Every year around August, Homowo sweeps through Accra. Translated as "hooting at hunger," this month-long (!!!) festival commemorates the end of a famine some time back in history. Every night it shifts to another neighborhood. And the point of the thing is to make as much noise as possible.
I haven't slept well for ages, and was planning to take it easy tonight so I could catch up on some rest. But when I got home from work I saw TWO houses on our block had set up huge tents, and had cars parked all over. House guest informed me the music's been going on "a long time" already.
I think my plan's gonna be really difficult.
Crap.
edit, the next day -- it ended at midnight, not too bad in the scheme of things. better than that time the music went until 2AM in March. This time, my attitude was much better, too: "I can't change them, so I'll just relax and try my best to sleep through it until it stops." I did drift in and out of sleep for about 2 hours. Better than getting myself allll worked up for something I don't have a hope of changing.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
unbelievable
I heard about an hour ago about a shooting in an Aurora theater, very close to home. They were having a midnight screening of the new Batman movie when a gunman set off a smoke or tear gas canister and opened fire; current numbers are 15 dead and 50 injured.
First question is why this guy was able to have 3 guns; why are guns legal?
Second thought is I'm worried I won't feel safe in any public space in the US any more.
Third thought: he was shooting what witnesses said was "random." Why? What could you possibly prove by doing this?
Not to mention, I have friends who are midnight-screening types, and God, I hope they are okay. I hope they weren't there.
I can't focus at work any more... may end up calling today a wash overall, just trying to do as much as I can. Not much.
First question is why this guy was able to have 3 guns; why are guns legal?
Second thought is I'm worried I won't feel safe in any public space in the US any more.
Third thought: he was shooting what witnesses said was "random." Why? What could you possibly prove by doing this?
Not to mention, I have friends who are midnight-screening types, and God, I hope they are okay. I hope they weren't there.
I can't focus at work any more... may end up calling today a wash overall, just trying to do as much as I can. Not much.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
car!
We have our car back with a new engine! It only cost us an extra 1/3 of the price they originally told us. Even at the dealership, you can always be sure they will neglect to tell you that your repair needs an extra 500 cedis' worth of parts and labor, which wasn't mentioned to you at all until the day the car was ready.
The engine runs well, anyway, but we are bringing it back because the steering wheel steers crooked (not the car's wheels, just the steering wheel). They say they can do that repair in a day. Here's hoping.
The weather's nice nowadays; cool in the mornings and evenings and very manageable during the day. We're gearing up for our visit to Europe next week - we leave Thursday night and I'm really excited. We're spending a 24-hour layover in Istanbul seeing the sights. Then I'll be looking at wedding dresses in Dublin and going to a wedding in Germany. A month later we're off to Toronto, two weddings in the States and a four-day whirlwind planning trip for our own next May.
Work has offered me a new contract and a raise. All I gotta do now is get my life settled down enough to get blogging again and start planning our wedding...!
The engine runs well, anyway, but we are bringing it back because the steering wheel steers crooked (not the car's wheels, just the steering wheel). They say they can do that repair in a day. Here's hoping.
The weather's nice nowadays; cool in the mornings and evenings and very manageable during the day. We're gearing up for our visit to Europe next week - we leave Thursday night and I'm really excited. We're spending a 24-hour layover in Istanbul seeing the sights. Then I'll be looking at wedding dresses in Dublin and going to a wedding in Germany. A month later we're off to Toronto, two weddings in the States and a four-day whirlwind planning trip for our own next May.
Work has offered me a new contract and a raise. All I gotta do now is get my life settled down enough to get blogging again and start planning our wedding...!
Friday, June 15, 2012
a conversation of horns
Yesterday two drivers had a conversation, entirely with their car horns. It went like this:
Car 1 swerves into the other lane to avoid stopped cars -- into car 2's path.
Car 2: BEEEEP BEEEEP!
Car 1: Be-beep.
Car 2 swerves into car 1's lane to avoid stopped tro-tros in the right lane.
Car 1: BEEP, BEE-BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!
Car 2: BEEP BEEP BEEP! BE-BEEP BEEP!
Car 1: Beep beep beep beep!
Translation:
Car 2: Watch it! You're about to hit me!
Car 1: Sorry o.
Car 2 swerves.
Car 1: Watch it yourself! Hypocrite!
Car 2: Hey, serves YOU right for almost hitting me.
