Cool things

Not a lot of time for a coherent blog in the run up to Christmas,  so this fortnight you get a random selection of  things we think are just great!

The pump house. Having seen foundations laid, blockwork in progress, and a corrugated roof going on we had a go ourselves. Lyd and I built this little hut over the course of two days to keep our water-pump and booster protected, and make them quieter. We're very proud parents.

Friends!!! Adam and Rach were here for two weeks and loved Ghana. Beers on the balcony and trips to the local lake side resort are even more fun with friends around. And now James and Alex have joined us for Christmas!

Adam and Rachael enjoying the view at Alos Bay

James and Alex with Lyd at Head Office in Accra

Full size beer. On the left, a Ghanaian beer bottle (90p) next to a normal size UK bottle (which you can buy out here if you go searching). The gin is surprisingly good too, and at 1.80p for a full 1L bottle you can have a party here without spending much.

The office (in the sewing center) is complete!!! Lydia is taking credit for the two coats of neat paint that give the room a fresh new look. I'm taking credit for the flashing multi-coloured 6-way multisocket adapter mounted on the wall with individual on off buttons. One took more work than the other.

Car insurance. For roughly 14 quid a year a car is insured for any driver. I've no idea how the insurance company makes money as there are a lot of accidents out here, but it means we can drive 4x4s and pickups as needed.

Ben! Dave and Renae adopted a gorgeous little two year old three days ago. He's had a rough couple of years up to now, but is so well behaved and is in for a superb boost in life. Lucky little lad.

The sea view. Waking up in the cool morning air and listening to the waves crash in.

The view from our porch

That's a wrap. Have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Tim and Lyd xxx

Cracking on

With the sickness behind us and a sewing and batiking centre ahead, we’ve had our heads down for the past two weeks pressing on with the job at hand.

 On the left, the back house which will become the sewing centre, alongside the outside covered areas, under which the ladies will batik

The roofing is now complete. After my being stopped by the police twice with 20 8ft long roofing sheets ‘strapped’ to the top of the car, our man Vincent here stepped up and nailed them into place for us. He’s the brother of our cook, a trained welder, and has potential to be a future production manager on the site. One to watch.

The electricians are in, giving us lights, sockets and replacing the stolen wires. They aren’t cheap but we got them down from 1300 GHC to 570 GHC with some negotiation. Lydia is ‘contract managing’ like the best of them…

Carpentry, including making doors fit, chiseling, putting in locks and bolts, replacing ceiling mounts and building shelves, falls to Lyd and I to keep costs down…

As does the glass work in the windows. Look at this perfect example of the old ‘score and snap’ technique…

As ever we like to do our own plumbing. We've traced the lines, replaced the broken pipe, but for some reason water doesn't flow to the house toilets or taps. We’re hoping it’s just because the mains are dry at the moment, next week they’ll come back to life and we will know for certain. If it’s a broken PVC pipe in the concrete underground we’re going to have our work cut out finding it, let alone getting it sorted…

There’s still much to do, notably now purchasing all the equipment and raw materials needed to get 2 batikers and 2 seamstresses up and running from 11th Jan. The meeting with potential ‘start-up’ mamas today went well, we know we have 3 out of 4 qualified ladies lined up for the first day. One more to find.

Sweating all day has never been so much fun.

Tim & Lyd x

Getting Sick

If you get ill in Ghana, it can be serious. Simple diseases treated lightly in the west will fester under the hot conditions and on sweaty bodies, and before you know it you’re in trouble. It’s best to rest and get the recovery right.

This is graphic account of how I got it wrong.

Last Tuesday I got the runs, not uncommon out here. I ‘lost’ everything, breakfast lunch and dinner, and went to bed with only water and a couple of Sprites in me.  On Wednesday I felt fine, carried on doing manual labour around the house and in the grounds, drinking and eating light meals, but the diarrhoea continued.

