You may have heard in the news that President Bush had an official three-day visit to Ghana. Let me tell you about this three-day visit.
His entourage of three planes arrived on Tuesday night at 7 PM. All roads leading to the airport were closed as of 3PM. I am not sure how to describe the havoc that this wrecked on traffic. Traffic is a problem here anyway, closing the airport bypass road? well, that's just insanity.
Tuesday afternoon, Chloe came home with a note from school saying that "in the interest of the children", the school would be closed on Wednesday due to the President's visit. The stated concern was that the change in environment (i.e. lots of military presence with huge guns...that never did materialize) would greatly impact these fragile children. What we, the mommies, believe is that the school didn't want to have to battle the crazy traffic to get in to school. We don't blame them. We wouldn't want to have to do that either. But just come out and say so. Traffic we can understand, fictitious military, we can't.
Wednesday, almost all schools in the Cantonments area are closed...who knows about the others. Even, GIS (Ghana International School)--the very school Bush was supposed to go visit because of some NGO that is located there...hmmm. Traffic all over the city is blocked to make way for the President. But the President's motorcade didn't pass by most of these blocked roads? Were they blocked due to logistical incompetence? Or were they blocked as a decoy? I guess it doesn't really matter, because it will never happen again. On Wednesday night, at the Banquet Hall, it was announced that the new motorway in Ghana would be called the George Bush Motorway!! And to show his gratitude for such a gesture, good ol' George promised that the next time he came the roads would not be blocked! What a guy!
Thursday morning, Bush and his entourage depart for Liberia. It's already chaos there, they'll never know the difference!
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Fresh Milk!!! and Rabbits
In the States, we don’t drink shelf-stable milk. It’s just un-American! I remember studying in France one summer while I was still at college and being horrified by the boxes of Parmalat milk (and a dozen eggs!!!) left on the kitchen counter of my host family’s home. The bacteria!! Why aren't these things in the fridge for goodness sake, I recall thinking (ok, my thoughts weren't quite so polite, but you get it) The concept of UHT milk just wasn’t one that had yet been embraced by the American public--as far as I know, still hasn't been. Fast-forward 20 years and here I am, once again surrounded by boxes of shelf-stable milk!
I see cows everywhere, or so it seems. So, where's all the milk? Well, it's taken me a year, but I have finally found a source (thank you, ANNIE!!!). Right here, in the heart of Accra, you can visit Nicholas Anang Chaeway, named National Best Urban Farmer in 2006 and get your freshly expressed milk for just 70 pesewas per litre (that's roughly 70 cents per pint). It sure beats 2 bucks a box, I'll tell you that! And, you can actually make yogurt with this milk -- and according to Annie, a whole host of other things, like BUTTER, but I have yet to venture that deeply into dairy processing. But yogurt...this is a big deal to me.
Containers labeled "yogurt" here, are not necessarily real yogurt with live culture...so, we bought a yogurt machine and some yogurt starter from Williams-Sonoma and thought we were set. But, we soon realized that the really good deal we were getting on that UHT milk from the Dip shop wasn't such a good deal at all as it simply would not turn into yogurt no matter how much we tried! But this
milk we are getting, fresh from the cow, well, that makes divine yogurt!
Annie also mentioned that this farmer had loads of rabbits, a grasscutter (not sure how to put this into perspective for those of you unfamiliar with this animal...to me, it looked like the cross between a racoon and cheetah -- most often seen totally skinned, flattened like a pizza pie and skewered, and sold roasted on the side of the road!! anyway, I digress!), guinea pigs and dogs, and that her two kids LOVED going there. She gave me typical Ghanaian directions that do not rely on street names and said to call her if I couldn't find it. One day, I had 45 minutes to kill before picking up Chloe from school, so Ben and I set off on the adventure of finding this place, and we succeeded. So, right there in the equivalent of what would be that un-named neighborhood out by the Javitz Center in NYC, is Ghana's National Best Urban Farmer!!
When Ben, our driver, takes us on these little adventures, I'm not quite sure what he thinks. Is it horror? Entertainment? Disbelief? Who knows, but in this particular case, he actually got down from the car and spent quite a lot of time
laughing. I'm guessing he was amused. We got a tour and the info we needed about milk collection, decided Chloe should have some rabbits of her own, and promised to be back in a couple of days to buy milk. As promised, Ben showed up with a container and got the 3 litres of milk I ssent him to buy. He was a bit horrified that the milk he got was HOT!! He had assumed we'd be getting milk out of the freezer that we had seen the day of our tour. He didn't understand that it was the unsold milk that went into the freezer waiting for some Dr. to pick it up to make yogurt with!
We've been buying milk for about 4 weeks now, and with Chloe's mid-term break this past week, we decided to take her and her friend, Carmen, for a visit. They had such a great time that the only way to get them to agree to leave was to promise them that they could return the next day! They are both pros at feeding the rabbits, and simultaneously mesmerized and terrified of the cows!
I couldn't get a good shot of it, but Nicholas has a real, live, Heiffer Int'l cow! So, if you ever wonder how your donations to Heiffer Int'l work, I can tell you that in this case, the farmer received his Heiffer Int'l cow and he has to give away any of this cows calves to other farmers. I'm not sure for how long he must do this, but at least for a couple of years. I asked him if he'd rather keep the calf and give away the cow and he said NO WAY!! It would be three years before he could breed and then milk a calf!
We've called a carpenter, taken him to the farm so he could look at the rabbit cages and we are awaiting his estimate on what it would cost to make a cage. As soon as we've got the cage, Chloe will have her very first pet! This is sure to be an adventure for us all.
