picture update!
my internet connection has been horrendous the past 2 weeks. I can only seem to get on for 10 minutes at a time, even at internet cafes.
http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/Ada
http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/Axim
http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/Kumasi
http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/Bojo
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Its not long now. I have only two weeks left here!
My birthday weekend was uneventful. We went to the Maranantha Beach Resort in Ada. It was a nice place, but it was a bit of a hassle to get to. On Tuesday night we went out to the Taverna Tropicana, a wonderful restaurant near our flat that serves steak, lobster and thai food.
On Wednesday my wallet was stolen from me during my commute. I was able to get all of my cards canceled within a few hours, with no charges to dispute. Unfortunately my ATM card was also stolen. I have some cash left to last me until the end of my stay, as long as I am careful with my spending.
On Thanksgiving, all of the volunteers chipped in for a dinner. Turkey was available only as either a $70 frozen bird from Europe, or alive and kicking.
We ended up making meatloaf, a british dish called toad in the hole (sausage pie), mashed sweet potatoes, garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted vegetables, and bacon wrapped figs.
Delicious!
On Sunday we went to the Labadi Beach Hotel for a well deserved pool day. It is probably the most luxurious hotel in the country, and a favored destination for visiting dignataries. It did not feel like we were in Africa at all, actually, which was a bit strange.
This weekend I was hoping to go to Mole National Park, but the hotels were booked solid. Instead, I am going to try to go to a stilt village in the western part of the country. It has been a self-sustaining community for hundreds of years, in the middle of a large lake.
At work, I created an inspirational speech to promote the competition. I adapted a south american parable (often used by environmentalists) to the competition and to Ghana. I followed the parable with scripture that has been used to promote environmentalism in the US. This speech was disseminated through a religious consurtium to churches across the country; it was also read on a few radio stations.
Well, I'm off to Papa Nesto's fast food.
My birthday weekend was uneventful. We went to the Maranantha Beach Resort in Ada. It was a nice place, but it was a bit of a hassle to get to. On Tuesday night we went out to the Taverna Tropicana, a wonderful restaurant near our flat that serves steak, lobster and thai food.
On Wednesday my wallet was stolen from me during my commute. I was able to get all of my cards canceled within a few hours, with no charges to dispute. Unfortunately my ATM card was also stolen. I have some cash left to last me until the end of my stay, as long as I am careful with my spending.
On Thanksgiving, all of the volunteers chipped in for a dinner. Turkey was available only as either a $70 frozen bird from Europe, or alive and kicking.
We ended up making meatloaf, a british dish called toad in the hole (sausage pie), mashed sweet potatoes, garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, roasted vegetables, and bacon wrapped figs.
Delicious!
On Sunday we went to the Labadi Beach Hotel for a well deserved pool day. It is probably the most luxurious hotel in the country, and a favored destination for visiting dignataries. It did not feel like we were in Africa at all, actually, which was a bit strange.
This weekend I was hoping to go to Mole National Park, but the hotels were booked solid. Instead, I am going to try to go to a stilt village in the western part of the country. It has been a self-sustaining community for hundreds of years, in the middle of a large lake.
At work, I created an inspirational speech to promote the competition. I adapted a south american parable (often used by environmentalists) to the competition and to Ghana. I followed the parable with scripture that has been used to promote environmentalism in the US. This speech was disseminated through a religious consurtium to churches across the country; it was also read on a few radio stations.
Well, I'm off to Papa Nesto's fast food.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
I feel powerless.
That might have to do with Ikando forgetting to pay the electric bill, causing the electric company to cut off power to our flat on Friday. We got power back on Sunday night.
It might also have to do with the city wide power outage today. I'm at an increasingly crowded internet cafe that has generators.
