The Man, the cock, the crow.

There's a cock that's been living on our wall. Lately, it's been crowing louder than ever for longer than ever. A few weeks ago, it got unbearable. My heart would jump and I'd awaken from its loud crow at 2.30 a.m. After the first shock, I got up, slammed the loovers a bit and the cock moved further down the wall, leaving us with a bit of peace.

The next night, it seemed to come back with more strength, first waking baby, then me, then Virgo. Our whole night was ruined, so as you can imagine we were far from happy when the crowing started on the third night. I woke up to find Virgo getting dressed in the middle of the night. After a while, I heard steps in the grass by our window, a cock's yelp, then the scurried steps of a cock running away (Virgo had thrown pebbles in its direction and it had ran away). The rest of the night we slept undisturbed.
Man - 1 Cock - 0

The next night,in a genius move, Virgo went outside our bedroom window as early as 9p.m., chased away the cock, and we actually went to bed smiling.

Man - 2 Cock - 0

We thought we'd found our recipe for success, so Virgo did the same thing the following night, but somehow, by 3a.m. it had forgotten all threats of pebbles being thrown at it and came back crowing louder than ever (after all, it had had a night's rest).
Man - 2 Cock - 1

Still, we thought we'd give our early night pebble chase another go so that night, same old story, a few pebbles were thrown on to the wall outside our bedroom window to get the cock to move down a bit or jump back into the neighbour's yard, where he belongs. However, a stroke of really, really bad luck hit us. The cock mistakenly jumped/fell into our garden and didn't seem able to fly back up on to the wall. This situation made it crow louder and more frequently than ever, and so begun our night of hell with crowing from 10p.m. onwards, til 6a.m.
Man - 2 Cock - 1,000,000!

But now it seems, a cool chic, a hen that hangs out in our garden has managed to walk the crow out of our garden and back to his own land and it hasn't found its way back yet. After those nights of complete hell (after all, do parents of a six-month old really need anything else to keep them up at nights???) we're hoping for a bit of peace.

FIngers crossed!

Good morning Accra!

The day stars at 5.30 with the sound of the neighbours sweeping the compound (a concept completely lost on me). About twenty minutes later I can hear the family in the boys-quarters screaming conversation at each other (even though they are no more than a few meters from each other, if that).

I manage to slumber back to sleep only to be woken by the sound of a bulldozer next door. I hear the neighbours yell: "Ofaine, ofaine" ("please" in Ga, excuse the spelling) as they scream and run around the bulldozer. From the comfort of my bed it seems the owner of the land is trying get rid of the squatters by bulldozing them away!

A few minutes later there's silence. I think the squatters won this battle. I turn over and fall back to sleep, only to hear "Auntie, good morning" at 6.45. I try to ignore it but it grows louder, "Auntie, good morning. AUNTIE!" Moaning, I have to roll out of bed and open the househelp. I know I've complained of her showing up late for work, but to come an hour early, today, that's just cruel!

After opening her, explaining that I am VERY tired and sorting her out with everything she may need, I go back to bed. Just as I fall back into deep sleep with my pillow covering my head: knock, knock, knock. "Auntie, Mrs. D is here for your meeting". Of course I had forgotten that my Thursday in-house meetings with Mrs D have since last week been moved to Wednesdays.

I get up, go to the bathroom and get ready for a brand new, very exhausting day. What's a girl gotta do to get one, ONE mid-week sleep-in in the city of Accra?!

Prampram

Stayed at H's house last night, had a very quiet night, just chatting about everything mostly with Akinyi and Ruby. Didn't sleep until 1.30 and woke up around 5. At midday Ruby picked me up in Tema and we went to Prampram to view the beach house for Saturday's party. The drive, as always, was lovely and shorter than I imagined. Got to the beach house and realised that the neighbour, who seemed to be having a party for over two hundred people was using uncle F's house too and the neighbour on the other side as well to spread out the noise and mess they were causing.

We ended up walking quite a bit away from the house to find a more peaceful place to swim and talk. The idea of swimming was so appealing, that was, however, until we were met by the wrath of the sea. It seems the sea at Prampram has it in for every human being. As I stood in the water, only about 7 meters into it, the first wave slapped hard against my legs leading me to wobble a bit. At this point, the undercurrent saw its opportunity to tackle me by pulling away the sand I was standing on. As a final blow, the sea then maliciously hit me with another heavy wave, ensuring I would fall to my knees and crawl up shore to safety. A WWF wrestler could not have tackled me in a more impressive way.


As a keen and strong swimmer there is not much that can discourage me from getting into water, But after this sadomasochistic game continued upon each of my attempts to enter the water, I finally gave up and sat down for a chat with Ruby about the potential business opportunities.

The most disturbing thing about the water though, was not its obvious hatred of human beings but the amount of rubbish in the water. Labadi beach is known to be dirty, but one would expect that after driving 45 minutes out of Accra, the beach would be slightly cleaner. But as we fought a losing battle against the abusive sea, we also had to continuously brush away bits of rubbish that kept floating towards us. At one point I thought my hand had hooked on to a condom (!) but later on I realised there were a lot of clear, long plastic bags. I can only hope, but intend to believe that that was what I actually touched.
It seems the people of Prampram and Ningo (along with the rest of Ghana) have found the ultimate cheap waste management system: dump everything in the sea.

Why else would empty toothpaste tubes and plastic bags be found in the water? It saddens me that we do not cherish the beautiful land (because, oh, it is really beautiful) we have been given. I wish the children in schools today would be informed in a similar way as i was when i was younger, with stickers and informational seminars and activities on "Var radd om Goteborg" (loosely translated as "Take good care of Gothenburg"). When will we in Ghana start recycling and caring about the energy we use (and waste), what happens to our waste and how and what to recycle our used products to preserve our environment?

I had a very interesting (but short) discussion on this with Gloria's mancunian husband who's about to relocate to Ghana and is interested in establishing an organisation that deals with environmental issues. It is a topic that needs to be highlighted and taught around the country before our destruction reaches a point of no return. Hm, may have to invite the newlyweds to Ruby's party so I can continue the discussion.

On that note...goodnight.