I’m on a mission to sort this house out.

We’ve had the electrician round to fix the lighting on the veranda.  Phoned early am on Saturday and he was round to look at the job an hour later and back with the bits shortly afterwards….5 cedis for two bulbs and a light fitting and 5 cedis for the 5 minutes it took him to install it.  Shocked, normally these things take so long.  I’ve swept the roof terrace and removed the clumps of grass growing up there, I wanted to sun bathe but the winds picked up (I got a big lump of something sharp  in my eye) and then the rains came, still looks like I cleared the drainage holes…

Next on the list is the toilet seat which sits precariously on the pan and if you’re a little bit sweaty leaves the pan when your arse does and unsticks from your arse with a clatter thus allowing the whole house to know the toilet seat was stuck to your arse.  Unfortunately the local plumbing merchant only has black seats.  I’ve been told mossies are attracted to black and what with the fact it’s difficult to see how clean it actually is when it’s black I’m waiting for the white ones to come back in.  That happens a lot in Bolga.  Things run out.  Hananah had run out of tuna and sardines the other day, the whole of Bolga ran out of gas not long ago.  Quite often when something starts running out, we’ve heard all shops run out as there is a mad rush for it.  Must have been a mad rush on white toilet seats.  Do you know the price of a toilet seat is 10 cedis?  The same price as it costs for a man to fix two outdoor light fittings….  That’s very approximately 5 pounds sterling and my daily allowance in Ghana.  When you start to figure out how much things like that cost you begin to realise why people live the way they do here. They have no choice.  Who needs a toilet seat when it costs 10 cedis and you could feed your family for a week. (apart from me of course). 

I’m done with propping up a bucket full of water against the bathroom door and gazing expectantly through the hole the missing handle has left to see who passes while I sit on the seat which attaches itself with the upmost adhesion to your arse…. George is the provider of all things wooden and he wil,l I have been told by his good self, be around to fix the offending door today.

The subsidence and the damp, well, they’ll have to wait, not sure it’s in my remit for this year.  I live in hope the house will simple remain standing.

I discovered, when unpacking the four biggest, deepest cupboards I’ve ever seen (it’s where my gecko lives), that Antony had left me a whole array of DIY bits and bobs.  The most exciting for me was not the machete but the hammer.  Super design.  Looks like it’s been fashioned out of two bits of an old iron bar dad would use on the building site.  Of course I’ve used it.  Had to!  My mossie net frame was coming away from the bed.  Any excuse.

I’ve also found the small science equipment stash; a test tube, syringes, various materials, tonnes of thermometers, some electronics equipment, meths, vinegar, zinc sulphate, glycerine, indicator papers and some batteries.  I’m no expert but I’m sure mixed in the right way that stuff could do some damage!

