Jollof Training... or Parent Training?

Last Saturday, we went to Dorothy's for the day. Back in November, when Dorothy was in the US for training, she went to Costco and ordered a ton of stuff for her and another coworker here. It was sea freighted over here for a flat rate and had just arrived that week. One of the items in the shipment was an electric kid's car. Dorothy invited us over so Dan could put the car together and she could teach me how to make jollof.

Her driver came to pick us up and we went over to Tema. When we arrived, the kids were ready to "help". And by help, I mean, make it incredibly difficult for Dan to put together this car. The first issue we ran into was that the screws provided with the car were too small. The heads just fell straight through the predrilled holes. So new screws needed to be procured, then he was able to get started. Dorothy and I were in the kitchen listening to shouts of "Uncle Daniel, Uncle Daniel! I can help!" and "Uncle Daniel, Uncle Daniel! Can we drive the car now?!" He was very patient whilst having to constantly remove one child or another from the vehicle and hide the car's decals on top of the fridge.

 

 

While he wrangled the three crazies, I was attempting to take notes on jollof. I thought this would be pretty straightforward since jollof is a Ghanaian dish and Dorothy hasn't been here all that long. So I figured she would have just learned from scratch within the last 10 years or so and would have a real recipe. False... wrong on all fronts. 1. Jollof is also made in Cameroon, so Dorothy has been making it for as long as she can remember. 2. There is no recipe. 3. Dorothy cooks like my Grandma Maria...dash of this, scoop of that, no measurements... just autopilot.

So I tried to scribble down the ingredients, although I admit I have no idea what the correct proportions of these things are. Essentially, you make a stew with stock, tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, spices, etc. Once the stew has been prepared and has thickened, you add in the rice. The rice cooks in the stew and absorbs it, making it a little red in color (from the tomatoes and tomato paste) and as spicy as you wish... It's very spicy in Ghana, which is fine with us. Once the rice cooked, we added in some diced carrots and green bell peppers.

In between stages of jollof cooking, I went to try to help Dan with the car. Maame Esi (pronounced like Mamisi) is 7 and genuinely wanted to help. She would get a screwdriver and wait for me to place the part and screw in the screws as far as she could. Ethan and Nathan (twin boys) are 4 and just were in a battle for who was going to drive the car first. Dan had to keep removing one or the other from the driver's seat. At one point, Nathan started pushing the car from behind.

Eventually, we finished the car and Dan broke the news to the clan that the car needed to charge... for twenty hours. This was not well received. They coped with this disaster and the 6 of us sat down for some early dinner. We ate and the grown ups had some wine. Dorothy packed us up some of the jollof and coleslaw to take home. We horsed around with the kids for awhile and then said goodbye to the clan and were driven back home.

PwC volunteering - Kinder Paradise School

Today we're going to do a flashback post: On Tuesday 1 December 2015, 28 PwC team members volunteered at a local school. We were on blog hiatus at the time but Dan was nice enough to send some photos and provide the company email recap of the day...

The day began when we arrived at Kinder Paradise just before 10am, after which we were introduced to the school's headmistress Mrs Aryee, and also a few of the teachers. Once we had finished with our introductions, we formed into our various groups to head the teaching sessions and also handed out pastries and drinks to all the children and teachers.

The PwC volunteering groups consisted of the following: 3 groups teaching English (group and individual reading) and 3 groups teaching Math to children aging from 6-18 years of age. 6 volunteers also paired up to give 3 career talks to students in J.H.S 1-3 on a range of topics which included: How to be a male/female leader in society, Being and choosing a role model and Self esteem and confidence building.

Prior to the visit, a plan was devised to ensure that all children in Classes 1-6 received a full hour of English and Maths tutoring. The teaching sessions began promptly at 10am and each session lasted approximately one hour.

The sessions ran up until lunchtime (12 midday). After lunch, we played a game of tug of war with the children and the male volunteers were challenged to a riveting game of football by some of the school's best football players.

All in all, it was a fun day where lessons were learned, laughs were had and friendships were made. We also donated our teaching materials (approximately 80 English and Maths books as well as story books) to the school.

