Missive from parts of Africa

Ghana Again!

2008-10-30T15:37:00.002Z

Have not posted for yonks on this blog, but as I am in Ghana again, it is perhaps right that I do a post.

You can have a look at my Facebook Page for my Mali Blog Entry. (tony de la motte in case you were wondering.....)

This is my last work trip for the year. Ghana is one of my better country's not least due to the fact I lived here for a few years. But:

The Flight is on a big plane
The Big Plane is SAA and with all their shite, they are still a decent African airline
I have an SAA Gold Card
The flight is only 6 hours
They do not limit the booze
The food is OK
The seats are as kak as any other airline in Africa
We have a House in Accra
I know people here

I did however, like an idiot, leave R500 worth of booze that I had purchased at duty free on the plane. Needless to say it was gone 20 minutes after I realised it was gone and asked the nice lads at "Lost and Found" to contact the plane for me.

Whoever took it - I hope you enjoy it.

Chatted at the house with Zack who is down from Burkina on his way home until 1am and went to bed after smoking a sleeping tablet.

We have a lad from SA who is on his first trip to Ghana. He was advised he was to be up at 5 and we were to leave at 5:30. (Thursday there is no plane to Tarkwa)

As he was in the HaHa room with no bathroom, I did offer my shower to him in the morning.

I slept

He Knocked on my door and I told him to go ahead and shower
I also had no idea why I was feeling so Farking tired.

I lay in bed bemoaning the fact that I was so bloody tired. I mean 5am is 7am SA time and I should not have an issue on 4 hours sleep.

Erm
Wait

My alarm did not go off

I checked my watch and lo and behold, Jimmy the Doos had not changed his watch to Ghana Time.

Ergo

It was 3am Ghana Time - 5am SA time.

Needless to say I was rather acidic when he came out of the shower.

I tossed and turned until 5am (Ghana Time) and toddled in for my shower.

Strike 2 - when you in Ghana make sure that you turn on the water heater. I had forgotten. Jimmy did not realise that as he too was having a cold shower.

and

I hate cold showers in the Morning!!!!!

5:45 on the road for the 6 hour trip to Tarkwa. Jeri had CD's and Snacks. She also ripped me off as it was my job to buy the booze and as we left I had no booze.

Only got stopped once by the cops who were looking for the kidnapped Israeli and the Kidnapped Leb. Not sure if anyone of us looked remotely Jewish or Lebanese.

It is good to get back on site and see whats happening. I sweated like a pig and I really had forgotten how hot and humid Ghana could get at this time of the year.

Party tonight

Small Works tomorrow am

Obuasi tomorrow pm

Wedding Saturday

Accra Sunday

Home Monday

All in all should be a good weekend. I may be able to keep you posted.

Planning and airports!

2008-04-20T04:43:00.000Z

Somewhere along the line my planning has gone for a ball of shit.

Last week – DRC
Weekend Home
Week – Mali
No Weekend home as I land at 12 at OR Tambo and depart at 4 from OR Tambo for Australia.
No Weekend Home but I do get a weekend in Sydney
Week in Mozambique
No Weekend Home
Week at Home
Back to the DRC

That’s really shit planning in my book!

Of course Air Kenya is delayed from Nairobi to Bamako for 4 hours. Nairobi Airport does not permit smoking on the premises. Insert further swearword here.

Fortunately Kenya does not require South African Passport Holders to have a Visa and you can fill out a form, get your passport stamped, wander outside, have your ciggie and complete the form fill, passport stamp to get back into the airport. I do pity the Pom’s who have to form out $20 for a Visa so they can have a ciggie.

Maybe someone in the know should realize that when you market Kenya as an African Hub and fully +50% of your passengers are in transit, it would be a nice touch to make arrangements for us smokers.

I actually had my passport stamped in/out twice as due to the extended delay I wandered outside to smoke again. I did however stay outside until the new departure time of our flight. We did try to have breakfast at the restaurant outside the airport, but they had run out of eggs. A replacement was Bangers and Chips.

As I sit here in the airport in Bamako on my way back to SA, with my new mini laptop, six hours advertised battery life, Air Kenya is once again delayed.

The fun part?

Look above! I have 1 hour 30 mins to make my connecting flight to OR Tambo from the now much loved Nairobi Airport. This will mean – no ciggie assuming we actually make the connection.

14 hours without a smoke? I will be the picture of happiness when (If) I land at OR Tambo, to be faced with a further 16 hours on the flight to Aussie.

And people say Travel is fun?

On the plus side – if I do land in time and all goes well – I may get lucky
*wicked chuckle*

Another reason to like site

2008-04-20T04:41:00.001Z

There is always a fun side to going out on site. My trip to Mali bought out that fun side in a big way.

The main reason is the team that is on site. There are two Cape Colored lads – Site Manager and Site Superintendent – who have worked together for a while and who I always consider as Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Peas in a pod. I worked with both the guys – at different times – during my stay in Ghana.

Okkie, after a good few local and imported brews mentioned to us that he is afflicted by a site illness that strikes often called piles. For gods sake we had one of our guys on site sent home for piles. However Okkie was about to go home on R&R. R&R in Mali is a mission due to an 8 hour road trip, 7 hour flight, 4 hour flight.

Therefore if you are afflicted by the dreaded ‘roids, facing a lengthy time sitting on a sore poepoel is something that you do not look forward to. Alvin offered Ok’s his “mothers” solution which was “Okkie, why do you not use toothpaste”. Okkie obviously did not have this trick played on him when he was at school and happily that morning, singing “Sarie Marais” in the shower applied a liberal amount of Colgate to the offending grapes.

What surprised me was the effect of the Colgate only snuck in while he was saying goodbye to the lads on site.

“Alvin, my poepoel brand man”

“Het jy rerig die toothpaste anngesit?” (Shock in voice)

‘Ja man – jy’t gese” (worried voice)

When Alvin started falling over with tears in his eyes. Okkie knew he was in Shit – so to speak:

Apparently he gapped it to the room and attempted to wash off all the offending Colgate before his eyes bulged too far out of his head.

(By this stage the whole room where we were drinking were in tears of laughter as well)

It however got better.

By the time Okkie reached the first large town – some three hours from site – his ass was really giving him uphill. He asked the driver – Justice – to find a chemist and stop suddenly.

Said Chemist found Okkie ran in with a clenched ass and obtained some ointment from the lady behind the counter.

Most people would have had an issue on the application of the ointment. Ultra Cities do not abound in Mali. If you read my first trip to Mali story, you would note that toilets do not abound.

Not a problem to our Oks. He drops his pants in the main road and bends over. Reaching back he hands the tube to Justice.

“Sit the ointment on my ass” he demands

“Nooooooooooooo Mr. Okkie” is the startled response of Justice”

“Sit die fokken shit aan” Okkie cries – in obvious discomfort.

(By this stage we are rolling around the floor. I always knew there had to be a reason why Justice does not speak much on this contract. The site of a Managers Roids in the main road of Sikasso will do that to a man)

Did Justice apply the ointment?

I have no idea

I do not want to know

I REALLY do not want to know!!

And that dear reader, is why I love going to site!

Travel Hell Month

2008-04-13T09:14:00.002Z

What has yours truly been doing this month?

Travelling:-

What will yours truly be doing for the rest of the Month?

Travelling :-

After the normal week of Recons and meetings, intimate time with numerous airlines appears to be on the cards for me.

Last week was the DRC.

We did however manage to jump on a client charter flight direct to Kolwezi. This was as opposed to the SA Airlink to Lumamashi, 5 hour wait and then Scary Airy to Kolwezi. The one downside was a 5:30 am start at Lanseria.

The flight was great. It was a 737-200 combi with 54 seats and cargo in the front. Nice food. I managed to sleep given the early wake up. The fact the flight was not full meant I had a three seater to myself and I made full advantage of the additonal space :)

2h45 min flight.

The landing was a gas as the pilot flew along the run way line looking for pot holes. This at around 300ft with a turn right and 180 left which would have done a F15 pilot proud. Never thought a 737 could stand on a wing like that!

Normal work stuff in the DRC. Two days of shouting and meetings and back to the airport on Friday am.

Our lad got the time wrong and we were told to be at the airport at 8h30. There was a Danish Lass at the hotel who flew up with us and when we rushed off to get to the airport on time, she was casually going through her breakfast. She laughed when I told her we were off to the airport and said she will be there at 10am.

Turns out she was right and we hung around the airport chatting and smoking until 11:45 when the plane took off.

DRC continues to be - in my mind - the most corrupt country in Africa. Everyone is on the take or wants to be on the take. The latest issue was my visa was issued on the 19th March and "had to be used within 3 weeks". The fact it is a one month visa was academic according to the short immigration lad who was refusing to issue an exit visa. Of course $50 would have resolved this immediatly. Our local Site lad resolved the issue.

Flight cannot take off or land with full fuel so the return journey was via Ndola for a pit stop. 3h15 on the way back.

Lanseria was a cluster fuck with the airline taking all the passports on take off and a mob of people waiting for their name to be called at immigration. Why people can not just carry their own passports is beyond me.

That said Lanseria has grown up nicely and is a modern small airport.

It is Lisa's birthday this week, so as I am not here, her restuarant of choice was Butcher Shop in Sandton. Robbie was off to a housewarming with mates and did not join. Food was good - as expected - and I managed to polish off a very good bottle of Fleur de Cap Merlot.

Loadshedding hit us - refer previous post - and I was actually fast asleep before power came back on at 10. I did however wake up at 4am. *sigh*

Today is a chill day with a nice roast planned for lunch - first Sunday Lunch I am cooking in a while - and packing for my next trip. Mali.

Land next week Sunday at 12 and get back on the plane the same day at 4 for Australia.

Going to be fun as regards time zones in the next two weeks.

On the personal side. Had a small barny this weekend got an interesting insight on the all or nothing syndrome. Well it seems like nothing is on the cards as I do not have an all in my bag of tricks!

Arrogance?

2008-04-06T16:47:00.002Z

I thought I would join in on the Escom Bashing for a moment.

The radio ad that glibly states because you have not saved 10% as we demanded we gonna turn your power off so you can learn a lesson is the one that peeves me the most.

Greeny the Power saver has since January 2008 - when the coal did not come home to roost - done the following:

- Put a time switch on the Geyser
- Turned the heat setting on the geyser down to "warm shower"
- Reduced the time the pool pump runs
- Changed all the lights in the house to power savers
- Ensured that no equipment stayed on Standby
- Canned using the tumble dryer
- Purchased Cold Water Omo and washes in cold water

Total saving in house electricity usage - 38% month on month

Apathetic Power User did nothing

Total saving in house electricity usage - 0% month on month

Both houses are load shed on average 6 hours a week as "you have not saved your 10% so we gonna punish you all"

Downright fucking arrogant if you ask me!!!

Medicals

2008-03-27T19:38:00.002Z

While I am here!

I studied hard and passed my medical with (almost) flying colors.

- I have no STD's
- My Cholesterol went from 5.1 to 4.0
- My lung function improved from last year (smoking regulations in SA helping?)
- My Prostate is not enlarged (Quote from Doctor as he prepared to root around in my ring "If you do not put your finger in it, you risk putting your foot in it")
- My fitness?? is 83% of expected fitness
- I am still obese despite the malaria induced 4kg loss (which was what I lost over a yearr)
- My hearing is fine
- I do not have lung cancer (the jury is still out on other body parts)

Tasks allocated by Doctor

- Drink less coffee
- Smoke Less
- Exercise
- Lose weight

Odds of above happening

*cough*

Slim

Headline FIN24 27/03/2008

2008-03-27T19:33:00.001Z

The market may have overreacted negatively to the impact of the Eskom crisis on South Africa's mining groups, according to top sector analysts

No shit Sherlock!

Check out my post on March 7th 2008.

Took the top sector analysts a while to cotton on methinks!

South African Inflation

2008-03-26T14:07:00.002Z

Let us talk inflation!

Conventional wisdom in South Africa has been to control inflation via interest rates. Inflation has been set in a band of 3-6% and growth in the country is targeted at 6%.

Worked well for a period of time and interest rates were allowed to drop to promote growth in the country. As we all know, growth is good and allows for more jobs to be created and generally attracts investment. Investment is good for financing our balance of payments.

Then the good old US of A had a problem with weird financial instruments which, given the fact that we live in a world economy, affected banks all over the place leading to a loss of billions of USD given the write downs “required” by the banks. Those write downs are in my mind a very moot point as what the guys are saying is that the property that forms the final underlying instrument is worth nothing on the open market. Economics or pure manipulation of financial figures?

Oil Prices went through the roof and commodities followed suit. Maize prices are up, wheat prices have hit an all time high and so it continues. Fuel prices are raised monthly and generally the COST of goods have gone up substantially year on year.

Let us not talk about Eskom and their price hikes!

The reaction from the Reserve Bank is to increase interest rates to make it less attractive for people to spend money.

What this fails to recognize however is that if the COST of goods have gone up SUBSTANTIALLY year on year, the price will increase independent of demand. That is good old fashion economics 101 as one always has to recover their costs in order to stay in business. As interest forms a cost – be it a cost of borrowing or the returns from placing money in the bank – all that raising interest rates does in a time of cost pressure is increase the cost pressure. Ergo a spiraling effect.

So in effect increasing interest rates reduce discretionary expenditure, which reduces demand for non essential products. Witness the car industry shutting down production due to reduction in demand. As we all learnt in Economics 101, production has an economy of scale formula and the less you produce, the more the item costs to produce. Again Inflationary!

Net effect, companies will drive to reduce costs which will come at the price of reduced jobs and reduced growth in the economy.

Witness the rest of the world reacting to the crises by decreasing interest rates to ensure that their economy does not move into recession. Witness our lads increase interest rates in a vain attempt to keep inflation under control. When inflation is not driven by demand, interest rates are not going help reduce it. Maybe our reserve bank needs to take heed of that.

But then again – maybe not

Sick again?

2008-03-07T15:29:00.001Z

I have not dumped much on this page for a while, but today seems to be the day. It happens when you have been sick at home for a few days and you get bored.

Once again I am laid low by a dose of Malaria. Once again I marvel at how malaria is viewed in South Africa as opposed to the endemic areas of West Africa.

If you go to a Doc in Ghana and complain about Malaria symptoms, he would prick your finger, spread a bit of blood on a slide, peer through an ancient school type microscope and announce “plus one” or “Plus two” or “nothing” and you would be treated or sent on your merry way.

In South Africa, you get checked over, blood pressure, etc and blood gets taken. You are then told they will contact you with the test results, but just in case you are sent home with R300 worth of Antibiotics, Dry Me Up Pills, Cough Mixture and pain tablets.

If you are positive, you get advised three – five hours later, climb back in your car, go and get the malaria muti, anti Ralph tablets and some headache tablets. This for R149

You throw away your R300 muti and start taking the R149 muti.

Is it any wonder that medical aids are charging what they are?

This bout however started around 12 days ago while I was in Cameroon. After Landing in SA, I popped off to the local Medicross Clinic (We diagnose in 15 mins cause that’s how close we put all our appointments)

Get R300 muti and get advised four hours later my Malaria test is negative. One week later, I am feeling worse than ever and go back for another check up. True’s fuck if I do not walk out with R400 muti and the lovely statement of “You do not have a temperature so it cannot be Malaria”

Next day, I am even worse. Did not sleep much and spent a fair amount of time over the loo with my stomach rejecting the mornings toothpaste. It had nothing else to reject as by this time I had not eaten in over a day.

I decided at around 12 to take myself off to the local hospital.

The Doctor asked what was wrong and I basically stated I was sure I had Malaria but for some reason the medical profession decided I had flu.

“So you do not trust the results of the test” she says
“No” says I “I have had malaria a couple of times before and this is what it felt like before”
“Well what happens if it is just flu?” she asks with a little more than a sneer
“Then best you give me something to get rid of it as the two courses of Antibiotics are not working”
“Antibiotics do not help with flu” she says “flu is a virus and antibiotics are for bacteria”
“Well then best someone advise the medical fraternity that prescribed two sets of anti biotics that fact” I state with just a small amount of acid in my voice.

-uneasy silence-

This time however I have a fever, so another malaria test is in order. They justify their 50% extra charge from “15 minute diagnosis clinic” by running a drip up with some nice muti to attack the fever.

I sleep while the liquid runs into my veins.

-Two hours later-

“You have Malaria” penetrates my fuzzy mind

“No shit Sherlock”

One prescription later and hopefully I am on my way to full recovery.

That said.

I have nothing but admiration for the gold/platinum industry and Eskom for conspiring to raise the prices of their commodity’s and still managing to complain bitterly that the 10% reduction in power will cost jobs.

Let us have a quiet look at the facts.

January before all hell broke loose on the power front
Gold Price $680/oz USD/ZAR 6.80
Factor 4624

March after one month of 10% reduction in power and an alleged 20% reduction in gold production.
Gold Price $974/oz USD/ZAR 8.00
Factor 7792

Reduce the factor by the 20% loss of production
Factor 6233

So dear reader!

Our gold mines are taking home 35% more revenue and happily retaining 20% of the reserves in the ground.

We all know that gold mines have valuations placed on reserves, and the more reserves they have the better.

And for this they say they are losing money and jobs are at risk?

Please pull the other one.

Oh yes.

Malaria is a notifiable disease

The nice lady comes to fill in the form

“Why did you take so long to seek medical help” she asks
“If you mean that me begging to be tested for Malaria three times over the last week makes it my fault, then so be it” I answer as I put my shoes on and get out of the medical peoples clutches.

On the plus side

I have lost 4kg and have not been able to drink.

I should be booking my company medical next week

Lazy weekend?

2008-01-06T13:53:00.000Z

One has to pay homage to the invention of the "Lazy Sunday Afternoon". That is exactly what I am having after a good weekend.

My new couches arrived!! With much cheer as I was only expecting them next weekend. They were offloaded and placed into their temporary positions, not before I managed to break the window of my french doors. *sigh*. Doors may flex when they are stuck, but as we learnt in school, the ability of glass to flex with said door is somewhat limited.

Our first statement was "Fck I am sure they were not that big in the store!!" The chairs are huge and even after putting loads of cushions on the chairs, I still have 4 big and 2 small cushions remaining. They will be put away for the time that something drastic happens to the existing ones.

I purchased new pillows for my bed and some for my daughter, who complained on Saturday morning that her boyfriend nicked her pillows when she was sleeping. Apparently she needs on to cover her face while she sleeps. *shake of head*

I had drinks and coffee on Thursday which was enjoyed very much!

Friday was the day a hired maid arrived and cleaned up the house. I am certain there is a system for cleaning that I have yet to discover as she did manage to clean the house really well in a day. It may have taken me a week or more.

Friday night was when vulneribility was bought closer to home as a very good friend got attacked outside her house. She has a very loud scream and used it to good effect, as well as her housemate using his to good effect as well. The wanna be thieves ran off rather sharply. This sort of shit happens so quickly and all one can say is safety is not something you should expect.

