So about this time last year, I was in a bit of a
dilemma. I had to pick a roommate for
the Tax Away Day. I barely knew anyone,
and, despite me being awesome, people didn’t know that yet. (click here for recap)
This year was a bit different. This year, people know I’m awesome and I was
involved as member of the planning committee.
This year, people wanted to hangout and take pictures with me – and not
just because I’m the white guy. So,
without further ado, here’s the recap:
Venue:
Aqua Safari in Ada.
You can even Google it! This place has a bit of an infamous
history. A famous Ghanaian rapper,
Castro, disappeared while on vacation here.
This might not seem like a significant loss to American readers, but
here’s one of his song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxD3GNltmV0
Now that you’ll be humming or singing that for the rest of
the day, (probably embarrassed if/when you’re picking out produce at the
grocery store and a black person walks by) you can appreciate the significance
of the loss.
The place itself is a measure of extremes. One can tell that it used to be a shit
hole. However, management has gradually
been investing $$$ in upgrading it. What
does that mean? It means my room has granite counters, but a shower head that’s
fallen off. It means my room has a 40-inch
flat screen, but my ass can feel every spring in the couch.
Planning:
As I mentioned before, I was part of the planning committee.
One of the partners casually suggested Aqua Safari, and
since it’s coming out of their pockets, that pretty much means we have to go to
Aqua Safari (shucks). In coming up with
a theme for the night, I had two ideas.
The first was Monte Carlo/Casino themed.
People love dressing up and love prizes, so this would cover both. The one problem? No one knows how to gamble. Idea scratched.
My second idea, Hawaiian luau. Do Africans actually know what that is? It turns out, they do. Everyone loved the idea and, thankfully,
everyone agreed that we should not require coconut bras for the girls and guys
should keep their shirts on. However,
the committee decided to put a bit of a twist on it and make it an All White
party. No, that doesn’t mean I’m the
only one that gets invited, it means people had to wear all white
clothing. The plan being, everyone wears
all white clothes and we have leis and decorations that are colorful and create
a nice contrast.
My primary roles were: smuggler and troubleshooter. Being a smuggler really just involves having
a US passport, Amazon prime, cool in-laws, and a big enough suitcase. I think all I need is a tall furry friend, a
vest, and blaster pistol and I’ll be just like Han Solo.
Given Hawaii is part of the Greatest Country On Earth; I was
in the best position to procure leis, drink umbrellas and other Hawaiian themed
merchandise. More on my role as troubleshooter later.
The head of the planning committee was Gabby. Obviously no one reading this has ever met
Gabby and therefore doesn’t have the appreciation required. Gabby is Kenyan. That means Gabby typically parties till the
sunrise. Not surprisingly, Gabby won the
Hardest Partier award at the Tax Away Day.
I came in second place (sorry, Mom).
Games:
Fortunately, for my safety, health and well being (but
unfortunately for readers) there were no games that involved sharp objects
being thrust at coworkers. Instead, one
of the premier games we came up with was Mine Field. The general idea was that this involved
blindfolding a team member and having them cross an area of beach covered by
water balloons (i.e., mines). In order
to effectively cross the minefield without stepping on the water balloons,
other team members would shout instructions to those blindfolded. Cool, yes? We thought so too. Unfortunately, we didn’t think about the
logistics of filling water balloons.
As we got closer to the day, we realized that these water
balloons would take a lot of effort to fill.
As a result, (first problem to troubleshoot) this required Gabby and me
to go up to Aqua Safari the night before in order to get started on
preparations. We left Accra at 11PM and
arrived at the venue on 12:30AM. Three
hours later, we had 100 water balloons filled and other miscellaneous tasks
completed.
The rest of the team (about 60) arrived the next
morning. The games began immediately and
anticipation was high amongst Gabby, me, and the planning committee about the
minefield game. Unfortunately, what took
us 3 hours to prepare, was far too easy.
People crossed our minefield in less than 20 seconds. The game was over in about a minute. Oh well.
Lesson learned.
As this post is quite lengthy already, we will pause here
for suspense and finish the remainder in the next post.
No comments:
Post a Comment