The 8th Task of Asterix

A week or so ago I was sent a link which perfectly accurately describes dealing with any kind of bureaucracy here in Ghana.  In the ‘Les Douze travaus d’Astérix’ (The Twelve Tasks of Asterix), Asterix and Obelix are set twelve arduous deeds.  While some of them sound more fun, such as running, javelin throwing, crossing a lake and eating, number 8 is by far the worst: ‘Find permit A38 in ‘The place that sends you mad’.  As all good information comes from Wikipedia – which describes this place as ‘a mind-numbing multi-storey building founded on bureaucracy and staffed by clinically unhelpful people who direct all their clients to other similarly unhelpful people elsewhere’.  If you are better than French than me, or like me don’t mind watching cartoons where you don’t understand what is being said, there is a great little clip from the movie here.

Apart from the multi-storey aspect, this is a pretty everyday reality of dealing with the realm of officialdom in Ghana.  After being in the country 60 days you need to either leave or get an extension – for me my time is up on 9 April, so cue a trip to Immigration to bargain with my passport and cash to be able to stay in Ghana.

Step 1 – Get someone to give you an official looking letter, original signed copies only.  Headed paper goes down especially well.  Check thoroughly for the smallest of mistakes as these will be thrown out immediately.  

Step 2 – Make friends with as many people as possible at the Immigration office.  They will probably only be friendly because they think you will give them dash, but it is totally worth it to have someone to tell you exactly what to do.  Learn some names, crack a few jokes and try you Twi out – if you get a smile in return you’re winning.

Step 3 – Since January, Ghana has introduced a mandatory ‘Non-Citizen ID Card’ for all foreign nationals staying for a period of more than 90 days in Ghana.  Without this card, pretty much everything else is impossible.  So every year that’s $120 for a piece of plastic bearing my grinning mug and date of birth.  To make the experience better, the interviewer asked me out on a date and the data entry guy did the classic ‘sex – yes’ joke.

Step 4 – Fill out all of the same information again, on a different form, and hand it over to your new friend, again with another mug shot and more cash.  Your new friend will then ask more lunch/dinner/water etc. money.  Depending on how soon you want your passport back pretty much depends on how much to give.  When I needed in back in 2 days, I think I probably fed him and his family for a week.

Step 5 – Pray you get your passport back, and in the meantime don’t need it for anything.  I am at this stage, so if you have any spare room in your prayers please think of my little passport floating around somewhere in the world of red tape.  Here’s to hoping it will be out in a month!

 

Training Camp Ghana Style

So while everyone else’s Facebook pages seem to be jam packed with pictures of triathlon training camps, with big climbs, sunny days and sea views, I have been feeling pretty jealous.  

But no need to despair – training camp Ghana style is pretty much underway ; )

50m pool, sun every day - no excuse not to clock up some kms in there.  Not that I have done much more than splash around, but the opportunity it there.

Bike action!  Accra is a little bit like cycling in central London, expect with no road rules and added obstacles of trotros, carts and wandering goats.  But once you have negotiated your way out of the city and the busy roads the next challenge is to get through the roads - either potholled or dirt.  Going to Mallorca is just being spoilt, come to Ghana and you will appreciate the roads of Surrey next time.

 

 If I get kicked out of bed early enough there is a time for a morning run before work - along the train tracks that run through the area where we live.  The early morning (6am) wake up call is worth it, sleepy puppies, chickens running wild, children bathing ready for school and women cooking the first meal of the day all along the side of the railway.

 And for the keen beans there is Boot Camp on Thuesday evenings (sweat feast in a car park) and office 'training' on Friday afternoons, which seems to mainly be dancing around while throwing some punches.  Much better than clock watching until 5.30.

All of that deserves some good food - one of the joys of being in Ghana is the easy supply of local fruit, totally dependent on the season.  Right now pawpapw, mango and avocadoes are in ready supply, and coconut sellers are on almost every street.

Anyone for a training camp in Ghana?

Introducing Big Bertha

We now have a new travel companion and best friend – Bertha!  She is a little old, temperamental and in need of some TLC, but as you can see from the pictures below she has already helped us to discover a little bit more of Ghana.

