Ghanaian Road Rules

Speaking of Warren (another mention Wozi!), he is currently in the process of getting his Ghanaian driver's licence which is a fairly long winded affair, as per usual. He won't be driving far, just around the minesite, but it will be much easier than having to wait for a car/driver to take him places. So he's been reading up on the "Ghana Highway Code" booklet...

Now the roads safety situation in Ghana is not cool. One might say that Road Safety is not top of their priority list. So this little passage in the booklet made us laugh - it really sums it up well:

"41. If a vehicle approaches on the wrong side of the road: the driver may be asleep, drowsy, inattentive, ill or drunk. Warn him with your horn and pull to the right as far as possible".

Huh!!! So its OK if you're driving while you're "inattentive, ill or drunk"?!

This one was also funny:

"45. Be careful near fruit bearing tree. Children are more interested in fruits than in traffic".

Crazy kids....

Happy Birthday Wozi!

Yesterday was Warren's 37th birthday - happy birthday old boy!

So I thought I'd devote a whole blog to him - he'll be stoked, he's always complaining I don't write enough about him!

Here's some photos of him - with baby Jacinta; trying to look seductive on the "Love Rug"; and the first published photos of his new mullet! He hasn't had a haircut for a while and its starting to curl up on the ends - looking very mullettish! He's so proud....

I was encouraging him to grow his hair longer, but I'm hoping it will pass the mullet stage soon?!

"I'm fine"

It's funny how after being here for a while we've begun to adopt Ghanaian manners of speech. This is how a typical greeting goes, and everyone replies in exactly the same way every single time!

Jacinta: How are you today?
Ghanaian: I'm fine. How are you? (the emphasis is on fine, with a long "i" sound).
J: I'm fine, thank you.
G: You're welcome (this is meant in the sense of "You are welcome here in this place").

And then you can start talking about other things. There is no variation like "Good thanks" or "Alright" - everyone is "fine" all the time.

Everyone speaks English to some degree, although some better than others. But the accent can sometimes be tricky. When Warren first arrived here he would have a translator for his daily work meetings - translating from English into... English!

Our other favourite word here is "delicious". They pronounce it like "del-i-si-yos", and the higher and longer the "i" sound is - the better they like the food!

Easi-Yo

This little contraption was our best purchase on our recent visit to London. Its a yoghurt maker - which is very handy in a place like Ghana. Since we've been here we haven't had any good yoghurt - there is a limited range to buy in Accra (four hours away), but its either dodgy local made yoghurt, or has been imported from France or England - who knows how long ago. Usually by the time we get it home, it has curdled and gone off! So we've been missing good yoghurt for breakfast.

I remembered that my mum used to have a yoghurt maker many years ago, and then when we were in London we spotted one just like it! Yay! So we bought it home with us, and its been a revelation! You buy sachets with milk powder with the active cultures, mix them with plain water in the small container, put it in the thermos with boiled water and then eight hours later you have fresh yoghurt! The good part is that we don't even need milk to make it, because the milk supply can be a bit variable too (fresh milk occasionally, or UHT).

It tastes good too - as good as any you would get in Australia. And you can get different flavours -natural, Greek, honey, vanilla or all sorts of fruit flavours. And I believe if you run out of the sachets you can keep a little bit of yoghurt from your previous batch, mix it with milk and it will make a new batch. Our intestines are very grateful! (I'm sure you didn't want to know that!!!!!)

Baby Sophia

So maybe this isn't a photo from Ghana - but it was such a cute photo I decided to put it in anyway! This is my little niece Sophia. What big eyes she has! and what big ears she has! Very cute.... I miss seeing her growing up, and I really hope she remembers me when we come home in December! I'm going to try carrying her "African Style" on my back, like baby Jacinta. Actually baby Jacinta who is only 3 months old is almost as big as Sophia who is 9 months old (baby Jacinta is 5.8kg and Sophia is only 6.5kg!) What's with that?! Must be good African breast milk...

Religious Signage in Accra

Way back when I started writing this blog I mentioned the overtly religious street signs in Accra proclaiming "God is Love Hairdressing" or "Christ the King Tyre Service" etc. Well I've finally managed to take some photos of a few signs - trying to be discrete whilst we were driving along so that I didn't offend anyone! So hopefully you can see "Christ Water Supply", "With God Furniture" and "Perseverance Art Printing" (with a very strange picture of a cat with a helmet on?).

I've also added some general photos of Accra so that you get an idea of what it looks like - everything is sold on the side of the road - tyres, lounge suites, clothing, fruit and vegetables - pretty much whatever you want really! Puts a slightly different spin on window shopping.

What the?!

This is a sign we saw in a shop window in the town of Cheddar - we were already laughing a lot that day, and this made us laugh even more!