Friday, week 3, oh my!

We had a fantastic storm at around 3:30 AM this morning. Thunder, sheet lightning, and a torrent of water came down, like a fire hose! An impressive show, and so considerate to rain at night so that our days continue to be fine :). Our driver told us everyone is happy today as that was the big rain, and now it would just rain lightly for the rest of the wet season.

Most of the team have had enough of cooked breakfasts now, opting for cereal and fruit instead. Personally, if I never see another Plaintin again, I won't be too upset. I'm all Plaintined out. By the way, I've since found out Plaintin is in the banana family, but you can't peel them and eat them, in fact they can't be eaten raw at all without really upsetting your innards. They are bigger than a banana, with a less strong flavor.

Today we head out of town to visit a teaching hospital and conduct more interviews and mine for more risk mitigations. The teaching hospital is a real hospital, people were lined up out the door to see a health professional. Sorry no pics, that would not be appropriate. The professor we interviewed today gave us a stern reality check regarding Malaria however. The advice was, whether or not we think we have been bitten by a mozzie, we will have been and will be carrying the Malaria parasite by now. If we stopped our medication, we would probably become sick at this point. So the advice was to stay on our meds, but take an anti-malaria anyway to ensure we get it out of our bloodstream before returning home. I might look into that next week, apparently it's a 3 day thing. Once home, I'll be getting a blood test to be sure! It's the only way to tell, aside from actually getting sick.

We had a very productive day, and got to see some parts of Accra that we had not seen before.


The old/original side of the city, heading to Korlebu:



Shops:



Old Accra:



Currently there is a rule in Ghana where no one is allowed to play music loud for 4 weeks leading up to a big festival (Independence Day) when music will be played very loudly. God needs peace to concentrate on the festival, so if authorities catch you playing loud they confiscate all your equipment, even if you are playing loud in church!

We started a 8am today, and finished at 7pm, and only then because the seamstress had returned with our new clothes. You'll have to wait till next week to see that! It's not so outrageous though, I don't want to talk it up too much.

We have finished the week with our risk mitigations completed, having made a start on the final plan document, and nearly completed a PowerPoint deck for a risk training workshop we are hosting on Monday afternoon. My head hurts! But it will be worth it by the end of next week.

Being Friday night, it's very exciting, I get to talk to Vanessa and Natasha again if WiFi holds out long enough! It is Saturday morning back in Canberra, and Friday night here in Ghana. WiFi is very unreliable :)

This weekend we'll be touring around Accra, visiting the Botanical Gardens, and going to another beach. It was a choice between waterfalls and Monkey sanctuary, and this. The consensus in the end was that we have been living in Accra but still didn't know much about it, so we would spend our last weekend together exploring what has been home for the last 3 weeks. It does not feel like 3 weeks already!

- Keep on Rockin'. Dwight.

Location:Old Accra, Ghana