We
successfully set up the opening balances for the trial balance on Quickbooks
today! It took a bit of playing around, & I’m concerned that I’m not quite
the Master at Quickbooks that maybe they thought I might have been (I used it
once, briefly, about 6 years ago). But maybe I’m being too harsh on myself;
afterall, it’s 6 months into the year, & before yesterday, the opening TB
hadn’t been worked upon at all, so we’re getting somewhere. As Millicent says,
we share the similar saying, “2 heads are
better than 1...”
I’m
probably still settling in & undergoing some of the different culture
realignment stages: sometimes I feel curious & excited, other times I still
feel unsure of what to do, where to go, & how to interact.
After
work, I headed into town by myself for the first time. The guidebooks clearly
aren’t lying when they assert that one of the most common forms of accident or
death in Ghana isn’t snakebite or fever, but accidents on the road! The cars –
there are so many taxis – hoot &
swerve & cross each other, & there are obviously no pavements, so you
try to walk as close to the side of the road as possible without falling into
the 3 foot water drainage dips that line the streets. It gets dark here around
7 in the evening, so I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable going out for a night by
myself yet, using a torch & avoiding car headlights in order to find my way
home... So anyway, I tore out a very basic map of Ho from my guidebook &
navigated myself towards the nearest supermarket, a 15 minute or so walk away
from the hotel. The supermarkets here, you choose your stuff, pay for it, &
then take it to the front desk, only a few yards away from the tills, where
someone else checks your goods to your receipt, & then they pack it all into bags. I guess maybe petty shop theft
used to be pretty common.
Lots
of people say hi, how are you? Or welcome, and I like your dress! - everyone speaks English, plus all the road
& market signs are in English too. It’s kind of odd knowing that you stand
out, but generally people seem amused/interested, especially the kids. I must
remember not to wave with my left hand, apparently it’s very rude.
I got
red wine (screwtop!), & a few snacks, including these chocolate malt sweet
things, which are kind of like eating instant hot chocolate, molded into a
solid cube (I swear it’s not actual
drinking chocolate, the packaging describes them as energy cubes!) I also
picked up some butter knives, so no more dipping of bread into my jar of
apricot jam!
Tomorrow
I think we may be going for some food in town which will be nice. I have a
heavy schedule ahead of me for the next few weeks (weekends included!), so I’m
hoping I’ll get a bit of time off: on my to-do list – visit the Freedom hotel
so that I can get involved in a bit of swimming, & I would really like to
go on a hike up the mountains to see some of the scenery, plus I hear there’s a
monkey sanctuary nearby.
The
rest of my evening? I will carry on with Howard’s
End (seriously, I feel a bit lame not reading something like Graham Greene
or Hemmingway, but something so quintessentially English!), & then maybe
watch an iplayer download – a belated Saturday
Kitchen, an old episode of The
Apprentice, or foodie heartthrob Valentine Warner’s country cooking series..
Aside:
Another office outfit: English-countryside blouse plus a light pleated skirt. I
read Vogue this evening, after having
patiently left it unopened for 4 days. I’m really missing instagram; this photo
was sort of inspired by a cool LA-based label L’Ecole des femmes, a kind of school-girl goes to the museum
aesthetic, modeled by the awesome Laurel Stovall (who once complimented me on
my work <3. I would give you the instagram references but since I can’t get the
iPhone online, you’ll have to google them yourself :P
PS. I
downloaded Adobe photoshop trial, it’s ace!
PPS
manual focus plus self-timer? Involves focusing on a random object & then
shoving it out of the way just in time for the shutter button to release ;)
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