Thursday was a nightmare with me curled up in bed shivering, sweating then shivering again. My stomach was able to take stuff in, but wouldn’t let anything drop into my intestines, and my water intake dropped to almost zero.

Friday I felt better and, assuming I was over the worst of it, worked part of the day outside, getting sunburn on my shoulders, I still couldn’t hold food, and was unable to drink a lot of water, but it seemed it would be over soon. On Saturday I was back in bed, less sick than before but uncomfortable. My stomach was again playing up and I still couldn’t replenish those missing fluids.

By Sunday I had deteriorated significantly, and at lunch time was lying in bed with a numb face and hands, severe dizziness, sweating and in a lot of pain. Eventually we called a neighbour, who helped carry me to his car and drive me to the hospital in Tema. I was admitted as an emergency, suffering from very severe dehydration. A drip was loaded into both arms and three 500ml infusions drained into me, along with intravenous antibiotics to kill the still present bacteria. After three hours I was much improved and sent home with antibiotics and immodium.

By Monday afternoon the fever was back, the dizziness was back, and without waiting for further bad news we called the friend again and raced back to hospital. With a temperature of 40 degrees the doctors didn’t mess around, the drips went back in, as did two rounds of intravenous antibiotics and, having spent 2 hours lying on a hard bench in reception, I was found a place on the ward and admitted.

Entering the second week, and Tuesday was probably the lowest day of my 28 year life so far. The fever, intermittent previously, hit strongly from 2pm. Having been tested for Malaria and Typhoid and with both showing negative, the doctors could not explain what was wrong.  Lydia worked all afternoon and evening sponging cold water onto me whilst I lay in the hot Ghanaian hospital trying to stay alive. No doctors were available, and the nurses refused to give me any further drips without a doctor’s signature so I attempted to force down water to recoup the liquid lost to sweating.

It occurred to me, and I think to Lydia, that I may have left this too late, that had I come in on the third day, or the fourth this might be curable, but the symptoms were escalating and my body appeared to be in self destruct mode. The thought of your own end is unpleasant at the best of times, but -for a man with a logical mind- knowing you may have brought it on yourself through your own stupidity is almost unbearable.

Late in the evening the fever broke, and we both settled into a hot and fitful sleep.  The following day my condition improved, and the fever stayed away, although the doctors never did find out what was causing the illness.

It’s now Friday afternoon of the second week since the illness started, we’re back at home, and all my symptoms have gone. I’m still weak, but have a healthy appetite again – for Western food – and will be spending your ‘survival’ money getting the fattest bacon, burgers and chips money can buy to put some weight back onto my scrawny frame. With hind sight I hadn’t left it too late to get help, although I fear it was a close run thing. Next time we’ll be calling in the professionals sooner.

Me in 'prime' condition before I left for Ghana

Me at the lowest point of the illness

Lesson learnt. The hard way. Tim x

Plumbing

A guide to plumbing your Polytank

With intermittent mains water supply in Ghana, it’s important to install a large water storage tank on or near your house to allow for a steady supply of water when the mains run dry.

Begin by constructing the tank's foundation. Should your brickwork skills still be in development, for a small fee local help is always at hand.

Next locate the main water line coming into the house. You will need to intercept it before any spurs to ensure the new tank will feed all taps in the house.

Install a correctly sized non-return valve just upstream of the first spur. Don’t forget the valve sockets on either side will need thread tape to reduce friction on installation, and the PVC on PVC joints must be cemented together to prevent leaks.

Upstream of the non-return valve, dig trenches, T off the main line, and begin laying the plumbing that will feed the new tank. Add a stopcock into this line to give yourself the option to cease filling your tank in the event that you need to remove it. You may need to change the size of the pipe as the mains line and the tank sockets are unlikely to match. In this case a simple ¾” to 1” converter will do the job.

