The Tema Market

A few weeks ago, I was in desperate need of some vegetables and spices, so Dennis said we could get both at the Tema market for a lot cheaper than you can find in a grocery store. I said sounds good. I’m not really sure what I was expecting the Tema market to be, but it turned out to be quite the adventure.

We came upon a narrow street lined with booths, cars parked on both sides, so that only pedestrian traffic could pass. Behind the booths was a very high cement wall, large enough to not be able to see what lay behind. Dennis pulled up behind a car on the right-hand side of the street and said “We’re here. Let’s go.” The first thing I saw was a large cage filled live chickens, and Dennis informed me that for 10 cedis (like $7), they would kill one, de-feather and dress it for you. He said that for 12 cedis you could get a “free range” one, motioning to the group of chickens running around on the side of the road. Next to the cage was a van parked so that the rear opened up onto the street, its back doors open wide with a few guys sitting in the back, legs dangling. When we got close enough to the van see what was inside, it was eggs: hundreds of eggs in cartons stacked the height of it. We kept walking along to see several booths of vendors of all kinds: clothing, food, cosmetics, etc. We came across a vegetable seller, and Dennis let me look at some tomatoes and onions for a few seconds, before saying “Let’s keep going.” I looked up and down the street, as well as the adjacent booth-lined street and asked “How much more is there?” Dennis just laughed and said “You’ll see.”

When we got to the end of the street we were on, we hung a right onto a street even more populated with booths and people. The high wall ran along this street as well. The further we walked the more dense everything became. I could see up ahead that everyone was filtering through a gate on the right that led into the space behind the wall, and when we got there, my jaw definitely dropped. What I thought was the market was the bare outskirts, and the true market lay in every inch of the plaza enclosed by the high walls, where hundreds of booths manned by haggling vendors were pressed together to allow no more room between them than was needed to walk. I though immediately of two things: my good friend (who shall remain nameless) that is diagnosed with ADD (true ADD, not a function of the over-prescribing, drugged-up society we live in today), who would have loved every second of all the activity, vibrant colors and noises of the market, and a favorite childhood movie called “Bed Knobs and Broomsticks” in which Angela Lansbury sings a song called “Portobello Road” about a street in London where you can buy “anything and everything a chap can unload.” The Tema market was a lot brighter and less dusty than the road protrayed in the movie, but I can’t really help the linkages made by my mind sometimes. I also couldn’t really decide what to look at and in what order: a basket full of shimmering blue crabs or a table covered with giant African snails bigger than your fist (a delicacy, according to Dennis). We approached the most colorful table in sight which boasted a rainbow assortment of tiny bags of spices. I bought some garlic, curry (good curry that actually has some zing, not the weak stuff you find in America and have to resort to the paste) and chili, but was denied cumin and basil (partly because Dennis didn’t know the Twi translation and partly because they actually might not grow those here and I have to settle for imports).

shot of the market right at the entrance...booths as far as the eye can see.

shot of it a little further in. You can see plantains and yams on the front table.

giant African snails...DE-licious.

We actually didn’t stay long to peruse. Being the guys that we were, our shopping entailed knowing exactly what we needed to get, getting those things, and then leaving; we were not hampered by a second X chromosome, which necessitates window shopping. I would go on to buy some tomatoes, onions and peppers, along with a dozen eggs from the dudes in the van and a whole smoked mackerel. Making our way back to the gate to leave, Dennis and I were stopped by a shady guy carrying a basket full of what turned out to be blister packs of medicines. As politely as possible, Dennis told him that he was a registered pharmacist, what he was doing was illegal, and that if he ever saw him again, he would call the police. (I’ll leave the health schpiel out of this entry, but you do not want to get me started about antibiotic resistance. Needless to say, that was not cool, and it brought my nice little trip to the market back down to reality very quickly.)

platter full of smoked mackerel. I chose the most delicious one.

When we got back to the car, I opened the trunk to deposit my spices, veggies, eggs and fish, and I looked over at the chicken coop close by. As much as I wanted a chicken to be slaughtered all because of my appetite, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe next time, I told Dennis, because I really want to come back as much as possible. The market is only open on weekends, and I could probably come back every Saturday until I leave and not see everything there is to see in there. That night I de-scaled and de-boned the mackerel all by myself and made a deliciously spicy fish curry…with a little garlic: BAM!