I see cows everywhere, or so it seems. So, where's all the milk? Well, it's taken me a year, but I have finally found a source (thank you, ANNIE!!!). Right here, in the heart of Accra, you can visit Nicholas Anang Chaeway, named National Best Urban Farmer in 2006 and get your freshly expressed milk for just 70 pesewas per litre (that's roughly 70 cents per pint). It sure beats 2 bucks a box, I'll tell you that! And, you can actually make yogurt with this milk -- and according to Annie, a whole host of other things, like BUTTER, but I have yet to venture that deeply into dairy processing. But yogurt...this is a big deal to me.Containers labeled "yogurt" here, are not necessarily real yogurt with live culture...so, we bought a yogurt machine and some yogurt starter from Williams-Sonoma and thought we were set. But, we soon realized that the really good deal we were getting on that UHT milk from the Dip shop wasn't such a good deal at all as it simply would not turn into yogurt no matter how much we tried! But this
milk we are getting, fresh from the cow, well, that makes divine yogurt!Annie also mentioned that this farmer had loads of rabbits, a grasscutter (not sure how to put this into perspective for those of you unfamiliar with this animal...to me, it looked like the cross between a racoon and cheetah -- most often seen totally skinned, flattened like a pizza pie and skewered, and sold roasted on the side of the road!! anyway, I digress!), guinea pigs and dogs, and that her two kids LOVED going there. She gave me typical Ghanaian directions that do not rely on street names and said to call her if I couldn't find it. One day, I had 45 minutes to kill before picking up Chloe from school, so Ben and I set off on the adventure of finding this place, and we succeeded. So, right there in the equivalent of what would be that un-named neighborhood out by the Javitz Center in NYC, is Ghana's National Best Urban Farmer!!
When Ben, our driver, takes us on these little adventures, I'm not quite sure what he thinks. Is it horror? Entertainment? Disbelief? Who knows, but in this particular case, he actually got down from the car and spent quite a lot of time
laughing. I'm guessing he was amused. We got a tour and the info we needed about milk collection, decided Chloe should have some rabbits of her own, and promised to be back in a couple of days to buy milk. As promised, Ben showed up with a container and got the 3 litres of milk I ssent him to buy. He was a bit horrified that the milk he got was HOT!! He had assumed we'd be getting milk out of the freezer that we had seen the day of our tour. He didn't understand that it was the unsold milk that went into the freezer waiting for some Dr. to pick it up to make yogurt with!We've been buying milk for about 4 weeks now, and with Chloe's mid-term break this past week, we decided to take her and her friend, Carmen, for a visit. They had such a great time that the only way to get them to agree to leave was to promise them that they could return the next day! They are both pros at feeding the rabbits, and simultaneously mesmerized and terrified of the cows!
I couldn't get a good shot of it, but Nicholas has a real, live, Heiffer Int'l cow! So, if you ever wonder how your donations to Heiffer Int'l work, I can tell you that in this case, the farmer received his Heiffer Int'l cow and he has to give away any of this cows calves to other farmers. I'm not sure for how long he must do this, but at least for a couple of years. I asked him if he'd rather keep the calf and give away the cow and he said NO WAY!! It would be three years before he could breed and then milk a calf!
We've called a carpenter, taken him to the farm so he could look at the rabbit cages and we are awaiting his estimate on what it would cost to make a cage. As soon as we've got the cage, Chloe will have her very first pet! This is sure to be an adventure for us all.
White Sands
n
This is how Chloe and some of her chums spent
their mid-term break. Imagine, a 2 1/2 year old with a mid-term break! Anyway...
It seems that not so long ago, White Sands was a place I'd heard about once or twice-- primarily from the Black Stars' coaches wife, so I knew it was a great place (she has impeccable taste) -- but I just didn't give the place much thought. And then, all of a sudden, in the last several weeks there has been a huge buzz about the place.
As luck would hav it, the exclusive White Sands had become not quite so exclusive. No longer must you ante up a $2000 annual fee, you could simply gather up 4 additional families and split the cost of that membership -- aka the "corporate" membership. What does $400 a year get you? Well, I just had to find out for myself. And lucky me, membership isn't required during the week!
So, on Monday, Fuen, Lorena, Jackie and I, along with our kids and 2 drivers piled into three cars and took the hour and fifteen minute journey out of Accra. It's past Kokobrite, just over by Till's. I knew this place was different just because the road was fully paved THE WHOLE WAY! (For those of us who risk our lives every weekend just trying to access our beach plots at Kokobrite, this is a big deal.) There are sign posts along the way directing you to your destination, but once there, there's not a single sign on the walls or the gates indicating that you have arrived! Oversight? Strategy? Sign not yet finished? Who knows!
Upon entering the gates, we were approached by a good-looking young Ghanaian man dressed in semi-traditional clothing. "Good morning, Madam," he says. "Akwaaba." (That's "welcome" for those of you not schooled in Twi.) "I know YOU are a member, but I see some in your party who are not. You ARE aware of our guest fee of 25 Ghana Cedis per adult, aren't you?" Damn it! We thought that given it was a slow weekday, we'd be able to evade this ridiculous fee. It's essentially only US $25, but when you think that it would be a week's salary for the average Ghanaian, you've got to wonder...And, no, I am NOT a member, but who am I to argue with authority?
