Africa vs. The World

Top soccer players selected from Africa versus top players from the rest of the world, brought together at the Accra soccer stadium... who do you vuvuzela for? Surrounded by an entirely African audience, a lone voice cries out... GO WORLD!! Backed up by my wife's muzzled toot on her vuvuzela (lies! I didn't back him - I told him to sit down and shut up before we got beaten up), I knew that The World might just stand a chance at crushing Africa in this friendly fundraising event. The stadium was packed to overflow. The match pre-entertainment consisted of a marching band, blazingly loud Bob Marley reggae through the loud-speakers and a mass dance production depicting Africa receiving soccer from the world and kicking ass at it.

The weather surrounding the game was quite phenomenal. It absolutely deluged rain at the kick-off, which resulted in half of the stadium trying to pack into the under cover sections (which was where we were sitting). Then it was like the seasonal rain finally arrived at the start of the second half turing our undercover haven into a torrential waterfall..This was a serious amount of rain and resulted in Jason having very smelly shoes and us making very good friends with the people around us as we all huddled together, like penguins hoping the outside victims would shield the rest of us from the elements...Yet the game went on with cheering Ghanaians dancing half naked in the exposed upper stadium and players chasing after balls having the ball stop unexpectedly as they run full pace right past it. It also meant that we had the joy of having to walk several city blocks to find a cab that wasn't over-run by soccer fans exiting the stadium through this torrential rain. In summary...we got wet that day.    

A brief  reprieve in Ireland 

We exited Ghana and decided to take a trip to Ireland to visit my old man for his 60th birthday. I've decided to compose a table to elucidate the stark contrast between these two silly places...JUST LIKE HIGH SCHOOL!

Ireland                                   Ghana

Green rolling hills                   Open sewer metropolis

Cows and sheep                     Goats and chickens

8 course degustation               Jolloff rice and fried chicken

Castles and manors                 Mud huts and corrugated iron 

Baileys and milk                     Amarula and powdered milk

Golf                                        Soccer

10 degrees C                           37 degrees C

Cold Rain                                Hot Rain

Patrick                                     Kwami
Cow Pats                                 Expats

I think that table sums it up quite well. These photos may help too.

Ireland 

Ghana

Home sweet home :) A Tara tale  :)

After a month of house hunting hell we have finally found a place to live! It's so nice not to have finally unpacked our suitcases and hung up our clothes. The main accomplishment of finding a place was getting it approved by security. We were gobsmacked when they said we could actually live here (after knocking back every other place we've found so far). It may have been that we didn't tell the security guy that the 'guard dog' was ridiculously cute and still ran away from us when we tried to pat him or about the 'night ladies' who perch around the round about at night (20m away from our deaf security guard).

Our home :)

The highlight of house hunting for me was meeting Joyce the land lady, the most lovely old lady in Ghana - she looked like at any moment she would pull out freshly baked cookies (like the oracle in the Matrix). When we asked her if the nearby church (Power Miracle Chapel, with a pastor who looks like Mr T in camo) made much noise during their all night meetings she said 'oh no... well they did... but then we took them to court... they are very quiet now'. We were very sad when the security man said we couldn't live with Joyce in her lovely little cookie laden paradise. : (

Kitchen Man

  


Our new place is a bit too ridiculously lovely. It is a a 'boys quarters' (for servants, independent/rebellious teenage children etc.) out the back of a really nice house. We have a big living room, bedroom, two bathrooms and nice kitchen where we can finally start cooking our own meals, not to mention a veggie patch and access to the pool! (our contract strictly says no pool parties). We also have a generator and water tank for when the city decides to turn off our water or power. True the shower only drizzles, the lights don't work in the kitchen and we think there may be a creature living in one of the cane chairs but we are overjoyed with our new home : )

We Celebrate with Amarula and Milk