E'kya

Ladies, gentlemen and all other reprobates who read this site. (yup - all four of you), I am off home tonight for a well deserved R&R.

Ergo - this page takes a rest until I return towards the end of the month.

Woolies foods
Nookie
Sushi
Nookie
Movies
Nookie
Decent Roads
and
Nookie

Await me

I will have fun you hear!

Still fixing the road

Still fixing the road
Originally uploaded by Hop.

Dash in front of the car will

Dash in front of the car will
Originally uploaded by Hop.

The biggest issue with driving through the towns is to dodge the locals with no road sense

Watch out for locals

Watch out for locals
Originally uploaded by Hop.

Market day in town

First Large Town

First Large Town
Originally uploaded by Hop.

River flows

River flows
Originally uploaded by Hop.

The river is flowing rather well given all the rain we have had over the last two months

Trains share bridge with cars

Trains share bridge with cars
Originally uploaded by Hop.

On the road from Tarkwa to Accra - via Wassa - you cross a single lane bridge which used to be shared with trains. Thank Gawd there are no more trains running

It is a Sin I tell you!!

While awake at the god awful hour of 4:30am trying to get all my stuff entered on the system before I go home, I had BBC in the background.

(Just as an aside, we managed to put 380v into our office plugs which has happily blown every electrical appliance including the VSat System. I am processing entries on dial up *growl*)

In the Philippines, they are mourning the death of a cardinal. Now I fully understand that it is not good to joke about death and rip off the dead people, but this one unfortunately cannot be ignored. (I am Catholic – fallen I admit, so I am going to hell anyways – hehe)

The poor dead Cardinals surname was ------- wait for it ------ SIN!

Now all Catholics should have celebrated when there was the headline

“CARDINAL SIN DEAD”

But instead they were in mourning.

(As all good Catholic’s know Cardinal sin (the act as opposed to the man) is a vile sin that ensures you going straight to hell!!! And I have done a few of those in my life)

Now I ask myself. When your surname is Sin, what on earth propels you into the priesthood? Is it part of a warped sense of humour or is it in defiance of what you started life with.

I mean at the start of his priesthood at the local parish did people say “I am off to church to speak to Father Sin”

Was it part of a diabolical marketing plan? Was there a sign at the gates of the church advertising “FATHER SIN SPEAKS HERE EVERY SUNDAY”

“Come inside and hear Sin”

In the weekly catholic newspaper – wonder if they still have that – (called The Southern Cross in my church), did they have headlines “Sin’s Sermon denounces Sin”

And then the Catholic Church made the lad a Bishop and a Cardinal.

Cardinal Sin Anointed by the Pope – would be a great headline.

If the good cardinal did something really great (and apparently he did a lot of those as he was revered) would be get a headline “Pope praises Cardinal Sin” Surely that would confuse Catholics world wide?


And accept the fact we just had a new Pope elected

Another headline “SIN ELECTED POPE”

I mean good Portuguese catholic mamas would have to spend the next 10 years calling the rosary if that happened.

I am sure the lad could have changed his Surname by deed poll.

It is too late to ask him why he did not!

Rest in Peace Cardinal Sin

Overhead Cranes? *ppfft* easy stuff........

Build a new workshop, install an overhead crane and collect your money. What could be easier you ask yourself?

A long time ago, when I was younger and thinner, (i.e.: last year July) one of my first jobs that I got personally involved with was the installation of a purpose built workshop in Ghana. We trundled on for 3 months building the workshop, realising that ½ the stuff needed to make sure the workshop was an operational workshop was left out – I mean why would you need water in a workshop – and assumptions were made that when put into practice proved woefully inadequate.

But because we are the best there is, we built the best looking workshop in Ghana – and one of the largest, delivered in good working order, on time and with a few additional costs.

With one glaring item missing.

