Sunbirds on the balcony

A friend recently gave me a sunbird feeder. It’s a relatively simple design, with an upturned bottle in a metal wire ‘nest’, the open end of the bottle resting in a small pyrex dish. The physics of why all the water doesn’t run out is quite something. All to do with equal and opposite forces, or at least that’s what I’ve concluded in my attempts to dredge up my A-level physics! Initially I included some red food colouring in the sugar solution in order to attract the birds. It took them a week or so to figure out that this hanging object that had appeared on my balcony was something good. The downside was sticky patches over my balcony and plants, where the sweet syrup had either been splashed, or alternatively where a mob of sunbirds had upset the balance on the suspended bottle. (I initially thought I had an infestation of some sort, until I realised what it actually was!) By the time I came back from Togo, the bottle was empty. Since then, I’ve refilled a couple of times, though now I use a glucose solution which is clear. It is delightful to watch the birds, such as the variable sunbird in the photo, come and feed.

Other Images from Togo and Ghana

I didn’t have too much opportunity to explore Kara, my days there being mostly taken up with workshop sessions, meeting with people outside of that such as for one-on-one training, and keeping up with office emails. We did however go on a trip one afternoon to a local women’s cooperative where they use the income they generate from quilting for literacy classes, and to the market. This was a hive of activity. Vegetables (including yams which resembled small muddy logs), meat, colourful fabrics, ……..

Our journey back from Kara to Accra was uneventful though long: 14 hours door to door. This was perhaps an hour longer than it might have been had it not been for our van driver. We’d negotiated with him at the Togo-Ghana border to take us to Accra. Once we reached the city, it became apparent that he didn’t really know the location of the GILLBT guesthouse where we were to spend the night, and wasn’t exactly open to the directions given by 2 of our number who’d been there 2 weeks earlier! Our border crossing was easier this time, and we discovered why the ground had been so sandy – we were practically on the beach! As well as the coffin showroom, we got to visit a craft centre and the beach the following day (though had to pay to go on it!), and had a wonderful paddle in the cooling waters of the Atlantic. It had been worth doing the drive in one day to have that last relaxing one in Accra, before boarding the plane that night for Nairobi.

Coffins with a difference!

I’ve never considered a coffin showroom as being something that you’d find on the tourist trail, but we were advised to visit one whilst we were in Accra for a day on the way back to Nairobi from Togo. This particular one was a fairly crude showroom, with the finished products on the second floor of a rickety wooden structure overlooking the main road. Choices of coffins available were: a sports car, a Ghana Airline plane, a chicken, a cow, okra, a pineapple, a petrol tanker, …… All very bizarre! Equally bizarre was a funeral procession that we witnessed. A more conventional coffin this time, draped in a Ghana flag, and being borne aloft by a crowd of singing and dancing young people dressed in red (some, it seemed, fairly intoxicated) along the main road. It seemed more like a carnival than a funeral.

Travel through Togo

The following morning, we had breakfast at 6am. We were meant to be on the road by 7am, but the minibus didn't arrive until nearer to 8! Our numbers had increased further to 14 as we were joined by people from Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon and Togo. The minibus wasn't exactly the most comfortable of vehicles, so the next 9 hours was a bit of an endurance in the heat. We stopped every 3 hours for a very welcome legstretch, and had a packed lunch in a nice spot under some trees. Most of the journey was fairly flat, passing by villages of thatched mud houses, teak forests, and cassava. The last leg brought us uphill quite a bit, along a windy road. We passed about 3 or 4 overturned lorries on a relatively short stretch of road, their goods covered by tarpaulin. One was a petrol tanker, which seemed to have been involved in an incident involving a number of vehicles, as we discovered when we were able to pass by and see the rest of the carnage. It was frightening to see a man collecting the spilt petrol that was running down the side of the road, so soon after the horrific event near Nakuru in Kenya, in which over 130 people were killed in a fire at a similar scene

