"Ghana Project - Phase II - Day 10 - Phase II Finished

Following our day with the FSW group, it was three busy days.

On Wednesday, I met with my partner for the FSW to recap the Tuesday meeting and discuss all the follow-up actions that will need to be done.  Following that, I had a meeting with a prospect for coaching I had met the last trip. It was very positive and we will be moving forward. Ended the day with a Rotary Club meeting in the evening. You can never tell what kind of meeting you will run into. This was a celebration for an incoming President that was loud and raucous.

Thursday was a full-on Ghana-man-time day...that is the local term for people pretty much coming to things whenever they want. In fact, all the business aspects of the day when well. I had three prospects for coaching that all are moving ahead. But for the first one, we were to drive an hour and a half out of town to see an example of a water well system for a village, leaving at 8 AM and getting back at 12:30...only our guy didn't arrive until 9:15! Having been very late for the first meeting, we somehow made it back and to our 2 PM meeting...where we promptly waited for an hour and 20 minutes before our meeting started, which since this was a lunch meeting at their restaurant meant we were starving by the time it took place. We managed to do our work in 40 minutes and still got to a 4:30 meeting on time. The day ended with another Rotary meeting.

Friday was a bit mellower because I was staying in the same hotel for all the meetings. There was a new mentoring group of four women organized by one of my existing coaching clients, the introduction of one of the FSW women to one of my clients for potential Personal Assistant work and finally a recap meeting with the guy with the water drilling company.

I was totally wiped out after the week though really enthused about the progress made in just my second trip. Very glad to have a weekend to chill and relax before schlepping back to the US.

Ghana Project - Phase II - Day Five - And The Grand Plan Is Still Alive

The big day has come and gone. Five hours of meeting with the cooperative of female sex workers (FSW) my partner John has been working with for three years. And we are agreed that we all are going to take the next steps forward.

As I expected there was a lot of defensiveness. Why wouldn't there be? Who was this strange person, coming from another country with this claim that he could create an exit for these women from their current situation. We got off to a late start as many came late, really late. There is this concept called 'Ghana-man-time' which is pretty much the same as 'manana' in the Latin American cultures. But despite that, we had a qurom and were able to get started.

I have found with defensive audiences that it pays to tell the warts of one's own story first to gain trust. This was surely the case today. Relating a number of the painful challenges of my past, was a key to getting the wome to become open. Then I developed a (what I thought was a) cool way of engaging in conversations. I cut up colored paper so they had squares of three colors. One stood for "you just used a world I don't understand". Another was for "You just insulted me or hurt my feelings." The last was, "I don't understand the whole last concecpt you were talking about."

Happily, I had none of the 'hurt feelings' cards, only a few of the 'too big word cards' (mostly because I was very proactive in asking them if they understood things, but quite a few of the 'not undersand concept' cards which insured we had good dialog and clarified important misunderstandings.

Ultimately the six women were all in agreement that this was worth giving a shot. They had been realistic about the amount of money they needed go give up sex work. And we were able discuss what we (the ladies and we sponsors) expected of each other. As one of the ladies has a good degree of business education, she was charged with designing a little contract of mutual expectations between us. The major work of raising money now looms. Step-by-step we progress.

Ghana Project - Phase II - Day Four

Been busy as advertised. On Friday I did a five hour coaching session for the lady I call my best apprentice. She teaches at a college and has food condiment business on the side. But she is very ambitioius and wants the food business to really grow. She needs quite a bit of help but has been very good at following through and think she will ultimately succeed. Since my whole project is about developing jobs, I am very happy that our work has identified two or three positions that she really needs to get help with either by hiring part-time or outsourcing. Even though these are small, it is proof of concept.

On Saturday I took some time off and went to a Mall (it's a mall) and the beach. Then on Sunday I was doing more coaching for another of my apprentices and went to a Rotary Club meeting I had visited last time where reconnected with a number of people which was good.

Today was more frustrating. I had a coaching session in the morning which was very effective. Then I went to a new Rotary Club meeting that evidently had changed the location for the day. Then went to a meeting where I couldn't find the person I was meeting with for almost an hour because he didn't have his phone on. Ultimately the meeting went well. This preparation for the major event of this trip, the meeting with the FSW (female sex workers) to present to them our proposal for an exit strategy. Should be interesting. Not sure if they will think this is all smoke and mirrors or take as a real opportunity.