The overhead crane

Said crane was meant to be ordered by ourselves, but clients been keen on keeping costs to a minimum, ordered the crane themselves. Delays in manufacture became further delays in shipping and we were stunned to see the crane arrive in December last year. A full three months after the workshop was completed.

Well, parts of the crane arrived. The rest of the parts were resting happily in a warehouse down south. Eventually after much shouting and moaning - and not of the pleasant type normally associated with…… wait I digress – the remainder of the crane arrived in February.

Once again, plans were made to install the crane, only to find that there was no drawings, no installation instructions – nada. More calls were made to said supplier and eventually a CD was delivered to us. Oh the joys of progress!

There was much muttering about the CD as the lads are not the most computer literate and quite honestly when the CD consists of 23 PDF files with strange names, it becomes a mission to find the installation instructions. Mutterings about the CD not being for the crane that was delivered were discounted when generic instructions on how to install overhead cranes were eventually found.

And so to plan the lift. Use one crane to lift an overhead crane and life goes on. When you then take into account that the design is such that the overhead crane should be installed before you put the roof on, and said roof had been happily providing protection from the elements for over 8 months, life becomes just a smidgen more interesting.

We decided to use the client’s 250t crane – note to the uninitiated: Just because a crane says it is 250t, it does not mean that it lifts 250t. There is funny things called “load tables” which given the length of the boom used, the load distance from centre of crane and other such fun parameters, when we were finished with the study, if the overhead crane weighed more that 25t we would have been stuffed. This is due to the fact, the crane had to stand outside of the building, 10 square meters of roof had to be removed, 3 purlins cut and considering the building is 18m high and 22 meters wide, the load centre was 21 meters from the centre of the crane.

We then pored over the overhead crane drawing and realised quite happily that the weight of the crane was only 7 tons. Easy lift. That was of course until some technical walla – read not me! – questioned the mass of the overhead crane. His contention was a crane that long HAD to weigh more that 7 tons.

Eventually said technical walla noticed that the drawing supplied on the CD was for a smaller crane. Emails were fired off to the supplier, who replied with a snotty email that we should RTFM and they had supplied us the correct CD. Client relations 101. I then decided to send them the copy of the drawing we had on the CD by email and asked them in my most polite language that I use when people do not want to understand the point that I am making, how the 16m crane depicted on the drawing was going to fit in a 22m building.

Eventually said supplier came back most contrite saying that they had indeed supplied us with the wrong CD and attached the correct drawing.

We were back on track.

Client arranged for two qualified installers to come up to Ghana and do the physical installation and sign everything off as required and they arrived on Monday.

Our lads worked long and hard to complete the rails, and install the busbars before the lift planned for Thursday. We also had to removed the required amount of roof (praying that it would not rain) and the client had spent the required eight hours to set up the monster crane.

So comes the day of the lift!

Now I have mentioned Albert before. His flamboyant style, his experience and as I was to learn that day, his amazing comprehension of the English language when applied to the swear word part that make up a small portion of the oxford dictionary. He could have added around another 30 before the lift was completed. No-one died, fell off the beams, got their fingers crushed or any such “please explain” episode.

I was under the impression that a lift is a quiet reserved affair as opposed to the screaming and shouting that went on. But 30 mins after everything started, the lift was complete and said overhead crane was firmly on the rails 12 meters above the ground. Albert smiled, lit up a cigarette and chalked off one more successful lift on his CV.

The one issue that remained was why the control box was 4 meters up in the air. After some more scratching around in the documents, it appeared that someone at the supplier decided that 8.1 meters was the length to make the control cable. It makes everything look rather silly when the crane is 12 meters above the ground.

Methinks the emails to supplier are going to increase a bit over the next two days, and someone is going to get shouted at.

For once – it is not us.

*wipe of brow*

Albert and the two lads from SA went out last night and celebrated. They are all bleeding from the eyes this morning. *chuckle*

And now for the 9 o'clock news

As Murphy smiles down on me, I take time to do a quick update to the blog.

