Harmattan is coming!

At this time of year at home, I know Coke should be rolling out the ever-so-traditional Santa Claus commercials.  I remember the old days when the hushed, excited choir would murmur, "Santa packs are coming!  Saaanta packs are coming!"  Santa Packs were, of course, the limited-edition printed boxes of Coke cans that came out at Christmastime.  Then, a good few years ago, it changed to "Holidays are coming!  Hooolidays are coming!"  Part of me appreciated Coke's acknowledgement that December didn't only mean Santa (and therefore Christmas), but a bigger part of me always knew the hat-tip was hollow.  Where in any of the Coke commercials have you seen a Solstice celebration, a single hanukiyah in the gleaming windows, or the Kwanzaa colors of red, black and green?

Anyway, Coke's little earworm is the tune I'm imagining when I read the title of this post.

Harmattan is the dusty season.  It's caused by sandstorms in the Sahara and lasts from December to February.  Harmattan is a time which brings a bit of cool relief from the hot season (it has been sweaaaa-tee around here lately).  It also brings low humidity, hazy days and thus bad photography conditions and cancelled flights, and I've heard it is the time when most locals catch their colds.

For the past couple of weeks, sunrises and sets have been getting ever pinker, oranger and hazier.  I've started to see mist high in the skies along with the sparse clouds.  Streetlights (when they work) have been illuminating columns of particles in the air above the roads.  And then, this morning, I looked out from my balcony towards the city, and realized I couldn't see any of the farther-away landmarks I'm used to spotting. 

Yes, harmattan is definitely coming.  I'll be away for two weeks of it over Christmas time, and I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like with the enthusiasm of someone who's never seen it before!

Work's been crazy - we had a hardware issue last week and were disconnected from the internet until Friday.  There's a huge project HQ wants us to complete which is above and beyond the annual targets HQ themselves set for us, and means we'll need to process about 1000 extra files, and the system we use to deal with those files was the only one that still functioned.  So we used the outage time for a lot of people to do preliminary work on a handful of those files to help me with my impending case load. 

It's like my colleague explained to my seamstress (working hard on my choir uniform, which looks gorgeous!): imagine you have no power; you can do a bit of work sewing by hand, and during daylight hours, but a lot of your bigger capacity is gone.  It was a four-day blow in a very busy office, and now we are totally backlogged.

We've got a choir show coming up on Thursday; any readers who are in Accra should come see.  Goethe Institut, 7 PM, entrance 5 cedis to benefit Street Girls Aid (check them out at www.said-ghana.com).  It won't last more than an hour.  We've been working very hard on these songs and it will really be a treat.

Last but not least, I took my German exam last week... we'll know this week how I did.  Although I definitely made a few mistakes, I also think I did a pretty good job.  Which would mean that next year (if I choose to continue) I'd be starting an advanced German course.  Advanced!  I feel like I could do with a repeat of the past level or two just to solidify my knowledge... I haven't been a very good student when it comes to doing homework, learning new verb tenses or studying at all outside of class time.  Though I can read magazine texts, children's stories and comic books with little assistance, I don't have the confidence to speak.  Hoping that two weeks in Germany will help with that - knowing that people will understand me if I just open my mouth, no matter if the pronoun ending doesn't agree with the number or whatever my worry may be.

expectations... stories... of Hohoe and the tourism that wasn't

Last weekend was a full and total exercise in Things Not Going to Plan.  J and I resolved ourselves to be content nevertheless - and we succeeded.


The Plan:
Spend a long weekend away doing a couple of touristy activities, relaxing in a chill hotel at night run by rastafarians.
Leave early Friday morning; take public transport to the hotel near to Hohoe, about a 4-hour ride away.  Possibly have enough time to hit the lower part of Wli Falls during the day.
Wake up EARLY Saturday to see the monkeys at Tafi Atome monkey sanctuary.  Then maybe to Wli Falls, or maybe back to the rasta pad to chill.
Sunday: wake up early if we didn't do so Saturday, and see the monkeys.  Return to Accra on public transportation so J can catch his flight at 8:15 Sunday evening.


First.  We tripped a fuse in our house at 7:30 in the morning when I shorted out the electric kettle.  There was water in the wrong place on that one.  We checked every fuse we knew in the house and downstairs from the mains.  Thinking this could take a long time to figure out, I called the hotel to cancel our booking.  Eventually we had to call the landlady, who had to call in an electrician - who came an hour later, unlocked a separate part of the house and flipped on the fuse easily.  If only we - or the guards - had known there was yet another set of controls in yet another locked part of our building, we'd easily have been able to save that time.

It's 10:30 and we decide we can juuust make it before dark.  I call the hotel again to un-cancel and we head out the door.  Catch a taxi to Madina, where there's a station for departing tro-tros to such destinations as Koforidua, Kumasi and Hohoe.  The taxi took 30 or 40 minutes; it was two hours before we were in a tro-tro.

It's 1:00 PM and we decide that if no car has come by 1:30, there's no way we can make it to the place in time.  Ten minutes later, our car comes.  On the way we sit next to a nice woman who shares some of her snacks with us - white kenkey, which must not be fermented, tastes like solidified grits and is served in a corn husk - with salt, I think.  Not half bad!  We also stop on the way for some freshly boiled corn cobs, dunked in coconut water and wrapped in a plastic bag.  The cobs are so young, they've still got tender baby-corn tips.  Corn is back in season!  Mangoes are ripening on the trees.  I've never seen a mango tree so loaded with huge fruits as I did on this ride.  Can't wait.  They'll definitely be ripe by the time we get back from our Christmas & New Year's vacation in Germany.

It's a 2 1/2-hour ride to Peki, which we think will be a little town near Hohoe.  Peki turns out to be a couple of buildings in the middle of nowhere.  But the people at Roots are really nice, the food's ital (vegan menu) and we have a nice time chatting with the parents of the lady of the house - who are here on their annual visit and are farmers back in the UK.  Another of their daughters runs Green Turtle Lodge, which is a buzzword in expat circles around here.  Thanks to the in-house book swap shelf, I spend a couple hours reacquainting myself with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which I haven't traipsed around in since high school.  J finds a book on happiness coauthored by HH the Dalai Lama.

It's chilly in the mountains!  Our bed is provided with only a sheet.  I wake up freezing in the middle of the night, and as a blanket I grab the towel which I turned back to fetch as we were leaving home.