My New Friend

I’ve developed a fly paranoia, which looks like a twitch or tic.  A constant, weird twitch.  It might only be a hair which has fallen off the top of my head (a regular occurrence here; moulting like a Labrador) onto my shoulder or arm but in my head it’s a fly, most likely a mosquito.  It sounds pretty reasonable to assume I’ll get the dreaded malaria.  All vols here have had it (a mild version at least) more than once on most occasions.  So when after a successful gathering of new vols at our house (not the film night originally intended due to a slight mix up with the projector… Note to self: Brush up on communication skills) and I felt a tender lump on my head.  I wondered.  I wondered what could have caused this lump to have appeared from, well, nowhere.  There seemed to be something there.  I pulled but only managed to pull out a few hairs.  I was merry (on vodka and tonic) and ready for bed so left it.  Sleep was disturbed.  I could feel it and, it was making me dream, dream of what would happen the next day.  I had decided I must go to the clinic so I imagined being taken there by Eric the taxi man and waiting for 3, maybe 4 hours to be seen.  This is normal and Hannah my housemate has just contracted malaria (for the fourth time) so the waiting time was fresh in my head.  I imagined being told that something insect like had burrowed its way inside my scalp and it needed to be removed.  ‘My New Friend’.  I imagined having part of my head shaven, the offending boil sliced, ‘My New Friend’ being removed, the commensalistic relationship ceased, my head bandaged (like I was a casualty of war) and hot footing it off to Sophia’s salon.  She is Tony’s Ghanaian girlfriend, I had met them both with some friends for lunch the other day and I had been told she ran a hair salon school.  My eventual ‘do’ was more 70’s retro than 21^st century and I’d suddenly developed an Afro.  Oh the joys of dreaming… you can have anything you fancy right?  The reality of my Sunday wasn’t so dramatic.  I consulted ‘Dr’ Ali, a short term vol from Zabilla who had bunked down at ours for the night.  She kindly tweezered an offending object from the top of the lump which looked frankly like part of some insects exoskeleton, she managed to squeeze something out but it wasn’t a puss filled pustule (thank goodness or I could have been in for smallpox) Just a little… leakage.  I then ‘googled’ for the possibilities of what it could be.  It’s not really a good idea to google things, and NEVER hit the images button.  Good god.  I was convinced I had botfly.  I went to the Afrikids Medical Centre on the other side of town, just to check it out and see what I could do.  I’d heard of vasaline being a good option; stops the oxygen supply and forces it out, clingfilm or tape would do similar things. I had to register, it didn’t take too long.  The nurse took my blood pressure; ‘normal’ and then my weight.  I assured her this wouldn’t be ‘normal’, she told me (imagine the African accent now) ‘You are very strong’.  Clearly an African euphemism for fat.  The carbs really are working their magic.  I waited about an hour and a half in the end and true to the old vols words got given antibiotics and paracetamol, the only disappointment being I didn’t get any vitamins.  I was told it could be a sting or something could have gotten in but the antibiotics would sort it out.  One wonders if he was simple pacifying the neurotic white woman, knowing, in time, ‘My New Friend’ will find his own way out.  Time will tell.

Communication is the key.

A little bit of research on the internet leads me to believe we have one of thosethingsIdarenotmentionwithahairytail.  Rubbish.  Not sure how to deal with that one…..

Isn’t communication a wonderful thing?  Something I feel very strongly about actually.  At work in the UK it used to irritate the pants off me when we had all the technology needed for things to run smoothly, yet, sometimes they simply didn’t.  In one particular work place barriers were put up in order to make communication just one huge chore. I pride myself on being what I consider to be an ok communicator.  I can’t necessarily write (or speak for that matter) succinctly but I think I read people ok and get my point across.  That was until my curtains arrived back from the ‘Seamstress’ (it’s in inverted commas as I would question that title fiercely for reason which will become apparent later).  You’ll remember I asked for 4 curtains.  That is two windows, two curtains = four curtains.  Not eight, four.  So when I opened the bag and eight curtains appeared I was surprised.  OK, not an issue.  I’ll just have four strips on each window, fine.  Except only 3 fit on the rail, not a problem, I just have two left over.  Put them all on, gather the fabric I hear you shout.  Not that easy when the loop of fabric created to slip over pole leaves you feeling like you are trying to get a white man’s condom on a black man’s penis.  I actually had to cut the stitching off the ends of all the curtains (all six of them).  The space for the pole was tight enough at one end but got progressively smaller as the stitching continued along the width of the curtain, to the point it was too small to get the pole in.  When each curtain is somewhere in the region of 70cm long I fear a wonky eyed woman is not one I would give the title of Seamstress to.  To top it off they look like this….

Miles to short.  Ho hum.  At least the glass at the bottom is obscured.

Thunderstorms and lightning, very very frightening!