Once connected to the upper faucet socket of the storage tank your feed line is complete. Now run lines from the lower socket of the tank to your pump. Again, be prepared for the need to shut off the line, a quarter turn valve is most appropriate here. For stability, mount the pump on a small foundation. In the eventuality that the pump breaks down a union joint will allow easy release of the old pump, and although expensive this will save having to cut into the plumbing at a later date.

In order to control the pressure in your taps a pump pressure control switch (or ‘booster’ in Ghana) should be installed on the exit leg of the pump. Radial pumps normally exit vertically making installation easy. Wire the electrical supply to the pump through the booster to ensure it cuts on and off correctly.

The next section of piping will be under significant pressure, most domestic boosters are set to cut out when the head reaches 15m. Faucet bend off the booster and install a matching union joint to the entry pipe before converting the pipe width back to the main line width. Finally T back into the main supply (or a spur if one is close by), and you’re complete. PVC cement this final section with care, a lose bend here and you'll have a water fountain landing on your attic windows.


Fill the trenches back in and smile – you can shower for the first time in 2 weeks.

Lydia x

The move to Prampram

After 2 months of training, and a relatively hand-held introduction to Ghana we’ve struck out on our own. Lydia and I now live in Prampram.

‘Living’ however is a relative term. We moved in on Wednesday last week, with no power, and no water. Thankfully we’d come earlier and sprayed insecticide everywhere so bugs were not a problem.

The chalets have been empty for the past 6 months and to say the sea breeze has damaged them is an understatement. Sockets are rusted, door locks are frozen and (most irritatingly for anyone who does DIY) every screw snaps off as you try to remove it, making repair work a nightmare.

Did I mention the hole in the roof and the three missing shutters? Thankfully it didn’t rain; for the first two days. Then a night-time storm hit us, and it poured. Upstairs and downstairs flooded, and having saved what we could we got back into bed and tried to ignore the intermittent drops landing on our faces.

The storm also knocked out our recently reconnected electricity (literally, someone had nicked the copper wires before we moved in.) The local area was affected, no one had power. We then worked out it was actually us who had taken out the power, some very shoddy underground cabling and a 6" deep water covering of the drive had resulted in a short circuit. Of course because of the ever present rust our main trip switch had failed to turn. We're keeping our heads down and hoping the electricity company doesn't come our way.

Indeed, ‘living’ in the West, and ‘living’ in rural Ghana are very different things. But that’s why we’re here, and to be honest, we love it.

Moving head office

We woke up last Friday with a day of work ahead of us and a vague plan for the weekend to go to Pram-Pram and see our new house with Dave and Renae.

Little did we know that the yearly rental contract on their Accra home, which also serves as the Global Mamas head office was up in seven days, and although they were fully planning to renew, they had been walking around the local neighborhood each morning looking for other properties ‘just in case’.

On their Friday stroll they came across a 7 bedroom former resort complex with a pool, large outdoor area, bar, enormous kitchen, and great office space for Global Mamas. A call went in to the owner when they arrived back home, and by lunch time the rent had been negotiated and the weekend plans had changed. We were moving.

                              The new pool, a little filtering to do to remove that colour

Now moving from a house with 3 bedrooms, a volunteer’s quarters, an NGO head office and a large stock storage area would normally be done professionally, and with more than 24hrs planning. Throw in that a previous contract job that Dave was on was paying them to continue to store 10 filing cabinets and a lot of computer equipment and you’ve got a monstrous job on your hands. We had Dave, Renae, a couple of volunteers, the house guards and a small flatbed truck.

                                                                 packing

                                                               moving out

                                                                moving in

We begun moving on Saturday morning and, aching all over, finished on Tuesday evening! It’s amazing what you can do with a little muscle. Since then Dave’s ‘handyman’ skills have been working overtime, and the place is slowly coming together. The second director from the US is over shortly to visit for a couple of weeks, her first time here in over two years. There’s nothing like a deadline to focus the mind.

However, we couldn’t say goodbye to the old house without one last dip in the ‘pool’…

Lydia's dip

Tim's dip (videos)

Tim and Lyd x

Weekends Away

Here in Ghana, during the week we work hard, but come 5pm on Friday ...

