TGIF

Friday, January 20 (one of the ETA dates for the container)

This is a ketchup day by direction of our hosts. When you travel through many time zones and hit the ground running somewhere along the line it all catches up with you… Ketches up with you? …get it?

However, while Doug slept in, Greg hurried off to one of the largest dumps in the world. Perhaps you’ve seen video clips or documentaries showing people living at their dump, staking out territory and combing through trash to survive. That is the case here for a large area in the once clean lagoon and river near the Makala Market in Accra. Greg is trying to learn what kind of recycling is going on so he knows what is in already in place here and what is left to do to grow the recycling industry in Ghana. He learns some things and by talking to more and more people is getting a clearer picture—I am so glad he is along.

Doug makes many phone calls from his portable office, confirming the wait outside Tema harbor with those who have an interest in the container and sets up a meeting for tomorrow. This gathering will be the start of a new business in Ghana designed to take care of business at the Ghana end of this thing we have going that just doesn’t seem to want to quit. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself as that takes place on Saturday.

Late in the day a young couple, Tafume and Melissa arrive at the Brittain compound. Tafume is the brother of Alan & Philo’s son and comes here often. He was born and raised in Toronto so sounds just like us. He is a seminary student working on a project in the Central Region near Aburi. Melisa is from India so once again the house holds many cultures.

Our Friday night was spent with yet another great meal Philo prepared: Steamed fresh vegetables, grouper, lamb chops, chips (fat French fries) and her own tomato sauce made fresh from veggies and herbs in the blender. Good cooks would love cooking here--you just send one of the gate boys out to the market every day with a list of items and then have your house girls prepare it so you can step in an hour before dinner and oversee the final preparations. It all seems to happen without effort.

After dinner we open the Knob Hill Kentucky bourbon. Greg and I chose to have it over ice, but the Ghanaians have it neat. (Neat means straight, plain, no ice). It was fun to watch the reactions! The bourbon won their approval probably due to a great aftertaste, if I interpreted their comments correctly. We have no idea how an American product like that came to this house—it simply appeared on the book shelf.

Throughout the evening we have a series of brown outs that blow out a couple of light bulbs in the house. Everyone rushes to their computers to unplug them. It is the probable cause of a fire that burned Nadia’s apartment and all her things last night. Nadia is the Brittains’ secretary for their business interests. We’re all very sorry for her and Philo is finding friends to donate clothes for Nadia and her daughter.

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