood tested – it turned out we had malaria parasites in our blood; we took medicines and after one week all was fine, we did not even feel bad at all!.

This time is different. We had our blood tested about two weeks ago and since them we can’t get rid of parasites. Also this time we are taking different medicines but so far they did not help. Next Friday we are going to test our blood again – so cross your fingers!

Anyway this time we feel much worse – I would say malaria is like flu, strong flu;/ I really would not recommend trying it out. At the moment we feel much better so maybe it’s over:) Like I said on Friday we will know.

Local people have born resistance to malaria which is mainly caused by mosquito bites. We as “obroni” (white people) have 0 resistance to it, so each mosquito bite can cause infection – sweet isn’t it? Also there is no 100% working medicine which cures malaria – so you usually take 2 kinds of medicines hoping they will work.

Side note: from personal experience I recommend taking blood tests each time one goes to Africa, it’s safer to cure it here, than back in Europe…

On the pictures you have medicines we are currently taking. They are both made in India.

Food of the week & chicken hunter & stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 18:20:00 +0000

Here we go with another sexy note^^ Time has come to announce new food of the week – this time something cold, icy cold, sweet and cheap! Ladies and gentlemen prepare yourself for FANICE!

FanIce is one of the products of Ghanaian company – as name says it’s an ice cream:) You can buy also other produscts such as FanChoco (Choco ice cream) or FanYogo (frozen yogurt). It’s available almost everywhere in Accra. Sellers can be found almost on every street – they always have funny trumpet (one clown has, at least that’s how it looks like to me) which makes sound which you can’t forget;) – so generally you hear FanMilk is coming before you see it (FanMilk is name of the company). They carry frozen products in portable fridges (they look like picnic fridge but I’m not sure it’s same thing). Generally when you buy it it’s not deep frozen but it’s not melted too;) One FanIce costs 2500 Cedis, it comes wrapped usually in piece of newspaper;) – you make small hole in it with you teeth and squeeze it into your mouth. Yummy!

Guys who sell them also have in their stock other nice thing – meat pie, but that’s one of Food of the week candidates so I won’t write more about them this time.

Picture on the left shows how typical seller of FanMilk products looks like, as you can see they carry their stock on small carts, sometimes bikes. I have seen several times "FanMilk depot" there were many of this carts or bikes parked there:) I guess company rents them to sellers.
Picture on the right - Mr. FanIce himself!

Picture below was taken when we were heading back home on the other day. Normally we just go by car and smoothly park on our plot, but that day road was blocked by number of ppl pushing on a small cart… well see it yourself. I will only say we had to move our car on someone’s plot to let them go… can’t write much more about it – picture tells everything:D

Chicken hunter man!

Chicken hunter is new, war name I came up with for our lady-dog Peace. All started with CH (Chicken hunter) watching our fence – or actually hole in it (water goes out to the street sewer through this hole) all day long (taking brakes to eat and feed puppies). We have been wondering what’s this all about – took us couple of days to find out.

It looks like not only small dogs were born recently, but also small chickens. This, already, not that small creatures did not expect the danger which hides behind our fence… one of them got inside and got eaten… Now CH awaits his second victim – so be aware!

On the pic: Chicken Hunter awaiting its prey, on the right chicken supplier hole.

PS. Last notes are not consisting information about Ghana. I will try to write more facts about Ghana in upcomming notes!

We’re back & Harmattan

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 18:29:00 +0000

Long story short – we’re back to Accra (we came back last weekend – 03.02). Christmas and our break from work were short but awesome! I wish we could’ve stayed longer in

Poland

. Anyway we left cold home and exchanged it to hot Africa (daily temperature is atm about 30 – 35 degrees).

Also we’re in the middle of Harmattan – period of year where you experience really warm (sometimes hot) and dry winds from over Sahara desert. Because of that we have tons of red dust flying around and covering everything. Streets are dirty, plants are dry and dirty, cars are dirty and our skin is getting extra dirty and dry really fast.