A Night Out on Oxford Street

In a previous entry, I delved into my lack of both a social life so far in Accra, as well as interactions with other obrofo (white people). As I had also mentioned, I was invited to dinner a little bit ago on Oxford Street (the ex-pat/aid worker area) with two (white) guys around my age working for the Clinton Foundation, one of whom I had met at a conference. So, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you a little about that night.

Allan, the guy who invited me, and I had actually communicated previously (via phone and email), when I was exploring my options for working abroad. I still had no idea what he looked like, let alone that he was in Accra. So, to say that I was surprised (or that it is a small world) when we met in person, is an understatement. Allan was to meet a colleague for dinner on Saturday night at 7pm, at a sushi restaurant called Monsoon on Oxford Street, and he asked me if I’d like to join. I tried not to be too excited when I said sure, but the prospect of having a social engagement for the first time in a long time, let alone with two other white guys close to my age, was a nice feeling. It was like a guys night out.

That was the extent of my knowledge about dinner. According to my trusty Ghana/Accra tourist book and pull-out map, Oxford Street was the center of a very happenin’ upscale neighborhood called Osu with some of the best shopping, restaurants and night life in the city. I was also able to see that the street was about 1 mile long, located in the southeastern part of the downtown area. As the crow flies, it looked to be about 10km (6 miles) from where we lived northeast of downtown, but in terms of navigable roads, it was more like 15 (9.5 miles). So, I needed to consult with Dennis about my transportation game plan.

He told me that from where we lived, and how cabbies’ rates worked, it would be cheaper to take three group cabs from where we lived: the first one straight west to a high-traffic spot, the second one straight south into the city to another popular junction, and then the third one to my destination. He explained that with cabs, you have two options: group and individual. The color of my skin being what it is, he said cabs would automatically assume I wanted an individual ride, so I had to insist it was group. Group meant that they would pick up other passengers on the way, and it would be a fraction of the price. As I was completely deferring to him on this one, I said group cabs were fine with me and agreed to do whatever he thought was best.

So, at 5pm on Saturday night (I was giving myself plenty of time for a worst-case/ getting lost scenario), armed with map and camera, Dennis drives me to the main drag where I would catch the cab. Right when we get there, one of those “private “vans I previously mentioned (It is a conversion van that seats about 16 comfortably and commonly squeezes in 20. Run by a driver and a door guy/cash man, they run specific routes to fill the gap for the lack of public transportation, and are a very big private transportation enterprise in Accra.) skreeches to the curb, and several things happen at once: Dennis shoots me a quick glance, says that it will be a lot cheaper than a group cab and I can take the same 3-stop route we mapped out, I shrug my shoulders to tacitly say “Sure, what the heck”, he negotiates the fair (75 pesues = 55 cents) and the door guy gently shoves me into the front row of seats behind the driver and next to woman cradling an infant.

a typical private van

It becomes immediately clear that this is a very smoothly-run operation. The driver is the most aggressive on the road, swerving in and out of traffic, on and off the actual road, while the cash man hangs out the door yelling the final destination of the van for those on the side of the road who might want to get in. Sometimes the door is closed and the cash guy hangs out the open window, but most of the time he keeps it open for ease of exit and entry. At each stop, he gently pushes some on and some off, continuously haggling fares with multiple potential riders, never forgetting to yell the van’s destination (Accra Mall) less than 100 times a minute. When the van pulls away from a particularly busy stop, he closes the door and turns his attention to the riders inside, snapping and pointing to collect the agreed-upon fare and dole out the correct change. It is a well-oiled machine, to say the least.

As the day turns to night, the traffic into the city gets worse, and the exhaust from all the vehicles that floats in through the windows causes many to cough. The heat, however, makes closing them a non-option. Halfway to the mall, the baby next to me starts screaming, and the woman quickly pulls out her bosom to feed. Baby stops crying. No big deal. I exit at the mall with many others and have to cross a highway of sorts to get to where I want to catch another van going south. After waiting for a lull in the speeding cars, I am able to cross and another van pulls up in no time. “How much to Sankara?” “40.” “30.” “Fine.” It seems silly to be haggling over paying 35 cents or 25 cents, but for Ghanaians it would be silly not to. Plus, it is fun and gets people smiling.