During the quiet time, arrange a meeting with the local NHS (National Health Service) lad to come over and explain to the workers how to make use of the new free medical treatment offered in Ghana. Free that is if you do not account for the tax on goods at 2.5% that was introduced almost a year ago.

The day the lad come for his chat happens to be when we are under the whip trying to get a few jobs out before month end.

In order to meet in the chop house, we need to switch off the genset so that the people can hear what is going on. No electricity means no lights, aircon or network.

So I peer at the computer, running on battery and update you on the latest news:

• A teacher has been arrested after – now get this – losing 10 euro and 23.000 cedi’s he picked up a black stone, cut himself, smeared his blood over the stone and made each pupil in the (private) school lick the stone in some strange ju-ju attempt to find the thief. Needless to say the kids complained, the parents were up in arms, human rights organizations made comments on “gross violation of human rights” and said teacher was arrested. He has undergone HIV tests and the Principal of the school was also arrested. Not 100% sure what they are going to charge him with, but this one requires watching.

• The prime interest rates at the banks have dropped to – wait for it – 23.5%. This is a full 7.5% above the bank rate. The decrease was from a whopping 26%

• Ghana Black Stars thumped Bafana Bafana 2-0 in South Africa over the weekend. They came back to a tumultuous reception on Monday night and after been sponsored to the tune of $3 million by Goldfields – A South African Company – there is some irony in this victory.

• Barclays Bank PLC has made available $7.000.000 to the members of parliament for car loans. I am taking no odds that the loans will be advanced at rates a LOT lower than the 23.5% enjoyed by the rest of the public. Apparently a load of MP’s who fell by the wayside at the previous elections have not repaid their car loans gleaned at the start of their term. I am assuming Barclays will show the write off’s under “Marketing”

• South Africa has a woman deputy president. How we have progressed!

• A letter to the paper urges the Food and Drugs Board to test tomato paste as “at the meeting of farmers, they went and purchased eight brands of tomato paste and were shocked to find that all the brands contained only 28-30% tomato concentrate. They were concerned as to the other 70% and what that contains. I am laying odds on water, colorants, flavourants, preservatives and other nice things. I am not sure if tomato paste can ever be 100% tomato.

• There is a call for the banning of imports of “overage” vehicles and forcing trucks to undergo annual roadworthy tests. Yeah right! This will never see the light of day. That would remove 80% of all trucks from the road (99% of logging trucks) and Ghana cannot afford that. A rod of their own making that is. My point is if you sort out the bloody roads first, the vehicles will be cost effective to maintain.


And that’s the only off the wall stuff in the news. Which must be an all time record!

7 days before I fly out and I have a year end to complete before then.

So on that note, let me assume that as it is after knock off time and the meeting will be over soon, I can get back to work

Have fun people.

Said Porker Cooking happily

Said Porker Cooking happily
Originally uploaded by Hop.

and the spit braai was made by a boilermaker a while back. Not ours fortunatly *g*

Lots of preparing happening

Lots of preparing happening
Originally uploaded by Hop.

Carlos, Marco and Rudy prepare the porker

Carlos, Marco and Rudy prepare the porker
Originally uploaded by Hop.

I learnt that Locals light better fires than I do

I learnt that Locals light better fires than I do
Originally uploaded by Hop.

I tried to light the fire. No firelighters and local charcoal. I was not successful so gave our bored security guard a shout and he became official fire personage for the day!

Captains Started Early

Captains Started Early
Originally uploaded by Hop.

Weekend - whew!

Another blog so soon?

Well stuff to update you 4 readers on:

Friday night at around 9pm I get a phone call from Rudy to come over and have a drink. As the house was full – Freddy from Civils and Carlos were hanging around – some time away from the house was most welcome.

