New design means new beginning…..
I got rid of all the old stuff….
Well, in fact it’s still here, but I decided it was too antiquated to feature prominently….
So from now on, it’s only the stuff from blogger.

My CV and stuff has moved to my company site, now that I’m an independent contractor in close liason with my good friend Jens.

Our Company is called:
MostlyHarmless
In honour of Douglas Adams, incredibly humourous authour of the Hitchihikers Guide Trilogy, as well as a few other books, and comedian writer extraordinaire….

Well, in fact we also think the name is quite funny. I mean in a world where a huge number of IT projects continue to go over budget, over time, and end in minor catastrophies,
MostlyHarmless
has a certain irony. For now our corporate slogan is: “We Cause Less Damage…”

Well, I hope you like the simplicity of the new design. For a tech guy it isn’t bad I think.
I’ll be back to talk more about what’s happened since I was last here…..

Don’t forget to check out the site of my favourite NGO, and do volunteer for a trip to Africa if you’ve got the Tech skills. It comes highly recommended:

A flash and the lights are out again.

The little tell-tale flashing of the lights seems to be the split-second warning you get before everything suddenly goes quiet here at work.
Your computer screen flashes that awry diamond in your face, the fan above your head starts decelerating, and everything around is suddenly in darkness. Such is the scour of an office without windows, in a place without a stable electricity supply.
No matter how many times it happens, it always comes as an irritation, being torn away from your work like that. I have learnt by now, to pick up a book, my palmpilot, or some other form of entertainment, and step outside onto the balcony for the duration of the black-out. It is in these moments, with my trusty palmpilot and fold-out keyboard, that most of my writing is done. Outside. On the balcony.
It takes only a split second without the fan before the room is simply too hot and stuffy for my western sensibilities.

Outside, on the other hand, perched as we are on the side of a hill overlooking much of what is north-western accra, there is a refreshing breeze in the air. I can see the Ocean about a kilometer to the south, the western hills are straight ahead, and if I go onto the roof, or crane my neck around the corner, I can look out over most of Accra. It’s not a bad pass-time for those almost daily power outages, but still I wish I could get on with my work here instead.
Since finding the time to teach anyone, and finding anyone to teach here, is continuously difficult, I have given myself the task of creating an on-line resource with links to various sites that carry information on the different subjects I am supposed to teach. I have made up a lessonplan with one subject for each day I am here. And although we are already a week behind before even starting, with a bit of time-compression, hard work, and fortune, I could even get through most of the important subjects in the about 4 weeks left to me. I am no longer naive enough to think that this is going to happen, or that there will be anyone here to teach. Or anyone who wants to learn and has time, but having a plan shoved into their faces may force them into doing something.
In the meantime, I have decided to write brief descriptions of each subject, and add links to other on-line resources to it. Maybe it can be the start of a simple web tutorial? Given some time, and some design help, maybe I can turn it into a one-stop information shopping site for Internet businesses in the developing world who are in WAY above their heads, knowledge wise? Maybe it will just sit on a server here at AfricaExpress, unused and unwanted, and I will have wasted precious time and resources in creating something that already exists a thousand times over. I don’t know, but maybe time will tell.

At least it’s an occupation, and hopefully it is a better long-term investment of my time than running around installing microwave equipment for a company that has no chance of maintaining that equipment once I leave.

I know it’s a long shot, but at least it’s on the pitch.

The Geek Flip Contest at the Mole Olymbig Geek-flip Pool

Long-lasting tradition dictates that the Mole Motel pool be the staging ground for this competition of dare devil’s.
In the memorable tradition of such stunt masters as Evil Knievel and Stone Cold Steve Austin, this contest involves a number of physically less-than-fit, motorically challenged but extremely brave geeks, launching themselves into the pool with various body-parts first.
The contest serves the triple purpose of 1) roasting said geeks in the sun, 2) attempting to prove that said geeks are at least as nimble as the baboons stoically watching the spectacle from a nearby tree, and 3) annoying any hotel guests naive enough to attempt to have dinner at the pool side with the extreme splashing caused by launching 100kg of geek at the surface of a pool.

The contest consisted of an as yet undisclosed number of rounds. Each round involved one or more geeks, launching themselves of the diving board (and into the pool), while attempting to embellish the dives with wild flips, spins and animations….

The scoring of each round was mostly a question of diving enough times to tire the opponents into reaching a consensus. At times we did involve unwitting travellers (who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time) in our decisions, forcing them to watch the unbearable contest and grade each of an almost infinite number of dives.