Pictures from Saturday

Each culture is different

This is particularly true when it comes to having one's picture taken

From both last time and this I have found so far that Ghanaian's love to have their picture taken

We were in the Mall when this group from a village outside Accra visiting asked us to take their pictures

 Scenes from Kokrobite Beach

On the way in I caught this guy's silouette

Lol, he made sure I knew I was getting the best guy picture on the beach

General beach scenes

Proof that de-I was there

Study of drivers

While waiting for our car, these other drivers all wanted their pictures taken

But there was this one older one that just exuded class

Ghana Project - Phase II - Day One

Greetings from Accra!

I arrived yesterday without event. My flight took me through Chicago and Brussels, Belgium to get here. Both connections were pretty tight but there were no problems other than the last flight out of Belgium was a little late taking off. But they made up most of the time in flight.

My driver from the last trip was waiting for me. I knew the drill so I made it through the immigration, customs, getting my cash exchanged with little delay. I am staying at the same hotel I was in last time. What a difference in my feelings, impressions, emotions. Last time it was totally new, different, very different, a real shock to my senses. This time after my prior two week immersion it all seemed familiar and understandable. I know the names of places, the routes to get from major point to major point and the general feel of things.

 Hit the ground running. Had four meetings scheduled with a lot of driving in between. One canceled which was okay because it gave me a chance to rest up. The other three were very productive. I had one with a wealth manager business owner that is interested in taking on my exit/succession processes...that might provide a potential cash flow stream to help fund this venture. A second meeting turned from a general meeting about Rotary Club engagement to a desire for coaching to help their business turnaround...another critical chance to show the value of the concept. But the last was the best of all.

A bit complicated but person I called for a reference on my partner in the sex worker transitioning project, contacted his Rotary Club and said he was totally behind this project. So they pulled six people from the club to meet with me on literally six days notice. And based on today's meeting, they are expressing a strong interest in being involved. I will meet with the full club next week.

Tomorrow I am giving an all day consultation to my most engaged sample project with the hopes of helping her get a major breakthrough with her business development.

Now I am crash because I am muy tired!

Ghana Project - Phase II Begins

I have been writing frequently (here and here) about how things have been developing with my proposed job development project in Accra, Ghana so I won't repeat all that now. Just at the airport in Albuquerque waiting to get going. There is always a bit of what I would call excitement/anxiousness when we fly internationally. This usually dissipates once we are on our trans-oceanic flight so I will be glad once I make that first connection. I will be hitting the ground running this time with a very busy schedule from the day after I arrive.  

And On Father's Day de-I Did Not Cook

Earlier in the week, my beloved Wife said to me what did I want her to cook for Father's Day. She had already had it in her mind she would make waffles from scratch with bacon for the breakfast component. I did a quick inventory of the things I know Wife excels at and for dinner, the obvious choice to me was THE POTATO DISH (more on that in just a bit).

As I do almost all our cooking now, I hadn't even considered that I wouldn't be cooking on Father's Day but it was lovely. For the waffles, Wife uses a recipe from the trusty Joy of Cooking (our addition is 1973) which calls for the separation of egg yolks and whites with the whites beat into stiff peaks and folded into the flour, fat and egg yolk mixture. Sadly our waffle iron sucks. We use it so infrequently that we are not motivated to replace it. Waffles chez de-I is usually with butter and real maple syrup. We had made some homemade apricot preserves recently and I thought adding the slightly tart fruit component would be a nice juxtaposition...and it was!

Now on to the Potato Dish. This is a Wife original creation dating back to when the children were young in the 1980s. No one quite remembers just how she devised it. She didn't look to any cookbooks which were unusual for her. It is along the lines of a scalloped potato or gratin of potato but seems to have its own uniqueness from what I've tried over the decades.

It is sliced potatoes with a small number of chopped onions, a lot of cheese - US American Cheese precisely - a lot of melted butter and a small amount of milk. These go into a butter baking dish, are backed until the potatoes are cooked through. Then the broiler is put on to crisp up the top. At its best, it is a wonderful suspension of cheese and butter held together by potatoes.

OMG Yum!

