Bye Bye Brown Velour Lounge!

Sadly, the brown velour lounge had to go - it was so old you could feel the wood sticking into your back when you sat in it - not so good for lounging!

So we saw some lounges displayed along the roadside just outside the mine village - the man makes the lounges in his little workshop just behind that. So we got him to make us up a new lounge - this one is an eight-seater L-shaped one - in leather, and cost us 550 cedis (about $400)! It might not be the most modern style (I think I'd describe it as the mid-1990's look), and the leather is a mustard yellow colour, but that's all they seem to make here at the moment! And it is very comfortable - this afternoon both Warren and I stretched out on it and had a little afternoon nap!

Bloomin' Marvellous!

In the words of the great Peter Cundall (Gardening Australia guru - for those who don't know him!).... check out our new veggie garden! Although I can take no credit for its progress so far, because Joseph the gardener does all the hard work. He has built a fence (to keep the wandering goats and chickens out!), dug some manure into the garden beds, and planted some seedlings and seeds. The soil here is amazingly fertile - a dark reddish brown loamy clay - much nicer than our sandy soils at home in Perth!

So far we have got some local tomato seedlings - these seedlings have been in for two weeks - I've taken the photo next to a water bottle so you get an idea of the size! And we planted some squash, zucchini, beans and peas from seed. The seeds popped up within three days - and this little squash seedling is only one week old! He has also planted some capsicums, chillies, local eggplant (which they call garden eggs - they have white skin and grow to about the size of an egg), local corn which is whitish in colour, and okra which is another common local food. We also discovered a couple of paw paw trees which had self-seeded just at the back of the patch - they will produce fruit within six months. He is also going to plant some pineapples - you cut the spiky top off a pineapple and stick it in the ground, and it grows a new one. I'll have to put a photo of a pineapple growing, because I'd never actually seen one before!

So within a few weeks we should have more than enough veggies to keep us healthy, and I'm sure plenty more to share around with our neighbours!

Learning to Carry on My Head...

I've been having lessons in the ultimate African skill of carrying things on your head - with no hands to help out!

I started with the empty esky - perhaps I overestimated my ability! I thought I had very good posture and balance ...... but no luck. It just kept on falling straight off! Although Rita could do it perfectly. She carries a 20 litre container of water on her head everyday from the water tap to her house.

So I had to go back to basics - a small basket of onions. Yay - I could do it! Easy! So I'll keep on practicing and gradually build up - I'll master that esky - watch this space!

Butterfly Sanctuary and Bobiri Forest

Today we took a visit to a butterfly sanctuary within the Bobiri Forest reserve, about 15km from Konongo. Unfortunately we didn’t pick the best day – it had rained quite a lot overnight and apparently the butterflies don’t come out when its really wet. There were still quite a few beautiful coloured tropical butterflies around, but we’ll have to go back on another day because they usually are everywhere.

We also went on a guided tour around the forest trails, which is a beautiful, densely vegetated tropical rainforest. The man told us a lot about the trees and their uses for traditional medicine. Apparently the bark of a mahogany tree is made into a bitter tea and used to treat malaria. Another large vine will “bleed” red liquid if you cut it, and can be used to treat every disease except HIV – fairly impressive! However, you have to give it an offering first because they believe the spirits live inside the vine – apparently eggs and Schnapps will be fine!

The guide also had some interesting stories to tell about dwarves who live in the forest – you can’t see them unless you have a special gift, but if you go into the forest at night time they will make you get lost in the forest forever!

We stopped at one stage - it’s very quiet in the forest but I could hear this breathing bubbling sound coming from the ground – the man said it was termites living just below the surface. And sure enough, when he pushed aside some dirt there was a massive colony of termites! Best not to build a timber house there!

How to Make Fufu

Ingredients:

6 plantain (looks like big green bananas)
6 cassava roots

Method:

Peel and roughly chop the plantain.
Remove tough outer skin from cassava and roughly chop.
Boil plantain and cassava together until soft, approximately 20 minutes. Allow to cool slightly.

Prepare your large mortar and pestle outside, and find a strong man to pound the fufu for you!
Add a small amount at a time to the mortar and pestle. The man should be pounding in a nice rhythm so your hands don’t get hit!
As the fufu mixture starts to soften, scoop the fufu towards the centre in between each pound. Watch your fingers!

The fufu is ready when it is a nice soft texture and sticks together well – approximately 30 minutes all together.

