Things, Glorious Things!

Opening the sea container.

This past weekend, Mr. O's employer alerted him that a giant shipping container had arrived at the port of Tema, where ships from around the word dock to bring their goods to Accra and all points north towards the Sahara. Tema receives massive amounts of such varied items as vehicles from Europe, rice from Thailand, second-hand clothing from North America and just about anything you can think of from China.

What made this particular container interesting is that it contained most of their worldly possessions - at least the ones they decided were important enough to pack up and bring across the ocean. And there were over a hundred boxes of it. Clearly, these could not all be necessities.

To be fair, about half of the boxes contained non-perishable food items and cleaning products, while others contained such mundane items as linens, toiletries, DVDs, a guitar and - of course - a ridiculous amount of toys.

Little Miss reacquainting herself with her beloved toys.

All of this was delivered straight to the house. The container was cracked open and from the crates came the boxes, brought into the house by almost a dozen movers. Maybe two or three appeared to be proper movers, but the rest were a motley crew of hired hands that arrived in their own tro-tro. Labour in Ghana is so cheap, that while in Canada, it took three men almost a day to put the boxes into the moving van, this crew took only an hour to unload everything (including a Mrs. O-sponsored FanIce break).

This battle station is fully operational.

Somewhere there is Mrs. O. And coffee.

The trick to successful moving is to open the boxes and put the contents in their place as soon as possible - otherwise, boxes stay closed and remind the depressed owner of how they really need to properly unpack their "stuff". This often goes on until the next move. So everything was taken out and put in its place within two days.

Interestingly, as the unpacking took place, the day guards borrowed Mr. O's toolset to break down the giant crates into plywood, 2x4s and nails (all good for construction), flattened the boxes (everyone needs boxes) and accumulated all of the tissue paper (used to wrap kebabs, kenkey and other chop foods). In Ghana, nothing reusable (and sellable) is wasted. The guards would take all of these to market and sell them for a small profit - the hardest part is transportation, since none of them own a car. One guard borrowed a large wagon and carted the plywood off to parts unknown.

With everything in its place, the house does feel much more like "home". Not only does the family have all of their western accoutrements (including plates, glasses, cutlery, kitchen implements, a barbecue, peanut butter, maple syrup, etc.), but with their familiar personal effects, it is easy to forget that they are living in a rented house in West Africa. Mr. O heard of the excitement of receiving a shipment, but discounted this, figuring that life was pretty ducky already. Now with the material comforts of home, life feels more normalized and routine, which is part of the transition experience. The family was doing just fine beforehand, but psychologically, they are more prepared for the coming years.

Especially now that they have real coffee.

In the end, they play with the box anyway, of course.

The neighbour enjoys the bounty of Little Miss.

Thank God, the lawn ornaments have finally arrived.