Friday 14 June 2013

DESPATCH #2


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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