Settling In

In one of the curiosities of living abroad, we have been given a house that is quite a bit larger and well-appointed than our own back home. It has more bedrooms, more bathroo
ms and sits on a well-manicured piece of land surrounded by high walls and a guard-controlled gate. It comes with basic furniture and some essential appliances, cutlery, etc.

Oh, and watch out for those open sewers.

Aside from what we brought in our luggage, it does feel like we are living in someone else’s handsome, but fairly sterile home. We are waiting for our personal effects to arrive via both air (soon) and sea (not so soon). In the meantime, we are trying to slowly get the essentials set up:

FOOD: In the time since I departed, Accra has become host to several international grocery stores, including a mall, so getting Western-style food and other expat “essentials” is easier and a fair bit less expensive. Our fridge is slowly looking less and less empty as we stock up. Asking my family to eat roadside "chop" eventually becomes a bit unreasonable for the other parties, although we did have jollof rice on our first night.

PREPARING FOOD: This sounds straightforward, but we currently have few kitchen appliances and utensils. Plus, local produce needs to be washed with a chemical solution to ensure that it does not contain any bacteria that would upset our delicate little western stomachs. This means preparing a meal for a family can take an entire afternoon.

PEOPLE TO PREPARE THE FOOD: Between shopping, cleaning food, preparing food and putting on a meal, you’ve got most of the day booked. So we have engaged the services of a local professional – also known as “The Help”. She comes in a few days a week to do most of the above-mentioned tasks as well as some light cleaning. It feels very strange to have a stranger in the house, but it’s worth it for the butter chicken and jasmine rice dinner.

PHONES: We have brought a couple of unlocked cellphones with us from Canada and have local numbers. The telephone is perhaps the only thing that is cheaper and easier to use in West Africa than in the country that invented the damn thing. Even our guards and help have BlackBerries.

INTERNET: Back in the day, if you wanted internet, you went to a café. Now, you’ve got it on your phone or in your house and it is fairly essential these days for the modern comforts of Youtube and Netflix. Our house is old enough that it has one of the country’s few landlines, which is now used solely for the net. In spite of this, access can still be spotty, with long stretches of outages. Until ours is installed, my merciful neighbour lets us steal his wi-fi.

TELEVISION: This qualifies as an essential for Mrs. O. She immediately got the best satellite package and have been rewarded with an assortment of US, UK and South African television. Still, the only channels that get watched are TLC, E! and the Food Network, allowing Mrs. O to retreat from this harsh tropical environment to seek comfort in My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding and Master Chef. I assumed that by moving my family to Africa, the Kardashians would not be able to follow. Alas, I was mistaken.