This time I am in the back row, next to two police officers with AK-47s. Thankfully it is not as crowded, and then guns are able to have their own seat. At this point I am into unknown territory, and I continuously steal furtive glances at my map, which I have folded many time to make as small as possible. Hospital should be coming up on the right…there it is…good, not lost yet. I get out at my next stop, look at my watch (5:45) and my map: Oxford Street looks to be only about ½ a mile away. Pretty happy with myself that I just paid about 75 cents to go about 10 miles in 45 minutes, I start walking. About halfway to the top of Oxford Street, I see a big white building across the street on the left, and notice the sign “UN Headquarters”. I never really stopped to think about why this area had become the pale-skinned haunting grounds, but then the fog lifts and it all makes sense.

UN Headquarters in Accra

At the top of Oxford Street, I see two big groups of signs for some of the things I can expect to find. The sun has completely set, as I turn the corner. In a word, the street is busy. It’s one lane each way, with a good amount of traffic. Vendors of purses and soccer jerseys and food hug the road, backlit by the neon signs from the buildings behind them. Bank, restaurant, clothing store, bank, restaurant, bar, bank, clothing store, bar: I am seeing a pattern. It is very clear that this is the North Michigan Avenue, the Georgetown (M Street), the Newberry Street of Accra. After about 5 minutes of walking and getting heckled by salesmen, I come across the huge neon blue letters of Monsoon. Next to it is a sign declaring: “Now Open: Sushi, Pan-Asian, Seafood and Steak.” I call Allen to let him know that I am quite early. He has some “conference calls with Vancouver” to take care of, so I tell him no big deal, I can certainly entertain myself for an hour. He says “You gotta at least go to Frankie’s, and I’ll see you at 7.” Having no clue what Frankie’s is, I agree.

maybe 1/3 of the signs at the top of Oxford Street

Wrangler store on Oxford Street....supposedly "The Authentic Western Jeans"

A little further on, I see exactly what Frankie’s is: an oasis is the desert. A bakery and Gelateria. People sit on stools and chairs on the outdoor patio, licking and crunching and biting happily. Cool air conditioning blasts me in the face, as I open the door and try my best to close my jaw. Glass display cases boast shelves of sugar coated pastries on top of loaves of fluffy and crusty breads, reminding me of Paris. And then of course there is the gelato, bringing back memories of Italy. I might have shed tears, I’m not sure. Dinner is in less than an hour, but this is GELATO! I don’t even look at the price before ordering two scoops (espresso and cookies n’ cream). It could have been $20, and I would have paid gladly. It happens to be 3 cedis (about $2.25), and it is delicious. Not Rome delicious, but North End of Boston delicious. I deliriously walk outside with cup and spoon in hand. The heat melts it quickly, so I am forced to inhale it, as I actually tend to do with desserts anyways.

croissants, muffins and other European-influenced pastries

GELATO!

I still have about 30 minutes to kill, and knowing that the Chelsea vs. Man City game is on, I find a little bar to grab a Ghanaian Guinness and watch. (Guinness has a brewery in Ghana, where it manufacturers a beer called “Guinness Foreign Extra”. More alcoholic than the regular stout (over 7%), it looks and tastes like a regular Guinness on first impression, but the finish is a lot more hoppy and bitter than the smooth stout you find in the US. It is a great combination and VERY good.) The beer is a little more than $1 (dangerous), and I go outside to where a dozen guys sit on plastic chairs surrounding a TV. The score is 1-1, as the second half is just starting. I talk soccer with some of the guys, and sip on my beer. In general, most Ghanaians love Chelsea, because their countryman and most-famous Ghanaian soccer star in the world, Michael Essien, plays for them. So, 10 minutes after I sit down, when the star of Man(chester) City – Argentenian Carlos Tevez – scores a fantastic goal on a free kick from 30 yards out he puts UNDER the wall and inside the far post to take a 2-1 lead, they are not too happy. I stay as long as I can, but am forced to leave for dinner in the 70th minute.

