Accra

As there was a pizza hunt during this trip, I blogged on my pizza-hunt blog. :-)

My day (or "The institute and around")

I wake up. It's 7 am and following my tradition in Norway, I exercise to the Baywatch theme song and continue with a cold shower. Not that I have an option - but rather then cold, the water is more like lukewarm and actually feels very nice after a wake up from a hot and humid night. Especially if the there was one of the frequent power cuts and the vent stopped moving.

Chateaux

There was also a couple of mornings when water did not run too - depends usually on the power, as that one dictates the pressure in the pipes. However, at the back of "villa", the place where I stay, the water usually runs no matter what and I can wash myself. Not that it would matter much, few minutes later I'm usually covered with sweat again :-)

Villa, or "Chateaux", how we also call it, is a house owned (rented?) by AIMS Ghana, about 3 kilometres from the institute, just on the other side of the small fishing town, Biriwa. The institute and its campus are full, so me and two other tutors live here. First I was quite disappointed that I couldn't come and go whenever I wanted and had to adjust to the schedule of our driver (leave 7:30 am and return 9 pm), but now I got used to it and I find that spending the whole day at the institute makes the day kind of .. productive! So I definitely do not feel like going back earlier - on the contrary! Because there's no internet at Villa, and often I want to stay longer, I eventually bought a bicycle. Now I can come and go whenever I want. Though I don't do that often, the freedom of choice is great! :-)

After arriving to the institute, there's breakfast. The usual menu for the morning is a bowl of porridge/corn in a sort of liquid state and mixed with sugar and milk. Does not sound that appealing, but it's actually quite nice. As a bonus, a small sausage or a toast and some vegetable is added, making up for enough energy till lunchtime. 

The canteen is split into two parts - inside and outside on the terrace, which is my favourite place in the institute, and it is here that I am (mostly) writing this post. There's a great view on the ocean, shade from the sun and a pleasant breeze from the west that sweeps away the hot and humid air (and mosquitos!), especially in the evening. But better one picture then thousands of words :)

My favourite spot on the terrace

Back to the day. The lectures start at 8:30, each for about 2 hours including a break. The system is simple - academic year consists of individual blocks, each lasting 3 weeks and offering three courses, usually one for physics, one for math and one a bit related to theoretical computer science or discreet math. After a couple of days, students (and tutors as well) choose two which they want to do and continue only with those.

Three weeks means pretty intensive courses, but it makes it possible for AIMS to lure lecturers from all over the world to come in and teach basically a full-fledged course as they do at their home university. Thus the professors get a nice work experience combined with an exotic holiday by the sea side and the students get a world-class education from the lecturers coming from institutions such as Inria, Heriot-Watt University or University of Waterloo.

The computer lab and a biggest lecture room. This was a presentation about Togo at the end of the block

I dare FMFI UK to be the next! I strongly believe the skills taught at my alma mater would be invaluable here, which is actually why am here. Differential equations, which everyone dreaded in my class at university are something like apples and bananas here - everybody feels comfortable with them (ok, not that I know people who feel comfortable with bananas, but you get the point). On the other hand, an intro class to Python was chosen as the most difficult course in the academic year.

My "office" in the institute. Other tutors are around

The main thing is to understand that most of these students never programmed before. When I think about it, it's simply not that natural to grasp how computers work. Once the concepts are digested, they become sort of "trivial facts", but until then, they're a completely unexplored area for those who've never met with them. And I guess this is the main challenge for the lecturer - to get into the mind of those who've never programmed and explain the concepts from their point of view. I am happy to say that I was given a chance and trust to try this on my own and in my Python classes will do my best to teach the students programming, at least to the extent which would help them get on with their research projects.

Moving on, the lunch is served at one and while it usually does not diverge too much from what one could get in normal European restaurants, there are things that I've yet learned the name of. Most of the time, however, it's all very tasty and the only thing I lack is more fruits. That is why I went to the village (of course, on the bike!) yesterday to look for some - and found pineapples for 1 cedi (about 25 cents) and oranges for 0.2 cedi (yes, 5 cents each).

This is food from Togo, Benin and Nigeria - Ghanian is similar

In the afternoon, there is usually one more lecture and sometimes some extra talk, presentation or a my Python session. Other than that, the time is filled with grading, helping out students, preparing something for the next class or doing some research. Funnily, although I've always appreciated studying, I've never found it more interesting then now. The presence of all the students, lecturers and tutors, all studying, eating, living and having fun at the same place is motivating and inspiring and forms a unique atmosphere I haven't seen before. In fact, if atmospheres could be patented, I believe this one would be one hell of a patent!