Here are some pictures of how things look like atm – enjoy:)

While we were absent 2 other things happened – one good and one bad;/

Remember Peace? Cute little doggy we have? Well she’s now proud dog – mother of 6 beautiful puppies. Bad news… is that their father Jupiter is dead:( While we were back home decision was made he has to be made hmm not able to have any more little dogs. They called pet doc… and he screwed his job… 2 or 3 days after surgery Jupi died. We will always remember him – not often one can meet such cheerful and friendly dog. I personally believed he was born to go and work in circus… now I can’t even take pictures what tricks he was able to do, including his main one – walking on two legs only!

Anyway here are pics of Jupi and his descendants.

Food of the week update!

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 20:41:00 +0000

So here we go again with brand, new, fresh, tasty and spicy food of the week^^. This note is brought to you by “Fried Yam” (some of you might recall from previous notes – Yam is kind of potato). So… enjoy!

Name: Fried Yam

Price: from 500 Cedis for one piece

Comes with: alone or with spicy paprika sauce (shito*)

*shito is name I learned recently – it’s a name of special kind of hot sauce made here in Ghana, they make it from: oil (palm usually), paprika, tomato and shrimps (dried&mixed).

You can buy Fired Yam almost everywhere on the streets of Accra/Ghana. Usually you can smell them from some distance since oil used for frying is used more than once;P In spots with Fried Yam you can often get Plantain too (Plantain is sweet, grilled banana with pea nuts, but since I don’t like them maybe Ana will take pic of them and write something about them too;P ).

As usually check Food of the Week gallery (there are 4 pics of fired yam there – 2 standard, made straight after purchase and 2 which present how we ate it – with corned beef and sardines).

Side notes:

In two days (on 14^th) we’re flying back home for Christmas, we will come back to Ghana by end of January 2007 – but don’t be afraid – I will make one or two notes basin on pictures I have taken during our stay here so far:) Anyway since I’m not sure if there will be one before Christmas – Merry Christmas to every1 and a Happy New Year too!

Public transportation and traffic.

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 19:49:00 +0000

Yes, public transportation exists here and I can even say it’s not that bad;). Being in capital of Ghana I have full picture how things look like when it comes to traveling. This note, hopefully, will bring you closer reality of passenger in Ghana.

I won’t mention in this note trains and planes. Trains I have only seen 2 while being here. They go to near towns, also from unchecked information I know that you can’t get to Kumasi or Tamala by train (1^st about 150km from Accra, second over 500km). Line is being built or repaired currently. Trains I saw are not electric I suppose these are oil fueled ones. They carried passengers only – haven’t seen cargo/goods ones. As about planes – what to write about them;) nothing interesting acctualy – maybe that you can get from Accra to Tamala by plane (about 40 minutes). Ok, let’s move to more interesting things: Tro-Tro and taxies.

Definition:

Taxi – any car with yellow plates and yellow marks (4 or more parts of car’s body are yellow) . Will often use horn at you asking if you need it, or make some strange gestures with one hand towards everyone looking for potential customer. Will use any possibility to pass you, including driving off road or making new short cuts while transporting passenger and will use turtle speed when looking for one.

Tro – Tro: small bus, usually made from any kind of mid – sized delivery car (like Mercedes Benz in example). Consist of driver and one more men who shouts directions where bus is going, collects money for tickets and fights for better place on the street (with similar gestures like taxi drivers). You can find Tro – Tro EVERYWHERE in Accra and Ghana.

Taxi/Bus stop: any place you are when you decide to ask taxi or tro-tro to stop.

Ok, being here almost three months I have learned a lot about traffic here in Ghana. I even started driving on my own recently (did it just couple on times, during weekends when traffic is not that heavy). Driving in Ghana requires, except driving license (which not every1 has), working horn and front lights. Horn you use to inform someone that you are overtaking him or when you are approaching turn on a road where you can see what’s behind it (this saved us couple of times from getting into nice car crash), also to make someone drive faster; to inform bikers that you are coming/passing and finally you horn on pedestrians walking on the street to prevent them from crossing or make them move to side (I bet this are not all ways of using horn but this I have learned from our driver Ben). Lights you use to tell someone you will let him go before you (so far that’s the only use I know of).

Driving here requires extreme caution since every moment you might have to press breaks when taxi or tro-tro or any other car decides he has enough space to get before you. Than someone might decide to stop right now and right there – believe me this happens here a lot. Also many cars here look really bad, I bet many, many of them should be in the junk yard for a long time. When seeing one of these you begin to think if it’s safe to approach it;/ Also drivers here tend to go as fast as they can whenever there is free road ahead. This all causes many accidents (I have seen quite a few personally).