Serve with whatever soup or stew you like. Pull off a piece of fufu with your hands and use it to scoop up the soup or stew.

My new job - computer teacher!

Yesterday I went down to the local school just near the entrance of the mine to volunteer my time and whatever skills I may be able to offer! I was thinking maybe help teach english, or maths or science - but when I asked, they said they would love to have some help in the computer room. (They also said they would love to have more computers - did I want to buy some?!)

There are 1000 children at the school (Kindergarten to Year 10), and they have between 40 and 50 children in each class! For those of you who are teachers - can you imagine that! The classrooms are open sided rooms with concrete floors and old style wooden desks with lift up lids, a blackboard - and that's it. Very simple. In the computer room, they have six computers - one at each bench, and so have about 7 children crowded around each computer.

I sat in a few computer classes for Year 4 and 5 - they have just started learning about computers, and they were doing revision for exams which start next week. Its a different style of teaching - they learn everything by rote and it has to be perfect. For example, the teacher asked, "What is the meaning of "click"? And a child would have to stand up and repeat "Click means to press and release the left, or primary, mouse key one time without the mouse moving or shaking". I know it off by heart now too, because they repeated it over and over for about 10 minutes until they said it perfectly! Then they moved on - to "double click" ! I'd watched the kids play computer games before school and during recess, so I knew they understood the concept of "click" perfectly, even if they didn't recite the meaning correctly. As with children around the world, I suspect they'll be overtaking their teachers and parents knowledge of computers very quickly.

When they are at school all the children have to have their hair shaved short - girls included! When I asked why they said " If you tie up your hair, you tie up your mind". A wise old Ghanaian proverb. But I suspect its probably to control nits, and also to make everyone the same (they all wear the same uniform too - yellow shirts, brown shorts or skirts). Once they have finished school they can start growing their hair (the girls in particular), so you can almost tell someone's age by the length of their hair! However most of the women here use artificial hair - either braided onto their own hair, hair extensions, hair pieces or wigs! It took me a while to realise that. Latifa who works here normally has long thick braids, then one day she came over with short frizzy hair - I thought she'd cut it all off, but she said that she just took the braids off and will put them on again next week. I'm interested to see how it's done.... The girls often stroke my hair and tell me how beautiful it is! Although one of them described it as "rubbery" - I think (hope) she meant flexible!

Anyway, back to the school.... They have exams for the next two weeks and then they have their long holiday for six weeks until mid-September, so hopefully I'll go back and help out a bit more then.

The Big Smoke!

Wow - I can't believe its almost a week since I last blogged! Its been a busy week - who would have thought?! Amazing how my days fill up when actually I have nothing really to do!

This week we went for a trip to Accra, the capital city, for two days. Its a four hour, very bumpy drive to get there, but Warren had to go to search for some supplies for work and we took the opportunity to stock up on some groceries and house supplies. It was good to have a change of scenery, and go to a restaurant for dinner - a big treat!

I went to a shop a bit like K-mart to buy some electrical things like a new kettle, some hand beaters (to make cakes!), a hairdryer, and I splurged and bought myself a sewing machine as well. The annoying thing here is that there are so many different kinds of electrical plugs - the power points are all British fittings, but the equipment has European, South African, Australian plugs - so we're constantly changing over adapters to get the right one!

I was quite excited to buy a sewing machine, and there are some great bright coloured African fabrics that you can buy in the market here - they're also pretty cheap - about $3 per metre. So we'll see what imaginative things I can come up with....

We stocked up on some food things like cheese, butter, milk, ham, meat, chicken which you can't get in Konongo. We buy them just before we leave and put them in an esky with ice, and then hope we get home before they get hot! We've also found some funny named food - "Shito" (a kind of chilli fish paste) and "Saltycrax" (cracker biscuits) - which keep us entertained everytime without fail! I do love a poo joke!!!

Le Tour de France!

One of the advantages of being in Ghana at the moment is that we get to see the Tour de France - live! I think we are one hour behind French time, and we watch it via satellite TV, so its on during the middle of the day, finishing early afternoon. Much better than watching in Perth, where it is usually on late at night - after three weeks of late nights I'm usually knackered!

So I'm watching at the moment - cheering on our Australian - Cadel Evans. Today they are riding in the French Alps, where we will be going for a little holiday in about four weeks time. It looks beautiful.... and I'm really looking forward to having a nice coffee and croissants for breakfast at a cafe, looking out over the green valleys. Ooh la la!

