Food of the week update

As promised, maybe not as fast as could be – I’m presenting new food of the week. This time something sweet, something 105% Ghanaian – made from Ghanaian cocoa, made by local company “Golden Tree” – Milk Chocolate!

When we came to Ghana I knew coca was growing here – since Ghana is, I think biggest exporter of cocoa products. I did not expect that taste of coca products will be such different from what we have in Poland and Europe. I liked polish sweets, but it turned out our ones are not made from purest cocoa – and here they are!

So when I first tried local chocolate I was surprised how good actually it was. Anyway check pictures to see how it looks – there are also different kinds – like black chocolate or fruit flavoured – I have not tried all.

So if you ever come to Ghana make sure you try it. It's available almost everywhere (including hawking).

From other things - it's only few days before we go back to Poland for our holidays! Will try to post something then - I have tons of material, but no time to write.

It's again getting hot here after rain season - but not that hot as it was in February/March. Generally it tourns out comming to Ghana in summer months is not good idea - weather is much better during winter season:) Recently it's been mostly cloudy and around 30 degrees.

See you all next time!

New stuff

Another month has passed, where does this all time go? Anyway as usual there is plenty to write about, hard to decide what to write about first…

Let’s start from – news from Ghana:) – New Cedis have arrived. Yup – we have re-denomination of local currency. Since July 1^st banks introduce new currency (notes and coins) by exchanging old one to new.

With new currency we now have old 10 000 Cedis = 1 Ghana Cedi, 5000 Cedis = 50 Ghana Pesewas (Pesewas are new coins). New Cedis are smaller and somehow I find them better looking than old ones.

Anyway below you will find pictures of new notes and coins (so far I have only seen 1 Cedi note – see third picture).

“Value is the same” (name of the campaign under which new Cedis are being introduced):

BTW I figured out I have not posted pics of now old currency (I have some packed to give out to my friends) – I took pictures of all old notes:) and I’m posting them too!

What else – since we are here since beginning of February we decided to take short break from work – yes! Holidays are coming – from August 17^th till September 7^th we are resting in Poland!

Returning to recent events – weather lately is not that bad. We managed to adopt to temperatures and we hardly ever use air condition now (we kept only one fan – but this even local people use). Anyway rain season brought several heavy storms, which turned out to be, well not that friendly – below you will find pictures of how our courtyard looked like after one of this storms.

Many parts of Accra were flooded and several people have died. It’s worth mentioning that from what we heard and learned not many people here can swim! Way all is build here also does not help during such situations – many shops were simply carried away by water and goods were destroyed. I have read in newspaper article presenting comments of person responsible for city construction plans (development, etc.) complaining about lack of responsibility taken in building. In many occasions flood could be avoided if new buildings were constructed in proper way

Also as most of sewers system is open here (usually going along the roads with covers only by main streets and in town center) lots of filth got out… you could see many different things (mainly garbage) being carried by water…

Water did not only damage shops or warehouses, but also many, many houses – just to show you an example. By our wall there is small, what I would normally call shed – which we found out was a house, habited by family of 5-6 people (husband, wife, 3 kids and sometimes grandmother). They were lucky that during storm someone was inside to put more valuable stuff higher to prevent flooding.

I think that will be all for today. I have problem with site counter (one on the right sidebar) it’s not working like it should – if anyone knows good site with free counters plz leave me a comment. Anyway site has over 1000 visitors so far – thank you all who came here to read what I write! I hope you enjoyed it.

What’s coming new? For sure new food of the week, than I have 2 big reports to write for you – one from opening of chop bar we’ve been invited too, second from our trip to Kakum National Park and Elumina where we saw old fort and learned about slave trading.

See you next time!

Meet Meat Pie!

By popular demand...

I'm presenting new Food of The Week!!! :)

Everyone - meet Meat Pie!

Some of you already read about it in one of previous notes (about Fan Ice), where I wrote that you can buy it along with Fan Ice - from Fan Milk seller.

What is Meat Pie one can ask? Well it's made of extremely dry pie with “surprise” inside (by dry I mean I can’t eat it alone without drinking). Surprise can be: unidentified meat, onion (as on the picture), sausage (than its called sausage roll). It’s worth mentioning that usually you don’t know what you get inside - you discover it while eating (exception is sausage where you can tell by the look). Another important thing is that each meat pie consists about 95 to 99% and 1% of filling ;P Honestly I don’t know why they call it meat pie, when sometimes you can’t find anything inside… On the other hand what do you expect for 2000 Cedis:D

Below pictures of our new celebrity:

This one came in plastic bag, but it can also come wrapped in paper (newspaper being specific)


PS. New food of the week is ready too, but I will let you enjoy this one for a while!

What to write about?

I was thinking about it for a while now. More and more things happen – many worth mentioning. Easiest way (I suppose) will be to start from…

Electricity problem in Ghana.

It’s on everyone mouth. “Light off” you can hear in radio, read in newspaper, talk with other people. Considering recent events I will use word – crisis – to describe situation here.

Only last week we did not have lights (at all) for straight 4 days. Rarely they bring lights back for straight 24 hours. Many parts of town suffer same thing, plus, situation is same in whole country.

In the meantime Ghana has biggest power supply crisis ever:

- looks like Ghana is still selling electricity to nearby countries (insane situation);

- government best idea so far is to bring 5 mln energy saving light bulbs! (no comment), same time they desperately bring back old ideas of building new power plants (who could suspect situation could turn out this way)

- existing power plans, generators, lines are OLD and tend to break down on frequent basis

- there are rumors telling that if you pay your lights won’t be cut off (want lights for wedding or funeral – just pay)…

- there are no signs of improving situation earlier than by end of this year (short term activities) and in next 5 years – great isn’t it?

- each time lights go off I call power plant asking what happened and when they expect to fix the problem – I must say every time I call I get different answer (that’s true art of lies), you simply can’t believe any word they will tell you.

Same time many small enterprises have gone bankrupt, prices of certain products have risen – this does not look good for economy…

Anyway how this situation affects us? Personally I feel helpless; lack of lights means no air condition, no internet, no power to charge my cell phone. My work is much harder atm. We get used to sleeping without air condition but it’s not always easy (thx for beginning of rain season – it’s much more cooler outside in general). Also when we are done with our work, there is not much we can do. If we have some power left – we watch some movies on our laptops… but imagine situation when there is no power in 2 laptops, palmtop, ipod and camera – sux isn’t it? And yeah I’m addicted to electronic devices!

What Ghana people do when lights are off? Generally I admire their patience. Although recently in radio voices raise that people should go and protest in streets, if situation won’t improve I can’t say what will happen – I suspect not nice things for sure.

Side note: about power supply problems and other Ghana issues you can read through 3^rd link I have just added on sideboard. This site is one I use to get some inside Ghana information.

Side note2: more notes incoming –as promised.

Ok enough complaining – I have good news too – today we finally got power generator – so now we have lights whenever we want. **** mr. Power Plant I say

Isn't it beautiful?

Changes, changes:)

Recently we have almost constant problems with electricity, well whole Ghana has:)

I have tons of new materials I want to post, but lack of time mixed with lack of light when I want to use my laptop is not helping;/

Hopefully by end of this week I will manage to update everything - cross your fingers!