Now Rudy is a criminal of note as far as partying goes, but he does have all his meat from South Africa and is a good guy to sit down and chat with. I had yet to go to his place and my welcome was a good old fashioned Captain Morgan served in a fish bowl. I am convinced half a bottle of Captains was used to fill the fish bowl, but one drink later and I was lying on the couch listening to dire straits.

I was not exactly the life and soul and plodded around between the braai and the couch and did not even try to touch the second fish bowl that was poured. I was asleep by 11pm vowing never to drink or smoke again!

Saturday we had arranged the pig on a spit – see pics – and started said pig at 10am that morning. We supped on beer, chatted, supped on more beer and at around 8pm that night said porker was ready to be eaten. We did not have too many people pitch up, but hey what the hell, said porker was bloody nice and we even managed to kill two more bottles of captains before I got very tired and had to go to sleep. I do recall looking at my watch and remembering it was just after midnight.

Apparently every one ran out of steam at around 1.30am.

Sunday was a VERY quiet day, with both Carlos and I alternating between the couch and the bed. Albert popped in for a while and as he was not part of the previous evening he was very chipper! Bastard!

We were both lights out and in bed before 9pm.

I got phoned for fathers day – which was really kewl – and tried to phone my daddy for his fathers day. Ghana Phones at their best and I ended up sending him and SMS. Will have to phone him tonight I will.

10 days until home time – and I have walked into a Monday from hell.

This 10 minute brain break has served it’s purpose so let me get back into the stuff that has kept me busy for 8 hours already and promises another 8.

Hope your week is going well!

Tenderising the meat

Tenderising the meat
Originally uploaded by Hop.

William the Snake been prepared for the pot. Personally I have issue with this tenderising method.

How is Dasie the Driver you ask. After been rushed to two different hospitals, he was dosed with antivenom and is spending the night at the local hospital under observation.

Some may call this a fate worse than death.

One times dead snake

One times dead snake
Originally uploaded by Hop.

Dasie the Driver has tough mates. On seeing their pal forming part of the snakes head, they fall upon him with sticks, iron bars and other snake killing impliments.

William the Snake dies a horrible death as he continues to be beaten until he represents chopped liver.

William the snake committed a fatal error. Do NOT bite a Group Five Driver!

Snake Transport System

Snake Transport System
Originally uploaded by Hop.

You are a tractor driver. You are asked by the boss to take the tractor to a job at the client.

Happily singing to yourself as you toddle down the road, the wind in your hair, gentle "douf douf" of the diesel engine accompanying your west african tune and the radiator warming up the further your drive.

Sleeping quietly below the radiator is William the Snake. William is an old snake, just short of 2 meters in length and has survived all that Ghana has thrown at him.

Shaken from his slumbers by the above mentioned "douf douf" and finding himself a rapidly warming snake as the radiator gets up to temperature, William the Snake finds himself getting rather pissed off at the disturbance.

Focusing one beady eye on the cause of his problems and fully aware that biting the tractor serves little purpose, William the Snake decides a display of anger should be directed at Dasie the Driver.

William quite happily sinks his fangs into Dasie the drivers arm and not satisfied he quite happily applies a second dose of his neurotoxic venom to Dasie the Drivers Leg.

Dasie the Driver howls in pain and calls his mates who were serving as an escourt to the tractor.

The three R's - Rain, Rain and Roads

837 kilometers in 31 hours of which 7 of that was spent sleeping, 3 hours waiting for a client and four meetings totaling 100 minutes. Average traveling speed therefore 42kmph. You can see I was bored enough to work all this out as we braved downpours, trucks that insist on driving in the middle of the road, children in villages with no road sense and the ubiquitous hawkers at every robot, traffic jam and toll gate.

We (been Albert and myself) left Tarkwa at around 1:30 on Wednesday to toddle off to Accra for a meeting with a lad that was coming in on the SAA flight that evening regarding a job near the Burkina Faso border. We decided to take the Wassa road, as given the huge amounts of rain we have had over the past two weeks, it was almost a certainty that parts of the road to Takoradi that is under construction were washed away. There have been four washaways that we know of over the past ten days. A washaway on that road adds two hours to the journey as you need to head off towards Ivory Coast before hanging a left to Accra.