random shot of Oxford Street

As I walk into Monsoon, I get a call from Allen that he is running late, but that his friend, Isaac, should be there. I spot a 20-something guy at the bar, with a Katrina Relief t-shirt on and ask him if he is Isaac. He is, and we get to talking. He works for the Clinton Foundation at their West African HQ in Lome, the capital of neighboring Togo. He is here only for the night, catching a flight out for the US in the morning. We order drinks and get to talking. He is from Belmont, Massachusetts, a stone’s throw from Tufts, went to Brown and starting volunteering for the Foundation after college. Allen shows up and we get a table.

The place is a swanky rooftop, very big with several bars, big bay windows overlooking the street, arched doorways and a very Mediterranean feel, like something you would find in Casablanca. Non-Africans of all kinds are everywhere, and I am a little overwhelmed. Moustached, pot-bellied Middle-Eastern business types stereotypically smoke cigars at a table with their much younger, skinnier female counterparts. At the next table, a group of overdressed girls sit, and Allen makes a comment about regretting not wearing his glasses. Couples are everywhere.

Allen, an Accenture-trained business consultant type from Vancouver says that it’s the best sushi he’s found in Africa, and being from Vancouver makes his somewhat of an expert. One look at the menu tells me I am going to spend more tonight than I did all last week. With a decidedly why-not attitude, I join them in ordering bowls of noodles and sides of sushi, as we discuss our common experiences. Allen’s craziest stories come from time he spent in Nigeria, and Isaac talks about life in francophone Lome, with a Togolese girlfriend he has acquired. I find it surprisingly refreshing and fun to share stories, commiserating about African frustrations and acknowledging African virtues. Dinner takes quite a while, but time goes quickly. The noodles I could make better myself, but the sushi is truly good. Before we know it, it is 9:30 and we are asking for the check. Allen has to go back to his place to do some work, but Isaac and I decide to go to a bar for bit.

We hop in a cab to an ex-pat bar Allen tells us he has heard is good, but after deciding to not pay the 15 cedi ($10-12) cover charge, we end up back where we started. Isaac asks me if I like to smoke hookah. “If been known to from time to time” I say. He says his hotel is a few doors down from Monsoon, and there is a good hookah bar in the lobby. “Let’s do it” says I, so we do. (Sorry mom and dad, but I didn’t inhale). It turns out to be quite fun, and we chat some more, unsuccessfully playing the college “Do you know…” name game, as we smoke apple-flavored shisha. Before I know it, it is going on midnight, and I have a lot longer to travel. Wishing Isaac a safe flight and exchanging contact info for when he is back in town, I bid him adieux.

This entry has been long enough, so I will wrap it up. Needless to say, the vans do not run that late at night, so I have to spend 10x as much money to get home as I did to get there. As I lay down to sleep, I feel quite satisfied with the night: gelato, Guinness, sushi, hookah, and new friends. I can’t have nights like that all the time, as I had spent a non-negligible fraction of my monthly budget in one night, but every once in a while, it’s fun to let loose.

Throwing Coke Bottles at BRICS

When you work in the global health field long enough, specifically when you work with groups that advocate for increased “resources” (dollar dollar bills) for R&D (research and development) for new products (drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics) targeting “diseases of the developing world” (mostly HIV, Tuberculosis, and malaria) long enough, and you attend enough meetings and conferences around Washington, DC to last a lifetime, you will undoubtedly hear about the Coca Cola Syndrome. The Coca Cola Syndrome, when discussed in this context, refers to the fact that the Coca Cola Company has MUCH better supply chain management than pretty much any resource-poor country’s health system this world over. What this means is that you can go to the most remote, rural villages in the world and find people drinking Coke, but we are utterly unable to get the health care products most needed by those same people into their hands. This subject is almost always broached by someone opposed to giving the R&D folks more money: someone who then advocates that the money would be better spent strengthening the supply chain on the ground and enabling the products that we already have to reach the people who need them. If the naysayer feels exceptionally clever, he/she might even tell another little anecdote about warehouses full of medicines and vaccines that have wasted away and become useless over months and even years of neglect: more victims of the African or Asian or Latin American sun. But this entry is not intended to weigh the merits of the new products vs. supply chain debate; the truth is that both things are greatly needed. No, I would like to get back to the ever-present Coke.