The contest, as with most other geek sporting events, was extremely interesting due to the differences in styles amongst the 4 competitors. Each competitor adding his or her interpretation to what makes an interesting flip dive.

From the stylish but seemingly quite painful 3/4 flips of Peter “I’m almost there!” Beardsley, over the death-defying reverse flips of Jason “How close to the edge of the pool?” Varsoke, to the stunning, but ultimately unsuccesful attempts at a back-flip from Tomas “I can stand here for hours, but my body refuses to jump” Krag, and the completely failed attempts at the forward, reverse flip from Stophe “I used to be on the high school dive team” Landis, each contestant added valuable stylistic contributions to the show.

Already on the first day of competition a clear ranking seemed to evolve.
On the first day of competition Tomas took an early lead with his frequent and highly splashing forward flips. With a reasonable score for workmanship, and a high score in the categories of repetitiveness and splash-factor, Tomas was aided by the stability and extra splash-effect given him by his rather large beer belly.
The first day also introduced the crowds to Peter‘s repeated, but not quite succesful attempts at a forward flip, that would remain a mainstay, and crowd favourite, for the duration of the contest. His ability to continuously perform these belly-flopping flips, gave him the lead in the dare-devil category right from the beginning of the competition. Stophe started the competition in his usual, self-assured style, keeping his best jumps for later, while lulling his competitors into a false sense of security by performing a few, for him, sub-standard front flips.
Jason in the meantime, was working his way through a number of miserably failed front-flips, but his perseverance, like Peter‘s placed him high in the dare-devil category, and his subsequent completion of a rather forced front-flip, tied him with Tomas in the 1st spot.

As the rounds continued, and each contestant was forced to pull new, and even more crowd-pleasing flips out of his hat, a pattern soon emerged.

Jason took the lead in the daredevil category, by defying his resistant mind, and performing a number of back-flips that brought him to within inches of the pools rather hard, stony edge. While Peter‘s extreme perseverance brought him a large group of local fans, his insistance on ending the front flip with a belly-flop, lost him some points in the style category. Tomas, in the meantime, was consistently placing himself at the end of the diving board, with his back to the water, contemplating the survival chances of a back-flip. Depite all evidence to the contrary he consitently reached the conclusion that a back flip was a bad choice at the time, whereupon he meekly stepped of the diving board, eliciting jeers and laughs, but also the rare call of support, from an increasingly animated crowd. Stophe then non-chalantly proceeded to perform an almost flawless back-flip, once again proving the efficiency of a medium-sized beer-belly in maintaining rotation and speed in mid-air.

This succesion of different flips from the feet of Stophe, proved enough to catapult him into the lead in the style and variation categories, and his insistence on closing the other categories, lead him to try the fateful, forward reverse flip. Peter, had at this point, almost pulled out of the contest, but continued to fitfully attempt the simplest of forward flops. His ranking unfortunately dropped through the floor, through this lack of perseverance and variation, and he subsequently was quoted as saying: “I need to work on that beer-belly”.
Jason continued to perform a variation of forward and back flips, the back flips espeially gaining favour with the critical masses, as they continuously and despite serious eforts to correct this, propelled him dangerously close to the edge of the pool.

Tomas, being forced to come up with an alternative to his continuous failings as a reverse diver, during an exclusive interview with geekhalla.org, admitted that “My mind is more powerful than my body, and will not let me jump at something I can not see”. Given the pure mass of his body, the concept of his mind being stronger, is not a thought we at geekhalla.org enjoy entertaining. Yet Tomas, using that very same mind, staged an incredibly cunning comeback, by forcing open a new category in the contest. While this is a technique allowed for in the official rules, it has never before been employed in the history of the Mole Geek Flip Contest. By performing, to the extreme entertainment of the crowd, his now famous “Elephant Dive”, succesfully emulating the splash and antics of a 15 ton elephant entering a small puddle of water, he opened up, and took the lead in the animal flip category.

Unfortunately for him, it was too little, too late as Stophe Landis had effectively closed the contest by adding to his leadership in the style and variation category, by taking and holding the dare-devil category with a revere forward dive, and continuous unsuccesful but brave attempts at the forward reverse flip.

In another geekhalla.org exclusive interview, given late in the evening after the first days contest, the now 2-time Geek Flip Champion commented on the extreme heat at the Mole Olymbig Geek Flip Pool: “If somebody has some butter and Garlic, could they please come and Baste me?”
Words worthy of a true champion flip-diver…….