Our Worst Dinner Ever?

Last night Warren was craving a steak - we haven't had a good steak since our last dinner at the Rivervale Hotel just before we left Perth. We had bought some porterhouse steak in Accra and they were in the deep freeze - they looked pretty good, so we'd been saving them up. We also had some frozen roast vegetables and peas - lazy vegetables really but we didn't feel like preparing too much.

We have an electric oven and stove, which I find quite difficult to cook on - the oven takes forever to heat up, and even then doesn't seem to get that hot. The stove also takes a long time to heat up but then stays really hot and burns everything! So we tried to roast the vegetables which just braised in their own juices and wouldn't get remotely crispy. The steaks were charred on the outside but too raw for me on the inside, and they were so tough! Even the peas which we cooked in the microwave for 5 minutes were only just warm and still hard.

After a few minutes of eating, we had to laugh and declare that it was probably one of the worst meals we've ever eaten! Luckily I had some good wine to drown my sorrows....

My cooking confidence has taken a battering - I cooked a cake the day before which was stodgy and raw in the middle. But I'm not yet ready to take full responsibility for it - I blame my equipment!

The Pied Piper of Konongo

Yesterday I went for a run in the morning at about 7am which is about the same time as the kids are walking to school. They always yell out and say hello as I run by, either "bruni" or "Mama Jessie" or "Mama Cynthia", and over the past few weeks have become more confident in speaking to me. I usually ask them their names and they say very solemnly "My name is Miss...." and list off five name (most of which I can't pronounce!) - they've obviously been practicing at school.

Yesterday three young girls, about 10 years old, yelled out to me "wait, we will trot with you!" and they continued running with me for about a kilometre until we got to school. They call it "trotting" - which perhaps is an indication that I'm not running very fast, or a comment on my running style! They were so tired out, but very pleased with themselves! Especially when all the other kids at school saw them with me. The ladies walking along the road all thought it was hilarious!

I continued on and ran past the soccer field where the boys were playing soccer, and the girls were sitting at the edge of the field watching. I stopped to watch them for a bit, and all the girls crowded around and said they would like to run. So about 20 teenage girls ran with me up the hill to the corner, and then we turned around and had a race back to the start. I felt like the Pied Piper, with all these children running along behind me! Most of them were running barefoot on rocky ground - tough feet! A couple of them were surprisingly fast, surprising because they very rarely do any exercise apart from a slow walk to get places. They seemed to really enjoy it though, so perhaps they've taken some inspiration from seeing me run here, and hopefully we'll get to run a bit more. Maybe one of them will end up at the Olympics some time?!!

Introducing....

I thought it might be good to introduce some of the people whom we live and work with here in Konongo, so that as I write about them you know who I’m talking about.

Firstly, Rita – our housekeeper – a very important person in our lives! Rita is 25 years old, and has a six year old son named Kevin who is very cute, but was sick on the day this photos was taken ( I think he had malaria). Rita arrives in the morning and cleans the house, then does the washing (by hand!) and ironing. Initially she was embarrassed because she didn’t think she could speak English well enough, but actually she’s quite good, and we manage to communicate without any major issues. She’s slowly teaching me some Twi, the local language, but I am a slow learner!

Latifa looks after one of the other houses, but she lives in a little worker’s cottage just next to us so we see her regularly. She’s always dropping by to say hello or to use my computer to look on Facebook! She’s 19, so just finished school last year, and like any typical teenager is interested in clothes (especially pink) and boys and music. She is hoping to save up some money to study nursing at University. She’s a smart girl and is very sweet and helpful.

Endurance also lives next door – she works in the mine office and also helps out with cooking at the guesthouse. She’s a very keen cook, and has been giving us cooking lessons – we made fufu and goat soup the other day. It was very funny to hear them banter in the kitchen – my family hassle each other about who is the whitest, and they hassle each other about who is the blackest! They would rather be “fair” which is dark brown as opposed to black.

Sly is the cook at the guesthouse (not sure what his real name is), and he does well at cooking mostly western style food to suit everyone’s tastes. We probably have dinner all together twice a week, although some people eat there for every meal.

Warren’s geology department have a driver named Daniel, and he quite often drives us if we want to go to Konongo town or to Kumasi. He’s great to have around because he comes with us when we go to the shops or to buy vegetables and negotiates on our behalf – so that we pay local prices and not “bruni” prices. He took us to the Central Markets in Kumasi last weekend, which are the biggest markets in western Africa – oh my goodness – it was mad! So many people, selling everything under the sun. It would be very easy to get yourself lost in there, so thankfully he showed us the way –although we only went a short way into the maze.