one of thousands of roadside shops always stocked with Coca Cola

Many of you have asked me what the food is like. I have detailed a few dishes in previous entries, but if I had to describe Ghanaian food in one word, it would be “unhealthy.” For breakfast every morning we have what’s called “Hausa Cocoa”. It’s a delicious porridge-like drink made from ground millet and spices originally from Nigeria, which has now become engrained in Ghanaian culture as well; but that’s not what is unhealthy. It is served with fist-sized fried doughnut balls and other smaller fried morsels made from chickpeas. Dennis reminds me that the chickpea ones do have nutritional value, and I remind him that they are also fried and oily enough to lube his car. Lunch is usually something small like soup with rice balls or one of the many corn-based dough balls native to Ghana. The two main soups are a peanut-based one and a palm oil-based one. Both are very tasty, but I constantly remember Dennis, as we ate palm oil soup on my very first day in Ghana, telling me “Delicious…but VERY high in cholesterol.” Also, the vast majority of carbs I have encountered so far are the bad ones: white rice and white bread predominate healthier alternatives. The favored proteins for dinner are fish and goat meat. These are not too bad, but the fish is usually fried. Healthier bean-based dishes can be found if you do some searching, but it’s much more common to find fried fish and fried plantains. A late-night snack, which I have fallen prey to many times, is the plantain chips. Very similar to potato chips, they are made from plantains, a banana-like fruit, and the chips are sweet, salty, crispy and delicious…but definitely not good for you. So, what does all this mean?

fried doughnut balls and chickpea patties: breakfast of champions

In my first week, we visited a woman from Dennis’ church whose husband had just passed away from heart disease. In a country where the male life expectancy is under 60, he was under 50. When we pulled up to the house, she, along with several family members and friends, was sitting on the porch in all black observing what I took to be the Ghanaian version of what the Jews call Sitting Shiva: a week-long mourning ritual. Except that the Ghanaian version, I would learn, can last anywhere from one week to several months, depending on circumstances, and we would visit this woman 3 more times over the next week or so. I also learned that the man had well-documented high blood pressure and had been given medication for it from his doctor: medication he did not take. Dennis said that this is very common with hypertension medication in Ghana. It’s not that people are leery of or don’t understand Western medicine, but it is cultural. He explained that the symptoms are not overt, and because they cannot be felt on a daily basis, people just don’t take the pills. In my first 3 weeks, Dennis attended these observances for 2 other people as well, both of whom died from different chronic conditions (stroke and diabetes).

My Ghanaian experience is a microcosm of current global trends in disease burden shifting away from infectious diseases and towards chronic ones. And nowhere is this happening faster than in low and middle-income developing countries all over the world, where over 80% of the world’s population resides. As economies develop and individuals become better off financially, this expanding middle class is able to use the extra disposable income on red meat, cigarettes and sugary drinks. Add onto that the simultaneous demographic trend of rapid urbanization, where the masses moving from rural areas into cities find both everything they need in a smaller radius and the need to walk around and exercise less necessary. In fact, chronic disease experts agree that diet, along with tobacco use and lack of exercise are the three main factors driving this global trend.

sign at a hospital I recently visited

In 2003, employees at Goldman Sachs came up with a clever acronym for the largest, fastest-growing, developing economies in the world: BRICs. BRICs stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China (sometimes the S can represent South Africa), and together, they will completely redistribute the world’s power and financial balance sheet in the foreseeable future. They are also leading the pack for the changing disease burden. While Wall Street and the rest of the private sector is busy setting up offices in Durban, Bangalore and Sao Paulo, angling for this emerging middle class to provide their future revenues, the citizens of these countries are acutely experiencing some of the less-desired effects of this “development.” In 2000, none of these countries ranked in the top 5 global economies, in terms of GDP. By 2050, all 4 BRIC countries are projected to be in the top 6. In Russia, wages TRIPLED from 2001 to 2006. Income is projected to TRIPLE in India from 2005 to 2025.