Here are a few of our favourite weekends so far:

Domama rock shrine

A 7km trek, up and down hills on a dirt track, lead us to a spectacular collection of rocks piled on top of each other to form a cave.  Inside was a spider web covered shrine.   Our guide tried to explain the significance of the shrine, but the language barrier proved challenging so we just nodded and smiled.  7km back to the start left us exhausted and sweaty.  The tro-tro (shared minibus) ride home will stay in my mind for ever – it was pitch black and we hurtled along the pot holed road at 60kmph with no headlights.  I believe that this is illegal in the UK, but here, a 20p 'dash' to a policeman at a road check and any vehicle is roadworthy.  Luckily (!)  another tro over took us so we stayed close using the light from its headlights.  The Ghanaians in the tro with us didn't seem fazed. 

Eco Lodge

One weekend, we drove to an eco lodge.  The last road was “unmade” and took us 80mins to travel 10km, dodging pot holes and rocks in the dark.  The lodge was on a beautiful long white sandy beach.  Perfect waves for body boarding, sunbathing, delicious food, gin and tonics.  Bliss!   On a night walk on the beach we saw a green turtle laying its eggs before wondering back in to the sea which was amazing.   Unfortunately the “self composting” toilet was the most disgusting loo known to man (Tim has a photo straight down it).  Even waiting outside the door was unbearable.  Despite this,  it was a fantastic weekend.

Elmina Beach Resort Hotel

We have bought leisure passes to the 5* hotel across the road from our current house, which was mentioned in a previous blog.  Many hours have been spent lying next to the pool reading, swimming, playing basket ball and using the gym. Only a handful of Ghanaians can swim, but they like to learn and will often ask for a lesson when they spot the 'bruni' lady doing lengths.

Elmina Village

Having been told that all the fishing boats return to our local village after a night of fishing at 6am, on Saturday morning at 5.30am we set out to watch the fishermen bring home their catch.  We walked though the village as it came to life; kids were washing in the street, adults we brushing their teeth, stalls were being set up and the floor was being swept.  Unfortunately there were no boats on the sea! It seemed that our information was a little wrong.  Another man said that maybe the boats would come in 8am.  Looking at the harbour, to us it looked like the boats were already in.  Never mind, it was a beautiful seeing the sunrise over the sea.

   This chap wanted to go into business with Tim. $50,000 dollars up front from us and he'd give      us half his catch every day in the new fishing boat he'd buy with the money. We got him down                                                 to $40,000 and went for it; bargain.

Catching fish with a net in the harbour. Not a job for the weak, this guy gets one small fish every                                                                hundred throws

And, in other news, today we bought a car!

2 year old Kia Picanto, 30,000km, AC, but no Power steering or central locking. Change the oil every 3,000km and the timing belt at 40,000km and she'll be sweet for years to come, apparently -Tim-

Elmina vs. London

This study looks into the pros and cons of living in Elmina, Ghana vs. London, England.

 On the plus side…

Ellen and Apeah

Ellen is our housekeeper, a wonderfully helpful Ghanaian lady who keeps the place clean, does all the washing up, all the clothes washing, bottles clean water and puts it in the fridge, changes and washes the bed sheets and tends to the house’s vegetable patch. Apeah is our night guard and general maintenance man. Here’s a video of him mowing the lawn…

The Lawnmower

Chores in Elima do not exist (+10 points)

Food

Within a 5 minute walk of the house is a chap who sells sausages (normal, pure beef, and gizzard, mmm…), a lady who makes rice and chicken dishes, Eli, who cooks us a huge meal 3 or 4 nights a week and Joe, who knows exactly what he’s doing with these slippery fellas. His marinades and salsas are to die for. Lobster is £0.80 for a decent portion.