So how about getting a taxi;) feel brave enough? Despite all I wrote above it’s not that bad, somehow ppl manage to get around Accra and other places in Ghana. Taxi drives and bus drivers are most experienced ones (taxis being safer in my opinion – buses take sometimes too many pplz which causes accidents too). Every moment while being on the street you have 95% of seeing taxi or bus or both. There are so many here! Feel interested – raise your hand – they will notice it and stop for sure. With taxi it’s simple – just say where you want to go, ask about price (always ask first, before deciding to go) – you can bargain about it too, and enjoy your ride. When it comes to tro-tro it’s more complicated. Each bus usually goes from one point to other – second person working on each bus will shout most of times direction where bus is going, so generally you will know if you can use this one, or just have to wait for another one. Mind that bus will sometimes stop and wait for more passengers on big junction and will stop any time there will be someone interested to get in or get out (yes you can ask driver to stop any moment and get out).

Is there anything else you might want to know, maybe prices? Bus is usually cheap – from 300-500 Cedis to maybe 5000 while talking about inside town distances (price depends on distance, getting to other town can be 20 000 or more), taxi costs more – be prepared for prices over 10 000 to maybe 30 000 Cedis (can be less I guess if you are trying to get somewhere close).

Side notes:

In Accra there is number of places where many busses end/start their routes, you can find there, I guess, hundreds of buses; same about taxi – they also park in several places while not going around, you can see many, many of them waiting for customers. During that time drivers eat, rest or fix their cars;) when there are enough clients they just go. Simple isn’t it?

Another interesting thing is that when car breaks it will stop whenever it is in that moment and stay there until fixed. Imagine how many traffic problem this can cause – and since like I wrote many cars here are old… such things happen really often.

Sometimes when you pay taxi driver first thing he will do is go to a gas station and get some fuel so he can take you where you wanted;)

Many buses or tro-tro have words of quotes on their back window – sometimes it’s just something like “respect”, other time it will be full quote from the Bible or Koran (when driver is Muslim).

New house search

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 21:37:00 +0000

Recently it turned out we will probably have to change house from February 2007. Because of that I started search of new house which we would be able to rent.

First of all I’m surprised how many houses “to let” are here in Accra. This not only means we will get something nice for good price, but also that we can choose from many possibilities.

What are we looking for? That was first question we had to answer. I think that 3 bedroom house on a big plot will be sufficient. Anyway being lazy person I started search for our new house in internet. First page I found was: www.businessghana.com Funny thing is I spotted address of this site on a sticker placed on a taxi’s bumper (actually I got several other useful addresses that way;) ).

After checking offers placed on this site it turned out that you can get nice house 3-bedroom house with big plot for somewhere between 300 – 400$ per month (it’s worth mentioning that in Ghana you have to pay in advance – usually for whole renting period, so whole 1, 2, 3 years or whatever long you feel you would like to rent particular house).

Houses come in different conditions. You can get just built one, with plain walls and no windows, normal – ready to move in home, or fully furniture manor;) Being curious person I checked also most expensive offers which go for lots of money!

Here are some links where you can check prices, read descriptions and watch photos (mind that 1$ = 9300 Cedi):

Hopefully this gives some picture of how things look like here:)

Here are some important things, to remember when renting house in Ghana:

Ask about water and electricity supply (remember well and water tank at our current place?)
Check condition of the road and sewers so you don’t get flooded by filth when rain will come.
If you are planning to get internet connection call first few providers asking for coverage in this area.

More or less that would be all – I will update you with pictures of houses we will check on our search for new house!

Ghana note 1

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 11:35:00 +0000

Since I’m busy with work and can’t spend enough time on writing nice new note, I decided to introduce “Ghana note”. What it will be? It’s simple, I will pick few facts, observations, opinions or anything other I find interesting and post it + I will add couple of pictures I took recently:)

So here it goes – Ghana note 1.

Last weekend we had time change – at least for most of countries in the world. Ghana does not have season time change. No matter what time of year sun rises around 6 am and goes down 6 pm. Why bother changing time? Anyway thanks to that there is now only 1 hour difference between Poland and Ghana!