The Wassa road is 120km’s of dirt, before you hit a tar road, hang right to Cape Coast and then join the Accra road. We were hit with a deluge of note 30 minutes into the trip, which turned the road into a morass and ensured that the Pajeros 4x4 was well used. I was driving and was caught out by a tree across the road. The ground is so soft, given all the rain, trees spontaneously fall over. As Murphy has it, they will fall over the road. The funny part of been caught out, was you follow the brown road with green jungle on either side. You get so used to it, the quite honestly it required a decent thought process for me to realise the green and brown merged some 30 meters in front of me. Fortunately we were traveling at around 40kmph.

As the Aussies say “no worries mate” 4LLC selected on the 4WD box (dif lock with low range) and we went off road into the jungle to get around the tree. Slip Slidey and a close call with a newly formed stream and we were through. There was a Peugeot 404 behind me who I assume was stuck on the other side of the tree for the duration.

We arrived at the Accra house at around 7pm (not bad going – but I pushed it a bit – The Pajeros sits quite well at 150kmph: Albert – normally pretty verbose on trips was dead quiet during my speed tests.) and after a cup of coffee, finding out the client we were to see was delayed by an hour, we finally left the house at 8pm for an 8:30 meeting.

Or so we tried. David – the house boy had locked us in! After much shouting we woke him up from his back room and he was most surprised we did not have our own keys.

Meeting over at 10 – after client arrived at 9:15 and off to Nando’s for dinner.

I had a meeting with PWC in the morning and like true auditors they wake up late, I set my alarm for 7. My internal clock said “tough!” and set off its alarm at 5:30. The fact that I was miffed was somewhat allayed by been able to finally speak to Nessers on the phone. I have not managed to get through for the past 4 days.

Off to Obuasi we went, for client meetings as well as using the time to show me the direct route from Accra to Obuasi.

The road is reasonable – which means you just damage the car when you hit the potholes rather then fall in them and need a crane to recover the vehicle. One does go through a lot of small – and not so small – villages which slows the trip down substantially. It also exposes you to the total lack of thought process the drivers use here. We were blessed with a petrol tanker that could not climb hills and after finally been able to overtake it, we were forced to stop for something to eat and a pee break. Said tanker – which works really well going downhill – overtook us and we met up with him going through a small town.

All the Tro tros’ (HiAce Taxi’s) had decided to park on both sides of the road, leaving space for almost one fuel tanker. \He now sits stuck in among the taxi’s. We all sit behind him and no-one moves. As I was turning left at the time, I reversed back to keep the road open and to ensure that oncoming traffic did not have to endure the snarl up. As true as God made little apples, a taxi overtook me from behind and filled my recently vacated space and also ensuring – as he was placed on this earth to do – the snarl up became a full blown grid lock.

The truck driver to his credit enforced the maxim “the larger vehicle has right of way” and started moving forward slowly. As if by magic, Tro Tro drivers appeared from nowhere and started moving their taxi’s, thus unblocking the road.

There is a God and he drives a fucked up total fuel tanker!!

Finally got home after the Obuasi meetings at 7:20 – tired and sweaty – and safe with the knowledge I am going to sleep like a baby tonight.

What else has happened this week? The fact that I have not blogged since last week means my Bored time has turned into loads of work time.



Hummm –

The pig on the spit was cancelled due to work pressures, and also the spit arriving at 6pm. 8 hours to cook a pig and we could have had it for Sunday breakfast. After Carlos and Marco spend a while cleaning the rather large porker that had arrived – even using his razor for a close shave (Carlos) – said piggy was put into a deep freeze to be cooked over a slow fire next time.

