Radio Gaga
It has been noted that my updates have been very few and far between. Remiss of me I know, but judging that I am now doing way in excess of 4000km a month between Tarkwa, Accra and Obuasi, my time for sitting back and chilling into a blog is not quite there anymore.
One thing that my many hours in a car is proving – this week I calculated I drove for a total of 18 hours – is that listening to the radio is an education of note. (why am I listening to the radio instead of CD’s you ask? - Well some holier than thou in SA refuses to send through the new speakers and amp for the car and my two OEM speakers have died due to playing the music a tad loud.).
I pick up local radio for the first ¾ of the trip and BBC for my time when I am in Accra. Local radio does have a fair amount of talk shows – in a mixture of English and the local vernacular – which can be quite interesting.
One of the talk shows this week which I found rather worrying was the local education department waxing lyrical about a new computer system they had introduced which allocates pupils to schools. From what I could gather as a fair amount of the discussion was in Local, was that all pupils primary school marks are sent to a central point and based on your marks you are then allocated to a school.
The fun part about this? Well, no recognition is taken as to where you live. So you may live in Tarkwa, but because you a clever person you will be allocated to a Cape Coast School. (I gather all the really good schools are in Cape Coast). The visa versa also applied and if you were a bit doff you could be allocated to a northern school even though you came from a southern town. When asked about this, the lackey from GES quite happily said that pupils should board or stay with a relative.
I do ask myself what this does for family values and if it recognizes that ability of the parent to pay for boarding costs. The reason for this is simple. Government has not invested in educational facilities; therefore there is a shortage of schools. Rather than build more schools and train more teachers, they are quite happy to allocate pupils to schools and accept the high dropout rate that ensues.
This was also done so that Headmasters at good schools did not demand “dash” for children to be admitted to their good schools.
It is little wonder than why one sees so many children out of school when you drive. It is a sad state of affairs!
The radio also spent a lot of time on the doctor’s strike of 6 days last week. Apparently government doctors had not been paid their agreed allowances for a month or so and went on strike to force Government to pay the allowances.
Today on my drive to Wassa (3 hours drive, 30 minute meeting), one of the doctors from the GMA was defending himself from a public vilification as to how dare doctors go on strike as people would die. Noble view, but as the doctor quite rightly said, he can quite happily go work in the USA instead of stay in Ghana for the monthly salary of GHC 1.200.000. (ZAR 857; USD131.00) per month. Their allowance brings this salary up to GHC 3.600.000 per month.
There are obviously other benefits working for Govt. (housing, pension and the like), but I am staggered that a Doc can earn such a paltry sum for his skills. The callers complain that doctors only arrive at the hospital at 10am instead of 8am and work privately so they should not complain. Erm Hello!! If I got paid a pittance, I would use my intelligence and skills to supplement my income. As long as a decent wage is not paid, you will not get decent people to work. I am trying SO hard to work out why employers cannot accept this BASIC principle of management.
Our friendly Pres, J J Kufour stated while bidding the local IMF representative farewell that by next budget year, Ghana will not rely on the IMF for their “budgetary support” of $27 million per annum. That way they can rid themselves of the conditions required for fiscal management by the IMF.
The radio program waxed lyrical about how the “colonialists” maintained control over poor Ghana and the rest of Africa by dictating their economic policy. How Africa needed to finally get rid of the colonialists and do their own thing. All of Ghana ills were blamed on the damn British!
Now I am not a great fan of the Poms at the best of times (except for one special Pom), but when you consider Ghana got rid of the Poms 47 years ago, it does seem a bit rich to continue to claim that all the financial problems they are facing was because of them.
It was obviously not caused by the rampant corruption in Government. Had nothing to do with the great African “tradition” of never maintain something until it is broken. One should not even consider the fact that almost zero beneficiation gets carried out in the country.
Nooooo. It is so much easier to blame the colonialists.
Ghanaians need to learn that it is about time they take responsibility for what is theirs. Two generations have passed since independence. How many more generations are needed before the statement “we are fucking up” comes to mind?
As well as that, the naivety that by forgoing $27 million all IMF restrictions will fall away. Hello! Ghana has just been forgiven $740 BILLION debt. Do they honestly and truthfully believe that that debt forgiveness comes sans conditions? If they do (and I hope I am wrong) then they have a small surprise coming their way!
