Written in Accra - Posted in Tarkwa
Back in Ghana once again and the fact that it has taken me over a week to do my first blog update gives you some kind of indication as to what fun I have come back to.
But fun aside; this is the week that was:
The Accra flight schedule has changed (as mentioned in my previous blogs) and instead of a nice lunch time flight, arriving at 6:30 pm, we now form part of the Washington flight which leaves at around the same time we used to land. Couple this with the fact that all international flights are in the evening, the international check in was designed by a hippy who smoked too much of the good stuff and SAA was just coming off a week long strike, you have some of the picture of what the airport check in looked like.
Try fit some 2000 people and their baggage into a space 4 meters wide by 40 meters long and you will gather it was push and shove to find our way to check in. Couple this with the fact that I had excess baggage (my text books for my course weighed 15kg all by themselves) as well as four items of luggage (2 boxes of drawings for our new job starting next month), enough be said that I was growling by the time I asked the nice lady for an aisle seat as ONCE AGAIN the farkers at our oh so (in)efficient travel agency had omitted to pre-book a seat.
An unhappy farewell to the Nessers and the knowledge that I will not be getting my end away for 11 weeks, I toddled through customs with the minimal amount of hassle. Which was more than everyone else I may add due to me using the far side customs before anyone had twigged they were open. SA passport control service bid a fond farewell to their international passengers by staffing the entire departure control with six – yes six!! – people. It took both Ian and Gus almost an hour to pass through their service driven hands.
I spent a couple of penny’s getting the lads in Ghana some goodies and joined the queue at gate 8 for the boarding. Once again the travellator was not working and in all my innocence I wandered past a long queue of people who I presumed were leaving via gate 7. Oh what naivety!! Of course the plane is going to the USA…
Our friendly yanks are unfortunately paying the price for their rather interesting foreign policy, which automatically dictates that we who fly half way to the land of hope and glory are subject to the full might of “security” checks. Our method of checking security….. look around and identify suspicious looking people and search their hand baggage. Oh yes – and the best part of it all? We are not allowed lighters on the flight!! I mean hello!!!!! We not allowed to smoke on the farking flight but sure as hell want to have a smoke (or three) when we get to the other side.
I am a smoker – do NOT remove my lighter from my possession. I must admit, I did not volunteer my lighter and the plane landed safely across the water. I would LOVE! to understand the reason for surrendering your lighter. (I mean besides the fact that the airport staff who smoke have found a really clever way to ensure they never have to buy another lighter in their lives again) (or – there is a huge market for second hand lighters that I am not aware of)
As an aside – there is a stunning ad for a vehicle tracking company that shows us where missing socks go. Maybe they should do the same with missing lighters.
Now. I arrived early – I checked in, asked for, and was given, an aisle seat and did everything right to ensure I had that extra few inches to travel with. That presupposes that someone with a tad more push than me also requests an aisle seat and I get bumped to a centre seat in the middle of the plane. To say I was pissed off is an understatement, and true to form spent a large amount of time bitching to all that was willing (and unwilling) to hear exactly what I thought of the situation.
SAA have managed to squeeze as many people into a plane as possible when it comes to cattle class. I measured from my nose to the seat in front of me I had 32 centimeters. I mean squash us in will you!! Luckily I had a very nice lady who was returning from a medical NGO project in Zambia and her two daughters in my row. Very nice lady took one look at me and (wisely) decided that I should not be spending the next six hours chatting to her daughters (OR.. Nessers phoned her and told her in no uncertain terms on how she had to protect her little lasses from my wicked ways) and I ended up with her aisle seat anyway.
The plane is one with your own little TV set and a choice of current movies. That assumes that the system actually works of course. In our case in order to get the system working, it had to be reset twice and Ian and Gus did not have any “in flight entertainment” the entire flight. The plane was filled to the gunnels and there was no way they could move to a seat with a working system. One hopes that SAA are maintaining their planes a lot better than their inflight entertainment systems. (Cost cutting due to the extra 1% already Kyaia?)
I did manage to watch “Miss Congeniality 2” and the Vin Diesel movie where he looks after kids. (canna recall the name). I also managed a few pages of my book and chatted to the nice lady about her African adventures.
Of course the plane lands at 11:30 pm local time, (1:30 am SAST)and the poor buggers that remain on the plane are woken up for landing and asked to remove their luggage from the overhead lockers and place them on their laps. This I assume is to stop a wooly raghead from leaving a ticking package on the flight while he visits my Imam in Tarkwa.