We went to Shai Hills, a nature reserve just outside of Accra in the Eastern region.  It is home to lots of antelope, birds (we saw kites and eagles), bats, baboons and ostriches (which are not native to Ghana, but kept in a field – strange).  Shia Hills was home to people who migrated west from Nigeria, and is seen as a scared place for many Ghanaian groups.  Our guide told us some great stories of traditions and beliefs, my favourite being about the magic stone.  Apparently when a girl was considered ready for marriage she had to undergo six months of training, at the end of which she had to sit on a ‘magic stone’.  If she had already lost her virginity she would stick to the stone and be banished from the tribe!

We also took Bertha to see the Akosombo dam, which created the largest man-made lake in the world, Lake Volta.  The lake is beautiful and it produces a large proportion of Ghana’s electricity which we enjoy here in Accra – yay!  Although, as our guide said – ‘it was very expensive to build and that money could have been used to make Ghana better, but Nkruma had the wisdom to build a dam’...

God, Church and Money

‘A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money.’, John Ruskin

Last weekend we were invited by our neighbour to attend church with him.  Churches are a great place to people watch and get to know a community a little better, as well as challenging my world where God hardly gets a look in.  So by 7.45 am we were heading out to the east of Accra, with no real idea of what to expect, apart from our neighbour’s promise that it would be finished by 11am (actually it was 12.30 by the time everything wrapped up).

It was an interesting morning, to say the least!  We started off with a Bible study class on offering the first fruits to God, led by a very jolly pastor.  Although to call it a discussion is maybe to mislead, it was basically the pastor telling the group that they needed to give their ‘first fruits’ (ie. money) to God (ie. the church) for them to be blessed with success and financial gain.  At no point were other ways in which to offer up to God mentioned or discussed, which I felt a little comfortable about.

After an hour or so for singing, dancing and testimonies, there came the main sermon on the topic of the first born.  By this point, as newcomers, we had been places right at the front of the church, so no opportunities to have a quick nap.  The whole thing was rather confusing.  The pastor asked all first born children to stand up, and then put their hand on their head, while he delivered a 5 minute prayer about how important first born children are.  As a third born, does that mean Xavier is bottom of the pack?  The gist of the sermon was that first born children are the most important to God (and that you should offer them up to God via a financial offering to the church – ah!), and that first borns are destined to success.  But what does that mean for the majority of the congregation who are not first born children?  With large families here in Ghana, surely the sermon didn’t really apply to most people.  And if you are a first born, what did it mean?  That you were destined to great success and wealth?

All in all I was bewildered by the message, but most importantly by the fact that money had been mentioned as many times as God, and that not once were other methods of giving yourself to God discussed.  In a community where there are so many needy people, I am sure that there are also many practical ways to show your love for God rather than through a cheque to a pastor in Nigeria (instructions on how to write the cheque were given out from the pulpit).  Although the singing and dancing, enthusiasm and energy of the church were incredible, the four different envelopes we were all given to donate money and the repeated mantra that the way to honour God was through monetary gifts left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

As I was searching through Google for more information on the church, I found this article on money making pastors in Nigeria: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2011/06/07/the-five-richest-pastors-in-nigeria/2/

Of course, churches have to run, buildings maintained and often churches have outreach projects in the communities where they operate.  If people want to give money their church, that is very much up to them.  But for me, when money is the only way to show your devotion to God, and financial gain is the only way God blesses his followers, something has truly gone wrong with the understanding of the Bible.  So I think I will put this one down to an anthropology lesson.

Although later that very day we experience two misfortunes.  Firstly, the vegetarian dish I ordered had rather a lot of fish in it, which ended up in an enormous argument with the waitress, her manager and a whole host of hawkers.  Secondly, Xav’s phone was stolen at a busy bus stop.  So maybe we should have given more than 3GHS to the church.

If you are interested in seeing a little bit more about this church, and looking at their teaching for yourself, here is a link to their webpage: https://trccg.org/rccg/