Wife, in classic family cuisine the world over has never measured anything nor written anything down related to this so most of us in the family who try to duplicate it fail.  We had a perfunctory Hebrew National Jumbo Hot Dog with this to add a bit more protein and fat to the already protein and fat-laden meal. And for the wine, I had a 2013 Barbaresco!

Thanks Wife! Really wonderful

A Day In Albuquerque

I went on one of my twice weekly hikes. It has gotten hotter finally so I got going as early as I could. It was a very quiet hike, I was about three-quarters of the way down when I ran into a guy with binoculars and a camera with a long lens. He asked if I had seen any birds and I told him just the regulars.

Turns out he was from Ohio and was here for the National Senior Olympics (in tennis). We were having a nice chat about photography when I commented that the reflection off of his sunglasses was way cool and asked if I could take a picture.

So it is time to head back down the trail and get home. I hadn't gone for another five minutes when I heard in my left ear a  distinctive...rattle...and a very angry sounding...hssssssss! I didn't even think. the worlds "What the F@*%!" came to mind as I did a two-footed jump to my right as far as I could go. I looked over back to my left.

I continued way around it and came down thankful for my reactions. Though Wife told me that if it really wanted to strike at me it easily could have covered the distance I had jumped. Thanks for the words of reassurance Hon! This was the first major snake incident I have had in 20 years of hiking.

The rest of the day we were normal and uneventful. But at dinner, I glanced at our outdoor thermometer and humidity gage.

Yup. 1% humidity. After all the crazy unseasonable humidity and precipitation, we are back to June normal...all turning into dehydrated versions of living things.

Ghana Phase II Approaches

By this time next week, I should be in my hotel in Accra, Ghana beginning the next phase of Wife and my volunteer project. Since I wrote about this last on May 27, just over two weeks ago, so many things have come into focus or fallen into place.  For example,

• We have been quite concerned about the legality of doing volunteer work under a Tourist Visa. Based on counsel in Ghana, that is not a problem
• We had questions if we (particularly Wife) was going to do accounting/bookkeeping work to aid the businesses we were assisting whether that would step on the toes of those selling those service, particularly one Rotarian whose overall assistance I have been soliciting. But no, the things we are working on are way below what he takes. He gave us his blessing to go and do good!
• I have been struggling with how do you go from the theory of training people to be Virtual Personal Assistants to the reality of having their skills be up to speed so they are marketable. But what has happened is a number of women business owners here in New Mexico giving me ideas of how we would create like paid apprenticeship programs with business owners here. So the American business people would be doing it as much as a donation of time and money as much as buying services. Plus these women have offered to help me find these businesses!
• A reference for my partner has turned out to be a pretty big wig in his Rotary Club in Accra and has thrown his weight behind supporting our project with his fellow club members.

It is hard to imagine that it was just four months ago when at this time before leaving I had not a single meeting scheduled and was totally freaking out. As I sit now I have only a few slots on my schedule open and so much that seemed just theory now seems to have viable pathways leading to achievement. Still, a long, long, long, long way to go and so many things to prove and figure out. But when I consider where we were two and a half years ago just throwing an idea like this out for consideration, it is pretty amazing.

de-I Tech Wizard, The Next Generation

When I left you last time on the edge of your seats, I had finally figured out how to connect my phone adapter to the DJI Osmo Pocket. I also got my battery charged. So this last weekend it was on too much, much higher level tech challenges

Turning On - as in getting the device turned out. This turned out to be relatively simple as one would hope. I did it pretty much by accident.

Activating the Device - Turns out you cannot actually use your pocket gimbal based video/still camera without activating it online. This seems a bit odd (as many comments online said) but there it is. The directions say you simply start your camera, plug the phone in and the app will automatically open to the activation page. Except that the plugin device wasn't seating all the way. After 20 minutes of trying, I determined the protective case on the phone was the problem and it was. So I got the phone out of the case and tried again. It took another four or five connections before I finally got the app to open to the activation page. Great! Now we can use the camera...maybe

Set Language - Shouldn't be that hard. Go to the menu, scroll to your language and touch. Unless you klutzily hit a wrong language right next to yours. Then it takes quite a while to convince the device you made a mistake and want to change.

Inserting the memory card - Looks pretty simple. Slip it in like just so...no it springs out. Try this many times with no luck. Go up to Wife who has inserted more than her fair share of memory cards in cameras. Nope, she couldn't get it to stay in either. Finally, by accident, I pushed it in and then moved it up slightly and if finally seated correctly.

