Ghananians can be annoying…

Published
by
admin
on December 12, 2008
in About Ghanians
. 1 Comment

There were just some cases where I felt like erasing myself from the situation lately, they all had one thing in common: I felt annoyed by Ghanaians…

1) a small boy, that I once invited for food and once for cinema - telling me he “needs school schoes that cost 7 USD”;

2) my colleague - telling me that if somebody calls and asks about the result of his interview that was few months ago, he wont tell him the obvious thing - that the guy didnt get the job (a person is employed in 99% within 1 month after interview)… reason? I wasnt here so I wont tell him anything. After 10 minutes of arguying I realized that he is just absolutely stuck on this, accepted it, decided to not assign him any tasks that are connected with a past and wished him in my mind luck with being Recruitment Officer (becasue with this kind of approach - not taking responsibility for anything that happened before you joined - will not allow him to be a Recruitment Manager).

3) my colleague - I make her very busy, she makes calls on my behalf to job applicants, so I started to be friendly with her and tried to support her, even brought her a chocolate in a half-joke once… Now when she saw me with chocolate from home (Slovakia), she wants one. And not half, but a full one, and not tomorrow, but today. I have not given any of it to anybody till now, I actually have not even eaten nearly any of it on my own. But she wants one. I gave her a piece of a 100g bar (because I have no smaller), she got offerended (of course still with a smile on her face) and put it aside and said “Its okay” (understand: “Its NOT okay”).

4) job applicants - I made the mistake to give some of them my number as I needed some information from them, now some of those dumbasses call me up at random times, Sunday 5.45 am, Wednestay 7.30 am, Thursday 10.30 pm, Saturday 10.00 am…. Outside of my working hours - LEAVE ME ALONE!

5) a seller of eggsandwiches - she sells close to the cinema where I go like once a week, she was really friendly, making jokes and sharing stories. But after a while I realized that her stories often dont make sense and that I am not getting their point and that more and more often she is mentioning the fact that she doesnt have a cellphone and wants to call her friend in UK who is driving a bus there and is called Christine and who is thinking about moving to Australia and blah blah.

6) and there is one that I can share only with close friends :P

 

I always thought of myself as a friendly and easy to connect to person… and that its nations like Germany or those, that people get annoyed with the amount of “contact” with people - its actually exposure to their attention and affection. But here also I am starting to be annoyed, its fun for some time, but sometimes I just wish they would leave me alone.

I guess I will enjoy going to the beach before dusk more often, sadly also there will be people who will say “now that we are friends, can I have your number?”

No worries about me, and please also no offence, but I guess I am still in the second phase of cultural integration (1. excitement, 2. annoyment, 3. acceptance, 4. accommodation or assimilation)

Right now, I want a path to walk

Published
by
admin
on November 22, 2008
in personal
. 2 Comments

I got out of my room to go to the PC+Internet to write this, what irony…

Right now I wish deeply to be somewhere out in the nature, away from people, and take pleasure in getting physically tired with a simple goal - walk in a direction the whole day, go to sleep, and after awakening continue in the same direction.

When the body beats the brain, when sharpness of mind can not help the fact that its your feet tht have to carry you on and on, when you feel away from people and in the middle of real world, that is the kind of beauty that you will always remember.

After being to dozen countries, those 6 days when I just walked are much harder to believe than me standing at the foot of Nanga Parbat, me hopping of a train in a small town in the middle of a desert or me sitting under palm trees on a beach in Africa. 

This feeling makes me play with the decision to end this internship in June 2009 (making it only 9 months long) or maybe stay longer or go somewhere else, so that I arrive to Slovakia before summer 2009 or 2010 and than spend another at least a month just walking and walking… Maybe its time to go East to West, and maybe not stop on the border…

Its sad that I cant walk or cycle in Africa, its too hot….

Salius says: You have Malaria!?

Published
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admin
on November 19, 2008
in Bad luck and Relax... its Ghana
. 0 Comments

I guess You have three main questions in Your mind now…

 

First, “who is Salius” - a Lithuanian guy who is in Ghana for the last 3 years

Second, “what is the title about” - its playing with “Simon says” game

Third, “wtf??? You have malaria??? Are you still alive? Flying home right?” - malaria that the f*** / Yes / Yes / No

 

Ok, so what is malaria…?

me: some sickness which makes You feel like You are in the worst hangover, except that You dont puke but shit a river (at least there is something left in the stomach and after). You get it from those damn mosquitos that fly here everywhere and that I am systematically killing (with pleasure and a feeling satisfied hunter) every day/evening. You need to take pills or You will feel shitty even longer. There is no vaccination, You can only eat pills so You dont take malaria, because than You would have to take pills (exactly… You take pills for weeks to avoid pills for some few bad days).

wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria

 

How did I get it?

