Dinner Next Door

I woke up early again... about 5:00. I read in bed until it was time to get up. Samila made us a kind of porridge called KoKo for breakfast. It was tangy and delightful. It was served with milk and sugar.

It was a much calmer ride to work with much lighter traffic. In the office it was another pretty calm day at first. The chipmunk bird performed for me again.

Jennifer, Pam, Keith and Ashley, a brand new employee on her second day,  arrived around 10:30. I could tell almost immediately that I'm going to like Ashley a lot. Very energetic and confident and fun.

I had to say good-bye to Ernest in the morning as he had to go back to Tamale to work as the acting Chief of Party while the Chief was in Bethesda for the Chief of Party conference. I got to see his wife Jeanette briefly before they left.

I started getting to meet some of my colleagues a little at a time, First Seth, then Bryan both from Ghana, then Rodriguez and Fernando from Mozambique. The excitement was building as I got to meet people whom I had known for longer and longer times.

Around 11AM I discovered that there was a problem in Bethesda with a CD that I had made. It was needed for the COP (Chief of Party) Conference and at the last minute they discovered there was a problem with it. Spent my lunch time trying to get it to work remotely. We did finally get it going well enough.

By this point I was really looking forward to going to the hotel. My friend Nelson was waiting for me there. He doesn't work for Abt, but I have been in touch with him since my first visit and we were looking forward to seeing each other. Benjamin from Rwanda was contacting me from the hotel; he was  waiting for me and looking forward to meeting. I couldn't seem to get the team motivated to leave the office. Finally I think I pushed the group to leave.

By the time we got to the front desk my bag was  disorganized from rummaging through it to get gifts and papers and all sorts of other things, When I got to the counter I couldn't find my passport! I kept talking to myself to stay calm and eventually got the clarity of mind to get the passport  from the place that I put it for safe keeping. (And to answer your question, Mom, no I didn't have it around my neck. That was too annoying.)

I got my room key and was brought to my super luxury, five-star room and then rushed back to the lobby to meet Nelson. But in my haste, I couldn't find the card with the internet password written on it so that I could contact Nelson through my phone! We did finally catch up and we went to the lobby to catch up.

A young, handsome man came up to me to introduce himself. It was Juste from Rwanda! I think I was looking forward to meeting him most of all. He was almost exactly as I had imagined. He is sweet, soft-spoken and thoughtful.

I met Arnaud from Madagascar and  then Habtamu from Ethiopia. I've been working with Habtamu for as long as I've been working with Juste and Ernest. I have worked with Arnaud for almost as long. Habtamu is a real card with a great, wry sense of humor that I really didn't expect. Arnaud is a lot more verbose than I had imagined. Niaina from Madagascar was probably even less verbose than I imagined.

The group wanted to go to a restaurant called Next Door. They were planning on walking but Seth strongly recommended against it because it was dangerous. Afterwards I realized that it's not crime that you have to be worried about but the lack of sidewalk or streetlights that make it a dangerous affair.

We were looking all over for Benjamin and finally located him. It was great to meet him too. All 9 of us crammed into two cabs and went to the beach-side restaurant.

The waiter took our order really strangely. First he asked for my order, then skipped two people and asked for Arnaud's order and continued like that, skipping people. Then he left before getting everyone's order. He came back a short time later and asked what I wanted. I reminded him that I requested Joloff rice and fish. "We don't have Joloff rice today." "Okay, then they have fish and chips on the menu so I'll get that."

Of course there were consequences for this haphazard way of ordering. For one thing they ended up giving us 8 dinners when we had ordered 7. Unlike restaurants in the US would have done, they expected us to pay for the extra meal and we did. Also, instead of giving me fish and chips, they gave me a fish meal and a chips meal. So instead of costing 18 cedis my meal cost 26 cedis. Of course it was WAY too much food for me, so Juste and I ended up splitting it. The order took so long that the cab driver ended up coming for us before our food even arrived so he ended up charging us double for the cab ride -- so the ride ended up costing 60 cedis.

I didn't mind all of that though I just sat feeling peaceful with the warm wind on the beach surrounded by my guys.