My pool is blue again and the fact that I can see the bottom meant I could finally see that as quick as the Creepy sucks shite off the bottom, it gets tossed back into the pool through the return. It appears my filter sand has given up the ghost. Another R650 next week to have the sand replaced. *double sigh*

Work resumes tomorrow and a busy year is guaranteed given the emails that have arrived in my mailbox over the holiday season.

Hope you are all smiling and happy. Tis a good state to be.

I did not

- get pissed

(not - the "get laid" is not under the I did not section - wicked chuckle)

Kilometers travelled on bike: ~16

Home Improvement 101

2008-01-03T15:50:00.000Z

Goodness!!

It amazes one what can be done in a day where I decided to be a busy bee on the home front.

- Did three loads of washing and read the labels before I washed the clothes!

- Cut my Hair

- Hung up one load of washing before the rain came

- Tossed R450 chemicals in the pool

- Educated as to the fact that the reason why my PH in the pool was so low was that HTH Green to Blue (which we have been using liberally) as acid as it's one sachet!

- Washed my car and got the inside cleaned (for R35??? BONUS)

- Had the cement mix for my deck delivered.

- Purchased plastic sheeting which prevented the cement mix from getting wet

- Did my Exclusive Books trip and got two new books

- Had another dose of Nando's

- Cleaned out the grocery cupboard and tossed away a whole load of stuff which were waaaaay past the expiry date

- Finally got around to defrosting my 1/4 pig which I purchased in July 2007. Will make some nice freezy pork dishes with the R26,99 per kg pork. (tis over R40 a kg now)

- Napped

- My everloving daughter offered to get ribs for dinner

- Did my internet banking (and gave my everloving daughter her pocket money, which allowed her to offer the ribs in the first place)

- Ordered and paid for a take away maid tomorrow to do the ironing and washing of dishes and floors.

All in all a successful day!!

I did not

- Get laid

- Get Pissed

Km Ridden on my bike: NIL

Work tomorrow!

Wonder if Kenya Airways are still flying - hehe

Have a hoppy one fine people!!!

I know I did!!

2008 has arrived!

2008-01-03T05:16:00.000Z

Spent New Years day and the day after on a farm in Limpopo with friends. Fark was it hot!!! Fark was it dry!!!!

I did however manage to

- Chase Cows into a Kraal for Milking (see the cows do come home)
- Got told I would be assisting with the milking the following morning
- Thanked the Lord that the milking was left to someone who knows how to do it!
- Chase more cows into a Kraal for dipping
- Ate loads of Milk Tart
- Improved on my afrikaans

I did not manage to

- Get Laid
- Get Pissed
- Speak Afrikaans so that people could understand me.

Got home yesterday evening to Nandos and the fact that rubbish collection day fell on a public holiday two weeks in a row. I now have the "rubbish dump" smell in my back yard as the dustbins fizz and bubble with all sorts of strange chemical reactions usually reserved for Lab's in Iran.

Pickitup has some questions that need to be answered methinks.

Total km ridden in 2008 - Nil

Today I finally get around to finishing off my pool deck that was started around six months ago. I have downloaded "How to Make Concrete" from the PPC website and will be looking for a place that delivers the required goodies. I will also be making good use of the Labour Corner for this exercise!!

Wish me luck!!

My farking pool is green again - which is apparently due to the fact the PH is around 6.0. A trip to the Pool Shop is on the cards as well.

Given the fact that today we are looking at a Temprature exceeding 30 degrees C, I may even lose a kg or 3.

Right!!! A bowl of Oats is calling and then the day starts.

7am is such a foolish time to wake up methinks!!

Adios 2007

2007-12-30T16:39:00.000Z

It has been a quiet time on the “Africa Missive” front for a variety of reasons, none of which I have the inclination to rehash – either on paper or in my mind.

I have however just managed to spend a wonderful two weeks in the quietest and quaintest places in the Eastern Cape.

So to close off 2007 and look forward to 2008 …

One of my objectives for 2007 was to travel more. By Travel More, I meant travel on my own account as opposed to my travels to all the non tourist destinations in Africa for work purposes. My trip to Cyprus and Italy (with a little bit of Greece and France thrown in) was the international result of that decision. The local results were Magaliesburg – twice, Parys, Henley on Klip, St. Lucia, an aborted trip to Swaziland due to a missing passport and trips to Nieu Bethestia, Prince Albert, Bavians Kloof, Addo and Smithfield.

In those trips I have stayed in quaint guesthouses, luxurious hotels, quaint hotels, tourist trap hotels, the ultimate waste of money guest lodge, old farmhouses with electricity, old farmhouses without electricity (no not due to load shedding) and the most hideously painted guest house I have ever subjected my color blindness to.

I have learnt how to use a storm lantern, cooked a Christmas meal in a Gas Stove, learnt that presentation does make a difference, spent the night in a “Pink Igloo” and revisited fixing punctured tubes on a bike tyre.

I have also ridden more than once on a bike, discovered that using a bike to see a small town is the best way to do it – given that one of the objectives is to stop at the local hotel and have a drink. I have also discovered that my fitness level is not that bad and I can cycle 16km without having a heart attack. (I must admit I do think 10km is a better distance for a 45 min ride *chuckle* )

I have enjoyed a whole load of meals at some very nice restaurants and have enjoyed a whole load of meals at some very basic eateries and still enjoy Nando’s and Sushi as my fave rave take away.

I have also learnt the true meaning of introspection and have realized that nothing in life is permanent, least of all one’s good health.

I have learnt that Love is something you will always enjoy even if the people you love are no longer present in your life. I have learnt that good memories are forever and bad memories will eventually fade. I have learnt that I was not destined to stay in one place for ever and I have learnt that even good ideas have bad consequences.

My 2007 building project was an unmitigated disaster. The end result is good, but the way I got there could go down in the annals of my history as the most frustrating four months of my life. The budget was well and truly blown on the job as well, but I do think I have a good thing to work with for the 2008 building project.

I will however choose my builder with more care next time.

Was 2007 a successful year?

Work wise it was.
Socially it was.
Intellectually it was.
Experience-wise it was.

Health wise it had its challenges

Emotionally it was not.

Maybe I can score 6/6 next year.

If I can – I will call it a successful year!

Best wishes for the New Year and I hope you will enjoy the new blog style for 2008.

Lumambashi

2007-09-02T05:44:00.000Z

Another Sunday Morning in an African City north of the Border.

As can be seen my the heading, I finally got to my intermediate destination, before my wing back to SA tomorrow. A tad later than anticipated, which has messed up my plans for Saturday as I cannot meet the people we need to meet.

That aside, we did get to the airport at 8am as recommended by our (embarassed) travel organiser. The airport had just disgorged a bunch of people and cargo from a non name brand ancient 737. Apparently these guys are working on another mine 70km's away from Kolwezi. Marketing 101 saw me hand my card out to the engineers and say "we are based permanently here with plant".

People in traditional clothes arrived, as did a brass band. I thought of phoning our travel organiser and thanking him for the send off, but it was unnecessary and I would much rather have got on yesterdays plane.

Appears that the singing dancing playing team was not for me. It seems that the President of the DRC was making a vist to the town and they were there to welcome him. It also appears the pres travels on local airlines instead of having his own jet. Respect!

The upshot was, the plane that came in was a bigger one than the sardine can we flew down on and there were seats on the plane for the 45 min trip. I sat next to a garlic chomping Japanese lad who slept the whole way.

We visited out site just outside Lumambashi and chatted with the lads about what was happening and gathered a bit of intel for future problems. We also did a mini shopping trip in the site stores container. *chuckle*

Last night Eben and myself toddled off - per foot - to the Italian Club who apparently had a nice restuarant.

They did and if you do not mind eating a R105 Pizza, drinking a R210 bottle of Italian Plonk, then it was a good meal. Siciliana Pizza tastes good here too.

It did however take ages to get the bill and toddle back to the respectable hotel for a nights kip on yet another hard bed.

I did have a nice chat on Yahoo with the Nessers.

Today I have some work to get out before 12 when we toddle off to a site braai that the lads will be having today. Tomorrow am we wing our way back to R S of A to a day full of meetings. Tuesday looks no better.

Hope you smiling happy people. I think I am

African Airlines

2007-08-31T15:44:00.000Z

Today I had another experience with the vagaries of African airlines.

One has a ticket "confirmed" for 16:15 on a Friday afternoon. One arrives at the airport at 3pm and hands the aforesaid ticket in.

Problem #1 happens when one's ticket is left on a pile when boarding passes are issued to all and sundry.

Problem #2 is more severe when you see the nice lady selling tickets to other people.

Problem #3 is when you ask (in english) what the problem is and she answers in french and points to a booking list for 9am that morning where my name is.

Call the translator and he yabbers away in French and confirms that despite my ticket details, I was booked by the airline that morning.

Chirp and phone the agent in Lumabambashi who "will check up and phone me back"

Net effect: Phone hotel and pray they still have a room. Happily confirm that they do and ask them to please hold it for me. Phone travel agent and say best you get me on the Saturday flight and happily be advised that the plane is full.

Say to travel agent - "Best you make a plan"

As we stand now I have been advised to go to the airport tomorrow at 8am and hopefully get on the plane. If not - I am faced with an 8 hour trip on apparently scary roads for the 350km to Lumambashi.

Welcome to DRC Tony - hope you enjoy your stay!!

Service

2007-08-30T15:34:00.000Z

When you pay R1050 a night (bed only) for a hotel room, you expect something that approaches reasonable.

Ask for a menu at 8pm. (no problem)

Receive menu at 8.20 pm (humm - we may have a problem)

Hear waitron say "there is no beef" (The problem may be growing)

See that almost the entire menu is Beef (Note there is a problem)

Order a baby chicken and chips (That should work)

Be advised that the baby chicken will take 45 mins (Sigh - that is a problem)

Order Chicken in Curry Sauce (That should work)

Enquire about our food at 9pm (BIG problem)

Enquire about our food at 9.15 pm

Receive food at 9.30 pm (fark at last!!!!)

Sad that.

Tonight we decided to order food early, only to be told "the kitchen only opens at 7pm"

You cannot even get a cup of coffee cause "That is made in he Kitchen"

Yup - Hotels in Small African towns are interesting - and this is the best place to stay in town.

Who says travel is a gas??

This is Africa

2007-08-30T10:49:00.001Z

Just another African country. I have said this before and I will say it again a few more times in my life I assume.

Flying a SAX turboprop for three hours to Lumambashi in the DRC is not my idea of fun, especially if the lad next to you did not appear to have taken much care when it came to personal hygiene.

The four hour wait at the airport – albeit in a nice lounge – further added to my mood enhancement trip. The fact that I never saw my luggage picked up was a worry due to the fact I had showered at the Gym that morning – farking builders had not turned on the geyser when they left the night before – and was still dressed in my tracksuit pants and T shirt, which makes losing ones luggage a major train smash.

I had just decided to have a beer – as opposed to the bitter coffee I was supping the whole morning – when the small plane decided to leave. Simba Beer is a tad on the bitter side for me.

Kolwezi is a place that has all but collapsed. Roads are almost impassable, electricity is worse that Ghana in the dry season and cops abound everywhere.

The mine is an education and it was evident that when the civil war broke out they were in the middle of a major upgrade. They have 7 brand new mills as well as heaps of equipment that has been lying there for around 25 years.

The best part was a welded platform on the ground that a tree had grown through. Not a small tree. A bloody big tree some 3 meters high. The painters had done a good job as it appeared almost new after so long in the elements.

The “hotel” at $150 a night is reasonable enough. The fact that they are building new rooms and this is happening right outside my door could be an issue. The fact they do not have a genset is an issue as power goes off on a regular basis. No aircon’s, but the weather is benign currently so the ceiling fan suffices.

But the bed? The Bed is as hard as a rock. I battled to sleep – for more than one reason last night – and the bed did not help at all. Taking the problem in hand however did.

The DRC when I landed looked a hell of a lot dryer than I thought. However vegetation on the flight to Kolwezi looked more like I thought the country would be. It then dawned on me that the fact we land at cities means the local populace has denuded the surroundings of anything that you could burn. The place honestly looked like it was approaching a desert around the cities.

We looked at renting a motel and some houses. Wonderful places 25 years ago. Run down shells now. Rent a motel for $4500 a month and you in the hole for $50,000 to make it habitable. The current owner rents the place to locals for $10 a night. He is overcharging.

Tomorrow we finalise some of the deals we need to finalise and wing our way back to Lumambashi. A weekend in Lumambashi is ahead as we are unable to get a seat on any of the flights that head off to JHB on the weekend. I have $$$ - I understand there are places to party in town. I will see if I can take advantage of this.

Oh yes – and also have a meeting with the auditors and the local admin staff.

Am I having fun?

Not 100% sure. I seem to have a hole just below where my heart usually is.

Life is indeed complicated!!

Trust you have fun this weekend happy people. I know I will try!

Hiatuis Over!!

2007-08-29T05:12:00.000Z

Africa Missive has been on hold for the past few months due to a sense of humour failure.

That is now over - I have rediscovered my sense of humour and can now start posting again.

What has happened in my life over the last few months:

- Nessers and I broke up - Enough Said

- I have been a busy lad - whats new

- I have done a fair amount of Travel (both Business and Pleasure) and have started a travel blog

- I am doing home renovations - fark!! What a mission

- I am going to visit my sister in Cyprus - HUGE SMILE

- I am going to spend some time in Rome and on the Amalfi Coast - HUGE SMILE

- I have made some really nice new friends and am rediscovering my social side

- I had Malaria rapidly followed by a dose of Flu - No fun

- The HOP is back - Mothers Hide Your Daughters (especially a specific mother in Bela Bela

Gawd!!

2007-07-13T08:09:00.000Z

Gawd, I have not posted anything in ages.

I have been busy

I have been thinking (maybe too much)

and I have been having some fun. (but not too much)

Will update when the hectic slows down a bit.

I am in Mali next week and Ghana the following week, so I should have some time to post a missive or three.

Hope you are all having fun!

Two weeks it was......

2007-06-20T19:44:00.000Z

Another day, another airport.

After 16 days away from SA, I am heading back. Three Country’s – two of them for the first time – and countless security checks and packing and unpacking laptops etc etc.

The fact that all three countries are primarily French should be telling me something. The French are anal. There is no other word for it.

Burkina Faso airport took the cake as far as anal (and rude) is concerned. Oh yes – did I mention that the French are bloody impolite as well?

We decided at Burkina to check in the luggage early and then go for dinner. In Ghana they open check in at 7 for an 11 flight so this can be done. Burkina? Well you get greeted by the “Give me a Uniform and I will make your life difficult” person at the door. He checks your ticket and your passport (check 1). He looks at my ticket and directs me to stand outside.

“I want to check in for Air France” I mention.

“Stand there (French accent)”

“Can I check in please”

“No”

“Why not”

“check in is not open”

“What time does it open?”

-silence-

“what time does check in for Air France Open?”

- more silence –

“Listen Charlie, are you going to tell me what time the check in opens or do I get unhappy?” (agitated voice)

- Even more silence _

Lucky Celia had actually got inside the door (French men and woman?) and she toddled off to find out check in opens at 8:15.

We had dinner at a stunning little Indian Resturant and the Rogan Gosh was as tasty as it should be.

9pm back to airport. Through Check 1 with not much of an issue except by checking each passport and ticket, check 1 causes an almighty backup outside the door. He however is not at all concerned.

Luggage in – boarding pass problem!

“You cannot sit together”

“why?”

“There is no seat”

“say what – the seats were pre booked – best you check again”

“oh – no Problem”

Check 2 is just before customs. Man again stands at door, hands out departure forms and checks your boarding pass and passport. The only issue here is the Q is long and in order to get a form, you need to squeeze past humanity, get the form and squeeze back.

That is of course unless you are well connected and can just stroll through without worrying about the Q.

Check 3 is immigration. My lad was counting forms and pointedly ignore me while he tried to remember how to count.

Check 4 is a large lass who checks the passport and ticks a number in a book. The relevance of this escaped me.

Check 5 is a lad next to the large lady who once again checks your boarding pass and ticket.

Check 6 is scanning of hand luggage and a brief look at your boarding pass and passport.

Check 7 is when you start boarding and a man checks – yup you guessed it – your boarding pass and passport.

Check 8 is a physical search of handluggage and hand scan of your body.

Check 9 is – I kid you not – just before you board the bus and once again the man checks if you have a valid visa. (Fark me – if you did not have a valid visa, the lad at check 1 would not have even let you in the airport)

It was raining – we got wet getting on the plane.

6 hours to Paris. Foul seats – in the middle of the plane . I managed to Nap.

Paris was once again Japanese Tourist 101. This time however we knew the drill and knew which shuttle to look out for.

Once again – expensive shower and computer bags in storage as we caught another shuttle to the Metro.

The lourve. Celia wished to see pre 17th Century Dutch Masters, which were quite cool. She knows a tad more about art than I do, so she was disappointed and I was walking around like an Amish arriving in the big City. You can spend a month in the Louve and not see everything.

Eiffel tower – made easy by a Metro Day Pass – and photo opportunity closer than we got last time.

Arch de Triomph – (once again thanks to the Metro) and while I am wondering how the hell you cross the bloody great big traffic circle without been killed, Celia finds the underground access and shakes her head in exasperation at the newby.

We ate a quick lunch on the Champs. Salad was fantastic and the beer was very nice. Service was in a flash. Cost was EU50. France is not for poor people. *chuckle*

Finally – back on the Metro to retrieve our computer bags and check in for the 11 hour trip to Mauritius.

I again managed naps and small walk arounds to allow blood flow to my arse. Cattle class seats are not soft at all. Celia on the other hand has a bladder of steel and sat once again for the entire 11 hours with nary a pee(p).

Chilled day in Mau and a great meal at the Happy Raja, followed by a belated celebration of Romay’s Birthday at Banana Club with Celia and two of her mates who are spending a holiday with her.

Lucky Wench gets to spend the next three days in Reunion. Life of the rich and infamous I think.

Flight back to SA was uneventful and I welcomed my own bed, after tossing all my washing out of my bag. Nary a clean item of clothing left.

I had fun!

Now back to work it seems.

I only left the office at 6.30 tonight, still with some stuff to do. As I was the only bugger there, it seemed like a good time to leave and try and make sure I am all caught up by Friday.

Hope you are smiling

Burkina Faso (Via Paris)

2007-06-16T16:46:00.000Z

What a week (and a bit).

Let’s see what I can update you with!

Spend a very chilled Sunday in Mauritius preparing for the 12 hour flight to Paris and onwards to Burkina Faso. Celia is a clever, fun lass with a different outlook on life. There was some wine drunk, some cheese shared and a fair bit of laughter.