I caught a mosquito and sucked his inside…  :P  It bit me, what else?

 

How am I feeling?

Now I am good, but as soon as I get late with the pills by some hours I still get a headache.

 

So how to know You have malaria?

Go to doctor. But basically: You feel dried up, mouth feels like You liked dried shit in terms of it beeing full dry and bad taste. This even a minute after drinking. You dont feel like eating and all food tastes bad. You have a high temperature that sometimes switches to cold skin. You have headache, pains behing eyes, in shoulders and hips. You feel dizzy and are not too good in keeping balance. Your mind and body is slow, sometimes You feel like a puppet on strings. You feel like sleeping all the time, but cant stay sleeping - wake up every few minutes and feel like You slept a lot but still feel tired. In my case I had slightly halucinative dreams involving a huge number of pillows in my bed and me mindcontrolling electric wiring in the house by “growing” into the network.

 

What is the Salius guy about?

I was at a friends house, still thinking I just got food poisoned, I lay down and take a nap. When I wake up Salius is in and he shakes my hand…. And while doing so says: “You have malaria, right!?”. Thats when I realized I have fever and now have all symptoms of malaria (I had 39 C). He took me to the hospital where I got some drugs and started to get better.

 

Is it fun?

Well its like getting food poisoned in Karachi… You dont get it - You are lucky… Come and try on Your own.

I am not hiring my boss anymore… I am the boss :D

Published
by
admin
on November 10, 2008
in my job and the Randomness
. 0 Comments

ok, seriously this is not a joke…

The CEO and HR Head were trying to find a new Recruitment Services Coordinator, but none of the people interviewed did fit them in terms of wage, experience, attitude or whatever else. So they got insted a guy with limited experience but ability to learn and put him on my place… But what to do with me? Well there is a chair free :D

So yeah, so now I can call myself boss… Not that it would matter much, wage the same (and I am all fine with how much I get) and chair too. What matters is that now there is two of us so we can handle more work, where I am the more experienced (I did recruit for more than 2 years) so its also my job to keep the other guy busy and interested… Works till now pretty ok.

So yeah, life is good :)

Movie time!

Published
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admin
on November 10, 2008
in Ghana and the Randomness
. 0 Comments

While being on one of my first rides on Pinky the Bike, I bumped into a cinema called Plaza. Well it actually is a plaza… its a courtyard of some 100 m2 with benches and a screen under the skies….

One movie costs 0.5 USD and they mostly play two per night, with the first being the main and second any random rerun or really old movie.

And they play the crappest movies ever… in the good and bad sense :)

Monday - Indian, Tuesday - US Action, Wednesday - any action, Thursday - Chinese Kung-Fu movies, Friday - Indian, Saturday - any action, Sunday - “stories”. 

The best I saw there till now: The Way of the Dragon (Bruce Lee), Men of War (Dolf Lungren), Escape from LA (Kurt Russel), Don, 

The worst I saw there till now: Naked Weapon, 7 steps of Kung-fu, Dhoom…

And on the way back home, carefully avoiding the holes in roads, I stop for an egg sandwich which has finally enough spice to get close to the pakistani food I am missing.

I am hiring my own boss

Published
by
admin
on October 28, 2008
in Ghana and my job
. 0 Comments

Well, there is quite a lot of posts that I owe to those who take the time to check up on this place… last two weeks have been really hectic for me and it doesnt look like slowing down soon :( or :) …not sure

Yesterday my direct boss, head of Recruitment, resigned.

Which leaves a total of one person in Recruitment (me) and one as the boss (head of whole HR).

Today I have been given her JD to post around and screen potential applicants :)

But from my experience of the last weeks, the fact that I am doing interviews at least twice a week is not going to change, so yahooooooo, back to work…

For those interested in what I actually do I am preparing a rather daily update on my job-achievements (thank YOU for the inspiration) so You get the image of what am I earning my living from :)

Hola, good night for today!