On Finding Fame and Fortune
1Monday, 4 March 2013 by Renee
Ok Ok Ok. It's been a while. The start of 2013 has been a rather hectic one, so I must apologise. I now have rule of drafting one blog post or writing at least one email every night that I'm home, to keep on top of things. And that was going really well until this week when there was er, a case of consuming bad food. Or it may have been the public pool I swam in. Or some lovely combination of the two. Perhaps we'll never know....I should be happy that I've managed this long without such affliction....
ANYWAY...
We have so much to catch up on!
So I've been waiting a while to write about this one, but we had to wait for the er, final product to be ready. Also, since Kenya is going to the polls tomorrow, it seems appropriate for us to travel back to Ghana's elections in December last year. You may recall that there were issues with the biometric registration machines, which meant that voting had to be extended an additional day. Which meant another day for us to lay fairly low, moseying around in our compound, perhaps going for a walk down the street, you know, nothing too crazy. So there I was sitting on our balcony eating lunch, when a man I did not recognise came bouncing into our yard, yelling my name. And then I remembered....
Our house is owned and tended to by the same folk at the hotel across the road. The previous day, Prince, the hotel manager, had stopped us in the street to tell us that he had a musician friend who "needs some white people for his video clip" and was hoping we'd be up for the task. They were going to film in our compound. They needed a white lady in particular, and some other people as well. Prince is known for his tall stories so we giggled at the thought of being film stars in Ghana, said sure, we'll be in your mate's video clip, and headed on our way.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Adam, and two of our housemates, and I, ended up starring in a Ghanaian music video clip. Within an hour or so, we had a film crew and a whole entourage in our backyard.
Needless to say filming just a four minute clip took a whole, long afternoon, including numerous takes, too many fits of inappropriate laughter, and since we're in Ghana, the car breaking down and needing to be pushed during filming of the car scene.
This guy had the right idea. If only I could have hidden in a pizza box.
Film and TV in Ghana is usually pretty low budget - if you're a professional actor, it's still just something you do on the weekend, say, when you're waiting for the voting to close. So in this instance, everyone had to chip in. Including Kofi the hotel security guard, starring as, the security guard, and Old Man Joe, the hotel caretaker, as the male lead. Who's relation to my character (love interest? father in-law? friend?) was never really made clear to me...
It was a long and tedious process, but how often do you get to star in a film clip? Finally, after the mandatory culmination in a dance scene, it was a wrap.
And now, all post-production editing has been finished, and the video is in our hands and tearing through youtube as we speak. So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Nton Tom by Wallace.
Nton tom kika kika kika for those of you playing at home, means "the mosquito, it bites and bites" - sadly, for those of us who can't speak fluent Twi, we'll miss the subtle joke that the mosquito has bitten me somewhere, er, awkward...
ANYWAY...
We have so much to catch up on!
So I've been waiting a while to write about this one, but we had to wait for the er, final product to be ready. Also, since Kenya is going to the polls tomorrow, it seems appropriate for us to travel back to Ghana's elections in December last year. You may recall that there were issues with the biometric registration machines, which meant that voting had to be extended an additional day. Which meant another day for us to lay fairly low, moseying around in our compound, perhaps going for a walk down the street, you know, nothing too crazy. So there I was sitting on our balcony eating lunch, when a man I did not recognise came bouncing into our yard, yelling my name. And then I remembered....
Our house is owned and tended to by the same folk at the hotel across the road. The previous day, Prince, the hotel manager, had stopped us in the street to tell us that he had a musician friend who "needs some white people for his video clip" and was hoping we'd be up for the task. They were going to film in our compound. They needed a white lady in particular, and some other people as well. Prince is known for his tall stories so we giggled at the thought of being film stars in Ghana, said sure, we'll be in your mate's video clip, and headed on our way.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how Adam, and two of our housemates, and I, ended up starring in a Ghanaian music video clip. Within an hour or so, we had a film crew and a whole entourage in our backyard.
Now you may or may not know this about me, but I cannot act. Not even a little bit. I don't know how but for some reason I went through my entire schooling without a lesson in drama. So when I somehow became the female lead in the story I was faaaaairly apprehensive.
Needless to say filming just a four minute clip took a whole, long afternoon, including numerous takes, too many fits of inappropriate laughter, and since we're in Ghana, the car breaking down and needing to be pushed during filming of the car scene.
Film and TV in Ghana is usually pretty low budget - if you're a professional actor, it's still just something you do on the weekend, say, when you're waiting for the voting to close. So in this instance, everyone had to chip in. Including Kofi the hotel security guard, starring as, the security guard, and Old Man Joe, the hotel caretaker, as the male lead. Who's relation to my character (love interest? father in-law? friend?) was never really made clear to me...
