The office at 27 degrees :(

Sunday night specials are always good I think, and there is no difference tonight.

Today has been a relaxed day, watching the cricket – not exciting as there is not way that the matches will be close given the current Zimbabwean team – but good fun seeing what the SA batsmen do to bowling that is of the standard of the cricket I used to play in Swaziland.

I actually went to play golf today! I had planned on nine holes of relaxing hitting of the ball and seeing just how bad my golf game has got. One thing which struck me as I walked to the car, golf bag over shoulder, was how bloody hot and humid it was. The walk was short, which fooled me into thinking that it was bearable.

Note to self: When you drive up to the course on a Sunday afternoon and see on-one playing golf, and even the gaggle of caddies are not there running en masse to the car to carry the bag, something is not right.

What was not right was that no golfer in their right mind would play golf when the temperature at 3.30pm was in the mid 30’s with humidity in the 90’s. Safe with the knowledge that I am not of sound mind at the best of times, I managed to find a foolish caddie and lose a ball on the 1st tee when my natural slice suddenly became a very unnatural hook.

I was sweating as I walked DOWN the hill. By the third hole my shirt was soaked and I had already finished the first bottle of water I had bought along. Couple this with the fact that the greens had almost no grass on them at all, and putting was “hit at the hole and watch the ball play ping pong with the remaining grass bumps” I was not having fun by the 6th. The 6th was the walk down the hill, walk up the hill hole. 172 meters and I managed to hit my 3 iron all of 150 meters I was so buggered.

I finished my second bottle of water walking to the 7th and my caddie was starting to smell like a horse that has just completed a cross country. I played the 7th and quite happily said to the caddie that instead of turning right to the 8th, turn left to my car.

My ciggie packet was soaked in my pants pocket as was the scorecard. To say I was knackered is an understatement of note. 20 minutes in a cold shower at home and I was still sweating afterwards. I ended up drinking around 3 liters of water.

What did I score? God knows – I stopped counting after the 3rd hole. But it was bad!

This shows three things

(a) The weather is not conducive to playing golf
(b) I am bloody unfit
(c) My shoes have not been used for a while and I have a stunning blister on my left heel.

On a Ghana Note, the budget was announced last week and the highlights are as follows:

(a) Tax rates have been reduced on both company and personal tax
(b) Witholding tax has been reduced from 7.5% to 5%
(c) Minimum wage has been increased to GHC13.500 (ZAR 9.31 per day)
(d) Inflation reduction to 13.5% has been targeted (this after a 50% increase in fuel price which may be impossible to achieve)
(e) Sector improvements and a huge dip taken against the banking sector due to the interest rate spreads on borrowing and deposit rates. As a note on a GHC deposit you can get between 5%-7%, but loaning money from the bank attracts and interest rate of between 19%-31%.

Most people seem to be happy with the budget, but the opposition predictably has hit out of the budget stating it does not go far enough. Problems they have pointed out are: (my comments in brackets)

(a) Minimum wage of under GBP1.00 per day was “worthless” (agreed)
(b) No productive fixed investments allowed for in the country. (Setting up a company here requires huge commitment as the infrastructure needs a massive upgrade to assist marketing)
(c) No clean water, increased infant mortality rates, decreased life expectancy and massive increase in Guinea Worm infection. (que?)
(d) No policy for providing employment.
(e) Cedi performed badly and depreciated against the US$ - (the GHC / US$ rate has been constant between GHC8900-GHC9200 since I arrived here)
(f) Massive increase in fuel price. (see my previous post)

Jumping on the free speech bandwagon, there is to be a demonstration this week protesting the fuel price hikes.

There was also an interesting article in the newspaper that the town of Obuasi has banned all pool tables from the town. This after banning all video games a year ago. All in the quest to ensure the students spend their time studying and not doing frivolous things like playing video games or pool.

The country is also on a massive polio vaccination drive over this weekend and in April. We were made aware of it, by a letter requesting the company make available vehicles and drivers to assist them in the polio vaccination effort. Good planning dictates that we received the letter the day before they wanted the vehicles and on a month end weekend. Oh yes and if you cannot provide a vehicle “please send money” *sigh*

I am off to bed now after a wonderful rain storm which almost cooled things down, and hope you have a wonderful week.

Keep on Smiling!!!

Saturday Missive

In time, people will learn that life is actually fun, and we should be out there having it. Until then, it is once again month end, and I sit alone in the office on a Saturday and review all the ledgers to make sure that they are all spick and span and there is no dust hanging around.

The break to do the blog is a way of stopping my brain from self destructing as I pour over figures in cedi’s, translate them to rand’s to see if they make sense and U S dollars cause that’s the currency we invoice in.

I have also spent an INORDINATE amount of time going through all our food slips for the last 2 months to try and work out how we manage to spend so much money feeding 11 people.

But enough of that:

Observations on Ghana that I am growing to enjoy:

• With the fuel price hike of 50% (see previous blog entry), the opposition parties have jumped on the bandwagon and are taking govt. to task on “the fact that they are not telling the truth”. This hogs radio and newspaper time in a big way. Apparently the govt. has said that “they are unable to continue to subsidize fuel, and that is the reason for the increase”. Opposition says “government never subsidized the fuel, and all they are doing now is increasing the fuel price to collect more taxes”.