It’s is now my third day in Bolga.  I haven’t started work yet.  Maybe tomorrow.  Possibly Friday.  More likely Monday.  Today is Wednesday.  It is a Ghanaian Public holiday and unfortunately it wasn’t announced until late yesterday.  Very strange system.  So what have I been doing?  Monday I phoned the office a few times to try to sort out starting work but unfortunately the man I needed to speak to wasn’t at the office, or answering his mobile.  Well it was Monday.  I spent the day dettox wiping every surface I could and putting away my bits.  I sorted through the things Anthony and Laura had left me (not the school stuff, that will have to wait).  Most of this was done in my knickers.  It was so hot I thought I was going to pass out.  The sweat was pouring off me.  Unfortunately I don’t have any curtains yet, luckily the windows are louvered and the bottom half is obscured glass.  Frankly I couldn’t have cared less who saw me... I felt like I was dressed up in my winter woollies as it was.    I popped round to Helen, Evic and Angel’s (pronounced An-gel.  Not Angel) house for lunch.  They live just around the corner and are all VSO Vols.  Helen and Evic arrived at the same time as me, Angels been here a while.  We spent the afternoon playing cards and scrabble.  To be honest I’ve had a cold, (how does that happen?) so didn’t feel too great on Monday.  Hannah my house mate made me supper; An Accra street food dish; noodles, sardines, and a few veg.  It was lovely.   

Tuesday Angel kindly said she would take us to the market.  If you’ve been to an African market then you’ll know what to expect.  Pigs, goats, children and women carrying things to sell on their heads criss cross in front of you while you dodge the motos and bicycles coming up from behind and the odd old fashioned market cart.  Ghanaians sell their goods in piles, if there is a pile of something it’s that price for the whole pile.  We had pleasant exchanges with the locals as we walked round (as we have had where we live) there has been no hassle at all which is great.  We even tried out a bit of Fra Fra... it was pretty successful.  Angel was taxiing us around and she’s not good with the heat so we didn’t spend long out just enough time to get some material for my curtains and a few bit’s for the food I was making that night for my housemates and Rachel, another VSO Vol who was popping over.  Tuna Pasta.  Never fails.  Unless the pasta is so thin you boil it to death.  Still, we ate it.  In the afternoon I Headed for Hanana’s.  She’s a lovely girl who runs the shop directly opposite our house.  I wondered if she was a bit of a seamstress, or would know someone who was.  I handed over my material and for 10 cedi it will be made into 4 curtains.  My modesty will be intact.  I went home and started to do some more cleaning in the house.  Decided that I really need to go the full hog and resigned myself to buying rubber gloves and other cleaning items next time I was in town.  Not sure what’s gotten into me.  Figure its having lived with super clean mum for the last year, her house that is (not that she isn’t….anyway).  I fear my cleaning spree will very quickly become pointless.  Everything just seems to be covered in a layer of red dust.  It was during the afternoon when the heavens simply opened and dumped the biggest amount of water on my tin roof.  However it was thrown at such an angle that it hit my corer of the house first, I ended up with a puddle on the floor on the inside of my room and a desk covered at the back with water. Luckily, it didn’t drench my laptop, i pod and all those other electrical items I seem to have brought with me. We suffered another huge storm in the early evening which brought the power down.  Not for long though, we watched an episode of ‘How I met your mother’.  This meant bed was 10 past 10 unlike our usual 8pm (that is 8 to bed rather than lights out.  I think it’s to do with the fact it gets dark around 6pm, you just feel tired).  I thank Liam (from moto training) for his insightful suggestion that I copy his movies.  I feel they are going to really help the evenings roll on by.  I’ve suggested we invite all Vols (new and old) over to our house on Saturday night for a movie night.  Unlike me, this sudden move to be super sociable; I just think if you don’t you go stir crazy.  There is plenty of chances to have time to yourself here if you need it.