But these huge economic gains are not being translated into reciprocal health benefits. From 2005 to 2030, life expectancy is only projected to increase, on average, by less than 5 years in BRIC countries (about 2-3 months per year). According to the WHO, three of the top 4 causes of death worldwide – cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer and chronic respiratory diseases – are associated with chronic conditions. These three, together with diabetes, accounted for 60% of worldwide deaths in 2005, with more than three quarters of them occurring in developing countries. From 2005 to 2030, India, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa are projected to experience double digit increases in CVD burden. Over the same time span, the BRIC countries may experience a 3.29% compound annual growth rate in diabetes incidence. Similar projections can be found for cancer, respiratory disease and other chronic conditions, and this entry could go on and on.

Concession stand filled with doughnuts, meat pies and other deep fried things in the lobby of the SAME HOSPITAL

My former boss at the Center for Global Development, Rachel Nugent, is a population economist and an expert in this topic, so I was fortunate enough to be somewhat prepared. However, as I am finding out over and over again, it is a completely different animal when you experience it first-hand. Going to the mourning observance for someone who died from a very preventable and treatable condition is one thing. Consciously trying to exercise and eat healthy foods and finding it very difficult to do either is another. But Americans can rest assured that while we continue to lead the world in obesity, thousands more decide to join our ranks every day. I’ll keep fighting the good fight, but in the meantime, our fridge is never without Coke, and the plantain chips are delicious.

close-up of some plantain chips

Happy Holidays

The holiday season is upon us, and I thought it appropriate to give you all an early present. These have been a long time coming, but here are pictures of some of the people and things I've been blabbering about. Enjoy.

Desmond, talking to his little sister after Chruch. Desmond refused to pose for a picture. So, I took it upon myself to take one of him by surprise. This is the best I did. I have many of him turning away at the last second.

Charles, the fun-loving ladies' man and PSGH's crazy driver

Some color-coded girls walking to school in the morning

Patricia

People carrying goods on their heads, selling them in the middle of the road

The Upside of No Social Life

My next entry will probably be about chronic diseases, so I wanted this one to be a little more light- hearted.


I will be the first to admit that I don’t have much of a social life here in Accra, yet. The apartment and office are near one another, on the outskirts of the city, quite far away from both the night life and where the white people hang out (an area called Oxford Street). The only public transportation available is in crowded (“private”) vans or personal taxis, and I don’t really have a desire to do either just yet. So far, I drive to and from work and home with Dennis, and I pretty much do what he does. As he is a pastor, who also has a full-time job, it’s safe to say that he doesn’t exactly party like a rock star. Dennis, Patricia and I spend our nights eating dinner, watching TV (mostly soccer) or DVDs, and getting to bed at a decent hour, as Dennis and I leave for work at 7:30 every morning. But I’m definitely not complaining…it’s really not that bad.

Dinner has markedly improved over the last two weeks. We went to “the market” over the weekend (another blog entry for sure), so I now have a good stock of food and spices and have gotten into the swing of cooking for myself. Sometimes I’ll try what Dennis and Pat are having, and it’s usually pretty good and always interesting. They are getting to know what I do and don’t like, so the bad surprises (intestines, liver, etc.) are fewer and farther between.

As for TV, that’s a different story. We get about 7 or 8 channels, and when we get home from work, the line-up has become pretty predictable. 3 of them are news channels. The SABC (South Africa Broadcast Company) is pretty high-quality and focuses mainly on African headlines. Then there is PressTV: a very high-quality broadcast that is actually based in Tehran. Sometimes they like to portray the US and its allies in a not so great light (as with the IAEA sanctions against Iran recently), but more often than not, I find it to be fairly objective and very good (ie: Sean Hannity and Keith Olbermann could learn a thing or two). Finally, there is local Ghanaian news; it’s pretty budget, but I find the topics very interesting. Lately, they have been discussing the new budget proposed by government and what Ghana should do with its forecasted oil revenues (definitely a future blog entry). Once you get passed the news, there is one channel that always seems to be broadcasting a terribly-dubbed Spanish soap opera. Another channel usually always has a soccer or rugby game on (often it’s from the Dutch, Scottish, Russian or another lesser league). The “American channel,” as I call it, which I suppose I am to find solace in, seems to alternate between reruns of Oprah, America’s Next Top Model, and CSI Las Vegas. And those of you who know I feel about these shows know that, in my humble opinion, this station might as well be static. The programs on the other few stations are a wildcard of televangelists, Ghanaian shows, science-y shows and the featured soccer matches (always the English Premier League) and featured movies (they have a weird thing for Eddie Murphy movies here).