The best part of it of course, is they are both correct. When oil prices increased, obviously more of the pump price was used to buy the fuel, and therefore fewer taxes were collected. All the govt. is doing now is correcting the fuel price so they can collect the same amount of taxes that they were collecting before the oil price increase. Why neither party comes out and says that is beyond me. Politics is a strange animal.

What also made me laugh was an interview with the PS of energy who was so damn evasive as regards the make up of the fuel price, it actually sounded like he was hiding something. The reporter had the breakdown of the fuel price as regards oil price, transport levy, tax, margin, more levies, more tax, more levies and even more levies and the PS said “I do not have any knowledge of what the breakdown is, but you must understand there are people making their profit and this must be taken into account”. I just laughed and put in a tape.

• The shop names continue to make me chuckle. I noted one this morning (for the first time) called “Truth Chemicals”. Now I have mentioned before that most of the enterprises here have some religious connection in the name, but have not noted that a “Chemical Shop” is actually a pharmacy. I had visions of truth serums been sold to CIA types at the shop

• The road continues to get worse and worse. This is not made better by the fact we are only left with one vehicle that is in a good enough condition to do long trips. (for some reason the purchase of my new vehicle was cancelled/postponed), so every time someone wants to go off to Obuasi, Kumasi or Accra they use my vehicle. I then nick their vehicle or use the LDV that can only be used for local food shopping and delivery. The resultant effect is my back is fucked from the jostling caused by the potholes and waking up in the mornings with a sore back is a sure way to piss me off.

• I realized that the house staff actually never has a day off. My lad has been in every day since I got back including Sundays, which cannot be a good thing. Ergo this morning I told him to wash the dishes and I only want to see him on Monday morning. These sorts of things sometimes escape me.

• Been winter, one would imagine that I would not be complaining about the fact that my office reaches a “comfortable” 26 degrees during the day as the poor aircon battles to keep the heat out. As my office is quite big (24 square meters) and at least one window is cracked open so by the end of the day the office is not hidden by the smoke haze caused by my 40 a day habit, I do not seem to be able to get the temp to a more comfortable 20 degrees. Outside temps have hit 38 degrees this week and boy I am feeling it.

Roll on summer when it is 38 degrees and rains.

• I was stopped by the local cops this week (again) and the lad had the cheek to tall me that I must buy him a digital camera. What do I look like “Makro?” The fact that for the life of me I cannot find my Ghana Drivers License meant that I smiled and told him I will see what I can do next time I am in South Africa.

No piss ups arranged this weekend (yet!) and as I do not have a decent vehicle to use – mine is in Kumasi on a spares shopping trip -, the beach is not an option. I was looking at my golf clubs with interest this morning, so maybe a golf game is on order once my ledger reviews are complete.

Speak to you guys soon!

Midweek again!

Another midweek blog as I wait patiently for a response from the help desk.

It is (once again) month end and all the goodies get tied up and put to bed for a round of reporting in the next 10 days.

For some really silly reason I am unable to get my head around processing receipts in this bloody JDE system. Now accept the fact that I have worked, set up and supported accounting systems since 1982. (yup – I am that old). I have also programmed in Dbase (Yup – really that old) and consider myself wise in the matters of computers.

Debtors receipts in all the systems I have cared to work on, work in the same way as Creditors Payments. Take receipt, process receipt, allocate to invoices. Simple stuff!

Not this system: For some reason it gives me no option to allocate my receipt. No matter where I look. Ergo: Help desk email.

The week has been interesting, as far as work is concerned:

We are once again short of vehicles and everyone scrambles to get available vehicles to go and do work. This is not assisted by the fact that one vehicle was sold as it was uneconomical to repair after the engine gave up the ghost, and another vehicle cracked its chassis. This is as a direct result of not been able to get spare parts and a “jury rig” got the vehicle back on the road. The jury rig was evidently not OEM and this resulted in a cracked chassis.

The joys!

No Sat access or cell phone signal for two days gave me the chance to complete all my mundane stuff that tends to pile up while you are doing more important goodies. So I was a happy lad.

Last night consisted of toddling off to the Civils house, having a beer and having a look at the PC that was giving issues. Diagnosis. Really bad telephone line that prevents decent email access.

Off home and day two of this weeks European footy: We had Man U playing on Channel 33, Chelsea on 23 and Porto on 25. Loads of Channel flicking took place from 8pm to 10pm and we had Man U losing (sad) Chelsea Losing (smile) and Porto drawing (ho hum). That put me in sleep mood and I did just that 

That’s my midweek update

Hope u all having fun:

Helpdesk has a Maximum IQ requirement

When the Sat link suddenly decides Email and JDE/Internet is not going to work, the thing one has to do is phone the Help Desk and log a call. For some strange reason the Sat phones still worked so I duly phoned the lad to log a call.

It went like this:

"hi the is xxxxxx (name removed cause he may blush or read my blog), How can I help you"

"Hi there, This is Tony in Ghana, Email and JDE are not working, but I can ping the servers and get a reply as well as the phone line is working which is strange"

"we can get our network guys to check it,Have you sent us an email reporting the problem?"