To make a long story short, it's the first place in Ghana that I have been to that I can honestly say is up to international standards. Even so, the cost of the rooms is exhorbitant. The standard rooms are suites, about the square footage of a reasonably-sized, relatively affordable one-bedroom Manhattan apartment, but the bathrooms are much nicer than you'd find in such an apartment. Rumored cost/night? $1.000+. Member cost? $200. $200 is probably more reflective of the right price, even still, when you think you are in Africa and you know how cheap the labor is, you still have to wonder...Nevertheless, the grounds were really well-kept -- unusual for this part of the world. The pool was lovely. An eternity style pool that was landscaped in such a way that made you feel like you were sitting on the grass just above the sandy beach (those pics are of the pool). A very spacious, equally well-designed baby pool. Incredibly comfortable lounge chairs with extra-large Santa Barbara umbrellas. Courteous staff to help you with towels, umbrellas and the like.
About an hour into our visit, they came by with "complementary" drinks -- freshly pressed pineapple and ginger. It was divine. Cocktails, coffee, tea, soft drinks and gourmet sandwiches can be brought to you poolside. We were in heaven. We had the whole place to ourselves...until the owner of Captain Hooks and his friend arrived with two local ladies--I'm sure there's a story there somewher!!...and where should they decide to sit in this huge expanse of a place? As close to us as possible...and then they proceeded to grimace when the 5 children that were with us were making noise--as toddlers do.
We spent the whole day in the shade of the umbrellas, with the breeze of the ocean and soothing pool. The kids LOVED it and so did we. The only real drawback is the very odd co-ed changing facilities! Separate showers joined together with a communal "locker room". I suppose we should be thankful that there are showers at all, but strange.
The kids were exhausted and took their naps on the ride back to the city. We are all looking forward to our next visit.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Coconut Grove Beach Resort, Elmina
Shortly after my parents arrived in Accra, we (my mom, dad, Chloe, our driver, Ben, and I -- Brent was in Guinea at the time) left for a long weekend at the beach! It was my third time out to the Cape Coast area, so I was somewhat relieved to find that my parents didn't want to go see the Dutch and Portuguese Forts that are infamous for their role in the slave trade. The forts are interesting the first time around, but I'm not sure that they are something you really need to revisit.Without traffic, it's about a 3.5 hour drive to Elmina. Most of that time is spent just trying to get out of Accra...not dissimilar to trying to get out of Manhattan on a summer weekend! The journey is an easy enough route, but we decided to take Ben along with us so that he could take my
my dad out on birding trips in the wee hours of the morning. And, not only would Ben would make overtime, but he'd also get to truly pocket the "driver's allowance" we pay him for each night he's out on the road with us because he could stay at the apartment his sister was in as she was finishing up at the Cape Coast University.
We had stayed at Coconut Grove one time before when Brent's mom was in town. We had learned the hard way which rooms to request. Actually, when Brent's mom was in town, it was Easter Weekend and we were lucky to get any accommodations at all! This time, we had booked one of the family chalets right on the beach. These are two-bedroom little houses--that are actually much cuter from the outside than they are inside, but hey, how much time are you actually going to spend in the room anyway!? The family chalets are definitely the way to go if you have kids with you. The primary benefit? You have a little veranda overlooking the Gulf of Guinea with a 4-seater table -- which enables you to dine outside in the comfort of your own home! The waitress will bring you the menu, take your order and essentially give you room service at NO ADDITIONAL COST! Perhaps this doesn't seem like such a big deal. However, dining out with kids in Ghana has its challenges...the greatest being the wait time between placing your order and getting your meals. On average, you wait an hour -- no matter what it is that you have ordered! I don't know about anyone else's kids, but for Chloe, this is just simply too long!The waters off the shore of Ghana are very rough, so swimming is not generally adviseable. The undertow is super strong and swimming is the number one cause of death for tourists here. So, when you go to the beach in Ghana, you are usually looking at the beach, but sitting pool-side. Certainly there are exceptions, but in general, that's how it is. You can definitely wade into the crashing waves, and the water is shallow for a good long way out, but swimming, no! We have found that Chloe is fearless! She loves to get totally soaked by the white water and believes that she would have a much grander time if only we were to let go of her.
So, I'm no history scholar. And I'm sure I'll get lots of flack for what I am about to write, however, write it, I will. In the U.S. we don't really get the full story about the slave trade. At least not in the history classes I took. There had been a slave trade going on between African tribes long before the Europeans came into the picture. And, it wasn't the white man going into Africa, capturing Africans and enslaving them. No, no, no...that's not the story they tell you here. Most of the slaves were readily handed over to the Europeans, en route to the US and other destinations, in trade for all sorts of things. The slaves were essentially "prisoners of war"! The African tribes were simply trading their POWs for goods they believed to be more valuable. Trading POWs was a custom they had in place long before the southern plantation owners took on slaves!
I am not excusing the practice in any way, however, it just puts things into a different perspective.
Anyway, a good weekend was had by all. My mom had a rocky start with a 24-hour bug that was quite nasty, but she recovered well, and our seaside retreat was quite enjoyable.
Melrose Place, Pig Roast
South Africans are crazy! In a good way, but still crazy. A bit of advice we got when we first arrived here was "find the Italians...that's where the party is!" (The Spaniards say that's because they Italians lead you to the Spaniards! ) As you can all imagine, this is definitely true...however, if you can't find the Italians, find the South Africans-they party like the Irish.
Well, Melrose Place, Accra has become South African Central! First there were none, now there's a ton! And, as a result, we all benefitted from a pig brai!
South Africans are known for their brai (just a fancy name for the BBQ). They can't live without it. One of the first South African houses here in Melrose Place actually had a brick brai built in their back yard. I haven't actually gone over there to see it myself, but I imagine that there isn't much back yard left!
Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago, they organized a whole pig roast! It was an all-day affair that started at 11 AM. I wish I'd had my camera when they came in to the club house with a freshly skinned pig, full head and all! Chloe was intrigued. It was pink, like Wilbur. She didn't really know quite what to make of it. We'd visit the pig ocassionally as it was spinning 'round and 'round on the pig rotisserie...and she would say "guaguau!" -- which is essentially the Spanish equivalent of "bow wow!" No, honey, that would be Vietnam or Malaysia...not South Africa!
My contribution was brownies. Cook's Illlustrated Classic Brownies. I think I screwed up the butter. It's packaged very differently here and the conversion is a pain in the patootey. These brownies were so dense and rich that you honestly couldn't eat more than a 1" square. Brent claims the issue was under-cooking. But given that we have been cursed with the world's fastest cooking oven, with temp readings in C, no less, I doubt that it would have spared the brownies the same fate as every other item we put in there! They couldn't have been that bad...someone came knocking a week or so later asking for the recipe. Of course, with the recipe I had to provide measuring cups and spoons and a lesson in converting "grams" of butter into "cups" as Europeans just don't measure ingredients the way we do...
Good time was had by all. If you have a day to while away, I highly recommend getting yourself a whole pig and roasting it....
Friday, July 20, 2007
The Chloe Chronicles, Little Explorers
So, one of the things that Brent and I were looking forward to when we decided to leave Manhattan was escaping the hell that is pre-school, or rather selecting, applying to and getting accepted to pre-school. Never did we dream that there was such a beast here in Accra! Oh we are so naive!
Now let's all keep in mind that Chloe's still a month shy of her 2nd birthday, so it's all ridiculous from the beginning. Nevertheless, as you read earlier, we decided to put Chloe into Little Acorns. It was low key and diverse, and what it was lacking in cleanliness it made up for in caring teachers. To be honest, I think it was really a glorified babysitting service provided mainly for the convenience of parents whose older children were enrolled in the Tall Oaks International School. But that was fine with us as our whole intention was to get Chloe interacting with other children. We weren't exactly looking for academic progress!
Even before Chloe actually started at Little Acorns, I'd heard the whisperings of a "new" school that was opening called Little Explorers, and as it was opening just at the time that Chloe would be starting Little Acorns, I was getting questioned as to why I wasn't putting her in Little Explorers. Well, you know me...I just yeah-yeah-yeahed...and didn't think anything of it. We were happy enough with our decision, and all the other kids at Orchid Gardens were also at Little Acorns, so it was a really nice place for Chloe to be with other kids, yet still have the familiarity of the neighborhood faces.
Also in the whispers was some gossip/drama about another nursery/preschool called Gingerbread. To date, I'm not even 100% sure what it was all about. None of it seems to make sense. But apparently, some nasty embassy-related Americans who had their children in Gingerbread, and believe me, nasty embassy-related Americans are more common than you'd like to imagine, got their knickers in a twist because Gingerbread would not hire an American teacher that was moving to Accra. And it boiled down to "If you don't hire such and such teacher, we will put you out of business!" And, as if by magic, about 90% of the American families instantly pulled their kids out of the program. And where did they all go? Little Explorers.
There is speculation by some that Little Explorers exists only because of this mass-exodus from Gingerbread. I find this highly unlikely. However, both founders of Little Explorers were at one point or another affiliated with Gingerbread. Some say that they left to create Little Explorers, other say that they had already been gone from Gingerbread long before this huff huff happened. Who knows. Who cares, really. The truly shocking to me is the ridiculous behavior of our fellow countryfolks.
Americans affiliated with the embassy are often cited as behaving badly...threatening all sorts of things (i.e. "I work in the consular section and if you don't xyz neither you nor anyone in your family will ever get a visa to go the US!!"), and as a whole just being altogether unpleasant. But this part really takes the cake...It is common practice here for the private schools to hold you to three months' written notice of your departure, or you must pay for the following school term's fees. It's crazy I know, but that's just how it goes here. So, when the board of Gingerbread decided to fight back by pressing legal charges against this group of families for breach of contract, they simply laughed and threw out diplomatic immunity!
Now, I'm not really sure how it all ended. I heard something about the American Ambassador "having" to uphold diplomatic immunity, but God, how embarrassing for her to have to protect such blatant misbehavior! And most of these families...they were leaving the country/their post at the end of the school year anyway. So all the fuss was made for one school term, April 17 - June 25! No wonder the world hates us!
Luckily for us, I didn't really know most of all that at the time that I was looking into the school itself.
I had heard that Little Explorers was going to have a "summer camp" and I decided to check it out to see if maybe I should switch Chloe in the fall. I mentioned it to one of the Danish gals who lives here in Orchid Gardens, the one who had recommended Little Acorns in the first place because that's where her son was enrolled. And do you know what she told me? That she had just that week already switched her son form Little Acorns to Little Explorers! Huh??? She said that she had taken him there once to visit, and her plan had been to put him there for summer camp as well, but when they went back to Little Acorns he was very disappointed. She felt badly because she's the one who had originally recommended Little Acorns to everyone in Orchid Gardens, and now she was the one pulling out her kid. And it wasn't that she was unhappy with the school, but that her son cried every single day when he was dropped off, even after 8 months! So, she just decided to give the new place a try (it is better, but he still cries every day!). And then she told me that the summer school places were filling up so I'd better head over there.