Gawie and his missus invited us for a quick dinner that eve before hopping in the taxi to the airport to catch the flight. The dinner was quick (and nice) and the taxi ride lasted some 20 minutes before I realized that I had left my air tickets and passport in Celia’s car.

*BIG BLUSH*

Gawie met us on the way, once we had turned around, and the journey continued with my passport and air ticket safely in my paws. I can blame Celia for this mishap as she convinced me that my overnight bag was not needed and of course this is where my travel goodies reside. This was also where my book resided and it has spent the last week unread in Mauritius.

12 hours to Paris. I did manage to sleep some on the flight and was a rather tense lad when we landed as my nicotine levels had dropped below the dangerous level.

Quick luggage pick up in a crowded and small luggage area and outside for two quick ciggies while we looked for the transfer bus to the hotel.

Three ciggies later, we had still not see a bus, had phoned the hotel who assured us that a bus make the cycle every 20 minutes and lots of asking unhelpful French lads which bus was ours. Eventually we decided to take a taxi. The taxi driver too was grumpy as he had waited two hours for a fare that would only equate to E20, which included a Tip and charge for 2 pieces of luggage.

The hotel consisted of a quick shower. (Celia “you shower first” Tony “No you can shower first” etc etc) I showered first.

Once downstairs we realized that we are nowhere near the Metro and took a taxi to town.

Stunning! One word for it. Absolutely can be added as it is appropriate.

Pictures of the Lourve, Eiffel Tower, Napoleons grave, old architecture and all sorts of stuff. This done in less than two hours as that was pretty much the amount of time we had available.

I will post some when I am back down South.

Back to the hotel, and we decided to save a bit of money and take a metro to the airport and transfer to the hotel. Yeah Right! It worked out (after we purchased the ticket) that we needed 3 transfers to get to the airport and were effectively at the bottom end of the Metro, needing to get to the top end.

We rushed around for another 20 minutes trying to find a taxi.

We eventually made the airport, an hour long Q for the check in and another long Q to go through immigration (manned by 1 person). Maybe OT Airport is not that bad!!

Burkina Faso!!

Another African Country.

Ouagadougou

Another African city.

With the single exception of God This Place is HOT!!

The temp in the day hovers around the 40 degree mark and at night is not much lower.

The food however is good

The roads are good

And the hawkers and beggars are very persistent.

The hotel is basic. A nice bed, awful shower and wonderful swimming pool. All this for $120 a night.

We ate at some interesting places, courtesy of “The Lonely Planet” which once again Celia with her advanced planning had bought along.

We ate at the Akwaaba on Tuesday night. I had a great pork chop and Celia was introduced to Africa Road Runner Chicken. Her chicken had both of us laughing as she picked the sparse meat of the small bones.

Wednesday we hit gold and dined at Le Coq Blu which was a great place. I had a good steak and we finally found a French Wine that did not taste like vinegar.

Thursday, Zack had finally arrived after an 18 hour delay at Accra Airport, and we dined at a nice open air restaurant at the bottom of town. Open air is generally nice, unless the temperature is in the high 30’s and you sweat the way I do. Food was nice tho. I had a nice rare T bone. Celia had finally learnt not to order chicken.

Friday was at a nice wine bar, where we ate tender lamb and supped ANOTHER decent red wine from France. Two decent wines in two days. I am impressed!!

Saturday saw us consult Lonely Planet once again and toddle 32 km east of Ouga to the “Granite Rocks”, which were described as Granite Rocks where artists had carved out their art. We expected rocks with carvings on them. We got granite carvings that would not be out of place in any art gallery in the world. Apparently every two years, artists from all over the world come in for a month, smoke good shit and carve the granite found lying around. Again I will post pictures when I am back down south.

Once again the temperature was in the 40’s and I sweated buckets!

The afternoon was chilled as we await our flight tonight.

All our lunches were taken at the little Bistro close to the hotel called “Ches Simon”. Good clean food, good price and AIRCONDITIONING. We were quite the regulars there.

Oh yes! We did do some work. *chuckle*

Met with facilitator, attorney, three client visits, one site visit and made a decision on a house and plot of land for our operation here. But this was boring stuff and only warrants this one small paragraph.

We also battled on slow internet to download mails and respond when we could. Africa! My Africa!

Everyone is napping this afternoon ( I will nap on the plane) and I am in the hotel lobby about to post this.

Hope you all having fun!!

I did!!

Island Update

2007-06-06T11:26:00.000Z

I worked the whole day yesterday. Tut Tut.

However we did get out to a wonderful Thai restaurant last night where some Satay Lamb and Angry Duck went down a treat. Some great Red wine, good company... what more can I want.

I would be embarrassed to say that I woke up just before 10am today. But I did forget to set my alarm clock and this kind of thing happens when I do not have anything to do today.

Golf is out of the window thanks for the Rain on the islands. However, I did manage to get my hair cut, read some of my book, chat to a honeymoon couple from the UK (who were a tad peeved that the rain was infringing on their beach time) (erm... you on honeymoon - shag demmet!!) and post this blog.

Tonight we off to a fish restaurant.

*pat of tummy*

Ahh well - maybe I will get a lurgy in Burkina next week to lose some weight.

I am having fun

and I am chilling!

(which is good)

Have a happy day people. Photos will follow when I get around to downloading them on the PC :)

Ahhh - The islands call and So does JHB City Council

2007-06-05T10:20:00.000Z

The start of another week finds me at an airport at the ungodly hour of 6am. However, given the fact that this is the start of a week in Mauritius, the hour can be forgiven. I do not believe for a second I would feel so comfortable if I was – as some of my fellow travelers in the lounge are – traveling to Lumumbashi. They also leave at an ungodly hour.

Check in at this time is simple. However the fact that my bag weighed 23kg seemed to be an issued for the lad at check in. This was resolved by placing 1kg into my hand luggage. Then he was happy.

Now for some reason, this process never ceases to amaze me. How by taking 1kg out of my checked in luggage and placing it in my hand luggage resolves the weight issue is something that escapes me. Another method that people use to keep me wondering as to who thinks up these solutions.

That said, Exclusive Books at the airport – no duty and no VAT – use the allowances granted to travelers to increase their profit. A book for sale at Cresta is cheaper than the same book at the airport. From what I understand rental at the airport is a lot higher than at a shopping centre, so is it just ACSA taking advantage? I think so.

The public servants strike did not appear to have impacted Customs at the airport. There were 5 people at 6am, which if I recall correctly when I used to travel on the crack of dawn flight to Swaziland was more than what was there at that time.

On the strike and increase scenario, once again the Government shoots themselves in the foot by announcing massive increases for the president and his MP’s. I could imagine the Government negotiator holding his head in his hands when this was announced in the middle of negotiations. I could also imagine a few swear words emanating from his mouth.

On a lighter note, I received a letter from the City of Joburg over the weekend, glibly stating that “it has come to their notice that my water and lights account does not have a deposit paid, which is in contravention of some by law” I responded with the following (in Part)

I refer to your letter dated 15th May 2007, received by me on June 1st 2007, stating that the above account has no record of having a deposit paid.

The reason for the account not having record of a deposit paid is that indeed no deposit has been paid on this account. HOWEVER, there has been a deposit paid on Account Number *******, in the name of Lenferna de la Motte, Serge Robert.

In 2001, I had queried why there were two accounts on the same property, one in my name and one in a bastardization of my name. Your wonderful people at Braamfontein accounts were unable to assist me, despite visiting and waiting ages to be served on three separate occasions. This was obviously also occasioned by the fact whoever processed my deposit did not know their debits from their credits and processed my deposit as a charge as opposed to a payment. If this has been sorted out, I have no idea as I ceased receiving statements a few years ago on this account.

So! Now that your Customer Relations Management Department has looked into my account and realized that something is amiss, MAYBE, just maybe the same Customer Relations Management Department can cast their beady eyes over account *******, realize that there has been a major bugger up and finally – almost seven years after the issue arose – correct the problem by placing the deposit against the correct account.

I assume this realization came about after visiting your stand at the Home Makers Fair, where a very nice man gave me a mug for changing my postal address. This of course three years after I had sent letters three months in a row changing said postal address. However the man could not get my name changed as he did not have the access to change names on the system. (May I suggest getting the same developers as Enatis to write your system so they could have access to the alleged “super application”).

Your requirement in terms of the provisions of the Credit Control and Debt Collection By-Laws of the City of Johannesburg No. 213 of 2005 have been satisfied. Is there any way that my requirements in terms of the Antoine de la Motte sanity rules could be satisfied as well?

I trust this letter bought a smile to your face, the same way it bought a smile to my face typing it.

Have a stunning day.

A de la Motte

PS. If you do manage to correct this mess, you will be the first person in 7 years to actually take the time and effort to correct what should have been a simple thing. Should you accept this mission, the force of Yoda and his three cute sisters will be with you. Should you not accept this mission, Yoda will just be shaking his head muttering “I told you so”

I do so love dealing with Government.

Am I having fun?

I think so!!!

Hop(e) you are too!!

Ahhh. Where to next

2007-06-02T15:06:00.000Z

Well let's see

I can go to Mauritius for a week and have meetings. Apparently we are staying at Le Canonnier which can be seen here. (LINK).

I do believe I can have some fun there.

I get picked up at 8:30 from the hotel to the office on Tuesday. I have a meeting

(Difficult work day)

Wednesday.... I do not get picked up from the hotel at all.... enuff said.

(They have a Golf course)

Thursday I get picked up at 10:45. I do late mornings... I have a meeting and a cocktail function.

(They have a Spa)

Friday I get picked up at 10:15. I do late nights as well. I have a site visit.

(They have water sports)

I also have Saturday Free - apparently a Catamaran trip to a beach for lunch and Sunday at leisure before departing for Paris and 22:35.

(They have watersports)

I cannot with all honesty say I will be working hard.

But,,, I can lie and say "It is going to be hell"

Hope you are having fun as well....

I know I am about to

(assuming I get to leave SA given the fact that the Immigration people are on strike on Monday)

Know when to hold em, Know when to fold em

2007-05-31T15:30:00.000Z

Well I almost have a visa for France.

However. There are things in life that people do that amaze me.

Applying for a French visa is a lesson in bureaucracy! Firstly, you cannot send your logistics lady if you have not been previously granted a Schengen Visa. You must pitch up in person.

Next up, they open at 8.30 and close at 12.00. However, if 150 people pitch up, that’s all they will deal with in one day. So if 150 people Q at 9am, they close at 9am.

That said – I arrived at 9.40 and finally departed at 13.45. All the while moving from one seat to the next as one got closer and closer to the windows.

Now there was this lad and his wife. They pitched up with a visa application and a ticket. Nothing else. As they moved down the Q, they realized that they needed more than just that. The lad spent a while in and out of the building in the next 3 hours getting all his stuff together and photocopying what he needed.

He was ahead of me, so he gets up to the window and lo and behold STILL does not have confirmation of travel insurance. The lady points this out and he try’s to bluster his way. Said French lady is having none of this and basically sends him on his way with the bland statement of “you need to get your paperwork together and come back”

His response was “well you need not be so rude and can be a bit friendlier”

You could see all the people in the Q cringe. If there is an epitomy of bureaucracy on the other side of the desk, which has the power to (a) make your life difficult and (b) refuse your visa, best you be nice to them.

That said the lad vanished, but kept his wife in the Q. He returned at 12.10 with, I assume the required documents. As we all thought, the nice lady behind the counter took one look at him and said “sorry it is after 12, you need to come back tomorrow”.

He bitched, he moaned, she called a large French Gendarme type lad with a gun on his hip and said lad was removed. Sage nods from people in the Q. Never NEVER piss off the nice lady behind the counter if you do not want to be given the run around.

Another fun thing, A Visa costs R566.04. Why they did not drop the 4c is beyond me.

A lass waited for her 2c change after applying for 2 visa’s and the woman behind the counter – another one – was mortified that someone would ask for 2c change.

I assume the R3.00 extra at the end of the day in her till contributed to coffee.

I depart for Mauritius on Monday, in the face of a government strike. This should make customs at the airport an interesting trip. In theory I have to be there at 6.30 am.

It does not help to be there earlier, as prior experience told me that they do not open at 5am. Thus it is going to a bun fight if Customs put their management to work. Problem is, management in theory also goes on strike.

This management had lunch at Monte Casino today with a client. Came home and did some work.

I am now off for dinner

Oh the stressed life I lead.

Another week bites the dust!

2007-05-26T06:54:00.000Z

What a week.

Work has been keeping me out of mischief – which is a sad state of affairs, but the work has been tempered by a reasonable social life as well.

Tuesday was a few drinks – very few, I was home by 7:30 – followed by 10 pin bowling on Wednesday night at a work function for Nessers work. I bowled 140, thereby beating all contenders by a minimum of 31 points. The hop, skip and bowl worked well and I retained the cup I won off the Nessers three years ago!

Thursday was a mini Friday, spent in good company and supported by good food and even better booze. The mini Fridays are working well.

Tis my sisters birthday today, and she is spending it in Greece with her daughter/s. I managed to phone and chat a bit until we got cut off. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUB’S (cos I know you read my blog once in a while *chuckle*)

This week the pressing subjects are:

THE COLD!!!!!

Fark!!!!!

When I landed on Saturday morning from a balmy 35 degrees in Ghana, I was treated to a nice wake up call of 7 degrees on the ground. Couple this with the fact that I traveled in Shorts and a T shirt, parked my car in the long term parking at the airport and had to wait 15 minutes for a shuttle bus, you will understand I was rather goose fleshed when I climbed into the car and turned the heated seats to 5

But!

That had nothing on when the cold front hit. -2 degrees, ice on the ground and for the first time in a while I actually slept with clothes on.

Twas not nice!

However as I write, it is a barmy 14 degrees and I am quite warm.

I also moved into my new office. In the corner, Conference Table and Mark nicked the fridge.

Nice sun streaming in and the ability to open the windows if I want to sneak a smoke after 5.

(there was even an ash tray left behind)

Monday and Tuesday finds me in the town of Parys – yup – Paris is the following week *boast* for a strat session. The only issue is that the place is in the free state and we all know how cold the free state gets in winter.

I will bring a BIG jacket.

Wed – Friday will be back to the month end grind before I fly off for 2 weeks on the 4th.

I was most impressed with our beleaguered Minister of Transport when taken to task on the monorail. ( for those that do not know, a Malaysian company/ consortium offered to “give” R12 billion to build a mono rail from Soweto to JHB City). Jeff’s answer “No-one has actually spoken to me about this and the first time I heard about it was in the newspapers”.

That response stole the interviewers thunder and the next question of “Should you not resign” was possibly the worst placed question I have heard in an interview. JJ Hang your head in shame.

His response on E-Natis was a little bit contrived as he harped on how wonderful the system is and how it was coping with 33% more volume than the old Natis system.

Yup Mr. Minister – the whole reason why there are 33% more transactions is because the bloody system has not been working for a month, and by only processing 33% more transactions, it will take you at least 3 months to catch up on the backlog.

A badly implemented system and quite honestly someone should be answerable. It obviously will not be the Minister.

So the Gauteng Transport Minister is in Kak for doing a Malaysia “free lunch” all by himself and the Auditor General was forced to apologise to Jeff as the so called audit report stating that E-Natis had an 80% chance of failure was never actually sent to anyone.

Could the report have been written after the failure to cover someone’s ass?

I will leave you with that thought!

Friday - Ghana

2007-05-18T18:16:00.000Z

Another day, another small plane.

I am about to wing my way down South on a big one, after enduring a bouncy small one.

Successful trip?

The jury is still out on that one!

Ghana

2007-05-15T08:56:00.000Z

Not much changes in Ghana.

What has however changed is the fact that the lads on site have cleaned up nicely (not just personally but work wise too) and we are in the final throes of the job.

Everyone is a tad "bossies" and have got to the stage when they just want to get out and take some well earned rest at home. The poor buggers have done almost five months on the trot.

I have a series of meetings which will endure until Friday when I once again wing my way back south.

I did partake in some good of fashioned 50/50 Captains as only they can serve on site. Sleep did not however come easily.

Another day

Another Neut- de - Coco

The Law is an Ass (and other travel news)

2007-05-14T07:03:00.000Z

Our well renowned Constitutional Court made a “landmark” decision regarding Rape. Non Consensual anal penetration (Watch my google hits grow) has now been listed as rape. Not 100% sure why it was not before in all honesty.

However:

It is only rape if you are a female. If you are a male, it is not considered rape, but rather sexual assault, which is considered a “lesser crime”

Now forgive me for shaking my head. If some guy (or for that matter some butch lass with a 12” strap on) shags me up the nort without me giving my explicit consent, that is rape. No questions of that on my side.

The courts “learned” opinion was they are not there to “make law”

In my humble non legal opinion, by determining that anal penetration of a lass is rape, when that was not the case in terms of the law previously, is making law.

Methinks our learned Judges are a tad confused. Two judges dissented! I am not sure what the other lot was smoking.

That said!

I am off to Ghana again today for a week in the Jungle. Always sounds a lot better than 3 months as was previous. The only issue is when I look at my to-do-list, I get concerned as to how I am going to fit it all in. That and a party with the client in Obuasi on Saturday night.

HOWEVER.

After three years of traveling to destinations that are not advertised as tourist destinations, I am finally scoring two destinations that are on peoples tourist list.

Mauritius for a week. There will be a series of meetings but I have no doubt there will be more than enough opportunity to do Tourist 101.

Paris for a day: I have a one day stop off in Paris (as opposed to Parys) on my way to Ougadouga (Burkina Faso).

Paris for a day and a half. On the way back from BF, I get a day and a half to do Advanced Tourist.

The best part about it is by spending an extra day in Paris, the price of the ticket reduces by R4000. So the accountant in me is happy.

Couple that with my decision not to fly Air Kenya until they have worked out why their 737-800 went down, the flight via Paris is actually cheaper then flying Air Kenya.

Another reason to make the accountant in me smile.

The only issue I therefore have is to apply for a Visa to Paris and I am A for Away.

See the smile on my face!!!!!

Hope you are all having fun

I am J

Busy one? Possibly

2007-05-06T06:57:00.000Z

What a fun week.

After spending Monday sleeping and Tuesday enjoying a public holiday, Wednesday saw work at full swing. Well almost. Ended up on a “course’ from around 12 and did reasonably well all things considered. We did however spend a while at the 19th where single captains were supped, I won some goodies after coming 11th, my partner won a wheelbarrow full of booze in the raffle and generally a good time was had by all.

The most interesting part of the evening was 4 guys trying to get a wheelbarrow full of booze down the stairs. After much huffing and puffing, this feat was achieved and the booze was safely loaded into said winners car. Most people would have tossed the wheelbarrow. Not said winner and more squeezing was carried out to fit said barrow into the back seat of the car. Thank fark the lad was not stopped by the cops. Could have been an interesting explanation.

Friday saw us at the office pub, where a few bottles of good red were supped and the problems of the world was solved between 5 of us. Once again, an interesting drive home. I really must respect the roads a bit more!!

