Missive from parts of Africa

A light hearted and sometimes serious look at moving 6000km into a place in Africa: April 2007. Promoted back to South Africa, the missive will continue to track my foray's into deepest Africa as and when I get there.

Name:
Location: Joburg, Africa, South Africa

Monday, September 27, 2004

Finally - The sea!!!!

An uneventful week – after the shenanigans of last week – was had, with making sure all the month end stuff is put together as soon as possible to make sure that my departure date is not altered in any way *g*.

This weekend was another pay weekend – sheesh once a month comes often it seems – with me leaving work at 2pm on Friday – made possible by the fact my car took returning people to Accra – and I needed a left home. There is nothing worse then been at home early, with no car and nothing to do. I hauled out the computer games that Eddie had bought back from SA and spent the entire afternoon playing Delta Force on the laptop. At least the game is one that I enjoy. *chuckle*

Saturday saw me been the only one at work, finishing off all the month end stuff. And finish off I did. It was nice not having anyone interrupt and I bashed out all the stuff with the exception of Plant Billing, which for some silly reason did not want to run. I sent an email to the helpdesk, but as it was a long weekend in SA, I did not expect anything to come out of it. I was not disappointed.

On Friday I received a letter from the local community setting up a meeting on the Saturday morning at 9.00am “sharp” to introduce their new chief. Apparently the last chief was not good for the community and it appears that chiefs can be kicked out. True to form at 9.45am a delegation of some 30 people traipse into the office to meet “the management of Group Five”. Now you have seen pics of our offices. They are small. Five offices around a reception area, with kitchen and toilets in the back. My office has two chairs in it, which was as sure as God made little apples, not going to be enough to accommodate the delegation that appeared. God we did not even have enough tea cups to offer them tea.

Introductions were however made, and they did indicate that their major interest was to ensure that local companies employ local people to ensure that the community develops. Nothing wrong with that concept at all.

It does appear however that their culture differs somewhat from the southern African countries, and I will have to delve deeper into this as I go along.

Saturday Night was a braai at Denzils house, with Rose (his wife and our catering person) sharing her “dash” with all of us. The braai included around 30 Crayfish, which some supplier had presented her with a while back. Nice “chop”. The evening was made that much more interesting when I noted that 5 people around the table had over 100 years experience in the construction industry and had effectively worked together for around 20 years on and off in all kinds of projects. Lubricated with Rum, Whiskey and Gin, the stories ran thick and fast and a lot of playful banter was tossed around the table. I must admit, I am surrounded by really strange people. *chuckle*

You know what they say about when you are surrounded by strange people – It is possible that you yourself are the strange person.

Yesterday I awoke at 6!!!! – late start – with no work to be done. Pottered around the house, watched the GP on TV, Shot a few ragheads and warlords and had a bath/shower at around 9. Faced with a boring day at the house, I decided weather notwithstanding, the beach was a good option today.

The road is foul!! – but 42 miles and 90 minutes later, I found Busua Beach. As you can see by the pics quite a nice place. Definitely worth more visits better prepared.

I had a toasted?? Chicken Sarmie and 2 beers and the nice man actually bought me newspapers to read at no charge. Lounged around for about 2 hours just chilling. Total bill c90.000 (R60.00) – oh look – I have found a place with tourist prices. *chuckle*

At around 1, I decided to take a drive to the old fort (circa 1665) for which I had seen a Ghana Tourist Board signpost on the way in. The fact there is no pictures of the fort is due to the Ghana Tourist Board not signposting the road further then the one sign post indicating “turn left here”. The road was single car width and there was no place to turn around. So I did what I always do and just kept on going!. If you go straight for long enough you will come out at the other end. 8 miles later, I came out at the other end. On the main Takoradi road. Sheesh – am I good or what. I will do a search for that fort the next time I am there.

Travelling straight down the road, I found a place call Axim, which has the claim to fame of been the capital of the Ahinto District. Driving through a village/town, there was a wonderful sign.

“No parking or dropping off of passengers” “ by awda”

Now looking at this sign, I decided that the sign painter did not fully understand the second line and spelt “order” phonetically. Silly lad!

However: more and more signs were “by AWDA” and either the same challenged painter had done the signs – or there was some mischief afoot. It really only dawned on me later that awda was actually A.W.D.A (Ahinto West District Authority) but never the less it was worth a chuckle and evidently someone had seen the acronym read with the pronounciation and decided to kill 3 birds with 2 stones. There is a sense of humor around !!!!

Axim hotel was a wonderful setting, as you can see by the pics. Wonderful setting was all there was. It was not around 2pm and I was once again puckish, sooooo I ordered beer and a club sandwich. The beer was immediate, the club sandwich however took almost an hour to arrive, and when it did arrive, consisted of the following:

2 doorsteps of white bread with the crusts removed
Overdose of Mayo
Lettuce
Tomato
Cabbage
And
Nothing else
Nothing!!!!!! - this was their definition of a club sandwich!!!!! And for the simple price of c40.000 (R26.00).

I was in a very good mood, and feeling rather chilled and relaxed and quite honestly not willing to fight at all. I complained in a very nice way that this was not quite what I expected, and the lady vanished into the kitchen. After about 20 mins I asked for my bill and was met by the chef? Who was most apologetic and said that the lady had made a mistake with the order, please can I wait they are making me another one.

20 mins later, the following arrived.

3 doorsteps of white bread with the crusts removed. (honestly the bread alone was 4 inches thick)
Overdose of Mayo
Lettuce
Tomato
Cabbage
Chicken

I laughed, and waded thru the sandwich and quite honestly could not get angry with the people as they really really were trying. I paid my bill (c56.000 – R37.00) and left with a rueful smile on my face.

The drive back home was uneventful, and I got home around 5 just in time for my nightly diet of TV. MD’s ( I had seen the episode before), The block (a firm favorite), Carte Blanche and the movie. Roux had got home at around 4pm and finally work up around 7:30pm.

Tis a Monday: - Organising jobs for the week, making sure the financial stuff is done before Wednesday and!!!! GETTING PREPARED TO GO HOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! – Whooo hoooooo

Lemme get at it!

Have a fun week peoples


2 Comments:

Blogger Esther said...

about time!!

4:49 PM  
Blogger Esther said...

blogger is acting weird again ......

7:27 PM  

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