"ummmm Nope, the reason why I am phoning is cause the email is one of the apps that are not working"



"Oh, so you would not be able to send an email.. what is your name and your location"

"Tony in Ghana"

"Ghana?"

"yeah Ghana - west Africa"

"oh - ok let me put you through to the JDE people to sort out the JDE problem"

"Erm - the problem is not JDE, it is the line"

"Oh ok - I will log a call"

Needless to say - 4 hours later nothing works and I come home and hope that tomorrow morning will given me more luck.

I love been a user!

Weekend News

Another weekend bites the dust and as I sit on the sofa, laptop in hand watching “Holes” on TV, I have decided it is time to update my loyal readership (of 4 now with the new comment) as to what has happened over the weekend.

Friday night was a chill night, with me back alone in the house (for a while at least) and consisted of a bit of internet time- until the ISP died, and watching TV. Needed to chill as once again Friday was a bit of a day from hell and coupled with the heat, I was knackered when I got home.

They have the new series of “The Block” aussie style on Series Channel and of course that has become a firm favorite in the Ghana Household of one. I have managed to get my webcam working as well, so that bodes well for the next 8 weeks that I am here. Did I mention I am a visual animal *g*

Saturday was back at work, and hammering out a fair amount of stuff which seemed to have fallen through the cracks over the week. I left work completely up to date with the single exception of my receipts, which for some strange reason have found themselves in an “Unallocated Cash” account instead of the debtors account. Emails have been sent to work out how to get da money out of there and into the right place. JDE is a strange animal sometimes. (This also for some reason did not form part of my training *sigh).

Marco was up from Obuasi for the weekend, and was sharing house with me as his room has now been taken over by the Cad Lad. The mine lads decided it was time to have a piss up and braai as one of the lads has got himself a cushy number in the DRC, with loads of $’s and a 6 week on 2 week off rotation. *bite of hand*

Needless to say, there was the most amazing amount of meat, loads of Captain (everyone seemed to bring a bottle) and my head required me to go directly to bed, do not pass the kitchen, do not collect bottle of water. I also learnt that a good way of cooking chicken was to put a can of beer or coke (full) up the chickens butt and standing it up in that manner cook it. SO that is added to my try out list for when I get back.

One of the chemical suppliers who was there knew my previous company where I worked – comment raised by the fact I was wearing a competitors of theirs T shirt – and we had a long chat about the paper industry.

It still amazes me how well I knew that industry after so long, and at times here I feel totally at sea with certain things that appear to be basic in the construction industry. That said, all my lads are willing to teach “the accountant” and have been most patient with silly questions.

Such as “Flashback arrestors break” – I have been throwing toys on a regular basis about the number of arrestors we buy and what happens to them. I even got to look at one and realize that the manufacturers do not like you to try and fix them.

Fuel prices in Ghana have increased by 50% which using today’s exchange rates puts the price at R3.79 / l – Still cheaper than South Africa. Needless to say, the country is up in arms as to the “unreasonable increase”.

The newspapers today publish new transport fares which have increased by 30% odd. One will watch the inflation rate with interest.
(and my workers reaction). The local newspapers are reporting transporters increasing their fares by 50% - which I assume is using fuzzy logix based on the fuel price increase.

I was also looking at the financial reports published by SSNIT. SSNIT is a government provident fund, which ostensibly provides pensions to Ghanaians. They contribute 5% and the employer contributes 12.5% of the workers wage.

On closer review the income into the fund was $226 million of which contributions were $148 million. The remainder was investment income. Using a quiet rule of thumb, that means that Ghana Earnings for companies that contribute to SSNIT (usually the formal sector) was $845 million. Low?

What caught my eye, and once again calls to question such funds – in my mind at least – was General and Administrative expenses almost exceeded Pensions paid out.

And the final eye opener was the financial report was for 31 December 2003. A full year and a bit after the year end.


Sunday was a chill day at home, as the bakkie I was using was off to Kumasi with the plant guys on a shopping trip. I was thus left with a bakkie that is really in need of shocks! Therefore I was in no mood to travel anywhere.

Some internet time was had from home, made all the more frustrating by continual disconnections which reminded me of my dial up in Swaziland.

But I enjoyed today!

And I hope you are as well!

Midweek evening

Let’s see now:

What has happened so far that has tickled my fancy?

We have guys from SA here at the moment as well as our new draughtsman who has (finally) arrived. It does however seem that he is more interested in computers then draughting. In my normal people winning way, his track was adjusted with “If I needed a computer guy, I would have asked for one, but seen that I requested a draughtsman, best that’s what you do here”.

Let’s see how he pans out.

He has been staying with me this week and yesterday overslept and today managed to spend an inordinate amount of time in the shower. The fact that it is the only shower in the house meant that I am taken out of my little timing box. It seems like I am worse then my old man when it comes to a little routine.

That said, I spoke to the old boy on Tuesday night and he seems to be quite perky.

I get my house back on Friday which will be a good thing.

The house is also been painted. On the outside fortunately and it will hopefully look brand new by the time they have finished.

Talking about houses, we rented a house for around six months last year to house expats for the large contract we were doing. I had a recent request via my staff that we were required to repaint the inside of the house as “the walls were stained”. Needless to say I refused and yesterday after the owner coming to see me personally, I decided to have a look at what was happening myself.