As I said in a previous blog, Dennis and Desmond enjoy movies, and we have many DVDs. We don’t see Desmond much during the week, as he lives in Tema, but he comes over to spend the night on weekends, and that’s when we do the movie watching. Pirated DVDs from China are the norm here, where anywhere from 9 to 90 movies are contained on one disk, and we have many. Ostensibly, they all have themes – Harrison Ford movies, epic war movies, Wild West movies – and Dennis and Desmond seem to favor the action-packed ones.

The lack of a social life has also given me ample time to read. I’ve already finished one book – a fantastic read about microfinance and international development entitled “The Blue Sweater” by Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund (thanks Mrs. G. for the gift) – and started on another: “Selected Stories of O. Henry.” In times like this, I like to read the “classics” that have yet evaded me. When I studied abroad in Spain, I read “The Catcher in the Rye, “Lord of the Flies,” and many others. (No, I did not have to read them in high school.) However, I don’t think that I’m quite ready for the Kafka or Sun Tzu that I brought with me. And, when it comes time to applying for grad school, I imagine that will take up a significant amount of my time as well.

Another good thing is that I’m not spending much money these days. A penny saved is a penny earned, so it’s almost like I have a salary! An old coworker and friend of mine has been consulting for the World Bank for the last two months in the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam, and she has had a very different experience thus far. Like most ex-pat aid workers, she socializes mainly with others of her kind (aka: white people). They lounge in expensive rented villas; spend money on gym memberships, massages and gasoline for their cars; and go out dancing and drinking ‘til all hours. If you don’t believe me, please read her blog. As she is a professional writer, I will admit that it is much better than this one. But I am glad I am not doing things that way, if only for the reason that the money I saved would last me about half as long as I’d like it to. Also, I don’t think she would argue that I am probably having more of an “authentic” experience living and working with only native Ghanaians. Last week I had my first conversation in 2 weeks with a white person: a missionary’s wife from “central Pennsylvania” who approached me after overhearing me talking to Dennis at the grocery store.

Like I said, I’m not complaining about being a loser, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I fully expect to procure a bike soon, to make myself more mobile. And, as of this writing, I doubled my “conversations with white people” tally this past week, bringing the grand total to 3. One of them, an analyst with the Clinton Foundation that I met at a Global Fund conference on Wednesday, invited me to a (sushi) dinner with him and some of his friends this weekend. He lives on Oxford Street, so yes, they have a sushi restaurant for the rich white people that coalesce around that part of town. I’m a little apprehensive about being one of the “obrofo” (the Twi word for white people, plural; “obroni” is the singular) patronizing a sushi restaurant on Oxford Street, so we’ll see how it goes. But at least I have something to do on a Saturday night.

Ghanaian Efficiency Strikes Back

I would like to apologize for the recent decline in new updates. It's not because I have not been writing them. On the contrary, I have not had internet at my work for this past week to enable me to post them.

I wrote this entry before my office lost internet for the week, so the irony of this entry being about Ghanaian efficiency is certainly not lost on me...but it's still a good story.


I love efficiency of all kinds. Whether it’s small-scale (plotting out the errands you need to do on a Saturday morning in order to travel the shortest distance) or large-scale (re-orienting the divisions of your business to open internal lines of communication that did not previously exist), the economist in me (yes, it was one of my majors in college) really enjoys it. Now, I realize that my work experience thus far tallies more than a few non-profits, not exactly representing private sector, profit-driven efficiency at its best, but I have worked with several MBAs and PhD economists, and it doesn’t stop me from liking it!

