Tro-tros and Clean Clothes

Another update from Ghana, via an email Cori wrote last week to her family:

I keep trying to email news on a regular basis, but without internet service at our house, it's tough to make it happen. We do have access to internet at the school, but it's very slow. Last night, one of the teachers was "Skyping" with a friend and that took all the bandwidth, so the rest of us sat there staring at the loading symbol rotating on the screen and eventually gave up. Their internet service is a satellite feed from another country and stops promptly at 7 pm, so when I was still trying to load Yahoo mail at 6:56 pm, I knew it was hopeless.

This week started out very hot - our hottest day was Tuesday and we topped out at 95 with a heat index of 111. It was ridiculous! Even the Ghanains were saying it was oppressive. And then we got a huge break on Wednesday. All day it was overcast, which was a wonderful feeling - no burning sun. And then it got windy in the afternoon and early evening, it started to smell like rain. Lightning and thunder was constant just before it poured. Mike and I were so excited, we opened up all the windows and stood by the door and watched it rain. It actually felt cool in the house, got down to 76, and we decided to go to bed early, just to be able to lay there in relative coolness. We even had to use our sheet!.

Thursday morning the sun came back but it was a little cooler, back in the 80's. Thursday was also the day we went to the American Embassy for the first time for an orientation with the Cultural Affairs Specialist, Sarpei. If orientation means a learning experience, then we were definitely "oriented". First, we walked all over trying the find the main entrance. Once we located it we were stopped and required to relinquish all our electronics, including cell phones, laptop, all plugs and wires, my Ipod, camera, etc. We received visitor tags to wear around our necks, and walked through an airport-style scanner to enter the compound. Sarpei walked us into the building and up to his office. Here are my first impressions: lots of white people, lots of suits, lots of people with their hair done, conversational English, cubicles, Christmas decorations, air conditioning, the smell of good food, clean floors. During our visit, we chatted a bit with Sarpei, Mike got his official US Embassy badge so that he can enter the Embassy unescorted (but I have to be escorted, either by Mike or another official or security), we were able to withdraw Ghanaian money by writing a check to an approved Embassy bank - this is our only source of funds, and we were on our last few Cedis, literally, so it was a huge relief to refresh our cash supply.

We decided to eat at the cafeteria on the main floor, so we went through a short line, and there was a cooler of sodas, fruit drinks and Snickers bars and M&M's! Mike and I both grabbed the chocolate - I'm telling you, Snickers really does satisfy :) They were also serving jollof rice (a spicy, seasoned rice), chicken and salad (lettuce, tomato and onion). Mike got everything and I got everything minus the chicken. Then we sat with Sarpei to eat, and who should join us just after we sat down? The Deputy Director of Mission, the second in command at the embassy!! Julie was very friendly and we had a good time talking with her - she'd only been in Ghana for about 3 months and shared all sorts of stories about her service in other countries (from the Philippines to Haiti to Russia). She and her husband have raised 2 kids during all these travels, and they're both in the US attending college now. We met another lady in the cultural affairs office who had a similarly impressive travel history, and though I admired both of them, I do have to say that it must be different to travel around the world when you stay in an air-conditioned house, have a car and driver at your disposal and access to American food and the Embassy environment on a daily basis. God bless America, right?!

Once we left the Embassy, Mike and I headed to the Western-oriented Koala grocery store to pick up some things we couldn't find at the Evergreen store in Tema, and we decided to try the tro-tros (I highly recommend checking out the tro-tros link!) for the first time. These are the little 60's minivans carrying at least a dozen tightly packed people that careen around the city, and cost only a few pesewas per ride. During the first ride, I sat between three students who continued to read and do their homework while we sweated our hot, dusty way to the next tro-tro station. And then, because I was in the back, when I needed to get off, anyone seated in the side aisle way also has to get off temporarily, so I made myself as small as possible and slide along the side of the van to the door. And just like we we warned, I ripped a small tear in the leg of my capris on the jagged edge of some part of the van. At Koala, we had our pick of several European/American items, but at a price. Honey Nut Cheerios cost 15 cedis, or about $10.50. We skipped it. On the other hand, we bought butter bread, which is like our enriched white bread for about 3 cedis, or $2.10. And then we purchased some chocolate cookies for almost 9 cedis (about $6.70) because sometimes you just need chocolate cookies.

Our next tro-tro was a disaster! We sat in traffic for what seemed like hours, Michael and me squished in the front passenger's seat (which is still the size of a regular passenger's seat) heading for Lister Hospital. Lister is the Embassy's recommendation of a hospital for any medical treatment, including delivery. After a long, long climb up a hill, where the driver turned the engine off every time we stopped because we would be stopped for so long, we finally reached our stop: Flowerpot. So named because there are many, many handcrafted flowerpots for sale along the side of the road there. At that point we searched for the hospital and after a bit we found a sign pointing down a dusty road. So, we started walking. And walking. And walking. We soon discovered that the road to Lister was a lot longer than we expected. We probably walked about 1.5 to 2 miles before reaching the hospital's front security gate. And we were still carrying our groceries from Koala and Mike was toting the heavy computer backback the whole time.

Lister was very nice - clean and modern. We were able to sit down with one of the financial advisers and ask about the services and prices. A standard delivery including a 3-day stay in the maternity ward would cost us a little over $1000!!!!. Now we would have to pay the entire amount up front - no one here takes American insurance, but that amount just blew us away. When was the last time a complete delivery experience cost $1000 at the best private medical facility in the country?! Even with a C-section and a 6-day stay, we would be looking at about $3200. After visiting Lister, we coughed up the 20 cedis to take a taxi home, completely exhausted. Accra is dusty, dirty, loud, polluted and combined with the heat and our hunger by that point, we just wanted to collapse on the couch in our little house.

Today, all the laundry finally got done :) We have three students, Abigail, Sarah and Petra, who come each day to clean our house. It's part of their school duties. If they didn't clean our house, they'd be sweeping classrooms or scrubbing bathrooms or other campus maintenance tasks. So I handed them a big pile of stinky clothes and asked them to show me the best way to wash things by hand. Petra said, "You really want to learn? We will do it. It's our duty." But I insisted, and so she showed me how to do it, but the girls still did all the work. It's weird to have students working in your house for free, and I still feel like I owe them for their work, but I was so grateful for the help with the laundry. They just got right to work in the shower, dumping clothes in buckets, scrubbing everything with our Irish Spring bar soap, rinsing it out and hanging it on the clothes lines we installed in the house. As I worked elsewhere in the house, I could hear them singing hymns and Christmas songs, laughing, and talking. I checked on them a few times, told them to help themselves to the water sachets in the fridge, and helped them with the clothesline, which fell at one point under the weight of all the wet clothes. The rest of the time, I worked on hanging the curtains and sweeping, to make myself feel like I wasn't being too lazy while they did my laundry.