Still Wasting Time at work

Tuesday morning. The morning after.
I have a travel hangover. If you’ve ever done 18 hours of developing world travel in a single day you’ll probably know what I’m talking about.
To paraphrase Douglas Adams: It’s almost exactly like an 18 hour game of petanque is not. Extremely exhausting, and close to being gangrene inducing in it’s sheer discomfort for anyone over 190 cm in height.
But it was worth it!
Sitting in the shade of a few trees, watching 7 elephants splash around in a watering hole, only to be interupted by the snapping jaws of a crocodile on the prowl for fish, is an almost surreal nature experience.
The Mole Hotel’s pool and it’s diving board, staging ground for the 2nd bi-annual geek flip contest, defended with usual aplomb by everybody’s favourite Country Director, Stophe, also contributed to the splendor of the weekend.
In short, it was a great weekend, even framed as it was by an incredible travel overhead.

Exalted and exhausted, as I am this morning, by the experience and it’s travel demand respectively, the gap between my disappointment at the work and my excitement at Ghana in general seems to be larger than ever.

What is there to write???

Everything becomes so normal after a while.
No longer is there something new going on all the time. No longer does it bother me to wait an hour for the simplest things. The food that was a constant source of surprises, is now merely good food.
The interactions with people are less surprising. The language, while still entirely incomprehenible, no longer sounds alien to my ears.
At time I have even been bored. And although part of this boredom is doubtlessly connected with living with the same 6 geeks for a month and a half, it is also an indication that i am gradually settling in.
While I still take as many showers as practically possible (generally 3 a day), I no longer worry about the heat, the sweating and the constant grime tht covers my body in this tropical heat and humidity. It is. No more and no less.

There are so many things that required conscious thought just 2 weeks ago, that are now a normal part of my life here.
I recognize the feeling from earlier travels. It tells me one thing above all others. It will be difficult to adjust to living in Denmark again.

The normality of life in Accra, is also the primary reason for the rarity in my posts. I rarely come upon something so unique, special or even annoying, that it forces itself into written form. i find myself sitting in front of the computer, wanting to write, but not really feeling there is anything interesting enough for me to put into words.

That doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. On the contrary, I am up and about more hours a day than I would ever be at home.

Last weekend was at once void of content, and highly entertaining. I did nothing much, yet a lot happened.
Saturday was a day of rest from morning to noon, I read (Foucault’s Pendulum), relaxed and ate. Around one, Jason’s colleague Vincent from Ghana Classifieds picked us up (Jason, Jean and I) and took us to his house in downtown Accra, for a bit of basketball. Just a short hour of one-on-one and two-on-two behind his garage, but it was basketball. And I miss playing bball. For a while I thought it a complete non-sport in Ghana, but here he is, playing for a local league team. That was great. And hopefully i have proved my ability to handle a basketball enough that I will be invited to their practice*. Now that would be fun.

Sunday was a different day. Full English breakfast at Pit-Stop, the auto body shope in Asylum Down that also happens to have a small restaurant. Almost impossible to find for the unititiated, this petrol-smelling hideout has some fabulous bacon, sausages, eggs, beans and coffee. Divine!

After breakfast, and my second shower, it was of to the Accra football (soccer for the ill-informed) stadium, and a world cup qualifier between Ghana and Nigeria. Kitted out in a full Ghana kit, joined by Tim, Joe the PBS photographer, and our friend Akpeteshie, we were ready for the battle between local rivals. The atmosphere was intense, the pre-game build-up was fabulous, and the undertones were interesting. The Ghana football association, in an attempt to save money and avoid a repeat of the last 3 embarassing defeats, had decided not to make use of Ghana’s European-based professionals. Opting instead to play with a line-up consisting entirely of the local Accra team, Hearts of Oak. The Hearts of Oak, or Phobia as they are affectionately called by fans, are a hugely popular Accra team and recent winners of the African club tournament, making them effetively one of the absolute top clubs in Africa. The fans were loving it….
Yells of “Phobia!”, “The boys are good” and “We never say die, until the bones are rotten” left no doubt in my mind that the fans would rather see a fighting, spirited team of locals, than a lacklustre, mediocre performance of hugely talented foreign-based players who would rather be back at their clubs earning their million-dollar wages, than defending the honour of their country.