Last weekend we stuck around Kumasi to do some traveling. Kumasi feels more like a real city compared to Accra. Accra seems to be a series of clusters of small buildings; Kumasi has a well defined city center. On Saturday we visited the Keteja Market, which is the largest market in West Africa. There are about 10,000 different sellers spread out across 12 acres. Initially we hoped to find the carvings and bead sellers, but we soon realized that it was going to be impossible. Instead we just wandered around for over 2 hours, taking random turns. We lost a lot of time in the smoked fish section, which seemed like it would never end. The smell was very unpleasant. We were unable to take photos inside; the market women became really unhappy whenever they saw a camera.
After the market we went to the National Cultural Center for a visit to the Jubilee musuem. It featured several important artifiacts from the Ashanti culture.
The next day we headed out of Kumasi to a Kente weaving village of Adanwomase. Kente is a traditional Ghanaian cloth, which is made by hand into intricate patterns. We received a tour that explained the entire process from start to finish. It was interesting, but something at the start of the tour did not seem quite right. I'm not saying that the village was shady or anything, just that the Kente itself was not quite right. Despite being a traditional cloth, in production since at least 1700, most varieties no longer use locally made cotton. They instead use cheap Chinese rayon, with the exception of white and black patterns (those are still Ghanaian sourced cotton). The tour guide said that Ghana does not have the ability to dye cotton into various colors, which is a bunch of BS. Portraits of past Ashanti rulers show them wearing colorful kente robes; methinks Ghanaian cotton was simply priced out of the market for the most part. I picked up a couple of strips; one with Ghanaian sourced cotton, and one made of rayon.
Towards the end of the day we went back to Kumasi, had a meal, and went to a crater lake - Lake Bosomtwi. The lake was formed by a meteorite impact millions of years ago. The lake is over 90 meters deep, and the hills around the lake are 600 meters high. We stayed at a beautiful hotel called the Lake Point Guesthouse. At this point it became clear that I was ill with food poisoning, and spent most of my time here in bed.
Last weekend we went to the Maranantha Beach Resort in Ada Foah, a sleepy fishing village about 2 1/2 hours from Accra. It was a nice hotel, despite the lack of running water and power in the rooms. The beach was not as nice as the beach at Bojo however, thus I really have no desire to go back.
I hope to have pictures up soon. The bandwith at the cafe is overburdened today, perhaps i'll try tomorrow.
That might have to do with Ikando forgetting to pay the electric bill, causing the electric company to cut off power to our flat on Friday. We got power back on Sunday night.
It might also have to do with the city wide power outage today. I'm at an increasingly crowded internet cafe that has generators.
Last weekend we stuck around Kumasi to do some traveling. Kumasi feels more like a real city compared to Accra. Accra seems to be a series of clusters of small buildings; Kumasi has a well defined city center. On Saturday we visited the Keteja Market, which is the largest market in West Africa. There are about 10,000 different sellers spread out across 12 acres. Initially we hoped to find the carvings and bead sellers, but we soon realized that it was going to be impossible. Instead we just wandered around for over 2 hours, taking random turns. We lost a lot of time in the smoked fish section, which seemed like it would never end. The smell was very unpleasant. We were unable to take photos inside; the market women became really unhappy whenever they saw a camera.
After the market we went to the National Cultural Center for a visit to the Jubilee musuem. It featured several important artifiacts from the Ashanti culture.
The next day we headed out of Kumasi to a Kente weaving village of Adanwomase. Kente is a traditional Ghanaian cloth, which is made by hand into intricate patterns. We received a tour that explained the entire process from start to finish. It was interesting, but something at the start of the tour did not seem quite right. I'm not saying that the village was shady or anything, just that the Kente itself was not quite right. Despite being a traditional cloth, in production since at least 1700, most varieties no longer use locally made cotton. They instead use cheap Chinese rayon, with the exception of white and black patterns (those are still Ghanaian sourced cotton). The tour guide said that Ghana does not have the ability to dye cotton into various colors, which is a bunch of BS. Portraits of past Ashanti rulers show them wearing colorful kente robes; methinks Ghanaian cotton was simply priced out of the market for the most part. I picked up a couple of strips; one with Ghanaian sourced cotton, and one made of rayon.
Towards the end of the day we went back to Kumasi, had a meal, and went to a crater lake - Lake Bosomtwi. The lake was formed by a meteorite impact millions of years ago. The lake is over 90 meters deep, and the hills around the lake are 600 meters high. We stayed at a beautiful hotel called the Lake Point Guesthouse. At this point it became clear that I was ill with food poisoning, and spent most of my time here in bed.
Last weekend we went to the Maranantha Beach Resort in Ada Foah, a sleepy fishing village about 2 1/2 hours from Accra. It was a nice hotel, despite the lack of running water and power in the rooms. The beach was not as nice as the beach at Bojo however, thus I really have no desire to go back.
I hope to have pictures up soon. The bandwith at the cafe is overburdened today, perhaps i'll try tomorrow.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Well, i'm glad that is over.
I was not able to send out conference invitations until Friday morning. Over the course of the week the name of the conference, as well as the type of panel discussions, changed several times.
Naturally, we could not get many of the panelists that we wanted due to the short notice.
During the conference we had issues with time constraints, as the Q&A sessions of each conference section spiraled out of control. Several people that came to speak did not get a chance to speak, even people that traveled from other countries. The planned program for Thursday was not followed at all.
Was the conference a success? It is hard to tell.
There were many goals for the conference. The conference was meant to increase public awareness for the GIM competition. The conference was supposed to showcase best practices in waste management from all over West Africa. The conference was meant to foster a dialogue between current private sector players, government officials, potential entrepreneurs, advocates, researchers, and bankers.
Despite a sizable media presence on Wednesday morning, there was little mention of the competition in the press last week. Many of the speakers we had lined up for the best practices section did not get to speak; others that we invited to exhibit (free of charge) showed up without exhibition materials. There was a lot of debate and discussion between the private sector players and government officials, but those discussions ended up dominating the conference.
I thought it was incredibly disorganized, but by Ghanaian standards it was apparently ok.
I was not able to send out conference invitations until Friday morning. Over the course of the week the name of the conference, as well as the type of panel discussions, changed several times.
Naturally, we could not get many of the panelists that we wanted due to the short notice.
During the conference we had issues with time constraints, as the Q&A sessions of each conference section spiraled out of control. Several people that came to speak did not get a chance to speak, even people that traveled from other countries. The planned program for Thursday was not followed at all.
Was the conference a success? It is hard to tell.
There were many goals for the conference. The conference was meant to increase public awareness for the GIM competition. The conference was supposed to showcase best practices in waste management from all over West Africa. The conference was meant to foster a dialogue between current private sector players, government officials, potential entrepreneurs, advocates, researchers, and bankers.
Despite a sizable media presence on Wednesday morning, there was little mention of the competition in the press last week. Many of the speakers we had lined up for the best practices section did not get to speak; others that we invited to exhibit (free of charge) showed up without exhibition materials. There was a lot of debate and discussion between the private sector players and government officials, but those discussions ended up dominating the conference.
I thought it was incredibly disorganized, but by Ghanaian standards it was apparently ok.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Sorry for the delay. I was unable to access Blogger all weekend.
Last week I discovered a wonderful beach called Bojo Beach. It is a narrow sandbar, accessed by boat, less than an hour from Accra. It is one of the cleanest beaches in this country, and is the only one with lifeguards. I ended up going back again this past Sunday, and I hope to have pictures up shortly.
I am still working on GIM advertising and the waste management conference. We still have yet to have any access to an advertising budget, so the advertising campaign has not been started for the most part. A couple of local entrepreneurs offered to include GIM as part of testing for their mobile text messaging marketing service. We gave them a short message about the competition and a listing of phone numbers to send the message to. While they were successful in sending a message to all of the phone numbers (a couple hundred in total) they decided to reformat the actual message. They managed to NOT mention how to apply to the program, and put the wrong due date in.
Awesome.
