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.

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.

Autumn tree

As just mentioned earlier!

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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!

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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!

Rain!

Yes, it rained yesterday for about 3 hours in the morning.  Today seems like it's going to be dry.  I'm feeling better but not 100%.  Thanks for the well wishes.

Yesterday afternoon I headed to check out CePEHRG - the Centre for Peer Education and Human Rights, Ghana.  It's a volunteer-run organization dedicated to upholding and educating the public human rights, HIV awareness, women's empowerment and GLBTQIetc rights.  Hopefully I'll get a paying job somewhere and still be able to volunteer here - they already have tasks in mind for me.  Doing a newsletter, editing written stuff, and doing some in-house empowerment training for the women are on the list for now.

Just saw an ad for a position today at the U of Ghana Legon for a part-time lecturer in academic writing.  I could do that.  Problem is, the deadline was March 31 and I can't get in touch with anyone to ask if they would still accept an application!  Wish me luck here or maybe in the Department of Linguistics!