Back in Ghana

The last two weeks have gone by pretty quickly, now that we are back in Ghana and caught up on laundry from the holidays. Hard to believe it's 2016 and our assignment will be over this year. We've been watching NFL playoffs, chuckling that there's only two more weeks of NFL watching from abroad. We will welcome a reasonable football-watching-timezone with open arms.

The weekends have been busy since we returned. Two weekends ago, we met Hannah and Robin on Friday night for dinner at a new (to us) place called Le Must (photo at left - credit). The food was decent and the ambiance was nice. It was quiet and we were the only people for awhile since people tend to eat late here. It was a good environment to catch up since we hadn't seen each other since before the holidays. On Saturday, there was a party at the tax partner, George's, house. He lives pretty far away from us and the party was supposed to start at 3. We decided we would leave the house at 3:45 which got us there around 4:30/4:45. We were the second people there. LOL.

Dan was giving directions to our taxi driver and he said "turn right here" and the driver said "are you sure?". Clearly, even he didn't believe we could be in the correct neighborhood, but alas, there was a big house and three Mercedeses in front. The house is beautiful but it's definitely the nicest place in the area (which is kind of the middle of nowhere). Come to find out it's basically the midway point between the village where George grew up and the office, which was the appeal of the location. There was a TON of food: soup, chicken, beef, three kinds of rice, grilled chicken, kebabs, and an entire roasted pig. By 7 or 8, most of the tax department was there and there was dancing and laughing and very loud music courtesy of the DJ who didn't seem to understand our many requests to dial it down. Various neighborhood folk kept trying to enter the party or get some food and George and his son had to keep escorting people back out the gate. It was good to see all of Dan's coworkers, especially my favorites, who I hadn't seen in almost two months.


I chatted with the other partner, Ayesha, for awhile and she paid Dan and me some really lovely compliments. She said how impressed she was with how much we try to go out and explore Ghana and see different places. She joked that we probably knew more of Accra than most Ghanaians who don't go out much and stick to the areas they know. Ayesha did a rotation in the UK and said she understands how easy it is to just stick to the customs/food/places/people you know but that she was genuinely pleased to see that we were outgoing people and open-minded to trying new things. (File under: qualities I never would have used to describe myself 5-10 years ago). It resonated with me because we really do try, but it's nice to know that other people see our efforts and appreciate them.

Saturday night and Sunday afternoon were quiet with football. I checked out a new grocery store and found tortilla chips. When I handed Dan the bag, you would have sworn it was the $1.5 billion Powerball ticket. He almost ate the whole bag in one sitting. That night, I went out to Bistro 22 with Alex and Leonora for dinner to catch up on their holiday happenings, which was very nice. Another work week flew by and Friday night, we went out to Urban Grill for dinner. We'd only been there once before, for Dan's birthday, but I really like the place (photo at right - credit). They have a really good salmon dish, which is not a common fish here, so I enjoy it even more. We had some wine and split a tuna/avocado appetizer. Dan got roasted chicken. It's a little pricey but consistently good and has a great reputation among the expats.

Saturday afternoon, we went to a place called Wild Gecko with Robin and Hannah. A lot of expats shop there for Ghana souvenirs. Since our time here is quickly coming to a close, we wanted to see what they had to offer just to keep in mind. I was really looking for housewares that we could bring home, like a cool mirror or light fixture, rather than just a knick-knack. They had some things but nothing that wow-ed us and everything was really expensive. We shall keep looking. Afterwards, we got dropped off at home, everyone had a little rest (except Chef Dan) and they came back over for dinner that night.

We ate and watched the recording of the Golden Globe awards from the weekend before. After they went home, Dan and I watched some football until we fell asleep. On Sunday, we hung out by the pool for a couple hours and watched some movies. Enjoyed a good week for our fantasy football team and got some rest for the coming work week.

Christmas Vacation - Part 4 (Final) - Netherlands

On New Year's Eve, we took our final train to Amsterdam. I've been excited about Amsterdam for awhile and, aside from being a little cold, it did not let me down. I am absolutely infatuated with all the canals, and the Dutch houses, and all the bicycles... even though I may have almost gotten run over by several of them in 36 hours.

