Africa notes: Part tres

Ghana Logs – Day Seven.

The past days have been exhausting! Start early in the morning and then day-long conference workshops. Monday’s workshop was being facilitated by my organization – so we had to be extra sharp in the morning. Of course, there’s always last-minute things like needing extra copies of handouts and the friendly photocopy person taking her own sweet time in pushing a few buttons. I wanted to go up to her and say, ‘Oye..Mami..please let me do this’ (insert african accent) :)

Oh, I should tell y’all about the ‘Opening Ceremony’! So – in Africa – things don’t start, unless there’s a 5 hour opening ceremony (usually scheduled for 1-2 hours, but then runs overtime for reasons described below). There’s usually a stage with a podium. (Pics on picasa). Seated at this stage are the ‘distinguished’ guests. It usually starts with a prayer or the national anthem. Then we go into introductions. This opening ceremony started in the morning and ended at 1pm! The first hour was introductions! I mean – the first person introduced the next who introduced the next and so on – till we go to the most senior person – the ‘Chairperson of the meeting’.

THEN came the speeches. OMG! The longest things ever! I mean – this one guy was allotted 15 minutes – he talked for an hour! (What did I tell you about Africans and verbosity?) I kept having an internal giggle-loop about things and wish I could telepathically have a conversation with someone about the speeches. Hehe!) Anyways – my butt was so numb at the end of this all! The highlight of all this was a traditional African dance at the end! It was amazing, guys! So full of energy and life! We were all moving/tapping our feet etc at the end of it all. (Kait – now I know why you love west African drumming so much! I was thinking of you the whole time – I’ll send you a video clip I took for you)

Oh, I should mention food. Dude – the food here is amazing! Dishes (like most cuisines around the world) are comprised of a starch and protein. They have this spicy curry looking thing – and they serve it with rice. Then they have this watery soupy (again spicy) one that they serve with corn-meal mash – called fufu. Then there’s banku and kenkey – which are variants of fufu. Oh, and fried plantains! YUM-MY! I’m going to gain so much weight! Ha! The food here tastes so fresh and tasty. Like yday I had pineapple – the best pineapple I’ve had! I love sampling food from everywhere – and this trip is definitely hitting my foodie spots. :)

Other than that – nothing much to report – the rest of conference has been good. We’ve had several power outages both during the day and the speakers make the best of the situation. At night, it’s a different story. Taking a shower in the dark with a candle brings back memories. :)

Interviews are going well. I am using every available ‘free’ minute to grab people outside of meeting rooms to hold this qualitative survey on family planning. It’s exhausting. But rewarding when I think of the impact that this information will have in helping to bring family planning commodities to African countries. I’m looking forward to the weekend – the conference ends on Thurs, and I’ll have Sat/Sun to do some sightseeing. No idea what I’m going to do – and where I’m going to go. BUT I can’t come all this way and not see/do something, so watch for my next update on the weekend adventures! :)

Thanks so much to those who’ve been writing – I love hearing back from you! I have pretty reliable email access and have communicated with a lot of you - even been able to video-skype with some!

Much love and hugs from this end of the world! :)