Regarding the conference: we have put together a program with a series of panels and exhibitions over the course of two days regarding waste management practices and government policy. We hope to have panels/exhibitions focused on challenges & prospects of waste management, the role of media in initiating behavioral change, financing options to the sector, technological innovations in both for-profit and non-profit ventures in West Africa, and current & future waste management plans in each of the major cities.
The conference is on November 11th. We have not been allowed to send out any invitations to any of the panelists or to any potential attendees. Last week uur original budget was slashed by 60%. It will be a miracle if this conference actually happens.
This weekend I am staying local while the other volunteers go on a 2-day, 64km cycling trip. I will probably take advantage of this rare time alone to start working on grad school applications.
Last week I had my first pangs of homesickness. It started with my reading of restaurant reviews in Brooklyn, continued with hearing of my friends plans for Halloween, and was capped off with the annoucement of this year's SantaCon. SantaCon is occuring on December 12th, a mere 5 days before my return. Boooourns!
Last week I discovered a wonderful beach called Bojo Beach. It is a narrow sandbar, accessed by boat, less than an hour from Accra. It is one of the cleanest beaches in this country, and is the only one with lifeguards. I ended up going back again this past Sunday, and I hope to have pictures up shortly.
I am still working on GIM advertising and the waste management conference. We still have yet to have any access to an advertising budget, so the advertising campaign has not been started for the most part. A couple of local entrepreneurs offered to include GIM as part of testing for their mobile text messaging marketing service. We gave them a short message about the competition and a listing of phone numbers to send the message to. While they were successful in sending a message to all of the phone numbers (a couple hundred in total) they decided to reformat the actual message. They managed to NOT mention how to apply to the program, and put the wrong due date in.
Awesome.
Regarding the conference: we have put together a program with a series of panels and exhibitions over the course of two days regarding waste management practices and government policy. We hope to have panels/exhibitions focused on challenges & prospects of waste management, the role of media in initiating behavioral change, financing options to the sector, technological innovations in both for-profit and non-profit ventures in West Africa, and current & future waste management plans in each of the major cities.
The conference is on November 11th. We have not been allowed to send out any invitations to any of the panelists or to any potential attendees. Last week uur original budget was slashed by 60%. It will be a miracle if this conference actually happens.
This weekend I am staying local while the other volunteers go on a 2-day, 64km cycling trip. I will probably take advantage of this rare time alone to start working on grad school applications.
Last week I had my first pangs of homesickness. It started with my reading of restaurant reviews in Brooklyn, continued with hearing of my friends plans for Halloween, and was capped off with the annoucement of this year's SantaCon. SantaCon is occuring on December 12th, a mere 5 days before my return. Boooourns!
Friday, October 23, 2009
Ludicrous.
Absolutely ludicrous.
On Thursday I attended a women's business summit in Accra. The summit consisted of a series of workshops decided to increase the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises owned by women in Ghana. The summit had good goals, but as they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Despite having major corporate sponsors such as ExxonMobil, Nestle, and Coca-Cola, the organizers still charged GHC 50 for entry. That is almost a month's wage for most people in this country, and is the average size of a microloan. They also charged GHC 15 for lunch, as well as GHC 200 for some women to rent stands to display their wares.
They rented a very expensive auditorium (the National Theater) and it was only 1/4 full. Great job guys!
One workshop that I sat through involved "Improving your Corporate Social Responsibility". CSR is not a pressing issue among women-owned SME's here, and is certainly low on the priority list (unlike, say, reliable power connections).
The main issue that the 2-day summit intended to address was high interest rates. The average rate on microloans here is 72%! Corporate loan rates are 40-60%. A panel discussion was held with advocates, investors, a central bank official, and a leading economist in Accra. The discussion was a good one to have (basically everyone ripping on the guy from the central bank) but it became far too technical for the intended audience, and inappropriate given that no real solutions were given for the women's problems.
The central bank's stance was that the women could just negotiate with the bankers (Ha!) and that rates were high because the "risk free" ghanaian t-bill rates were high. And because t-bill yields were high (28%), the prime rate had to be high (18.5%). Clearly a bond yielding 28% isnt a risk free asset, but hey, what do I know? I'm just a dumb obruni.
