The silence brakes.

Hello.

By 'brakes', I mean 'stops', or 'ends'... or even 'breaks'.

It's been a while. The internet has been down here. It's working again now. So I am writing this.

What's happened:

Monday 13th Oct and Tuesday 14th Oct:
Do you really expect me to remember back that far? I think what happened was, I rehearsed with Kusun, had a lesson each day with Mr Lokko and went to Afotey's group for a rehearsal on Monday and a lesson on Tuesday. Pretty standard fare. (As a bit of a spoiler, the same thing happens on the following Monday and Tuesday - you heard it here first).

As a guess, I probably had fried rice for dinner.

Wednesday 15th Oct:
Kusun now don't rehearse on Wednesday's as the place at which they train is used by some church group (because Wednesday is the holiest of days). Thus, on this Wednesday I didn't train. Additionally, Mr Lokko wasn't around so I didn't have a lesson. What I did was go into Accra with Jane and Okuley. We wandered about for a bit, got some (good) food and went to Okuley's house. It was hot. I fell asleep on his couch for two hours or so. Then I realised that I was missing Afotey's rehearsal, so I called him and apologised. That was bad. Then I went to a western supermarket in Osu and bought chocolate hazelnut spread. And a Kellogs variety pack. And some hot dogs in a can. And Milo in a can. All very necessary items. I haven't eaten the hot dogs yet, I'm saving them for when I really need them.


Thursday 16th Oct:
Today I also didn't rehearse with Kusun as Nii Noi and I went into town to post some drums to Eve (one of the peoples on the tour. Hello Eve) in Swaziland and then go to the Fetish market to buy some bells and shakers. Posting was fun. Well, not in the usual sense of the word, but fun in a way that refers to hanging around getting bored and frustrated while waiting for people to do things inefficiently. The Fetish market is always interesting - if you want a dried alligator head, any bones, 'voodoo dolls', human arms, etc., this is the place. I got some bells and a shaker. That was nice. It was really hot. Actually, I would like to mention that it has started to get hot here. In the last two weeks or so, it's warmed up and gotten very humid. So, yeah. I guess I should've expected that in Africa, but it's still freakin' hot.


Friday 17th Oct:
I can't really remember what I did this day apart from the fact that I didn't do any drumming. That makes a couple of days in a row. In reality, I was busy and also a bit overloaded so was in need of a break. Surely I did something wonderful (like kill a buffalo) on Friday, but I just don't know what.


Saturday 18th Oct:
Today I got organised (ie., paid lots of money) to get a crate made to ship some people's drums back to Australia (I remember what a large part of Saturday was - organising and finding out about getting this crate made and other shipping-related matters (I was waiting for several weeks to find out from the agent what the dimensions of the crate would need to be before getting it built. As you'll read later, after finding this out [after weeks and weeks of not hearing anything and actually thinking I was waiting for a quote, not for things to be put in motion] I had about 3 days to get everything packed and ready to go. Fun fun fun). Apart from that, I hung around. Yes indeed, I hung very much. I have a feeling I did a lot of washing as well. Yeah, I think I did. Darned interesting.


Sunday 19th Oct:
I did the silly running thing again. At 5.00. We actually ran faster this week than last week and I hadn't had very much sleep, so it felt a lot harder. Nicely though, it wasn't raining this time. After getting back from my awesome run at about 7.30, I made some eggs for breakfast. I think I am establishing a Sunday routine. Other stuff went on, but I either don't remember or don't want to tell you. Actually, I just don't remember.


Monday 20th Oct and Tuesday 21st Oct:
As suggested earlier, my schedule on these two days was very similar to last week. Fortunately, I did some drumming again after my little break. The stuff I am learning with Afotey is good and interesting, likewise what Mr Lokko is teaching me. I also managed to have another lesson with Otu on the Monday. I also found out some more information about the shipping and, by the end of Tuesday, the crate was made. Once this was done, I packed every one's drums into the crate to make sure they'd fit. They fit easily with some extra room, which meant that I would have to get more things to fill it up.

The good news though, is that my legs didn't hurt from running - last time they hurt like hell for about 5 days. I am becoming an iron man.

From memory, I'm pretty sure I would have had fried rice for dinner.


