August 2nd, 2013
Our Ghana project wrapped up
early this week and finished on schedule.
It was a very interesting project and it was nice that I got to see the
beginning of it and the end, there are not many engineering project that only
last three months. Although it was not a
structural project I did learn a lot being able to work with both the engineer
and the contractor whose offices were across the hall from each other at the
job site. It was interesting to be able
to see the project from both points of view and how they interacted during the
project. The engineer who designed the
drainage system did not get involved in how the drainage system was build he
left that solely up to the contractor.
Also if the contractor wanted to make any changes to the project he had
to fill out some forms to get the permission of the engineer. It helped that they were friends and would
talk over what was going on during construction and the forms then became a
formality, but still had to be filled out.
We celebrated the completion of the project with a nice lunch of Ghanaian
favorites they had delivered, goat stew with homegrown rice. I’m told that the best rice you can get in
Ghana is homegrown rice. It is grown in
Ghana and is brown rice as opposed to the white rice you get in most
places. The problem with homegrown rice
is it is about double the price of rice imported from China and Thailand. It was a fun afternoon and I had a fun time
chatting with all the guys about their lives in Ghana.
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| The water being carried away, proof our pipes are working |
The head contractor, Dieu, is a
very religious man, he likes video games and plays guitar and is trying to
start a band. The engineer, Emmanuel, is
kind of the opposite and likes the Ghana night life and rarely gets up on
Sunday for church. The foreman on the
job, George, tells me he is a pool shark and can be found on most nights in one
of Accra’s pool halls trying to win a little extra pocket money. Michael the foreman’s assistant has four kids
and his wife is a nurse who went to school in Germany and they hope to one day
move there, thou they have been trying for quite some time with no luck so
far. The contracting company is a German
company and have sent Michael to Germany twice for training and he hopes they
will help him land a secure job in Germany one day so he can move there.
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| A flock of vultures looking for something to eat |
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| Grilled sole for dinner one night |
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| The finished buried pipe running along the edge of the pond |
Since my work here is done I've
had to find other activities to keep me out of trouble. I feel like I've done enough traveling around
Ghana and have decided to spend my last week hanging out in Accra. I have spent time going on long walks down
various streets in the Darkuman region, there is always something interesting
to see. I've also taken to reading the
daily newspaper in the morning to help kill some time. I got started reading the newspaper here when
I saw a headline that read “twelve wee smokers arrested” and I wondered what
Ghana had against Scottish midgets smoking.
It turned out the headline was missing a “d” and should have read
“twelve weed smokers arrested”. The
newspapers are mostly filled with sports and gossip about people I don’t know
maybe sleeping with other people I don’t know.
They also spend a lot of time raking local celebrities on the things
they wear and who has the best ass and other such things.
From the newspapers I have been
able to follow the election scandal court case; it has now been going on for
almost three months. The Supreme Court
in Ghana announced they would have a final decision on July 31st,
but in a very Ghanaian twist both parties filed their final petitions late and
now the Supreme Court is trying to decide if they should accept the late submissions. The new date for the final decision is the 8th
of August and I leave on the 9th so I hope neither of the parties
decides to start a revolution if the decision does not go their way. Both parties have said in the newspapers they
will accept the courts decision either way.
I’m looking forward to getting
home and having hot water, decent coffee and customer service again. I will miss Ghana when I’m back home and can
definitely see coming back here one day, thou there are so many other countries
I’d like to visit as well. My biggest
worry right now is about how much of a bribe I will need to pay to get out of
the country when I leave. As people
leave Crystal hostel to go home everyone takes an interest in finding out how
they did getting through passport control.
Of the four who have left so far two got away without paying anything,
one paid 12 cedi (6 dollars) as that was all the money he had, and one
unfortunate girl had to pay 100 cedi (50 dollars). Our professor who just went home this week
told me that you should stand firm, smile and refuse to pay any bribe or fine
since there is really no justification for it.
Johnny
Pay the bribe.
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