We got in around lunchtime and went to the Hilton Amsterdam to check in. We took a tram back into the central part of town to look for a restaurant for lunch. It was a place called Metropolitain, and it was recommended by the receptionist at the hotel. It was very cute and they served late breakfast/brunch which might be my favorite thing ever. Upon perusing the menu (and eavesdropping on other diners' conversations), I realized most people speak English. Dutch is the official language and I'm sure most people speak that as well, but the overwhelming majority of speech and menus was English. I loved Amsterdam even more for that after weeks of language barriers and Italian gesticulations trying to get my points across.

At lunch, the gentleman sitting next to Dan struck up a conversation. He was very nice, if not a little weird, but it is Amsterdam. Come to find out he's a musician who was in a famous band back in the 80s and created a keyboard riff that is used in tons of music. He called the rhythm "Daddy's little pension" Haha. After fueling up on some food, we roamed around checking out some potential areas to explore later that night during the festivities. Once we felt like we got a lay of the land, we headed back to the hotel for a nap.

Normally, New Years Eve is all about getting dressed up and prancing around. Not this year. For me, it was "how many layers of pants do I think I need?". We layered up and went upstairs to the Executive Lounge for some food and drinks before going out on the town. We took one of the last trams before they shut down for the night at 8pm. It was still very early so we went pub hopping from one Heineken-serving bar to the next. We met some very nice/fun people along the way. We unintentionally walked through the Red Light District which was... well, it's everything you read that it is!

Since it was cold, we decided to stay inside as long as possible and then try to find a spot on one of the bridges over the canals to watch the fireworks. Around 11:45pm we got a spot on a bridge and waited. We knew we weren't in the center of one of the main fireworks displays but it was kind of cool because, when they started going off, they went off in every direction around us. Some were the city's shows, others were individuals setting them off. We watched the show and then wandered a bit. It became apparent that drunk people with explosives is not a good combination so we went on a 2am run to Subway (yes, THAT Subway) and walked all the way back to our hotel.

On New Year's Day, we walked to the "I amsterdam" sign, ate a pretty tasty breakfast and went to Rijksmuseum. There are LOTS of museums but, supposedly, this was the one that could not be missed. We were unimpressed. We've both been to better museums, so we lost hope in the potential of the others. We made some stops for souvenirs and then Dan wasn't feeling great (he had been fighting off a cough for a few days by this point). He asked if we could go back to the hotel and rest. We had been going, going, going this whole time so, as much as I wanted to see more of Amsterdam, I was exhausted too. We took a nap and ate downstairs at the Italian place in the hotel. Hopefully, we will make it back to Amsterdam as there is so much remaining to see and do. We shall see.

Early Saturday morning, we started the trek back to Accra. We flew a budget Spanish airline called Vueling. The tickets were half the cost of our usual fares, so we overlooked the 7 hour layover in Barcelona. We've been to Barcelona before, 7.5 years ago while on the study abroad trip where we met. So last time we were in Spain, we were more like acquaintances. We took a bus into town, got some tapas and sangria, roamed the Ramblas shopping street and pointed out all the things we remembered from 2008. We hunted and hunted for this place where we watched Spain win the Euro Cup. We recalled in detail what it looked like and where we thought it was but we couldn't find it. I'm convinced it's no longer there. Either way, it was a fun way to spend a layover and enjoyable to roam some of the same places now as husband and wife.

One more long flight and we were home safely on a Saturday night. Sunday was a lot of laundry and football and getting back into the swing of normal life after the craziness of the holidays.

Christmas Vacation - Part 3 - France and Germany

After adventuring around Switzerland, we headed to Strasbourg, France. I'll be honest, the only reason this city made the list is that it is famous for having one of the best Christmas markets. The town itself is really cute and looks a bit German in construction as it is on the border between the two countries. Apparently, the Alsace region was traded back and forth between France and Germany over the course of history until it finally ended up with France in the early 1900s.

Strasbourg has a beautiful cathedral that was a very impressive sight. I have to admit that I was incredibly underwhelmed otherwise. The Christmas market that usually stays open until New Years Eve closed early this year on Christmas Eve so, we had missed it. There were numerous little wood shops with the shutters closed on all of them. We read an article in the paper about the tourists being really upset about the change in closure date. People book their holiday travel so far in advance and it was disappointing for many of us to arrive and realize all the markets were closed. 

