A few weeks ago, I received a message from a girl on Internations. She is from San Francisco, had recently arrived in Accra and was trying to meet people. I can easily recall that experience, and how few people bothered to respond to my outreach, so I replied and asked if she wanted to go to dinner with us one night. We spent much of last weeked together and we get along well. She is here for three months as part of a project with a foundation that works with improving the education provided in local/public schools.
Thursday afternoon she and I met up and worked from a cafe nearby. It's always nice to spend a day or two each week away from the apartment even if it's just an hour of errands or something more organized. Friday morning, I went to a cafe near Dan's office and worked and had a coffee. Dan came over and we had lunch together and then went to the supermarket downstairs to get some stuff for the weekend. It's an exciting life we live... haha.
Friday evening was intended to be a laid back evening. We went out for sushi at Monsoon and then went to Bread and Wine for a glass of wine. There was a band called Calabash that we had heard was good so we figured we would check out a bit of live music on our Friday night. The restaurant has a pool so they set up a bunch of tables and an outdoor bar with stools so there were people everywhere. What we didn't expect was the number of expats. Bread and Wine is probably one of the most expensive restaurants in Accra (if not the most expensive) so I suppose it makes sense. But one of the main reasons is that the Calabash band consists of three Americans who work for USAID, so much of the crowd was their friends and colleagues. Based on my use of "intended" at the beginning of this paragraph, you can probably assume we were not successful with our quiet laid back evening.
We chatted with a South African guy who was in town just for the day. He works on safety on oil rigs so is familiar with many of the clients that Dan does tax consulting for. The best part was that the guy had been to the Chevron campus in San Ramon so he and Dan had a good time commenting on the safety procedures there and just the campus in general (how not "oil conglomerate" it looks). There were two girls at the bar and I heard one of them had an American accent so we started chatting. Her name is Celia and it turns out she works for USAID and her husband is a diplomat at the US embassy. They are our age and just got here a couple of months ago after 2+ years in Dubai. They live close by and obviously work close by as well given our proximity to the embassy so we exchanged information and plan to get lunch later next week. She told her husband about us when she got home and he was thrilled to have some people to watch NFL games with and is excited to meet us.
The other girl she was with is Ylenia from Italy. Her husband also works as a diplomat (for Italy) so she and Celia had met at some diplomat event and hit it off. Both girls were really nice and, being new to Accra, seemed open to new friends. Dan chatted with them a bit which was really funny because there was a group of guys that kept trying to hit on the girls and try to cut Dan off. Stuff that like always strikes me as amusing. The first question anyone asks here is "what are you doing in Accra?" and their answer, much like mine, is "I'm here with my husband's work". Read as: not single. Next thing we knew it was after midnight so we decided to head home. Funny how a little wine and live music can be the perfect environment for new friend discoveries.
Saturday afternoon we went to a Sports Bar to watch soccer with Joe, then came home for a nap and finished it off with some preseason football, dinner and a movie. Next week is a busy one with fantasy drafts and Hannah's birthday party so I suspect Sunday will be a rest day gearing up for the beginning of September! Unleash the scarecrows and fall decor!
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