Elephants!

After the heavy rain and thunderstorm last night we wake up to a wonderful sunny day again. We leave early morning for our walking safari with armed guide. The cool of the morning quickly turns into another very hot and humid day, but never mind…. We soon find the first signs of elephants nearby. Our guide very expertly traces the footprints, and suddenly there is this huge lone male elephant. He goes swimming in the waterhole, and we watch fascinated for a long time. Tempting to join him in the pool, but after seeing the crocodiles this option never really comes up.

Slowly we walk back across the open plain towards our hotel. Suddenly the guide stops. Elephants again! I don’t believe it, we are so lucky!

 

(Joan, I promised to paint his toenails in green, yellow and red, but the way the elephants look at me, I decide against it….)

Wow, what a morning – I never expected we would really see elephants, and that close!

More to come,

Cynthia

Kente Weaving

Time to do some (hand)work. We visit Adanwomase, a community based tourism project. After seeing and learning how a Kente Cloth is made, I have a go. It’s very good I do not have to earn my living weaving; I am not a natural talent! My hand, feet and the head get totally confused, and this is just a plain weaving with one color only!

The final products

 We spend the night in a guest house in Nkoranza, It is quite tricky to find the location of the guesthouse. Our guide Patrick asks some five locals and gets five different directions, so he calls up his office to get the phone number and call them directly. It is in the hospital complex, past the mortuary, down the hill – the guesthouse helps support the orphanage for handicapped children. We stay in a lovely bungalow with open air shower.

More to come,

Cynthia

Lake Bosumtwi

Rain season is here! For two days the sky has been grey and from time to time there are some heavy showers. I am still optimistic though that tomorrow it will be better again.

We left Accra Sunday morning for our drive up north, arriving at the lake mid afternoon. A very cute little hotel, I think there only about three guestrooms, right on the on lake shore (welcome mosquitoes…. glad we have a mosquito net we can use)

We skipped Kejetia Market in Kumasi today (well, we postponed that visit to our return journey) It would simply have been to wet and muddy there. Kejetia is the largest open market in West Africa, incredibly busy; it will be quite an experience.

PS: internet connection does not work here, so posting of this entry will be delayed.

More to come,

Cynthia

Sun, Fun and Nothing to Do

With the CSC project over, data delivered and presentations done, we are all set. In my case: ready to start vacation. Bojo Beach Resort is our destination for the day. The beautiful sand island is only accessible by a very short boat ride. What a perfect day to end the project!

The evening is another highlight. Live Ghanaian Highlife Music and wonderful company. Guys, I will not forget that evening…. Thank you!

More to come,

Cynthia

The Showdown

Presentations are over. And honestly, I am impressed. Impressed, by what I can see that all four teams have learned, achieved and implemented in (as Remi from IBM Nigeria pointed out) just 16 working days. Yes, that’s true; we had just 16 working days! The teams met for the first time physically the day we arrived, and during the following 16 days (and yes, some evening or weekend work included) we all delivered findings and recommendations, pilots and documentations that I hope the clients find really useful. I can only speak for myself, but I think we have all learned a lot – from the projects, from each other, the clients and from this wonderful country.

To celebrate we went out. First things first – I am a woman – we went shopping. Those that know me also know that usually I am not a shopping queen. But once I get started, it’s difficult to stop. Look at those beautiful things! I could have bought the whole market….

Our CSC project is now over – my blog is not. I will stay in the country for two more weeks and travel around, so stay tuned.

More to come,

Cynthia

Murphy's Law?

We were scheduled to present our two projects internally to the client today. All ready and set to go in the big boardroom, microphones tested, laptops ready – waiting, with all unit leaders for the Auditor-General to join us. Suddenly a loud noise, some sparks above my head, and the projector goes black. This is the exact minute when the Auditor-General walks into the room!!!! OMG!

Our "subversive" team

But the situation is solved quickly; a new projector is in place in no time. Our presentation went well; I saw many heads nodding around the table. We can’t have missed the points too much. So tomorrow we have all day to fine tune the slides for the “big” presentation on Thursday, finish the paperwork, and we even have some free slots to meet with our client to walk them through some of the recommendations and suggestions in more detail.

More to come,

Cynthia

Sunday in Accra

We went to the beach (yes, famous Labadi Beach). I had a hard time keeping all the vendors at a distance. My usual “later” did not really work here. One of the guys really came back later, and we had to say “no” again and again. He was quite persistent. 

A word on taxis in Accra: I have never before been to a place where there are so many taxis. They honk at every “Obruni” (white person). Never forget to negotiate the price before you get in! Meanwhile we are quite good at it. Before we went to the beach I checked with the hotel staff on a price to be expected, and she said about 15 Cedi -  we paid 10 Cedi each way.

But look at the taxi! Mirrors in bits and pieces, the inside was a total mess, everything broken, the doors were difficult to close. A 33 year old Opel Kadett, as Salomon, the taxi driver, proudly explained.

Despite the very old car - he brought us back safely.

It was at least making a living for him and his family.

More to come,

Cynthia

Let's party

Our team has collectively selected to visit a shelter for abused children and children in remand. Thanks Poliane, for having the idea with the party, and thank you Joan for this perfect project management in preparing everything. We had an “arts section”, a games committee, a team in charge of food and drinks, and one team in charge of gifts (I usually outsource the wrapping of gifts, but not this time!)