We enjoyed a walk around the city and admired the sights but, despite it being a weekend, not a thing was open. We suspect that with Christmas being on a Friday, the shopkeepers just remained closed all weekend. This left us with little to do aside from explore, eat and drink. I remain very disappointed in the experience as I don't see any reason why we would ever go back there. France did not do a good job of scoring points with Dan, so it remains one of his least favorite European countries.

On Monday, we traveled to Stuttgart, Germany. There isn't much in this town either; however, it is famous for two museums: the Porsche Museum and the Mercedes-Benz Museum. On Monday afternoon, we went to the Porsche museum, had lunch there and roamed the exhibits. It was very well laid out and full of fun facts. 

That evening, we went to a sports bar near our hotel for dinner and soccer. We had just finished paying when the fire alarm went off. This was not a good sign since it was attached to our hotel. Turns out, someone's radiator or towel warmer or something had started smoking so everyone in the hotel was confined to the restaurant while the fire department de-smoked the hotel. Always an adventure haha. 

Tuesday morning, we went straight to the Mercedes museum first thing and roamed the 7 floors of cars and information. The museum was also very good, but was different in that it traveled a timeline of Germany and how specific world events (wars, technological advances, etc) impacted the company and its trajectory. Very interesting. After all this car inspiration, we rented a BMW and Dan drove the Autobahn from Stuttgart to Cologne. There was little traffic so Dan was able to explore the "no speed limit" idea. I don't recall how fast his top speed was and it's probably best that I don't. Though I never felt unsafe with him behind the wheel. After driving in Cape Town, with a stick on the left side of the road, the man can do just about anything.

We checked into the Marriott in Cologne and roamed the streets in search of a dinner place. We eventually found the area with all the restaurants and opted for an "American Sports Bar" (shocking). We walked home through the quiet streets and crashed after a long day. 

The following day, we walked to the Hohenzollern bridge with all the love locks on it. You may think this is a silly idea given that Paris just cut all theirs off the bridges. Firstly, I trust German engineering immensely. I mean I did just ride there in a BMW. Lastly, this bridge is the one on which all the passenger trains cross the Rhine.... soooo it can hold some weight. Several thousand metal locks are not going to impact the structural integrity of this thing. We walked and walked trying to scope out a spot for our lock. We eventually managed to find a suitable place, affixed our lock, each took a key and tossed it into the Rhine. There our lock will stay, in the shadow of the Cologne Cathedral.

 It had gotten cold and windy, so we wandered a little more and then picked a warm place for lunch. New Orleans creole food that was very good. A bit more roaming and then we went to a quintessential German beer hall for dinner. The kind of place where they don't ask what you want to drink, they just bring beer.

In conclusion, this portion of the trip was a mixed bag. I suppose that's to be expected. Not every place you visit will be everything you hoped for and you will always love some places more than others.... to each their own.
One more stop til we head home to Ghana (well one and a half... but more on that later.)

Christmas Vacation - Part 2 - Switzerland

We arrived in Geneva and checked into Eastwest hotel. The train ride was quite long so it was already late by the time we got settled at the hotel. We went to a pub to watch the Manchester City match and had a late dinner before going to sleep.

On Tuesday, we got up and walked across the lake to the shopping district. The main language in this part of Switzerland is French so we had a bit of a language barrier to deal with. We waited in line outside the supposed best chocolatier in Geneva and I got a small box of truffles. Dan got a gold star for this considering there are few things he dislikes more than waiting in a line and chocolate. Haha. That night we had dinner at a hotel restaurant which was pretty good, then we walked back to our place to get some rest. We had an early morning wake up call the following morning to take a bus up to Chamonix.

 Geneva's fountain from the Mont Blanc bridge/Dan's true feelings about chocolate

The bus ride up was uneventful. It was unseasonably warm throughout much of Europe so there wasn't much snow. This was obviously disappointing but we dealt with what we had. This was one of the few things that Dan really wanted to do on the trip so I was happy we were able to do it. We skied a bit throughout the afternoon.... Dan skied... very well, as usual. I fell most of the way down. I was much better in Tahoe but I guess that was already 4 years ago so I lost my snow-legs. You can take the girl out of Florida, but you can't take the Florida out of the girl. That said, Dan was incredibly patient with me and my last run of the day was... respectable. (Even that's probably an overstatement but, hey, just let me have this one.)