It was a long and tedious process, but how often do you get to star in a film clip? Finally, after the mandatory culmination in a dance scene, it was a wrap.
Nton tom kika kika kika for those of you playing at home, means "the mosquito, it bites and bites" - sadly, for those of us who can't speak fluent Twi, we'll miss the subtle joke that the mosquito has bitten me somewhere, er, awkward...
Birthday Time!
0Friday, 25 January 2013 by Renee
Guess who's 30 today?
This guy!
I love him lots and I'm so happy he's with me here in this crazy new place!
Canoe Safari
3Wednesday, 23 January 2013 by Renee
Oh! We did have one adventure on our "do nothing" holiday. One morning we got up early (before dawn!) and headed down to Akwidaa town for a canoe safari through the mangroves behind the ocean.
Even through bleery eyes, the early morning rise was worth it to
witness the mangroves and its inhabitants at the most peaceful time of
day.
Although I was permanently afraid
that I was about to topple out of the precariously-balanced dugout canoe at any moment, it would have
to be one of the most serene moments in my memory – gliding though completely
silent waters and watching the crabs and birds go about their morning rituals,
with our guide telling us the animals’ stories in his calm deep voice.
One more night (or four)...
0by Renee
Following our New Year’s celebrations, our crew disbanded to
our various homes except for Adam and I
– we had decided to have a little bit of a retreat a few beaches down*, before
heading back to the big smoke. As much
as we love camping, it was a great treat to have four nights in our own mud and
straw hut, complete with outdoor shower, right on the beach.
Our days were filled with lying on the beach, drinking occasional coconuts when the local kids with their cutlasses came past, swimming when we felt brave enough/hot enough to hit the turbulent waters, and lying back
down to read until the next meal was ready – BLISS! We realised we hadn't had a "doing nothing holiday" for three years...
After a huge year, it was great to just kick back and watch the sunlight change from a silvery dance over the ocean in the morning to bathing everything in a warm glow in the late afternoon as the sun reached the horizon.
Or the Harmattan haze as we found out... It's currently Harmattan season, where the winds change to come from the north, at which time Ghana and it's neighbours tend to get covered in half of the Sahara Desert. As we found out, this means that the sun disappears behind the dust rather than the horizon, and makes for unique sunset viewing...
And the food! Oh Cape
Three Points had great food, but this was something else, and all served up
in a under a huge grass hut to a soundtrack of azonto (Ghana's new dance craze), regularly interspersed with a
Phil Collins live album, which of course is what every Obruni expects from their West African holiday.
*As an indication of how much more difficult simple things can be here, although it was only about 10km away, the move from Cape Three Points to Safari Beach took us an ENTIRE day! Payments are always cash here, but atms are not that easy to find outside of Accra, and frequently break down or run out of money. The atms on our journey to Cape Three Points were broken, so we still needed cash to pay our first lodging, and then get enough for the next. We were going to meet and pay the owner in Agona, the nearest town, but alas, the atm was broken again. So, we had to get a shared taxi to Takoradi, the next major city on the way back to Accra, find an atm there, and then head back and hopefully find the owner again before heading off to our new accommodation. (Even this wasn't straightforward; our shared taxi had a teenage Ghanaian girl in it who seemed to be distressed by the driver, pleading with him about something in their own language. When I asked if she was ok, things started to get weird, and Adam and I concluded it was either all a joke or some sort of scam, but it was nonetheless a weird experience!). Then once we were on our way back, we found out the accommodation owner had left Agona to attend an emergency, and thus directed us to hunt down a shopkeeker he trusted and to leave our hefty wad of cedi there. Finally, exhausted, we headed to the trotro station, only to find there was a long wait. Luckily, we found a lovely couple Alex and Aisha from the UK who were heading to the same lodge, and ended up sharing a cab with them. Just as the sun was going down, we reached our destination, less than 10km from where we had started! It was a good thing we had four days to relax...
Happy New Year!
0Monday, 14 January 2013 by Renee
Why hello there 2013 - Happy New Year Everyone!
I must apologise for the the lack of posts of late - we're now back in Accra after some travelling through Ghana over the Christmas break. I promise to share some highlights of our trip over the next few weeks!
After visiting Akosombo and Wli in the East, we saw in the New Year at Cape Three Points, the most southern point of Ghana, over in Western region. We stayed at a great, relaxed place called Escape (EsCape Three Points, ba-boom!) along with fellow Aussie volunteers, one volunteer's family who flew in for a holiday, and whoever else we managed to coerce into our shenangians.
There was a lot of hammock time...
swimming time...
beach walk time...
and hiking time...
(Pre-Hike Team Photo - Obruni Why??)