The children greeted us with songs and dancing, we painted with them, we played games, and we had music, food and drinks. A splendid afternoon for us and the children, we all had a great time.

More to come,

Cynthia

A major step forward

Today we are informed that the final presentation will be moved to an earlier date. Instead of Friday next week it is now Thursday. Doesn’t sound like it made a huge difference to you? Bet it does! Our team is working on two subprojects in parallel. We need all the time we get. In the beginning we focused on Project A (skills assessment) - while that survey was running we dedicated more time to Project B (governance model for a new unit). This means, while we basically are at the end of the data gathering stage, we still need to analyze all results and research, and come up with our recommendations. Not to mention that we must prepare the deck for the internal presentation to the client and the great showdown on Thursday.

I do not complain, though. I get deep insights into areas I never thought about before. And the highlight of today is a meeting with the client. Once the meeting actually begins (this usually takes some time…) it turns out to be an amazing and fascinating experience. It is productive and informative, a show case on meeting culture and negotiation skills. I feel like watching the council of some chiefs. Totally energized we continue afterwards. We really do take away a lot from that session!

More to come,

Cynthia

On top of everything

Unbelievable, this is already our second weekend in Ghana. Time goes by so quickly! This time we traveled along Ghana’s coast to Cape Coast and Elmina. Just to get out of Accra takes 45 minutes; the whole drive is about 4 hours, depending on traffic. I never tire of watching what is going on outside the car window. You can buy everything and anything along those roads – most often though the street vendors sell water, dried fruit, little snacks, khebab or nuts. As usual in West Africa everything is carried on the head. Fascinating. I have even seen a man carrying his suitcase that way. Image he walked up to check-in at the airport like this! 

We had previously discussed on how difficult it might be to carry stuff around on your head. Well then, I tried it! Quite heavy it was, but surprisingly stable.

 

         

After the visit to Cape Coast Castle we settled into our beautiful beach resort. Time for a walk on the beach, to play ping pong or go horseback riding.

Sunday was time for Kakum National park and the famous Canopy Walk. This walk offers beautiful views into an area of the  rainforest you cannot discover in another way - nothing for people who are afraid of heights, though. 

                                 

Priya and Poliane

More to come,

Cynthia

Yes, we are actually doing some work!

Reading my own blog it looks more like we were here just for fun, but believe me, we are also working! Each morning our driver (what a luxury -  I could get used to that at home!) picks us up at the hotel and drives us to the office. During the day we usually get a constant stream of visitors coming to our office – for interviews, to check on us, to clean our desks, to bring water / fruit / biscuits, or clean the used coffee cups (again – a luxury I could get used to).

Today our team split up. Dianne went on a road trip to the Eastern Region with four staff members from our client. They were working with the local employees to have the skills survey completed. As the regional offices do not have internet connection and we need to get our electronic survey completed by as many employees as possible, this is the only way to do it. The team brings the laptops and modem sticks and is working with the employees to fill out our questionnaire.

Derrick and I went to see the project leader of our second project. That project is about the creation of a new unit within Ghana Audit Service. We interviewed some employees, and at 5 pm we had an appointment with a Director from the Ministry of Finance. So, it was quite a busy day for all of us.

At the Ministry of Finance

Tomorrow the three of us will be on the road to facilitate the skills survey in the Central Region (Cape Coast Area).

More to come,

Cynthia

Feeding Monkeys

Early Saturday morning we left for our weekend trip. The first stop was at the Akosombo Dam. The dam was inaugurated in 1966 and is actually the most expansive artificial lake in the world, covering about the size of one fifth of Switzerland. After a delicious lunch at Afrikiko Restaurant next to the lake (yummy, that charcoal grilled Tilapia was definitely fresh and tasty, one of the best meals I had in Ghana so far!) we drove on to Mount Gemi, one of the highest mountains in Ghana close to the border of Togo. The walk up the mountain offered spectacular views as far as Lake Volta. It felt good to be moving after one week of sitting.

Next morning we drove to the Wli Falls. The 45 minutes walk to the falls led us through dense rain forest, with lush green trees and bushes; humidity was close to 100 %. Although rain season is only just about to start there was quite an amount of water in the fall. Wli Falls is the highest waterfall in all of West Africa.

 

And, oh yes, I am a “mango lover” – and there are mango trees everywhere (apart from bananas, pineapple, cassava, palm trees and many others). The guide picked and washed one mango for me and in the restaurant I had it cut for me and ate it as a dessert. A small but very sweet mango…Delicious!

The highlight of the weekend was definitely the visit to Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary. It was created in 1993 to protect the sacred Mona monkeys that live in the surrounding forests. For many years the monkeys were thought to be the spokesmen for the slower tortoises. The sanctuary is now a community-based ecotourism project. And very obviously it is a fact that the monkeys adore bananas! If you hold a half one out to them they will even jump over, sit on your arm and munch it. Their paws are surprisingly soft, and swiftly they fly and jump all around you. Mind your head though; from time to time banana peel will drop from the sky!

 

More to come, 

Cynthia

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And the air conditioning is currently not working... But I don't complain, my winter has been long.

A Day Out

First of May is a public holiday also in Ghana – Therefore we were off work and enjoyed a day out. We went to the Aburi Botanical Garden, a 45 minutes drive from Accra. And wherever you are – there are always kids around that want to have their picture taken. They have so much fun when you show them the photo afterwards.

Our team after lunch: