Getting ready to move

When? September 2012, hopefully. Why a post about now? Because this move, the 21st in my life, will be (1) somewhat radical, although it's become difficult for me to say what is radical and what is not, considering my rather unusual life; (2) hopefully one of my last, if not the last one.

Wait a minute... I never thought I'd ever say "my last move". Am I growing old or what?

Now to the where, why, and how.

Where: Baboonland is still in the GAR (Greater Accra Region), but about 50km from Accra. I acquired a comfortably large piece of land where I intend to erect a small house amid a lot of fruit trees. My shack in an orchard. Does it sound like a dream?

Why: Baboonland, because I love the area. I've loved it for more than 10 years. When I saw an opportunity to acquire land there, I jumped on it. It was a bit of a gamble, considering how land deals go in Ghana and, as far as I know, mostly everywhere in Africa, since I was the first to sign up on a new programme. I wanted unspoiled land, and although I'll welcome neighbours sometime in the future (read: when I grow older and dependent), I wanted to be able to enjoy the quiet for a few more years, before everybody else builds on their plots and move in. I'll still enjoy privacy, since my property covers a whole block. Fortunately, everything went smoothly with the purchase and I'm now ready to start building.

How: Like a trip, part of the excitement of moving to a new place resides in the planning itself. I've been researching building techniques, drawing endless plans, etc. for months. Years. I want something small. No sprawling building, no empty, dust-gathering rooms, no inefficient corridors and other wastes of space. Small is beautiful, they say. More to the point, small will make it easier to maintain myself. Having lived 13 years in Paris, I know all about cramped spaces. While I don't plan on living in a "cramped" space, I fully intend to make rational use of whatever space I decide to have, keeping in mind that the overall impression I want to achieve is that of a weekend/vacation place in an orchard. I've now come up with a very trim plan for a 2-bedroom house. Although small when seen from the outside, the absence of corridors and other space-wasters allows for relative spaciousness inside.

I've pondered on the building technique for some time too. Ideally, I would like compressed stabilised earth blocks. The idea is to use something like what was developed at Auroville, India. I know of similar techniques being in use here in Ghana. I'm now looking for a building company able and willing to build for me.

This is how I'm getting ready in the grand scheme of things. There are smaller ways too: moving to a smaller house than those I have lived in for the last 11 years will require some adjustment. I've started rearranging my current space so that everything fits nicely in two bedrooms and a sitting room. Frankly, when I'm alone (that is, 85% of the time), I don't even open the doors to the other rooms! Now I'm just getting more systematic about it, taking in 2 rooms what I really need, and sorting out the rest between what I'll keep in a store-room (as little as possible) and what I'll dispose of. It is my hope that giving this downsizing exercise an early start, I'll have more items on the I-won't-use-it-again-so-let's-get-rid-of-it list than on the let's-keep-it-for-the-time-being list. It's all great fun! and my house here looks better already. I've always liked to travel light, and enjoy downsizing and getting rid of the clutter.

Important people ask me for favours

Hey, who would have thought I knew people high up? More to the point, that people high up are courting me for favours?

As you probably know already, Ghana is choosing a new president and new lawmakers today. I was very surprised to receive the following on my mobile phone:

Sender: AkufoAddo

Text: Do you Believe In Ghana? Vote for me,Nana Akufo-Addo on 7th Dec for quality education,jobs,healthcare and a brighter future for our children.God Bless Ghana

Now this is interesting. I would never have thought somebody as important as Mr. Nana Akufo-Addo, presidential candidate and, if I read the signs well, soon to be president elect, knows me or knows of me and values my modest person so much that he would text me to ask for my vote.

I'm terribly flattered and, had I been a Ghanaian, I would willingly have participated in this voting exercise. I may even have voted for him, out of sheer gratefulness and loyalty. After all, he was the only candidate to reach out to me.

Being a cynic and a bit paranoid too, I however wonder where Mr Nana Akufo Addo got hold of my mobile phone number. Did he (or his campaign) try all possible mobile phone numbers sequentially? Did he (or his campaign) buy listings from the mobile phone company? Doesn't the Ghanaian law frown upon this? Is it legal in Ghana to buy subscribers lists?

This is democracy in the making. International medias wow and ahhh about how advanced Ghana is in the exercise of democracy. Would they be as impressed by consumer protection as they are by Ghana's political maturity?

When everything else fails...

... it's nice to know that there is One Who never fails. Of course, this mechanic flunked his grammar tests and failed to repair your truck, but take heart, breathe deeply, and read a few verses.

To me, an appropriate choice would be Psalm 119.50. Those of you who suffered in the hands of a wicked (strike: incompetent) mechanic know that in times of distress, you need superior comfort. No matter what happens to your ride, don't give up hope and remember: only He will never disappoint you (this rule suffers no exception, not even the mechanic a non-motorist just pitched to you as the best one around).

Read on... After all you've nothing more pressing to do, have you? Remember, you're on the roadside, the bonnet is up, steam is coming out (of under the bonnet and out of your ears) and you've just given up on the above mechanic. Cheer up. This one is exactly what you need:

Of course, you won't be able to actually call the specialist (noticed the obliterated phone number? maybe a disguise to avoid attracting repeat customers? I'm told popularity is sometimes a burden) and I have no clue what "warshing" could possibly be, but while you wait, you can rejoyce (either because the specialist was located, is at work and you're hearing promising grunts coming from under the bonnet, or because you've finally found out what really matters in life...) and go straight to reading Psalm 100 and Shout for joy!

