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

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Back in Ghana for the year end rush!

Tis a month end Friday.

What does that mean?

Everyone breaks for the weekend and no work until Monday.

Everyone? Well…. First week back, month end reports, clients to see……
So generally month end weekends are quiet time at the office getting the accounting stuff in some readable format for the walla’s down south.

This weekend – a month end weekend – our friendly IT people have decided to “change the restatement rules” which preclude any processing in October. That means I have a weekend off. I can pop out on Saturday and see a few clients and maybe even go to the beach!!

Akwaaba!!

How was Johannesburg you ask?

Farking wonderful. Funnily enough this was my shortest trip down south – the other trips have generally being extended by a week for various reasons – but one that was the most satisfying.

I shagged – Lots!!
I ate Sushi – Lots
I Visited all and sundry
I chilled
I cooked nice Sunday lunches
I sat in shopping malls and read newspapers while eating Mugg and Bean goodies
I bent my credit card in a BIG way.

I also saw my skylights in the house for the first time. Boy do they make a difference. Was a good idea.

I painted my fence. (well not personally you understand – I paid someone to do it) a wonderful “antique green”. It looked great!

I also spent a fair amount of time attempting to get my pool blue again. I came home to a Koi Pond swimming pool. The kiddies seem to be incapable of keeping it blue. I have also mooted cutting the pool in ½ for a while as it remains bloody cold through most of summer. I finally managed to get a guy out to have a look at it and after telling me that it would be cheaper to fill in the entire pool and rebuild a smaller one, we finally decided on a reline and 8 solar panels.

Now a long time ago when I was young and you were younger, I priced solar panels. They were bloody expensive. It does appear they have come down in price in a big way. So the entire job for less than R25,000. Bonus in my mind. Nessers did the final arranging and Keith will sign it off.

I also had another bash at getting a quote for the side door into the garden. Failed dismally once again.

Robbie has moved out to his own place. *sniff* My boy is growing up. He found himself a really nice place around the corner for R1,800 a month. Responsibility is kicking in as now he does his own laundry, cooks and almost cleans. (I have agreed to send my Maid over twice a week to help out). I think it is a fine thing.

Lisa now has the house to herself, and Shelly – her mate – has moved in. Two 20 something lasses in a big house. They are having fun! Lisa has a new boyfriend who is in touch with his feminine side in a BIG way…. *ponder* and Shelly’s boyfriend is a throwback from the 60’s.

Twas great spending all sorts of time with Nessers and her lil ones. We had fun. I even managed to take Savannah to the dentist for a filling and nary a tear. They both know I am not into sympathy *wicked chuckle*.

Portia got her ass kicked by a Grade 1 and was looking rather bent and buckled for a while.

One thing that did concern me was I did not have a rip roarer of a party when I was down there. That best be resolved in December!!!

Sam and Keith came over on the final Sunday which was great. Was good to see them again. Sam is 7 months preggers and being the skinny wench that she is, if you look at her from the back you do not even notice the bump. She has a cute bump from the front tho.

Celebrated my dad’s XXXth birthday with a fine dinner in Sandton Square and he was at the house on the Sundays. Looking old is the old man. Since mum died he really has started aging. He was talking about giving up work (the bugger is 82 and still selling dentists their goodies), and possibly going to live with my sister in Cyprus. Tis a bugger when all your mates die before you do.

I on the other hand will not have that problem.

One thing we have got in Tarkwa is a gym set. We are the proud owners of a punching bag (for when we pissed off), a weight set and bench and a bike. Carlos and I decided to set up the bike in the lounge and use it watching TV. We have both spent 3 minutes on it since it was installed. (Starting slowly you understand).

The instruction book is fantastic though. One would think if you are going to print an English manual, get someone who speaks English to write it.

Some pearlers from the book:

- Guarantee: To all the vice of the product. To all the original hitch in exercise or fault in enjoyment. (wtf??)
- Necessary proof to claim: Origin of the Hitch.
- The coupon certificate one year except for those consumable pieces.
- Not covered is “the damages resulted from the fact the installer did not work according to the instruction.” (and those are….)

So we will be up to 10 minutes by December!!! *chuckle*

We are heading towards a busy time at work, with small works engaged in new project work, a contract in Obuasi, a contract starting in January in Bogoso, Small Works obtaining their second largest order in the last 2 years in Obuasi and some strong marketing in Accra. The fun part is for all my idea of December shut down, and fight in SA with the powers that be over leave and R&R, there is a distinct possibility that a whole lot of us will be working over Xmas. It all depends on a quote that will go in next week.

My job responsibilities have also changed somewhat since last time they changed (4 months ago) and I will be spending a lot more time in exotic locations such as Nigeria, Benin, Burkina Faso and other such fun destinations. Will keep you updated from these fun places.

Oh yes!!

I purchased a new toy when I was down South. I am now the proud owner of a Garmin GPS which can now tell me when I am lost. For those that care, I have patched these co-ordinates and you can now direct a missile should you really get pissed off at my writings.

Group 5 Office - Accra N5 38.439 W0 09.699 76 m Golden Tulip My Second Accra Office N5 35.599 W0 10.852 Group 5 Workshop – Obuasi N6 10.507 W1 41.154 217 m Tarkwa Workshop N5 21.651 W1 59.988 74 m

Now I know exactly why my golf is a bugger up. When you are used to playing golf at 1500 meters above sea level and find out that Tarkwa is 74 meters above sea level, the 7 iron will become a 5 iron faster then you can say “oh fark – short again”.

What else…..

I have an economic tutorial to complete – so let me do that.

You have fun people. 

Now send naked pics – demmet.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Almost Back to Ghana and SPAM!!

After a great 2 weeks down south and some time off (only worked 1/2 day *chuckle*) I am off to Ghana tonight for my final stint of 2005. Seven weeks!! not too bad Nige.

I have also being forced to turn on word verification for comments thanks to the SPAM idiots spamming the hell out of my blog. It would be nice if 10,000 people visited my blog everyday, but all this spam for 7 people.

waste of time and effort I say.

But hope all seven of you will comment *chuckle*

HAVE FUN!! _ Will fill you in on all my fun that was had while I was here!!

Sunday, October 02, 2005

Pick and Pay - Nigeria Style


Pick and Pay - Nigeria Style
Originally uploaded by Hop.

Pick and Pay - Nigeria Style


Pick and Pay - Nigeria Style
Originally uploaded by Hop.
Local health hazard in Benin City

See I did culture


See I did culture
Originally uploaded by Hop.

At the bottom of a moat built in the 1600's


Just in case you forgot the "sucks"


Just in case you forgot the "sucks"
Originally uploaded by Hop.

Town


Town
Originally uploaded by Hop.
What can I say

The ferry


The ferry
Originally uploaded by Hop.
Who needs an expensive bridge

Hotel 90 mins from Port Harcourt


Hotel 90 mins from Port Harcourt
Originally uploaded by Hop.
for $50 a night you do not get Aircons. The lad in the green is the local chief.

Business Man


Business Man
Originally uploaded by Hop.
The lad made a mint directing the traffic through

Swim Car Swim


Swim Car Swim
Originally uploaded by Hop.
The main road between Calabar and Port Harcourt

All the trucks you see were broken down and the Puegeot was following us.

Calabar Hotel


Calabar Hotel
Originally uploaded by Hop.
Room at $100 a night

Site


Site
Originally uploaded by Hop.
U want to take 78 trucks down this road??

Calabar


Calabar
Originally uploaded by Hop.
Goodness - just like Ghana - Jungle - Jungle - Jungle

Landscape


Landscape
Originally uploaded by Hop.
Goodness - just like Ghana - Jungle - Jungle - Jungle

Calabar


Calabar
Originally uploaded by Hop.
Outside Calabar Airport. Another airport designed by the same lad who does all african airports

Sheraton


Sheraton
Originally uploaded by Hop.
And for $400 a night - this is the view from your window

Sheraton


Sheraton
Originally uploaded by Hop.
This is the room you get for $400 a night - In my books - a rip off

And the time winds down

It is at times like this that the million dollar question would cross my mind.

It is a Sunday. It is 5.35am. Why the hell am I then sitting in front of my PC writing a blog for?

I do think it has a lot to do with my Tarkwa Imam, who has heard that I spend time in Accra. The house in Accra can then be accessed by repositioning the loud speakers from the local East Legon Mosque and once again the call to prayer can be passed on to me.

It also has to do with Accra power and the rather interesting way this house is wired up. At times (and this, dear reader, is one of those times), all the aircons and the TV stops working, but I still have power to the water heater in my room, the kitchen and study plugs and the downstairs lights. This then forces me to sleep with my windows open as I do not have an aircon that can keep the room temperature below 30 degrees.

But 5.35am?????


My week? Busy to say the least. After my return from Nigeria on Monday morning, I attempted to put everything together for my (overdue) month end. True to form, our friends at Third Rail decided it was a perfect time to do maintenance on their base station. As we have now worked out their technical skills leave a lot to be desired, the one day maintenance turned into three days of zero connectivity. They did have the decency to phone me and tell me that they will be battling, which although noble did not assist at all in my task.