We got back to the hotel, showered up and went on a hunt for dinner. We found a burger place that was very busy so figured that was a good sign. We ate there and went home to rest after a long day.

On the morning of Christmas Eve, we headed off to Zurich. We stayed at Hotel St. Gotthard which was perfectly located right near the train station and on the main shopping street. Unfortunately, everything was already closed for the holiday but the city was very well decorated with Christmas lights almost anywhere you looked. The main street had strands of lights hung vertically from 4-5 stories up the whole way down the street. It was an impressive sight.

Months before we traveled, I contacted the hotel's concierge regarding restaurant recommendations. I suspected many places would be closed for the holiday and I didn't want to wait too long to book a table and find that nothing was available. She helped us book tables for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve, we went to a place called Blaue Ente (blue duck in German). What we didn't know was that it was not actually in the city center. So we took the train out to the suburbs and went to a cute little place for dinner. The food was good and it was packed so clearly we made a good selection.

On Christmas Day, we kept the family tradition going of seeing a movie. Any guesses? Yep, Star Wars... again. BUT this time it was in English, thankfully. We laughed on the way home about the bits we had totally wrong or just missed entirely from our first viewing in Italian. We took a nap, facetimed our family to wish everyone Merry Christmas and went off to dinner at Zunfthaus Zur Waag.

The building was beautiful and based on the photos inside, it is quite old. Dinner was really good and the ambiance was nice. We didn't feel rushed at all. I actually didn't see many tables turn over so maybe they only took one reservation per table for the entire night. Lots of families out and about. On the way home, we found a pub that was open and figured it would be a quiet way to wind down. Boy, were we wrong. It was jam-packed. People everywhere at 10pm on Christmas.

We stayed for a bit and then went back to get our things together for the next train ride the following morning. Next stop: France.

Christmas Vacation - Part 1 - Italy

Dan and I arrived in Torino (aka Turin) within a few minutes of each other. He was held up a bit having to go through immigration but we met at the baggage claim and got our show on the road. We checked in at Townhouse 70 which was a really cute boutique hotel chain with a great, central location, and went out and about.

Considering Star Wars Episode 7 was released while Dan was flying to Istanbul, we decided to try to find a movie theatre. We succeeded in locating one... but, it was closed. They had advertisements for the movie posted all over the place but the doors were locked. Perplexed, we circled the block looking for another entrance. We came upon a quaint little restaurant so decided to go in for a quick bite and a glass of wine. We sat down and were quickly told that they were closing as lunch service had finished, but they had a table at 8pm if we wanted to come back for dinner. Sure, why not?

Circled the block a few more rounds and noticed more people congregating around the entrance. Apparently, they must open just a few minutes before the first showing. We went in and waited in line. We had a discussion regarding whether or not the film would be in English. Dan said that he didn't think it was possible that the film had already been dubbed in foreign languages, so, at worst, it should be in English with Italian subtitles. This seemed logical to me but I requested that he inquire with the ticket sales counter to make sure it was in English. He did not. And it was not. haha.

When the plot started rolling up the screen and it said "Il Risveglio della Forza", he must have been relieved that I don't possess Vader's choke hold skills. But, the way he laughed at me and knowing how much he loves Star Wars, I couldn't leave. So we stayed and tried to comprehend as much of the film in Italian as we could. Dan "gathered" much more than I did but I got the general gist... or at least enough that I wasn't worried about any spoilers that could be posted on the internet. We went home to rest up and wandered back that way for dinner.

Back in our hole in the wall restaurant, we had our own private room surrounded by Italian wine on all the walls. The place was called Ristorante Enoteca Parlapa, and we had 3 courses each, with wine, and left about 4 hours later. No I'm not kidding. We sat down at 8 and as we were finishing our coffee, Dan said holy shit it's midnight. The food was good, not great, but the experience was quintessentially Italian.