The next morning, Fuen and I headed over. It was love at first sight. We got there at the beginning of the day, so they had us sit through "circle time" and then they talked to us about the school. Night and day from Little Acorns. It was just simply a different animal. Little Explorers is true Montessori. They do not have a full-blown school attached to them. They focus on early childhood and they do it very very well. The teachers, the assistants, the school yard, the activities and the manipulatives...everything was as close to what you'd expect at home as you could possibly get here. Immediately, Fuen decided to pull Carmen out of Little Acorns. Immediately, I decided that Chloe would go to summer camp there and to school the following fall. But pulling her out of Little Acorns? That wasn't so clear cut to me. Yes, of course I knew it was a better environment for her, but was I getting too wrapped up in the package? Part of me felt like pulling her out of Little Acorns was creating drama where there needn't be any. It sort of felt spoiled brattish--like upgrading your perfectly functioning Bug-a-boo Frog just because the new model Chameleon came out and you could mix and match the colors. (By the way, have any of you seen the Bug-a-boo Bee??) But on the other hand, if I was going to change her anyway, shouldn't I just do it then before she got too attached to the teachers there and got used to the routines, etc.?
The following week, Chloe went to Little Acorns -- but her two best school buddies weren't there. There were tears at drop off where there had never been any before. I weakened. Within two days, Chloe was enrolled in the last three weeks of the Spring term at Little Explorers. An expensive decision, sure! But neither Brent, nor I have regretted it. Little Explorers has been such a wonderful place for Chloe! Her language has developed so much since she's started there! And she brings home little art projects every day that now hang in her playroom.
There's a new building going up across the street from Orchid Gardens. We've been watching it go up quickly. We all assumed it was a house...but the signpost went up the other day...Twinkletots, opening soon...
Now let's all keep in mind that Chloe's still a month shy of her 2nd birthday, so it's all ridiculous from the beginning. Nevertheless, as you read earlier, we decided to put Chloe into Little Acorns. It was low key and diverse, and what it was lacking in cleanliness it made up for in caring teachers. To be honest, I think it was really a glorified babysitting service provided mainly for the convenience of parents whose older children were enrolled in the Tall Oaks International School. But that was fine with us as our whole intention was to get Chloe interacting with other children. We weren't exactly looking for academic progress!
Even before Chloe actually started at Little Acorns, I'd heard the whisperings of a "new" school that was opening called Little Explorers, and as it was opening just at the time that Chloe would be starting Little Acorns, I was getting questioned as to why I wasn't putting her in Little Explorers. Well, you know me...I just yeah-yeah-yeahed...and didn't think anything of it. We were happy enough with our decision, and all the other kids at Orchid Gardens were also at Little Acorns, so it was a really nice place for Chloe to be with other kids, yet still have the familiarity of the neighborhood faces.
Also in the whispers was some gossip/drama about another nursery/preschool called Gingerbread. To date, I'm not even 100% sure what it was all about. None of it seems to make sense. But apparently, some nasty embassy-related Americans who had their children in Gingerbread, and believe me, nasty embassy-related Americans are more common than you'd like to imagine, got their knickers in a twist because Gingerbread would not hire an American teacher that was moving to Accra. And it boiled down to "If you don't hire such and such teacher, we will put you out of business!" And, as if by magic, about 90% of the American families instantly pulled their kids out of the program. And where did they all go? Little Explorers.
There is speculation by some that Little Explorers exists only because of this mass-exodus from Gingerbread. I find this highly unlikely. However, both founders of Little Explorers were at one point or another affiliated with Gingerbread. Some say that they left to create Little Explorers, other say that they had already been gone from Gingerbread long before this huff huff happened. Who knows. Who cares, really. The truly shocking to me is the ridiculous behavior of our fellow countryfolks.
Americans affiliated with the embassy are often cited as behaving badly...threatening all sorts of things (i.e. "I work in the consular section and if you don't xyz neither you nor anyone in your family will ever get a visa to go the US!!"), and as a whole just being altogether unpleasant. But this part really takes the cake...It is common practice here for the private schools to hold you to three months' written notice of your departure, or you must pay for the following school term's fees. It's crazy I know, but that's just how it goes here. So, when the board of Gingerbread decided to fight back by pressing legal charges against this group of families for breach of contract, they simply laughed and threw out diplomatic immunity!
Now, I'm not really sure how it all ended. I heard something about the American Ambassador "having" to uphold diplomatic immunity, but God, how embarrassing for her to have to protect such blatant misbehavior! And most of these families...they were leaving the country/their post at the end of the school year anyway. So all the fuss was made for one school term, April 17 - June 25! No wonder the world hates us!
Luckily for us, I didn't really know most of all that at the time that I was looking into the school itself.
I had heard that Little Explorers was going to have a "summer camp" and I decided to check it out to see if maybe I should switch Chloe in the fall. I mentioned it to one of the Danish gals who lives here in Orchid Gardens, the one who had recommended Little Acorns in the first place because that's where her son was enrolled. And do you know what she told me? That she had just that week already switched her son form Little Acorns to Little Explorers! Huh??? She said that she had taken him there once to visit, and her plan had been to put him there for summer camp as well, but when they went back to Little Acorns he was very disappointed. She felt badly because she's the one who had originally recommended Little Acorns to everyone in Orchid Gardens, and now she was the one pulling out her kid. And it wasn't that she was unhappy with the school, but that her son cried every single day when he was dropped off, even after 8 months! So, she just decided to give the new place a try (it is better, but he still cries every day!). And then she told me that the summer school places were filling up so I'd better head over there.
