Thursday the 15th

Wednesday and Thursday aye?

Nothing too exciting.

Wednesday morning I had a meeting with my project director and the marketing manager.

I then went home and started making calls and editing the proposal. So far I've set up meetings for next week with 2 media companies, 1 bank and 2 insurance companies. Let's hope they give us moolah.

Wednesday night was spent chilling with my boys. One of them, Sammy has Malaria at the moment so Steven and I went to the Pharmacy to get him the Malaria treatment.

Today I made more calls to companies. I then made tomato soup with rice. But I made is spicy so the Ghanaians will eat it. I made pasta yesterday (in a rice cooker since there's no stove/oven) and they freaked out when I put a tomato paste sauce on it. Plus they'd never heard of yellow cheese.

Today I also saw the boys do their laundry. By hand. Seriously. Jew-boys pay attention. Not only do they live out of home and hence no longer mummy's boys but they do their own washing. Without a machine. Crazy, I know.

After the soup I went to campus to print and bind the proposals for the meetings. Tomorrow I have meetings with an advertising agency, a newspaper and then an insurance company. Plus I still owe money to the printers so I have to go and pay that back.

I have since returned home and started doing some shopping for shabz. I bought two loaves of bread and 15 litres of water. I carried the 15 litres on my head. Like an African. It was probably the most tricky thing I've ever done in my life. All the little kids were pointing and laughing at the tiny white girl carrying a huge amount of water on her head. But I didn't drop it. Take that Africa.

I also found a little boy selling carrots by the side of the road. He too was carrying them on his head (like a true professional) and he was walking away from me. Basically I was so excited to see carrots (or vegetables at all) that I ended up running after him and buying 2 bunches. Thank goodness.

The man who sold me my sim card has been calling me about once or twice a day. I've only answered him twice. The first time b/c I didn't know who was calling and the second time to tell him that it would be better if he called my Australian number. So I gave him my aussie number assuming that he wouldn't call it b/c it's too expensive. Wrong. Oh well. At least he's a 5 hour bus ride away and hence harmless.

In other news I've been trying to work out what to do over the Christmas holidays. Most of the boys in the house are going to Liberia to run training seminars for young people there and to hand out aid. Look, I would go, but I don't want to die. Also, there isn't room in the car.

Gyimah offered to take me back to his village/town on the coast. Sounds cool but he's basically a Bnei Akiva boy who got lost in Ghana. He doesn't drink. Doesn't smoke. Is a little awkward around girls. Steven offered for me to go to Accra with him and stay with his family. Also cool but it seems like he'll be quite busy there and I might be a burden. I've emailed the Jewish village to see if they'd like to have me during this time particularly since it's during Chanukah so I might be of some use. I think I'll also get in touch with the Europeans to see what their plans are and maybe I'll tag along with them.

I've started reading a book called 'the state of Africa' it was required reading for Kwatchy (yeah that's a name) who is studying politics. It follows 50 years worth of political history in Africa. It starts with Ghana since it was the first state to get independence and then continues on to the ivory coast, to Egypt, to Kenya and various other places. Basically Africa is fucked. Ghana is the best but it's still super 3rd world. How is it possible that a continent full of minerals, gold, diamonds and oil as well as great farming and agriculture is still so undeveloped? It should be the wealthiest continent on the planet! Well, that is except that colonisation totally screwed with everything. It means that countries were arbitrarily created forcing warring tribes to come together to attempt to run a country. Different foreign powers supported different rebel groups and militias for their own purposes, politics (ie: stopping the soviets) or acquiring valuable natural resources. Not the mention the reality of taking a non-industrialised illiterate continent (obviously generalising) and giving it centralised government and infrastructure is going to be a hard adjustment. It took the western world millennia to achieve what is being expected of Africa in just 50 years. I mean, Africa hasn't always helped itself. It's leaders have embezzled much of the money given from western powers, they have mismanaged their economies and have subverted democracy in order to maintain their own power. Assholes. So how to make things better? Well Africa should probably have control of their own resources, not foreign governments or companies. More schools are necessary. Literacy should be the top of every country's agenda. And elections need to happen freely and frequently. Also people need to stop killing each other. That wastes time and resources and is bad.

There. Done. I solved the problems in Africa.

What's next?