Terrace of the institute

Even though people work here most of the time (note that working may mean going through some nice combinatorial problem at the terrace, watching the ocean), there are also times for a break. Some of the students go running (I haven't joined yet, shame on me), some brave ones go for a swim (the current is pretty strong here) and sometimes they'd just meet and chat, as in every school.

Apart from that, however, there's two "religions" - one, the true one, is going to church. Be it Saturday or Sunday (depending on the church) - the weekend days are the days where everyone dresses nicely, worship songs are sung in perfect harmony and people skip lunches to stay long at the service. I joined on one occasion so far, and it was a very nice experience, with service being very lively and full of energy. Will see how much time I will have, but I'd like to join more often.

Church in Cape Coast

The other "religion" is - you guessed it - football. Premier league is by far the most popular competition here, with Chelsea leading with the fan-base size. Man-U, City, and other big teams also enjoy popularity. The most intense was, however, the final of African Cup, decided only after 11 penalties. I started to watch towards the end of the standard time and by the time penalties started, every single soul at the institute was present in front of the TV. Eventually, Ghana lost, but to my surprise, only something over half of the people were sad - there's students from many other African countries, and especially those from the French speaking ones were supporting Ivory Coast. All the same, there's no hard feelings and the initial sadness of those whose team lost is soon overcome with jokes or a friendly handshake ended with a snap of fingers (kind of a local habit).

 

What do cows do when nobody's looking? Volleyball!

I mentioned the ocean and people going for a swim - I have not yet ventured into the ocean but would soon like to. The beach right next to us, unfortunately, is full of rubbish, most probably coming from the nearby town. However, few minutes of walk or jogging, it gradually cleans up until you arrive to a beach resort where (as I was told), it is clean and good to swim. On my to-do list :-)

Dances during West-African night

In the evenings, there is usually free time which I use to work on some of my own things. I have never really used Python much, so I learn it along the way and find it a very nice language to work in. And inspired by Laci, I'd like to get back into machine learning and apply it on some music data and see where I get. No hardcore research, just curiosity.

Something after nine, Robert, our driver, usually comes around and signals we should get down to the car for a ride back to Chateaux. Some days (like today, as I really want to finish this) I decide to take the bike for a ride, but lately I've been going back with others. Fatigue from the heat often sets in, eyes get dry from the wind and energy simply goes away. I can say confidently I was not born for this hot weather and sometimes envy you the around-zero temperatures you have in Europe :-)

Little lizard taking a shower

At Chateaux, I write down some words on my mind from the day, say hello to the lizard in the shower (ok, she was there just once :)) and play guitar (Gertrude) till my eyes close down, which usually does not take long. I come under the mosquito net, turn the vent to max and wonder what kind of dreams will be played tonight in the cinema of my mind, which is pretty active since I arrived.


The other night, however, it was not a dream - I woke up something past midnight to a strong and howling wind. Soon the rain followed, coming down in a bucket-of-water-per-foot-squared-per-second joined by plentiful lightnings. I actually thought of going to ask Seth, the other tutor if we should start some evacuation, but eventually I decided to play brave and googled (I got mobile internet a day before) the weather for Cape Coast, a nearby town. Though I was not very convinced by the brief conclusion of the site, saying "some storms", I eventually waited till the worst passed and went on to have a very nice sleep in the ongoing rain :-) And of course, in the morning when I asked Seth, he said something like "What storm? Ah, yeah, that's normal"

Best protection against malaria - the mosquito net

Everything is different. But that's normal. "We have just one world, but we're living in different ones". In the end, however, it all comes down to whether you like where you are and what you do. Here, I so far do, very much. Has it not been that the closest people in my life are so far away, I would hardly miss anything.

The journey

It's now more then two weeks after I left Europe, and I finally find some time to put down some words. In order not to scare off anyone with the length of the post, I decided to split the content into three separate posts:
- The journey
- The institute and around (yet to be written)
- Cape Coast (yet to be written)

Hajnovic Frantisek, World traveller :P

I'll start with the journey. I was leaving Prague on Saturday, 24th of January, on a 9 am flight to Amsterdam. I had one big bag-pack, one smaller rucksack, and a guitar. Flying with KLM, I hoped very much it would not be an issue to take the guitar and the smaller rucksack on board - the first one would be crushed to pieces in the luggage space and the second one contained lots of things I would prefer to have around for the next 12 hours.

At least that was the plan - get on a connecting flight to Accra and arrive on the very same day in the evening. As we boarded the aircraft and everyone got seated, the waiting begun. I slept off-and-on and quickly lost track of time, until a voice from above awoke me. A small technical problem on a right wing was being examined and we expected some 30 more minutes to see if this would be an issue.