We instead requested some chicken and fillet from the mess and I made my famous potato salad. The chickens were big enough to be turkeys and the fillet turned out to be silverside. You have to love a chef that cannot tell the difference.

By the time the fire was ready to burn meat, we were seeing pink elephants and I must admit I had a laughing fit that lasted for around 20 minutes. Tears in the eyes and sore tummy kind of fit. What did I find funny? Buggered if I know. But at least everyone was laughing with me.

Sunday was DEAD quiet and I had left over braai for lunch, spent a lot of time on the couch “watching TV” and was in bed really early.

The week has been eventful with new month stuff, fixing up old month stuff and getting things done.

The day has started eventfully with two shutdowns at our client, a driver been bitten by a snake and rushed off to hospital and a supplier finally admitting that he sent us the wrong information and after a snotty email saying “read the manual”, was most apologetic and contrite.

We are living in interesting times :……..:

Have U ever.......

Pressed that little icon on the top right and gone from Blog to Blog with no purpose other than just to see what people write about.

As I sit here on a Friday at 4pm, my brain lard and mush from too little sleep I have just spent 20 minutes doing that.
(Note to self: Send copy of blog to the thought policeman)

People write about the strangest things

Try it - You may like it

(and it is raining again)
(and the road home is blocked)
(and I am tired and grouchy)

The Beach, Accra, Tarkwa and Rain Rain Rain

Last weekend yours truly and 17 other managers and supervisors departed for the nearest conference centre – which happens to be at Busua Beach – for the second “Think Tank”. This dealt with the year that has gone and the year that is coming.

The Saturday was made a little more interesting with one of the clients wishing to discuss a job we were to be awarded that morning. Said client is 90 minutes in the opposite direction that I wanted to go which made the drive there a fast one, the meeting all of 10 minutes before clarity was gained and the 3 hour drive to the beach. The session that was scheduled to start at 2.30 started at 2.55 to a rather attentive bunch.

The weekend was marred by some seasonal rainfall and we were treated to 420mm of rain over the two days we were there. Good beach weather! The resultant effect was that the Sunday session continued well over the 12.30 end time and the lads finally departed for home at around 2.30 in the afternoon.

Saturday night I hit the wall at around 9pm – old age? – and was in bed and fast asleep by 9:30. Most of the lads found party and it was fairly evident the next morning with a few of them bleeding from the eyes. It did not detract from a lively debate over “management responsibilities” although one unnamed member rushed from the room around 1.00 looking very green around the gills and was found later on that afternoon complaining bitterly about how he was forced to drink the night before.

Why do Danish woman not trim their pubic hair? This was a question that arose when we were sitting enjoying the view – and a few beers – said Danish woman walked by in a bikini (the rain had let up for a while) with a rather visible bush escaping from said bikini. Her Rasta boyfriend also earned a few comments.

Monday 6 of us departed for Accra, 3 to go home and 3 for a series of meetings as per the previous blog. We were subjected to the result of heavy rain with numerous road wash aways, flooding and a mud slide. The trip took well over 6 hours due to these impediments. One thing about road repairs is the local community sees this as a business opportunity and quite happily clear the road, then demand a “road toll” for their efforts. Methinks they were the ones that did the rain dance.

We arrived in Accra, and as we were staying at the Accra house (My new home office from July) we toddled off there to offload and let the lads who were going home relax. Not before we did Nando’s as a late lunch I may add. Gus had a very interesting reaction to the weekend’s mosquito bites and had to pop into the local “licensed chemical shop” for some anti histamine cream. He took quite a while to fill the order and per his own admission this was due to a really cute east European pharmacist. He was loudly berated for telling us this after we had left as opposed to coming out and asking us please to assist him with the choice of medicine.

The lads checked into the airport, and we then went for dinner at the local steak house. The food was good.

Accra, unlike Tarkwa, starts work at 8.30am. This we found out AFTER I awoke at 5.55am and had to sit around the house waiting for our first meeting to arrive at their office.

