Ghana Day 1 and 2

Saturday, July 2nd -- After I finished writing yesterday's livejournal entry [yesterday's yesterday as of when I'm posting this, I had no internet yesterday], sitting at a table next to the hotel pool, I went to the hotel front desk to exchange US$50 to the Ghanaian currency ("cedes" apparently). Despite that the official exchange rate is pretty close to 8 cedes to the dollar, I was informed they would exchange them at 7.2 to the dollar. Which wasn't very appealing but I didn't feel like hunting around town to exchange money at a better rate. Then the front desk fellow, whose name was something a bit silly like Lordly, said that he didn't have a ten so he'd give me 350 and owe me the ten ... which I sighed and accepted, after all it's just a dollar thirty nine. And needless to say I never saw him again.

   I returned to my room and succumbed to the urge to take a nap. Conventional wisdom is that the best way to get over jetlag is to power through your sleepy daytime and only go to sleep when it's an appropriate local time -- however, having been in transit for over 24 hours (counting the four hours I spent in the Melbourne airport before departure, because surely I wasn't at my leisure at that time), I was fairly exhausted. Though I tried to tell myself I spent much of that time essentially somewhere near asleepness on the plane so it would be lazy to just sleep more after have been semi-asleep for nearly 24 hours ... but semi-asleep, as it turns out, is no substitute at all for actually asleep, and long story short, I slept away the entire afternoon.

   Just around 10pm when I was thinking of changing into my pajamas and going to bed for real, my colleague from Germany called to say he'd just arrived and would I like to join him for a beer? So I did and we sat by the pool drinking beer (the Ghanaian "Club" beer) and talking till around 1:45am. Then he tried to exchange some money at the front desk but they informed him they didn't have any cede to give him. And then we tried to go up to our rooms but found neither of our keys was working now for some reason and had to return to the front desk and have them come up with us and let us into our rooms.

Sunday, July 3rd -- I paid for my room (700 cedes) on my debit card, thinking it would go through for the exact amount minus a negligible bank-instigated currency exchange fee -- but when I looked at the receipt I saw they had rung it up as "100 USD" ... once again using their own 7:1 exchange rate, such sauce! And then I paid for my dinner and beers I had charged to my room with a 100 cede note for the 85 cede bill and they gave me 10 cede change because they "didn't have another five." Such sauce.
   Though despite their skill at nickle-and-diming me to death on exchanges the hotel was pretty nice, considering.

   Arne and I proceeded to the airport to catch our flight to the northern town of Tamale. Looking out the terminal windows at the tarmac I noted what looked like a small passenger plane with "Nigerian Air Force" written on the side.. as well as two UN aircraft.
   Flight was an hour and a half in a small turboprop. Talked a bit with the young woman in the seat beside me, and then, apparently overhearing this, as we disembarked the man in a business suit from the seat in front of me said to me "what's an Aussie doing here in Tamale, Ghana??"
   He was a friendly fellow, and the young woman (Margot) also continued to talk with Arne and I in the baggage claim and walked with us out of the (very small) airport terminal and helped us find a (very small) restaurant by the parking lot where we would wait our in-country colleague. Altogether people are very friendly here.
   By very small restaurant I mean basically a kiosk but there was a table and chairs. The sign declared it the "Airport View Hotel" which was very literally true since it was level with and directly adjacent to the tarmac, which isn't really the most majestic view and very loud when an aircraft was there but there was only an aircraft about once every two hours.

   That was around maybe 2:00 when we arrived there. Around 4:00 two crew-cab pick-ups arrived and six young men disembarked, it was our local contact Courage and his staff. They took us aboard and we proceeded about an hour north along a mostly very straight two lane highway. The land around looked very flat, and was mostly cultivated in small plots of yam, sorghum, maize, rice (but apparently a rice that grows on dry land?), also lots of neem and shea trees. Noted more tractors working fields than I recall seeing in Nigeria or Guinea. We also passed through lots of villages with goats, chickens and the occasional cow wandering across the street.
   Arrived at this "guest house" in (Wale-wale?), it's really quite nice. I was expecting something much smaller and rudimentary, but it seems to be a whole complex of very nicely appointed rooms. The guest-house staff prepared a dinner of rice and this sort of stew one pours over the rice which apparently involved fish but didn't taste fishy at all -- thank god because I loathe fish. I'm a bit concerned, I'm getting the impression they eat a lot of fish in this country. Also there was "fried?" chicken. The chickens appeared to have been rather big, Courage was asking "are you sure this wasn't a turkey??" We all (Arne and I and Courage and his staff) all ate together and conversed about the different parts of Ghana each of the staff had come from. We quized Courage a bit as well about his various plans, he seems to have really big plans for improving Ghanaian agribusiness and is consulting to other African countries as well. He's working on helping them all meet food standards for export. He's really nice, charismatic, and clearly extremely smart and competent -- later Arne and I agreed "I think we just had dinner with a future president of Ghana"

   And now it's only 9:20 but I am le tired so I think I shall go to bed.

Ghana Day 3

Monday, July 4th - Arne and I had a liesurely breakfast at the guesthouse and were free to futz around until around noon, while Courage organized the beekeeper trainees. Finally they were ready. The driver took us about five minutes down the road to a community center hall in which the beekeepers were all seated. Courage was already making his opening remarks to them -- he was speaking english and then one translator would translate into one local language and another would translate into another local language. Then Arne spoke to them a bit (he's the head of the program from the German side, he comes from the German food quality assurance company that's co-sponsoring the project). And then I was up. As usual I winged it and spoke relatively briefly. I'm not a big fan of long speeches.

   Then we broke for lunch (for an hour?). Then we began the first session, which according to my plan was mainly me asking them what challenges and obstacles they felt they were facing. As anticipated when I at first asked just that, no one raised their hand to volunteer anything. But then after I asked a few more questions that got things moving and we were occupied for an hour with people raising their hand and telling me their obstacles or things they hope to learn more about.
   It was a bit more chaotic than I'd quite have liked, both because there were two translators, and the one of them, though he had admirable enthusiasm, was perhaps just a bit too enthusiastic -- he kept talking over the other translator (who was a woman, incidentally), and kept going ahead and answering the incoming questions himself, and I was having a hard time interrupting him but finally Courage came up and kind of forcefully told him to just translate. He seems like a nice guy but I don't think his enthusiasm contributed to a sense of orderliness in this first session.
   Tomorrow should be much more orderly as I intend to do a much more straightforward "lecture" on hive design in the morning.

   On our way back to the hotel from this we (Arne, Courage and I) stopped at a nearby site where they had beehives. I was apparently examining an occupied hive too closely for the bees liking and they began to attack us. Fortunately I think they were all attacking me, I'm not sure anyone else got any stings. Being attacked by bees can be really scary on a sort of primal level, but fortunately I've hardened myself to being attacked by bees over many years and even while everyone else ran away and bees were actively stinging me I was able to calmly walk back towards the car at an unhurried pace without arm flailing. Ultimately I got about thirty stings, Courage was concerned for me and offered me various medications and creams which I declined, and by the time I showed up for dinner and none of the bee stings were even visible anymore.

   For dinner today we had "tuo zaafi," which consisted of a ball of corn dough that one dips with one's fingers into some spicy friend okra soup. Very similar to the Nigerian "amala" though that was I believe cassava or yam dough.

   Also someone mentioned tonight that they believed the Vice President (of Ghana) lives just a few blocks from here and when he's in town this guesthouse is where his entourage stays, which would explain why it looks so grand.