On New Years Eve, a group of us decided to go for a guided hike through the Cape Three Points Forest Reserve, home to such exciting things as monkeys, birds and a crazy number of butterflies.
This was a great idea until we found ourselves with a guide who was not a guide, may have had a bit too much palm wine with his lunch, and had forgotten his cutlass. Hmmph. Luckily there were some redeeming features of the hike, including seeing how rubber is tapped from the trees as we walked through the massive rubber plantations...
finding a sea hawk's nest in an old boab tree...
And some just generally nice vews...
Needless to say, when we finally got home covered in mud and cuts from all the overgrowth we'd scrambled through, we were pretty darn exhausted. Luckily, to get the party started, the staff at Escape went all out and prepared a special New Years feast including a goats cheese entree, lobster and fish for mains chocolate/banana/coconut desert! I don't think I've yet covered food but let's just say the food here takes some getting used to, so it was a bit special to have some more familiar tastes!
After that we migrated to the bar on the beach for some bonfire, hitting the d-floor and general silliness.
The hikers amongst us were exhausted from our non-walk through the jungle, and some of us were battling colds, but we powered on to see in the new year complete with beach fire works.
I often think New Years is a peculiar celebration, but as things wound down and we settled in with our Akperteshie (distilled Palm Wine spirit) cocktails, it was nice to sit around a bonfire and reflect on the year on the year past and the year coming.
2012 was a BIIIIIIIIIIIIG year for Adam and I - a trip around China, hiking 100km in 32hrs with Team Uncootha, a Phd submitted, plenty of gigs, a new job, wrapping up my last job and a big move to Ghana! The prospect of facing 2013 in Africa is an exciting one indeed.
Elections Ghana Style
1Monday, 17 December 2012 by Renee
Along with all the other excitement that goes with relocating to a new country, we've had double the excitement with the lead up to presidential and parliamentary elections. Ghana went to the polls last week and we've enjoyed the uniquely Ghanaian style of campaigning...
Although Ghana was the first West African country to gain independence in 1957, the path to democracy has been a long and rough one with plenty of authoritarian rule and coup d'etats. Perhaps it's not suprising then that Ghanaians follow politics the way they follow football (ie loudly and passionately!).
The Wednesday before election day, our group got stuck in traffic for 3.5 hours after ending up on the wrong side of a New Patriotic Party (NPP) rally. Sadly I wasn't quick enough to take a picture of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) campaigners wandering around in suits on stilts in 35 degree heat the day before, but trust me, it happened!
The last elections in 2008 were heralded as a test of democracy in Ghana and while it was more or less peaceful, there were clashes in some villages. But everyone was confident that this year's would remain calm and peace has been the word on everyone's lips and billboards...
Polling day took place last Friday and in the morning we ventured out to our nearest polling booths to suss out what was happening. Although there were some incidents in Accra, things seemed to be running pretty smoothly near us...
We ran into our lovely neighbour/sister who shares my Ghanaian name Akua
(prounced akwee-a...Ghanaians are named after the day of the week they were born, and we are both Wednesdays!) Akua is in the left of the picture...
Akua and her friends gave us a solid run down of happenings and like many other Ghanaians, had settled in nearby for the day to watch polling take place and count the votes at the end. When voting is completed and ballot papers have been sorted, the whole neighbourhood gathers around and counts the ballot papers together!
This year Ghana was using biometric registration machines for the first time and unfortunately some failed, which meant polling had to continue the following day. In the end it was a tight match with NDC beating NPP by around 30-50 000 votes. However, just to keep things interesting, NPP is now challenging the results with claims of fraud at some polling booths, but it sounds like even if their claims are true it will not win them enough votes to change the result.
Although Ghana was the first West African country to gain independence in 1957, the path to democracy has been a long and rough one with plenty of authoritarian rule and coup d'etats. Perhaps it's not suprising then that Ghanaians follow politics the way they follow football (ie loudly and passionately!).
We ran into our lovely neighbour/sister who shares my Ghanaian name Akua
(prounced akwee-a...Ghanaians are named after the day of the week they were born, and we are both Wednesdays!) Akua is in the left of the picture...
Akua and her friends gave us a solid run down of happenings and like many other Ghanaians, had settled in nearby for the day to watch polling take place and count the votes at the end. When voting is completed and ballot papers have been sorted, the whole neighbourhood gathers around and counts the ballot papers together!
This year Ghana was using biometric registration machines for the first time and unfortunately some failed, which meant polling had to continue the following day. In the end it was a tight match with NDC beating NPP by around 30-50 000 votes. However, just to keep things interesting, NPP is now challenging the results with claims of fraud at some polling booths, but it sounds like even if their claims are true it will not win them enough votes to change the result.
