‘Builders’ and ‘renovation’

... have a very different meaning in Ghana.  The landlord, whilst assuring me he would increase security around the house said he wanted to ‘renovate’ the house, basically because it’s subsiding and the cracks were getting quite big, gaping would be a more appropriate description.  Renovating in Ghana simply means chiselling the cracks so they are massive (sometimes to the point of being able to see through to the next room), then filling them back up again. This process involves them using no safety equipment (safety glasses and so on), no covers for furniture, finding no alternative plugs for fridges they unplug, choosing to chisel around curtain brackets rather than take them down and not cleaning up as they go along.  It results in a building site within half an hour of starting and me slowly loosing the will to live.  I would say there were 10 men, banging away in no particular or logical order, and 10 men sitting down; they go at it hard for 15 minutes or so, then swap over, sweat literally dripping off them.  My job was to provide water for drinking, water for washing bodies (they all had a bucket bath using the hose at the back of the compound at the end of the day – not often you can say you have a garden full of naked men) and water to wash their bicycles at the beginning of the day.  I’m afraid I put a stop to that one.  Might have been different if the bloke had asked but doing the washing up watching him washing his bike got my goat... cultural difference or not, beginning of day two of the building site was not leading to me being the most flexible person.  Still, one bonus of them coming in to the house was that they discovered 95% of my bedroom ceiling was rotten.  Unfortunately that meant replacing it and I cannot tell you how much mess that made! They’ve also finally dealt with the rotten window in my old bedroom... just the painting to go, then all ready for a new house mate : )