And the Nigerian squad, of almost entirely European-based profesionals, provided a great background for illustrating the difference between the two attitues. Exactly as lacklustre and mediocre as we had seen the Ghanaian squad at earlier games, they were nevertheless so obviously superior in terms of physical strength and technical skills, that the game was never really open. The Hearts of Oak put in an incredibly spirited display, with lot’s of class football, but were never seriously able to threaten the physically larger, stronger and in most cases faster Nigerians in front of goal. The Nigerians on the other hand were so obviously not interested, worried as they seemed about injuries that would keep them out of club ties in the European Champions League and other large tournaments, that they constantly pulled out of tough situations, kept their expenditure of energy to a minimum, and generally provided only a few offensive situations that truly showed them as one of the worlds best teams.
But “the boys are good”, and although the game ended with a disapointing 0-0 score, the celebrations were intense amongst the local supporters. A trip to a local bar, a few shots of Ginger Akpeteshie and bites of grilled squid later, Joe, Tim and I were parading our football gear through the entire lengths of Osu. The sight of 3 obrunis in a great mood, and full football gear, provided the days entertainment for many a local. The number of times we managed to get huge white smiles out of people by raising a fist to the sky and saying, “Phobia – The Boys are Good”, was worthy of a record somewhere.

Exhausted and after my 3rd shower of the day, we, the entire band of geeks, minus the francophones, headed out for the beach restaurant, Next Door (which incidentally is not next door to anything at all). The food was good, the bill, however, in what seems like a not entirely unusual scene, was way too big for what we got. Sunday night exhaustion, combined with the complexity of actually calculating the right price, led us to just pay the bill, wave goodbye and head on home. But not before I had a chance to reminisce on what had in fact been an incredibly enjoyable weekend…….

* Since I originally wrote this post, I went to his team practice last thursday and played some pick-up games. I am also going back tonight. It’s great!

Ghana and the Information Age

The unbearable lightness of waiting. Time is different here. So close to the 0 meridien, Ghana is on GMT. But it is a different GMT. Ghana Maybe Time. The difference is, in a sense, trivial. Everything just takes more time. I’m writing this in front of Ecobanks HQ here in Accra. The driver picked me up at 7:30 this morning. Instead of going straight to Dansoman, however, we were stopping at the bank to cash a check. It was around 8 when we got there. Opening Time – 8:30.
Waiting in the car, time passes. 8:30 – driver heads for the bank. A full 40 minutes later he returns, check in hand. The message that took 40 minutes to deliver? Come back this afternoon or tomorrow.

I guess in most industries, it isn’t a huge problem. If you pay a dollar or two a day for an employee, who is to say you can’t spend that day having a check cashed. For high-skill industries such as IT, the situation is different it seems. The no. 1 barrier to better and cheaper Internet services, and the potential of building a much needed foreign currency generating tech industry, is the lack of skilled labour. The education system just isn’t good enough. An educational tradition that seems to thrive on rote memorization. Computer Science programs that operate with practically no hands-on computer time. And an inflation rate that makes it prohibitively expensive to train abroad, are some of the barriers in building a highly skilled workforce.

GMT is one of the barriers to utilizing it effectively. The efficiency of the workforce is low. The cost of low efficiency is exponentially higher in a knowledge industry.
Combine this with a general lack of understanding of the differences between a knowledge industry and a service or production industry and the outlook becomes less optimistic.
The old adage that knowledge is power seems to be the mantra here. The focus on equipment investment is high, that on skills investment is low. The willingness to invest in the skills of ones workforce seems severely hampered by the fear that they will take that knowledge to the competitor as soon as a chance arises. The understanding that sharing knowledge may well increase the size of the pie, giving everyone a bigger slice, is but an evil rumour.
The concept that the key to success is in the hands of your workers, and not management, is acknowledged in words but rarely in action.

Such are, in my opinion, the biggest barriers to entering the Information Age.

I’m sorry Ghana, you have a great country, but in certain matters there is a long, winding road ahead.

Rainy Season

It’s funny, the rainy season.
The pure regularity of the weather.

I remember it from other places. Like the Galapagos Islands. Perched as they are, on the equator, surrounded by a thousand miles of undisturbed, weather regulating ocean they must have one of the most predictable climates I have ever come across. I remember the weather. Every day, hot and dry as a desert. The same every day. Until 4:46 p.m. or was it 4:32, I forget the exact moment. But at the time I could have set my clock by it, had I had one. In the span of maybe 8 to 10 minutes, the town of XXX went from a dry desert town to the legendary underwater city of Atlantis.
It rained.
It rained for about 42 min. And it rained fiercely, with passion.
That was the rainy season.

