I said this the last time i was here and i will say it again its always such a humbling experience coming back to Ghana, i’d like to say home but i’d be deceiving myself. It definitely is home in my heart and i truly identify with the humanity of the people of Ghana.

You walk in the street at night and young people are saying “good evening uncle” made me realise i was getting on in my years, but also gave me a huge reminder of the little things my folks tried to instil in us when we were growing up, things I am very proud to have been taught, things I believe we are losing sight of as the world goes on.

A typical example is this credit crunch that is going on globally. Ghana is historically a very cash run society, you want something you fork out dollars, simple.$600 000 house...cash, $60 000 car...cash, it is how it is. Things are starting to change a bit now though, people have access to mortgages and car loans provided you have a job, but the job part that is a story all together one i will get to maybe later. But the average Ghanaians response to this credit crunch is we don’t have any credit in the first place so how can it be crunched?

I have had a lot of time to reflect, one of the joys (or not) of being here. I have had loads of time because i opted to stay with family and unfortunately there was a bereavement before i arrived so i was left to my own devices. Driving in this town is no child’s play and the traffic, Joburg is easily 3 times the size of Accra, but boss i had a meeting at 10am i had to leave the house around 8am, madness i tell u. Anyway back to having the time on my hands and you get to ponder much about what it is we are all about. The average Ghanaian earns $250 a month, a huge number live off $100 a month, now in my mind thats pretty darn insane, but you will see everyone polite and helpful. Sheesh let me tell u a story about a time that this helpfulness came in so handy...

It is my first day here. I have absolutely no clue as to how to get around. One of my old directors from Std Bank has just moved to Ghana to be the deputy MD. I bumped into him at the Game store in the Accra mall, and I swear i knew i was going to see him at that mall at that specific time, but thats a story for another time, actually no let me tell u all now. I was standing with my uncle who was looking to buy a treadmill. All of a sudden something told me to walk around the corner and a few rows down you will see Karl, so i did and whala just as i turned the corner heading towards where i thought i should be, who comes walking into the store, freaky huh...anyway so i bumped into him and he invited me over to come and watch the Currie Cup semis with him. Which i thought was a great idea. And it wasn’t too far from where i was staying...if you know your way around that is. My uncle has a few cars in the yard that aren’t doing much other than gathering dust...this uncle is not one of the average Ghanaians who earns $250 a month ;-). Anyway so we try and start the car, no luck battery she is acting up. We jump start it and all good, but i am a tad nervous. And to heighten these nerves, on my way to fill up with juice the car cut out, i take out my hankie to wipe my brow, both cos of the constant, humid heat and also because of the concern that is weighing heavily on my little mind.

Out of towner, driving on the wrong side of the road, not sure how things work or where things are, and to top it off a car with an unreliable battery, but ey i said i’d come so come i shall. I bought some juice which my dear friends is at $1.40 to the litre, we don’t have things bad i tell u. So i make it there but as i got to the drive way the car cut out and refused to start, oh well. So i had a nice visit with Karl and his family, mind you i got there late because i had to hang around and speak to this person and that person etc. Cos its my first day back in 5 years. So by the time i got there it was like 5pm, night was about to fall another problem cos there are few street lights but NO street names...slight exaggeration there are a few...but not in the area i live in. Anyway its time for me to head home. Karl gives me directions on how to get home...suprise suprise, I get lost..hmmm, but i knew i was in the area so i pulled over and asked a security guard, all so polite and helpful he sent me on my merry way....ah a road i recognise, just as i take the corner, the car cuts out. No power whatsoever. I am in a slight panic. This area is dark, its the corner of the road, there are just trees and bushes and a few potplants on the side of the road, i have my laptop, my wallet and my cellphone....did i mention it was pitch dark? What to do? What to do? So i jumped out of the car, grabbed my backpack, locked the car and hurtled into the middle of the road to find assistance. I kid you not, the very first car i flagged down pulled over, asked me what the problem was i explained that i needed a jumpstart and had the cable, he was all too happy to turn his car around, filled with occupants, on a blind curve, put them in harms way, but the bra helped me out, no questions. Gotta love that. i cant lie to you being mentally trained here in SA, my first thoughts were guys jumping out of the bush to rob me blind and secondly no one was gonna help me. But ey alls well and ended well
Being here has been an experience, i have no idea how there aren’t more accidents on the roads, because people just drive and i mean just drive! I have had a few meetings and tried my best to look the part, but the heat and humidity is a breaker so i have been winging it with a shirt no tie, bra, guys here break it down, shirt, tie, suit, and no sweating!! I look at this bra and I am like what the??!! I am in my shirt, sleeves rolled up, buttons open as low as respectably allowable but boss i am pushing enough beads to fill a 2 litre bottle in no time ;-).