Of the other expats, there is Roger (one of the other managers) and his wife Helen, who have been here for almost a year and have been very helpful in teaching us the ropes here. They have an awesome vegetable garden, which we can pop over to and pick some vegetables for dinner. Manvel (Finance Manager) is from Armenia – he always makes toasts with vodka shots whenever we have dinner together – he drinks the vodka, not us! That’s it for the expats – only 5 of us at the moment. Which is good and bad – it means you are thrown straight into the culture, and don’t rely on hanging out with other Australians the whole time. But it would be nice to have some other younger people to chat to!

There are plenty of other people around the minesite here – some of the security guards are very friendly – they take their jobs very seriously (although I’m not sure what they’re guarding against), so they stand to attention and salute as you go past, but then relax and have a chat. The ladies in the office – Gina, Agnes, Grace and Janet are well educated and always meticulously groomed – I feel like a yobbo in my t-shirts and thongs!

What Shall I Do Today?!

This blog is a special request from my friend Marcelle, asking me to describe what I would do here on a normal daily basis. Well now that I’m unemployed (for the first time in my life), my days are a bit different from what I’m used to. Firstly I don’t have to get up at 5.30am to go to work! Its really nice to not be ruled by the alarm clock, and now I don’t feel the need to have a coffee to kick-start my day. Everyone here goes to bed early (usually by 9pm) and wakes up early, so I’m usually awake by about 6.30 anyway. I feel the need to have some kind of routine, so I usually go for a walk or run on alternate days. I run to keep some kind of fitness, but its quite hard work because its very humid so I’m usually knackered after 30 minutes (usually I would run for longer than that). On the days I walk its easier to communicate with people so I usually have a chat to a few people along the way.

Our housekeeper Rita arrives at about 8am and starts doing her work around the house. It feels rather strange having someone else do all the work for you, but that will be a blog for another day. I usually get on the computer and check my emails, but as I’ve mentioned before, the internet connection is SLOW! This morning it took me about two hours to read and reply to 10 emails! Can’t do anything about it at the moment though, so I’ve learnt to live with it and have become good at multi-tasking – ie open an email, put the kettle on, download an attachment, make a cup of tea, send an email, clean my teeth….

I’ve started studying a course – Occupational Health and Safety, which I thought I may be able to put into practice here at the minesite, and which I hope will be a good option down the track sometime. I have all the learning material on DVD’s and online, so again, it’s pretty slow going. Its also fairly dry and common sense, especially reading legal documents like the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984! Anyway, I’ll keep plugging away at it… (and try not to get too distracted writing blogs!)

If Warren asks very nicely, I might have a break from the computer and make a cake or biscuits for morning tea and take it over to his office, where they get demolished pretty quickly by everyone there. Warren also comes home for lunch which is nice.

Often in the afternoons I’ve been showing Rita and Latifa (one of the other housekeepers) a bit on the computer. Rita has never used a computer before so is just learning to type and navigate her way around the computer. Latifa has done a computer course, and is right into Facebook at the moment – so don’t be surprised if you get a friend request from her – I think she wants to be friends with everyone!

Sometimes I’ll go into Konongo to the markets with Rita, or will visit Helen, one of the other manager’s wives, for a cup of tea. We’re planning a veggie patch so that should be up and growing soon, although I doubt I will be allowed to do any of the dirty work! Most of the people here speak French as well as English, so I will have to practice some French before we go to France in August. In fact, Rita’s six year old son speaks better French than I do! And I’m looking forward to getting a sewing machine at some stage, because there’s plenty of good fabrics (African style), which I might make a few things to make our house more homely.

I have a selection of exercise DVD’s here, so I’ll sometimes do some yoga, pilates or “Aerobics Oz Style” in the evening. When I’m at work in Perth I have a pretty active job – I’m on my feet, walking, treating patients or doing exercises all the time , so sitting down all day is not my style. I have to do something to stretch out and not turn into a oompa-loompa!

Mostly we have dinner at our house, but a few times a week we’ll go to the guest house and have dinner with the other expats and any visitors who happen to be staying here. We’ve also been having a few cooking lessons with the girls here, so they will stay and have dinner with us also. Food is always a big part of any culture, so I like cooking and eating with them because you find out so much about their lives and their families whilst you cook. I’ll write about our cooking soon...