Today Zar, one of my housemates said she would take Evic to the market.  I tagged along as they were doing a walking tour and wanted to find my bearings in town (especially as I said I’d meet up for lunch with another VSO Vol, Ali, who’s up in Zibila (about an hour north east of Bolga) and show her around.  Zar was great.  She showed us everywhere and the storm yesterday had cleared the air so it wasn’t as hot as yesterday.  We had lunch at a chop bar at the Lorry Park where most of the local buses leave from to Tamale, Zibila and Bongo (there is a rhyming Tongo nearby too!).  A chop bar is the Ghanaian equivalent of a restaurant (like no other you have ever seen – think plastic tables, flies, very local).  Chop because chop means eat, although at this particular chop bar it seemed to mean chopping up a chicken if the sound from the kitchen was anything to go by.  I had a chicken leg and fried rice….. (add your own unwritten text here; believe me I though the same).  On my little trip I brought; Scourer’s, rubber gloves, bleach, Ajax (old skool I know but needs must), toilet rolls, shower gel (I’m an idiot and forgot to bring any – my miniature freebees from the hotel in Accra are running out), Vodka, Tonic (I’ll need it after all that cleaning) and a squeezy antibacterial hand wash (for the bathroom sink which happens to be in the corridor – go figure).  I was so buoyed up about using all my new cleaning products I got right down to it after we got back from shopping.  And you know what?  The shower is white not brown… who’d have guessed?  What is so super annoying about everything in a Ghanaian house is that nothing is finished.  The doors aren’t sanded down properly so they aren’t smooth and pick up all the fine dust and then it’s super hard … no impossible, to get off.  There are masses of blue and white tac on the walls which act like a little dust shelf and the heat has made it so super sticky it’s like gum on the wall. The kitchen and then a few walls got a good going over too.  The floor will have to wait.  I want to find a mop I can use first… a new one.  And then I found the droppings.  Now I know I have a gecko in my room (they eat the bugs so I’m good with that) and today I’ve seen a bigger one in the kitchen/store area.  Thing is I’m not up on the shape and size of gecko droppings.  Suffice to say If I were in England I wouldn’t be calling them mouse droppings if you get my meaning. I’ve saved them for my housemates to inspect.  Imagine if we had, you know, one of thosethingsIdarenotmentionwithahairytail in the house.  I would NOT be happy. Anyway, I’m about ready for a V and T.

The first 3 pictures are of my room, the rest are of the house and the last is Boris the dog!