Saturday morning was not for the monkeys.  We decide to have breakfast and head to Hohoe, to get a taxi to Wli Falls.  We know this should be a five-hour hike so we start waiting for cars around 9:15.  Many cars pass; all are full.  Finally around 10 one stops to let us on.
Half an hour later, we thought we'd already be in Hohoe.  we have no phone reception and thus no idea where we actually are.
An hour into the car ride, we pass Tafi Atome, the monkey sanctuary.  J gets phone reception and realizes we're halfway to Hohoe.
So much for a half-hour bus trip.  We also decide that we can't do the monkeys on Sunday, either - waiting for a tro-tro, traveling an hour to the monkeys, seeing them, traveling an hour back to the lodge, then waiting for another tro-tro back - when J wants to be back in Accra by 3 or 4 latest.

Some time after that we pass the scene of a horrific head-on car accident.  A body has been lain facedown on the side of the road and from the shoulders up is covered with leaves.  As we pass, many of the passengers on our car whistle quietly or cluck their tongues.  What a shame, they are saying.  How horrible.  I can't begin to think about it - but I do.  And then I start freaking out about mortality, and realize exactly why people cling to God.  It's very comforting to me to think there's something bigger out there which decides (or has already decided) my time to go - and that my time isn't now.  Reassuring myself that my time isn't now, even though we are seated in the front seat and probably most likely to be injured in the case of an accident, I am able to reassess the day's plan with J.

Arriving in Hohoe at noon, with darkness falling around 6 PM, there is no way we can do the full five-hour waterfall hike.  Even the lower falls, which are an hour's hike, would be a big stretch.  Do the math: arrive at the falls at 1, hike there and back until 3, drive back to Hohoe and arrive at 4, then we'd be pushing 6 to get back to Peki if the tro-tro left the instant we got in.  And that doesn't include any time for lunch.

So we resolve to hang around Hohoe and lament not having brought the travel guide this once for guidance on where to eat.  We see a sign for the Hotel Geduld (German for "patience") and take it as a sign.

Lunch is tasty.  As we sit down to eat, the carabiner lid of my water bottle shears off and breaks.  There's a hole left in the lid so I can't keep any water in that bottle any more.  And my touch phone's keyboard program realizes there's an update available and won't let me type until I install it.  which I can't do without an internet connection.  Which means no Swyping for the next 24-plus hours.

The owner of the Geduld advises us to check out the festival that's going on this weekend, so we dutifully trek over there, planning to get out of town around 3.  We park ourselves tantalizingly at the edge of a shade tent and watch the speeches, performances, and attending local chiefs under festive umbrellas.  In some ways boring, but in other ways fascinating people-watching.

15 minutes in, J realizes some chocolate has melted all over the inside of his backpack.  When I bend to help him wipe it with my handkerchief, we are both distracted and someone snatches my point-and-shoot camera from his pocket.
He'd been borrowing mine until Christmas, when he'll pick up a replacement for the one which was stolen in South Africa in September.

We head for home.  I've been shaken so many times this day and haven't gotten to - and won't get to - see anything I hoped for.
J says he's having a nice weekend, anyway, spending the time together despite every setback.
We get into the tro-tro at 3 and are assured it's leaving "right now."
It leaves at 4.  We reach Roots half an hour before nightfall.

Back at Roots, we make the most of the relaxation.  J reads that people tend to return to a baseline level of happiness no matter what.

We have plantain chips and guacamole, then deliciously spiced tofu kebabs on top of garden egg (eggplant's cousin) stew.  We're given a second and third sheet for the bed; the third one turns out to be a tablecloth.  Roots's Head Man realizes that they should think about offering blankets when the weather turns chilly.

Overnight we are toasty under our sheets and tablecloth.  In the morning we eat toast with peanut butter and honey (him) and scrambled tofu (me), washed down with a spicy soy-milk chai, and begin the wait for a car back.

Inside Accra, tro-tros will smush four passengers to a row of seats - which is the closest you can get and remain marginally comfortable, not to mention legal.  On every other ride this trip we lucked out with three to a row.  The car that stopped for us has already got that.  J squishes in as the fourth in a row, and so do I - so the mate (fare taker and signaler to the driver of when to stop) wedges my knees between his legs and rides backwards sitting on a ledge.  And we get pulled over at a police checkpoint.  The mate is berated, within earshot and in English, about the impression they are making on "those foreigners" - that Ghanaians are ignorant or lazy.  I have never had that impression from a packed tro-tro!  I can only assume these guys dashed the policeman (out of the foreigners' sight, clearly) and headed out.

The route ends in Kpong, where there's a big station for tro-tros and we are able to catch a car to Accra.

From there it's a hot ride that's over soon enough with the help of a nap.  We get out at MaxMart and do some shopping, and arrive home at 2 PM.

A quick taxi ride brings us to a late Sunday lunch at Mamma Mia's with cold Peronis for hot obronis, fresh pizza with zero waiting time, and a calmer outlook on life than has been had all weekend.



I'm proud of us for rolling with the punches.  I'm disappointed that Roots booked itself as "convenient" to Hohoe, Wli Falls or Tafi Atome - it's not, and especially not without a car.  I'm disappointed we'll have to cover all that ground over again when we actually do have a chance, better-informed this time, to do the falls and the monkeys.

Still, maybe we can make a bigger trip of it and visit the Cedi Bead Annex on the way, plus the pottery maker in Kpando and an Ewe kente village.  Maybe we can do all that on a longer trip.  And I did have a nice stay at Roots itself.  Next time, we just need some blankets - and different expectations.



I have a quotation framed in my room back home (at Mom 'n Dad's) which reads: "Most things in life can be summed up as a good time, or a good story."

Hope this story has kept you entertained, at the least.

this one's for Annie

I heard yesterday that Anne McCaffrey, one of my favorite authors, passed away on Monday.

I met her when I was on vacation with my family in Ireland.  Though she'd just taken a fall and bruised her arm and eye, she graciously hosted us for tea at her kitchen table.  She showed me star charts and a globe that fans had constructed of Pern, one of the worlds she created.  All of this on the Fourth of July, which was special as she's was an American, too.

Her books introduced me to my love of fantasy and sci-fi.  She leaves a special hole in the world, having been a pioneering author who was the first-woman-to of so many different places.

She'll be missed.  Local buddy T and I toasted Anne's memory last night before dinner with a special glass of Jameson Reserve.  As a hat-tip to local custom, I plan to spill some on the ground, too, to honor her.

To dragon-riding, Talent-wielding, crystal-singing, ever-journeying Anne McCaffrey - may she pass between and beyond in happiness and rest.