Travel through Ghana

I’m currently at a Finance and Project Funding workshop in Kara, Togo. Travel across Africa can be a challenge, in more ways than one. The best way to get here from Nairobi in the end was to fly, not directly into Lome (which would have required a 3-day longer trip, plus nights in Addis Ababa going to and fro), but into Accra, Ghana, and then by road from there!
The flight was easy - then the ‘fun’ started! We were picked up at the airport by a vehicle from a sister organization in Ghana, and met up with 2 people from the US who'd flown in the day before. After a stop for lunch (where ox tail, pigs’ feet and cow’s foot were all on offer!), we set off on the journey to Lome. We'd probably gone only about 20 minutes when we had to stop as the engine was overheating (the driver thought the head gasket was blown). What then followed was 2 hours at the side of the road, waiting for the driver to get back to town and come back with another vehicle. Unfortunately, where we’d broken down was not exactly the most scenic of locations. We seemed to be in a fairly industrial area, and the area just off the road was used as a toilet by a number of passers-by. I bear souvenirs of that time on my feet, as I got bitten by seemingly invisible, but vicious ants! Finally, the driver returned, we loaded the suitcases onto the roof, and squeezed ourselves into this smaller vehicle, but we were off again. The road most of the way was amazing - not a pothole in sight. The last stretch to the border was a different matter! It was only here, when clouds of red dust filled the air, that the driver switched on the air con! The border crossing itself was 'interesting'. The vehicle dropped us there, and we walked with our luggage from the Ghanaian side to the Togolese, passing through the 2 Immigration offices, and filling in a number of forms en route. Despite having wheels, pulling my case proved a challenge through the sand. The whole process took about 1hour 30minutes, and was a textbook case of dealing with African officialdom. One of the Kenyans in our group hadn't been given a stamp on entering Ghana at the airport. This proved to be a real problem, as the Ghanaians then didn't see that they could stamp him out if he'd never been stamped in, and then the Togolese immigration officials didn't want him crossing a border from a country he was never documented as having been in!!!! Somehow, it sorted itself out in the end, and we were through to Togo.

Big Fellow in Park

Yesterday afternoon, I took the opportunity to go for a drive around Nairobi National Park. It was a while since I’d been in, and I was rewarded with seeing quite a number of plains game – zebra, hartebeest, wildebeest, eland, gazelles, as well as ostrich and giraffe. Also saw a Kori Bustard. I hadn’t seen a rhino in there for a couple of years, despite the park having a reasonable number of the endangerered Black Rhinos. Who would think that something so large could hide so effectively?! So, it was a real treat when in the last hour or so of my time there I came across this big fellow (or fellow-ess!). In the background, you can see the Nairobi city skyline (the towers over his / her head are within a mile of where I live!), which is what makes this park so special and amazing – African wildlife, in the wild, yet so close to this metropolis!

Obama Mania?

I was at a new coffee house in Nairobi on Saturday morning for breakfast, celebrating the birthdays of 2 colleagues. Our attention was caught by the Specials menu on the table – ‘Obama Specials’! He pops up everywhere! Not exactly sure what ‘Credit Crunch’ would be?! A BLT minus the B & T perhaps?! The previous day, a road salesman had been trying to persuade me to buy a pendant featuring Obama to hang from my rear view mirror. There’s certainly a glut of Obama paraphernalia at the moment. American flags, which you can put side by side with your Kenyan one; Obama badges and car stickers; a musical; a new ‘President’ lager – in place of the former ‘Senator’ one!. Obama Kangas also seem to be very popular. I’d heard about these from a former colleague, who’d been sent one by friends here, and then got to see them for sale myself in stalls on Saturday afternoon. As Paul states in his blog http://mypartofcolorado.blogspot.com, "A kanga is a piece of cloth that is often worn as a wrap-skirt or a dress. Or used as a baby backpack. Translated, it reads: "Congratulations Barack Obama. Love and peace have been given to us by God." "