Beeps, tarmac (or not) and potholes…

From (Accra on the southern coast) to Bolatanga means travelling the entire length of the country bar about 12km which would literally lead you to the Burkina Faso boarder.  Travel is via road only as the flight is very expensive and only takes you as far as Tamale and the rail transport system only operates in the southern regions from east to west of the country.  Our journey to my new home town (well for a year or so at least) would take us on a well-trodden route north; from Accra to Kumasi, from Kumasi to Tamale and from Tamale to Bolgatanga or Bolga as it is colloquially known. We were all set to head off on Saturday. The plan was to take a bus to Kumasi (about a 5 hour trip), stay overnight, then take an early bus to Tamale which would take about 10 hours where we would stay overnight before getting a bus on Monday for the final two hours to Bolga.  Although this could be done in one go overnight, VSO directive is for volunteers not to travel at night, just to be super secure (they are good like that), so unfortunately, splitting this journey up is the only option.  Different bus companies, types of bus were being spoken about but I wasn’t that bothered, suffice to say I would be ‘where ever I lay my hat…’ on Monday.  Frankly that was all that mattered; my next end goal was in sight…. That is until 4.30 Friday evening.  Friday started with an unusually muddled morning.  Barclays Bank failed to show, Dora (Director of Education)was unable to make her session on monitoring and evaluation due to ‘unforeseen commitments’ so we took the planned trip to the Programme Office earlier than expected where we were given our ID badges and allowance up to the end of September and fed lunch (two rice dishes, fish, some kind of meat – who knows what, and fried plantain).  In reality this all sounds fine.  Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t terrible but it was punctured with so much hanging around that it was quite frustrating. It didn’t help that finance had not communicated the fact that we would just be getting two weeks allowance to take us up to the end of September and then (somehow) we would get our first allowance for the first quarter (as we will be paid from now on) before the beginning of October.  This meant they had counted over 1000 cedi per person (there were 17 of us) but they only should have been giving us around 200 cedi.  We were told ‘When you know someone where you stay, get their bank details and we will pay your first allowance into their account as yours won’t open for 3 months’.  You wouldn’t hear either half of that sentence in the UK! This is however just a taste of ’Ghanaian time’ I am just going to have to get used to.  The afternoon followed with a trip to Oxford Street.  A shopping trip, (get any ideas of Selfridges el al out of your head) to get the last bits an bobs we might need before heading north, where most luxuries were either not available or so scarce, they cost an awful lot of cedi.  We were introduced to Koala the supermarket, I managed to buy a phone for 45 cedi (about 20 pounds) and was introduced to Mama planet.  This is somewhere I know I will frequent on every trip to Accra.  It’s a fair trade shop which sells the most amazing things, clothes, bags etc in beautiful fabrics.  It supports women’s crafts and does an amazing job.  It was during this mooch that our regional rep was interrupted with a phone call.  It was about 4.30, to say that the bus doesn’t run on Sunday morning only 4.30 in the afternoon.  Clearly that wasn’t an option. We hot footed it back to the Programme Office as it was imperative to get sorted asap due to the time.  Most things closed at 5, as it was a Friday most places were likely to be already closed for the weekend.* So from 5 -7ish the plan changed an extraordinary amount of times.  More times than I can begin to explain.  You wouldn’t believe the different combination of bus companies, timetables and scenarios that were turned over that night.  At one point we were making plans to stay in Accra one more night and the next considering reaching Bolga on Sunday not Monday.  It all worked out perfectly in the end (as these things do) so I took great delight in knowing it was not my responsibility but yet knowing I was someone’s responsibility (for a short time longer at least) and sat back and watched it all take shape.  We took the VIP coach at 8am the next morning to Kumasi.  This was a 5 hour luxurious trip with 3 seats rather than the usual two aisle two seating arrangement which meant extra-large reclining seat and air con (I had come prepared with a jumper and socks for that and yes it was necessary!)  The only thing blighting the luxurious 5 hour trip was the never ending (but useful) beeps, the striated tarmac and then non tarmacked roads, the endless pot holes, the embarrassing Ghanaian soap opera (think fake Bollywood), the annoying Ghanaian loud radio (endlessly preaching) and the tummy turning swerving.  All in the sake of avoiding pot holes of course.  It seems there is no ‘side of road’, that is, that the Ghanaians drive on the left but on the right if there is a pot hole and there is  no room for a third lane of traffic or if oncoming traffic can’t move over, if they can’t, they signal as if to go into you and beep.  They beep for bikes, children, goats, motos, cow and funny Zha cow like creatures, basically anything that might get run over and could move to get out of the way.  It’s all very friendly, and as long as you have a good bus driver, fairly safe.  The land is so green and lush, it’s incredible.  Slow down for a second and you are surrounded by people trying to sell you things, cassava chips, bread, bananas, all in a large round bowls balanced on their heads, mostly women and girls. Towns are busy and hectic but typically African.  We had a good night in Kumasi and still the transport saga continued well into the night.  It wasn’t until after we had gone to bed when we got the final call to say what was actually happening.  A VSO worker had bagged us a mini bus to take us to Bolga the next day which meant we didn’t have to do another overnight stop.  Great news.  We left at 6 am picked up at the gate to the hotel so no taxi needed. Not quite as luxurious, no radio, Bollywood style soap operas but intermittent air con.  Surprisingly more tarmac than you could have hoped for and more pot holes than you would have wished for.  The land continued to remain lush and green, on crossing the top of what I think must be lake Volta, either that or a very larger river running into it, the houses started to take on a more local feel.  Gone were the breeze block compounds and instead were circular mud huts with straw cone roofs groups together.  More and more termite mounds were cropping up,  It was getting more rural.  And I was getting closer to home.  We did have to hit Tamale first, which we did, dropping off some vols at their hotel, and then picked up some locals needing to go to Bolga. Well, no point in having a half empty bus where you can have your own space; No! Bung people in, squash people in.  You know what? Add a few plastic chairs down the aisle and bung some more people in. Pwah to personal space).  For two hours I don’t know how I didn’t scream.  My ankles were the size of the yellow melons that woman was trying to sell me back in Tamale.  I didn’t care.  We had dropped off the loacals at the bus station and the minibus was taking us to our doors.  Goodness knows how they managed to wangle that but thank Jesus above (it’s all that preaching I was exposed to) they did. No lugging the 3 massive suitcases across mud to a taxi which can’t fit it in with ankles the size of melons.  No just lugging 3 massive suitcases across heaped mud and rivers of (…. We’ll leave it there) to the other end of the road, because there was Men At Work - my road was being dug up. Presumably to deal with the over flow.  The smell, the stench.  Anyway. I had arrived, to be greeted by 3 female VSO vols, two of which were my housemates and Boris the dog.  I couldn’t wait to unpack!