Its almost like all my aunts and uncles have been taking their cue from my moms back in SA, first question they ask, how is everyone back home? I answer...So why are you here? I answer...So, Yaw, how old are you now oooh? I smile...I answer, next question, Hmmm Yaw?!! Eh when are you going to get married ooooh? Eh? We are waiting for you, i shake my head and smile i thought telling them no one wants me would get them off my case but not them, they are all too quick with bra i have more than a dozen that i think you will like! Don’t tell my folks this but there are one or two lovely ladies floating around here, but my word are they expensive ;-). They roll with guys that cruise in ML’s, X5’s, Range Rovers the works, and then they have other boys who pay for their massages on Sunday afternoons, sh it man, all i can do is buy you the Bee Movie or Dirty Dancing ;-)

I guess i am painting the wrong picture of Ghana, there are some people here with money and you can get whatever you want if you have bucks. I mean they got he iPhone last year, we are only getting it in SA now. But things here are insanely expensive. I went to buy some groceries for my cousin to take to my gran. I nearly fell over and had convulsions. A large tin of powdered milk , Nespray...$60? how do people survive? I quote everything in $ because the new Ghana Cedi has been pegged to the Dollar, so i been catching a fat hiding converting currency but what to do? There are some humungous fancy shmancy houses popping up all over the place, but just like back home the gap between the haves and the have nots is wide and widening even more. The economy is stable but a lot of the fundamentals are very backward. We import basic food like rice. If you looked at the climate and i am no geologist or whatever, but the ground seems very fertile for agriculture. So many things are imported and the things we export we have no control over the pricing like cocoa and gold. Public servants are just as slow and unmotivated as we have back home. There is this mall that has recently been built. It houses, the likes of Shoprite, Game, Mr Price, Barcellos, Rhapsody’s (my ‘office’ in Accra) to name a few. It took 10 years before it was approved, 10 whole years, there’s even a term for that sort of time...decade!! just to approve the damn thing?? Nah man?!!

And you think slavery is dead? Hell no not in these parts boss. Even a person who is ok and not filthy rich will have a house boy. Now this bra just lives to serve. You come home at 5 am you hoot like the world is coming to an end the bra comes running to open the gate, he does the garden, washes the cars every morning he gets sent to go buy this that and the other. He washes the clothes, dishes, mops, he wakes up at the crack of dawn and doesn’t sleep till who knows when. Nah man, its alive!

There is a lot going on here and plenty of potential but I have my reservations that if the government doesn’t get it right and focus on the have nots, we could easily get a case where crime is the order of the day just like back in SA. There are already signs of armed robberies creeping into society but they are not violent, but still!! That being said I was having a conversation with my uncle and the government is putting in place certain things like there is free education till the end of junior school (they want to extend it to the end of high school) which will assist greatly in the unemployment level, or not because if jobs aren’t being created, no matter how educated you are where will you find a job? Finally there is medical aid in Ghana, its still in its infancy and has some teething problems but at least it is available and all it costs is $10 a year, so there is progress. My great concern at the moment though is Ghana is going to the polls on the 7th December 2008, should it happen that the ruling party is deposed, back to square 1 we go...oh AFRICA!!!

Birthdays
15th Simon H
16th Anjita, Kirsten
17th Tshepo M, Yolisa
18th Sylvia

Thats me for another week, stay blessed

Y

If you are like a rich guy, you are not a happy camper nowadays. Its murder on the trading floors ey?? It’s insane, there is no stopping the rot, $700bn we’ll sign it…nah not now…markets crash, ok the senate will approve it, markets still crash. $700bn written into a law…markets still crash….heads are scratched. What to do?
Banks are being nationalized, now there is an across the board slash in interest rates in some European markets, to stimulate growth.