Two weeks ago we did examination of our blood – it turned out we had malaria bacteria in our blood. Looks like it’s not a big deal here at all. We did not feel ill or something, also doc said it’s common for foreigners to get malaria from mosquitoes. He gave us pills which cleared our blood out of malaria bacteria in 4 days. Now we are again ready for new mosquito’s bites!

Third and last fact. Everywhere on the streets you can find ppl selling illegal dvd’s. They have latest movies as well as bigger collections (7 in 1 DVD) of classic movies – recently I have seen best of Al Pacino (just an example). What is interesting too, ppl here love martial arts action movies – Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan are most popular I guess;) You can buy movies with them almost from every movie seller!

Food of the week update

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 20:20:00 +0000

One more quick note:)

I have changed Food of the Week - no more hen gizzard! it's time for Stuffed Egg.

Description:
Boiled egg, cut in a half, stuffed with spicy paprica sauce with onions.

Price:
2000 Cedi

Tips: buy bag of water before you eat it!

I have also added gallery of Food of the Week - you can check all previous meals in large pics + large pic of current one.

Rain and Electricity

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Sat, 21 Oct 2006 20:01:00 +0000

Every one knows what rain is, also every one knows its meaning to nature and humans. Its meaning in Africa is even bigger. Here in Ghana rain falls only during rain seasons – there are two during each year – first around March/April and second around July/September (I don’t know exact dates since we are to short here to find out and while I’m writing this note there is no one I could ask;) ).

Why rain and electricity? Answer is simple. Ghana has (from what I know) only water plants – located on Volta Lake. So when water level goes down (in dry seasons for example) power supply is low. What does it mean? Well as a result of that once each 3 days we have no power for 12 hours. One time it’s from 6am till 6pm, other time it’s from 6pm till 6am. Since we don’t have power generator – this means no lights, no internet and no air condition;/ (good news for us is that we are already searching for proper power generator and hopefully we will get one soon, so no more problems with electricity!).

Side note: some ppl say that lack of power comes also from to high contracts Ghanaian government signed which obligates Ghana to provide fixed amount of power to its neighbors.

Anyway rains here in Africa are usually really strong and sudden. One moment sun is shining and than out of nothing you get clouds everywhere on the sky, rains follows shortly. It’s worth mentioning that when rain falls plants start to grow rapidly and everything looks much cleaner!

When we came to Ghana it was ending of rain season, till now it rains one or two times per week, but it’s much hotter than it was at the beginning (from 25-28 degrees to 30-35 now). Thanks to that I was able to take few pictures of how it looks when it’s raining here:)

Water

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 19:30:00 +0000

When we were coming to Africa I was not sure what to think about water here. Africa always was imagined in my mind as place where water is a problem, not only because of its lack, but also pollution and accessibility. Several things turned out to be quite different than I expected.

First of all water is still a big problem in Ghana – except biggest cities there are places where you have to walk couple of hours to closest source of fresh water. Than local sources are often polluted not only with garbage but many kinds of bacteria (which means running water can not be used to drink or clean teeth, at least by Obroni – white ppl;) ). Other problem with running water is that it’s often not available – many ppl install water tanks at their parcels and store water even when they have running water. Accra has pipes installed in most of its parts but they got broken often and there is no one who would care to fix them (we have pipes at our place too, but they don’t provide water for at least 10 months now). Because of that ppl developed different ways of managing water problem.

If you are not the lucky owner of running water;) you can do one of following things:

1. Pay quite a few money and dig a well at your parcel. We have such well at our place. It provides water which we can use for washing (except teeth), watering garden and cleaning – I think I wrote about that earlier too;). For drinking, cooking and brushing teeth we use mineral water we buy. Anyway many ppl gets well for themselves and buys poly-tanks to store water in case running water goes off or they don’t have running water at all.

I heard that some of the water you get from well can be polluted too – you can examine it at med center, but it costs a lot and they usually tell you that your water is not clean and offer you specifics that you can add to water to clean it naturally for additional amount of cash;).

2. There are many places here where you can buy water. Even on our street there is such place – they have 2 big water tanks and sell water. It’s hard for someone like to me to believe such things can exist in XXI century, but here they are… Anyway some ppl have to buy water because they don’t have any other source of it, sad but true.