Car 1: I'll show you, you uppity little so-and-so!
I promise, this is exactly how it went.
Friday, May 18, 2012
birthday :)
J says odd-numbered years are good years.
Monday was my birthday! Though the day started out sleepy, by morning all was well. We went out for dinner at the Italian restaurant at the polo club.
The best part was that for one day, all those street roosters, with their four-note cock-a-doodles, were singing "Happy birthdaaay! Happy birthday!"
The car was good for two weeks, went fuzzy again last Thursday, was away until this morning - and needs to go away again. It's not fixed. I'm frustrated, but remaining relaxed.
I have a cavity and had to see the dentist. It's a complicated case in my crooked last molar so he put in a temporary filling and I'm going back in a month. He also doesn't trust the root canal work I had done in January by another dentist here, but I think I'll leave that and just hope it actually was sufficient. And that other dentist does have a good strong reputation with expats here, too.
I got notice from the Employment Appeals Tribunal in Dublin that I've been given a hearing date at the end of May. Working hard to postpone that to my visit at the end of July. Keep your fingers crossed; I only have five working days to apply for a postponement!
Last but CERTAINLY not least, I'm finished with German classes - forever, if I want to be. I had my C1 test on Saturday, and Monday, and Thursday. (Technical difficulties.) Only two of us made it past the written to take the spoken test on Thursday, and we both passed!
Monday was my birthday! Though the day started out sleepy, by morning all was well. We went out for dinner at the Italian restaurant at the polo club.
The best part was that for one day, all those street roosters, with their four-note cock-a-doodles, were singing "Happy birthdaaay! Happy birthday!"
The car was good for two weeks, went fuzzy again last Thursday, was away until this morning - and needs to go away again. It's not fixed. I'm frustrated, but remaining relaxed.
I have a cavity and had to see the dentist. It's a complicated case in my crooked last molar so he put in a temporary filling and I'm going back in a month. He also doesn't trust the root canal work I had done in January by another dentist here, but I think I'll leave that and just hope it actually was sufficient. And that other dentist does have a good strong reputation with expats here, too.
I got notice from the Employment Appeals Tribunal in Dublin that I've been given a hearing date at the end of May. Working hard to postpone that to my visit at the end of July. Keep your fingers crossed; I only have five working days to apply for a postponement!
Last but CERTAINLY not least, I'm finished with German classes - forever, if I want to be. I had my C1 test on Saturday, and Monday, and Thursday. (Technical difficulties.) Only two of us made it past the written to take the spoken test on Thursday, and we both passed!
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
this is Osu, o...
loud dance party music last night until 1:15 AM. Usually these crazy parties will shut down at 10:00 out of respect for the neighbors (unless they're funerals, which only happen on weekends - not Tuesdays. Not this one. It was three or four blocks away but sounded like it was in our backyard. The weirdest thing is, yesterday was a holiday but today's a working day again. Shouldn't the party have happened on the evening before the holiday?
My last remaining question is, with so much exposure to music that's so loud, how is it that I haven't heard anything about hearing problems in Ghanaians?
My last remaining question is, with so much exposure to music that's so loud, how is it that I haven't heard anything about hearing problems in Ghanaians?
Monday, April 23, 2012
assumptions
Can I talk about something that bothers me, as an expat?
The assumption that what you say will apply to my situation. "Privilege," some people call it. The assumption that you'll easily be able to follow the suggestions. That anything they say is matter-of-fact and can be done or found without effort.
I've seen pieces on racial privilege, ableist privilege, gender privilege, and others. An example of racial privilege: "When I look for makeup, 'flesh' color most often matches or is close to my skin tone." Ableist privilege: "I can assume I'll be able to easily enter and move around any building I want to go into." Gender privilege: "The default gender pronoun matches my gender." That is to say, when people don't know someone's gender they will assume "he" more often than "she" most of the time. Gender privilege.
I call this next one "first-world privilege" or, more specifically, "suburban privilege."
I have some books from the States full of tips and tricks to stay organized. Many of the suggestions are great. But others - let me throw a few out there for you.
"Put important to-dos at the bottom of the stairs."
"Keep documents you always need in the front seat of your car."
"Donate it to the nearest charity."
"Don't store cereal in plastic storage containers. It comes in a perfectly good box, so use that."