Auditors
Clearing Agent – Airfreight
Local ISP re: VPN between offices
Bank
Clearing agents – sea freight x 2
Steel Supplier

120 kilometers done in Accra traffic makes for some interesting driving. We missed breakfast (no food in the house) and lunch and around dinner time my stomach was sending emergency messages warning of impending doom if food was not found soon.

We stopped off at a funny little take away – that did not look like a health hazard – and after working out the size of the burgers ordered 2 burgers each. Augustine settled on one burger and plate of rice and chicken. My tummy was a happy child when that was digested with a coke to wash it down.

We finally finished all we had to do just after 8pm, after having two meetings at the house. I slept well that night and was up at 4.45am for the long trip back to Tarkwa.

Spend three days away from the office and you know there is a huge amount of work that awaits you on your return. I was not disappointed.

Given that I started writing this blog entry on Wednesday and today is Friday you will understand that between then and now, busy busy busy is the word that gets used.

A small bit of excitement last night, besides the electricity going out while Carlos and I were enjoying a Cameron Dias movie, was a phone call from our (largest) client requesting our assistance in changing a pump as the new pump that had installed that afternoon was too small to feed the mill. Accordingly the mill was shut for want of water. This was at 9pm. By 9.30pm we had 8 expats and 11 workers on site ready to do what we do best.

We had to wait for our crane to travel from the workshop- some 45 minutes with one stop to top up the radiator – and by 2am everyone was patting each other on the back as the new pump moved 500.000 liters of water per hour into the plant.

I got home just after 2.30am and fell into bed, recalling the old days at the paper mill when stuff like this was routine. I optimistically set my alarm for 6.15am and quite happily slept right through it. I awoke at 8.30am and was at work by 9.00. Goodness more shades of the paper mill *chuckle*

That said, Albert and Mannie had already arranged a shutdown today on a refurbishment job that they are doing and were quite happily on site at 7am to commence the shutdown. The lads are made of stern stuff when you consider they estimate the shutdown to finish at 11pm tonight.

Other than that, dear reader, the week draws to a close, my head is stuck in Balance Sheet Reconciliations and I have arranged for a pig on the spit tomorrow at my house for dinner. Throw in a bit of Captains and it will be a nice way to wind down from what has been an interesting week.

20 days until I kick off down South and dare I say it – Nookie!!! (oh yes and seeing the people I love etc etc – heheheh)

Have a fun weekend happy people
And remember

Keep the smile wide and the legs wider!

Friday and another visit from the thought police!

Friday!

What we have here is the winding down of a hectic week. Month end completed, monthly reports completed, debtors reconciled, creditors reconciled, quotes prepared and sent to client and three client visits.

Is that possibly the reason why I am asleep by 9:30 pm?

On my sleeping times, I have moaned and groaned often enough over the last 10 months about the fact I used to live the life of Riley and sleep late in the mornings for me to realise enough is enough and accept the fact that I am now officially an early bird.

The problem with been the early bird in Ghana is there is no-one next to you in the morning to catch the worm. Playing with the worm by yourself is like kissing your sister! It is a kiss, but it does not count as the real thing.

I am now waking up between 4.30am and 5.30am and lying in bed sending the odd SMS and reading my book until get out of bed time at 5.55am. That’s the problem with going to bed early. The body is still used to 7-8 hours a night and lo and behold I happily beat the sun up 9 mornings out of 10. CNN and Sky-News are firm fave’s in the morning now when I have sent my SMS and do not feel like reading.

There was another visit from the thought police today listing two of my days at 42 minutes for one day and 5 HOURS!. for another. Not sure how they can log me on the net for five hours and on one of the sites considering that day I spent 4 hours at a client in Wassa. I apparently had 1790 hits to the site. At our line speed? Methinks the little policeman logger got his piddle in a froth.