Since I had watched several episodes of Mayday TV series, I am always a fan of "safety first" and thus I took it in stride when the flight was eventually cancelled. The Ghanians on board were displaying much more emotions - the many jokes and bursts of laughter after the announcement were soon changed for many complains when substitute connections were arranged. No wonder here though - some of the passengers were rebooked on an overnight flight to Kenya (few thousand kilometres east of Ghana) only to be flown back to Accra the following morning. Luckily, this was not my the case, and even though I hoped for a direct flight from Amsterdam, I eventually got one with a change in London. And a one night stay at a hotel on the airport.

All my tickets after the first day - some of them resulted from a change of seat

After all, I had my guitar AND the small rucksack (the checked-in baggage was on its own). Thus I had a few more clothes to put on, otherwise I might have frozen to death in the cold weather in Amsterdam, or in the cabins of the aircrafts, which for some reason are maintained at a temperature of a fridge.

The next day I woke up for a morning flight to London. I had some worries about the check-in baggage making it to Accra. I am pretty sure that when it comes to statistics, I was travelling too much without any luggage problems and something was bound to happen. So all I was thinking was "not this time". To my relief, I saw my bag being loaded into the trunk of the plane to London, and the guitar was welcome on board as well - for the third time in two days.

At Heathrow, I couldn't stop to wonder how far the civilisation/globalisation got. The airport is just HUGE and though I've been here before, this time I had to change terminals. All in all, we (other passengers to Ghana) travelled on the airport for about two hours, taking bus, underground metro, walking several kilometres and waiting in lines for security check for more then an hour. The amazing thing is that all of this somehow works, thousands of planes take off and land here every day, not crashing with each other, hundreds of thousands of passengers move around knowing where to go and the IT systems behind coordinate everything to the smallest details. I don't know if I should be worried or happy about how far the technology has come, but it's definitely interesting :-)

"And we have just one world..."

Finally, I boarded the airplane to Accra, a giant, double-deck Boeing 747 which according to my simple mathematics carried about 500 passengers. It was fully loaded, so I was quite relieved when the steward replied to my question if I can carry the guitar on board with words: "sir, this is not stairway to heaven, if you know what I mean" and a wink ;-)

Once in the plane, seated next to a friendly Canadian who was going to Ghana for some gold-related business, we waited. Again? Eventually, though, the voice of the captain announced that we're just waiting for some baggage to be loaded. If it's mine, please wait some more!

Long story short - after waiting at the baggage belt in Accra for more then an hour, I realized I'll have to do without most of my stuff for some time. Luckily, however, my baggage was not lost, but was known to be in London and was supposed to come the next day. So for the next few days, a weirdo was walking around Ghana in heavy hiking boots and long trousers in temperatures reaching beyond 30 degrees :)

When I finally emerged from the airport to the hot and humid late Sunday night, I was happy to find Sarah and Benedicta - two ladies working at AIMS - waiting for me. The communication with them for the past two days was not easy, so I was really relieved to meet them on my first evening in Africa. They took me to a hostel few minutes of drive away and we agreed to meet the next morning, sort out some things, and then.. off to the institute :-)

On the traffic lights in Accra

To get out of Accra takes some time. The city is big (several million people) and most of the hustle and bustle happens along the roads. On the lights, many sellers come out among the cars carrying goods on their heads and offering all sorts of things - from water (the tap water is not ok to drink), plantain chips and other kinds of food to things like movie DVDs or lottery tickets. I got a package of the chips and took a few pictures. But mostly, I was looking around and absorbing the plain fact, that I am really at a different place in the world. The Africa, which I've so far only seen in the TV.

The road to the west towards Cape Coast is well maintained and quite busy. Virtually all the time during the 120-something kilometers there are stalls on the side, sellers offering all kinds of food or goods - little shops with fridges, Vodafone or Airtel stalls with sim-cards or air-time or even a shop selling coffins - though not really ordinary coffins (see for yourself on the picture).

Coffins

I am sorry to say that during the journey we saw a person who could find use of it - a busy traffic and (most probably) speeding took its toll somewhere in the half of our journey and we passed a victim of a fresh accident, laying in the middle of the road. Benedicta said it was not a common happening, and I took it as a warning to be careful around the main road. After all, we were speeding too, in the effort to get to AIMS for the lunch. We made it safely, and after more than two days of travelling, a sight of the most beautiful school I've ever seen finally marked the beginning of my stay at AIMS.