Take a video! - I went to our kitchen and New Mexico room and did a quick 20-second video. Seemed to work fine

Move video to computer - Ah ha! I had seen some issues about this when researching the connector issue last weekend. Got them to upload the first time! It looked pretty good.

Wow, another hour is gone. Enough for now. Will be spending time this week looking at instructional videos and seeing if I can master 5% or more of its functions.

de-I...Technology Wizard

I have been thinking of getting some kind of improved video capability for quite some time. Frequently on our trips I find that a video footage just seems to capture the sense of place more so than the still photos. I have been relying on guidance of what to buy from Son-in-Law 1A because he is a videographer for living. He turned me on to the Osmo Pocket which you can think of as an even more super light Go Pro.

So with me going to Ghana and definitely wanting to get some video footage for a variety of reasons, I made the plunge and bought one. It arrives a couple of days later and over last weekend I set out an afternoon to figure out how to use it. Unlike most males, I actually read the Operating Instructions. Of course as is so often the case with electronics I find, the 'Operating Instructions' that they claim are in the package are, in fact, not in the package. There is the 'Quick Tips' document and the 'Read all these Horrible Things That Can Happen' document. Just not the Operating Instructions.

Fortunately they are available on line and prove to not have much more information than the Quick Tips document. Nonetheless, I start out to get things set up. First, download the app for your phone. You can operate the device from its tiny touch screen if you are Tom Thumb. Otherwise the app on your phone is advised. Next connect the phone to the device.

There are two possible connectors depending on your phone. Try connector A. It is too small. Try connector B. It is too large. Repeat this process about a dozen times because you must be missing something. Frustrated, now go on line. Go to YouTube and look for videos on how to set up your Osmo Pocket. All say the same thing. Just take the connector and hook it up to your phone. Easy peasy. Right? Except one is too small and one is too large.

I must have the wrong connector some how. Go on line and look all over for connectors. There are basically two. The two that I have.

By now an hour has gone by and rather innumerable number of swear words. I am ready to pack this thing back up and send it back...except I didn't pay much attention to how it was packed when it arrived and waste more time trying to figure out how I would send it back.

I now look by chance at the power cord for charging my iPhone. I look at the connector that goes into the phone. It looks just like one of the two for the video camera. I connect that power cable to the phone. Hmmmmm enlightenment. I take the video camera connector A and find that if I had just pushed it a little more it worked just fine.

By this point I am done for the day trying to figure this out. The next day I get the battery charged. I hope this weekend coming up to actually turn on the camera and do something.

Not Going To Jail!

There was a while there when I wondered if as I made my way in a couple of weeks to board my plane to Ghana if I would be pulled off and hauled to jail. For I was on the verge of breaking the law in the most heinous way. For I was about to bail out on jury duty!  (Insert ominous music here)

I have found that being in the retirement year time zone makes you a prime target for jury duty. And indeed I have been called up regularly over the last 7 years or so. To be honest, I really don't mind it. I was actually on a jury a couple of years ago and found it a stimulating experience. I know that my fellow jurors and I did a very good job.

So it was that I was caltled again to serve last February. But I had already booked my first trip to Ghana. I asked for and received an exemption. Unfortunately, at that time I didn't understand how the system works so I was at the mercy of when they would reschedule me. Sure enough I get scheduled for yet another time I am headed to Ghana. This time when I requested my exemption, I was turned down.

Now what to do? I talked to a number of lawyers and people who work in the court system about how to deal with this. Almost to a man and woman I got this shrug of shoulder that said, "Damn if I know. Sounds like you are screwed and going to jail." (They didn't really say that. But it sounds a lot better for the purpose of story telling don't you think?).

I decided I was going to have to gird my loins and just get myself off to the courthouse and do battle with an unyielding and unreasonable bureaucracy. I had visions of calling the investigative reporters of the TV stations and making this a cause celebre. But in the event, I arrived at the Jury Management office, met this lovely woman named Jody, who took me to her office where we looked at the schedule and got me rescheduled. The whole process took about 10 minutes. She told me it was pending the Judge's approval, but that came without problem the next day.

So no jail time for me. And I promise you I will be there for my jury duty in August!