Spoiled - Spoiled Rotten

 Let me throw myself on the sword of humility for truly I am not humble. I am spoiled. Spoiled Rotten.

Wife and I took a quick trip to the Salinas Valley & East Bay areas of Northern California to visit friends and family. As I mentioned in our last post, the visit with our friends was most relaxing. Then we had a too short, but joyous visit with #1 and family, meeting for the first time their dog, Auto (a really well behaved dog and pleasant dog I must say - this coming from a non-dog lover), and planning a trip in June with 1.1. and 1.2 to New York City.

But what this post is really about is my reaction to the traveling itself. Because this was just a normal, domestic, economy class travel trip. YUCK!

For almost all this pandemic era since 2020, my travel has been international and international business class. Priority boarding, lie flat seats, plenty of food and alcohol, I had virtually forgotten what it was like to fly like a 'normal'. It was, how to put it, unpleasant. Crowded together. Loads of people with no awareness of how their actions affected others. Cramped. Ugh. Truly my years and years of being the road warrior are behind me. 

If my embrace of the comforts and privileges of international business class put me in the category of the snobbishly, entitled elite, well then so be it. I know how I am going to focus my remaining years of traveling.

Recuperation

 We are in Salinas California visiting our dear friends Steve and Diana. We have seen them physically in hears. There is a long history intertwining business and personal for decades. We did some of our very first epic travels with them when we first started. And they have been big benefactors to Theodora Project. They have a home that is one of the most beautiful, restful places I have visited in all our travels. It is a place that heals.

Since arriving here Wednesday afternoon, I have spent an inordinate amount of time napping, resting, lying around. I don't think I realized how much energy and effort I have been expending so far this year. The down time is very appreciated.

Foodie Post Sadness

 Great Foodie post still born 

😭 

 I made grilled chicken with a Southeast Asian Curry Paste, Indonesian soy, citrus marinade. 

Chicken halved and grilled while being pressed with a heated brick. 

So cool right? 

FORGOT TO TAKE EVEN ONE FREAKING PICTURE! 

😤

The chicken was awesome however.

Getting To Work

Back in Ghana, our team is in the process of trying to find a new location. We have nice offices but they are as far away from where any of our people work as can possibly be. Accra is no different than many large cities in that finding affordable housing is not easy the closer into the city core you get. Given the transformative nature of our program, you can be sure that our women start looking for better housing as soon as they are comfortable with their new economic status. That means moving way the heck out. we are looking for funding to facilitate our move and created this video which shows what a typical commute looks like.

Do Over

 January's return from Ghana was a complete mess. On top of bad managed jet lag arriving, the mess of returning took 54 hours and luggage two days later. NOT ACCEPTABLE.

I ordered a 'Do Over' for this month's trip and everything went fine. I did a superb job of managing the jet lag in both directions even to the extent of having a full 7 hours of sleep yesterday (Sunday night) on my arrival. 

I had managed to get my return leg on Air France. Gastronomic Home Run! Seriously, most airlines even in Business Class are just trying to get by with as little as possible to ensure some shot at profitability. But on Air France...I don't know, maybe it is Gallic arrogance about their culinary heritage. But the food and drink were way beyond anything I've had in recent years. Each item was quality...not easy in an airplane galley I would add. And the alcohol...this is where the difference really showed. The wines were truly nice, and in once case, a Pouilly Fuisse from Burgundy, excellent. One of the flight attendants made a point of making this aware to me before we took off for Dallas from Paris. I normally drink red, but he was totally right! 

Then there were the 'after dinner digastifs', the brandies that the French claim cut through all the heavy food to aid digestion. I love my French Brandy. There were three choices, each way better than you would find even in many restaurants. My serving flight attendant was having a great time describing them to me and finally gave me a tasting of all three! There was a Cognac, an Armagnac, and a Calvados. Each was of XO quality (take my word for it, you NEVER see that on other airlines). After the tasting, I chose the Calvados. Bliss. This is the way to air travel. He would have kept plying me with this all trip but I would never have made my jet lag management goal.

I really wish I could afford Air France for my Ghana trips regularly...sigh.

The Invisible Hand Continues To Move Us Forward

 I have more than once on these pages made reference to my belief that something much greater than I is moving this Theodora Africa Project forward. I simply am not smart, visionary, competent or capable enough to have things coming together the way they are. 

Just two posts ago I waxed poetically on the remarkable transformation I have witnessed in our first group of participants. This week we have been dealing with our need to expand our office space. The space we have now is nice enough. But it is way far in the downtown part of Accra. Since getting affordable housing requires being far out of town (not dissimilar to many large cities in the US), this can mean hours of travel in each direction. So we set as one of our goals for Phase II getting space in an area that was more accessible to our base of participants.

A problem is that these areas are among the priciest in town. So what are the chances on the very first week looking at potential alternatives, the near perfect location would become available? Evidently pretty high if there is someone or something out there looking after you. 

I was somewhat skeptical but we had various board members out to look at the location. They announced unanimously it as (and I quote) "probably the best possible property we could find taking into account location, accessibility, price and ability to grow." What are the chances of that kind of consensus happening? It is large enough to take care of our projected needs for the next five years. We will still need to raise a fair chunk of capital to pull of as a lot of services combined in our current space, we will need to pay for separately. 

But at this stage of the game, almost nothing surprises me.

Revelation

 At Theodora Africa, we deal with mutual cultural surprises and disclosures all the time. My last trip, I was commenting on a local snack mix which was quite a bit crunchier than what one would find in the States. (Note: Being a 'texture' eater in Ghana is the polar opposite of the U.S. They like things that require a lot of chewing and crunching when it isn't FuFu which is soft and slippery). I promised I would bring supply of U.S. snacks when I came next. 

So I brought Costco/Kirkland Mixed Nuts without Peanuts, (the official nut mix of the upper middle class - literally I have referenced these with fellow professionals around the country and been served them in many places in the country.) AND, I had Wife make up a batch of her Chex Mix. This Chex Mix has been a Wife tradition since Christmas of 2021 (when desperate for a snack idea for the arriving #1's, she remembered it from childhood and looked up a recipe. It was a hit). I figured what could be more American than Chex Mix.

The nuts, of course, were immediately a big hit. However, the Chex Mix was viewed with quite a bit of suspicion. At least until first bite, as captured on this video.