There is one more thing worth mentioning about water here in Ghana. Everywhere: in shops, markets, streets you can buy water in plastic bags. Such bag consists 0,5 l of mineral water (one sold on the streets is always cold) – one bag costs 300-500 Cedi. Every one here uses them, they are sold everywhere and we got used to them quite fast. Now we drink mostly water from bags. There are many producers of water bags in Ghana – taste of water varies, most is ok, but I have encountered also awful ones;/

Side note: when buying bag of water, check if it has certificate of health ministry. It’s safe to buy and drink water bags with such certificate).

Side note2: naturally there are many kinds of bottled mineral water too, but who would bother buying them when we have water bags!

Certificate is this small mark in the top left corner of bag.

Food

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 17:28:00 +0000

Food in Ghana is really good. This simple sentence could describe what I and Ana think about food we eat here. Since I have tried different food during my stay in Finland, UK or Singapore I was generally not optimistic towards African food, but here we both were surprised. Our schedule is quite busy so we generally stick to two big meals (breakfast and dinner), sometimes when we are hungry in between we grab some snacks, which we usually buy in Tema. They come in different kinds and size but it’s always nice to explore local food (we usually buy snacks from wandering ladies caring them on their heads).

Since almost every week we encounter something new I’m introducing “Food of the week”. You find it on right sidebar (it will include photo of food, short description and price). I have already 3 proposals but let’s start from something nice, which I really enjoy. Hen gizzard-on-a-stick. As you can see it’s made from first cooked, than fired gizzards, with some onion and pepper, it’s really spicy and good! Gizzard-on-a-stick comes in quantity of 3 for 5000 Cedi, quite good deal I must admit.

Anyway back to topic. As I wrote we eat breakfast and dinner. Our first meal is mostly European like, so there is not much to write about. Many ppl here eat Kenke for breakfast, but we don’t like it, so we stay with our European one (Kenke is made from fermented corn, can’t tell exactly how it is made and what’s in it. For us it’s too sour). I think it’s worth mentioning that yellow cheese is quite expensive here and not popular I guess, same about smoked meats and meat other than chicken, goat and fish.

As for dinner, here we always eat local food. I won’t list or name all we eat (this will anyway sooner or later go to “Food of the week” section). I’ll write that local food consists mainly of rice or yam potatoes (Sometimes we also get boiled green bananas – they taste like normal potatoes and can’t be eaten raw) with different kind of spicy sauce with smashed vegetables and meat or fish in it. Generally if you like spicy food – Ghana is the place. Be ready for lots of bones or fish bones in your meal (this includes fish head and flippers).

What do we drink? Besides tea or coffee we drink here cocoa (Ghana is, one of the biggest exporters of cocoa in the world); cocoa is a bit different here – maybe because it’s 100% cocoa in cocoa (I’ve been told that in other places they mix it wit some stuff). Anyway it’s really good and worth trying. There is also instant drink based on cocoa – it’s called Milo, also nice and tasty. Add to this fruit juice (all exotic favours) and water.

Since I’m a predator I don’t eat fruits, I only stick to juices;). On the other hand Ana loves fruits here and eats lots of them (this includes oranges, bananas, water melons, etc.). You can see how different oranges look here in Ghana. I assure you they are better in taste than what you can buy in Poland (at least that’s what Ana says).

Ok as usual enjoy pics:) I’ll try to put descriptions to them so you can see what’s what. Stay tuned for incoming notes – I plan to write about water, rain and electricity.

That's fufu - national meal of Ghana:) (made from maniok and green bananas, with spicy soup with chicken/goat/gizzard meat inside)
YOU EAT IT WITH YOUR HANDS! NO FORKS OR SPOONS FOLKS!

Here we have starting from left - maniok, kenke and green bananas (when you enlarge pic you will see my cool paint markers), than oranges and on the right yam potato.

Tema

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 20:44:00 +0000

Tema is main harbor of Ghana. It’s located about 30km from Accra and there are two main roads leading to it. Old one – near ocean’s coast is a bit longer and more crowded (will explain that later) and new one – motorway, fast and nice;).

