Showing posts with label events. Show all posts
Showing posts with label events. Show all posts

Saturday, May 14, 2011

heeeey, blogger's back!

After a long and eventful two days in which I couldn't post anything but wanted to so much, it's finally available again!

Thursday night I went to the hospital!  A Sprite bottle shattered and a shard hit my foot; I wanted a doctor to tell me if I needed stitches.  (Didn't.)  On the plus side, I got registered with the hospital, then examined and disinfected and bandaged up properly.  It's quite minor and will probably be gone within the week; it's already closing up quite well.  But it did hurt!

Last night we had a really fantastic party.  There was friends, food, music, drinks, dancing, chatting, smiles all round, and everyone LOVES the house.  It's hard not to!  We met the neighbors, too, and overall had a really good time.  I've also now promised to invite people over for breakfast some time to make the best use of our coffee machine.  Louisa started this idea of having people over for breakfast, and it's great.  A low-key Sunday brekkie.  Maybe in a few weeks.  Cappuccinos and huevos rancheros!

For now, I got a lovely African rainstorm around 10:30 which sounds like it's winding up now.  A fresh clean start for a fresh year of life!  AND, the Eurovision finals are being streamed in the expat-oriented sports bar tonight.  What a fabulous birthday I'm having!

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Trouble Magnet

In the past few days, I've been steps away from trouble more times than coincidence.

On Monday, some guy had stopped me on the street to chat just outside of B's place.  As I was talking to him, a car rear-ended a truck behind my back.

Yesterday I checked out the Koala grocery store, and the woman in front of me in line got into some kind of trouble.  When I listened in, the owner was telling her to call someone, and that she had broken the law, and he was getting a police officer.  Then the police officer came in and told her to come with him, but she said she hadn't known what she did was illegal and she wanted to stay and talk here.  She retreated into the store, and the officer came in after her 10 seconds later.  I didn't want to be around to find out what had happened.

Then, in the taxi going home from the store, the driver was pulled over for a random check of his license.  All was well, but it still made me uneasy!

Last night I went to check out an amateur choir, as I mentioned briefly in the last post.  I got a taxi and asked for the Goethe Institut, which the driver didn't know at all.  And though it's marked in the right place on Google Maps, a search of the map on my phone put it half a mile away!  It's right next door to NAFTI, the National Film and Television Institute, which map search has a mile in the wrong direction in central Accra.  Again, if you're not searching for the place by name but just browsing the map, the marker shows up in the correct place.  Of course the driver knew NAFTI but hadn't a clue where Goethe, directly next door, was.
Lesson learned, friends: don't always trust maps.  Not even Google ones.

As for the choir, it's small, predominantly but not totally made up of expats, and definitely amateur.  I don't know if anyone has ever mentioned "blending" to this group.  Still, they sing a good mix of classical, pop, art and African stuff, and I'm really excited to start singing again.  Everyone is friendly and high-spirited.  Just one month till I'm back in town for another rehearsal!