Back to Ghana
For over a month now, Accra has been my hot, humid home. Relentlessly hot and humid. Not a single drop of rain to relieve my sweating body. Until yesterday. For just over a month people have told me about the rainy season. March and April they said. But I had two problems with that.
First of all, the notorious lack of precision that is some times seen in comments from Ghanaians. They have a different perspective on time. I figured March or April was a synonym for sometime after christmas. I was wrong.

Secondly, like a first-time visitor to the barren, icy wastelands of Greenland who is told that this very island, in summer, is in fact a lush and green meadow, I was incredulous. True to my namesake, the doubting Tomas, I refused to imagine this hot, humid city in the throes of tropical rain. I was, of course, wrong again.

March 1st 2001. They had told me March, and I was sceptical, but on the first day of march, after a late night at work, I was in a cab homw when the rain began. By 7:30, driving through North Kaneshie, or was it Nima, the rain was pouring. We had closed the windows of the cab to avoid instant drowning but the humiditymeant instant fogging up of all windows. The visibility reduced to zero, in a car that wasn’t exactly in it’s prime, we crwled through traffic, hoping that we would avoid other vehicles in the same situation.
It all ended well, but the transformation of an entire city from one day to another. From hot, humid, big city, to the underwater mystery of Atlantis, is still one of the most awesome sights to behold

Close to 4 weeks on the ground, and I still don’t speak Twi.

Close to 4 weeks on the ground, and I still don’t speak Twi…… Not a word of it. Well maybe a word, but that’s really it.

To compensate for my obvious failings in that direction, I have decided not to learn how to drum either. Or cook Ghanaian style. Or weave Kente cloth.

I’m just not cut out for it. I try. Well at least I try to convince myself I should try. At least.
The fact is, I don’t really have the excess energy.

Here I am, in a foreign country. A foreign business environment. Trying to make a positive impact to a company that does things in a different way, with different technology, and different goals. with different hopes, and different beliefs. Especially different beliefs.

I get up at 6 in the morning. Do some basic excercises to try and keep my circulation going. Have a well-prepared breakfast of oatmeal and egg sandwiches (Thanks to Rose and Richard), before being picked up for a 40 minute drive through the chaos that is Accra rush-hour. At work, when i’m not trying to figure out the mysteries of linux firewalling, IP masquerading or Wireless microwave links, i’m probably on the road. The sweltering mid-day drive to find the radio-link and do some reconfiguring. 25km. Windows down to make the heat bearable, the dusty roads ensure that I am soon feeling the grains of sand between my teeth.

And then there are the quiet periods. When I get time to send an e-mail to my girlfriend, my friends, my family, or to post another post on geekhalla. The time when I get a chance to really enjoy the, for Ghana, incredible 64Kbps connectivity that I work to keep up and running.
When work finishes, and at the end of another 40 minute drive, there is either exhaustion, or social activities.
The monday night Hash House Harriers, the wednesday night ethiopian buffet at Nuku’s. The Thursday Trivia night at Champs. The bar’s, restaurants, weekend trips to Cape Coast, Kumasi, Mole and wherever. The books I want to read. The showers I want to take. Yes, let’s not forget the showers, for they are one of the days absolute highlights, when there is an opportunity to wash away the dust and dried up sweat of a day of sweltering heat.

After all this, I just can’t seem to prioritize Twi, cooking, drumming or any other of a long list of worthwhile pursuits that I had sworn to myself I would at least dip into while in Ghana.

To all you cultural-immersion, “wring-every-last-drop-out-of-life” enthusiasts, I sincerely apologize. I guess I am a leisurely traveller.
One that refuses to pretend to live like the locals. Refuses to pretend I have to find the cheapest dinner option, or the most authentic cultural experience. But alos one that likes to experience, even the little bits of Ghanaian life that I ingest through some form of osmosis. I may be nothing more than a rich ex-pat, who comes to Ghana to experience the life, but at a distance. Who eats the food when it suits him, and refrains when he prefers. Who enjoys the atmosphere of the ex-pat bars. The air-conditioned Italian restaurants that are well outside the budget of most of the local population. I confess. That, too is a part of me.

For I am here, first and foremost, to try and impart some of my experiences in the Internet field, on some of the locals. To see if I can’t make that tiny difference to the local economy. I am also here to learn, suck-up, breathe and be enriched. To share the culture, to live a little corner of the life, and to have fun. And I’d rather feel a little of the local culture and understand it, than try to grasp it all in one giant bite, suffering terminal cultural indigestion for the months that follow.

Hopefully I’ll return to Denmark, richer, fuller and a better Human, even if I still won’t speak Twi……

The Geekhalla Trivia Team goes for Gold!

