Accra

We had some more visitors last Monday night.



Heinz Reinstorf from George in the Cape who is a nursery designer came to have a look at how this nursery is going and he brought along ....

Magnus Phersson who is from Sweden.








We are mutton stew and an adapted "Lazy Housewife's" tart with custard that was a huge success.

Benji joined us again.

As did Arno.

Porks was here too (big smile).


Gundi loves my hat and she was crawling over the table when she found it and fell asleep.

There was a festival here on Tuesday and Wednesday where the chief gets carried around on a chair and they celebrate "Mother Earth", shooting rounds from shotguns off into the air!  There were no workers so we took that opportunity to travel to Accra (400kms) on Tuesday morning.  We left at 7am and got there after 2pm.

Because we were sleeping away and I knew Gundi would miss us, I put my hat into her box hoping that that would comfort her. Theresa came in three times during the day to feed her and give her water and milk.

There is a Woolworths near the Mall and we just popped in to have a look.  It is a smallish one with a very small food section.  No fresh fruit and vegetables, just a few Woolies items but we didn't buy anything.



Just behind the Woolworths building is the Accra Polo Club.  The only green vegetation in Accra is the grass on these fields.  They seem to be beautifully kept and we saw a few horses being ridden but took the photograph as we were driving past.

We spend the rest of the afternoon shopping at the Accra Mall that has a Shoprite, a Game, Mr Price, Truworths and Identity besides other shops.  One can buy most things under one roof which is such a pleasure compared to Kumasi. All very expensive though...a tin of tuna in water cost R25.

We found stale marshmallow mice - just as we like them, Sandra and Andre`!

And my darling son's favourite sweets!




We checked in at the Airside Hotel (where we slept those three nights while we were eating for our luggage to arrive) and then went to the Holiday Inn for supper.  The food at the Airside is dodgy and the Holiday Inn is too expensive to sleep, so we had the best of both worlds.

We sat at a table next to the pool and a gentle breeze was blowing, just cool enough to remind us of sitting at the Durban beachfront on a Summer's evening.  We could have been in South Africa.  Really good welcoming service and delicious identifiable food.

Porks had a pizza.....

and I had my favourite...Fish.  Succulent, mouth-watering and moreish!

A bottle of Lutzville Merlot wine from South Africa set us back R250.

The packet in the background was holding the doggy bag.  Porks couldn't finish his pizza!!! (Eyes wide and eyebrows raised!)  

We went back to the Mall the next morning to buy the last of our groceries and fresh fruit and vegetables but had to wait until 9am as that is when the shops open.  Others open at 10am.

We spent a fortune at Shoprite buying most of the items that we have really been missing while we have been here, costing us at least double what it would have cost us at home. Everything has to be imported and then we still have to multiply by 5.

500g pack of fresh broccoli  37.49 Gc x 5 for SA Rand!  

One lettuce cost 18.99 Gc.

Needless to say we didn't buy these!

.John, our driver, drove home while some of us slept and we arrived home late on Tuesday afternoon.

I am battling as all our linen and clothing smells of smoke.  All the vegetation has been burned or is being burned and there is a constant smell of smoke in the air.  I have decided to dry the pillow cases and my clothes in the bathroom as I don't feel clean if I smell of smoke.



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The contractors have been working very hard on the road past our house and to Kwame Danso and it is such a pleasure to travel at the moment.  It has probably cut down the travelling time to about 15 minutes!

I somehow lost my makeup bag on the trip to Accra but I have no idea where.

.  In it was all my special beautifying items like a Sh'zen emery board, good tweezers, nail clippers, good eye drops, lip ice etc.  One cannot buy anything of that quality here so I am really sad. (I have an emery board from the Airside Hotel that was with the bathroom samples but I am certain it is not doing my nails any good.) Our darling Kelly has been running around trying to replace some of these items as we have heard that Hans is coming up this week and perhaps he can bring some items for us! Hopefully Pork's fixed glasses also arrive. I'll let you know!

You won't believe this!

Either you overload your bike or you use two for the price of one!

Gundi is an inquisitive little thing and found my glass of water very interesting!  She is growing up and has progressed from a plastic lid to a glass!  Hee hee!

You won't believe this but its true!  During the day, Gundi often asks me to take her to my bed so that she can sleep.  I know this because she follows me and if I turn to the kitchen instead of the bedroom, she turns to the bedroom, stands still, looks at me and screeches!  Well, what does that mean to YOU?  If I take her and put her on the bed during the day she is quite happy to sleep there and then calls me again when she has had her nap.

We had visitors again the other night and she started getting agitated at about 8pm as she was exhausted and wanted to go to sleep!   So I took her and put her on the bed and she waited a minute and then screeched for me to fetch her, so I did.  We eventually said goodbye to the visitors and I took her to the bedroom and put her on the bed.  Normally she would curl up and go to sleep next to my pillow.  Well, I still had to brush my teeth and get into my jarmies and fiddle around in the bathroom and she screeched and screeched! So I went to her and pretended to get into bed. When she was quiet I got up again to continue my ablutions but she realised that I had left her and started crying again while staring at the bathroom door.  When I did get into bed, she immediately wriggled to the bottom of the bed, curled up and went to sleep.  She is JUST like a child and didn't want to go to bed on her own! How's that for a spoiled little Gundi?  I catch myself smiling so much at the antics of this little creature!