Here's seventeen-year-old me with Anne, hiding her black eye behind a Pern star chart.  This wonderful and unique woman was an inspiration to me and my writing.  Go in peace.

as long as you're still walking...

Yesterday Jens got hit - in the arm - by the side mirror of a van.  Don't worry - he is absolutely fine - there is no bruise at all.  But it would have been nice for the driver who grazed him to have stopped to check.  Instead we had to chase him down.

We were walking down the street when a white van came speeding by.  I heard a soft thump and saw Jens stop short.  The van went a few feet further, paused for a few seconds, and started again on its way.  We yelled and waved, it stopped again, paused to decide, then sped down the road.  We both took off after it, yelling and screaming "STOP!"  Some interested passersby asked what was going on and I told them eagerly before running off again.

In Accra there's a strong notion of "street justice."  A few months ago we heard about a case on the UG campus where a woman accused of stealing was caught and abused by a gang of male students, and recorded on phone video cameras (reported here and blogged about here, for a start).  If two cars bump each other on the road, a screaming match is just around the corner.  So it's no surprise that the driver who hit Jens took off.

What did surprise me is that the onlookers didn't do anything about it.

I was hoping I'd get some kind of crowd following the van or that the word would spread down the street faster than the car.  Instead they just listened to my story and urged me to run.

Turns out the van was headed to a hotel two blocks away.  Jens caught up with it as it screeched into the gated courtyard.

The driver's explanation for his hit-and-run?

• I was in a big hurry to get here.
• You were walking in the middle of the road.
• People get hit with side mirrors all the time.

And the kicker, folks:

• I saw you could still walk, so I knew you were okay.

Anyway, the driver continued, I said I was sorry.  What more can I do?

It's true.  There's not much in the way of auto insurance here.  The police, we are strongly sure, would not have done anything.  Jens's arm was feeling okay right afterwards.  (Today it doesn't even hurt, let alone have a bruise - lucky he didn't get hit any worse.)  It was incredibly frustrating, though.  Had Jens been truly injured, would the driver honestly have thought more seriously about stopping - or been faster to run away?  Is an apology after you try to flee the scene really enough?

I went to the doctor today with a coworker (this relates, I promise) - she has tonsillitis, I have an ear infection, and now we both have antibiotics - and she was saying that doctors here don't listen as much when white people complain.  They think we exaggerate every pain we have.  So when she told the nurses the blood pressure cuff was squeezing her arm too tightly, they told her it only hurt because she was speaking while it was measuring.  Though she had started to speak only after it started hurting.  There wasn't any acknowledgement of her pain, or that something might truly be wrong.  There was only the need for blame to fall elsewhere.  And if she was still able to talk, presumably, they thought she was okay.

There's no question that obronis in Accra often have more wealth, possessions, and opportunities than a vast majority of the people they interact with every day.  That doesn't mean, though, that each of our experiences is less worthy - or that our words should have any less impact.  Being able to afford an extra cedi or two for each taxi ride doesn't mean I should be required to pay it.  

I heard of a friend who was overcharged 10 pesewas (cedi-cents) on some fruit she bought, and when she brought it up the vendor looked at her earnestly and said, "I need it more than you."  Does that give the fruit vendor the right to take more money from one person than from another?

A culture clash, indeed.

sick, again

I'm home sick today!

It's the second time I've been sick since getting this job.  Something's going around; I know of at least four people in my section of the office alone who've been under the weather this week.

My nose is running so much I think it's training for a marathon.

I'm keeping the A/C off to preserve humidity (for my sore throat) and heat (to help me sweat the bugs out).  I'm glad for once it's the natural state here, rather than having to create it like in Ireland.  But it's still not comfortable.

Today I'm gonna watch some movies and make myself soup.  Throw potatoes, rice, bouillon and veggies into a pot with water, boil it up, and voila: sustenance.

I really, really hope this does not become a pattern (yet again, like in Ireland).  I vow not to go out with my hair wet and I might go see the doctor for allergy testing to make sure there's not some mold in the A/C, despite assurances that the machines at work are serviced regularly.  And I've actually been here both times they've come to service the machines at our house, so I know that definitely goes on every three months.  What luck we had, finding a landlady who is so worth her salt.

Poor crispy us!

Over the weekend, BF and I made a quick getaway to nearby Kokrobite (koh-kroh-bee-tay) Beach. It's about 20 miles from Accra, a very doable drive apart from a mile-long stretch through a little town called Aplaku, which hasn't seen a surfaced road in who-knows-how-many years. It's funniest because the road's in good condition both before and after the bumps and holes.

Also making the drive less doable: insane traffic out of Accra which kept us barely moving for a full two hours! On a Saturday, we were not prepared for this.

Arrival at the Kokrobite Garden hotel/lodge/inn was a breath of fresh air. This little place really lives up to its garden name! Bougainvillea and fiery flowers whose name I don't know, palms and umbrella trees, and even a stand or two of bamboo ensure the premises are always green.

There are rooms for about ten people, plus a mostly-Italian restaurant which brings in other tourists looking to escape the reggae vibe and ages of waiting at nearby Big Milly's Place.

The cabin we were in was supplied with a fan, a double mattress (thin, but new and manageable), and an ensuite bathroom with a switch-on pump when you wanted to use the water. It's an adorable sloped-roof construction with a charming slanted floor. For 25 cedis, we were very satisfied! It was far enough away from Big Milly's that the din of reggae night didn't keep us up, and the vibrant plants led to a relaxed and friendly ambiance.

We spent the night in the Garden, then on Sunday morning were woken up by church music from behind our cabin and The Three Tenors from the restaurant in front of us.

Ants found their way overnight into my bag, where I had stored some plantain chips for snacking. I got my first ant bites ever while cleaning them out of my bag! Those little things sting. J was incredulous I'd never been bitten by ants before.

After breakfast (French toast and fried pancakes with fresh fruit), we retreated to the beach for a few hours. And this is where the real woes start. We both managed to attain some serious sunburns, though we'd been very careful to load up on sunscreen before we left the room. The destruction was horrible. Poor J looks like a lobster up his entire front. I'm marginally better!

It was lovely to get out of the city, just for a night. Definitely hit the Kokrobite Garden if you need a quiet night with a friendly host and tasty food!

posted from Bloggeroid

on magic words and banking

The magic words to unlock any door.

If someone knows they and only they can be the key to helping you out, suddenly rules can be bent, exceptions made, opening times shifted just the slightest bit.

