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

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

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.

• In morning all roads are clugged because everybody goes to work
• On midday all roads are clugged because everybody goes for lunch
• At afternoon all roads are clugged because everybody goes home

• God Is Able Enterprise (a funeral service!)
• Fear Not Barbering Salon
• Friends of Jesus Salon (a beauty salon)
• Believe in Jesus Enterprises (selling dog food)
• In God We Trust Limited (get it? )
• His Grace Video and Photo Production
• God Only, To Let Rooms with 2, 3 and 4 beds
• God First Auto Parts
• Christ Cares Communications (cell phone seller)
• God Is Great, In stock (and following pictures of bags and shirts)
• Thank You Jesus Frozen Foods
• No Weapon Foods

I bought a bike!

I cant find a way to upload the pictures now, but just imagine that baby:

• the front fork, the gear/breaks cable tubes and the stearing are girly pink,
• the rest of the bike is purple with streaks of pink,
• its a little bit too small for my size so I always lean on the stearing,
• when breaking it makes sounds like when You are stragling a cat AND
• its all mine (like, who else would like it?)

Wait for the adventures of KLepo and Pinky! I was even thinking about going across Ghana on bike (Ghana is pretty small, I could easily do the distance) but the heat that is on during 5 hours of day persuaded me that its a bad idea… at least for now

I went to the beach today – on my own taking buses/vans called tro-tro which is a normal and cheapest way of transport.

First to the FRIENDLY part… :

• on the way I got couple of times an advise on which tro-tro to take and on which stop to get out, very willingly and helpfully, people looked nearly eager to be able to help to anybody who asks,
• on the way I got into talk with a random ghana girl heading for the same beach (we split later because I was looking for a part of beach where I would not have to pay the fees and she went straight for the the “cool” part of beach – paid one),
• I was “adopted” by a group of guys heading for the beach… first I thought that for the free of charge part, later I realized that they want to pay a small bribe and get to the paid part, the discussion started with “Yo man, how are You, where are You going? Beach? Oh we go there too!”. Of course I joined for the sneaking in – a new-experience-hunter I am Took like 15 minutes of dealing the price with a profit of like 1 USD for the guy who did the transaction for us, we paid 2 USD per person (compared to 5 USD which was the official rate) and got in.
• the guys share with me their wine.
• I got offer to spend weekend with one of them and he promised to call me up during the week to arrange the details (he actually wanted to call after midnight as its cheaper, but I said I mostly sleep at that time already… ok, I was always awake at midnight till now, but what if I start going sleep earlier?).
• other suggested that my company (Capital Group) could work with the Student Council that he is the head of and promised to write me an email with offer.
• I shared my number with two of the guys, lets see what comes out of it – at least I see if I should do it for future.
• the earlier mentioned girl came to me and tapped my shoulder and said Hi!… after a second I realized who is it and said Hello! with a smile. Than she smiled and left.
• the guy who invited me for weekend has requested that I call him when I safely arrive home, when I looked hesitant (why would I do that?) he offered to call me and check… so I promised to write an SMS (which I did and he replied back)

And now for the HORNINESS part, ok?

• see the crash course of ghana-speed-dating below…
• the first question the guys had to me when the girl-from-bus left was: “You didnt like her? (well I did, she was pretty nice) So why didnt You call her back when she was leaving? She would come back (ook, didnt know that… but anyways she was too artificial, like a 15-year-TLC-doll. So no big loss.)”
• they asked me: You want to have an African girl, no?
• they have been staring at every female walking around and when it became too dark to do that on the beach they decided to go to a bar.
• they tapped a girls ass on the way and she didnt mind, just smiled back and said something like “Hey, no touching!”
• one of them started discussion with the waitress with “will You marry me?”, she said: “sure”, he said “so lets do it right now”, she smiled and went away.
• one of them got attention of two girls by telling them “Hey can we have some of Your popcorn?”, the two of them finished up with sharing their names and phone numbers with some of the guys and decided to leave, when an objection was raised: “hey where are You going with the popcorn?” they left the popcorn and left.

HORNINESS part II. “Ghana Speed Dating”:

• HE – sits on chair checking girls
• SHE – walks between chairs and is checking boys and telling observations to her friend
• HE – spots target (the girl) and says: “hello beauty, come here”
• SHE – comes (?) and says: “hello, how are You?” (??? this is the part where I expected she will smack his face, at least based on my knowledge of girls I know)
• HE: “You are so pretty I couldnt let You just walk by. Whats Your name?”
• SHE – tells her name (???)
• HE – makes a clumsy attempt to repeat it in order to make her
• SHE – chuckles and bends closer to his ear to repeat it
• HE – repeats the name correctly and says his, does basic research about her: where are You from, what You doing here
• SHE – replies without hesitation
• HE: “whats Your phone number?”
• SHE – gives it to him (??WTF??)
• HE – gives her a missed call

…now with this in mind (its btw a real situation with the popcorn girl and one more). How come that there are churches all around the place and most of youngs are supposed to be virgins until marriage or at least the age of 25?????