Ghana has already been prevented from issuing sovereign guarantees by the World Bank. There is no way that debt is going to be written off just to allow the country to over borrow again.
BBC comes up with some gems. An entire ½ hour dedicated to teaching the listeners all about genetic theory (oh yes! ½ way through the program the narrator mentioned he had just realised that 30 minutes was not enough to teach us all about DNA and Genes. No kidding Sherlock). How all cells reach a point whereby once a division is made, the cells get a specific purpose. Until then the cells are generic and if you remove a cell it can divide to make up a whole creature. How birds cells change a lot later in the division process then frog cells. Not sure where humans fit in the grand scale of division.
They then told us the amazing fact that the DNA on a fly’s wings is different from a cell instruction perspective when you compare the front and the rear of the wing. I mean this is stuff that I really wanted to know. The problem of course is this totally useless fact is burned into my brain forever!
BBC also has its daily 15 minute soap opera about a guy dieing of cancer and two lesbians (1 preggers by the Gay guy they live with) and their issues about been a threesome and having to hide the fact that it is in fact the lasses that are a couple as opposed to the pregger woman and the Gay lad.
One can also listen to some knowledgeable lad talk about classical music and how the standard tune has 7 notes but some bright composer decided that music should use all 12 notes available. In the purest form all 12 notes are used, and 1 note is not reused until all the other 11 have been used. He likened this to a Picasso Painting where the form is there, but is not quite standard around the edges. Once he plays the music you actually get what he says. Quite honestly though I am not that into music to analyse it to that depth. BUT once again I have a useless fact to add to my store.
So as you can see, I am having my small little brain filled with useless information instead of listening to House on full volume, which has the effect of putting the brain into suspended animation so as not to realise how long and boring the trip is. For that you can thank the little creature in JHB.
One thing is for sure though. It is only a matter of time before I have an accident. On each sojourn into the wild, I have at least two near misses with trucks/taxi’s that sit in the middle of the road and refuse to move. I look at the airbag with interest and ensure the safety belt is tight. My medevac number is also speed dial 9 on my cell phone. (That is assuming there is signal)
As our one client says “Cool Times Ahead”. (he has designed and we are building an underground air cooling system).
In my perspective, I hear morgues are rather cool!
Have a fun day everyone!!
One thing that my many hours in a car is proving – this week I calculated I drove for a total of 18 hours – is that listening to the radio is an education of note. (why am I listening to the radio instead of CD’s you ask? - Well some holier than thou in SA refuses to send through the new speakers and amp for the car and my two OEM speakers have died due to playing the music a tad loud.).
I pick up local radio for the first ¾ of the trip and BBC for my time when I am in Accra. Local radio does have a fair amount of talk shows – in a mixture of English and the local vernacular – which can be quite interesting.
One of the talk shows this week which I found rather worrying was the local education department waxing lyrical about a new computer system they had introduced which allocates pupils to schools. From what I could gather as a fair amount of the discussion was in Local, was that all pupils primary school marks are sent to a central point and based on your marks you are then allocated to a school.
The fun part about this? Well, no recognition is taken as to where you live. So you may live in Tarkwa, but because you a clever person you will be allocated to a Cape Coast School. (I gather all the really good schools are in Cape Coast). The visa versa also applied and if you were a bit doff you could be allocated to a northern school even though you came from a southern town. When asked about this, the lackey from GES quite happily said that pupils should board or stay with a relative.
I do ask myself what this does for family values and if it recognizes that ability of the parent to pay for boarding costs. The reason for this is simple. Government has not invested in educational facilities; therefore there is a shortage of schools. Rather than build more schools and train more teachers, they are quite happy to allocate pupils to schools and accept the high dropout rate that ensues.
This was also done so that Headmasters at good schools did not demand “dash” for children to be admitted to their good schools.
It is little wonder than why one sees so many children out of school when you drive. It is a sad state of affairs!
The radio also spent a lot of time on the doctor’s strike of 6 days last week. Apparently government doctors had not been paid their agreed allowances for a month or so and went on strike to force Government to pay the allowances.
Today on my drive to Wassa (3 hours drive, 30 minute meeting), one of the doctors from the GMA was defending himself from a public vilification as to how dare doctors go on strike as people would die. Noble view, but as the doctor quite rightly said, he can quite happily go work in the USA instead of stay in Ghana for the monthly salary of GHC 1.200.000. (ZAR 857; USD131.00) per month. Their allowance brings this salary up to GHC 3.600.000 per month.