Joe's son, Ismael, cooking on the BBQ

No need to cook, ever (+12 points)

The daily commute

For 12 minutes each morning we’re subjected to the monotony of an endless, beautiful sandy beach with crashing Atlantic waves and views for miles out to sea. To avoid getting bored in the mornings we watch the drag net fishermen haul in their catch, stop randomly to say hello to the taxi driver’s families and pickup 8 year old kids on their way into school.

 Commuting is fun (+6 points)

The weekend

This hotel pool is a 3 minute walk from our front door. From 8am to 1pm Saturday and Sunday it’s ours, no one else is ever here. Membership is £4 per month, and that includes use of the gym, tennis court and basket ball court.

Private infinity pool and gym (+7 points)

On the minus side…

The heat

It’s hot and getting hotter. If you’re outside during the day you need to be in shade, or have a full-on breeze in your face. ‘Sitting in the garden relaxing’ is not even remotely on the agenda; you’d last 30 minutes and would have first degree burns. Oh, and this is the cold season.

The need to be in front of a fan all day, and the rate at which you sweat through clothes (-6 points)

The sea breeze

Saltwater ruins metal, a less well known fact in the centre of London. In Elmina we’re 50m from the sea and the crashing waves put a constant light saltwater mist into the air, which eats through anything it touches. Aside from the horrible aesthetic look of flaking brown metal, reducing the lifespan of all metal equipment to 2 years incredibly expensive. Laptops, sadly, are included.

Everything metal dies fast (-5 points)

Flooding

When it rains it properly rains!

The garden goes underwater from time to time (-4 points)

    

  

Water shortfalls

The Ghanaians haven’t quite got fresh water sorted yet and the supply turns off from time to time. Everyone has ‘Polytanks’ on their roofs which hold some reserve but they do run out so people conserve water. That means turning the shower off while you lather; flushing the loo only if it smells, and being prepared to have nothing come out of the tap right when you need it. I’ve taken to showing from a bucket now, it’s easier than dealing with the low water pressure.

 Running out of water mid shower (-7 points)

Creatures

There are a number of friendly creatures in Ghana that are always pleased to make your acquaintance. Some, like the ant and the cockroach just want your food. Others, like the mosquito and sand-fly want your body. And Betty here just wants a quiet corner to sleep in…

Betty (video)

Being eaten alive in bed and ‘landed on’ on in the shower (-12 points)

In conclusion:

Positives                       + 35

Negatives                      - 34

Net                              + 1

This report has conclusively shown that it is preferable to live in Elmina, Ghana when compared with London, England.

Lots of Love,

Tim & Lyd x

Work, really?

Okay, you’ve asked (and asked) what it is exactly that we do out here in Ghana, and with your sponsorship the sole thing between us and a diet of rice and fufu, it’s time to let you in on the details.

Many of you will know that our main project out here is to build a 200 person ‘Fair Trade Textile Workshop’ for Global Mamas near the town of Pram Pram. The workshop will house batikers, seamstresses, weavers and quality control staff, as well as the usual support functions required for a large production site.

The team in Accra is currently in the process of raising the cash for this project and signing the lease on our house in the area, so in the meantime we’re based out in Cape Coast where the vast majority of production currently takes place. There are 13 permanent (Ghanaian) staff in the office here, 70 batikers and seamstresses working for us in the local area, and normally 2-10 volunteers onsite. 

                                                           the main office

                                                    the Quality Control room

  

  

Our work here includes:

Setting up tracking of orders and production …

 Writing reports (for example on reject rates) to influence next seasons catalogue…

Setting up a pay-per-click marketing campaign…

Converting the order management process from giant excel file to a user friendly database…

As well as other tasks such as coaching the management team here in writing emails and reports or assisting with the project briefs for new volunteers.

But most importantly while we’re here we’re trying to learn everything that the batikers, seamstresses, weavers, QC staff and management do, because in a few months time we have to setup an operation three times this size by ourselves.

Which should be fun.

Tim and Lyd