"Only buy what you have on your shopping list when you go to the grocery store."
My spacious apartment only has one story. What stairs do I use?
For nearly a year, we had no car. Living in Dublin, we never had a car for three years. Where do I keep my documents then - with my taxi driver? In my bike basket?
The charities they talk about in these books are the ones that sell clothes for the secondhand market here. The best I can think of in Accra is to go hawk this stuff at Makola myself. As if that doesn't create even more stress than giving these things away!
It's so humid here, yesterday we had tortilla chips go stale in two hours. If it's not the humidity, it's the ants or the weevils. No, I can't save myself the time and hassle on cereal storage. Nor any spice, flour, sugar, snack or condiment. If anything here isn't sealed, it's bug food within hours. So spare me the lecture on how I can save time when I'm living a daily battle against ant takeover.
Stores here are pretty good nowadays, but there are always gaps. They don't always have chicken breasts, or cream, or canned tomatoes, or fresh herbs. You have to buy what's available in case you can't find it when you need it next week. You don't make a meal plan and shop for it; you make suggestions, go shopping, then make a meal plan based on what the store actually had.
Once our roommate needed to send her passport by Fed Ex to get a visa. The agent from her work's HQ in the States said, "Just go to your nearest post office, they'll have a Fed Ex counter there." Are you kidding? Does she know there aren't even letter boxes on the streets? To mail anything you really do need to go to the post office, buy the stamps, and put it in their post box. There are no other places to put letters in the mail. I've been waiting for the key to my PO box for 10 months. I have bigger worries at my post office than the Fed Ex counter.
Any time a site says "Stop into your local XYZ." They don't have 'em here.
I'll add more examples as I come up with them.
The assumption that what you say will apply to my situation. "Privilege," some people call it. The assumption that you'll easily be able to follow the suggestions. That anything they say is matter-of-fact and can be done or found without effort.
I've seen pieces on racial privilege, ableist privilege, gender privilege, and others. An example of racial privilege: "When I look for makeup, 'flesh' color most often matches or is close to my skin tone." Ableist privilege: "I can assume I'll be able to easily enter and move around any building I want to go into." Gender privilege: "The default gender pronoun matches my gender." That is to say, when people don't know someone's gender they will assume "he" more often than "she" most of the time. Gender privilege.
I call this next one "first-world privilege" or, more specifically, "suburban privilege."
I have some books from the States full of tips and tricks to stay organized. Many of the suggestions are great. But others - let me throw a few out there for you.
"Put important to-dos at the bottom of the stairs."
"Keep documents you always need in the front seat of your car."
"Donate it to the nearest charity."
"Don't store cereal in plastic storage containers. It comes in a perfectly good box, so use that."
"Only buy what you have on your shopping list when you go to the grocery store."
My spacious apartment only has one story. What stairs do I use?
For nearly a year, we had no car. Living in Dublin, we never had a car for three years. Where do I keep my documents then - with my taxi driver? In my bike basket?
The charities they talk about in these books are the ones that sell clothes for the secondhand market here. The best I can think of in Accra is to go hawk this stuff at Makola myself. As if that doesn't create even more stress than giving these things away!
It's so humid here, yesterday we had tortilla chips go stale in two hours. If it's not the humidity, it's the ants or the weevils. No, I can't save myself the time and hassle on cereal storage. Nor any spice, flour, sugar, snack or condiment. If anything here isn't sealed, it's bug food within hours. So spare me the lecture on how I can save time when I'm living a daily battle against ant takeover.
Stores here are pretty good nowadays, but there are always gaps. They don't always have chicken breasts, or cream, or canned tomatoes, or fresh herbs. You have to buy what's available in case you can't find it when you need it next week. You don't make a meal plan and shop for it; you make suggestions, go shopping, then make a meal plan based on what the store actually had.
Once our roommate needed to send her passport by Fed Ex to get a visa. The agent from her work's HQ in the States said, "Just go to your nearest post office, they'll have a Fed Ex counter there." Are you kidding? Does she know there aren't even letter boxes on the streets? To mail anything you really do need to go to the post office, buy the stamps, and put it in their post box. There are no other places to put letters in the mail. I've been waiting for the key to my PO box for 10 months. I have bigger worries at my post office than the Fed Ex counter.
Any time a site says "Stop into your local XYZ." They don't have 'em here.
I'll add more examples as I come up with them.
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