* This phenomenon had been mentioned during the ICT.  It appears that no matter what job you do (including teaching), closing early on a Friday is pretty much a given and I don’t mean leaving at 3.30 to go down the pub…. I mean leaving after lunch (no Friday night detention for the Ghanaian’s then!), this equates to not a hope in hell of organising a workshop for a Friday and getting people to arrive to make it worthwhile.  I have later found out that there is no point in considering doing a workshop on Monday either, on Mondays the Ghanaian’s are thinking about going to work.  I have decided this phenomenon is worldwide, as a consultant in the UK, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays were preferred workshop days.  The only difference is the British remain stiff upper lipped and fail to reveal why.  I figure we are all thinking about working on a Monday whether we are physically there or not and on a Friday we just wanna get the hell outa there.  Same same.

‘Happy new day!’

Our first four days in Ghana took us through VSO ICT (in country training) at the Sunset Lodge, Accra. Ibrahim the country director always greeted us with a ‘happy new day’ because he felt we should be celebrating every day not just a happy birth day, a happy Easter or a happy Christmas and so on. To be honest training should have been over 5 days, but we arrived on Monday and they had rearranged the schedule.  A shame, it meant for 3 days we were pretty much stuck in a hotel in an air con room with dodgy lighting from 9-5.  We could have been anywhere.  The trip around Accra etc had been dropped from the schedule.  Getting out were evening trips and we were so tired we really didn’t want to be out for long.  We took one trip on the tro tro (local bus) to a vols (volunteers) house for a drink and a look see and we went out for a drink at a Spot (bar) on Oxford Street another night so experienced the taxi.  The other night Samina and I decided to watch a movie and have an early night as we were so tired so we missed the cultural night (I’m here for a year and figure I’ll catch up). There were three planned language sessions during the day.  Great but so much to take in so quickly and, as you know, language is not a strength of mine, not even my own.  Still, it was, for the most part, useful stuff and the real bonus was getting to meet the new vols who would be placed all over the country.  The VSO regional reps were great and we all began to think about the next few days would entail….

I’ve arrived not entirely safely but nevertheless still alive...

The flight happened without incidence and with only a short delay.  So what was I worried about for those 7 long hours on board watching The Pirates of the Caribbean: On stranger tides, Source code and Bridesmaids (again)?  Only the vision of the contents of my luggage flung over the baggage carousel at Accra.  Knowing it consisted of an odd assortment of items; a wind up lantern, marmite, pegs, marmite, washing line, marmite, stationary, surge protectors, but mainly of individual tampax squished into every available space, I was worried. Worried for the embarrassment of having to pick them all up one by one (or god forbid people stealing them – well they are expensive over here). Luckily the vision didn’t materialise and I arrived in Accra met by the VSO reps with my dignity intact.  That was, until, on the bus a wooden chair fell from the top of the pile of suitcases onto my head on the way to the hotel in Accra.  I have a bruise to prove it.  Never mind… I have spent the last few days enjoying the bed as hard as a table, the balcony overlooking the pool, the morning swims before breakfast, the wifi and food packed with carbs. When you are fed carbs for breakfast, morning snacks, lunch, afternoon snacks and dinner you know the vision of the svelte new you rocking back to the UK after a year in Africa is just a vision.  Thank goodness for my roomie Samina.  A girl after my own heart, yet calm and sane; and (you’ll never guess it) a fellow Cambridgeite.  Small world.  A very small world.