Maybe I am a bit dim, but in my mind if people didn’t over-react and just rode out the storm instead of this insane sell-off that is taking place, I am more than convinced that this rapid and severe drop in the markets wouldn’t have taken place. Lots of shares have lost value and that’s largely due to the huge sell off in anticipation of the possible slow down in the economy. Now I am no market guru by a long shot, the only shares I own are MTN and SASOL, thanks to BEE ;-).Yes the shares have taken a hiding but y sell? Everyone panics and sells and values drop even further, don’t panic, don’t sell, don’t create the whole herd mentality and some value will be maintained…it makes sense to me, unless I am really simplifying things.

The part that doesn’t make sense to me, well didn’t make much sense to me is the fact that our currency the Rand is taking such a beating. I searched high and low for some literature to shed some light on the tremendous fall of the Rand and not too much was forthcoming. It’s not just the Rand falling I know and comparatively we haven’t done too badly, but we have fallen to our worst levels in 7/8 years this over a period of say 2 weeks. INSANE!! What makes it even more perplexing for a lay person such as myself is the fact that the US Dollar is pretty strong at the moment. Same thing happened on 9/11…typical depiction of the US sneezing and the rest of the world catching a cold.

Their economy is under threat. We all suffer. They need to go a further $700bn into debt, we all suffer…hmm no sense or nonsense. But then again it started dawning on me, is it because they were the first to publically announce a blanket government bailout plan that their currency has strengthened? Could it also be because they are historically the world’s premier economy, so when ish hits the fan, everyone runs to what they perceive to be the safest option…enter the US dollar. Which I still find odd, because I would have thought in times like this commodities such as gold a very universal currency and measure of value since time in memorial.

Listening to 702 and reading some of the internet sites this seems to be the case. When markets become jittery, the first reaction of most is flight from risky assets, and if you didn’t know SA is considered risky, which I assume would lead to an increase in the demand for dollars hence the dollar strengthens…

If I am off the mark please do correct me cos I am using a bit of what I believe to be common sense, which may not be so common ;-)

An interesting day in SA, earlier we had the former chair of the ANC, Mosiuoa Lekota, all but stating outright that there will be a new political party being formed, a splinter from the ruling ANC. I say Amen to that, not because I am in opposition of the ruling party, but because I am not in favour of a one party rule democracy. In my mind that is contrary to the whole concept of democracy…unless I am missing something again.

Lets be honest, the old guard, did some good but they were also pretty arrogant in some of their mannerisms. They failed the people regarding crime, healthcare and education. There is so much lack of accountability in many government institutions. I watched Carte Blanche the other nite and my word the mismanagement going on there is just madness, and nothing happens to no one. I was very impressed when I read a few weeks ago that Mr Maree, my former boss and head of the National Empowerment Fund was convicted…4 yrs or so later but at least something was done.

I am saying all this because I believe the country needs change. I am not sure what the new guard has to offer us, but I get nervous when I hear some of the mouth pieces they have chosen to speak on their behalf. The language they use is strong and more divisive as opposed to unifying. I would also add that some of their mutterings are a tad nonsensical and sensational too. What the new guard do offer is a bit of focus on the neglected many. The people who stood in queues some 14 years ago, their situation hasn’t changed a helluva lot. Some might say it may have worsened. I read stories that the houses built during the apartheid years were far superior to the RDP houses currently being built. We have masses of people accumulating wealth by cutting corners and developing below par housing, which fair enough may be a few times better than the shacks in which they dwelled but, frankly that’s just not good enough.

Education, sheesh let me not get started here. Education should be a fundamental right of every living human being, along with affordable healthcare. If people are educated first and foremost they will be able to see the wood from the trees and be in a position to make an informed decision about who they elect as a leader. Secondly through education you are in a position to fend for yourself, identify opportunities this great land of ours has to offer and how to enhance the lives of yourself and also those around. If you are educated you will know that a life is not really worth the R100 you may get for that cell phone.

Anyway interesting times…heard a couple of the bigger economies have reduced their interest rates in an effort to curb the potential growth stagnation. Also read that China may be lending the USA $500bn to help them stem the run on their banks. This also serves Chinas interests because it protects their export market too because if the US market is weak then who will the world sell to or buy from.

Lets see how it all plays out…Off to Ghana on Friday for a few days for some work, looking forward to catching a bit of a tan and a sweat . You all have a great week and weekend.

Birthdays
28th John K, Shaheed, Kelly
29th Evie
1st Oct Herman
2nd Willem, Linda
4th Monkfish
9th KC

Take it easi

Y