When we arrived at night, things were pretty much in a bit
of a blur (the drive home with all the street vendors along the wayside), and
being a bit tired, we would probably have accepted a mud hut with an
outhouse. Fortunately, our living
conditions are much better. We are
staying in the student housing at the Ayikuma campus of the school (There are
two school campuses – one in Adenta which is a suburb of Accra, and is where
the K-12 is currently being taught, and Ayikuma which is further outside of
Accra, pretty much in the country, and is where the pre-nursing/nursing and
agribusiness program will be held (the high school used to be in Ayikuma))
. The housing consists of two buildings
that are two stories tall and hold about 5 dorm rooms on each floor. Our dorm consists of a living area about 10
by 20 feet square with a round table with four chairs, a long table, and a
couch, two bedrooms – one for Mariah and Sam (separate bunk beds), and one for
Kristin and Michael, a bathroom with sink, shower, and toilet, and a spare room
that currently has old, removed air conditioning units in it. Each room has a fan mounted on the ceiling
and a compact fluorescent light. The
main bedroom also has a wood closet for clothes and things. No, there is no air conditioning, and the
temperatures get into the upper 80s with 80+% humidity. All the windows are open with screens on the
outsides, and the interior doors have screen on the upper couple of feet to
allow air to flow throughout the house.
The ceiling is quite high at 9 to 10 feet . There are electrical outlets (when the power
is on) that have their own African three prong arrangement (neither European
nor American). The toilet doesn’t flush
(well, with any effect), so in the shower is a bucket and a water spout with
which to fill it; the bucket water is poured down the toilet to achieve a
flush. The water is under some pressure
has cisterns that hold the water outside the building are elevated about 30
feet, but the shower is not heated (of course, you don’t really want a hot
shower, except for that initial shock each morning). The water safety is somewhat unknown, so
while it works for showering and toiletry, we use bottled water for brushing
teeth. The construction in Ghana is
strictly in concrete/block and mortar because of the two most plentiful
creatures – termites, and ants (pictures of termite mounds to follow). Consequently, the walls are concrete block
finished in a glaze, and the floors are all tile.
As mentioned, the power goes out routinely. I haven’t figured out the pattern yet (if
there is one), but we usually lose power once a day for anywhere from 3 hours
to 12 hours. Nobody knows the real
answer, but evidently, the Ghanaian electric company (nationalized) can’t
generate sufficient power to meet the country’s needs, so a rolling power
outage occurs throughout the country.
Apparently, power is not cutoff on Sundays though. The school has a diesel generator that can power
the needs of the campus, but it also seems to have frequent maintenance needs,
and diesel is somewhat costly (at the current exchange rate of around 3
Ghanaian dollars (known as CDs) for one US dollar, and current diesel/gasoline
prices – they’ve had a spat of inflation that seems to be calming, the cost of
is comparable to US prices), so the generator is not always run when the power
goes out – one must constantly have their electronic devices charged when the
power is available, and always be ready with flashlights and candles for the
power outages.
Food is cooked for us at the campus kitchen and almost
always consists of rice and some kind of gravy with either chicken or fish and
vegetables (the school is attempting to go food independent so it’s farming its
own vegetables and fish (aquaponics)).
Breakfast is some kind of porridge usually in rice, but sometimes a
gruel I call “Hot, brown, yoghurt” (it’s not yoghurt, but it tastes kind of
like it). Dairy products are near
non-existent which is why we bought over 10 kilos of Dutch cheese in Amsterdam
enroute. The cheese is always a treat
after dinner on special occasions. So
far we’ve had no gastrointestinal distress issues and weight hasn’t gone up or
down much, so hopefully we’ll keep on trucking.
Michael
No comments:
Post a Comment