I had a check I needed to cash from a bank.  And banks here as a pretty common rule are not open past 4 (sometimes 4:30).  I dashed from work to the bank right at 4, and arrived about a quarter past.  There were still people inside doing business but the manager was standing in front of the glass door and very purposefully not making eye contact.  After half a minute of standing in front of the door with my best whitegirl puppy-dog eyes and making the local hand gesture for "please," he pointed to the hours posted on the door.

But then, a few seconds later, the security guard comes to unlock the door and stick his face out.  I say, "You're closed, right?"  He agrees that they close at four.  I say, "I only finish work at four and I came as fast as I could... I don't know what I can do."

He relents and the door opens.

Then when they discovered I wanted to cash a check rather than something "simple" like wire money, I hit even more complications.  You see, the check was issued from another branch of the bank and the link between the two branches has been closed for the day.  I don't get how this makes a difference if they can just put it into the system and have it update first thing in the morning - but apparently it does make a difference.

I talked to another manager-looking lady, who asked me some questions such as whether I had an ID on me, and whether I could come in to do it another day as opening hours of the bank were 8:30 to 4.  She didn't get it until the third time I told her that I work from SEVEN-thirty to four so couldn't come in any other day, either.
"Could you get a friend to do it?"
"No, they all have jobs too.  So, you see, I just don't know what I can do."

I started to say I might be able to come in Friday, but before I could finish my sentence she relented!

Seven or eight minutes after walking into the bank, I had my cash in hand.  Whew!


Monday was a holiday for the Canadians (and thus for me), so I spent the afternoon investigating rates and fees and rules at three local banks with good reputations, so I could choose one to open an account with.  At the end of the day I chose my bank and set up a savings account right then and there.  It was painless.  I was pleasantly surprised.
I asked them, "When will this account be ready so I can start depositing my paychecks?"
Their response?  "Oh, no, madame, you cannot deposit checks into a savings account."

What?

How am I supposed to save money, then?

Only by bringing in cash.  That sounds like a GREAT idea, no?

I need to set up a current account in order to deposit checks, and that needs extra documentation - a letter of reference from someone with a Ghanaian bank account to vouch for my "suitability for the purposes of maintaining a current account" - and I just lifted that text directly from the reference form that J filled out for me.  Someone once came to his office and set up an account for him but he wants to close it as they charge fees for monthly maintenance, internet banking, and a hundred other ridiculous things.  So he'll use his account to vouch for mine, then close that account and open a new one at another bank using my own account details.  I love/hate the circular logic of life.

pains and therapy

Guys, I have sciatica!

Some kind of hip pain indeed I do have.  It's caused by a tight muscle in my sacrum squelching one of the nerves that runs through my left hip.  It's also caused some misalignment up my spine.  I'm in physical therapy now, and the therapist is going to cure some of my excess flexibility while we're at it.  It turns out that my being special is actually not gonna be healthy for my hips later on.  While she was pushing and prodding the muscles along my spine she poked at my right rotator muscle and declared it felt "like bubble wrap."  Owwwww!  Goodbye, duck feet; goodbye, creepy flexible-foot-based party trick.

I've also got a nasty cold - my first one since arriving here.  Three days into the new job and I'd lost my voice; this weekend I'm so congested I can't taste anything.  It's really weird!  It feels like my tongue is numb... but it's not.  I can still taste salt, mustard and Nutella.

I'm trying to take it pretty easy today and hope I'll be in working order by tomorrow.

Autumn tree

As just mentioned earlier!

posted from Bloggeroid

Fall

As October prepares to roll in, one kind of tree has been turning and shedding its leaves. It's nice to have a reminder of autumn, even if the temperatures are only going to get warmer.

There have been some power problems in Accra lately. A few times in the past few weeks we've had the power issue in our neighborhood that I mentioned earlier, where power is out for almost every house in a 3-block radius apart from ours and a few others. This has to do with phases... as I understand it, power is provided in 3 phases, which are like different wavelengths. And houses are connected to one or two of these phases. If you are connected to one that goes short, you have no power; if you are on a phase that is still working, you are lucky and have power.

All this to say, I'll still be happy when we get our generator. It'll either be "late this month" (which is quickly running out) or more likely next month some time. it's still nice to have a much more tangible date than ever!

posted from Bloggeroid

Cool bug sighting!

a praying mantis on the balcony! The coolest part was when I made some noise by opening the window to get a better shot, and it swiveled its head over to look. Before that it could have just been an uncanny leaf or even a dead bug.

I think it's the first time I've been fascinated in a totally non-grossed-out way by any kind of insect, arachnid, or whatever.

It was so cool!

plus, there was still a big window between me and this bug. That probably helped.

posted from Bloggeroid

on the sunny side of the street

When I came home from German class, the neighborhood looked pretty dark.  But coming up to the house, I saw we still had power.  Could it be we got the generator our landlady was promising for the end of this month?

Nah.  The power's cut across the street - but not on our side.

In fact, even in some of the houses around us the power seems to be cut.

I'm just thankful we still have it!

ten years

I've been debating lately... as we all know, today's the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  How publicly do you acknowledge this?  What is authentic and when does it turn into "everyone else is doing it," or "proving I have grief too," or "will people think less of me if I do - or if I don't? - say anything?"  Will people think I'm brushing it off if I don't say anything?  Will people, on the other hand, roll their eyes that yet another person is remembering exactly where they were when it happened?

I'm gonna tell.  This is a blog, after all, and blogs are for telling.

Here's my take on it.  It's my "party piece," as it were.  You know, the little ditty you always have on hand, in case someone turns to you and you're expected to come out with something entertaining.  A poem, a joke - something that'll always be around for public performances.

I do feel that I'm doing this unnecessarily - it doesn't need to be said; others' stories are more poignant, touching, or relevant - but this is my blog, and people can choose whether or not to stay tuned.  So I freely admit I'm indulging myself, for which I ask forgiveness.

I was Back East with my mother visiting colleges on Labor Day weekend, 2001.  We spent some time in New York City.  It was the beginning of my junior year.

I was in a bad mood.  I don't remember why. 

My mom said to me, "Look up: you can see the World Trade Center."

I said to myself, "What's another building?  That's not special.  I'll appreciate it next time.  I am too annoyed to look up now."  I didn't take the time to look.

That night, I bought a t-shirt embroidered with the tragedy/comedy masks, underscored by the word BROADWAY.

A couple of days later, I wore that shirt to school.  In the parking lot I ran into my best friend.  His greeting was, "I'm glad we're not in New York right now."

He told me he'd been listening to NPR and had heard that a plane had flown into one of the towers.  I was shocked, but didn't know what we could do.  Our first class started: English.

The whole room was abuzz with people talking about it.  A few minutes into class time, our principal, Mr. Castagna, made an announcement over the PA about it.  He was so audibly shaken, I realized - this is a huge deal.  Most classes moved into classrooms that had TVs.  As we sat in the psychology classroom, we watched the second plane hit.

I moved around in a state of shock that day, but what stayed with me was this:

Last weekend I had my last chance to see those towers, and in my self-righteous anger I missed it.  By taking for granted that something would always be there, I lost my last opportunity to appreciate it and all it stood for.

The lesson I try to remember, this and absolutely every day, is not to wait to do anything, see anything, experience anything.  You really never know when it'll be gone forever.

My life didn't change that day, not in the foundation-shaking way that the lives of many did.  I disagreed with going to war in Iraq and I wondered how Gore would have dealt with it.  I overheard my brother watching a conspiracy-theory video on YouTube.  I complied with the new airplane security regulations.  School continued; the world continued.

But I never wore that Broadway t-shirt again.

With love, respect, and solemn memorial of those lost to the attacks and their extended, destructive aftermath; and with prayers for peace.

Multilingual taxi drivers

Here's a quick funny story. On my way out tonight, I was looking for a taxi. I headed towards one before I saw there were already people getting into, it and the driver hails me with "Alles klar?" I respond in German, natürlich, because I can. He asks if I'm German; I ask him why he thought I was. apparently I look like someone he knows.

Yesterday we went to a festival in Teshie which consisted of people jogging up and down the middle of the main street in companies with chants, uniforms and occasionally a two-foot-tall can-shaped symbol carried above their heads. We sat down for a beer at a local spot, and Teshie-ites started to come and take pictures of us. Then we were filmed for a documentary; what were our expectations and had they been fulfilled? We took a tro-tro home.

Today while shopping at Global Mamas, the tourist shop geared towards helping local women by selling batik-everything and recycled-bead jewelry at Westernized (oh no, I mean fair trade) prices, I ran into an Esoko colleague who was showing around this photographer who works for Getty Images. How do you even land a job like that?

I had dinner with the photographer, his writer, and their friend who's a fresh new USAID transfer from Afghanistan. It was the birthday of a little boy in a party of 10-plus in the corner and they played an unfamiliar birthday song for him.

It is now entirely too late for me to be awake. Work awaits in the morning.

posted from Bloggeroid

testing

Just trying to see if photos work when posting from Picasa. So far, they haven't, and I have no idea what to do about it. I like posting from Picasa because it's so easy to incorporate photos into posts.

This was a woman having a convenient nap at a mattress display in Trade Fair, which happened during my parents' visit.

the birds, the birds!

Why can't work be more like Angry Birds?

I submit to you, readers: guilty as charged! I am an Angry Birds afficionado.  But nothing more.  Lately I've found myself slingshotting the adorable and talented flightless avians towards captive exotics' cages and evil monkeys while waiting for lunch, stuck in traffic (in the passenger seat only!), or taking a five-minute disengage break from the daunting number of tasks and the implications of sub-tasks at the new job.

In Angry Birds:

Tasks are clear.  The objective is directly in sight.  (Free the birds/kill the monkeys!)

If you make a mistake, you can start over immediately.  Especially helpful in that window of time between you knowing you missed that last monkey, and the moment the game picks up on that and taunts you with soul-tamping evil monkey laughs and "Level failed."

Every sub-task has a clear function (each bird has its own specialty).

When you get tired of it, you can close it - or revisit any level you know you kicked ass on.

Learning curves are clear; they show you the trail of the previous bird you've fired so you can easily modify your next try.

Maybe this post should be titled "Why Angry Birds is perfect for people with ADD," instead.

In my new job:
Many tasks are clear, but the path is not.  Three months from now, I need to have delivered a deliverable.  Some steps along the way are enumerated, but the onus is definitely on me to organize myself, hold myself and others accountable, and keep delivering.  Having lazed around for so long, with no one but myself and Jens to be held responsible to, I'd forgotten how it feels to be working for others.

Still, after five days in the job I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  It'll be a challenge the whole way through but I'm coming to terms with the pace of the day and how to talk to others.  Also I have to take initiative - which lately has become harder and harder for me, but in a new environment is easier.


As I've suddenly switched from zero commitment to 11-hour days (8:30am at work to 7:45pm finishing German), we have had to reconfigure who does the errands.  Jens, despite suffering an unknown bug all week, has been a saint in picking up our bagels, topping up the electricity, going shopping and anything else needing to be done during business hours.  I hope we can figure out a way to share the duties better, but this first week it's been a godsend.  And I'm finally motivated to get to bed early because I know I'll need all the sleep I can get to survive the week!

Jens has also committed to making tiramisu this week to use the mascarpone sitting in our fridge.  We've been looking for ladyfingers around here with no luck, so he's making those from scratch too.  Last night wasn't his best for baking but he's going for it again tonight.  You should be jealous of me, 'cause I'm about to have homemade tiramisu!

New floor, new roommate

The tile layers might just be finished.  They came yesterday to re-tile our bedroom.  The bed's pushed to a corner and we aren't supposed to move it for a couple of days.  One thing they left behind is dust.  Lots and lots of dust, as well as some dusty handprints on doors, doorframes, and walls, and spatters of grout on a couple of walls and windows.  I suppose their job isn't, technically, to clean up after themselves (let alone to try to work cleanly in the first place).  Another facet of customer service lost here...

There are also a couple of tiles that sound loose in the kitchen; however, the tiler explained that because their grout isn't cracked, they'll never shift or tent like the ones in the other rooms.  We'll see how that prediction works out.

The work day at Esoko tends to go from 9:30am to 6pm.  This is an issue for the German class I'd like to take, which runs 5:30-7:45 four days a week.  Finally, the opportunity to be taught by a German again, and I may have to show up to class an hour late every day!  Not to mention, I'd essentially be on the go 12 hours a day.  I'm hoping we can work out a compromise where I get to work around 8:30 and leave at 5:30, then get to German half an hour late every day.  Most of the people in the class are familiar faces, but there's one new guy who last night asked me to help him perfect his American accent in my free time, gave me a hair-raising car ride most of my way home, and today called me to ask if I have any books in German.  There's taking advantage and then there's taking advantage of new contacts.  Like the time the neighbor downstairs asked me to do "anything I could" by asking my boyfriend to get the neighbor's son a job at Google.  The kid had almost finished his certificate in IT.

At the job, there's a lot to get used to and I have to get up to speed really quickly, so I'm having meetings daily with heads of departments to walk me through how everything works.  It will be a challenge.  At the moment, not fully familiar with what I have to get done, I'm nervous- but if they say I can do this first project in three months, then I can do it.

We have a new roommate: a 10-month Google intern.  Not much more to say on that front!

New Job!

My parents' visit came and went, full of adventures, experiences and learning opportunities.  I'm trying now to cut down the photo album - so far, I've picked out 90-something photos from the first week, though there won't be as many from the last few days of the visit once I download those.

Today's my first day on the job at Esoko, a company which runs an internet- and phone-based system connecting farmers to local market prices for their goods and helping them keep inventory.  I will be keeping tabs on the Partner team, which stays in touch with Esoko's on-the-ground partners who train the farmers and implement the system.  I'll write the newsletter and update the training materials for new partners.  It provides not much structure and lots of freedom, which will be a big challenge for me.

From my building, I can see the fountains in Nkrumah Circle (locally named just Circle).  Streams of gushing foot traffic cross the road on a pedestrian overpass.  Several times a second, the street noise is punctuated by eloquent honks.  On the other side, I glance down Ring Road to Busy Internet, a locally-founded internet cafe and now provider that's made itself into a landmark.  Behind the building rises Asylum Down, a neighborhood with as many highrises as one-story cement houses.  It's a vivacious but more business-oriented part of Accra and I'm in the thick of it.

Looking out from the rooftop garden (a tiled plaza bordered by scrappy cement planters) onto one of the chambers of Accra's thumping heart, I saw all the essences of life bustling below me, and I told myself - I can't let them down.  I am going to thrive here.

Unbelievable

5:30 on a sunday morning and lady click-click is pacing in stilettos. Something shall be done about this. I can't take it any more!

posted from Bloggeroid

it never rains

it really pours.

I have TWO job offers I'm fully torn between
The tiles on the floor of the study have started to detach and... tent?  the upstairs neighbor, who works in construction and had to do this to his own floor (see earlier post - guess it wasn't Lady Click-Click's fault after all) says we need three or four full days, one for each step of the procedure.  And we're supposed to be hosting a guest (apart from my parents) in this room in a week and a half.  Of course the longer we wait the worse it gets...
my phone fell in the toilet today
The driver of the rental car we've arranged for wants to do some car-switching at the border to Togo.  Put him and the four passengers inside a bigger car with Togolese plates and driver to "avoid headaches" from the police.  I don't know if that's really necessary for a single night's stay.

I'm supposed to head to a BBQ with some local volunteers and young cool folks but I just feel so overwhelmed that I want to go to sleep.  When I tried to call the guy who helped us arrange the car, to see if this car-switching was normal, his phone's turned off.
The guards say it's totally normal but I don't know.  I'm going to a car rental place tomorrow (and call a few others) to see what they would recommend - and how much they'd charge.  I didn't commit to this driver, after all.

And then our internet is down every 5 minutes or so, for about half a minute.  Which is just annoying when I'm trying to, well, do ANYTHING.

I'm headed to this BBQ, because none of the other problems will get sorted tonight.

At least today I: went for a run, picked up my German certificate (273.5 of 300 ain't shabby!), bought fruit, picked up bagels for my parents' visit, paid the housekeeper, went cleaning-product shopping, talked over my job options with choir buddy and 15-year resident T, and got estimates/summaries for the driver and the floor.

very overwhelmed.

bing < /3 SSA, and FNM < /3 GH

Here's why I haven't been receiving my Food Network Magazine lately:

They don't ship to Ghana.

Or Nigeria- the rep mentioned that, too.

I guess that's in case I decide I'm fed up of the small fry and want to move on to the big 419 scams?

I loved getting that magazine.  I even got published in it, with a letter to the editor praising the Jewish-themed recipes.  Now I'm being unwillingly cut off.

Who's willing to take a shipment of magazines, and deliver them when and wherever next we meet?  This is a serious bummer!  FNM brought so much joy and I was so looking forward to it.  I think I'll write back to Kim and let her know that even though policy's policy, I am quite let down.

Bing has no love for SSA...

So, I just noticed Facebook's throwdown.  "Facebook Places" are using Bing maps instead of Google.  I found it in the States, in Ireland, in New Zealand.

I checked out what Bing Maps has for Accra.

Three (and a half?) motorways and a railroad track.

I appreciate that some of the neighborhoods are labeled.  But that's it, really?

I looked at Lagos.  Much the same.

Nothing doing in Nairobi, either.

Rabat, Johannesburg, Casablanca and Cape Town, I am happy to say, had roads marked and usually labeled.

What gives, Bing?  You've got the top and bottom of the continent covered but the rest is inconsequential?  Are you working on it, at least?

In the satellite view, I'm surprised to learn that my house lies in the Bight of Benin.  Not even kidding.

The kicker?  When I searched Bing for "maps," Google Maps was the first result... Bing's own service pulled in at a paltry seventh place.  

I sent some feedback to Bing - meanwhile noting that their feedback box is kinda crummy.  I don't know the word for it, but when words are too long for one line, Bing splits the word rather than moving the entire word onto the next line.

It's not only family bias that keeps me sticking to Google.  That's all I'm sayin'.

Let's Go, Man!

Two Saturdays ago marked the celebration of the Chale Wote festival of alternative art, brought to life by Accra [dot] alt. There have been some disagreeing voices from local bloggers about the outcome; while Graham at Critical Point proclaimed it a success with some potential to grow into, Holli's Ramblings shot it down as, essentially, whites imposing 'culture' onto the inner city where it was neither appreciated nor welcome.

the cliffs of Jamestown... garbage, oil drums, and the sea

My take on it? As soon as I got to the first “plaza” of events and saw the scale and scope I was in for, I threw any expectations out the window, and had fun.

The maps could have been a lot nicer – a six-piece Venn diagram describing sites that are all along the same street in a line was really confusing!

Roller Boys preparing for a jump - on a busy side street still in use!

Other than that, it was fun to wander around, I didn't feel unwelcome, and I loved seeing all the kids get involved, be it in dancing or face/body painting! We heard that kids were the focus during the day while the evening was the block party for adults.  

friends watching the brass band  (yellow shirts)

Yes, the scope was pretty small - let's say ten vendors, two artists in the "gallery," a gaggle of kids dancing in the plaza.  Yes, I felt that some kids saw it as an opportunity to beg some extra goodies from the rich obronis.  In particular there was one adorable girl who attached herself to my knee as soon as I'd bought my jollof rice, and disappeared as soon as it was finished.  