So that's about it really - on a daily basis, I don't do anything too amazing but I guess being in a completely different environment with new people and a new culture is pretty interesting in itself.

Posture Assessments

I couldn't help myself - my physio brain has been on holidays for a couple of weeks, but once a physio - always a physio. And I can't help but comment on the women's posture here. The Ghanaians are a fairly good looking bunch of people really (did anyone see the soccer team?). The women in particular look very graceful - they always walk quite slowly, and often are carrying something on their head, so walk very tall and upright. I've seen them carrying bananas, pineapples, bread, washing baskets, boxes of bottled water, bundles of firewood, even a table! They don't use their hands for support and never seem to drop anything, so have fantastic balance. I'll try to take some photos and put them on here soon.

The ladies with children carry the babies and toddlers on their lower backs, they wrap a cloth around the baby's bottom with their legs sticking out either side of their waist, and then bring the cloth around the front of their chest. The babies seem to be quite comfortable, they are often fast asleep and never wriggle around. I haven't quite figured out how they get the babies in position though! Perhaps as a consequence of carrying the babies like this, the women often have an exaggerated lumbar lordosis (curve in their lower back for the non-physios!) and big gluteus maximus! They are also very flexible - I often see them working while doing the washing or in the fields, and they'll be completely bent in half - good hamstring flexibility!

I haven't taken as much notice of the men's posture yet, except to say that they are generally quite muscular and buffed! There are some security men who work around here who are big guys - a bit like Mr T from the A-team! I was considering going to the little gym here at the minesite, but they only have big weights - too much for little me. I'll stick to doing my Yogalates in the lounge room for now. And maybe start walking around with a book on my head to practice!

Things You Take For Granted

There are a few things in your daily life in Perth that you really never give a second thought to, but here, they become some of the most important things in your day - for example, water.... and chocolate!

There is certainly no shortage of water in Ghana – as you may have read in my last post – when it rains here – it pours! The water supply for Konongo is from a dam nearby, and is fine for washing etc (although it is a very slight brown colour!) but is not good enough quality for drinking. So we have bottled water for drinking, cooking, washing fruit and vegetables, making tea and coffee and cleaning your teeth. We probably go through 10-15 litres (24 bottles) of water per day. I feel terrible about the number of plastic bottles - thankfully they do get recycled (that's the only recycling program here). The most annoying part is cleaning your teeth, you can't just stick your toothbrush under the tap or rinse your mouth out, so you have to be prepared beforehand. However I guess its all worthwhile - we haven't had any stomach upsets so far.

Chocolate is the other essential item which is hard to come by (well essential for my sanity!) - there's no chocolate at all in Konongo. Most of the local people don't have fridges, so I think it would just melt, so no one has it. You can buy it in the capital city Accra, but its very expensive ($13 for a block of Lindt chocolate) because its all imported from Europe. So Warren and I stocked up on chocolate in Australia before we came here - would you believe Warren left out two pairs of running shoes just so that we could fit our chocolate supplies into our luggage! And we've calculated that we can eat two squares per day each! That will last us until we go to Europe in August, where we'll be able to replenish our supplies. And he'll also have to buy some new running shoes.

The Gods Must Be Crazy!

I woke up last night to the sound of rain - so heavy that it sounded like a jumbo jet was about to take off! Within a few minutes of the rain starting, the thunder and lightning set in - and wow! What an amazing tropical storm! The thunder was so loud it sounded like it was directly over the top of our house. We'd been told if there's lightning to disconnect all your electrical equipment (so it doesn't get fried!? I feel so safe!?), so I ran around the house unplugging our important things - computer, ipod speakers, TV, fridge and freezer; and making sure I knew where the fire extinguisher was! Not long after there was a big lightning bolt and then the power went off all together, and only came back on about 9am this morning.

I'm sure Warren would have slept through it if I hadn't woken him up thinking I was going to die! I'm not usually one to be scared by thunderstorms but this was a ripper! However it was all over in about an hour, the rain stopped completely and it was all quiet again. This morning it was lovely and cool, and surprisingly the water had drained away pretty quickly. It was as though nothing had happened! Maybe it was all a dream.....

Its the wet season at the moment, but it seems that it mostly just buckets down for a short period of time and that's it. Thankfully it doesn't rain constantly all day which could be rather unpleasant. And the rain makes it much cooler, still humid, but definitely quite manageable.