Saturday was a rugby day and I managed to score some tickets to go watch the Lions get beaten again. This time the Cheetahs duly obliged. When I say I swear watching TV, I swear a whole load more when it is live. It was a box, so once again the captains flowed and everyone had a whole load of fun.

Everyone that is, except for Keith. We were walking to the car and Keith was left behind chatting to two new friends. After a while waiting for him, I phoned and ‘ he was on his way’. Twenty minutes later he was still on his way and ten minutes after that his cell was switched off.

For the next two hours, I discovered all the streets around Ellis Park while we looked for Keith who no doubt was looking for us. I finally found the lad, courtesy of the local fire department who was treating him after he had fallen down a trench where they were laying cable. Sore ankle and a cute gash in his head that made for lots of the red stuff.

I got him back to Nessers place, cleaned him up and put the poor lad to bed.

Next morning it transpires that his cell, wallet, chain and watch were gone. It then becomes apparent that the gash in his head was courtesy of the redistrubutors of wealth and he was actually mugged. Poor bugger. He was less than a happy lad this morning.

On the house front, I have commenced building my deck, which has the columns, set in concrete and levelled off. Today I will get into the frame and wood protection.

I have received the design for my new kitchen, which looks stunning. Have a few small issues that need to be resolved, but they did manage to capture everything I wanted and catered for my non-negotiables. Now to get a price for the stunning kitchen.

Off to Ghana again on Friday, so this week promises to be an interesting one.

Hope you too are busy and smiling.

I know I am

Keep it that way.

View from "Point G (almost)"

2007-05-01T19:57:00.000Z

View over the outskirts of Bamako
The smiling (and ever so slightly hungover) Celia
Bamako City
More of Bamako City
See that empty swimming pool?

See the diving board?

See Celia ask "I wonder what Monument that is"

See Tony avoid ripping her off too much

The trip to Sidu

2007-05-01T19:52:00.000Z

Little Rock on top of Big Rock - or entitled "erect nipple"
Nice hills!
The small tar section just outside Sidu. There was an election taking place that day. Did not impact on this sleepy hollow
But there were more villages

Even More Mali Pics

2007-05-01T19:48:00.000Z

Our Hotel. Run by the Accor Group (French obviously) and owned (apparently) my Muhammar Gadaffi
Mango's are readily available in Mali. They export them as well judging by the crates I saw on the airport tarmac awaiting the Air France plane.
The Streets of Bamako

More Mali Pictures

2007-05-01T19:46:00.000Z

Titled two donkeys on a bridge. Donkey Carts abounded in the rural area

Mosque in the countryside

2007-05-01T19:44:00.000Z

It did amaze me that there was this wonderful looking mosque surrounded by baked brick houses.

Athough not all are mud huts

2007-05-01T19:43:00.000Z

Pictures from Mali

2007-05-01T19:40:00.000Z

Mud Huts abound in the country side. I spose with no TV, the fact that you would have to rebuild your house after the rainy season gives one something to do.

Mali - Day Final

2007-05-01T14:26:00.001Z

It is 06h15 at yet another African airport. This time Nairobi! Whoever believes that travel is a blast should do these overnighters with connecting flights. I have not slept since yesterday morning and even that was only 5 hours.

We had a mini drinking session on Friday night which involved cocktails aptly entitled “Timbuktu” and “Sikaso” There was a lot of philosophical discussion which is possible when one is well lubricated. We also confirmed that French Wine is kak.

I do believe we finally took the lift to our respective rooms at around 2am.

Now Celia had done research on Mali – as her job demands – and part of the research entailed photocopies of the Lonely Planet which – in theory – states what we can do in Mali from a Tourist perspective. Timbuktu and Doha was out the window as soon as I was delayed on my trip up and we had to drive to site due to no planes being available to charter. Apparently there was a presidential election on Sunday. I can honestly say with our driving around it was not that apparent.

So we toddled off to a place called “Sidi” which was listed as being 50km from Bamako and had a rock arch, natural spring and all this accessed after a 75 minute walk.

We found Sidi on the map, in our pidgin English directed Musa our driver in that direction and complained bitterly about our respective hangovers.

What Lonely Planet failed to mention was the road was not tarred. The vehicle we had hired had some African suspension. Take that and a cocktail induced hangover and you know there are issues happening that lonely planet never anticipated. We did however find Sidi, looked at it, nodded sagely when the 75 minute walk was turned down and I took pictures of “Small Rock on Big Rock” and Donkey Carts.

We turned around after 15 minutes and drove back to Town. Musa must have been thinking – in French – how looney these people from South Africa are. We then decided to find “Point G” which is a viewsite overlooking Bamako.

The jokes on how we would never find a G spot abounded.

Needless to say we did not find the actual G Spot, but got our now very confused driver to park on a Dirt Track at the top of the hill while we walked to the edge to take some pics. I have omitted to take my long lens and the haze was quite bad. The pictures prove it.

Back to the hotel, swim to rehydrate, lunch and a meeting with the local lawyers on the way forward.

Back to the rooms, pack and off to the airport.

We were due to take off at 19h30, and ended up at the airport at 17h00. Once again a standard African airport, coffee at $3.00 a cup and hard seats.

The classic was we were busy chatting, drinking coffee and running through some of my old blogs when the Waiter pointed out to us that our flight was boarding.

We ran for the flight and were the last to board. Missing a flight home is never an option, but when you arrive at the airport more than 2 hours before boarding and still manage to miss it, you will be the subject of much ridicule.

Uneventful flight – land at airport – have coffee with Celia who has an 18 hour layover before her flight to Mauritius and once again rush when the announcement is made requesting her to please meet the driver from the Holiday Inn as he had been waiting ½ and hour. No doubt she will get a good sleep in. Lucky Wench!!

Appears our flight is on time, so let me see if I can post the final Mali blog.

I foresee an interesting contract over the next 8 months.

*** Update

I arrived home at 11:40am. I slept from 12:30 to 5pm

Is traveling not just fun?

Mali Day 5

2007-04-28T09:46:00.000Z

My ass is numb. No let me state that a bit better. My body is numb from the waist down.

We were unable to get a flight to site. That meant we had to face a 7 hour road trip to site. Dada (our local contact) had arranged a Land Cruiser for the trip. We were to start the trip at 6am and hopefully get there in time for lunch. What did not bode well was Dada arriving at 5:45 and mentioning that he needed to sort out the spare tyres as both of them were flat. We had breakfast while we waited for the process to take place.

Starting the trip, we were advised that the owner of the vehicle had come up with 4 new tyres and did we want to go over and change them out. Already running late, I tossed my hat in with lady luck and said “no worries, we use what we have”. Fortunately we did not have any issues with the tyres.

The road from Bamako to Sikaso starts off really well. Our driver had – like all drivers we use – done courses on “press accelerator flat and hold tight” The road was newly tarred and we averaged 140kmph. I was starting to wonder why the trip takes 7 hours. (refer one of my previous posts where I made the same error). Around 100km out of town the reason why the tar was good became apparent. They were refurbishing the road. The road gradually got worse until we went through Sikaso and turned off on a dirt road. Pear shaped!

The road was ack!

Driver was doing 100kmph on a dirt road and we realized he had attended the rally course as well. I was like James Bond. Shaken, not stirred.

The mine is in the middle of no where. I mean it! There is absolutely nothing around it. Nearest bank is 2 hours away. Poor site lads.

Good meetings. Gained a good idea of the job. The pub had no Captain Morgan, so I drank beer and we were asleep by 10. The accommodation is good if basic.

We left site at 12 and a further ass numbing trip back to Bamako.

Arrived at the hotel, had a stiff drink, had a meeting with the clients’ rep, had another stiff drink and hopped into a taxi to find the Indian restaurant that Celia had marked on her tourist 101 list.

French country, English people. You know the story. This poor taxi driver had no clue where we wanted to go and asked for directions from the locals while referring to the piece of paper we had. We never did find the Indian Restaurant, but did end up at a Lebanese Deli. We all had Falafal and I had a nice steak. Jeri had Pizza and Celia a Hamburger.

Good Bamako Food. *chuckle*

We made it back to the hotel for coffee and sleep.

Today I had a quick meeting with “I have a brother”, had brekkie and we are looking to see if we can do anything touristy. Our driver is late (again) and the lasses have gone to see if they can buy Jeri something else to wear rather than her 2 items of clothing that she has. The poor lass has spent the last week with one pair of Knickers. Apparently she washes them at night and dries them with the hair drier. To say she is somewhat miffed is an understatement.

Celia on the other hand has found out that she packed enough tops to allow two people to be clothed for a week. Subject of much ribbing.

We have made good contacts, achieved almost all we set out to achieve and I am looking forward to the flight back.

The one issue is once again, I have a 2 hour layover before my connecting flight from Nairobi to Joburg. What do you think the chances are of me missing the flight due to a delay from Bamako? The bookies will not take that bet methinks.

Mali - Day 3

2007-04-26T06:05:00.000Z

Well I finally managed to get to Mali, some 26 hours after the trip started. Air Kenya did manage to pull out the stops to get flights confirmed via strange places and we friendly all the way.

That said, they did not feed us very well at all and all I had to eat on Tuesday was a really scary chilli dog, where the refried beans had been refried maybe once to often.

That said - I can also see how people can exit at the incorrect airport. We flew Air Maurutania for the last leg from Benin to Mali and the languages of choice were Arabic and French. I can assume that this is the reason why they put the name of the airport you are at in Large Letters. *chuckle*

Bamako?

Another African City.

Roads are somewhat decent where they have managed to put tar down. The buildings are in reasonable nick and the Sofitel where we are staying is a decent - if expensive - hotel.

The streets are dirty and the west african open drains abound. People speak french and I speak english with grade 1 French. It makes for interesting communication.

We had a meeting with tax accountants and lawyers which entailed us asking a question in English, really long and animated discussions in French and the answer in english which usually consisted of "yes"

I am sure they were discussing the latest soccor results to make it look as if the question was a difficult one.

Jeri lost her luggage - and she had the shortest trip - so she is not a happy camper. We did toddle off to the local pharmacy to purchase her toothpaste and a toothbrush as she was looking rather ragged. Her essential purchase also included skin cream. Tis a woman thing :)

The fact that her luggage was lost in Dakar and she is not returning via that route does not bode well. We all assume her clothes are on sale in the market in Dakar - Home used.

I am off to site today - 7 hour drive - as we were unable to get a plane to take us in due to the presedential elections on Sunday. The alarm went off at 5am. Not good.

We had road runner chicken as our first meal - tough chicken with skinny legs is a west african constant.

We did however have a good meal at the hotel last night even though the cost was $280.00 for 6 people.

Lemme at em.

Have a great one people - will update soon.

Oh yes - as an aside, Blogger seems to pick up that I am in a French Speaking country and has unilaterally decided that all the buttons and writing shall be in French.

I will now press the "Publier" button and see what happens.

*press*

Mali - Day 0.5

2007-04-23T23:55:00.000Z

Well the flight was further delayed for "technical reasons" (read a red light on the dash that caused the pilot to shit himself).

New departure time 04h30.

This of course means our connecting flight is well and truly in it's moer.

So. In true Air Kenya Fashion we are now booked on a flight to Benin departing 14h30 and finally will arrive in Bamako at 19:50 tonight.

The positive aspect is I can tick Benin Airport off my Africa Airports list.

At R15,00 for a coffee the pub here is making a fortune.

Oh yes. There are around 40 guys who are demining in Sudan. Respect.

I am still having fun?

Mali - Day 0

2007-04-23T20:58:00.000Z

A journey, they say, starts with a single step. In this case however, my journey starts with a delayed flight.

O R Tambo airport is pretty dead at 11pm at night. I must admit in all my years of travel, I can honestly say this is the latest I have ever taken a flight at the airport.

Did you know that all the duty free shops close at 10:30 pm? I did not know that.

Did you know that there is only one flight out of JHB after 11:30pm? I did not know that. When you think of Accra airport with many flights leaving after midnight, JHB is not quite the hub I thought.

That said, Kenya Airlines is living up to the reputation of a poor airline with their flight to Nairobi delayed until 02h25. That from an original departure of 00h40. Now we have issues. I have a connecting flight from Nairobi to Bamako. That flight is schedule to depart of 06h00. With the new departure time, we will land at 06h30.

In a normal world, that would fark up the connection totally and effectively I would be looking at spending 24 hours at the airport in Kenya. However it does appear Kenya Airways is an equal opportunity airline and the connecting flight to Bamako is also delayed. It now departs at 08h55. So? I score. I still make my connecting flight and the only thing that is lost is 3 hours overall. That of course assumes that 08h55 does not become 11h45 or something of that ilk.

The journey to Timbuktu has begun!

Mali here I come

2007-04-23T11:48:00.000Z

Tonight I head for the sprawling metropolis of Bamako in Mali.

We have a job there and it is a working visit to go see what is happening there, set up the legal vehicles and work like a dog.

My to do list is a long one! One of the items is the site visit. 300kms from Bamako - 7!! hours by road. I am trying to get a charter flight to make the time spent a bit more productive.

HOWEVER:

We have planned to see Timbuktu

Why?

Just to say “I have been to Timbuktu” of course.

Have charged the battery on the camera

Have got comfortable shoes

Hopefully will come back with some fine pics of yet another African Country.

Wish me luck!!

Oh the Pain of it all!

2007-04-21T12:46:00.000Z

Our company decided to arrange a sports day as a team building exercise.

We all joined in. The venue was the seedier side of Benoni (oh wait – Benoni is a pretty seedy place with one way streets), at an action cricket, soccer , netball type venue.

We played

2 games Action Netball
2 Games Action Footy
1 Game Action Cricket.

Now forgive me if I believed action netball was a chilled relaxed lasses sport.

One of my opponents ended the day sporting a graunch of note down his cheek as his face came between my bulk and the net. I did thank him for using his face to prevent my shirt from making contact with the netting as we slid down together. His groan did not escape me.

I sat on a poor lass who was given the job of shooting goals. I did apologise but I do think she is traumatized and will never come near an action netball field or me again.

Willie’s legs were removed from contact with the floor at Footy, and I did spend the rest of the afternoon apologizing (after the game you understand).

I was sore as I supped the first Captains of the evening. I went home early as I honestly could not find a position I could sit that did not make some aching muscle or tendon as indignantly “what the fuck did you think you were doing”

No nookie. I was too buggered and sore. Nessers did assist my giving me a massage, which to all intents only gave me smooth skin. I woke up this morning and groaned as I tried to move my left pinky. The rest of the body was worse.

I am now walking around like I have a very large carrot inserted in my anal cavity. (refer previous post to see that, that cavity was invaded already this week).

I am sore.

I am foolish.

It was a whole load of fun!!!

Our team was called the shooters – we used bugs as our “energy drink” – we shared the prize of the day for the team with the most “spirit”. For that I was not sure if it was team spirit or the fact that we were the only people having a shooter before each game.

I am also somewhat comforted by a copy of an email I received today in my email box, where one of the players who had applied for annual leave next week was requesting for the leave to be changed to sick leave due to the pain and myriad of injuries he suffered.

Yup

It definitely was a load of fun for all!!

Keep on smiling people – I know I am (through my grimace as I try to stand up)

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

2007-04-19T09:14:00.001Z

I am big on annual checkups

Now that I am a big peanut, the company insists that all big peanuts go on a company sponsored medical.

The benefit to them I spose is they get to see how (un)healthy their peanuts are and who is taking “recreational drugs” (That was one of the questions).

Now I go for a medical every year.

My big thing in life is

- Too see how my smoking affects my lungs
- To ensure that my prostate is on good nick so I can have maximum shag time
- To ensure my liver weathers the storm that it is periodically subject to

Therefore it was no surprise that the following information was given to me.

- You smoke too much. But your lungs are in good nick so if you stop smoking today all the damage will be repaired over the next 30 years.
- You are unfit, but for your age you are above the 80% fitness range. My suggestion to them is their range needs looking into. I managed 9 minutes on the treadmill before my heart rate hit 158bpm
- You are overweight. The term they used was “clinically obese” My ideal weight: <84kg. Well fark me with a rotten cucumber. The last time I saw that weight was 10 years ago. We agreed that I should be below 94kg to only be overweight. Ergo I need to lose 6kg to only be considered overweight.
- Your prostate is fine. Happy hooray. The check was done by a woman doctor with thinner fingers than my GP. When someone is digging around your ring, thinner fingers are a definite positive. I must admit if she had dug around any longer, I would have had to ask her out on a date.
- My bet with the insurance company that I will die before they say I will die is not working well. I am generally a healthy bugger for my age and the abuse I put my poor little body through.

So I start another medical year, happy and well.

Oh yes and my Cholesterol is marginal. Which is fine given my eating habits.

Hehe

Of mice, men and bloody liars

2007-04-15T20:07:00.000Z

Going through the Sunday Times today, there was a great hullabaloo about the increased price of food and how this will effect inflation etc etc.

It then goes on to say how food has increased 70% over the last 7 years and how wage increases have not kept up. In the same paragraph it states glibly that Unionised workers pay increases have exceeded inflation over the past 7 years.

There are lies and then there are statistics and both are the same.

They bemoan the increase in maize from R800 a ton to R2000 a ton. They forget that in 2001/2002 maize increased from R800 a ton to R2000 a ton and happily came down the next season. Yes there will be a blip, and yes it will impact food prices, but go back to history and see the effect.

At R2000 a ton, farmers will plant maize and hope to take advantage of the increased price. Good old supply and demand.

(This post will be here next year and we can see how good I am).

This brings me to my point.

If the press writes about something long and hard enough, it will become a self fulfilling prophecy. But for a short time.

Remember when the all share index took a dip towards the 20,000 range. Goodness that was less than 8 weeks ago. Dire warnings about how the market was over cooked and correcting itself and how people were going to lose money and inflation/interest rates were going to increase.

The all share index is topping 27,000 now. The soothsayers are silent. (some are still calling for a correction).

You have foolish people and then you have reporters. Oh wait – I repeat myself.

I have yet to see a well researched story on the financial market!!

And I have been looking.

The fact that I can write about stuff like this means I am still able to read a grown up newspaper and comment on mundane stuff like this. As well as been able to discuss this with my daughter who throws some good arguments around for a 22 year old. (Oh yes – it is her birthday tomorrow – HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOUSE!)

I have a medical next week for which I am studying furiously – ie: no copious amounts of captains. Hopefully I will pass and they can say “wow for an old guy who abuses your body the way you do, you will live for the next 12 months (Buses excluded).

Hope you had a fun week and have an even better one this week.

Wow! I get a Public Holiday

2007-04-08T08:44:00.000Z

For the first time in ages, I have actually been able to take advantage of public holidays. I will take a moment of silence for my teams working this long weekend.

*moment*

What does one do over a long weekend?

veg was the Friday.

Shopped on Saturday - normal that and toodled off to the Rand Show in the afternoon.