There are obviously other benefits working for Govt. (housing, pension and the like), but I am staggered that a Doc can earn such a paltry sum for his skills. The callers complain that doctors only arrive at the hospital at 10am instead of 8am and work privately so they should not complain. Erm Hello!! If I got paid a pittance, I would use my intelligence and skills to supplement my income. As long as a decent wage is not paid, you will not get decent people to work. I am trying SO hard to work out why employers cannot accept this BASIC principle of management.
Our friendly Pres, J J Kufour stated while bidding the local IMF representative farewell that by next budget year, Ghana will not rely on the IMF for their “budgetary support” of $27 million per annum. That way they can rid themselves of the conditions required for fiscal management by the IMF.
The radio program waxed lyrical about how the “colonialists” maintained control over poor Ghana and the rest of Africa by dictating their economic policy. How Africa needed to finally get rid of the colonialists and do their own thing. All of Ghana ills were blamed on the damn British!
Now I am not a great fan of the Poms at the best of times (except for one special Pom), but when you consider Ghana got rid of the Poms 47 years ago, it does seem a bit rich to continue to claim that all the financial problems they are facing was because of them.
It was obviously not caused by the rampant corruption in Government. Had nothing to do with the great African “tradition” of never maintain something until it is broken. One should not even consider the fact that almost zero beneficiation gets carried out in the country.
Nooooo. It is so much easier to blame the colonialists.
Ghanaians need to learn that it is about time they take responsibility for what is theirs. Two generations have passed since independence. How many more generations are needed before the statement “we are fucking up” comes to mind?
As well as that, the naivety that by forgoing $27 million all IMF restrictions will fall away. Hello! Ghana has just been forgiven $740 BILLION debt. Do they honestly and truthfully believe that that debt forgiveness comes sans conditions? If they do (and I hope I am wrong) then they have a small surprise coming their way!
Ghana has already been prevented from issuing sovereign guarantees by the World Bank. There is no way that debt is going to be written off just to allow the country to over borrow again.
BBC comes up with some gems. An entire ½ hour dedicated to teaching the listeners all about genetic theory (oh yes! ½ way through the program the narrator mentioned he had just realised that 30 minutes was not enough to teach us all about DNA and Genes. No kidding Sherlock). How all cells reach a point whereby once a division is made, the cells get a specific purpose. Until then the cells are generic and if you remove a cell it can divide to make up a whole creature. How birds cells change a lot later in the division process then frog cells. Not sure where humans fit in the grand scale of division.
They then told us the amazing fact that the DNA on a fly’s wings is different from a cell instruction perspective when you compare the front and the rear of the wing. I mean this is stuff that I really wanted to know. The problem of course is this totally useless fact is burned into my brain forever!
BBC also has its daily 15 minute soap opera about a guy dieing of cancer and two lesbians (1 preggers by the Gay guy they live with) and their issues about been a threesome and having to hide the fact that it is in fact the lasses that are a couple as opposed to the pregger woman and the Gay lad.
One can also listen to some knowledgeable lad talk about classical music and how the standard tune has 7 notes but some bright composer decided that music should use all 12 notes available. In the purest form all 12 notes are used, and 1 note is not reused until all the other 11 have been used. He likened this to a Picasso Painting where the form is there, but is not quite standard around the edges. Once he plays the music you actually get what he says. Quite honestly though I am not that into music to analyse it to that depth. BUT once again I have a useless fact to add to my store.
So as you can see, I am having my small little brain filled with useless information instead of listening to House on full volume, which has the effect of putting the brain into suspended animation so as not to realise how long and boring the trip is. For that you can thank the little creature in JHB.
One thing is for sure though. It is only a matter of time before I have an accident. On each sojourn into the wild, I have at least two near misses with trucks/taxi’s that sit in the middle of the road and refuse to move. I look at the airbag with interest and ensure the safety belt is tight. My medevac number is also speed dial 9 on my cell phone. (That is assuming there is signal)
As our one client says “Cool Times Ahead”. (he has designed and we are building an underground air cooling system).
In my perspective, I hear morgues are rather cool!
Have a fun day everyone!!
1 Comments:
not much point being medevaced if the docs are on strike. Taking your chances with the local docs might in itself be an interesting situation. ;)
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