What was wrong with the house?

1. It was painted with Ghana Special Paint. You know the paint that turns to chalk 96 hours after applied:
2. The house was not stained. The house was dirty. Dust and grime all over the place.

At the end of the day, I agreed to send someone to clean the house, but was buggered if I would repaint. *growl*

Which also reminds me :- we have a (sort of) cell phone signal at the office, thanks to the Spacefone guys putting a repeater at our offices. However true to form, the signal is more down then it is up. But hey – it is 100% better then what it was.

It also means that if I wanted to make an urgent phone call, I no longer have to find a car and drive to the hill +-1km away to make the call.

The chef? Investigations do continue. Methinks he is a smart one so the rope may have to be a long one.

Today I did:

• A client visit after which I had to quote of 10 different items including noise proofing of offices????
• Completed Jan 2005 GL recons AND processed the correcting entries (even I was impressed)
• Done 4 of the 10 quotes
• Accepted that today my office is like Eloff Street and seen more than a dozen people on mundane things like bus hire, lowbed hire and the new wages system that we are installing.
• Done a staff loans procedure document
• Responded to dozens of emails
• Sweated like a pig as my bloody aircon once again fails dismally to beat the heat.
• Lost my temper over an insurance claim – blood pressure :”fark we are been ripped off AGAIN” Symptoms.
• Smoked more cigarettes then I want to count
• Receive a nice gift of wine, choccies and bikkies from Air Liquide (A belated supplier Xmas gift)
• Received a certificate of appreciation from the Goldfields Tarkwa Golf course for co-sponsoring their golf day – all in the name of client relations. I did mention it would be nice to rate an invite next time.
• Swore more times then I want to count for more reasons then I want to remember, the most recent of which occurred when I was printing reports from JDE and the link to South Africa once again vanished.
• Realised that my SA phone is network barred and I cannot use it for Spacefone. This in itself is about to generate a really really stuffy email to my service provider as true to form he did not mention the phone was network barred despite the fact I mentioned I lived in Ghana. I of course realized this after forgetting to charge my Ghana Phone……… enough said.
• I even did some filing and can now see the top of my desk. So THAT’S what it looks like!!


I am in a foul mood today!

Ergo

Let me go home and veg!

Hope you have fun people!

Yet another midweek post

Another mid week blog?

Goodness – I seem to have a lot to say this week!

Yesterday in keeping with an old tradition we bought all the staff choccies for Valentines day! Seems like that went down a treat. One issue which I did not know how I allowed it to happen, but I did not get a choccie. Sheesh!

It appears as if the Tarkwa local Authority has a major problem supplying water to the town. More often then not since I have returned there has been no water delivered to our storage tanks by the local municipality.

What that means is we have to rely on the Fire Department (with their dubious water source) to bathe. The poor buggers in the mess (my old house) appear to have problems with hot water again and logic dictates that the geyser is once again blocked. Hopefully we will have that fixed again soon as 4 lads using 1 bathroom is a bit much.

The workshop has been a bit quiet this month so we have taken all the workers that are not busy and put them onto site improvement. So far we are well progressed in getting the following stuff done at site:

• Water into the offices so when we go to the loo we do not have to carry a bucket of water with us to flush.
• Water and sewer storage for the workers loos so they do not have to toddle off into the jungle and risk snake bites to the nether region
• A roof over the vehicle workshops to protect the guys from the baking sun!

Basically to get water to the office and workers loo will cost R10.000 which involved manually digging two wells around 10 meters deep and installing pumps and pipes to get the water to the tanks. I somehow think that we will have water more often at the office then at the houses.

Interesting how the water table is polluted as the water has a faint smell of diesel, which is also prevalent at the houses.

Another huge bonus is a visit by a bakkie from Spacefon, who are the local cell phone people that we use. We had been bitching for a few months now as to how we were unable to get cell reception at the offices. They had requested us to supply a 21 meter mast as well as power and together with our neighbours this was duly done. It has been around 3 months since this was available to them and as luck would have it they arrived today. It remains to be seen how this will work. But to be honest, running a business with 1 phone that works sometimes is not an ideal situation to be in.

It is amazing how perky everyone is at the office this week.

My discussion with the chef is tonight. Should be an interesting one!

With that said: I am getting an average of 20 hits a day on my site, so that means that you 3 people that read the blog are coming back 7 times a day *chuckle*

Have a goody peoples

Monday Pissed off Blog

I have mentioned before that if there is one thing that really gets my jig is some one trying to rip me off. The fact that I am writing my blog, means that once again this has happened:

We have a Chef, who prepares food for 11 expats on a daily basis. You have read my accounts of the food that gets dished up so you understand my feelings towards his cooking skills.

That said, the bugger decided he needed a loan in order to rent a house. In Ghana they have a quaint method of renting houses. You pay a year in advance and get a house. None of this monthly stuff. Now again when one considers he got a loan for a house 6 months ago, one understands why I am reluctant to loan money to the lad when he still has not paid off his previous loan.

On declining to loan him the money, all my food suddenly has green peppers in it, and I would not be surprised if the lad spits in it before he labels the box “Mr. Tony” Ergo a lot of my meals have now been prepared by yours truly.