The next morning, Fuen and I headed over. It was love at first sight. We got there at the beginning of the day, so they had us sit through "circle time" and then they talked to us about the school. Night and day from Little Acorns. It was just simply a different animal. Little Explorers is true Montessori. They do not have a full-blown school attached to them. They focus on early childhood and they do it very very well. The teachers, the assistants, the school yard, the activities and the manipulatives...everything was as close to what you'd expect at home as you could possibly get here. Immediately, Fuen decided to pull Carmen out of Little Acorns. Immediately, I decided that Chloe would go to summer camp there and to school the following fall. But pulling her out of Little Acorns? That wasn't so clear cut to me. Yes, of course I knew it was a better environment for her, but was I getting too wrapped up in the package? Part of me felt like pulling her out of Little Acorns was creating drama where there needn't be any. It sort of felt spoiled brattish--like upgrading your perfectly functioning Bug-a-boo Frog just because the new model Chameleon came out and you could mix and match the colors. (By the way, have any of you seen the Bug-a-boo Bee??) But on the other hand, if I was going to change her anyway, shouldn't I just do it then before she got too attached to the teachers there and got used to the routines, etc.?
The following week, Chloe went to Little Acorns -- but her two best school buddies weren't there. There were tears at drop off where there had never been any before. I weakened. Within two days, Chloe was enrolled in the last three weeks of the Spring term at Little Explorers. An expensive decision, sure! But neither Brent, nor I have regretted it. Little Explorers has been such a wonderful place for Chloe! Her language has developed so much since she's started there! And she brings home little art projects every day that now hang in her playroom.
There's a new building going up across the street from Orchid Gardens. We've been watching it go up quickly. We all assumed it was a house...but the signpost went up the other day...Twinkletots, opening soon...
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Nanny Diaries, Part IV
A departure from the Stella stories as the Nanny Diaries are really to give you a full picture of what it means to have staff in general. Because it's not all that it's cracked up to be. Do not get me wrong, we absolutely could not live here without them, they are a fabric of our lives, they are integral to our daily routines, but it's simply just not all fun and games and glamor.
Let me introduce to you a new character: Sammy. Sammy was introduced to me by an acquaintance who has since left Ghana. She'd lived here for three years, and Sammy was her gardener. As he was live-in staff, he also served as much much more to their family. In any event, once my friend's family would leave Accra, the Canadian High Commission was going to stop renting that particular house, so the staff that came with the house, had to find new digs and new employment! When you have good staff who is good to you, you want to take care of them by way of ensuring they have income, etc. etc. etc. So, my friend started putting out the word about Sammy.
Now, you can see by the pictures of Orchid Gardens that there's not much of a garden to take care of, but we have some flower beds and a small green grass plot behind the house. The Orchid Gardens staff gardeners are truly incompetent, and I wanted a major overhaul AND a vegetable and herb garden to boot! So, in comes Sammy. A knowledgeable, youngish guy who is incredibly charming and humble and hard-working. He does his work with such a level of enthusiasm that you know that he truly loves what he is doing or at least loves his life enough to be happy doing whatever it is that he is doing.
My plan was that Sammy would get the garden up and running, and I'd pay him a flat fee for that, and then I'd have him come around for weekly maintenance. Everything was going well, and then he didn't show up one day -- which seemed odd. And he didn't show up the next day. I was going to call him when Ben, our driver, spots Sammy's brother, Albert, who Sammy had been bringing by the house as his assistant. We stop the car and talk to Albert who tells us that Sammy's wife has been sick and that's why he hasn't been by, but that Sammy had been planning to go by the house that afternoon. By the time we got home, Sammy had come and gone and there was a large broken terra cotta pot and a big pile of dirt in our driveway. Very ODD. I then got a call from Sammy, apologizing for the pot, explained what happened and then told me that his wife was sick, they had taken her to the clinic and he'd see me the next day.
Saturday AM, Sammy comes, does a couple of hours of work and tells me that the clinic said his wife had malaria. I was skeptical...I mean, legend has it that if you live past 5 years of age here (and 20% do not), you have built up a resistance to malaria and you don't get it. When I said this to Sammy, he explained to me that while that may be true if you grow up in Accra, if you are from the villages, there are local plants that "scare" away the mosquitoes and the villgers don't tend to get malaria. That was news to me! I mean it's when you go to the "bush" that the malaria medication we have been prescribed is supposed to be the most mandatory. In any event, his wife had been medicated and all was well, or would be. He said he'd see me Monday.
Monday morning came and I left the house to go do a bunch of things. I gave Ben, the driver, money for him to take Sammy out to buy garden things, etc. But while I was out, I got a call from Sammy saying that he was going to the hospital with his wife because she needed to be admitted and he wouldn't be able to come by that day. No problem.
However, I began to wonder. Not seriously wonder, but wonder nonetheless, if in fact, Sammy was going to turn out to be like the staff people you hear about always calling in sick to the ex-pats because the ex-pats will actually give them the day off, etc. etc. etc. (No Ghanaian employer would ever give staff the day off because they were sick! And if so, it would certainly come out of their pitiful paycheck!) I found that difficult to believe because I know who he worked for and she would never have kept him if he hadn't been good. But you do hear crazy stories all the time and you wonder when it's going to happen to you...
Tuesday AM I called Sammy to check in on his wife. Someone other than Sammy answered the phone, which I thought was odd. They said that Sammy had "gone inside" and that they would bring Sammy the phone and he would call me back. Immediately I thought that something very bad was going on. The man on the other end of the phone asked who I was and I told him, and I simply said that I was calling to check in on how Sammy's wife was doing. Within 10 minutes, Sammy called me to tell me that his wife had died the previous afternoon! While I was shocked by the news, I was also not completely surprised because of the earlier phone incident. And, then, of course, I felt insanely guilty for ever having doubted him. I told him I would go by the hospital later that day. I'm not sure what possessed me to say this. I barely know the man. And once I said it, I wasn't entirely sure what I would do once I got there.