Disclaimer: this post is not intended as an endorsement of the above vendors and the author accepts no responsibility in case of faulty repair work performed by said vendors.

Wonders shall never end

Just at the corner of my street... I never saw it before, so it is probably new...

Shall he, now?

I was always told Jesus was brought up by a carpenter, so who am I to disbelieve His Father might be a tiler?

Nobody here will find this sign even slightly funny, but I have the nagging feeling I've slipped into the Twilight Zone.

Madam, the egg moved

I know I'll sound like a cynical colonialist but here goes...

Yesterday I found that there were fingerprints on the fridge and asked my (new) househelp to clean it. She took it upon herself (laudable initiative) to clean the top of the fridge too. There she found a cardboard tray of eggs where there was only one egg remaining.

Instead of taking the one remaining egg, shoving it into the fridge, discarding the useless tray and cleaning the fridge top, she pushed the tray until the obvious happened: the remaining egg landed not too elegantly (well, flat out) on the floor.

Or that's what I guessed after she came to my home office door saying, in a half pitiful, half panicky voice: “Madam, the egg moved!”

Yes, we are in an animist country, not too far from voodoo shrines... She certainly had nothing to do with the egg moving and crashing on the tiles, surely the egg took it upon itself to commit suicide in my kitchen.

I found it VERY hard not to laugh openly. But it would have been uncharitable, considering how panicky she seemed.

The quicksands are swallowing me

How dit it all begin? Not so young and supposedly experienced, I thought I could help my neighbour, that he would welcome my help, that we would work at it hand in hand and that in a not too remote future, we would all rejoice at being alive and well, better for the stimulating cooperation we would have experienced...

Today, I am much more circumspect. Having pursued my dream to exhaustion, I have now more questions than answers:

1. Does my neighbour feel the need I, as an outside observer, think has to be fulfilled?

2. Does my neighbour want to be helped and, if so, am I the help he desires?

3. Am I qualified to help him? What superior experience/know-how/skill do I have that makes me fit to help him?

4. Do my values remain valid once I cross the threshold of my neighbour's house? Does what I perceive as valid for me have the same value in his context? Is there anything like universal values? If so, which are they?

5. What if the statu quo were actually the wisest option?

Help. I need help. Everything is getting blurred and grey. Must be oxygen deprivation now that the quicksands are well above my head.

Politically correct or culturally sensitive?

You may wonder why I haven't mentioned by name any of the African countries I allude to here. Well, let's say I am a seriously deranged person, who has suffered several traumatic experiences of citizens of the said countries accusing me, because I dared describing a situation as I lived and felt it, of hating their country and its inhabitants.

My experience is that people have culturally-ingrained traits, on top of their individual personalities. There may be rogues in "the friendliest country in West Africa" (I'm told it's Burkina Faso), but overall, all people I know who visited, stayed and even lived for some time there have very mild comments about the country and its inhabitants. On the contrary, when I told people (even expatriate citizens of my current host country) about my intention to move there, they told me "you will suffer". And indeed, I do, although I must hasten to say that I've also made what I hope will prove very long-term friends.

Discovering someone else's culture doesn't mean that you have to forsake yours, live like them or espouse their views. This opinion might be misinterpreted for despise or hatred, especially by people who know no other culture than theirs and genuinely believe there is nothing or not much "wrong" with it. It is possible they are perfectly right. The issue is not that one culture is "good" and another "wrong". One is mine and another is not. There is no judgment in this, just bare, sometimes unsavoury, facts.

Like "integration". Nice dream. Even a utopian like me had to stop believing in that. Being allegedly bi-cultural, I am supposed to be the perfect synthesis of both my father's and my mother's cultures. Stop dreaming. If you see me from afar in a crowd, you'll immediately spot me as the "odd one" in the picture. Too tall, slim, fair-skinned for the African countries where I live; too tall and dark-skinned for the European country where I was born and brought up. And that's even before I move or utter a single word.

Inside, I feel like a zebra. Outside, I look like a zebra whose stripes were blurred by someone who carelessly wiped my coat while it was still wet.

It's so unreal...

My friends (I tend to call such whoever suffers my ramblings for any amount of time) often tell me your life is so weird you should write a book. Well, being environmentally-conscious, I decided against having trees felled to satisfy my narcissistic urges in favour of going the Internet way, although I wouldn't bet that whatever goes between my fingers here on the keyboard and you reading these words doesn't have an even worse impact on the environment. No kidding. "They" say there is nothing like a free lunch. Chances are "they" are right once again. Take my word for it: I am often the one ending with the bill at the end of the meal.

To begin with, I'm a very unreal being. Verging on the virtual. Almost. Remove 6ft2 of a 38 year old slim and honey-skinned personable woman and you have your virtual being.

What's so unreal about it is that, in this time and age, my self-description is absolutely true. That's when life becomes difficult for me to comprehend: I discover that seemingly simple things like truth have a relative aspect to them and that whatever is valid in one environment may be completely irrelevant in another. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't belong to two very different cultures and, even worse, if I didn't insist on living in the one I didn't grow up in.

Well, that's me in a nutshell: I'm in a muddle, trying to find the way out and stubbornly refusing to grasp the obvious pole out of my self-inflicted pond.

It has its good side: I learn a lot. The other side of the coin is, there is no safe ground anywhere around me. I just have to waddle through, knowing I'll get wet, hoping I won't drown in quicksand.

Having sketched the context of my hectic and exhausting life, it's time to tell you see you soon for more about my good and bad experiences, and everything in between...