It seems however he is finding new and inventive ways to get the additional funds. This was found out today when reviewing the food purchases for Feb to date which seemed rather high. I had sat down with the lad two weeks ago and worked out a menu plan, quantities of food required and an approximate cost for what was required for the month. This sort of garbage is required cause it appears this lad has no knowledge of how to run a kitchen. The fact that I controlled the canteen as part of my function in my previous job, means that portion sizes, weight loss on cooking, bone in and bone out weights, are not terms that are foreign to me.

When I then see in the last 12 days we have purchased 40kg of potatoes, 180 bread rolls 12 trays of eggs and 130kg of assorted meat, one could imagine the paint peeling in my office as I let off steam. I think everyone in the office suddenly found something to do outside.

Needless to say the lad and I are going to have a fairly detailed chat tonight when I get home. My fridge has stuff which I have bought, with the single exception of chicken breasts which I asked for last week. As for the eggs, I have had 1 tray since I started back in January and there is still around 18 left. I think David used the 6 to bake banana bread. No potatoes with the exception of the 12 I got last weekend and definatly not 800 grams of meat per day, which the 130kg works out to be.

My mood? Farking pissed off!!!

Weekend Missive

A quick Saturday blog which says “Well Done Tones!!! – You are up to date and everything in your world is good”

Last night after work a “quick beer” turned into a huge drinking session of quick beers, loads of captains (which were going down oh so well!) and long chats about work and other stuff.

Prior to that, we had 3 40 something guys sitting in the office talking about how and where we used to party in the 70’s and 80’s. It is amazing that everyone remembers Bella, 3 sisters (took me a while, but I did recall it when Greek food was mentioned) and how when Hillbrow became a bit of a slum, everyone moved off to Rocky Street in Yeoville. We even all remembered the pizza place next to the wishy washy that sold the most amazing garlic pizza’s.

Walk back into the past that was.

The best part about last nights drinking session was to realize that the lads who form the core of my manex team are having fun. Which is the objective! The lads are working well together as a team, and I really think it is all coming together. I have a good crew!

Got home, watched a bit of TV and toddled off to bed, leaving all the lights on as I found out this morning. I awoke at around 2.30 am, hot cause I forgot to turn the aircon on and as thirst as a rat who had just eaten rattex. (For my Chicago friend that’s rat poison *grin*) Two bottles of water later (and a tummy that was a tad unhappy), I went back to sleep only to be woken by an SMS from Esther, who seemed to be unusually happy at 7.30 am her time. This for a woman who normally gets up at 9!. My alarm went off and I hit the snooze button twice!

A shower and I was at work at 7.06am. Late start to the day *chuckle*


12.00 I have:

• Completed my cost reports
• Completed my grading of employees under me – handed all the others to Albert *chuckle*
• Completed All the debtors stuff
• Finished all my quotes
• Finished my Daily Diary Costings
• Read the online Newspapers
• Had Lunch


That said: For some reason I never got around to posting this on Saturday:

So as today is Sunday – I will continue as if I never left off

Bear with me on this:

Sunday was of course an off day: The workshop is not that busy and all the jobs are on site. Given the fact that I am up to date and more importantly there is cricket on the go, what better way to veg on the couch, drinking tea and water and cooldrinks and watching cricket.

Oh yes – I also now have a dial up at home, that sometimes works and sometimes does not (at 33k – reminds me of Swaziland in the 90’s), so that is nice as well!.

I can chat on yahoo and managed to get my webcam working!!! - whooo hoo.

Sloth Day, we won the cricket, and I managed to get on-line eventually.

( I will spare you my on line details) *wicked chuckle*

All in all – gonna be a good start to the week –traveling tomorrow so I should be a bit behind when I get back and then it is work work work. 60 days until I am home – and counting.

OH yeah:

Happy Valentines Day for tomorrow:

May all your cards be nice ones!

Another mid week Post

Another midweek blog, because I find myself with goodies to say 

So therefore:

Speak!

Getting out of the car tonight I was once again attacked by a Ghana issue which tends to make me swear! And the thing that bugs me the most is that it afflicts only people who cannot see properly without the aid of glasses. A mixture of hot air, humidity in the 80’s and a bakkie aircon on full, means that when you climb out of the vehicle, ones glasses immediately steam up! The result is I tend to take two steps out the LDV and poof, I cannot see a thing.

“I am blind!!!!!” I think as my world dissolves into whiteness!

The issue is made a tad more serious by the buffeting I get from Ghana and Brunie (my dogs) as they appear from the upstairs verandah abnormally happy that I am home.

So what does one do? One removes his glasses so at least the world can be a blur as opposed to having the same effect of been lost in the mountains in thick mist.

One has to be careful when throwing the tyre for the dogs (to catch), one does not throw with the wrong hand and end up tossing ones glasses for the “tender” ministrations the dogs deliver.

Getting home tonight was a bit of a rush due to the cricket and as luck would have it, I missed Kemps thunderous last overs and only managed to watch England put up a brave fight. That was however interrupted by the (now nightly) power failure which fortunately lasted only around 20 mins or so,

Dinner was chicken stir-fry mess. The chef had asked for a loan the night before which I had turned down and I do believe it was his way of getting me back. Added to that it was loaded with green peppers. So into the fridge and I found some left over fillet from Sunday, some cheese and slices of onion and salt!. Nice stuff and I was a happy chappy.