Later on that morning, I saw a lady who had been quite friendly with Sammy's previous employer. When I told her the news, she said, "Wasn't Sammy's wife pregnant?" I had no idea, Sammy had never mentioned it!?? And then she had told me a story about how Sammy's wife had somehow been administered 10x the dose she should have gotten of quinine and as a result had gone temporarily blind. Quninine is one of the earliest anti-malarials. It is actually used in tonic water for the flavor and the British Colonialists in India paired it with gin to ward off the malaria...(so, if you ever need an excuse to have another G&T...). However, quinine in high doses can cause blindness...and in pregnant women can induce a miscarriage. Now, if you are pregnant and you have malaria that is resistant to other forms of treatment, you would give quinine to treat the malaria because the risk of the malaria harming the baby is greater than that of the quinine, but...not at 10x the dose!
That afternoon, Ben took me to the hospital to find Sammy. Public hospitals here are not anything like hospitals at home. Yes, there are buildings, but there's a lot of smallish buildings with the waiting rooms outside in the open air, and covered porches where people see nurses etc. There's always a ton of people milling around because you don't get appointments...it's first come first serve. So I go over to the mortuary, where the signpost on the door outlines the fee schedule which includes, bathing, embalming, storage (first three days are free if the person died at the hospital, not free if they came from outside), handling, and get this...an "inconvenience" fee! I'm looking at the numbers and while for us it would seem like nothing, for someone like Sammy who is making about $1/hour the numbers are astronomical...and since you can't collect the body until your hospital bill is paid in full, your "storage" fees can easily add up! All I can think at that point is: Thank God I slipped a $100 bill in my back pocket! Eventually I find Sammy...and about 20 family members.
Sammy is telling me that the Drs are insisting that a "post-mortem" be done so that they can identify the cause of death. Sammy doesn't want the autopsy because he can't afford it and he's not going to press legal charges, so it's useless. He's not pressing charges because he can't afford to. He can't afford to pay the lawyer's fees, he can't afford to miss all the days of work he would have to miss if he takes this to court, etc. etc. etc. At this point, he can't even afford the 3.5 million cedis ($375 or so) to transport the body to her family's village. I give him the $100, which seems so pitiful at this point, but he seems eternally grateful.
He walks me to my car and Ben greets him through the opened passenger side window. Sammy goes to open the door and I think he's going to get in the car to chat with Ben...but no...he's being gentlemanly and opening the door for me! We say good bye. And Ben and I sit there talking for a bit. I'm telling Ben everything. And Ben wants to know where the family's village is. So, we roll down the window and call Sammy over and then a whole conversation takes place in the local language. The family village is in Assin Faso, which is the region where Ben's family lives. Ben has a station-wagon-style taxi. I know Ben and I know what's going on.
He doesn't even have to ask. I give him the rest of the afternoon and next day off.
Can you imagine...offering to transport a dead body in your car for about 5 hours for a person you barely even know? Well, that's what had just happened. Of course, Ben can't afford the fuel for his car if he's not getting taxi fare, so I told Ben we'd pay his fuel costs...Why would Ben do this? I'm not totally sure. He's always incredibly helpful. He lost a baby after about a year, and basically sold all their family belongings in order to pay for her medical care. So, I think his heart really went out to Sammy.
So, that was Tuesday. I hope to see Ben tomorrow, Thursday. I didn't hear from him all day today. So, I'm not sure what happened...and don't think that it's straightforward! The body had not yet been released from the hospital. They were just awaiting the death certificate. However, bribes are ALWAYS involved and who knows how much of a bribe was being asked...
I am quite sure there will be a story...
Let me introduce to you a new character: Sammy. Sammy was introduced to me by an acquaintance who has since left Ghana. She'd lived here for three years, and Sammy was her gardener. As he was live-in staff, he also served as much much more to their family. In any event, once my friend's family would leave Accra, the Canadian High Commission was going to stop renting that particular house, so the staff that came with the house, had to find new digs and new employment! When you have good staff who is good to you, you want to take care of them by way of ensuring they have income, etc. etc. etc. So, my friend started putting out the word about Sammy.
Now, you can see by the pictures of Orchid Gardens that there's not much of a garden to take care of, but we have some flower beds and a small green grass plot behind the house. The Orchid Gardens staff gardeners are truly incompetent, and I wanted a major overhaul AND a vegetable and herb garden to boot! So, in comes Sammy. A knowledgeable, youngish guy who is incredibly charming and humble and hard-working. He does his work with such a level of enthusiasm that you know that he truly loves what he is doing or at least loves his life enough to be happy doing whatever it is that he is doing.
My plan was that Sammy would get the garden up and running, and I'd pay him a flat fee for that, and then I'd have him come around for weekly maintenance. Everything was going well, and then he didn't show up one day -- which seemed odd. And he didn't show up the next day. I was going to call him when Ben, our driver, spots Sammy's brother, Albert, who Sammy had been bringing by the house as his assistant. We stop the car and talk to Albert who tells us that Sammy's wife has been sick and that's why he hasn't been by, but that Sammy had been planning to go by the house that afternoon. By the time we got home, Sammy had come and gone and there was a large broken terra cotta pot and a big pile of dirt in our driveway. Very ODD. I then got a call from Sammy, apologizing for the pot, explained what happened and then told me that his wife was sick, they had taken her to the clinic and he'd see me the next day.