A few of my previous posts have described how inefficient things can be here, or in any developing country, when compared to the “Western World.” So, I wanted to share a nice little anecdote regarding something that was MUCH easier and faster to do here than it would have been in the latter. And it all starts with me being an idiot.

As I mentioned when I got off the plane, Dennis drives a nice silver VW sedan that he takes good care of. The model is called a “Bora,” which hasn’t made it to the US, but it is very much like a Jetta or Passat. When I arrived, the rear, driver’s-side door had the child lock engaged, not enabling the passenger to open it from the inside. As that is the only back seat with a seatbelt, I usually sit there (with Dennis driving and Patricia sitting shotgun), and it has proved to be very annoying. After a while, I asked Dennis why it was engaged, and he said no reason. He didn’t even know how it had happened, but he would like it to be disengaged as well. Upon hearing that, I took matters into my own hands: a big mistake.

Dennis' VW Bora

Last Sunday, Patricia and I were waiting for Dennis in the parking lot after church, and I thought it was a perfect time to put my mechanical engineering skills to use. What mechanical engineering skills, you say? Well, that is a very appropriate question, because I have none. But that didn’t stop me from opening the door and playing around with the lock mechanism, trying to undo the child lock. I rotated the hinge on the inside of the door, and then tried to close it. The only problem was that now it wouldn’t close. I tried to undo what I had done, and the door was having none of it. I had completely broken the door’s lock. I told Dennis what I’d done, and he said we would take a look at it when we got home. We had to drive home with me holding the door as closed as it could get from the handle on the inside. Whenever we would go over a bump or make a sharp right turn, the door would open slightly, and I would close it quickly. It was ridiculous, and I felt terrible.

When we got home, I told Dennis I would pay for the repairs, as we examined the bad door and the other good ones. We saw why it wouldn’t close and what needed to be done, but the hinge would not rotate back into its original position. We played with the automatic keyless remote, the automatic lock inside the driver’s door, and the manual lock on the door itself. I even got a few screwdrivers and a wrench I brought with me to make our trials seem more official, but nothing was working. As Dennis looked at the other rear door (passenger’s-side), he began playing with it, and before I could stop him, he had done the exact same thing to that one. So now, both rear doors would not close. Luckily, it was Sunday, we weren’t going anywhere before work the next day, and Dennis said that his good car shop was on the way. Knowing all too well how much fixing a German car can cost, I fell asleep thinking the worst.

When Dennis and I drove to work in the morning, I had to be in the ridiculous position of the middle rear seat, with both arms extended holding each door closed from the inside. As we pulled up to the Dennis’ “good car guys,” the shop consisted of an air pump, dozens of tires stacked in piles of different heights, tools strewn about seemingly at random on the ground, and a few cars outside in various states of rundown. There was no building, but rather a covered dugout of sorts where 4 men in their late teens or early twenties sat chatting on a triangle of benches. As we pulled up, one of the men pivoted off of his bench and walked over to us, as Dennis got out to meet him. Needless to say, I did not think we would have any luck here.

The best shot I could get of the car "shop" from my passenger seat

Dennis and the man spoke is rapid Twi, as I remained in the rear middle seat looking over at them. The man opened the rear passenger-side door, examined the lock, and began playing with the door handle. After 10 seconds, he called over to one of his partner, who brought him a screwdriver, and in another 10 seconds, he had fixed the first door. He opened it and closed it to make sure, and then went around to the driver’s side and fixed the other one in no time. A feeling of combined relief, stupidity and awe came over me. The man walked away, as Dennis handed him 2 Cedis (less than $2) as a thank you.

The rest of the way to work, I couldn’t stop telling Dennis how cool that was. They had fixed both doors in under 30 seconds, and we payed less than $1 per door. In the US, I assured him, if you took a VW to the dealer to fix the same problem, they would tell you it would be ready in a few hours minimum and then charge you at least $50 for the labor alone. He just laughed.

PS: I am happy to say that when we were fidgeting with the two doors, trying to fix them, I figured out how to actually disengage the child lock. So, it all worked out in the end, and now I can ride with a seat belt and open the door for myself when we stop!