The Rand Show has turned into a big flea market!

That's all.... nothing really nice to see (considering I was looking for ideas for the house), but we did have a really nice Kebab and Nan from the Paki Fast food place in the square.

Today is Easter Bunny day and I have already received a nice quantity of choccy to last for a week or so.

That said. I also finally got around to cleaning my cupboard out. 5 (count em 5) large rubbish bags of old clothes and clothes that will never fit me as long as I live again.

Some fun memories however:

- I finally tossed my matric shirt. 27 years is a long time to keep a shirt

- In one suit I found business cards from a job I had in 1992. Evidently that suit had not been worn since then.

- I found matches from a trip to India I took 5 years ago in another suit.

- My Tux officially does not fit me any more and that was tossed. That tux was purchased in the 1980's which really meant I cannot with good conscience wear it.

- Got rid of over 100 golf shirts. Some dating back to 1997.

- I did keep all my caps. I estimate I have 400 of them

- I tossed my running spikes that were last used in1980

Scary stuff - I will now go shopping for new clothes tomorrow
hehehe

Oh yes!!!

I finally purchased a real bed.

I have spent the last ten years sleeping on my old futon mattress, which given the fact the bed could not fit down the passage of my house, meant I have spent the last six years sleeping on the floor.

It was decided it is time to grow up and sleep on a real bed.

I must admit my futon has seen some interesting things. Respect!

That said - back to work on Tuesday to a full day of meetings...

I will not think about it until then!

Hope your bunny day also bought lots of nice choccie and you are smiling.

Home Sweet Home

2007-03-26T14:18:00.000Z

After missing the flight on Friday, we finally made it home on Sunday at 11am.

After a 6 hour flight from Accra to Niarobi

Hang around in the Airport for 3 hours

4 hours Nairobi - JHB International (aka Oliver Tambo's Airport)

Note to self:

Never ever ever miss a flight from Accra again.

I slept the entire afternoon on Sunday and was in bed by 9pm dead to the world.

But I did manage to score some Kenyan Tea
hehehe

Tick a few things off the list

2007-03-24T07:42:00.000Z

It has always been an unwritten rule - or in this case a few unwritten rules.

1. Never miss the flight from Ghana
2. Never travel on Ghana roads at night
3. Speed on Ghana Roads should be reasonable

Courtesy of a storm at Kumasi last night, the small vomit comet could not land and we were stuck in Kumasi at 6pm with a SAA flight departing at 11.

Solution.

Hire a car (with 400,000km on the clock) for $100 plus an additional GHC800,000 for fuel and travel by road to Accra.

The trip is normally 5 hours

Offer Driver a Bonus if he makes the plane.

The driver was the Devil!

My life flashed before me a good few times over the 4h30 mins of the trip.

Needless to say we arrived at the airport at 22h45 for a flight leaving at 23h00. SAA would not allow us to board. They were however very nice about it and they had a point. I am quite sure we are not the only scared, shattered Brunies that have made the hell trip from Kumasi.

Next time.

Stay overnight in Kumasi

It ensures that the Group Five life assurance company does not have palpitations when 3 of their senior lads do foolish things in an African Country.

But you had to try man!!

Hope you are smiling - we are trying to arrange a flight home tonite by hopping on a plane from Accra to Lagos.

Wish me luck!

Airmiles

2007-03-22T14:06:00.000Z

Since my last post I have been in Ghana, back to SA, spent 2 days in the Magaliesburg and am now back in Ghana only to return to SA on Saturday Morning.

8 hour flights, nicotine withdrawal, small planes, long drives and a different bed every night (almost).

There is a hamster running on a wheel - and methinks the hamster is me....

I have however.

- Had nookie (not enough tho)
- Quad biked for the 1st time
- Did some archery ( and managed to get one bull from 20 paces)
- Ate enough really nice food to put on weight
- Attended a strat session at a really nice 5 * establishment in the Magalies
- Missed a public holiday and spent it on a flight to Ghana
- Argued a point and hopefully have won
- Got waaaay behind on my email

I write this post while I wait for 3.77MB of email to download, before hitting the road from Obuasi to Bogoso.

Will update in greater detail when the wheel stops turning.

Oh Yes - do NOT mention Pres Mbeki and his "all whites are racist" diatribe.

cos then I am gonna get an attack of the willies

Have fun people and peoplesses

Back in Ghana

2007-03-09T23:12:00.000Z

On the long fight which fly's via the Ivory Coast and hangs around for an hour on the ground depriving me of a ciggie.

With 210 kg of luggage which made getting through customs challenging

40 mins late which once again deprived me of a ciggie

where it is 29 degrees at 11pm and the sweat dripping down my neck tells me I am definately back in Ghana.

But:

I have checked my mail

Have ensured I am booked on the flight to Kumasi at 6.30 am tomorrow

and I have had a cup of Chelsea Tea

I will now toddle off to bed - sleep the sleep of the dead until my week of fun starts!!

Hope you are all smiling you are!

Women and their Secrets

2007-03-04T15:37:00.000Z

This weekend the Nessers took me to a Spa.

Mgwanani Health Spa near the Hennop’s River Valley to be exact.

Now I fully understand why woman go to spa’s

A day of pampering. My skin was subject to scraping with salt, sugar and little balls of fully stuff.

I was liberally coated with almond oil, sweet oil, funny smelling oil and rose smelling washes.

We could drink fruit juice, water and coffee at will.

More details?

Pick up at 7am from Monte Casino. Champers and Orange Juice before you board the bus and fill out your little forms that say you cannot sue, lists your medical conditions (mine was “Just a little mad”) and say if you want Hard, Soft or Medium massages.

I must admit, strike 1 came from having less legroom on the bus then you get from SAA to India. I managed to capture the door seat that resolved this problem, but come on people! Buy a bus that can be used for adults as opposed to 5-year-old toddlers.

Greeted by Drums and singing at the spa as well as a health breakfast of Yoggie and Meusli. Nice scones and honey, coffee and juice.

Nice lady who came around, gave us the program for the day and we started with a full body massage with hot stones as a finale. 45 minutes of that and I was already relaxed. My mouth had a slack feeling to it and I stumbled back to the table supping water.

Next came the foot massage. Creamy sugar to scrape away all the bad stuff and oils to put back in the good stuff. Once again, my mind slipped into a place normally accessed after a visit to paradise in Ghana.

Next up was the head massage and the only laugh I got of the day when the lass doing the head massage read about my mental health problem. The fact they used oil on my head meant I came back from that treatment looking like an Italian Mafia runner.

Lunch was a chicken wrap, red wine and vegetables that I left to Nessers.

After lunch was the facial where I came oh so close to falling asleep as all sorts of oils and creams were lathered on my face and I lay for around 20 minutes letting it all settle in. I would have snored J

Full body exfoliation with coarse salt. We had an option of Mielie Meal, but given all the starving kids in Africa decided to go with the salt. It was a messy business, Nessers bursting into laughter as the salt tickled her feet and my keeping quiet as my skin was liberally scraped from my body. Not a pleasant experience but not an unpleasant one either.

We gave the Jacuzzi a miss, Nessers went to shower and I went to lie in the shade, smoke and read the Saturday Star, which they had kindly laid on.

The finale was a hand treatment, which was identical to the foot treatment – except they did it on your hands of course.

Cheese Snacks and Amarula closed the day.

The ride back was in the white Combi where leg room was not an issue. The driver was a lad helping out and it turned out he made his living shooting animal documentaries in Africa. He was off to some strange African country to shoot chimps the next week. Nessers was enamoured and I could hear her ovaries clap. Chuckle

We went off to the Barnyard to watch Celtic Rock – which was not bad at all – and tucked into some sushi and a nice bottle of Fat Bastard Chardonnay.

Asleep by 10……………………..

Will I go back to the Spa?

Damn right I will.

Very nice way to relax.

Current Affairs

2007-02-27T09:02:00.000Z

Another one of the fun things about being back in SA is the fact I can be bought up to date with current affairs.

I am faced with a plethora of information. 702 in the morning and evening. Choice of 3 newspapers with National and International News. Access to all kinds of people who discuss current affairs as a matter of course.

The following have perked my interest:

SA Decides to have a National Provident Fund.

Interesting way of removing money from the economy and making the rich poor. I have flitted around Africa for the last 15 odd years. Each of the country’s I stopped in had a National Provident Fund. In each of the country’s the National Provident fund did not even come close to providing for retirement of whom it was targeted at.

What they did have was huge buildings, bloated administration, Jobs for Pals and rather interesting investment policies. A lot of the funds were used to develop parts of the country with no recognition as to returns on those investments.

The net effect? Cost of employment goes up. Old age Pensioners still starve. Government Fat Cats get fatter.

Unfortunately I will not be proven correct until I retire.

Crime in SA

There is an amazing campaign by the media to bring crime to the forefront. Crime in SA is unacceptable – we all concur. Government does not have the wherewithal to resolve crime effectively. The standard of our police force is abysmal in general and complaints abound.

Government ministers get robbed. Good old front page news to show how bad our crime is.

President authorizes R90 million for a security wall around government houses in PTA (Tswane). Front page news. The fact they are importing the wall from China makes it that much more interesting. Good god people. With our crime the way it is, security walls are our specialty. The only issue I am sure, is the Chinese are doing a great counter trade deal instead of demanding cash.

Kiddie gets kidnapped in Tswane. Big investigation reveals some guy has been molesting other kids in the area. Guy is arrested. Original case still needs to be solved.

And so it goes on.

On a personal note:

I continue to revel in the fact that I am now in JHB. The one thing which is interesting is my cooking skills have taken a dive. Having food cooked for me for such a long time means last nights meal – a beef stew – was quite sad. I did not take the meat out that morning to defrost, and I was late in starting and cooked it too fast. Net effect – tough meat with a marginal amount of flavour. I really do need to plan meals better.

I took my car in for wheel balancing yesterday and it transpired that the reason for the vibration was due to my tires not quite been round. R1800 later, the vibration is gone. *sigh*

My swimming pool continues to make my life a misery and while relooking at it this morning in an attempt to make the green go away, I made the monumentous decision to get some professional help in. It is sad having a nice pool that has algae floating on the top. May I should introduce some fish to eat the algae.

Traffic continues to be the bain of my life and I had thought I had resolved my route to work. This morning however – for no apparent reason – it too 50% longer to get to work. I am thus back to working out what route is the best on a regular basis. Traffic reports do help, but for some reason they never seem to mention the backups that I pass. Maybe I need to do traffic reporting.

Oh yes - Internet from the Office is slower than from Ghana. Go figure!

Hope you all having loads of fun!!

Of fish and turtles

2007-02-23T11:26:00.000Z

The best thing about been back in SA is the food.

*pat of tummy*

*loosen of belt*

It has been a busy week and Wednesday consisted of Canapés at a presentation – and some Captains of course – which of course while tasty, does not satisfy the hungry snake coiled up in my belly.

Ergo – it came to pass that by Thursday evening, the hunger was extreme and required me to pop into the local Spar and invest in a pack of PORK CHOPS and LAMB CHOPS to assuage the hungry snake.

Tuna was not even an option in my mind.

I managed to wade through 430g of Pork chops and as a main course 500g of Lamb Chops. My accompaniment? Cherry Tomato and Baby Carrot salad.

To say that there was a smile on my face is an understatement. The meat was nicely grilled, still pink and actually tasted like Lamb and Pork.

As is wont to happen when one eats that amount of grilled meat in one go, the digestive system worked all through the night to ensure that I was greeted with a turtlehead the next morning.

This was however resolved by a morning constitutional with last night’s newspaper as entertainment.

Although that may not be the turtlehead that Pea’s was talking about in her comment tag. The tag has been satisfied and one assumes Peas will never look at a turtle in the same way again.

Ahhh - What a nice life

2007-02-22T14:41:00.000Z

*happy sigh*

I have been in Joburg for a few days now, and I am happy as a pig in the proverbial.

Good Food

Regular Nookie

New job where I am spending an inordinate amount of time getting my feet wet.

I am happy.

However – every silver lining is surrounded by black stuff.

Traffic:

I had forgotten how bad the traffic is at peak hours. It takes me 75 minutes to travel the 51km’s to work every morning. It takes just as long to wend my way home.

Traffic Police:

I am back in the land where there are speed traps every 5km, Metro cops looking for me chatting on my cell phone at every turn and the inability to settle the issue for GHC50.000

The Swimming Pool:

My pool water is clear. The bottom of the pool looks like a bath after 15 coal miners have used it at the end of the shift. This mainly due to the fact that the Zodiac cleaner in the biggest load of hogwash that I have ever had the misfortune to purchase. That and the dogs insisting on using the pool hose as a chew toy. Loads of work will be needed to get that sorted out.

And it came to pass

2007-02-18T13:58:00.000Z

That the plane was caught

The trip was made

and I am now sitting in Sunny SA

Happily partaking in the joys of life.

One interesting thing was:

I have learnt to take a sleeping tablet on the flight to make it easier. The pack said take 1. I took 1.

When an hour later it had not kicked in, I took another one.

The upshot?

I have no recollection of yesterday until 4pm.

Apparently I dropped Nessers off in Rivonia to pick up her car. Had great nookie and slept.

I recall the sleeping and hitting the kerb with my car.

I missed out on remembering great nookie.

I reminded myself later that night

All is good in my life

Could it be possible

2007-02-16T07:07:00.000Z

that I have packed my bags

I have put them in the car

I am handing over my work

I am getting into a car

I am driving to Accra

and I will be on a plane at 11pm

and in Joburg tomorrow

.... could it be possible?

V-D

2007-02-14T10:48:00.000Z

A sexually transmitted disease?

Nope - today is the day of love, lust and other neferious deeds.

I am still in Ghana. SO today will be the day of sending a soppy email and retiring to bed with some hand lotion.

I will however be winging my way back down South on friday (In'shalla) and based on that fact, I will not have to use hand lotion for a while thereafter.

Hope you had a hoppy day of love

now here's to a hoppy lifetime of lust!

Another day - another coconut (again)

2007-02-13T07:52:00.000Z

Mondays

Fun days:

It is baking hot here at the moment, and due to a small issue we have we are not working extended hours anymore and knocked off at 5pm.

I cannot recall the last time I got back to the house during the week and the sun was shining. Different feeling that.

Carl and I decided to take advantage of the fact that our boundry fence is hole 9 Tee Box. We got the short irons out, a couple of balls and decided to see if we could improve our golf.

I did not improve anything. I did however reconfirm that I cannot chip to save my life.

Cooked up some pork chops last night as Cottage Pie was not quite what I had in mind for dinner. TV - Book - Sleep

Another day in Ghana bites the dust!

Hope you having a better one!

Friday Night!

2007-02-10T11:31:00.000Z

Friday is the night to Party!!

Get out there with your mates

Drink and be merry

Go home and shag like bunny's

right?

hummmmmmm

So why the fark did I go home last night, eat an uninspiring dinner, watch a bit of rugger on TV, read a few pages of a new book and fall sleep.

Aha!

It must be cos I am still in Ghana!

*sigh*

It appears....

2007-02-09T09:07:00.000Z

That Blogger.com has decided you WILL go to the new version.

either that

or my hangover is that bad that I pushed the wrong button when I logged in and decided just to go with the flow. (Which I do when the hangover is bad)

Last night was a "Mini Friday" and the ring was duly pulled. It is a bit of fun to get out there and act like a teenager once in a while. A bottle of Captains vanished rapidly.

I took 2 Panado's this morning

Sat through the 8am meeting where someone stole my thunder

Responded to emails

I am now going to walk around site to see if I can sweat some of this stuff out of my system

Hope you are having fun

I am - I think!

Weekend

2007-02-05T14:21:00.000Z

I worked Saturday - full day

Did not even bother to go to the pub and chilled at home.

Sunday, I sweated off the week's excess drinking on the golf course. I did not lose a ball. I beat Alwin (again). Jeri embarassed us by having a birdie on hole #1 (Everyone else got 2 overs). We laughed a lot. Carl discovered his driver works well (for some holes at least)

I became a fixture with the couch on Sunday Afternoon and read, napped and watched Man U put 4 past a hapless Spurs.

I would much rather be at home......

Another year bites the dust!

2007-02-02T12:19:00.000Z

Yup - At some time on the 2nd of February my mother popped me out of her womb and some person smacked my arse to force me to take my first breath.

And celebrating my birthday in Ghana is not my first choice.

However: The fact that I am in Ghana on my birthday meant;

- I got toasted last night and only climbed into bed at 1.30am

- I have a hangover today, assuaged by Panado

- The lads doused me with water, which is apparently a birthday tradition.

- The dousing was just before I had a general meeting with the wekkers trowing toys about the safety violations on site. I looked very intimidating drenched.

- We will once again tonight wander over to the pub, as spoilt for choice, it is the only thing to do in this instance.

I will no doubt be taking two more Panado's tomorrow morning and walking through the day.

Could think of a few better ways to start the year

:)

Classic Read

2007-01-30T10:56:00.000Z

I wander around the blog'osphere when I am trying to chill and came across this beauty.
I laughed cos it was so so true.

I hope you laughed too

Weekends of fun in the sun - with some work thrown in to make it legit!

2007-01-23T07:25:00.000Z

January sees everyone coming back to start a new year. January also heralds the much feted Think Tank. Those of you, who have read my blog for a while now, know the think tank gets all my managers and supervisors together to see what happened over the last quarter and target the next quarter. Couple this with the new people I have, it also cements their positions within the team.

It is also a good excuse to have a piss up together!

Mia Mie was the venue for this years Tank and I maintain the place is wonderful. Wilderness, wonderful bay, nice beach, good accommodation and above all electricity and hot running water.

There was also a boat and part of the team went fishing on Saturday afternoon. Part of the team went fishing on Sunday Morning. I was the Sunday morning lad. We chugged around the bays, trawling lines with weird plastic lures behind us. We avoided the local fishermen in their boats trolling nets. We also avoided the fish.

Except for a nice Mackerel that committed suicide on the bright piece of plastic.

“I cannot take it any more! There is that stupid wannabe Fish pulled behind the noisy thing.

Good Bye cruel sea!!”

The fish was donated to Okkie, who out of all of us cooks the best fish.

Generally a successful weekend. Miles too much to drink and smoke and eating good food.

The height of colonialism. Bringing your chef to the Think Tank weekend so he can cook good food.

He cooked good food!

Ozzie sweated the whole way through the Saturday Morning session. (hangovers are a bitch!) Marco got afflicted by the dreaded tummy bug on the Sunday and our intrepid fisherman Harry caught nothing.

We did manage to spear a cat fish in the bay. I call it cat fish – it is kinda like a squid. If I recall correctly when I was young, my Uncle used to hang the bugger behind the farm kitchen door for a while and eventually get Raju the Cook to make a bloody nice curry.

I am not too sure if I wanted a cat fish hanging behind my door, and I must admit there had to be some preparation work to stop the fish from smelling like an old woman on roids after a few days of Natal heat. I missed out on that part.

The speared fish was donated to the local inhabitants.

Got back to a day of meetings. Finally collapsed into bed at 8:30 last night.

Oh the wicked life I lead!!

Hope you are all smiling!

The Daily Read

2007-01-17T15:17:00.000Z

FROM THE PRESS:

Front page news: Ghana Daily Graphic

Another ATM Scandal:

Apparently 3 students from the local university managed to work out that by opening an account with a certain local bank which offers the ability to recharge your cell from an ATM machine, they had the key to riches!

GHC 700 million worth of riches – that equates to $80,000.

It appears there was a fatal flaw in the ATM program. In order to make use of this service you did not have to have any money in your account. QUE? WTF Did I not know about that!!!

The best part however was it took the bank THREE MONTHS to work out that the clearing account they run for this service was …. Erm not clearing. It got better when they realised the address the students gave them did not exist. They do however have the lads pictures from their student registration – which could be a blow for them.

You would think that Banks would have closed this loophole by now considering ATM’s have been around for a while. I also have a sneaky suspicion one bank employee responsible for the loophole is looking for a job.

Sex with a dead person?

A lad in the Eastern Cape – yup South Africa made the Ghana News – was arrested for violating a corpse. Apparently the lad did not have access to a fresh one from the local morgue, but had to revert to digging one up!! I trust it was reasonably fresh *shudder*

His excuse must be “But your Honour, I thought she was British”

INTEREST RATES in Ghana have reduced by 1.5% to a whopping 19.5%. Growth? What’s that?

MAN STABS WIFE – Gets six years hard labour. I think he will be sorry when he gets out – The missus survived.

MTN ARRIVES IN GHANA. With the recent spate of acquisitions MTN have done in Africa, they inherited Spacefon – or Areeba as they are now known – Methinks we are going to have loads of Yellow on the billboards in Ghana. Me also thinks the days of phoning South Africa for GHC 2200 per minute (USD0.23c) will be a thing of the past soon. Maybe – just maybe – the service will improve.

GHANA HAS AN ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION. They do? Fark!!

(The story related to how they demolished unauthorized structures on their land) The apparently have some 2000 acres of which 300 had been occupied by squatters. Site of a new power station to alleviate the daily blackouts?

COKE FOR ALL. Apparently four of the local police assisted in the nicking of 2,280 kg of cocaine from the local cop shop in Accra. I am hoping it was 2 POINT 280 kg and not 2 tons of the stuff. The accused that had the coke originally goes by the alias of “the Limping Man”

My News?

Nothing really – Work Work Work – Minimal Play – although I did get a game of golf in on Sunday and played ok.

Same old!!

Press Cuttings

2007-01-08T10:43:00.000Z

Items in the local newspapers sometimes jump up at you and you can only shake your head and agree with everyone that we live in a strange world.

However, the local press picks up some gems from the foreign media sometimes:

WOMAN CHARGED WITH MALICIOUS CASTRATION:

In a place called Lillington in the USA a woman was arrested for “attacking a man in his genitals” (sic) at a Xmas Party. Apparently the poor lad needed 50 stitches to repair the damage and police said a weapon was NOT used. One can only assume the lass grabbed the guys nads and swung off them. She was released on a $50,000 bond. The take a lads bag seriously in Lillington.

HELPFUL DRUNK DRIVER OFFERS AID TO POLICE.

In Berlin, a rather pissed lederhosen clad man pulled over at a police stop check to assist in what he thought was some poor bugger broken down on the side of the road. The cops did not appreciate the gesture and promptly nicked the Good Samaritan for DUI. Does not pay to be helpful when you are ratted obviously.

BUFFALO GORES WEDDING GUESTS.

Cambodia is the place that when you have an open air wedding, make sure you invite the neighbors. Especially if the neighbor happens to be a Buffalo. Apparently Billy the Buff got a tad cheesed off that he was not invited and gate crashed the party. Injuring 4 guests in his display of anger, poor old Billy was shot dead some 1.2 kilometers from the party. The party continued after an hour long delay and it does not say if Billy the Buff was included in the festivities as the main course.

23 YEAR OLD ARREST WARRANTS?

It appears that in a town called Smithport there is no statute of limitations. Some poor bastard was brought before the local judge for failing to answer a DUI case 23 years previously. The judge commented to the prosecutors who insisted on bringing the case to court, “You better have a witness with a very good memory”

There is of course the usual “Thirsty man sells daughters beagle to buy beer” ; “Man trapped in drain while hunting for keys” and the good news story of “Baby born on train gets free rail travel for life”

The local media has nothing much in it that will perk ones interest and cause you to shake your head and say “We live in a strange world”

Ghana decides "No More Millionaires"

2007-01-06T15:55:00.000Z

Ghana has decided to issue a new currency.

They have taken GHC 10,000 and in July 2007 will turn it into GII1.00

Now watch what happens to inflation.

Akwaaba

2007-01-06T15:54:00.000Z

Ahhhh – Ghana

You know you back in Ghana when you driving on the wrong side of the road, and you still have cars that understand.

I cannot believe how bad SAA have got over the last few months. Bar the fact I was on the flight from hell which goes via Abidjan as opposed direct to Accra – additional 2 hours without a ciggy you understand – but the flight leaves at 14h55 as opposed to 17h10.

Arrive at JHB International – formally Jan Smuts – now O J Tambo International at 12h45 and attempt to check in. Why do the boards bother with stating “SAA CHECK IN – Counters 1 – 33” when only 5 counters of the 33 are actually manned? I can never quite understand that concept.

Obviously going up to Ghana we have a good few items going up to site. Five of us gives 150kg. We have 182kg. Convince the nice person at weigh in that I have a silver card, which means we are only 22kg over weight and really that’s only just over 4kg a person so it is not that much. Finally we just put one lad through twice and the poor confused lass believes we are within our weight limit.

Twiddle thumbs in queue for 40 mins before you realise that no-one is actually checking any body in. I kid you not. There were some 80 people in the queue and not one person checking any one in. After some muttering and getting a tad frustrated when Lufthansa open up (using SAA Check in – welcome to Star Alliance) and quite happily skip the 80 people in the line and start a new queue, I went through to find someone to complain to.

SAA are nice – the “team leader” wears a red jacket. At least you know how to find someone to kak on. Happily ask the team leader why no-one is been checked in and am met with the “It is Shift Change” response.

Now hit me over the head with a used SAA ticket. One would assume that shift change does not entail Shift A going home and 30 minutes later, Shift B arriving. Apparently with SAA this is exactly what happened. So for some 30 mins you can stand in the queue and stare at the departure board update.

When I happily pointed out that for the last 30 mins no-one had been checked in, his very glib response was “Why are you complaining – you have only been in the queue for 30 minutes”. Given that response, I knew I was on a hiding to nothing.

Finally we get people drifting in to start the check in process. As luck would have it the poor lad that checked us in was employed from the street that afternoon and thrust in front of the computer. It took 40 minutes to check five of us in. I lie not. I marked the time. He was eventually assisted by a pregnant lass to get us seats as well as our 11 pieces of luggage tagged.

Oh yes – they were not fooled by the additional person and I was forced to go back and pay for the excess baggage. Once again an exercise in frustration. There are 5 counters with people at them. (this by the way was heading towards 13h30) but as SAA would have it, only 2 people were actually receiving clients. One nice old lady wandered up to a lady sitting at an open counter and was sent back as “There is a shift change happening”.

When I was finally served I chirped the lad “Are you guys in wage negotiations again?” His blank “I should be working at the post office” stare meant that I was required to elaborate. “Everyone it so slow today – shift change is a bugger”. His glib response was “Well then you should not check in when there is a shift change”

Erm. Excuse me fuckhead! I did not ask for the flight to leave at 3pm. Your fucking company did.

Of course there was a wonderful sign up “NEW CHECK IN SYSTEM – Effective November 2006”. Aha – why then did they just not tell us all

“Dear Passenger,

Because the old check in system was starting to work well, we have been forced to design a new check in system that will once again frustrate you. Please bear with us while we learn to stuff up our shift change, find people who have never seen a computer before to check you in and generally assist you to brush up on your swearing by having surly supervision that has no idea what customer service is all about.

We thank you for choosing SAA, but as we are the only airline flying to your destination due to us having the ability to block the competition, you cannot use another airline even if you wanted to.

Have a nice day”

That said – I started and finished my book on the flight, was served 3 meals of chicken and got to Accra airport craving a ciggy. Fortunately I had other people with me so when my bag arrived on the turntable, I picked it up and asked Martin to please get the other bags as I want a ciggy now!

The Hamatan is in full swing, and it was a barmy 26 degrees with visibility less that 200 meters. You can almost taste the sand from the desert as it flies over the coast forming hurricanes in the Indian Ocean so the Americans can have some natural disaster to put on CNN.

Uneventful drive to site – Satellite system not working (Surprise Surprise) and a 2 hour walk around site to catch up on what has happened while I was away.

Akwaaba!!

2007

2007-01-01T09:01:00.000Z

The new year is upon us and I trust you all had a blast welcoming 2007.

I had a quiet relaxed night, no hangover, pre new year nookie (post new year nookie today) and generally am a smiley lad!

Back to the Jungle on Wednesday for a short stint before taking some leave in Feb.

Keep on smiling hoppy people

Happy Christmas

2006-12-25T06:05:00.000Z

To my 7 readers!

May you have a happy and blessed Xmas and may the good bearer of gifts be extra good this season.

Keep the smile a BIG one!

2006?

2006-12-14T08:56:00.000Z

It has become de rigueur to blog this year’s highs and lows.

SO:

HIGHS

Ghana Herbal Medicine
Nearing the end of my term in Ghana and approaching having a regular sex life
I got promoted
Achieved every goal I set this year plus a bit extra for VAT
I learnt a shit load of stuff this year which I will carry with me for ever
I got nice bonuses
Some good parties
Some very Good Parties
SOME FUCKING AMAZING PARTIES
I survived it

LOWS
Contract from hell
Less sex this year than when I was 19
Ungrateful people
With all the shite and complaining, I will miss Ghana

And there we have it.

My updates have been few and far between since I started on this new contract, which is a indication on how busy I have been.

Next year the location of the missive will change from Tarkwa, Ghana to Jo’Burg South Africa. But considering I will be spending some time “north of the equator” I hope I will continue to amaze you all with the fun things that happen in Africa.

I head home on the 21st!

For that I am happy

An IT guy who loves his Job

2006-11-30T11:04:00.000Z

We have been having IT issues lately.

It is month end and I am trying to do my reports. Besides not having access to certain reports, I finally got access to my procurement and this email followed from me to the Helpdesk.

Good day (once again)

I have attached my spreadsheet – data imported from Purchase over listing projects BU – CSV.

In G921 a little china man has spilt his Chinese copy of war and peace.

Would this be just a matter of ignoring the little china man and hope he goes away – or could this be the start of the Chinese Take over of the world and in that cell there is a hidden message which tells us when it is all going to happen?

Your time is required to allay my Chinese fears – and possibly save the world from a decade of poor Shrimp Foo Yong.

Regards

The response however floored me!

CAS-34713-DMBPGO will be handled by our foremost boerekos warrior because nothing is worse than a decade of bad Shrimp Foo Wong.
The case number above will give you access to all battle information should the Chinese advance.
The battle control center is available 24 hours a day seven days a week on 011-806-0266.
Please feel free to make use of our service anytime you may require it.

Kind regards
Kevin

Kevin! You Biscuit! I know the IT lads are under loads of pressure with all the kak, and to have a sense of humour such as that is – takes balls!!

Weekend Off!

2006-11-28T09:03:00.000Z

Well I finally managed to get away for the weekend!

It did help having a new financial guy who I could happily say to at 12 on Friday “Please process the following stuff” *wicked chuckle*

Zack arranged our weekend at MieMia which is a place we have heard of often but never managed to visit. Owned by an expat who used to work for Goldfields, decided to go on his own and as a sideline opened up a set of chalets. This with Boat, paddle ski’s and the like.

I got my directions from Zack – at the barrier turn left down a dirt road. Zack surprisingly did not follow his own directions and turned left at the police barrier as opposed to the customs barrier. He ended up in a village called “New York City”.

15km of 4x4 dirt road we ran into a wonderful bay with a fishing village out of the 1900’s Finding the way through the village was interesting as there was no road. You kinda found the widest spot between the stick and mud houses and kept on going.

MieMia has 5 chalets each sleeping 6. On the beach (and I mean literally on the beach) with warm water and soft surf.

Stunning is the only word for it!!

We drank a whole load, lay in the sea at midnight floating glasses and seeing which glasses came together. Rudie giving a monologue on how the two glasses represented marriage – you get the picture. Food was great. Chicken, ribs and Rice/ Salads from the nice lady who runs the place. She loaned us her chef and sound system for the weekend. Hospitality!

Some of the lads hired a local fishing boat for the morning and went fishing. They bought back 4 fish which after a lot of drinks, they admitted that their fishing was not good so they stopped at another fishing boat and purchased the fish that he had caught. Which ever way they got it – Okkie cooks up a mean fish on the coals.

We also managed to score some Crayfish (R50 a kg) and had a fish braai of note.

Did I say we drank a lot…… You know what it is like when you are drinking cappies and coke and you drink too much coke. I ended the evening drinking Captain Coffee’s as the coke was giving me a sugar rush of note. (and I had Hic cups)

One also does foolish things like take out the paddle ski’s at some god forsaken hour of the night and lie on the ski’s looking at the stars. Strange stuff we do when we are relaxing.

Rained on Sunday morning – which meant we did very little but clean up and set off for the cage once again.

We did play golf in the afternoon. (I did OK) and watched the Man U – Chelsea game. I swore a lot in the second half…..

Early to bed and I must admit I started work yesterday morning more relaxed than I have been in a long time.

Heres to the next trip!

John Mhlanga

2006-11-18T07:49:00.000Z

“Life is but a stranger passing us by”

That line was coined to me by one of my lads when we were advised that one of our guys – John Mhlanga - had passed away as a result of a taxi accident in South Africa.

John was an amazing lad. Very little formal schooling, a temperament that made me smile and above all fucking good at what he did. He was a legend at Group Five and everyone knew if you wanted to build thickeners and tanks, John was your man!

I first met him just over 2 years ago when a contract was coming to an end and I needed a top notch boilermaker. He refused the position as in his words “I am part of a team and we all go together”. Say that sort of stuff to me and I want someone like that even more.

It took me almost 18 months, but we eventually got John onto our Ghana team. The start was inauspicious as he clashed with my sup and after 6 weeks John came to me and said he wanted to go home. I told him to take a break and come back after the break when I had resolved his issues. He came back and the rest is history. John was loved by the local guys cause he actually taught them. Hard and Fair and little patience for lazyness.

“Tell the white man to leave me alone and let me build my thickeners”

That was the statement that made John the person he was. He built his thickeners and the bridges slotted in with no modifications required at all. The “white man” was impressed.

John worked for his children. He recognized that education was the key to a better life and made sure all his kids were well educated. The all went to University and as he said to me one day “their lives will be better than mine”

I have on my desk a form giving him an increase. I also have his hours for the month. A reminder that life is indeed a stranger passing us by.

Hamba Kahle John.

Another day - another coconut

2006-11-09T17:46:00.000Z

A chance to update has arrived!

First off – we all went off to Obuasi to play in the Group Five golf day on Sunday.

Zack was kind enough to get us a late Tee off time so we did not have to leave the house before 7am. Jeri is not a morning person and already was grumpy before the drive. Her golf on the first nine confirmed that mornings are not strong in her life.

I am not sure who arranges a medal game on a company sponsored day, but they did.

I had never played the Obuasi course and I knew it was going to be interesting when the people vanished over the hill on the first and I proceeded to drive a wonderful straight shot over the hill. The starter ran over and kaked all over me for not waiting for the people to vacate the green.

Erm – “This is a par 4” I mentioned – “I hit it long – but not that long”. It was a par 4. I checked the card – 297m. I came over the hill and my ball was some 30m from the green. Par.

The course was dead short. I drove like a demon. I scored a 91 Gross – on MEDAL!!

Jeri coined the phrase – “Adventure Golf Course on steroids”

For some reason who ever designed the course did not take into account that it is not good form to place a tee in a position where in order to make the next fairway you are driving over the green you just left. There were a lot of “Fore” shouted and balls flying all over the place.

I played well and took the honors off Alwin who kinda fell apart at the 15th after leading by 1 shot after 9. I beat him by 6. I scored a Net 67 and won the tournament. I was however disqualified from taking home a prize due to the fact I was the sponsor. Bummer if you ask me.

I have managed to catch up most of my stuff over the last week. Which is positive!!

However. It appears that some guy pushed the wrong button at head office and destroyed the mail server. The managed to recover it after a day or so, but what has now happened is my offline folder and online folder is out of synch. The net result is my mail system is as slow as a dog and falls over most of the time. Ergo mail has been patchy to say the least.

I have being cursing!

But….. it does not help.

Other than that – life goes on.

Oh yes! I got promoted!

Hope you all smiling!

I think I am

and the hamster keeps on going

2006-10-28T09:46:00.000Z

Has this week slowed down I ask myself (with tears in my spotted brown eyes).

Nope. Not even close.

Monday started with an email war
Tuesday started with a day of meetings which ended after 7:30
Wednesday was a repeat of Tuesday
And Thursday is a repeat of Wednesday.

I now write my blogs piece meal while the meeting has broken up for a while so participants can do some real work.

Good news about a lad coming up to assist me. He arrives next week Wednesday. I am praying this lad is quick on the take. *chuckle*

I did get a phone call from my erstwhile HR lady asking very nicely “Please do not be too hard on this man” “Give him a chance”. Considering my feeble attempt at a phone interview, I am overcome with waves of confidence.

I must admit my Small Works lads will welcome someone of Henry - or is it Harry’s – ilk as being stuck in meetings as I have since I arrived back, there is no-one available to fuss about the small stuff. When I am available, I am resorting to “Make a decision and just make sure if it goes wrong you can Justify that decision”.

Can someone slow the bloody hamster down please

2006-10-21T14:14:00.000Z

Come back from leave, spend the first day wandering around site, chatting to the lads, finding out what has happened while you were away, a few drinks at the pub telling everyone about what is happening down south……….

That was the plan!

As everyone knows…… plan and you will be sure to have something change.

Let’s see. It is easier to actually say which part did NOT change.

Come back from leave – did not change.

The rest….. did!

I came back to:

Drive to Obuasi, work out that the job that was given to us 5 weeks ago has not started yet, throw toys out of cot, put a detailed plan in place….. leave.

Drive to next job in Obuasi. Get totally shocked and stunned as to how far they have actually got in the time that I was away. Pat Site Manager on the back. Notice that my crane looks as if it was in an accident. Find out it was not in an accident, rather no-one has even considered maintenance on the poor thing for a long time. See plant lad, throw toys out of cot. Leave.