2 kg of marmite and more technology than you can shake a stick at....

A lot can happen in 10 years.  On this day, 10 years ago tragedy struck at the World Trade Centre and I had just arrived back from travelling on my round the world adventure.  I’m sure we have all paused for thought today to remember the victims and their families. Such a terrible thing, I remember it like it was yesterday....

Tomorrow I head off following a desire I had long ago to work in foreign lands, be hot, sweaty and give something back to children who have little. Gone are the days when I can travel around the world with just a rucksack on my back which only closed after Uncle Andy threw a wobbly over due to the amount of cotton buds and other miscellaneous toiletry items I'd deemed necessary to take for a year ‘travelling around the world’.  This time I have 3 pieces of luggage; one rucksack and 2 suitcases (all on wheels) totalling a massive 69kg of luggage allowance.  The joys of being somewhat older and wiser to the important luxuries; toiletries and luggage wheels topping the list with a Charity worker luggage allowance to boot. 

Marmite was a luxury I wasn’t prepared to do without when travelling 10 years ago and with my sisters very generous Cash and Carry  buy I won’t this time.  I remember making a special detour to Melaka in Malaysia (which as it happens was lovely and well worth the visit) just because a fellow backpacker travelling in the opposite direction to me through Asia had found it in a shop there.  Extortionately over priced but well worth the time and effort.  I also remember Marks and Spencer’s knickers in Kuala Lumpur being hideously over priced too, however, the relief at replacing them for the brand new ones I had purchased just two months before in Cambridge was immense.  They had in that time been scrubbed to within an inch of their lives by various Asian washer women and turned from a bright white to murky grey.  No such shame this time.  I’ve gone for colour in my underwear! 

I digress. It seems technology has spun out of control in the last 10 years and I’m floundering along in the technology wave in the hope that I can keep up. 10 years ago I had a walkman (tapes...goodness, who remembers those?!) brought for me by some dear friends and that was it.  Mobile phones had arrived on our planet and at that time were a small brick like incarnation but I just wasn’t on the wave then. Not sure I was even on the beach.  I was stubbornly sticking two fingers up to the thought of having a phone attached to my face whist travelling....some hippy ideal I had. For those that know me, times have changed. Tomorrow I take to Ghana my iphone, ipod, laptop, an extraordinary number of cables, surge protectors, anti-thief locks, a mobile modem, printer cartridges and other additional technical paraphernalia alongside the most miniature yet loud speakers I have had the pleasure to own. What a fabulous addition to the backpack the Kindle has been!  I do love it but I miss a real page; there is something rather good about holding a book, turning the pages and seeing how far you’ve got through the book rather than seeing the percentage read.  But Crikey O’Reilly! What a space and weight saving device this beautifully small and neat piece of kit is.  And thank goodness it is or I would never be able to fit in my iphone, ipod, laptop, an extraordinary number of cables, surge protectors, anti-thief locks, a mobile modem, printer cartridges and other additional technical paraphernalia alongside the most miniature yet loud speakers I have had the pleasure to own. 

As I pack the entire contents of Boot’s the chemist, Apple Store and Amazon.com into my 69Kg I; thank my lucky stars I have some very special friends and family supporting me, am grateful that I’ve managed to catch up with most of them (and a few hangovers) over the last couple of weeks, am sorry to those who I haven’t caught up with and am hugely appreciative of all friends and family who have help me not only reach but exceed my target for VSO fundraising.  Thank you for all the cards, kind words of encouragement and for keeping my mum (mildly) sane while I’m away – and yes mum; I will wear the helmet (even though I do look like Daftvader). I will miss you all dearly.  Stay safe and be good.....

driving papa smurf... mad

My first Blog!  Hope it all works.... This one is all about the motorbike training which followed SKWID VSO training in the middle of August.  I've started here, a few weeks before I've left for Ghana as this was when it really started to feel like I was going... here it goes!