The excursion to Aburi was fun, if a little short. We arrived in Aburi to discover that our hotel was overbooked, which meant that check out time on Sunday morning was 6:00am. We found another hotel with availability, but that hotel turned out to be significantly more expensive. Aburi is only an hour from Accra, so I decided to just come home on Saturday night.
After check-in at the hotel we decided to order lunch; after which we would go to the botanical gardens and then do a short bike ride. Unfortunately it took the hotel over 2 1/2 hours to serve all of us lunch. While we were waiting, we were treated to fresh palm wine. The hotel's owner had chopped down a palm tree, and had just put a tap in to extract the wine. It was delicious!
We didn't have enough time to do both events, so we opted to go on a longer bike ride.
I should note that I have not been on a bicycle in about 10 years, and that bicycle was a single speed. I was having a lot of issues getting started and used to both the gearing and braking. During the intial phase of the ride through Aburi I became separated from the others - big mistake. Not only were we the only obruni in the town, we were a convoy of 8 obruni on bicyles. The heckling started out a bit much, but became overwhelming when I fell behind. One nice man tried to encourage me to peddle harder. Everyone else was either laughing, yelling, or running me off the road. The ride got a lot better once we moved on to the bike trail and once I discovered the wonderful invention that is first gear.
It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I had a hard time maintaining forward momentum. It seemed that everytime I got a good rhythm going, I would have to stop for a rock or tree branch, or I would slip and fall off the bike (that happened 4 times). I survived the whole trail, which was about 12 kilometers long. I did get to see a side of rural Ghana that I probably would not have seen otherwise.
The other volunteers want to go on a longer bicycle ride: 64 kilometers in two days. I think I'll stay in Accra that weekend.
pictures!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=28245&id=1628075351
http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/Aburi
Absolutely ludicrous.
On Thursday I attended a women's business summit in Accra. The summit consisted of a series of workshops decided to increase the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises owned by women in Ghana. The summit had good goals, but as they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Despite having major corporate sponsors such as ExxonMobil, Nestle, and Coca-Cola, the organizers still charged GHC 50 for entry. That is almost a month's wage for most people in this country, and is the average size of a microloan. They also charged GHC 15 for lunch, as well as GHC 200 for some women to rent stands to display their wares.
They rented a very expensive auditorium (the National Theater) and it was only 1/4 full. Great job guys!
One workshop that I sat through involved "Improving your Corporate Social Responsibility". CSR is not a pressing issue among women-owned SME's here, and is certainly low on the priority list (unlike, say, reliable power connections).
The main issue that the 2-day summit intended to address was high interest rates. The average rate on microloans here is 72%! Corporate loan rates are 40-60%. A panel discussion was held with advocates, investors, a central bank official, and a leading economist in Accra. The discussion was a good one to have (basically everyone ripping on the guy from the central bank) but it became far too technical for the intended audience, and inappropriate given that no real solutions were given for the women's problems.
The central bank's stance was that the women could just negotiate with the bankers (Ha!) and that rates were high because the "risk free" ghanaian t-bill rates were high. And because t-bill yields were high (28%), the prime rate had to be high (18.5%). Clearly a bond yielding 28% isnt a risk free asset, but hey, what do I know? I'm just a dumb obruni.
The excursion to Aburi was fun, if a little short. We arrived in Aburi to discover that our hotel was overbooked, which meant that check out time on Sunday morning was 6:00am. We found another hotel with availability, but that hotel turned out to be significantly more expensive. Aburi is only an hour from Accra, so I decided to just come home on Saturday night.
After check-in at the hotel we decided to order lunch; after which we would go to the botanical gardens and then do a short bike ride. Unfortunately it took the hotel over 2 1/2 hours to serve all of us lunch. While we were waiting, we were treated to fresh palm wine. The hotel's owner had chopped down a palm tree, and had just put a tap in to extract the wine. It was delicious!
