In my attempt to revive my blog, I've added the two past group emails to the site. For anyone who I've ever met, they are repeats of what I sent them, but for those random viewers - enjoy.

So I'm at work trying to kill time before I head off to the Canadian High Commission for their monthly social. I guess it's their attempt to bring Canadians who are living in Accra together to meet every 1st Thursday of the month.

I'm adding a link to a video I took of the Wlii waterfalls back in September. I thought they were beautiful and being able to swim in the shallow waters was amazing. The guy who wrote the Brandt Guide to Ghana didn't have fantastic things to say about it and I've since then taken the book with a grain of salt (but it's still very useful, so get it if you're coming). There was a scenic 45 minute walk to the falls were you could pick cocoa fruit off the trees. The seeds that have the cocoa don't have any value without processing, but the white slimy coat over the seeds tastes EXACTLY like jolly ranchers. Crazy Awesome.



I've also been trying my hand in the Ghanaian kitchen. First I'm grinding ginger for a sauce, then I'm tending to groundnut soup, which is one of my favourites. They eat it with rice balls. So good. But cooking all the time! Sheesh! "Man! I feel like a woman!" haha, hey is sexism justified when it's used to add 'random Shania Twain quotes'? I think it is. And I'm the author.




I'd like to tell you about a new aspect to my job that's stressing me out. We deal with refugees and sometimes they come from places where having refugee status is really valuable, like Liberia where there is war and people want to leave, understandibly. So I guess it has happened where people will pretend to be someone else because that someone else has a free ticket out of there (ie refugee status). Ok, so when these refugees come to my office to do health checkups and whatever else, they also need to do an ID check to make sure they are who they say they are and since policy states that the Ghanaians in my office aren't allowed to confirm this ID check (in case there's a conflict of interest), they asked me to do it. So I look at photo IDs and at the refugees to see if it matches up. First of all, it sounds easy, but if you knew how often/drastic women change their hair styles here, you'd know that sometimes it's really freakin hard. Second of all, the reprocusions of my saying that the person isn't the person in the photo are life shattering. It means that the refugee status is revoked and they go back to where ever they came from. Of course, if I get it right, then it's good that I caught them before heading off to North American or Europe. But, the stress involved in a false negative is huge. Luckily I haven't had any close calls. Everyone has fit the bill. I do enjoy the chore though. I get a chance to meet basically every west African refugee heading for the western world for a few moments. And with the childern I try to make light of the situation... Regardless, I can't expect them to be not nervous considering I'm this strange white man randomly involved in their fate. And the children traveling alone... I can't imagine what their lives must have been like until that point. Not only to leave your country and go to another one, but all by yourself without parents. Rough.