Security Fears? You betcha!
Arrive at the Accra house to be advised that:
1. Only one aircon is working out of the six in the house. (subsequently I realised that our poor Peter is not the brightest of the pack as he does not know how to work the remote controls)
2. The Kettle is broken
3. There is no food in the house
4. The phone is not working
Auspicious start to my 3rd tour of duty this year.
To say I have been busy in the last week is an understatement. Dealt with all sorts of strange stuff when I got back to Tarkwa - uneventful journey – and as Ian had come along for the week to resolve some old issues, I spent time with him in meetings with three clients before driving back to Accra on Saturday to put him on a plane that evening. (and he gets nookie on Sunday – lucky bugger)
One thing that did surprise me though is the trip from Tarkwa to Bibiani has always been four hours. Mark had mentioned that when he did the trip with Albert in April it was around 2.5 hours. I drove it on Thursday in….. 2.5 hours. It was the first time I drove myself to Bibiani and it appears that Daniel is not the fastest driver in the world. I have always read a book – or used the computer – on the trip and evidently did not note that his average speed is a lot lower then normal.
I have been in Accra since Saturday as mentioned. Ian and yours truly watched the rugby and supped the local beer and munched on Do-nuts. A weird combination I do admit, but the Do-nuts were so so nice. (and we won the rugger!!! - whoo hooo)
After a meal at Champs, Ian was dispatched at the drop off point with my copy of “medal of honour” and left to his own devices for two hours or so shooting Germans on his PC.
I also went food shopping for the first time in Accra. A little “expat” store called Maxi Mart. All sorts of imported goodies on packed shelves. It reminded me so much of the store that I went shopping at when I was in Cyprus – Angie will remember the day I spent a huge amount on buying stuff for dinner as to which she did mention I had shopped at the most expensive place in town –
I was shocked and stunned at the prices! Fark!!
I looked at a kettle – GHC 500,000 for a basic one – (R350.00)
Some of the food prices for you to mull over:
Item GHC Price ZAR Price
Dogmor (5 KG!!!) 69,000 50.00
Cabbage (1) 12,500 8.90
Tomato Sauce 750g 79,000 56.00
Cheese (300g) 62,500 44.64
Long Life Milk – 1 liter17,500 12.50
Chicken Fillet (500g) 31,500 22.50
Coke 1.5l 11,500 8.20
Jam 300g 31,000 22,00
Corn Flakes 300g 87,000 62.00
As you can see, if I am going to eat here I am definatly going to have to find a cheaper place to shop!
Another interesting factor is I need to print out our corporate profile for a job we are expressing interest in. The only place I know that has a color printer is the Tulip Hotel business center. Total cost for 51 pages - R998.00.
This is sad!!
Accra is a load more expensive than Tarkwa!
Best I start getting some business to cover these costs!
The fact that this blog will be posted a few days after I have typed it means that the phone line is still not working and I have no internet access. I did toddle off to the Telecom people and complain to a most unhelpful person ( was she trained by SAA?) who seems to feel that as the problem is reported it ceases to be her issue. I will await that one with interest.
Another fun item which makes me chuckle is the dealmakers. Word has evidently got out in the small town that we have an office in town and being a large company can do all these strange deals.
I have had five meetings in the last two days with all sorts of dealmakers who have the “in” with government and can get these “huge” contracts that will make our company lots and lots of money. The catch? Oh – government has no funding for the job, so you need to fund the job yourself. There seems to be some confusion as to how payment is going to be made.
All this reminds me of all the “empowerment dealmakers” I dealt with in my previous job who wished to invest “huge” amounts in our company, but unfortunately did not have the money to pay. Therefore we go to the bank, raise the funds to pay for a shareholding in the company and the same confusion existed on how the loan was going to be repaid.
Oh if the cat people were in earshot now, with all their liberated ideas they have about Africa. (if you never heard the story about the cat people – ask me – It was a HUGE laugh)
I am sitting at the computer hammering away at this blog (obviously as for some reason it does not write itself) awaiting 11pm when the SA flight lands so I can pick up Carlos and Leon. See what I mean by an inconvenient hour? I still wake up at 5:30 am so tonight is going to be a long night for us all.
Was there any humour in this post? - I think there was!
Speak to you later bunnies!!