We didn't have enough time to do both events, so we opted to go on a longer bike ride.
I should note that I have not been on a bicycle in about 10 years, and that bicycle was a single speed. I was having a lot of issues getting started and used to both the gearing and braking. During the intial phase of the ride through Aburi I became separated from the others - big mistake. Not only were we the only obruni in the town, we were a convoy of 8 obruni on bicyles. The heckling started out a bit much, but became overwhelming when I fell behind. One nice man tried to encourage me to peddle harder. Everyone else was either laughing, yelling, or running me off the road. The ride got a lot better once we moved on to the bike trail and once I discovered the wonderful invention that is first gear.
It was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I had a hard time maintaining forward momentum. It seemed that everytime I got a good rhythm going, I would have to stop for a rock or tree branch, or I would slip and fall off the bike (that happened 4 times). I survived the whole trail, which was about 12 kilometers long. I did get to see a side of rural Ghana that I probably would not have seen otherwise.
The other volunteers want to go on a longer bicycle ride: 64 kilometers in two days. I think I'll stay in Accra that weekend.
pictures!
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=28245&id=1628075351
http://picasaweb.google.com/bigpoppanils/Aburi
Friday, October 16, 2009
This weekend was odd.
Saturday's outing was not for the 1o year anniversary of AABN. It was a church outing merged with professional networking event, consisting of exercising in the heat and lots of Jesus.
Two of my most favorite things.
At least I was able to see my boss faceplant twice. I don't have any pictures of this unfortunately.
On Friday night I went to a sushi & steak restaurant in Accra called Monsoon. They have a wild game menu with springbok (antelope), crocodile, warthog, and ostrich. I went for the springbok, which was marinated in blueberries and pineapples for two days. It was very delicious.
This week we received a new timeline for the Ghana Innovaiton Marketplace. The deadline for submissions is now on November 30th, followed by two weeks of assessments. The capacity building and main event awards are now in 2010, which means that I will be missing some very interesting work.
I spent this week developing an advertising plan (we finally have a budget) featuring print ads, press releases, emails, SMS, inspirational church & mosque speeches, and conferences targeting professional organizations.
Outside of work, this week was pretty quiet. Last night we went to the Alliance Franciase, which is a French cultural institute. This week the Alliance Francaise hosted a Jazz & World Music festival. Apparently I missed some amazing beatboxing on Wednesday :(. I did get to see a live collaboration between a French jazz trio and a Ghanaian afrobeat quartet.
I am going to Aburi for the weekend for botanical gardens and mountain biking. I hope they have helmets. We really are not sure if they are available; it should make for an interesting trip!
Saturday's outing was not for the 1o year anniversary of AABN. It was a church outing merged with professional networking event, consisting of exercising in the heat and lots of Jesus.
Two of my most favorite things.
At least I was able to see my boss faceplant twice. I don't have any pictures of this unfortunately.
On Friday night I went to a sushi & steak restaurant in Accra called Monsoon. They have a wild game menu with springbok (antelope), crocodile, warthog, and ostrich. I went for the springbok, which was marinated in blueberries and pineapples for two days. It was very delicious.
This week we received a new timeline for the Ghana Innovaiton Marketplace. The deadline for submissions is now on November 30th, followed by two weeks of assessments. The capacity building and main event awards are now in 2010, which means that I will be missing some very interesting work.
I spent this week developing an advertising plan (we finally have a budget) featuring print ads, press releases, emails, SMS, inspirational church & mosque speeches, and conferences targeting professional organizations.
Outside of work, this week was pretty quiet. Last night we went to the Alliance Franciase, which is a French cultural institute. This week the Alliance Francaise hosted a Jazz & World Music festival. Apparently I missed some amazing beatboxing on Wednesday :(. I did get to see a live collaboration between a French jazz trio and a Ghanaian afrobeat quartet.
I am going to Aburi for the weekend for botanical gardens and mountain biking. I hope they have helmets. We really are not sure if they are available; it should make for an interesting trip!
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