But there were just as many kids who were happy to get attention, interact with the friendly visitors and play with paint on their arms and on the sidewalks.  Adults wandered past, bemused, or stopped to watch, intrigued, and were all smiles.

"Beware of Mosquito"

My take-away?  I'd do it again!  There's gotta be a first year for everything.  There were glitches, there were sidelong glances, there were doubts.  But now that they've pulled it off once, I think more people will be interested next year.  This thing can grow.  And I'm looking forward to it!

More photos available on my Picasa album.

food blog is up!

hey y'all, hop over to and then I cooked... for foodie goodies!  first post is already up!

dangerous linktrails

I don't know how it is for visitors to my blog, but when I'm signed in, I get this Blogger top bar on the top of my page.  On this bar is a link to "Next Blog," any other randomly chosen Blogger blog.

Well, from the (probably) 50-100 other blogs I've browsed in the past two days, here are my conclusions:

95% of them are families
80% of those families are religious Christians (when I say that, I mean they mention praying, Our One True Father, church - as having an influence in most of their entries)
3% are teens
2% are Other.  A vegan and a Tea Partier (who also fit into the Christian category)

And probably 40% of every one of those blogs had as the latest entry "It's been such a looong time, and I PROMISE I'll be better at posting from now on!"  Most of the time, those entries were a year old.

Fingers crossed that I can keep up my own commitment!


When we moved into our third-floor apartment, we thought the distance between us and the ground would separate us from the noise.  We wanted a quieter house, removed from street sounds.
This is not so!
It turns out that sound waves travel upwards really well.  So we hear the squatter neighbors' chicks as if they were chirping on our own balcony.  Funerals from three blocks away sound like they're just down the street.  And I have yet to describe a Ghanaian funeral!

It lasts a full weekend.  On Friday they stay up all night singing and playing highlife music: the "wake-keeping."  Saturday starts early and goes a full day of music, food, drinking and socializing.  Sunday starts around 7:30 with a worship service, then continues until the afternoon with more music and socializing.

Streets are shut down as celebrants erect big tents and rent hundreds of plastic chairs to house the participants.  The music speakers are huge.  Announcements are put up all over the streets announcing: "Home Call," "Obituary," "At Rest" and so on.  People dress in black/brown combined with red, if the person died young, or white, if the person lived a full life.  These parties can totally disrupt your life if they happen on your street, and get in the way of traffic as the tents stop cars from going through.  The more people you can afford to host, the better.  It's quite the production.


The weather lately has been cooler (around 25-28C, 75-80F) and nicely breezy so I've relied on the A/C much less often and instead keep the big doors and windows open.  Earlier in the month it was overcast without raining for days at a time, but now we are getting sun, a bit of rain (like this morning) and cooler weather.  I like it!

cooking updates :)

Here's a pic of the Oaxaca bar, which took longer than it should have to bake 'cause I can't get used to this gas oven!  I love the caramel flavor of the top layer, but I thought a) the chocolate filling needed more of the signature flavors and b) it could have done without the coffee.  A kickin' chocolate-cinnamon-chipotle bar would have bowled me over.

As for the yogurt biscuits, I messed up the recipe.  I didn't check the size on my matryoshka measuring cup and dumped in 3/4 cup of yogurt where 1/2 cup should have gone!  Disaster corrected with extra flour by the heap, but I didn't realize what had happened until too late and didn't compensate for the other two ingredients.  I love the tang the yogurt brings, though, so I'm keen on making these again.  

Both of the local grocery stores stock several brands of locally made, Lebanese-style yogurt, which I used for this recipe.  It's a challenge, though, using the yogurt before it ferments.  I don't know what it is, but this stuff just doesn't stick around more than a day or two - and sometimes it's already bubbly by the time I first open the container.  I wish it were more consistent, as I'd like to eat yogurt here more often and don't like having to stick to the imported, sweetened, UHT stuff.

I have three eggplants (aubergines, whatever) to use and I have found three recipes to do so!  They'll have to wait for tomorrow, though, as tonight we're going out for tilapia and banku to celebrate a friend's birthday.  Blue Gate is pretty well-known, it's just four zigzags from my house, and they do a nice plate of fish 'n fermented-corn/cassava 'n veggies 'n avocado.  It's one of my favorite Ghanaian dishes lately.  It's much lighter than anything else - it's just grilled fish, starch and optional veggies - unlike another favorite, red red.  That's beans (stewed in oil, I think) with some mild spices, served with spoonfuls of palm oil and garri (cassava "flour," I guess, seed-sized, which acts as a thickener).  Almost always served with plantains.  Fried in oil.

Here's the banku and tilapia from Blue Gate.  They were out of avocado this time.  The tilapia's rubbed in ginger, I think, before it's grilled.  So if I were comfortable eating fish skin, it'd be lovely... The red stuff's a killer pepper sauce and yes, it's covered in warmed salad.  Delish.

And here's my red red lunch from not too long ago:

Yesterday the shelves in our wardrobe gave out, probably because we put too much clothing on 'em.  Still - they are designed to hold clothing.  The carpenter, who I called this morning, just showed up and put bigger nails in the supports.  And then I asked him if he could fix up our IKEA bed slats, which have been sitting broken since the day our shipment came in, when Jens put them into our locally-made bed frame and they snapped because they had no support in the middle of the frame.  

I was thinking of going for a run, but sat here thinking about it for too long and missed my window of opportunity.  If I go out now, there won't be enough time before it gets dark to have a full run.  

Perhaps tomorrow morning!

food post!

Until I figure out a good name for the food blog, here's a food post on the main blog!

There was a mango in our fridge just begging to get out, so I whipped up this Thai mango chili sauce and ladled it over some grouper.  Making the grouper, I broke the grill pan in, too.  Since it was my first time cooking white fish (or, come to think of it, grilling fish at all!) I was petrified I'd undercook it.  But I think it turned out all right!

I can see a face here... the mango sauce is the nose and there's a left eye there as well, then the fish makes the mouth.  Right?

That only used a bit of the mango, though - the rest was saved for mango-mascarpone ice cream.  This is the first really successful one to have come out of our ice cream maker.  I chilled the mixture before putting it in the mixer bowl, and then kept the bowl itself in the old ice bath from chilling the mixture!