Lastly the YO part:
You know how we make fun of this YO guys who walk our streets and want to look really YO and COOL and when they meet each other they do 25 different moves with their hand including a finger-snap and fists-hitting?
Well looks like its considered normal and proper among the youngsters here! In here its actually COOL to be YO and nobody makes fun of it! Actually You are funny if You are not YO and dont snap YO fingers after DA handshakish thing!
OMG LOL I am in DA country of DA RAPERS and GANGSTAS!
YO, SAP MAN?

(PLEASE DONT TAKE THESE OBSERVATION AS GENERAL THINGS FOR WHOLE GHANA, I DONT KNOW ABOUT THAT… ITS JUST HOW MY TODAY YO DAY WAS : ) )

The first time I was taken there by one of the expat guys I met during my crazy first weekend in Accra (see “Accra-like weekend“), today I went there because I wanted to see if I manage to get there on my own and if it is going to be fun

So I went, have been able after asking few people to locate the correct van, got in there still not too sure because the van drivers started to argue with which bus should I go (“not beach this one, my goes to beach!”) and got out on an unknown place… Luckily two girls were also going to the beach and I walked with them, just to realize that I actually know where am I, just came from an unknown direction and some 10 mins walk away from where I expected to finish.

The beach part where I was before was paid, 3 USD So I tried to find a free part (I am a broke Slovak!) so I just walked along the fences and stuff. And while doing that I passed a group of youngsters, they were like “Yo Hi Sup Man, whatcha doin here, lookin for some Ghana gals?” and I am like “Hi, no just want to go to the beach for free or cheap.” The idea of a broke white man was funny to them so they exchanged some more yo senteces with me and than went straight for a hole in the wall guarded by a guy… I realized that they want to sneak in to the paid part of beach (which was today charging 5 USD because it was holidays) and so of course I joined (thats too much fun not to try ).

So we went through the whole and some random trash, followed by the “guard” who was asking for money for letting us in (to the free part of beach behind the wall) and dealing out our price to get on the pay beach (You need to bribe the guard to do so), than we spent some 10 minutes bargaining with the guard, paid 2 USD instead of 5 USD and went in. We finished up sittin on a table, drinking some wine they doing “YoSupThomas” and me trying to explain that for me its damn funny because the YoSpeech is pretty much of “I-think-I-am-so-cool” thing in Slovakia

What were my impressions of the people You can read in the post Ghana Youngs are Horny x 2, Friendly and YO! :)

The beach was already a beehive when I came with some dozens people splashing in water under the watchful eyes of the lifeguard guy and with much more dozens people sitting and chatting on the beach at chairs and tables… as sunset approached all “water” people moved to beach and have been joined by even more people who came to hang out… 

Thats why I vote Labadi beach to be the party beach…

And for pictures from the beach just click on any of the ones that are mixed into the text or click here…

It was a rather long and interesting weekend so get ready for a little reading, ok? In addition I didnt take my camera (why camera at a simple dinner?) so there are also no pictures to accompany the text

So what actually happened?

On Thursday I realized that the weekend is nearly here and I dont know what am I going to do, there was a serious risk I will just sit at home and watch a movie. So I went to aiesec.net, searched for all internships that were reported to still go on (the interns be still in town) and sent out an email asking about their plans.

I got an answer from few and among them Fernanda from Italy, ex MC there, whom it looks like I have met on IC in Poland and also in Turkey She and one more intern Ben were the ones who made me decide to join (what I thought was only) a pizza dinner. So I took a deep breath and for the first time alone got on one of those minibus/vans that replace public transport. They have no markings and system, You just need to search for the one that goes Your direction and signal it to stop. Luckily I got the right place. It turned out that its a dinner of 12 people of mixed origin – both when it comes to nationality and reasons to be in Accra.

The dinner turned out quite fun, mostly thanks to a new chap of mine, Vinnie from India, who had an obvious interest in any female in the place (or at least the nice ones). It felt refreshing because nice girls are the most common topic of discussions in Pakistan (at least between boys, girls talk about boys of course… unless a boy asks them about a girl ). With the dinner finishing at around 11pm there was a discussion about where to go next and stuff and I got an offer from Vinnie that “lets crash the MC house”, so I say OK and agree that we will sleep there over tonight (asking “why”?, what a boring question… rather stop thinking that way else this whole weekend was rather about doing exactly those things that have no logical explanation).