Wednesday 22 Oct:
Like last Wednesday, there was no drumming today. I did some running around to get kpanlogo pegs (to replace broken ones) and bought another drum. Also, the plan was that I would go into the Fetish market again with Theofo to get some more shakers and then meet someone who had some djembe shells for me to look at and buy. However, I ended up waiting for Theofo for hours and by the time we got to Accra, he decided that it would be too late to go to the market. So, cutting my losses, I figured we'd at least catch up with this djembe shell guy. Unfortunately, a phone call determined that he was still in Kokrobite (2 hours or so away, where he was when I called him earlier that day to check that it was ok to meet up with him) and couldn't get back until the next day. So, cutting my losses, we had some food and went home. The food was chicken with stew, not fried rice. Unfortunately, all this ineffective tomfoolery meant that I missed another of Afotey's rehearsals. Poo.

Thursday 23 Oct:
Hmmmmmmmmm. On Thursday, I got everything together for the shipping. First, we loaded all the drums onto the Kusun bus and put the empty crate on top, then drove it to where the shipping company lives. I went separately in Tettey's car and we went via the Arts Centre market. As I mentioned earlier, the extra space left in the crate meant that it would work out better if I could fill the crate - we were paying by volume in units of cubic metres. Also, since my trip to the Fetish market was unsuccessful, I was looking to pick up some shakers. So, I went to the market and after a long time of bartering, being hassled and standing in the sun, I got some djembe shells and shakers. Hoorah.

Then we went to the shipping company. The crappy thing here was that I had to pay a heap of USD (all my remaining USD - a bad move considering how the Australian dollar is completely tanking at the moment. For your information and entertainment, every time I withdraw money [Ghana cedis, GHS] from the ATM, my Australian dollars get converted to USD, which then get converted to GHS. This means that a crappy Australian dollar versus the USD means that I have much less money than I had 2 months ago. This is bad. Could someone out there stop the economy from crashing? Thanks.) as well as GHS. Right now I'm still in the middle of sorting out what exactly it is that I have paid for so am too confused to really tell too much more of a story. Needless to say, the day was long and difficult with lots of waiting interspersed with lots of running around in circles. Again, I missed the Kusun rehearsals, lesson with Mr Lokko and lesson with Afotey.

Friday 24rd Oct:
Yesterday. More running in circles concerning shipping. The idea for Friday was (as I was told on Thursday) to take the shipping address, as well as a receipt for what was in the crate (for insurance) to the shipping company and then be there when they (re-) packed the crate. I also got the impression that I was waiting for some forms from the agent. So, after waiting for him, not being able to contact him and then leaving without him, we got to the shipping company. They told me that they assumed I wasn't coming because it was 'late' and that the people packing the crate had gone off to do something else, leaving it half done.

Ghana.

I was told to come back on Monday at 8.30am. So I, kinda frustrated, turned around and went home. This day was even less useful than the others. And I missed rehearsals (Kusun and Afotey) and my lessons. Poo. Additionally, when I asked the person at the shipping company some clarifying questions, I got completely different answers from what I had got previously. This is really messing with my head - I made every possible effort the previous day and weeks to ask questions so as to determine what I was paying for and what was necessary. The answers to these questions change dramatically according to when and by whom they are given. This brings me to my mission on Saturday. I didn't get to sleep until about 3am because I was sorting out shit and working out every one's costs for the shipping (I had egg and bread and kebabs for dinner. Gotta have variety).

Saturday 25th Oct (TODAY, fools):
Today I still haven't really gotten up. I've been awake, but haven't yet emerged from my room. It's now nearly 12.00 (this has taken a long time write though). I did sleep in too due to my late night, head full of worry and total stuffed-ness.

Something I forgot to mention was that, as well as the internet not working the last couple of weeks, the power has been going off for whole days at a time (not so much in the last week thankfully, but the week before it went off for at least 4 or 5 hours a day and sometimes, when going off in the early afternoon, wouldn't come back until afternoon the next day) and we have no water. The way the water works here is that it only flows from the mains on Saturday and Sunday when tanks are filled, then we use the tanks during the week. Last weekend the water didn't flow from the mains, so we had no water all week. Thus, another reason I can't be bothered getting up is that I don't want to wash out of my buckets (which are empty anyway - I'd have to go down to the tank and get some more and I just can't be arsed). I want the pump to be pumping water to my shower. I will stamp my foot if necessary.

Did I mention that I'm in Africa? Serves me right I guess.

Well, that's it for this post. I think I made up for the silence. I think you are extremely grateful and will email and comment to that effect.

I am alive.

Bye.