Saturday AM, Sammy comes, does a couple of hours of work and tells me that the clinic said his wife had malaria. I was skeptical...I mean, legend has it that if you live past 5 years of age here (and 20% do not), you have built up a resistance to malaria and you don't get it. When I said this to Sammy, he explained to me that while that may be true if you grow up in Accra, if you are from the villages, there are local plants that "scare" away the mosquitoes and the villgers don't tend to get malaria. That was news to me! I mean it's when you go to the "bush" that the malaria medication we have been prescribed is supposed to be the most mandatory. In any event, his wife had been medicated and all was well, or would be. He said he'd see me Monday.
Monday morning came and I left the house to go do a bunch of things. I gave Ben, the driver, money for him to take Sammy out to buy garden things, etc. But while I was out, I got a call from Sammy saying that he was going to the hospital with his wife because she needed to be admitted and he wouldn't be able to come by that day. No problem.
However, I began to wonder. Not seriously wonder, but wonder nonetheless, if in fact, Sammy was going to turn out to be like the staff people you hear about always calling in sick to the ex-pats because the ex-pats will actually give them the day off, etc. etc. etc. (No Ghanaian employer would ever give staff the day off because they were sick! And if so, it would certainly come out of their pitiful paycheck!) I found that difficult to believe because I know who he worked for and she would never have kept him if he hadn't been good. But you do hear crazy stories all the time and you wonder when it's going to happen to you...
Tuesday AM I called Sammy to check in on his wife. Someone other than Sammy answered the phone, which I thought was odd. They said that Sammy had "gone inside" and that they would bring Sammy the phone and he would call me back. Immediately I thought that something very bad was going on. The man on the other end of the phone asked who I was and I told him, and I simply said that I was calling to check in on how Sammy's wife was doing. Within 10 minutes, Sammy called me to tell me that his wife had died the previous afternoon! While I was shocked by the news, I was also not completely surprised because of the earlier phone incident. And, then, of course, I felt insanely guilty for ever having doubted him. I told him I would go by the hospital later that day. I'm not sure what possessed me to say this. I barely know the man. And once I said it, I wasn't entirely sure what I would do once I got there.
Later on that morning, I saw a lady who had been quite friendly with Sammy's previous employer. When I told her the news, she said, "Wasn't Sammy's wife pregnant?" I had no idea, Sammy had never mentioned it!?? And then she had told me a story about how Sammy's wife had somehow been administered 10x the dose she should have gotten of quinine and as a result had gone temporarily blind. Quninine is one of the earliest anti-malarials. It is actually used in tonic water for the flavor and the British Colonialists in India paired it with gin to ward off the malaria...(so, if you ever need an excuse to have another G&T...). However, quinine in high doses can cause blindness...and in pregnant women can induce a miscarriage. Now, if you are pregnant and you have malaria that is resistant to other forms of treatment, you would give quinine to treat the malaria because the risk of the malaria harming the baby is greater than that of the quinine, but...not at 10x the dose!
That afternoon, Ben took me to the hospital to find Sammy. Public hospitals here are not anything like hospitals at home. Yes, there are buildings, but there's a lot of smallish buildings with the waiting rooms outside in the open air, and covered porches where people see nurses etc. There's always a ton of people milling around because you don't get appointments...it's first come first serve. So I go over to the mortuary, where the signpost on the door outlines the fee schedule which includes, bathing, embalming, storage (first three days are free if the person died at the hospital, not free if they came from outside), handling, and get this...an "inconvenience" fee! I'm looking at the numbers and while for us it would seem like nothing, for someone like Sammy who is making about $1/hour the numbers are astronomical...and since you can't collect the body until your hospital bill is paid in full, your "storage" fees can easily add up! All I can think at that point is: Thank God I slipped a $100 bill in my back pocket! Eventually I find Sammy...and about 20 family members.
Sammy is telling me that the Drs are insisting that a "post-mortem" be done so that they can identify the cause of death. Sammy doesn't want the autopsy because he can't afford it and he's not going to press legal charges, so it's useless. He's not pressing charges because he can't afford to. He can't afford to pay the lawyer's fees, he can't afford to miss all the days of work he would have to miss if he takes this to court, etc. etc. etc. At this point, he can't even afford the 3.5 million cedis ($375 or so) to transport the body to her family's village. I give him the $100, which seems so pitiful at this point, but he seems eternally grateful.
He walks me to my car and Ben greets him through the opened passenger side window. Sammy goes to open the door and I think he's going to get in the car to chat with Ben...but no...he's being gentlemanly and opening the door for me! We say good bye. And Ben and I sit there talking for a bit. I'm telling Ben everything. And Ben wants to know where the family's village is. So, we roll down the window and call Sammy over and then a whole conversation takes place in the local language. The family village is in Assin Faso, which is the region where Ben's family lives. Ben has a station-wagon-style taxi. I know Ben and I know what's going on.
He doesn't even have to ask. I give him the rest of the afternoon and next day off.
Can you imagine...offering to transport a dead body in your car for about 5 hours for a person you barely even know? Well, that's what had just happened. Of course, Ben can't afford the fuel for his car if he's not getting taxi fare, so I told Ben we'd pay his fuel costs...Why would Ben do this? I'm not totally sure. He's always incredibly helpful. He lost a baby after about a year, and basically sold all their family belongings in order to pay for her medical care. So, I think his heart really went out to Sammy.
So, that was Tuesday. I hope to see Ben tomorrow, Thursday. I didn't hear from him all day today. So, I'm not sure what happened...and don't think that it's straightforward! The body had not yet been released from the hospital. They were just awaiting the death certificate. However, bribes are ALWAYS involved and who knows how much of a bribe was being asked...
I am quite sure there will be a story...
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