Once the meal was finished, a phone call from Marco came in where he asked me if I had enjoyed my supper. Thinking he had the same idea about stir-fry as I did, I was expecting a chirp about the quality of food. When I mentioned that I had eaten leftovers, he was most shocked that I did not find the Nando’s and Choc Donuts that they had left for me. The lads had just come from Accra and had purchased Nando’s and donuts!! Was that NICE or what!!

A bit pissed off that I did not find the Nando’s before eating the left overs, my ill feeling was assuaged by a cup of tea and *cough* donuts. Yup *cough*. Based on my previous post re my expanding waist line – I failed dismally last night in ensuring that over time my pants will fit me.

*sigh*

We won the cricket! And now it is off to bed for me with a book and some olive oil…..


Hope u all smiling – I am!

Mid Week Blog

And here we have a mid week blog, coming about as I am rather proud of the amount of work I have clicked under my belt so far this week.

So as the lads from Ghana Telkom fix the satellite system (not bad considering the cards popped on the 14th Jan), I can take some time out from been an input clerk to tell all 20 (yes you read right 20!!!) people about the comings and goings of the Africa Refugee.

Since I have come back, the Tarkwa council has had a problem (once again) with their water supply. This is somewhat mitigated by the fact that I have a 5000 liter storage tank for the top house and a 5000 liter tank for the bottom house. Ergo, when the water does not flow, due to the fact there is no-one currently staying in the bottom house, I toddle downstairs for a shower. One three occasions now, our local fire department has filled the tanks for the princely sum of GHC 400.000 (R300). For around 5000 l that’s a fair wack of money. I cannot wait to see the January council water bill and see if it has gone down or not.

Last night was power failure night. Now I must admit the power supply has been very reliable since I have got here, and this is possibly only the second or third time that the power has gone, but because it is so infrequent, I am not even close to been prepared. So I ended up sitting in the dark, tapping away on the computer until it came on around 20 minutes later.

That said, it went off again around 2am, as I woke up at around 2:30 sweating like a pig as the aircon was not blowing its normal dose of cold air. I slept badly for the rest of the night and when I left home this morning the power still had not returned. I but hold thumbs that it is back by the time I get home as the TV is good tonite.

Sunday was the cricket, and it does take a bit of getting used to when the game starts at 8am and the first innings is almost over before you can have your first beer. Because the workshop is not that busy at the moment, they were not working on Sunday, which gave all of us the opportunity to have a day off. As mentioned previously, when the month end weekend arrives, it co-incides with the month end reports, so taking that weekend off is not an option.

I decided I needed some good old home cooking (my way!) and invited all the lads over to watch the cricket, sup some beer and have lunch. We got 2 really nice fillets (around 4kg at GHC 22.000 per kg (R15.00 which is a steal when you consider for the same stuff in JHB your would be paying R60.00 per kilo at best), some potatoes (2kg for GHC20.000 – R15.00), and salad stuff consisting of some really scary lettuce, cabbage, onions, carrots and cucumber (GHC 100.000 – R70.00), and had a Tony roast fillet (with loads of garlic), roast tatties and salad. Some bread and garlic butter completed the meal.

It was great to have food that I am used to and the lads seemed to enjoy. A few beers – no-one really seemed to drink too much – and they left around 5. I then enjoyed my afternoon nap before a night of TV.

Have not done too much travel this week, as my management team is well in place and I am pretty much office bound doing the accounting stuff. That said I do have a visit to Wassa planned tomorrow – wed, and Obuasi on Thursday.

One thing which has become scarily apparent is the fact that I am smoking like a chimney. A while back that was not an issue as I was fairly active, but now that I lead a fairly sedentary life, I am starting to feel the effects. There are two solutions to this. The most obvious one is to stop smoking, but as that is not really an option for numerous reasons (killing people is frowned up here and I get really ratty when I do not smoke, and I already have an expanding waist line which when I do give up smoking means I eat more then a horse in training), the only other option available to me is to exercise.

As sex is non existent, doing my favorite form of raising a sweat is not an option, and let’s be honest, masturbation does not really raise a sweat, I need to find another way of getting some exercise. Jogging – as much as I hate it – is difficult at best as when I wake up it is dark and when I get home it is dark. I also get hellishly bored doing sit ups and such. I did notice Albert had a treadmill at his house which has been broken for a while, so moves are afoot to have it repaired and placed in my house, where I can watch TV and use it at the same time. All I need for motivation is to look at my rapidly expanding belly!

Right – the lads have replaced the sat goody

Ramblings of a bisexual girl next door

Ramblings of a bisexual girl next door

Wendy's blog seems to be a source of a lot of my visitors. It is only fair that I link to her and I will read up how to change the HTML in order to do that.

So go visit her site - it is worth a read (and it has some interesting pics *chuckle*)

Although to be honest she may have given up blogging as there has not been an update in a while

The rule of Law in Africa!

One of the joys of been an expat in Africa is the fact that you are a visitor here, and for some strange reason – according to the local police force – not subject to the same laws that keep the local community on track!