It was great to have success in the machine, but this one was way too conspicuously creamy (mascarpone and whipping cream?) while the mango flavor didn't stand out.  Makes me want to atone with a 6am run tomorrow!  Kudos for making me confident in my ice-cream-making skills, though.

If you zoom way in, you can see lime-zest and mango flecks in there.

Last week I was inspired by Waffleizer to try a few things out.  They came out differently from Dan's results as our waffle maker's a flat heart-shaped one instead of the big Belgian-style.  No matter.  I am happy to present you:

Fal-waffles!  Yes, of course that's homemade hummus, with a new trick.  I removed the chickpea skins to make it creamier, just as Dan suggested.  Hmm, this one turned into a face, too...

next...

Kar-waffel-puffer!  (That's potato pancakes, German style.  Potato wafflecakes.)

Tonight I'm on a cooking bent, so I'm also making "Oaxaca fudge bars" (chipotle-coffee-chocolate squares with a cashew topping) which I saw on Food Network this afternoon.  Plus, if time permits, yoghurt biscuits.  Actually, I'll make the dough tonight and keep it in the fridge, so I can have fresh-baked biscuits tomorrow morning (and maybe all through this week!)

Speaking of chipotles, those spicy smoky chilis are irresistible.  Just yesterday, I whipped up some bean-cheese-and-chipotle soft tacos.  Photo's boring, but here it is anyway!

I'm still not willing to stake my name on "Ghana Gourmet" or even "Frankie Feasts" so I need MORE IDEAS!  And quickly, please - this food isn't gonna wait!

How about "What I had for Dinner"... or maybe "And Then I Cooked..."  I like the sound of that, actually.  Or "And Then I Made..."?  "And Then I Ate" is, sadly, already taken.

Where there's Smoke, there's Garbage

Not so many years ago, 80 or 90 percent of the rubbish created in Ghana was organic.  That is to say, most of people's trash was food, or wood, or stuff that comes straight out of the ground.  And the best way to ensure no one and nothing else could get to it was to burn it.

Now, unknown masses of garbage are made up of plastic, metal, glass... but the tradition of burning still stands.

back there, in the corner!

Our neighbors in front and behind burn weekly, if not more often.

You can tell immediately because there's a thick white smoke in the air which smells sickly sweet.  You just know chemicals are leaching out into the air.  In front of our house a few weeks ago, they tried to burn leftover PVC pipes... with little success.  It may be the most space-efficient way to dispose of your waste, but nowadays, it's pretty scary what people are doing with heat and plastic.

Even street food is always dumped into two or three layers of plastic bags.  We know that heat + plastic = bad combination, right?  But what can you do, short of bringing your own Tupperware everywhere you go?

high heels, flip-flops, pineapples

Since I've gotten here, I definitely interact more with people on the street.  Etiquette calls for it.  I smile at people and say "good morning/afternoon/evening" if I make eye contact.  Yesterday, a wild-guesser of my Ghanaian name guessed it right, so I responded to him.

Another thing I've found I like doing is naming people whose names I don't know.  Our upstairs neighbors have someone in the house who likes to wander around in high-heeled shoes.  She's been dubbed Lady Click-Click.  And the woman who I pass on my way to Oxford Street, who sells fruit of all kinds and always greets me as "my friend," is Madame Pineapple, for the first fruit she sold me.

Speaking of the heel-happy wanderer upstairs, since Monday I've heard lots of hammering on their floor/our ceiling.  The guards tell me they're replacing the floor tiles, which had started to crack.  I do wonder if there's a correlation between the tile cracks showing up and Lady Click-Click suddenly (knock on wood!) toning it way down on the indoor heel-wearing a couple weeks ago.

I'm thinking of starting up an occasional food blog separate of this one, where I post pictures of the stuff I cook.  I'd call it Ghana Gourmet or something gimmicky like that.  Then again, with my photo album Cooking Exploits already on facebook, I don't know if there's a need.  Also, in the tradition of other food bloggers I think I'd be obligated to type up every recipe I cooked - and that's tedious, yo!

Public, would you be interested?  And what's a better name than Ghana Gourmet?

Saturday there's a festival on called Chale Wote, which translates to "Buddy, let's go" and also is the slang name for flip-flops here.  It's a street art and performance festival (as far as I can tell) happening in Jamestown, the historical center of the city which has lately become quite run-down.  It's been organized by accra.alt, which I know a couple local expat bloggers are involved in and I'm excited to learn more about.

a productive day.

Today I felt quite productive.  It's funny what qualifies as "productive," seeing as how a good bit of the time I wasn't even successful.  I was trying to make reservations at hotels in Togo for my parents' visit, and find some information on medication here.  None of the calls to Togo went through, and each one cost me 82p per minute just for the ringing line.  That doesn't seem normal.  I don't think I'm dialing wrong, either... country code + seven digits is what the Internet assured me I should do.  I used about 4 cedis of credit today and hardly talked to anyone.

Anyhow, though, after all these phone calls, I was able to shift the rooms reserved in Elmina and find a lovely-looking hotel in Lome who (thankfully) responded to an email although they didn't pick up the phones.  Hoorah, we'll be staying in the Hotel Bellevue.  Hope it's nearly as nice as the photos seem!

I also drove way over past the mall, spending 45 minutes in traffic for a 20-something-minute drive, to put down a deposit on our TV stand with the carpentress who custom-made our lovely DVD rack.  The TV stand will hold our TV and be flanked by shelves, specifically designed by us.  It'll have a bit of Ghanaian-style hammered-metal embellishment, and be a dark brown color.  It may take a while to make but I think it'll be worth it.  Anyone in the market for well-made and classy wood products from shelves to mirrors, picture frames to lamps, may I please recommend Marihap Handicrafts, across the street from Wild Gecko.

I finished off the evening with German class.  We have an exam next week.  This is a big one - the Zertifikat Deutsch, which is actually nationally recognized.  For example, it's the minimum language requirement for citizenship.  I aced the last Goethe end-of-level exam but since then we've gotten into grittier grammar and the tests themselves are tougher tasks.  One of the speaking tests has us sharing and comparing info from graphs with our partners.  Somehow I seem to start every sentence with "I find it surprising/funny/interesting that..."

Off to CEPEHRG tomorrow.  Plans are coming together for my parents' visit - including them filling up a rather long shopping list!  The Amazon orders should all get there with plenty of time to spare... I'm ordering a dozen books and loads of camera accessories, since lately I have been getting more serious about my photography (or at least about my photos looking their best).

Right, bedtime!