But fun aside; this is the week that was:
The Accra flight schedule has changed (as mentioned in my previous blogs) and instead of a nice lunch time flight, arriving at 6:30 pm, we now form part of the Washington flight which leaves at around the same time we used to land. Couple this with the fact that all international flights are in the evening, the international check in was designed by a hippy who smoked too much of the good stuff and SAA was just coming off a week long strike, you have some of the picture of what the airport check in looked like.
Try fit some 2000 people and their baggage into a space 4 meters wide by 40 meters long and you will gather it was push and shove to find our way to check in. Couple this with the fact that I had excess baggage (my text books for my course weighed 15kg all by themselves) as well as four items of luggage (2 boxes of drawings for our new job starting next month), enough be said that I was growling by the time I asked the nice lady for an aisle seat as ONCE AGAIN the farkers at our oh so (in)efficient travel agency had omitted to pre-book a seat.
An unhappy farewell to the Nessers and the knowledge that I will not be getting my end away for 11 weeks, I toddled through customs with the minimal amount of hassle. Which was more than everyone else I may add due to me using the far side customs before anyone had twigged they were open. SA passport control service bid a fond farewell to their international passengers by staffing the entire departure control with six – yes six!! – people. It took both Ian and Gus almost an hour to pass through their service driven hands.
I spent a couple of penny’s getting the lads in Ghana some goodies and joined the queue at gate 8 for the boarding. Once again the travellator was not working and in all my innocence I wandered past a long queue of people who I presumed were leaving via gate 7. Oh what naivety!! Of course the plane is going to the USA…
Our friendly yanks are unfortunately paying the price for their rather interesting foreign policy, which automatically dictates that we who fly half way to the land of hope and glory are subject to the full might of “security” checks. Our method of checking security….. look around and identify suspicious looking people and search their hand baggage. Oh yes – and the best part of it all? We are not allowed lighters on the flight!! I mean hello!!!!! We not allowed to smoke on the farking flight but sure as hell want to have a smoke (or three) when we get to the other side.
I am a smoker – do NOT remove my lighter from my possession. I must admit, I did not volunteer my lighter and the plane landed safely across the water. I would LOVE! to understand the reason for surrendering your lighter. (I mean besides the fact that the airport staff who smoke have found a really clever way to ensure they never have to buy another lighter in their lives again) (or – there is a huge market for second hand lighters that I am not aware of)
As an aside – there is a stunning ad for a vehicle tracking company that shows us where missing socks go. Maybe they should do the same with missing lighters.
Now. I arrived early – I checked in, asked for, and was given, an aisle seat and did everything right to ensure I had that extra few inches to travel with. That presupposes that someone with a tad more push than me also requests an aisle seat and I get bumped to a centre seat in the middle of the plane. To say I was pissed off is an understatement, and true to form spent a large amount of time bitching to all that was willing (and unwilling) to hear exactly what I thought of the situation.
SAA have managed to squeeze as many people into a plane as possible when it comes to cattle class. I measured from my nose to the seat in front of me I had 32 centimeters. I mean squash us in will you!! Luckily I had a very nice lady who was returning from a medical NGO project in Zambia and her two daughters in my row. Very nice lady took one look at me and (wisely) decided that I should not be spending the next six hours chatting to her daughters (OR.. Nessers phoned her and told her in no uncertain terms on how she had to protect her little lasses from my wicked ways) and I ended up with her aisle seat anyway.
The plane is one with your own little TV set and a choice of current movies. That assumes that the system actually works of course. In our case in order to get the system working, it had to be reset twice and Ian and Gus did not have any “in flight entertainment” the entire flight. The plane was filled to the gunnels and there was no way they could move to a seat with a working system. One hopes that SAA are maintaining their planes a lot better than their inflight entertainment systems. (Cost cutting due to the extra 1% already Kyaia?)
I did manage to watch “Miss Congeniality 2” and the Vin Diesel movie where he looks after kids. (canna recall the name). I also managed a few pages of my book and chatted to the nice lady about her African adventures.
Of course the plane lands at 11:30 pm local time, (1:30 am SAST)and the poor buggers that remain on the plane are woken up for landing and asked to remove their luggage from the overhead lockers and place them on their laps. This I assume is to stop a wooly raghead from leaving a ticking package on the flight while he visits my Imam in Tarkwa.
Security Fears? You betcha!
Arrive at the Accra house to be advised that:
1. Only one aircon is working out of the six in the house. (subsequently I realised that our poor Peter is not the brightest of the pack as he does not know how to work the remote controls)
2. The Kettle is broken
3. There is no food in the house
4. The phone is not working
Auspicious start to my 3rd tour of duty this year.