See that table in the back room (on the left side of the photo)? 

Yeah, that was our table. Photo credit: here

The next day was Sunday, so we slept in and wandered around a bit. Walked toward their famous landmark, Mole Antonelliana (which is actual the Museum of National Cinema). It was cordoned off by police as apparently there was a bomb scare. Luckily, it turned out to be a false alarm, but we didn't stick around to find out. To the left is one of the few photos I was able to get of the top of the Mole Antonelliana.

Around 6pm, we wandered to an aperitif place under a colonnade surrounding a plaza. The plaza had a stage with a gospel choir singing Christmas carols so we sat outside and listened and people watched. We found a sushi place called One Apple for dinner, propped Dan's phone up against a glass and watched football in the corner upstairs while we ate.(hooray, Slingbox!)

Monday morning we boarded the train to Switzerland for 5 days in Geneva and Zurich. I promise I won't break every city into a separate post. This one was just particularly eventful with our movie go-ing and crazy dinner experience, so it was getting a bit lengthy. :)

I'm Baaaaaaack

That's right. We're safely back home in Ghana after lots of traveling. My apologies for the delay in posting but it's been quite a busy few months. In mid-November, we flew back to the US. Dan spent a week at training in Orlando and I worked from my parents' house in Tampa. On Friday, we flew to Vegas for a quick weekend trip... something we did almost every football season when we lived in San Francisco.

We returned back to Tampa and spent Thanksgiving week with both of our families. It was a very enjoyable few days having everyone together. After the holiday, Dan headed back to Ghana and I remained in Florida. Frankly, it was significantly cheaper for me to remain in Florida since Dan and I were meeting in Europe three weeks later. Considering my job allows me to work remotely, it worked perfectly.

Fast forward a few weeks... wonderful weeks filled with quality time with my parents and some of my best friends.

When Dan and I planned our European Christmas Vacation, I was looking into flights. At the time, the easiest route of travel was Lufthansa from Accra to Frankfurt and then directly to Tampa. (Yes, there's a direct flight from Frankfurt to Tampa... surprising, I know). Expecting to fly through Frankfurt, I invited my mom to fly back to Germany with me to explore some German Christmas markets. Of course, she eagerly accepted... and, shortly after that, Lufthansa stopped their service to Ghana. This required some airline/flight finagling but we managed to get it sorted out.

So mid-December, my mom and I flew to Frankfurt. We arrived in the morning on a Wednesday. I needed to get some work done during that part of the trip so I worked early mornings, before dinner, and before bed. After sending some emails, we took the subway to the Christmas market. We roamed the market and had a mug of gluhwein (warm spiced wine) to properly complete the experience. Honestly, neither of us were fans of the drink but the mugs were incredibly cute, soooooo.... worth it. We got the obligatory Christmas tree ornaments and just made note of the items we were interested in for future reference.

Thursday morning, we took the train one hour north to Cologne. We checked into the hotel and went out to see the market there. Ok. Ok. Markets. Cologne has 7 Christmas markets, and we were determined to see as many in our one day as possible. So after a quick stop at Starbucks, we fired the starting gun and we were off. Cologne's markets were much better than Frankfurt's. So much so that we were having trouble deciding on what we wanted to get as souvenirs. We made it to a total of 5 of the 7 markets before we felt like we were seeing the same stuff over and over. We stopped for a glass of wine and a snack and waited for the sun to go down so the Christmas lights would illuminate the largest market (which was just next to the city's beautiful Gothic cathedral).

We walked around again and went back to our favorite places. There was a band playing live music and it was definitely more lively with everyone being off of work and enjoying their evening. I got a wreath, some matching handmade garland and a wooden German Christmas pyramid. My mom also got a pyramid, another one for her friend, and some Christmas cookies in the shape of the cathedral. We went back to the hotel carrying our load of gifts and even the woman at the check-in desk remarked about how we "did some shopping" haha.

Friday morning, we boarded the train back to Frankfurt with our loot in tow. We rested at the hotel while I worked and walked down to a really cute hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant for dinner. On Saturday morning, we said our goodbyes and my mom headed back to the States and I flew to Turin, Italy to meet Dan and start our holiday vacation. More on that next time...