Back to Tarkwa at the crack of dawn on Tuesday and put my head down to process as much as possible before 5pm. Why 5pm you ask? Well that’s when our JHB IT people shut our accounting system down of course. Apparently the database has got so large, it takes some 12 hours to run a day end.

I did notice there is an email floating around saying that JDE will be off line for 4 days from the 21st Oct – 24th Oct to reduce the size of the databases. Not a bad decision for a company that closes their books on the 25th. I mean goodness, it would be too simple to do the shut around the 15th of the month when technically from an accounting perspective it is quiet. I am however on leave 21-24th so do I give a damn. Yes, because I know it is all going to come crashing down on me on the 25th.

We still managed to knock off the month end by Thursday evening, thanks in a large part to my local accountant who has become quite the whiz at processing. The only bugger up was not really his fault, but did take me a while to fix. With a little more experience he would have picked up that we were processing to the incorrect contract. To the lads in Angola. Those Ghana charges were not really yours ok………

Friday was a meeting at Obuasi following a very nice order from the mine there, and the nice thing about the meeting was it proved that we have a lot more planning to do before the materials arrive in November.

It is of course month end when everybody scatters to the four winds and does not work. Zack was stuck in Obuasi moving steel around after I had a mini toy throw about the ability of our lads to leave expensive stuff for our other contract just lying around. Manny was once again sick and the Tarkwa lads were very quiet. I of course decided Accra was the place to be this weekend with the Larnies arriving on Monday for a visit.

I have also a lot of people to see in Accra which I will be doing today and tomorrow. Businessmen in Accra do work on a Sunday which assists no end.

Of course our Third Rail walla’s once again have problems with their equipment which technically will only be solved on Monday as they are not businessmen.

I should be able to complete my contract recons tomorrow, pick up the larnies, sleep in Accra Monday night and toddle back to Tarkwa on Tuesday after a meeting with the bank here.

Thursday I am back in Accra for a flight home!!!

On the other end of the scale:

A daily newspaper – The Vanguard – published a wonderful story this week. It dealt with the former president of Ghana, (JJ Rawlings) having a discussion with people at his house as to how they were going to bump off the leader of their opposition. Our intrepid reporter had managed to sneak in a tape recorder and had all this juicy stuff on tape.

It made front page news.

It also sparked off a HUGE debate about ethics. How dare he bug a private conversation. How dare he publish the results of a private conversation. Why did he not go to the police with his findings. Etc etc.

Wonderful stuff in my book. I love debates of this nature. We had constitutional lawyers and the luckless journo debating it on the radio when I was traveling down to Accra. The talk show host was a wonderfully sarcastic lady, with a cutting wit. The best part was she was in no way impartial and the poor journo was getting it from all sides.

The problem the airheads had was that he had taped a private conversation and thus infringed on the former presidents right to plan murders in private.

He had then used that poisoned tape to publish an article that sold a lot of newspapers.

He had not taken his tainted evidence to the police.

The journo basically said, JJ is a public figure and thus when he discusses politics, albeit privately, it is of public interest. When the discussions turn to bumping off a political figure in Ghana, it is of overriding public interest. The fact that he had a tape recorder smuggled into the private conversation (via an informant from what I understood) made the article a provable one.

Why did he not go to the police with his proof and let them take care of it. Apparently he has gone to the police with other issues – which he did not detail – and not much has happened. His article was thus to pre-empt any action that may be taken to bump off the party leader.

Has JJ been arrested or taken in for questioning? Not at all. He is a former president who from what is said used to take his opposition to the town square and bump them off. Same lad who took Ghana over by force in a coup. It would take a brave/stupid/all of the above cop to toddle in there and arrest the lad.

So we toddle on regardless.

One interesting concept that the discussions detailed was Ghana’s rule of evidence, which I found most interesting.

In the states/uk etc they have a rule called “fruit of the poisoned tree”. I have come across this in my readings and have always believed it to be the stupidest rule I have ever come across.

I murder you and bury the knife under the palm tree behind my neighbor’s house. The cops beat the shite out of me and in so doing I confess that the knife is buried under the tree. The knife has my fingerprints on it and your blood. Cut and dried!

The confession was obtained unlawfully and thus is not admissible in court. That I can understand. The fact that the cops found the knife because of that illegal confession means in the states, the knife cannot be used in court either. So everyone knows I did it, but none of the evidence can be used.

In Ghana, they can use the knife.

This explains why it is quite acceptable to beat the shite out of a suspect here, and not in the States. *chuckle*

Another interesting debate.

Personally. I like Ghana’s approach.

Now let me wait for the flames.

You have a nice day you hear!