The Accra I met more than a decade ago, on my arrival in Ghana was a crowded, hot humid yet dusty hive of activity. For the naïve volunteer set, of which I was a gold star member, it was an overwhelming sense of the absoluteness of cultural difference. There was nothing remotely familiar and we basked in the alien experience.

Words prove inadequate to capture the majority of life’s most poignant moments and gripping emotions. This morning I breezed by the empty bedroom, door wide open, dusty abandoned papers – the sum of eight years of private school in Ghana - left in sliding piles… Where the door would once be almost closed, the hum of the airconditioning purring and the soft breath of a teenager, sleeping, sleeping within.

After months of serious indulgence at the end of 2007, we did the thing people do on December 31st, we vowed to make a New Year's resolution to diet, lose weight, get fit (in that order).   From DAY1 - January 1st, we cut out all bread, grains, potatoes, SUGAR, caffeine and all the other baddies in the world of food.   John leaned toward an Atkins diet, I leaned more toward an Anti Candida diet. Luckily they are both quite similar.

I received a mail today from a guy who happened upon my blog – always nice when that happens… Anyway, after the usual ‘niceties’ between bloggers, “Great blog! Keep it up!” etc., he directed me to his blog where I found a great post he had written, which was featured in the Washington Post, about his experience getting his first haircut in Tokyo.  He is a black American guy and had avoided the barber shops for fear of the blank looks he’d get when he walked in. The complete lack of experience they would

I watched an interesting program last night, on one of my favourite channels. Keeping in mind, as an Expat in Africa there is not much choice by way of television watching. Why, you say, more time to get out there and discover the continent! But I digress...