But than came an another suggestion – lets go to a pub and have a beer! Of course I agreed and made Vinnie go to (he had a big event to run the day after but he cant say no to fun). Apart from the two of us Fernanda and a married AIESEC alumni from Italy went for it. Oh, I should also say that I didnt eat anything on that place, too expensive, so I took the cheapest thing on the menu – a beer (sadly I havent eaten since lunch)

The Pub called Champs. Fun place full of football shirts, table football, pool tables and sport decoration and… a stage for Karaoke. We got there and the alumni saw a table of people whom to one he was boss and the others were friends of friends (a very common status in Accra) – germany / usa / canada. So we joined tables (there was no other place free anyways) and started to do the cheers! Soon karaoke started and not later after first participants from our table were on the stage… Me and vinnie doing the background moves Looking at the bill each of us had by average 4,5 beers in the next 3 hours During the coarse of this – seeing as Vinnie gets more and more happy and shiny I made a request for somebody to save me and take care of me.. and I got an assurance from one of the newly gained associates that I will be taken care of and kept safe. Add also some table football games and lots of laughing and in so the dizzy feeling of a Fine Night came the suggestion (at around 2 am) to go for a disco bar. All of us had pretty much been high so of course all of us went.

A disco that the name I dont remember (and didnt really are about)… You know I actually dont like discos, but whatever. Why did I to than? Well ok: Its only Friday, I just got my first wage (I am getting paid WEEKLY!) and have the feel to do something stupid and fun. So while indulging into a random dance to mix of US and African music the beers had time to climb up to the heads and meet the content of a bottle of wine, that randomly popped up from somewhere, on the way. At like 4 am some of us were already pretty trashed, at 5 am when one of the guys was constantly falling on his ass while dancing and one other hitting on a married girl it was time to look for a ways to get the places we would call home-for-that-night. And who would thing that the person who promised to take care of me would actually remember the promise?

So I finished up crashing a really nice house some 3 blocks from the beach. The morning for the four of us (participants of the party) who slept there was kinds painful and tiring and came at anywhere between 11 am and 2 pm when we were waking up and going for next round of naps (its Saturday so why care?). At around 5 pm I was taken to the beach and saw for the first time the sea of Ghana… Amazing place, different like any other beach I have seen (every beach I have seen was other than the ones before), with people eating, selling random stuff, playing in water and clouds on the sky that played with all possible colors of sky.

But what to do during the evening of such random day? Well, what about some Sushi? But thats expensive… but well a lucky idiot like me… I got an offer that my food will be paid for (thank You dear Christine!). So I had some (for me) crazy expensive and pretty good first-time-ever-I-eat-this Sushi made by a Japanese guy. I was glad to know how to use chopsticks, else it would be a pretty awkward evening Just to add – the four of us have spent like 230 USD (holy-f-sh*t!), looks like my last sushi for a very very long time.

Hmm, what to do now? Well nobody really felt like a party scene (hmm, guess why) so we just went for an Irish pub for beer, some more table football, pool and darts. A pretty calm evening. But what to do now? Well the “anybody has a TV at home – what about some beer and watching movies?” question came and one of the girls says “yep I do… and also there is a pool for those who live in the house” – who could say no to such an offer? So the four of us finished “watching” the movie Departed. Actually I was the only one who saw the ending as rest fell asleep. So this night I have crashed an another house

I forgot to tell that the house was… as one of the girls said “by american standards it was comfortable”. For me it was scarily huge – 3 toilets, that tells I guess a lot… I felt there lost and realized that I dont want to have such a huge house, looks like Slovaks are not at all used to such huge housing places (it actually made me think if I really want to have a job that earns so much money that I could afford such a place). But despite all it was a nicely arranged place with breeze and flowers and nice furniture – its just that it felt too big to me.

And finally after waking up and a breakfast of cereals (Kellogs babe) it was time to head home So I took a loan for the tro-tro van and with little bit of searching for the correct shakers (vans) got home for a nice sleep before the working Monday… that will be followed byt a free Tuesday Why? Well like 1/4 of the 24mio of Ghanians are Moslem so government has decided to make Eid (the final day of Ramadan) a national holiday.

Just to finish it all up – I am going with one other intern and some of his friends for a swim in pool and sea, will post You on that and this time take pictures

Bye from Accra!