Last night The Geekhalla Trivia Team, a select group of 5 Geeks, selected carefully from amongst the inhabitants of Geekhalla, won a sweeping victory over other trivia contenders, at the Champ’s Sports Bar Thursday Trivia Challenge.

The team got of to a scorching start, when they established their psychological advantage, even before the games had begun. Unconfirmed rumours state that a number of competitors are consiering a protest, to the World Federation of Pub Trivia Challenges (WFPTC), because there is some doubt as to the validity of having entire teams consisting geeks, who are in essence professionals in the field of Trivia. However, we are convinced that we ollowed every possible WFPTC ruling in terms of team selection and the intake of illegal, performance-enhancing substances.

The Geekhalla Trivia Team, was in fact so supreme in all aspects of the game, that Babak decided, in a show of almost touching sportsmanship, to give away the answer to the first question by shouting it to the entire pub. In later question rounds, possibly discounting the one on local Ghanaian affairs, we managed to be very consistant in our answers due to a concerted team effort. Unfortunately we missed what is arguably the second most important round of the quiz, because nobody on the team had read the latest issue of FHM magazine, and therefore we were out of touch with their optimistic estimate of a world population of less than 4 billion. Also there were long discussions as to how the rukling board, could possibly disagree with the fact that the answer to at least 6 of the questions was indeed “Eddie Murphy”.

One of the most impressive parts of the victory stemmed from the obvious lack of a British team member, for what was arguably the most Anglo-centric Pub Trivia Challenge we had ever participated in. The team managed through a number of highly precise guesses, most of which were “Eddie Murphy”

In the end, the winning margin of the Geekh4lla Trivia Team was more than doubled when the team scribe, Tomas, selflessly sacrificed his well-being to drink a large free bear, and secure his team whatever extra credit was available.

The Geekhalla Trivia Team:

• Jean-Luc “Eddie Murphy” Martel aka. Zarcon
• Peter “American Pop Culture” Beardsley
• Babak “Music Master” Fakhamzadeh
• Jean “General Knowledge” Macdonald
• Tomas “Extra-Credit Beergut” Krag

And on the bench:

• François “The Frenchman” Auger (Substitute)

Her er stille,
her udenfor storbyens cacaphoni,
Herfra hvor jeg staar,
paa balkonen i praestens hus
straekker hustagene sig til horizonten.
Smoggen ligger som et tungt lag over byens huse,
eller er det oerkenvinden, harmettanen, der bringer Saharas fjerne sand?
Selv om havet og de smukke strande paa intet tidspunkt er mere end en enkelt kilometer vaek her i Accra,
har det ingen betydning.
Det tilbedes ikke.
Den ellers koelige brise det bringer, finder ingen nytte i folks hverdag.
Maaske huskes havet endnu som transportvejen der bragte saa mange af deres forfaedre til slavernes oeer?
Maaske bestaar det moderne Accra hovedsageligt af tilflyttere fra nordligere egne? Fra frodige, fugtige egne hvor vand betyder malaria myg, bilharzia, flodheste, doeden.
Maaske er det bare saadan det er,
at havet er der hvor man henter fisk, der hvor man skiler sig af med affaldet,
men kun i ringe grad betragtes det som noget saerligt, noget smukt, majestaetisk, religioest.
Det er svaert for mit danske sind at forstaa at noget saa stort, saa smukt og saa livsbekraeftende i den oftest trykkende varme, betyder saa lidt.
Isaer i saa religoest et land.

Skilteskoven siger meget.
Til hoejre “Presbytarian School of Dansoman”
Til vesntre “Missionary Outreach Training Program”
Overalt, alting, hver en forretning har sit baand til herren.
“Jesus is Great, Carpenters”
“Grace of God, Beauty Salon”
“The Lord Loves All, Auto Repairs”
Kirker, skoler, moskeer, templer, sang, boen og respekt.
Han er der i alt.
Selv i det rituelle JoJo der i Caribien dannede grund for det mere kendte Voudou, er det universelt accepteret.
End ikke det forstyrrer missionaerens arbejde.
Det er en del af ddagligdagen,
sammen med den fugtige, tropiske varme,
demn braendende toerre harmettan,
trafikken der staar stille,
fattigdommen, haabet,
de aabne kloaker der flyder ved hver en vej,
de toerre stoevede veje der forceres i aflagte nordeuropaeiske Toyotaer,
der paa mystisk vis har fundet endnu et liv efter doeden hernede i Accra.