I have now decided that I will limit my internet access to my 16k dial up at home. It makes life easier for everyone. Especially my Larnie who ends up having to do the please explain session to the bald headed lad reading the logs.

This month is financial year end and in three weeks the new financial year starts and one where all the bells and whistles have to go off simultaneously. As I am wont to do when I want to get everyone I work with looking in the same direction, I hold a think tank.

Accordingly 17 of us – all the managers and supervisors – are off to the closest conference center for the weekend to sit in a barely air-conditioned room and gaze dully at a PowerPoint presentation on how we did in 2005 fin year and what we want to do in 2006 fin year. It is a harsh weekend with a lot of boredom interspersed by forced socializing and bad food and no booze.

(did you believe a word of the above paragraph?) If you did, there is a nice bridge in San Francisco that I have for sale.

Around three times a year, the objective is to get the management staff away together on a semi social basis to refocus and mainly to get to know each other out of the work environment. The expats in the main live together and socialize together, but on a very very infrequent basis socialize with the local management. This gets the lads together and contributes towards the fact that everyone has to pick up on the fact we are a team and all work for the same goals.

So for a sum total of $60 per person for the weekend (excluding booze) we get together, sit in a room for 3 hours on the Saturday and 2 hours on the Sunday and walk away with some idea of where the company is going. Cheap at twice the price in my book!

I am also going to Accra next week to do the following “stuff”

• Look for more suitable accommodation and office space for when we set up our office in Accra.

• Meet with two local ISP’s over connectivity for our Obuasi and Akyhem operations

• Fight with a clearing agent who suddenly decides we owe them money going back to 2002.

• Fight with the Bank as to why we cannot transfer funds out of the country

• Oh yeah and fight with the bank over their bank charges

• Meet with the Minerals Commission and catch up on three years of reports to enable us to get work permits for the expats (and me)

• Meet with the Revenue guys to try and work out why if I am a local company I need to pay a 5% withholding tax on each invoice given to a client, but an external company can have their funds remitted outside of the country without paying any withholding tax at all. That’s besides the fact we pay PAYE, VAT, NHIL, Development Levy, Dash, Traffic Officers Coke Money and employ locals. (Insert holier than thou face here)

• Meet with the local clearing agent to work out what the effect of having a group decision to use a South African clearing agent who has secured all the groups business, but is not represented in Ghana.

All this and Zack and Gus are going back down south on Monday on R&R. I “forced” them to stay for the think tank.

On R&R, given my experiences explained in the last blog, I was due to rotate back on Friday 01/07/2005. Some guy at SAA had a brain wave and decided that lots of people want to go to the USA from Ghana. Given the fact that there are no direct flights from ACCRA to the USA besides the odd dodgy charter, SAA will now be flying to the USA via Accra. What that means is the schedule has changed and the Friday flight is no longer. Given the fact I was flying back on the Friday, my ticket has a date on it for one that is missing the plane.

No issue, the new flight schedule is now on a Thursday, so I can fly out on the Thursday right? Oh if only it was so simple. Thursday in this case is 30/06 which is before the new schedule comes into operation. As per the old schedule, there is no Thursday flight. Ergo, I fly on the Wednesday.

Why not fly on the Saturday you ask? Well consider the fact that they started the Saturday flight because the Friday flights were so full, and there is no Friday flight on this week and you can imagine the Saturday flight is going to be filled to the gunnels, with an overloaded roof rack. Wednesday is a lot better option. The office gets a week of my time for free anyways so I do not feel it a mission to leave a day early as I will be in the office doing monthly reports the next week.

One downside is Nessers cannot pick me up from the airport. So no more embarrassing her when I arrive on a Saturday morning. I will also have to wait until the evening before I ravish her bones!

My house continues to be full, but I will be down to one guest next week as Zack and Gus head off home. I am missing my privacy in a big way and need to find a permanent solution to the housing issues.

I am antsi at the moment so let me post this and pack up and go home!

Eat my www.blogger.com though policeman!