This fact was bought home to me this week when I was visited by a posse of local officials in what I call “the case of the expensive vehicle”

As a background, while I was having regular nookie down South, one of our expat subbies found himself with not much work to do and a desire to go to the beach. As all our vehicles were locked away, he made a plan (as expats do) and hired a vehicle from one of our local populace.

True to form on the way back the vehicle “fell off the road” and rolled. Present one buggered vehicle.

The local lad decided his vehicle was worth R100.000, which when one looks at the cost of a 1988 Pajero with more then 400.000 miles on the clock, was considered excessive.

Enter me – and a visit from the owner (and his brother – for moral support I assume). It transpired that there was no hire contract (private job) and they did have insurance. Aha! In my book, that is problem solved. They claim from the insurance and the driver is responsible for the excess and everyone goes away.

However there is one catch! The insurance company pays what the car is worth (in this case around R20.000) and why bother with claiming from insurance when you can find a stupid expat who can be forced to pay R100.000.

It is apparent in my previous entries that I do not appreciate it when people try and rip me off. Then my little temper man pops up his ugly head and if you are in my immediate vicinity…. Beware!

The lads were duly requested to vacate the premises, and this they did with warnings that the matter was not closed!

Therefore I was not in anyway surprised two days later to be told that the local police were at the gate looking for me.

In walks in the local posse that I spoke of earlier. This consisted of:

• Two uniformed lads, one carrying a rather battered AK 47 over his shoulder
• Two plain clothed detectives
• The Owner
• Some guy who was apparently the owners lawyer
• The spokesman – never did quite work out what he was
• Our security supervisor.


No you know my office is not the biggest in the world, and I have two chairs for visitors, which meant that everyone besides the one detective and the spokesman stood and tried to make their points throughout the meeting.

I was very tempted to toss the lad with the AK out the office, but in the interests of been nice I decided to let it ride and see what happens.

It turned out that the crew were charged with arresting me for “car theft” as the vehicle was on our premises. When I laughed and pointed out that I was not in the country when the car was bought here, and that it was bought here at the insistence of the owner, they kinda looked a tad confused. Finally between the owner and our security lad, the owner admitted that he knew we took the vehicle here and based on the meeting we had two days before, he had requested that we kept the vehicle here.

Strike 1

After much digging in a file, out came a warrant of arrest for the expat. It was one of these pre-printed forms with a couple of things typed in. The charge? “breach of contract”

Again a chuckle, and when reminded that in my limited experience breach of contract is a civil and not a criminal matter, I was greeted by a stunned silence. A little more noticeable given the 9 people all making a point at the same time syndrome.

Finally they decided that the warrant was for “Failing to Report an Accident”. Again stunned silence met me when I asked what the fine was for failing to report an accident. Making the point that I doubt very much if people get arrested for failing to report an accident was met by further discussion.

Strike 2

When they were advised that the expat was actually in SA as his job was complete, the lads dissolved into utter confusion.

Strike 3 - you out

Promising to assist them in their investigations, our friends were requested to put any concerns in writing to me and I will respond the same way. They were then nicely asked to leave as I considered this meeting over.


It does grind the hell out of me when stuff like this happens! I try to understand what goes through the other persons mind when they do things, and the best that I could come up with in this instance was they decided with a show of force (the odd gun and form letter warrant of arrest) that suddenly R100.000 was going to appear from my bottom desk drawer and they would be able to happily march off into the sunset singing praises to the money god and share it out.

If that was the case – I feel very sorry for the lad. What then grinds me is the use of the local police to back them up. And the fact that the cops led the whole indaba makes me shake my head at the level of corruption that exists here.

The fact that because he was an expat, they believed that they could do this stuff and scare him into paying the money to avoid been locked up bugs me.

The fact that I am living in a country that can lock you up at a moments notice is not a new thing, but at least in the other country’s the rule of law still existed, even if it was slightly off centre. Here they come and do their thing and you end up been with bubba in the local lock up with very little recourse. It sucks!

Africa needs to sort out it’s act methinks!

I had to Share This!!

Having been waxed myself (once!!!!) I can identify!


You don't have to be a woman to appreciate this story.

I guarantee it will have women (men too) laughing out loud!!

This is allegedly a true story, and if it's not it should be.

As Beth told the story...

All methods have tricked me with their promises of easy, painless removal - the Epilady, the standard razor, the scissors, the Nair, the EpilStop, and now . . The Wax.

My night began as any other normal weekday night.

I came home from work, fixed dinner for my son and we played for a while. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next couple hours: maybe I should use that wax in my medicine cabinet.

I set up my boy with a video and head to the site of my demise, um, I mean bathroom. It was one of those cold wax kits.

No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the clear strips in your hand, peel them apart, press it on your leg (or wherever) and ignore the frantically rising crescendo of string instruments in the background.

No muss, no fuss. How hard can this be?

I mean, I'm not the girly-est of girls but I'm mechanically inclined so maybe I can figure out how this works.

You'd think.

So I pull one of the thin strips out.

It's two strips facing each other, stuck together.

I'm supposed to rub it in my hand to warm and soften the wax
(I'm guessing).

I go one better:

I pull out the hair dryer and heat the SOB to ten thousand degrees.

Cold wax, my ass. (Oh, how that phrase will come back to haunt me.)

I lay the strip across my thigh.