Turning up to Gilt Edge social club down a lane, off an industrial estate, off and ring road somewhere south of Kidderminster had to indicate for me the start of VSO.  I imagined this was the start of many new and slightly strange situations I would find myself in over the next year.  CBT in a car park facing what I can only describe as a derelict, 1970’s single story block, covered with windows, full of fixtures and fittings which further exemplify it’s hay day was not what I had in mind.  Where the hell did the name ‘Gilt Edge’ come from?  There was nothing ‘Gilt’ nor ‘Edgy’ about this place... in fact the complete opposite. With unused tennis courts full of weeds on one side, a golf driving range and golf course on the other it was a truly strange mix.  We later found out that ‘Gilt Edge’ was the name of a carpet factory that the social club was once part of.  When manufacturing left the UK and the carpet factories (of which Kidderminster had many) slowly closed down, the social clubs remained and are still the only reminder of the vibrant industry and factories which once surrounded the area.  Despite appearances it was still in use.  Although who the hell travels all this way out of town to drink cheap bear in a dirty 1970‘s throw back is beyond me.

Our instructor clearly didn’t like people full stop and was hard work; I found out he was an engineer and that he has a son and daughter both who drive trucks and that was it.  He never mentioned the wife so neither did we. Other than that he was pretty much mute... monosyllabic at times and made it quite clear he didn’t like Liam. He was tall, fat, with white hair and a white beard with an austere look about him but with no soft edges unfortunately. Liam named our instructor, Papa Smurf, it was perfect. Liam had commented on the fact that ‘Papa Smurf is generally pretty nice towards you whilst simultaneously beating me over the head with a verbal baseball bat’. Sums up our 3 days of training nicely.  Luckily, we had one-way ear piece communication, so we could hear him but he couldn't hear us. Lucky because generally Liam and I found ourselves using language aimed at him that would, as Liam said, ‘make a docker blush’.  We had decided that Papa Smurf had no concept of how to be flexible or patient and to top it off he had never heard of the shit sandwich.  Just the shit.  Consequently Liam and I found ourselves peer and self praising often.  At one point I thought he was going to pop a blood vessel.  It wasn’t even that we were doing a huge amount wrong... although I am very sure it was not helping that for some reason (that even I am not sure of) I was unable to turn off the indicator.  This led Papa Smurf to say in a thoroughly tiresome pissed off Brummie accent 'Ellllliiiieeeee.... what have you forgotten?....again' followed by a huge *sigh* numerous times.

We successfully navigated the Kidderminster ring road and central Birmingham followed by a few country lanes heading somewhere towards Redditch on day two. On day three I was frozen.  It dropped about 8 degrees over night and I felt it.  Liam’s pac-a-mac (although I was incredibly grateful for it) just didn’t work, I had the thinnest jeans on and a couple of thin layers.  Even my summer biking gloves didn’t do their job in the ‘English Summer' ... mid August.  Why am I surprised?  We had a good run out to the Shropshire Hill’s, beautiful scenery, so glad he took us there, and to give Papa Smurf his credit, he hardly spoke to us except for a few instructions.  I was in front the entire way, Papa Smurf in the middle followed by Liam.  Liam might have been ignored on the last day but at least it was better than being shouted at.   Unfortunately I got a puncture going down some farm tracks on the way back about 90 minutes from Gilt Edge. This was troublesome for a number of reasons; One. I had to ride with Papa Smurf and two. Liam got a puncture 45 mins later...

Getting on a 1000 plus cc BMW bike with rear storage isn’t easy.  Especially if you have short legs and Papa Smuf is in front.  I had to shoehorn myself between his bum and the storage box (problematic when you have an arse the size of West Africa).  Coupled with the fact I was so cold that my nipples hurt I had to try very hard to position myself so that they weren’t poking in his back, this lead to a very uncomfortable backward banana.  Thank goodness Liam got a puncture.  He had borrowed gear so, in order to get this back, he had to jump on the back of Papa Smurfs bike, collect the car and come back and get me 90 minutes later...frozen like an ice block!