We usually use motorway, which is paid road too (500 CEDI for going one way). It’s in good conditions and has two lines for each direction. While using motorway it takes us about 15 minutes to get to Tema (speed limit is 100 km/h but whoever can ride fasted does so). There isn’t much to watch while on motorway too – mainly fields pass by the car windows. Somewhere in the middle of distance there is small bridge which quite often causes over packed trucks to unload part of cargo and carry it under it, than pack again (drivers tend to take much more cargo than their cars were designed too).

Old way is much more interesting from sight seeing point of view. Unfortunately it’s much more crowded too, that’s why we have used it only 2 times so far. Why is it crowded? Main reason I guess is not paying 500 CEDI, second 99,9% of bus traffic to and back from Tema goes that way. Buses are mainly old Transits or similar cars. They go rather slowly and stop often to pick up ppl.

Anyway back to Tema. Here all main “water traffic” focuses. Ships from whole world come and bring their cargos which is later sold in whole Ghana (one of this persons selling ship’s cargo would be me:) ). As a result of all this Tema is full of warehouses, cold – storage facilities and other storing buildings. There are also many custom offices which handle all formal activities connected with receiving ones cargo. Add to this: banks, places where you can eat and more or less you will have picture of Tema. Also as everywhere in Ghana you will find there endless number of street sellers. Huge part of traffic in Tema are trucks – many of them just park around in lines waiting to be hired.

Two main places we visit in Tema are customs office and cold – storage where we keep our goods and sell them to customers. I will tell you now a bit how trade looks like here in Ghana.

Each storage has certain number of persons working in it, but also there are several ppl who sit there every day calling potential customers and selling goods to them for a small cut (they usually add 1-3 thousands CEDI to final price).

While in Tema you can find, I guess, merchants from all over the world. So far we have met traders from other towns of Ghana, nearby countries (Togo, Ivory Coast, etc.), or not so close countries like Lebanon, China and many other.

Side notes: some areas of Tema are restricted and i.e. taxi car can't enter them or must pay certain fee, same about trucks. There is also fish market located in harbor - if you need fresh fish that's the place (we bought few things there - shrimps and fish, but they offered us also squid or calmary). Certain areas of harbor carry smell of the fish - really intese one;) so be prepared;)

And here are the pictures:

Inside home

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Sun, 24 Sep 2006 13:46:00 +0000

As promised – we’re moving inside our home.

Before I will post pics I will try to tell more about housing in Accra. Basically you can divide it into three categories (all made by myself basing on my observations): modern, middle class and common.

Modern. This category includes typical buildings seen in modern cities – there are not many high buildings in Accra, but you can see office buildings and other, tall facilities being build everywhere. I would also add to this category high class villas – I guess they have to belong to most rich pplz in Accra.

Middle class – this would include our place. Not the biggest I saw, comfortable, spacious with everything man would need to live;). You can see them almost everywhere in Accra. Bigger, smaller, but as long as they are fenced (remember spikes on the walls?) I will include them to middle class. Middle class houses tend to be kind of show off for other ppl. This means I would build as big house as I can afford. Afford does not mean I have money for it. Everywhere you will find half finished buildings without roofs, windows or not even all walls. Anyway I find those finished ones really nice. They always have nice plants in the garden and generally I could use one of this as my own;). It’s also worth mentioning that many ppl have several of those and just rent them (side note: usually you have to pay for whole year to rent such house, I prices wary, but you can estimate that good placed one can be 300-500$ per month).

Common. I don’t know if word common is ok, but can’t find better one. This category includes all kinds of small houses made from wood, clay, bricks or any other materials but usually including only one or two rooms. Include also rentable houses of flats to this category. Such places can have common bathroom and only one place with running water. This kind of places can be found anywhere in Accra and I suppose all over

Ghana

I have been to 2 hotels too. This are extremely expensive places – 200 to over 500$ person/night. They have complexes of pools and really high quality equipment. Side note: you can buy ticket for whole day (about 100 000 CEDI) and use pools.

Anyway let’s see what’s inside our home:) Hope you will enjoy pics. I’m not including pics of our rooms – they still need more furniture, so when we will get them I will post pics. Few more information: all windows are protected with mosquito screens, furniture seen on pic with TV is made from bamboo, while big table is made from solid wood; roof above garden-inside-house has mosquito screen too. I will post later pics how things look like when it's raining.