I hold the skin around it and pull. OK, so it wasn't the best feeling in the world, but it wasn't bad.

I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me!

I am Sheera, fighter of all wayward body hair and smooth skin extraordinaire!

With my next wax strip, I move north.

After checking on the boy and verifying that he was, in fact, becoming one with Bear and learning all about smells, I sneak into the bathroom for The Ultimate Hair Fighting Championship.

I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet.

Using the same procedure, I then apply the wax strip across the right side on my bikini line, covering the right half of my vag… and stretching up into the inside of the right ass cheek.

(Yeah, it was a long strip.)

I inhale deeply. I brace myself.

RRRIIIIPPP!!!!

I'm blind! Blind from the pain!

Vision returning.

Oh crap. I've managed to pull off half an inch of the strip.

Another deep breath. And RIIIP! Everything is swirly and tie-dyed?

Do I hear crashing drums?

OK, coming back to normal again.

I want to see my trophy - my wax covered pelt that caused me so much agony.

I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair.

I hold the wax strip like an Olympic gold medallist.

But why is there no hair on it?

Why is the wax mostly gone?

Where could the wax go, if not on the strip?

Slowly, I eased my head down, my foot still perched on the toilet.

I see hair - the hair that should be on the strip.

I touch.

I feel.

I am touching wax.

I look to the ceiling and silently shout "nooooooo!!"

And realize I have just begun living my own personal version of "The Tar Baby."

I peel my fingers off the softest, most sensitive part of my body that is now covered in cold wax and matted hair, and make the next big mistake - up until this point, you'll remember, I've had my foot on the toilet.

I know I need to move, to do something.

So I put my foot down on the floor.

And then I hear the slamming of the cell door.

Vag…? Sealed shut.

Ass? Sealed shut.

A little voice in my head says "I hope you don't have to shit anytime soon. Your head just might pop off."

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying desperately to figure out what I should do next.

Hot water!

Hot water melts wax! I'll run the hottest water I can stand and get in - the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it away, right?

Wrong.

I get in the tub - the water is slightly hotter than is used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment.

And I sit.

Now the only thing worse than having your goodies glued together is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of a tub.

In scalding hot water.

Which, by the way, does not melt the cold wax.

So now I'm stuck to the tub.

I call my friend, Celia, because she once dropped out of beauty school so surely she has some secret knowledge or trick to get wax off skin. It's never good to start a conversation with "So my ass and virgina are stuck to the tub."

She doesn't have a trick.

She does her best to suppress laughter.

She wants to know exactly where the wax is on the ass - "Are we talking cheek or hole, here?" she asks.

She isn't even trying to hide the giggles now.

I give her the run-down of the entire night.

She tells me to call the number on the side of the box, but to have a good cover story for where the wax actually is.

"You know that if we were working the help line at XX Wax Co.and somebody called with their entire crack sealed shut we'd just put them on hold then record the conversation for everyone we know.

You're going to end up on a radio show or the internet if you tell them the truth."

"While we go through various solutions, I have resorted to scraping the wax off with a razor. Boy, nothing feels better to the girly goodies than covering them in wax, sticking them to a tub in super hot water and THEN dry shaving the sticky wax off!

In the middle of the conversation (which has inexplicably turned to other subjects!) I find the little, beautiful saving grace that is the lotion provided with wax to remove the excess. I rub some in and start screaming

"It's working! It's working!" I get hearty congratulations from Celia and we hang up.

I successfully remove all the wax and notice, to my dismay, that the hair is still there.

So I shaved the damned stuff off.

Hell, I was numb by that point anyway.

And then I put the box of wax back in my medicine cabinet.

Never know when a moustache might start to come in.

What did I do today?

I have done 4 quotes

Sorted out the 45 ton to do a lift

Sorted out some mundane staff problems

Had a meeting with the workers re leave pay

Met with the new workshop guy as to how he is getting on

Discussed using drinking water to top up batteries - yes - I have to deal with the mundane as well

Almost finished my monthly report

Reconciled a debtors account

Sorted out exchange rate variances in my accrual account

Been to pea 4 times

Had my 4th mug of tea - there may be a pattern developing here

Worked on modifying a trailer

Reviewed last months petty cash

Tried to phone 4 people to work out where my 45 t crane has gone

Smoked 28 ciggies


Now I go home to kick back and relax!

Another Year Older

On days like this I am reminded of New years eve, where they show – I think Times Square – a metal ball rolling down a long incline, and as it hits the bottom it sets off a chain reaction which resets all the balls for another year.

So today, my ball has hit the bottom, and all the balls are busy resetting for me as a new year starts.

As they say in the classics “A wiser person passes here”

Am I wiser then I am a year ago?

That’s a most definite yes!

A lot has happened to me over the last year, one of the major ones bringing about this blog. I am still glad to be in a position where I learn something new everyday, and every day is still as exciting as it was when I was toddling around in the garden in nappies.

For that I am blessed, and I thank everyone who makes me a blessed person.

And with that said, and the fluffy stuff out of the way!

May you too have a great one!

Oh yeah – my pressies:

Choccie
CD Set of seventies music
Bottle of (non alcoholic) sparkling stuff…… *ponder*
Loads of emails
And a promise of more to come

Not bad for a man in the Jungle!