Get to Bogoso. Have a full day with the client. Come out shattered. Have the next day with the client, come out even more shattered and happily spend the next day with the client – come out shattered.

It is now Saturday – Lunch time. This is the first time in 6 days that I have actually had to look at the “non critical emails” (and realise that at least three of them WERE critical when they arrived) and get my stuff together.

It is the first time since I arrived that I managed to drink three cups of warm tea before lunch. Previously I was chasing around so much that I was lucky if I managed half a warm cup and the remainder cold at the end of the day.

Site has progressed well and I was suitably chuffed when I did my walk around with the client yesterday. There are some issues, but most of them are minor or purely cosmetic.

Everyone on site is working like demons and this shows with my lads all coming down with “malaria”.

We need to relook at the number of hours that have been worked over the last few weeks!!

On a more happy note:

I came back from SA with nice food goodies – including tastic rice – and some stunning bottles of Red. Roodekop is a good wine! Slowly getting used to Ghana food again, but liberal coatings of Nando’s Extra Hot will make anything palatable.

Communications have been less than desirable, and once again this will take a bit of getting used to.

My car is still not fixed. Two months after “we need to replace the water pump” they still have not found the actual cause of the overheating. Once again – I am a peeved lil lad. Two months to fix an overheating problem is – in my view – a tad excessive.

That’s my week in a nutshell

And boy – has that nut been a busy legume

Hope everyone else is having a quieter time

Friday Missive - Quickly Taken

2006-10-06T08:22:00.000Z

Johannesburg:

*happy sigh*

Oh wait – it should be Joburg

Well I remain in JHB (that’s maybe easier), eating lots and having to pull my tummy in when I put on my pants in the morning.

The R&R was not well planned – but this can be expected when after almost 5 months all I wanted to do was to get the fuck out of Ghana for a while. I have spent the last week at work, completing contract recons for month end as well as sorting out the “cannot wait while you are away” issues.

Managed to hire a Plant Superintendent, managed not to hire a Financial body, got offered a job, turned down the job (as it was in Ghana), had nookie, had sushi, swore that JHB traffic is almost as bad as Accra traffic and generally reveled in the fact that I am in civilization.

Dogs at home are a pain, thanks to a daughter who evidently learnt her parenting skills from me. The in and out of the house, chew everything and shit on my newly cleaned carpets.
Today my boots had teeth marks on them

Today I threw my collective toys out of their collective cots.

Word to the wise. Never buy the Zodiac pool cleaner. It is fundamentally flawed as it quite happily sucks up stones and chokes.

Pain in the arse in my view. What is also a pain is I do believe I will finally get my pool blue just in time to go back to Ghana.

Right. I am off to a “site visit”. Apparently you can hire clubs at this site.

Have fun fine people

Ahhh - Sunday Lunch

2006-10-01T16:15:00.000Z

One can pat one's full tummy as I have just tucked into some wonderful Roast Lamb, Roast Pork, Roast Tatties, PROPER Salad and decent tasting coke.

Can you see the smile on my face?

Spent Friday assisting Nessers move to her new place. Fark! I should have stayed at work. I am not built for lugging stuff around.

On friday night we were both in bed at 7.30. Buggered!

The place is nice! Has some wierd concepts like a loo leading off the lounge, but it is an entertainers paradise. The loft room could be a place of many a party.

The pool is nice as well. Small and hopefully a lot warmer than mine at the house. It did however require some TLC as the previous owner had obviously given up on keeping it blue.

But the house has been christened :)

Had a braai at Greg's place yesterday which was quite fun.

Other than that a quite start to the R&R

Working next week, have an interview or two, meeting with the Larnie at Rivonia and of course the dreaded contract recons. There are now three operational recons which should take most of Thursday and Friday.

But yeah! It is good to be home for a while. I should put on a Kg or two.

*wicked chuckle*

Hope you are all having fun whereever you are.

:))

E'Kyha

2006-09-27T13:11:00.000Z

THIS post is been written in JOHANNESBURG

THIS post means I am HOME

THIS post means I have a big smile on my face.

Yeah - Finally I am on R&R. A working R&R, but R&R nevertheless.

The flight home was a pleasure thanks to a very nice sleeping tablet supplied by the local East Legon Chemist, which taken 20 minutes after take off (just in case we crashed on take off you understand), meant I woke up when they announced we were 10 minutes from landing.

Oh what joy!

I was still pissed off when the farkers at the airport in Ghana once again confiscated my lighter. One day I am going to learn to secret the bloody thing away. When I (rightfully) asked the reason why they confiscated lighters I was given the inane reason that I could threaten someone with it.

They were not kidding either, as when I tried to educate them on how a lighter was no worse than the matches they allow through, I was told best I move on before they lock me up.

I wanted to go home, so my point was not pressed.

I came home to

- A green Pool
- A Kreepy that has been chewed by our 2 new dogs
- Leaking taps
- Leaking toilets
- Dogs in the house
- Chewed up cushions
- A maid who had taken the day off on Monday due to a public holiday - I mean wtf gives them days off I ask....

But I got laid, I had a dinner consisting of pork chops, rib eye steak and fresh salad so I am HAPPY!!!!

My licence has expired. I will need to brave officialdom once again to renew it.

I have speeding fines which my kids signed for that Nessers needs to pay - cos she was driving - hehehehe

I have three er make that five months worth of mail to go through.

BUT

I am smiling!!

Hope you are too

E'Kya

2006-09-25T17:23:00.000Z

Hey Guess what!!!

THIS post comes from Accra

THIS post means that I am finally getting on a flight home

THIS post means by tomorrow night this time (hopefully) I would have been shagged

THIS Post means I have a smile on my face.

See

*BIG SMILE*

See you in Jozi!!

Can I say "fuck" on Blogger please?

2006-09-20T17:46:00.000Z

This post comes from…NOT Accra Airport

This post (once again) comes from site

This post means my original R&R date of August 4th – which was delayed to September 13th, which was delayed until September 20th has been delayed once again.

This time it is courtesy of my workers deciding that if I went home, they would not get an increase. So they decided it was best I should given them an increase before I go home. Until then Mr. Tony ,we will happily stop work and really piss me off and the client.

Am I pissed off?

Yeah you could say I am. You could also say I am tired and unhappy and disappointed.

You could say all the above and be right.

I did however to play 18 holes of Golf on Sunday. Golf was terrible, but the walk was good and I did have a lot of fun.

Other than that. Nothing. Just long hours of “negotiations” with “workers representatives”.

I am now hoping for Friday.

Hold thumbs for me.

Home time? think again Oscar!!

2006-09-13T16:37:00.000Z

It is Wednesday evening

The 13th

Unlucky for some…….

I am the unlucky one, as I am not currently in Accra. I am not going to be checking in at the airport tonight. I will not be on a plane to SA tonight. And worst of all – I will not be having wild sex tomorrow.

Why?

Cause my going home has been delayed by a week. The reasons for which are work related and I will not go into in any great depth. Needless to say, I am somewhat disappointed.

But - Life goes on.

I did have a minor brush with a mosquito which bought on the malaria symptoms on Monday. True to form the local clinic could not test me as “We have run out of reagents” was the answer when I toddled through for a test.

So in true Ghana fashion, I self medicated. And fortunately only had two days of the sweats, eye of a needle, sore as hell kinda feeling.

I am recovering nicely and will finish my 4 day course of anti bug muti. I also do not get a shock when I pee mud.

The week continues to be hectic, with a load of small work stuff to do as well. I delayed some of it safe with the knowledge that I am going home a week later.

I played golf on Sunday. An easily forgotten game, when I lost four balls. (two of them brand new). My short game is however getting better. The greens are not and I only had one monster put to talk of. (on the last hole)

No drinking sprees, no Jeri Card Games and generally a quiet time. Carl and Jeri bought back a lot of goodies from SA, so I am smoking SA ciggies, have decent peri peri and above all, they bought back Tastic Rice. Oh Orgasm stuff.

Jeri also bought back 4 books. I had read one, doused another one in a few days and missed the boat as Jeri reads faster than I do.

I am now reading Mens Health until a book becomes available.

I do believe it is time to go on a hooley

Catching up on the news I finally became aware of Zimbabwe and their “remove the zero’s from the notes” debacle. I have always wondered why many countries do not do that. I will however state without a doubt that I would have planned it a lot better. However planning is not the Zim governments’ strong point.

SA press also put an interesting swing on headlines as far as Zim goes. The headline read “Maize Grab in Zimbabwe”. Emotive. The facts of the matter was the defence force was mobilized to “assist” with transporting maize to the maize board. The problem arises when the farmers do not want the maize to go to the maize board, but rather hang onto what they have grown, use it for personal consumption and bartering/ counter trade.

Then we have a grab apparently.

Africa abounds. Now that we have a power shortage in Ghana, the price of Generators have shot up by some 100%. Over night. And this includes the so called “responsible multinational companies” I mean price gouge when you can huh. Corporate responsibility be damned.

Our job continues to amaze me. I have however learnt a lot of stuff over the last few months and am able to confidently argue points of a technical nature. Even the guy’s light hearted ribbing about the “bean counter” has slowed down. This bean counter can use a dumpy demmet!!! (wicked chuckle)

So – another week in the land of (long life) milk and (imported) honey.

Let’s see if I will survive!!

The reason why I am sure God is a man.

2006-09-09T09:58:00.000Z

The realm of a Gynecologist has always been on of mystery to me. For obvious reasons.

Woman in general however do not enjoy them, and always mention how intrusive they can be. Many hanker after woman Gynaes or tall dark and handsome ones.

Plus you cannot have any nookie with a woman for at least a week before she visits the Gynae “cause he/she/it will know we have sex”. Hello!! You are 36 years old. Single and shaggable. Of course you are having sex demmet. Loads and loads of good sex!!

That said.

The reason we know God is a man, is mainly due to the almighty (sic) fark up he made when designing womans bits. An entire industry has spawned off womans bits.

Why am I writing about this?

Well! A certain person who shall remain nameless – but knows who she is – had a tale to tell which had me rolling around the floor. Tears in my eyes. Slapping my sides

Picture this.

Said lady has not had nookie for a while.

Said lady has genuine needs that we all have when the nookie has dried up (so to speak)

Said lady one evening hauls out lube and “Hugo”. Hugo is a well endowed “massager”

Said lady proceeds to use Hugo as he was designed – veins and all

A few good orgasms later. Satisfied smile on face, said lady removes Hugo.

(it gets a tad Gory from here)

Blood is noticed

“Oh good – my period is early”

Scene Fade to next day.

“Oh Shite - no more blood…. That was not my period”

Scene fade to Doctors Rooms

Doctor What Happened?
Said Lady Was having nookie and we noticed blood (We…. When did it become a we???)

Now what ever happened to the old adage “You can trust your doctor with your life”

You can do that – but cannot tell the Doc that you were banging away with your favorite sex toy and possibly were a bit vigorous with the “harder, deeper faster, pinch my nipples” side of the equation.

Why are you ladies so embarrassed about using sex toys. Everyone does it! And I mean Everyone!!!!

Tis the 21st century

Woman are emancipated

Sex is spoken about freely

But we must tell the Doc fibs. Cause we a bit embarrassed. *chuckle*

The upshot:

Said lady sent for a pregnancy test, blood test and placed on AntiB’s for a possible infection.

The moral of the story is: Tell the Doctor the truth

He can tell you - “not so vigorous next time my dear” and check for manual damage.

And everyone can go home happy.

Said lady – blushing
Said Doc with another war story to tell at the next medical conference

I have been here for too bloody long!!

2006-09-03T11:32:00.000Z

It has been a while since I updated hasn’t it!

It is not due to the fact I have lost interest in my blog – so no issues with that.

It has a lot to do with the fact that for the last two weeks I have been putting in huge hours on site and when I get home I am buggered. I am fast asleep by half past nine and wide awake at 4 am.

Has the work been fun? I would love to say yes. But while I am enjoying myself, I have never been as frustrated as I am now. My poor lads on site realise that as well. Mainly because I have entered what I call “toy throw” mode.

I was doing financial work in preparation for month end two weeks ago, and was getting really frustrated with the slow accounting system we are forced to work with. It is not on our side, but on the South African side.

This is known as when I work over the weekend the system is acceptable as regards speed. Work during the week and it is slow as a snail at a railway crossing.

To get away from the frustrating situation, I decided to get out onto site and walk around for the hour it takes and come back refreshed. The first place I walked into on site was the large Biox tanks. When I see one of the lads sitting at the door to the tank appearing to be keeping watch, my interest is piqued. I walked up and realised that whoever had chosen this individual to keep a look out had chosen badly. The lad’s eyes went wide when he saw me and he appeared unable to move. The reason? 4 welders lying against the inside of the tank “chilling”.

Needless to say, I threw my toys out of the cot.

The rest of the walk around did not go well at all. It ended prematurely with Jerome coming down and suggesting I should go back to the office and relax. I took the suggestion.

And it continues. I am losing my temper for small silly things that normally I would happily resolve with a joke.

My poor mechanic was not given the chance to explain himself clearly on Thursday. My spare part for the 35 ton crane arrived – finally after six weeks – and he came in to try and say “he needed another spare part”. I lost it. We have been waiting six weeks for one spare part and now suddenly he needs “another spare part”.

It transpires that the other spare part was in Tarkwa and he was coming in to explain that he needed another spare part which was in Tarkwa. I did not let him get to the “which is in Tarkwa” part.

I did apologise once I realised I had not let him finish.

We did manage to get away this weekend to the Beach. It was a chilled weekend, on the beach under a Lapa with around 10 of the supervisors. We drank, burnt meat and fish on the fire and splashed in the water. In the evening we went to Takoradi and I was forced to listen to the worst band I have ever heard in my life. Forced due to the fact my trusty steed threw its water pump on the way to the Beach and was parked at the hotel waiting for a rescue crew on Monday. We got back at around 11 and chilled on the beach until around 1.

Sunday was a relaxed start when I crawled out of bed at 10 (after waking up at 6 and realising I could still sleep), relaxed as hell and joined the lads for a fish braai on the beach. Home by 3:30

A nice weekend hopelessly fucked up by some woman who was also at the beach and took offence to “our heavy drinking and carousing”. This offence was displayed by an email to every tom dick and harry at head office in SA.

Now suddenly I was required to do a “please explain” email to the powers that be, why we were “causing company image problems”

We have pulled the ring out of it at the Beach before. Boy have we pulled the ring out of it! The interesting part is that this weekend is possibly the quietest weekend I have ever had at Busua – party wise.

I can only but shake my head.

I have been in Ghana for too bloody long on this stint. And it is showing. In the worst possible way.

I am due home on the 13th and to say that I am counting every day would be incorrect. I am counting every hour!

Month end is now complete – with the exception of stuff that I am waiting from SA to tie up the recons. After that I can concentrate on site again – safe with the knowledge that Carl and Jeri are back on Tuesday and I do not have to get involved in stuff as much as I am involved now.

I am learning all about weird stuff, and am actually getting more comfortable reading drawings. Which in itself is a huge leap for a bean counter like me.

Ghana however is as happy as I am – They are suffering a HUGE water shortage in the Volta region. This despite the continual rain we get on our side of the country. The upshot of this water shortage is they are unable to generate power from their Hydro Scheme. Apparently the dam is at its lowest level in recorded history – since 1965 when the dam was built – and Ghana is now subject to a series of rolling power cuts.

Not that we would notice of course as we are used to power failures.

The problem extends however to large power users – the mines been a large power user – who have been requested to cut their power consumption by 50%.

Goldfields Tarkwa is using Gensets at an additional cost of $4 million per month. (as per their press release). This means they spend less money on upgrades and major repairs. Which impacts our business.

There does not seem to be any light in the tunnel until early next year, so we will watch developments with baited breath.

Most people already have diesel gensets at their house – we do not – so they will only be affected by larger costs each month as opposed to sitting in a hot and humid house, trying to sleep.

I need to get home!!

Demmet!!!

Robbed!!

2006-08-19T14:40:00.000Z

It took two years, but it has finally happened. I wuz robbed!!

It appears as if some little fucker took advantage of the fact that there is no-one in the house from around 5 to around 7 when I get home and decided to do some affirmative shopping.

My wonderful camera that has traveled around Africa with me is for sale somewhere in Ghana. So is my “wegloop geld” as well as a few Cedi’s I had on my desk. The lil bugger also snarfled my “You have $20,00 for emergency” note that resides in my Cheque Book cover. My Cheque Book is however safe and sound.

I am pissed off. I am also pissed off that I noticed the loss at 5am this morning, lying quietly in bed pondering the vagaries of life. My camera normally resides on my tripod. I gazed blankly at the tripod. You know what it is like when you know something is missing and you cannot place what it is. That was exactly what was going through my sleep befuddled brain.

As soon as I realised the camera was gone, my brain kicked in and thought “fark, I hope my money is still here”. In retrospect that was a foolish thought. But hey – it was early and I was not in top form.

I have reported the incident to Mine Security and I am safe with the knowledge that they will do what they are capable of.

That said – it appears the God Fearing Ghanians are less god fearing when there is a project around. Three times our Gang Boxes have been broken into and tools stolen. Each time we increase security.

One security Guard – one gang box broken into
Two Security Guards – two gang boxes
(you seeing the pattern here?)
Three security guards - Three gang boxes broken and items snarfled.

We finally pointed out this mathematical equation to the Mine Security, and lo and behold two arrests were made. (the third guy is on the run). The two arrested were – the night security guards: Who polices the policemen.

Mind you – pay the lads GHC 700.000 (R500.00) a month and expect them to guard R200.000 worth of tools.

Life in Africa! - you gotta love it!

I do

Things I have learnt from Site

2006-08-15T10:07:00.000Z

1.
That “chunk of steel” sitting where it should not be is called a beam. You need to know this to make the technical people understand what the hell you are talking about.

2.
I learnt how to shoot levels with a Dumpy. A measuring tape on the stick makes it so much simpler. I was taught by people who do not use a dumpy level to do their job.

3.
You have to weld thin steel differently to thick steel otherwise it bends

4.
There is a difference between an AC welder and a DC welder. Although no-one can quite tell me what it is.

5.
You cannot weld pipes with a AC welder

6.
When someone says he can do something – do not believe him unless you can see it yourself.

7.
You can get fit quickly – who needs a gym subscription. Walking around site 3 times a day is more than a game of golf.

8.
Workers can break the unbreakable. Even steel punch’s

9.
Workers believe you never have enough transport, cranes, tools, money

10.
Never rely on technical people to do something right

11.
It never pays to fight with the client – you may be right, but it still does not pay.

12.
Something that should be done in 20 minutes takes 2 hours

13.
Something that should be done in 2 hours will take the day

14.
Estimators smoke something really weird when they estimate

15.
Clients smoke weird stuff when they award the contract as well

16.
The only problem is they are not smoking the same stuff

17.
Technical people do not think when they do paperwork

18.
Non technical people do not think when they do technical stuff

19.
Most people do not think at all

20.
There is no sex on site – but fark you get screwed often!

Sunday Update - another one :0

2006-08-13T08:37:00.000Z

Well here we are. Carl and Jeri have vanished on their R&R and it is left to me to keep the ship on an even keel TECHNICALLY!! Now when God made people, he made technical people and he made thinking people.

I could never crack Meccano when I was young. I also remember my old man buying me a “build your own model home” kit. Complete with Mini Bricks, Tiles and even its own “cement”. My house, needless to say, was never built to any acceptable standards.

Jerome is the lad who has now taken the bulk of the pressure, but I am comfortable I can wander around site, and use logic to resolve 90% of what happens. I even noted all by myself that a modification the lads were doing was not as per drawing. *beam*

We have a client who decided 2 hours after Carl left to send an email commenting on my “technical in-experience”. I happily replied “It would be more appropriate to comment on my technical in-experience a few days after Carl left, as opposed to two hours”. Needless to say there was no response.

However I can walk around nekked in the house!

We now seem to be beset by early airplane Christmas. For the past two weeks it has been difficult to get our lads confirmed on a flight home. Lyle who was due to travel out on the Friday, had to wait until the Monday to get confirmed on a flight, and the four bodies who I tried to confirm on Monday were told that bookings “had closed”. Having prior experience with “closed bookings” two Christmas’s ago, my advise to the four was pitch up at the airport with $100 and you will see that seats will magically appear.

I was pleased to be informed today that they pitched up at the airport, dropped $100 into the “Book a ticket home fund” and were confirmed. By now they should be happily camped in SA.

This is something that revved my button then, and continues to do so now. I have taken some 12 flights to Ghana over the period I have been here and I have yet to see the plane full. There have always been empty seats. I must admit December was a mission, but as mentioned previously $100 got me a seat, so it was not full.

No wonder the British Activists chose the UK for their alleged planned deeds. They could at least take advantage of the fact they were assured a seat on the flight.

On fighting issues. One day all these army/navy/air force people with loads of bird goo on their shoulders are going to realise that conventional methods of fighting non conventional people is an exercise in futility. The poor buggers in Israel have thrown a huge amount of manpower and equipment at some guys with cheap rockets, who move around in a Bakkie. 5 weeks down the track, they are no better off and they have a huge amount of their guys in hospital or buried.

My solution? Carpet bomb the place – with cheap big bombs instead of the $1 million each “precision” bombs. Leave nothing standing that people can use. But then again – that’s the reason why they would not allow me anywhere near an armed force.

This week has been a heavy “anti malaria medication week”. Wednesday I was in Tarkwa to try and get some stuff out of the bloody workshop and do a mini riot act reading. Ended up in the local pub with my Regional Manager having a heart to heart. The drive home was over in seconds. Thursday Night was “departure tax” night and I got suitably roasty toasty and ended up munching some unidentifiable food at 11pm.

The best way to start additional work is with a hangover  I also spent a huge amount of time on Friday walking around site, sweating and earning stiff tendons for my effort. With access being what it is, there is a lot of climbing ladders and swing legs over scaffold and the like. With my love of heights, it was a mission of note.

Sunday today. (You know you busy when you start a missive on a Saturday and only finish on a Sunday). We are working ½ day – ie: until 5pm. We have a deadline for Wednesday on one of the circuits and we will make damn sure that we will meet that deadline. The fact that there will be no power to actually run the stuff we installing is a moot point. We going to use the best excuse in the world. “we finished – why are you not finished – please remember this the next time you decide on a deadline”

On that note: I am off to site

Have a fun one people. I know I am!

Another long overdue update.....

2006-08-07T10:26:00.000Z

*yawn*

There is nothing like a lazy Sunday afternoon, grand prix and the ubiquitous Sunday afternoon nap to wind up the week.

The week has been a hectic one, with a requirement for us to work some of our lads’ on night shift for commissioning. This has been an organizational nightmare given the fact some of our supervisors are on R&R. The start of the week was a tad rough until we had got our acts together and scheduled people to do the dreaded night shift.

It was also recon week, which is loads of time spent waiting for our accounting system to print out what you need. I cannot believe they still have not resolved the fact that at month end recon week, it can take over two hours to get a print job done. Frustration is the key word over this week.

I also managed to cock up my one recon, more so by some changes the client wanted to a certificate earlier in the week. I changed the one page, printed it out and gave it to him without realizing that my change on the one page doubled up my charge on the front page.

I them used Excels wonderful refer system and *poof* income overstated. I happily sent the file to da boss, who in around 7 seconds scratched his head, asking “WTF did all this income come from”

Never the less, all corrected and 3 recons down the line, I have not got one right. Maybe next month. I am a numbers lad – sheesh – I should be able to get the numbers right!!

Socially, I was in a drinking mood on Monday and ended up in the pub for a while. Pub was quiet and I managed to be reasonably noisy while I happily dosed myself with anti-malarial Captain Morgan.

Friday night was one of the Wade Walker peoples birthday. We were invited to the pool for some drinks and food. I did the drinks part, no Captains was available, so of course I decided to drink some Vodka and Apple Juice. Do NOT mix apple juice with Vodka. All that healthy apple is bad for you.

I walked home – taking the car was not an option – and decided I was hungry. I managed to put my food in the micro to warm it up. Without even waiting for the 45 seconds to pass, I went to bed, lay down on my back, breathed deeply and happily awoke in exactly the same position at 6am the following morning.

Needless to say Saturday was a “paperwork” day.

Carl and Jeri go out on R&R this Friday, so it will be left to the accountant to try and work out how to bring this job to heel. With the PITA client, this is made more interesting.

Oh yes. I have purchased a 50% share in a townhouse with Nessers. I have some money I want to invest - thanks to my car payments biting the dust – and Nessers needed a 3 bedroom place. True to form, she did not even come close to making it easier and waiting for me to be there in September, but toddled off, found a nice place in Constantia Kloof, and sold her place for cash.

Given the Power of Attorney I signed to enable her to complete all the paperwork, she now has more power over my affairs than even my ex wife has when she was my wife. *chuckle*

My replacement at Small Works did not cut it. I put him on a plane back home after lasting less than two months in the Jungle. All that means for me is my decision making ability on people has taken a knock, and as a penalty I am left trying to do two jobs at the same time while we find a replacement.

Accordingly I am up and down between Obuasi, Tarkwa and Bogoso almost every other day and, as is normal in these kinds of situations, not doing any one job properly.

So yeah fun people.

No Ghana news as I still have not seen a newspaper for ages.

Until my next update – keep yourselves warm:

And more nekked pics please!

The team!!

2006-07-29T11:15:00.000Z

What happens when a whitey plays Footy

2006-07-29T11:13:00.000Z

When all other people are heading in the opposite direction to you, you are either breaking new ground or hopelessly lost.

Carl following the road less travelled

The crowd and The linesman with his flag of leaves

2006-07-29T11:11:00.000Z

Pictures of the Footy

2006-07-29T11:06:00.000Z

The singing supporters, drinking a wonderous Ghana drink called "Apertish" that basically kicks you like a mule and turns the brain into a mushy thing with no substance

Group Five 1 - De Simone 2

2006-07-29T09:58:00.000Z

In the small town of Bogoso – Western Region Ghana, on the local cabbage patch masquerading as a soccer field, the Group Five team were put to the sword by a resurgent De Simone team.

The ref was professional, they players were not!

I should have realised we were on a hiding to nothing when our hired strip turned out to be England colours. England NEVER win an important game, and this was important. The opposition had hired a Bayern Munich strip, who have had a whole load of better luck winning games over the last year.

If I say the field was a cabbage patch. It had some grass, a lot of sand and – I kid you not – the lines were made out of CONCRETE!!

Goal Keepers in Ghana are wiry people. They must be as I dragged the Small jersey onto my Extra Large tummy. I looked like Bozo the clown.

It was apt – I played like Bozo the clown.

The last time I played in Goal was when I was in Primary School. It has been a long time since I was in primary school. It showed.

I was – fortunately – only on the field for 15 minutes.

I was hungover – refer previous post – and I managed to catch the ball 3 times.

The one cross floated from the right, and Bozo the clown made like Peter Shilton and rushed across to pluck the cross from the air.

That was the plan

The execution was somewhat different.

The execution resulted in my mind thinking “Oh Fuck, I am never going to get there in time” My heart made me try harder, my age made me get the tip of my fingers to the ball.

I stood like a spectator as the ball bounced in front of an opposing player, was crossed back and bounced around as my defence tried vainly to play without a goalkeeper who was now stranded 10 meters away.

The ball bounced off the cross bar, and I started to move towards the melee of players, with one thought in mind. “This is going to hurt”

Fortunately for me – unfortunately for the team, my defence failed dismally to hold the ball up until Bozo lumbered over to claim it. 1 – 0

And I could smell the captains coming from my pores

Team Management made a wonderful decision 5 minutes later and replaced me with a 5’ lad who proved to be a whole lot more capable than me.

The scene was wonderful though. The entire workforce of both company’s as well as 60% of Bogoso town were there. Around 500 people in all. Goodness that is a better crowd than the Golden Lions are getting at Ellis Park!

The referee was good, even though his idea of a half in Footy was 60 minutes.

The crowd cheered, the crowd roared and a little man ran up and down the touch time commentating into his cell phone.

Apparently the match was broadcast live on Tarkwa Radio.

When we scored the equalizer in the second half, the field was invaded by our supporters. No wait the field was invaded by all the supporters. The ref was berated by the opposition who felt the goal was unfairly awarded, and our gladiators were mobbed by our proud lads.

Score 1-1

5 minutes later the opposition took a speculative shot from midway between the halfway line and goal line and our poor keeper watched the ball sail over his head without moving.

Score 2-1

We were devastated!

Around 5 minutes from the end of the game, a player got sent off. The fields was once again invaded, but this time, the ref was subject to loads of abuse and supporters and players alike got involved in an almighty rumble.

It was great

Goals on each side, a fight, and a load of fun had by all.

Would have been better if we won – but hey. Nice way to spend a Sunday.

The best part was we had started a Lamb Vindaloo at 12am that morning. It had bubbled the entire day and that night we tucked into a great curry.

I was a hoppy lad!!

Cards 1 - Wine 4 - Antoine 0

2006-07-29T09:56:00.000Z

Goodness. After a flurry of updates, everything goes quiet.

What is this world coming to! What is my world coming to?

Let’s see:

I have learnt a good lesson over the last weekend. It has to do with Cards, Carl and Jeri and some bottles of rather scary Aussie wine.

We sat under the stoep, playing cribbage and some funny “add the cards to 15, with pairs etc” game and supped at the rather acidic red wine. Was Aussie wine – cos it was as acidic as the Aussies are and gives you a headache.

Run out of wine, wander (Stagger?) up the 9th hole to the top bar. Find two of your workmates solving the world’s problems, and some other people and continue to partake for a long time. Bar closes, Stagger (Stumble) down the 1st hole and find a bottle of whiskey in the pantry and continue.

Instead of turning OFF my alarm and ON the air conditioner, I reversed the sequence and found a parrot in my mouth at 6am when the strident tones of “I walk alone” found its way through the tormented brain.

It was NOT a good start to the morning.

What made the Sunday a little more interesting was that we were due to play soccer at 3pm. On my last post, I was named as the second reserve goalkeeper. For some reason between the list and the following day, I became…… Goalkeeper.

I am still trying to find the person who made that decision and work on his management decisions.

Hungover we got to the Cabbage Patch at 2:30pm.

The soccer game warrants a separate post.

Party Hard and be buggered the next day

2006-07-22T08:22:00.000Z

Another update so soon?

Goodness – people will start thinking I am doing no work at all.

We went to the pub – again – last night to celebrate the putting up of our first piece of contractual pipe. This of course not the first piece of pipe that was laid, but that was all temporary pipe or extra’s pipe. We had laid pipe!!

You will now understand we celebrate the funniest stuff on site, but as we were discussing last night, all we seem to do here is Wake up – go to work – go home – go sleep – repeat.

Having resorted to headache tablets as a result of last nights medicinal bout with Captains, I comfortably had two single captains and bade everyone an early farewell.

I cannot get pissed two nights in a row – that’s a fact. A sad one – but a fact nevertheless.

I had a hunger when I got home and was greeted by Fish and Chips. Now to be honest, I wanted something substantial to sort out my tummy and tell it who was boss.

30 minutes later I was happily tucking into 3 x Lamb Chops, Lentils and Garlic, Feta Cheese and Olives and yes – the chips.

I was happy.

I was also nodding off on the couch at around 8,30 pm.

I was fast asleep by 9:30pm

There is something to be frowned at when you shattered after a previous nights hooley.

This week we start the run in to month end. This week I have a shite load to do. There is also a presentation by one of our clients in Accra on Friday which it seems that I am it. Albert is on R&R – bastard; Zack is pulling all the stops on a Job in Obuasi and we need to be there.

I was looking forward to some time in Accra. A day will have to suffice. It is month end weekend next weekend and we will not be working. Maybe a weekend in Accra?

We shall see. – Not much fun when you are there by yourself with no-one to party with.

Tomorrow there is a Football Match between De Simone and ourselves to be played at the JDE Stadium in Bogoso. We are willing to negotiate the television rights for the match. Please contact me before 3pm tomorrow.

I am the 2nd reserve Goal Keeper, Jeri is the 3rd Reserve Goal Keeper. That means if 2 Goalkeepers get injured I will have to raise myself from a (hopefully) beer induced stupor, walk onto the field, pull a hamstring on the way in and call Jeri to take my place in Goal.

We do strange things here.

Of Hangovers and long black snakes

2006-07-21T14:25:00.000Z

There is something ethereal about a Friday morning, 5:45am, mist low on the Golf course, standing on my 2 x 2 verandah, with a hangover from hell courtesy of way too much Captains the night before and listening to the birds make one hell of a noise.

To say I noticed that the noise from the birds was a lot more strident this morning would be a lie. I was too bloody hung over to notice anything but the smoke in my lungs and the way my body soaked up the morning cuppa.

On hearing a noise behind me, I turned in time to notice the biggest farking snake I have ever seen recover from a fall from the tree some 4 meters away from me and decide to reclimb the same tree, presumably in his quest for one of the birds up there.

My reaction – besides a rather surprised “Fuuuuuuuuck” – was to bolt back inside and close the door. Smoking rules be damned!!

Once my heart had slowed down to an acceptable 120 beats per minute, I snuck a peak out of the door and watched Sam the snake wendle his way up the tree.

I must be in the African Jungle!

Living with my hangover from hell – a dull throbbing by the afternoon – I cannot access my email, JDE or the company web page.

I sent a email to the helpdesk – from my “site” email – only to be questioned on how I was connecting to the server when I was not on a company range of IP addresses. I am not too sure why VPN software gets issued if the lad does not know that we can use it.

The upshot was the old IT favorite – We have checked everything from our side and it is working fine.

Well – my news is bad – It is NOT FUCKING WORKING FROM THIS SIDE DEMMET!!!

But hey – that’s my problem.

Last night in the pub was a hoot. I had had a particularly taxing day and decided that two relaxing Captains would be the order of the day.

I had a tad more than two, jousted verbally with the client for most of the evening. Received a site instruction written on a serviette with language foul enough to make me not want to give it to our engineer the following morning, and debated the fact that despite all the quality issues coming out of India and China, it may pay people to get work done out of there in the future. A lively debate it was too, considering my experiences in India.

The weekend rushes upon us, which means only three more days of work before the start of a new week of work – gotta love these contracts – Another week bites the dust in the chase to the 15th December.

Trust you had a great week readers

And trust the next week will be more fun than usual

Sunday Update

2006-07-16T09:25:00.000Z

Tis a sad state of affair when you have to wait until Sunday to update your blog due to doing the chicken sans head thing.

What has happened during the week?

Well besides the inevitible work, I have managed to have my angry day and piss off the other people day, all in one week.

My angry day related to an accusation that we did not have enough people on site. I flew back with "we have too many bloody people on site for the amount of stuff we have" and so it went on. I ended up marching to my office, doing a schedule of what should be here, what is here and explaining in rather unflattering terms that if we are still waiting for goodies on some bloody ship in the sea, how silly it is to have loads of people picking their noses.

We patched up our differences in the pub that night as only a dozen double captains can do.

The piss people off day was a highlight, as I took great pains at pointing out all the instructions that were outstanding and how it was making our people pick their noses. That and how they can glibly make statements that items will fit, but refuse to put it in writing cause in reality they have no idea where the items go in the first place.

That said, my Small Works lad delivered 18 tons of chute to site. Bless their little cotton socks if they did not drape a Group Five flag in the front of the chute, leaving no unanswered question as to who made this chute. I was impressed at their marketing skills.

I also had a trip to Obuasi on Saturday to correct my marketing skills. There is nothing worse than doing something in an accountants manner and handing it to an engineer. They are bound to misunderstand it. I should know better.

So this week, between all the gumpf required on site, I will be doing a simulation of three months worth of work and putting a number to that.

Lets see if it will work.

Chatted to my sis today. She is well and happy - which is always a good thing. She also advised me that the greek university where her daughter is studying.

They are on strike - due to some EU rule that people are not looking on favourably. Ergo - No exams were written. Goodness, Shades of SA in the 80's

My dog died. My daughter wants to get new ones. She proposed a Huskey - definate no - and an Alsatian. Possibly, but make sure it does not bite people in the house and likes kids.

Right - Let me do my filing - *glare at all the papers on my desk* - and try and leave here before the sun sets.

Have a great week people!!!

News and rip offs

2006-07-11T16:59:00.000Z

I have not had the chance to run through the local newspapers due to being closeted at Bogoso. However, as mentioned in my last blog entry, I managed to buy a newspaper and spend 45 minutes in Tarkwa reading it. This if course was due to roadworks, as opposed to stopping off at the local coffee shop and enjoying an expresso or three.

One thing that did catch my eye was a “tender” published in the Graphic by our beleaguered Ghana Electricity Corporation.

It appears our friends have a tract of land in Accra. Some bright accountant type fellow decided to make really good use of this tract of land. Accordingly they invited bidders to do the following:

- Provide the finance, design, management and construction of an office block, shops and multistory car park for 450 cars.

- Once they have provided the finance, operate the buildings on a Build, Operate, Train and Transfer program – not exceeding 20 years.

- Finally for financing the deal, building the building, operating the building the lucky bidder will also be required to pay rent to the Ghana Electricity corporation.

- Oh yes… and then after the 20 years, give the building to GEC free of charge.

This AMAZING business opportunity caught my eye – as well as millions of others who are stampeding to take advantage of this.

WTF was the lad thinking. I am willing to invest $5 million, pay rent for something I have invested $5 million in, try and recoup it from people over the next 20 years and then walk away from my asset. I do not think so.