To say I have been busy in the last week is an understatement. Dealt with all sorts of strange stuff when I got back to Tarkwa - uneventful journey – and as Ian had come along for the week to resolve some old issues, I spent time with him in meetings with three clients before driving back to Accra on Saturday to put him on a plane that evening. (and he gets nookie on Sunday – lucky bugger)
One thing that did surprise me though is the trip from Tarkwa to Bibiani has always been four hours. Mark had mentioned that when he did the trip with Albert in April it was around 2.5 hours. I drove it on Thursday in….. 2.5 hours. It was the first time I drove myself to Bibiani and it appears that Daniel is not the fastest driver in the world. I have always read a book – or used the computer – on the trip and evidently did not note that his average speed is a lot lower then normal.
I have been in Accra since Saturday as mentioned. Ian and yours truly watched the rugby and supped the local beer and munched on Do-nuts. A weird combination I do admit, but the Do-nuts were so so nice. (and we won the rugger!!! - whoo hooo)
After a meal at Champs, Ian was dispatched at the drop off point with my copy of “medal of honour” and left to his own devices for two hours or so shooting Germans on his PC.
I also went food shopping for the first time in Accra. A little “expat” store called Maxi Mart. All sorts of imported goodies on packed shelves. It reminded me so much of the store that I went shopping at when I was in Cyprus – Angie will remember the day I spent a huge amount on buying stuff for dinner as to which she did mention I had shopped at the most expensive place in town –
I was shocked and stunned at the prices! Fark!!
I looked at a kettle – GHC 500,000 for a basic one – (R350.00)
Some of the food prices for you to mull over:
Item GHC Price ZAR Price
Dogmor (5 KG!!!) 69,000 50.00
Cabbage (1) 12,500 8.90
Tomato Sauce 750g 79,000 56.00
Cheese (300g) 62,500 44.64
Long Life Milk – 1 liter17,500 12.50
Chicken Fillet (500g) 31,500 22.50
Coke 1.5l 11,500 8.20
Jam 300g 31,000 22,00
Corn Flakes 300g 87,000 62.00
As you can see, if I am going to eat here I am definatly going to have to find a cheaper place to shop!
Another interesting factor is I need to print out our corporate profile for a job we are expressing interest in. The only place I know that has a color printer is the Tulip Hotel business center. Total cost for 51 pages - R998.00.
This is sad!!
Accra is a load more expensive than Tarkwa!
Best I start getting some business to cover these costs!
The fact that this blog will be posted a few days after I have typed it means that the phone line is still not working and I have no internet access. I did toddle off to the Telecom people and complain to a most unhelpful person ( was she trained by SAA?) who seems to feel that as the problem is reported it ceases to be her issue. I will await that one with interest.
Another fun item which makes me chuckle is the dealmakers. Word has evidently got out in the small town that we have an office in town and being a large company can do all these strange deals.
I have had five meetings in the last two days with all sorts of dealmakers who have the “in” with government and can get these “huge” contracts that will make our company lots and lots of money. The catch? Oh – government has no funding for the job, so you need to fund the job yourself. There seems to be some confusion as to how payment is going to be made.
All this reminds me of all the “empowerment dealmakers” I dealt with in my previous job who wished to invest “huge” amounts in our company, but unfortunately did not have the money to pay. Therefore we go to the bank, raise the funds to pay for a shareholding in the company and the same confusion existed on how the loan was going to be repaid.
Oh if the cat people were in earshot now, with all their liberated ideas they have about Africa. (if you never heard the story about the cat people – ask me – It was a HUGE laugh)
I am sitting at the computer hammering away at this blog (obviously as for some reason it does not write itself) awaiting 11pm when the SA flight lands so I can pick up Carlos and Leon. See what I mean by an inconvenient hour? I still wake up at 5:30 am so tonight is going to be a long night for us all.
Was there any humour in this post? - I think there was!
Speak to you later bunnies!!
2 Comments:
ha, I always get an aisle seat when I ask for one ;)
um, best u find a cheaper store, or have everything sent up from here. R62 for a box of cornflakes? Sheess. U could of course figure out how to make pap instead *chuckle*
*haha* you are not a happy lil bunny are you? Try buying all you groceries in Tarkwa and take with you to Accra!!! *giggle*. I now take a monthly shop in Limassol, cheaper than Pafos.
Smile lil bro and look forward to the next blog.......
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