Our home

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 18:08:00 +0000

Our home in Accra is located in Dome Village, quite nice and peaceful neighborhood. Only problem is that it’s located in the outskirts – so we have to drive for a while to get anywhere, and Accra is full of traffic jams (mostly in the morning and after 5pm till 9pm). If you have bad luck it can take almost hour to get to the town center.

Anyway back to home;) I have to admit it’s huge. It has approx. 10 rooms, 5 bathrooms, kitchen and 2 large living rooms (I will provide pictures of inside later) and garage. It’s worth mentioning that all bedrooms have air conditioners installed so we can hide from the heat there. It’s not that hot yet, but staying outside when temperature passes 30 degrees C is tiring (especially when you are working).

Neighborhood. Road which leads to our home have no name. Only streets in the center of town have names. Our home has no number either;) so it’s rather hard to explain how to get to our place;) Anyway just on the corner we have grocery shop (next to Sky Blue Air-Conditioners), on the opposite is large villa – family which lives there deals with water (they pack water in small plastic bags which you can buy everywhere here). I don’t know who lives on the left and right;) – just normal pplz I guess. Behind our home there is small banana plantation (this are green bananas which are only good when you cook them).

Another important part of our “home” are two cats and two dogs. Dogs are still puppies (about 5 month old), their names are: Peace (girl) and Jupiter (boy). Cats don’t have names and are quite wild – won’t let them touch you or pet them, only moment when you can touch them is when you bring some food. Dogs were scared of us at first too, but after several “we bring food” events we bought their trust and love:).

We have also own water tank (quite popular in Ghana since running water is not available everywhere) and well. Only problem is that water is a bit salty, so we use mineral water to cook, drink and brush teeth;).

Last but not least – fence. Most fences in Ghana have metal spikes, broken glass or barbed wire on it (I saw one electric fence too!). It all looks rather scary. Reason of that is to protect from burglars – few years ago there were many accidents of house robbery caused mainly by Nigerian coming to Ghana (dunno why and what for – anyway it’s common here that you don’t like ppl from Nigeria here. They are believed to be cheaters).

That would be all for today:) here are pics of things I mention in this note. Stay tuned for “inside of our house” note.

Cats on the left, dogs on the right;) (Jupiter is the black one).

Airport

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 19:09:00 +0000

Accra’s airport is called Kotoka. All main plane traffic in

Ghana

goes through this airport. I believe there is also airport in Kumasa, but can’t confirm it 100% atm.

We arrived to Accra late evening (around 11pm), I was too tired and excited to take any pictures of this place (now I doubt they would let me do so – it’s forbidden to take pictures of government buildings and facilities).

Kotoka airport is rather big one. Observing air traffic here in Accra I would even say its capacity is not fully used. Keeping in mind size of our “biggest” polish airport I’m glad they made it so big – less problems in the future. Airport itself it’s located about 40 minutes from center of Accra - good, new roads everywhere near it, so without traffic jams driving to the airport and from airport is rather nice and easy;). All main airlines fly to Accra, plus I have seen couple African airlines too.

If you are arriving or leaving from Ghana you will have to fill sort of registration form (only for non Ghana pplz I believe). It consists main information about you, place of stay in Accra (quite funny cuz you can provide only P.O. Box), also visa is required to come to Ghana (about 200 euros), yellow fever vaccine is obligatory too.

Anyway here is picture I made while passing Kotoka airport (yes it’s from inside of car) – you can see airport building in the distance:

Start

noreply@blogger.com (Marcin) — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 18:43:00 +0000

Hello every1.

My name is Marcin, I'm currently in Accra, Ghana - working for import/export company from Poland. I and my wife moved to Accra on 1st of September and plan to stay here for some time. At the moment we live in Dome Village, which is rather not center of Accra, but we find it nice place:)

I hope to use this place as storage of my observations of living in Ghana. I will try to update it frequently and publish things which I found interesting.

I'm not native english speaker so expect sometimes mistakes, spelling errors or any other kind of mistakes - as I will usually write after many hours of working - hopefully this won't happen often:)

since it's already almost 10pm here in Ghana - and sunset was around 6.30 pm I'm already sleepy because of dark. So hopefully see you soon - I will try to update asap.