Just when I thought we were being forgotten here, we received a lovely pineapple from Chesty, the white guinea-fowl wing cutter, and a paw paw from Tony's 81 yr old mother.  (He doesn't know exactly how old she is because she didn't keep a record of when she was born, but he guesses that she is that old.)

The next day Chesty (actually Emmanuel) arrived with a yam.  "This is not for my father" he said to me while pointing at Porky, "this is for YOU!"

My dear South African friend Haylee, who now resides in Washington DC sent me a recipe "koisan doya" which is grated deep fried yam.  I made starters for the visitors and they were a hit!  Porks loves them, but anything deep fried he finds delicious!
How's that?  An American sending a Ghanaian, a Ghanaian recipe!



Benji went to Kumasi the other day and brought us a few things back, potatoes being one of them  We miss potatoes so much so it was such a treat until we cut them open!

I managed to selvage the outside of a few of them and made a potato bake for supper for the visitors instead of the roast potatoes we had planned on having!

The guy Jose` Paulo who bought me the wine and Arno came for supper last Friday night.










Benji was also here.

So was a very young looking Porkles!  Can you believe he turns 60 years old this year? (Me sticking my finger down my throat!!)

Gundi doesn't get very many opportunities to go scratching in the grass and bushes, so we try and take her as often as we can.  When we hide from her and she realises we are gone, she screeches for us.........com'on, its our only entertainment here!

It has got drier and drier here and the doors have all shrunk, so cannot close most of them in the house anymore.  Now that the "harmattan" winds have started, everything bangs and wobbles and the dust is pouring in through every little space.....and there are many of them!

One cannot really see this properly but this door to the  room (above) and the one to the verandah (below) are locked but the hinges do not reach the connecting panel, so we have had to jam mats in between, to stop the doors from banging!

I had to get up in the middle of the night to secure these metal gates as they were banging.  There are no latches to hold them in place, so I found a grass broom and stuck it through both handles.  We have since bought a lock so that it doesn't happen again.  

Two South African (I think) men are here in Bantama for a few days so we have invited them for supper tonight!  So, although you must be very bored by this information, we are thrilled and I'll have some more news to tell you in my next blog! Big smile!

Catch-22

We have a Catch-22 situation here.  Porks really doesn't want to talk about his work when he gets home. He is more interested in my day. (Well, he probably doesn't want to talk at all, I suppose!) I want to discuss his day as that is the only change in my routine.  So its difficult as I am starved for conversation and he just wants to chill! (Literally and figuratively)  Sigh!  What to do?  So much of problems an'all!

My vegetables are growing but some of them haven't taken, so I'll have to try again.  What has grown is...........







rocket

                                                             

                                                                 beetroot

carrots

                                                     
                                                            swiss chard

cabbage







......and I had my first rocket leaves on my home-made cottage cheese (and bovril from Kelly).

One of the local farmers has given us permission to help ourselves to his tomatoes as he has abandoned the rest of the crop.  He sent a truck load to Kumasi and didn't get paid, so I think he has given up on them.  We picked some lovely  ones, tiny but firm.




How cute is this little thing?  The men the other night had a discussion about Gundi and they decided she is a BOY!  I still call her "my little girl" as its not important what sex he/she is!  He/she is here and that's all that counts.




Her pupils dilate horizontally not vertically like a cat, quite strange.






We went to  Kwame Danso on Sunday afternoon to pay for tyres that had been fixed and Gundi was exhausted so climbed into Porks' shirt while he was driving and fell asleep!

We went at the same time as Ghana was playing DRC and as we went past the tyre place, we heard shouting and realised Ghana had scored their first goal in the Africa Cup of Nations.  Unfortunately for Ghana the score ended up being 2 all.
Here are the locals watching the game on an outside TV just after the goal.  People are the same all over the world when they support their sporting teams!  The roar from the crowd made us smile and we felt part of the excitement.

This is the receipt from the tyre repair shop.  The unusual shop names in Ghana are fascinating to me. Where on earth would this have come from?






On the way home we saw this junior high school bus!  Hmmm, we didn't have preparation like this where I come from!  I wonder how they check if they've passed?

Then we came home and switched on the TV.  There was a discussion on the new animated movie called "Zambezia" and one of the directors had this T-shirt on!
(You'll have to watch this one, Pips, I think its about Zim!)

Well, (smile) he couldn't have been talking to me because here are the latest audience results:

Pageviews by Countries

Entry	Pageviews
South Africa	1637
Australia	611
United States	326
United Kingdom	166
Ghana	118
Zimbabwe	105
New Zealand	103
Botswana	85
Netherlands	29
Germany	24

You DO know that this is all tongue in cheek, hey?