TIA

Have you ever seen the movie “Blood Diamond”? It was released in 2006, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and is set in Sierra Leone, another country in West Africa. One of DiCaprio’s famous phrases in the movie, “TIA. This Is Africa”, is used to both describe and shrug off some of the eccentricities of Africa. Don and I adopted the phrase ourselves before we even landed on the continent, and use it VERY often. We’ve said it to each other in surprise or amazement at sights you would NEVER see in the US, growled it to each other in frustration at the thousand and one things that break or don’t go as planned, whispered it to each other lying in bed at night, listening to the squeak/honk of the men with pushcarts selling food to the guards or the drip, drip, drip of our leaking house. In honor of TODAY being our 1 year anniversary of living in West Africa, here are a few of our favorite “TIA” moments from the last year!

• When you see 2 men and 1 live goat riding on a single motorcycle. In this instance, one man was driving, and the goat was on its side atop the man in the rear’s lap, legs wrapped around the man’s sides like he was wearing an inner tube. A different time I saw a man transporting an 8 foot ladder via motorcycle. He had his head and one arm between the middle 2 rungs, about 4 feet of ladder sticking in front on him, 4 feet of ladder behind. It was actually quite impressive! A friend of mine said one time she even saw a cow on a motorcycle here. TIA
• When you see men peeing into the open sewers lining the roads. This sight is VERY commonplace, I’ve even seen it multiple times in one day. When I asked the family what we should do to celebrate our 1 year anniversary in Ghana, Don immediately said “We should all pee in a gutter!” Which elicited uproarious laughs from the children. (But no, we did NOT). TIA
• Speaking of sewers….don’t fall in. One week I brought a cake to church to celebrate one of the nuns’ birthdays. We have an old family cookbook, with recipes handed down over generations, the all time favorite recipe being the one for mayonnaise cake. Following the nuns’ birthday party, the Ghanaians apparently became obsessed with this cake recipe as well, as I have now sold several of them to Ghanaians who have asked to purchase them from me! This spreading the Gospel of the Garmendia family mayonnaise cake throughout Ghana led to me one day straddling the sewer, in a dress, precariously balancing a cake while trying to shut the car door. Oh, if only my Amuma (Basque grandmother) could see me now! TIA.
• In addition to not falling into the sewers, enjoy the challenge of not DRIVING into them. The sewers are also wider than car tires, so Heaven help you if you drive too close to one (also why driving in the dark is not fun). Here, if you drive too close to the edge of the road, you don’t merely bump a curb, you are lodged in a smelly trench that only a tow truck can get you out of. I have managed to avoid this fate thus far, but have seen multiple other cars tipped at a 45 degree angle, both tires on one side deep in the sewer ditch, waiting to be towed out. TIA
• When the Ghana police, riding on motorcycles, kick the side of your car with a booted foot. The police, when escorting someone important in a motorcade, will drive between the lanes of traffic on their motorcycles, swooping in an S formation, attempting to widen the space between the lanes for the motorcade. It means scoot the heck over. If you don’t, they will either smack the hood of your car with a hand, or kick the side of the car with their boot. TIA
• When people are standing, laying, or walking on the side of the road in nothin’ but their birthday suit. This has also happened multiple times. The most notable was on Easter morning, when we were driving to church. Don and I immediately noticed the character, glanced at each other with that ol’ “TIA” look, and then kept quiet, hoping the kids would not notice. Thankfully, they were distracted enough that time, and did not. Happy Easter.
• When your house springs a new leak every time in rains. Currently we’re up to 3 new leaks in 3 weeks. God Bless the rains down in Africa. TIA
• When you can’t even pretend to begin to pronounce 90% of the road names. One near where we live is called “Ndabaningi Sithole Road.” Can you guess what we call it for short? TIA
• When your gardener plants potatoes in your backyard, slicing up the ground with…a machete. He accidentally sliced through wires that led to the garden lights on the back wall while he was at it. I had to put in a work order for the facilities people at the embassy to come fix it. First time I have ever typed “gardener cut wires with a machete.” Hey, it happens. TIA
• When your gardener gets an electrical zap while cutting down bananas from the tree in your backyard (yes, also with a machete). The banana tree branch fell on the barbed wire atop the wall, and when he went to try and get the branch off, zap! (Don’t worry, he is fine). Put down the machete, Amos. TIA
• Aaallll the things that can be sold from atop people’s heads in the middle of the road. Windshield wipers, socks, peanuts, water, juice, kleenex, phone holders for the dashboard of your car, steering wheel covers, sunglasses, books, end tables, children’s toys. You name it, you can buy it off someone’s head while driving to work or school! TIA
• When central A/C is not something that exists. We have a total of 9 A/C units in our house; recently, 5 of them broke all within a couple days. Sometimes they will just shut off with an error message, sometimes a weird smell will start coming out of one. Most often, water will just start cascading down the wall until you shut it off and have someone come service it. Don and I just laid in bed one night, sighing and listening to the drip, drip, drip down our bedroom wall. TIA.
• When the power is as unreliable as the A/C. Sometimes we will have no power issues for a few weeks. Sometimes the power will go off and on 14 times in one weekend. Ya never know. We do have generators, which kick on about 20 seconds after the power shuts off. So when Accra is having power issues, its just a constant droooop as all the power shuts off, followed 20 seconds later by zzzzuuuuup as the generator kicks on. This repeats when the power switches back from generator power to city power. Over and over and over, all day and all night. Our kids are now 100% unfazed by power outages. Even the 4 year old will yell out “it’ll come back on in a minute!” TIA
• When the power outages turn dangerous in the most surprising ways. One benefit of our compound is that there is a small gym on it, just a few feet from our house. One day during a particularly tumultuous power outage spree, I was running full out on the treadmill in the gym…when the power abruptly went off. Just so you know, when this occurs, the treadmill does not slow to a stop, it comes to a complete and utter standstill in a millisecond. And I had no warning whatsoever. Therefore my legs kept running (as the ground did not), and I nearly went over the front of the treadmill into the wall, making a sound I don’t think I have ever made before. Thankfully, I survived, and once I had regained my balance, I stood there, all alone in the gym, cracking up laughing. Of all the ways to die in Ghana, “death by power outage induced treadmill injury” was not on my list. TIA
• When absolutely everything is just a little bit broken. One day, while trying to make one of those aforementioned cakes, I was using a hand mixer we had purchased locally. Except the plug doesn’t fit in the outlet quite right, so you have to hold the plug in with one hand while mixing with the other (and try to stabilize the bowl at the same time). If you don’t hold it perfectly still, the mixer will turn off, on, off, on. I managed to struggle through the mixing part, and then got out the piping bags I had also purchased locally for frosting the cake. After trying and trying to simply open the damn piping bags, Don also gave it a go, and quickly figured out that the piping bag sides had melted together at some point and were now completely unusable. I have to admit, I didn’t say “TIA” that day. I said a phrase slightly stronger. In front of the kids.
• When the broken-ness and the power outages and the chaos all combine. It was the beginning of October. The power had gone out, and even the generators on the compound had starting sparking. There had been an electrical fire in this compound just a few months prior with similar circumstances, so the embassy moved us all out to a hotel nearby for a couple of days while they addressed the issue. Of course, it was during those 2 days that ALL of our stuff from the States arrived. Those poor guys unloaded all of our boxes, hauling many up our 3 flights of stairs, with no power (and hence no A/C). Thankfully, the power returned soon after, and we returned to the house that night. The next morning, I was making the kids’ school lunches at 5:45 AM. I opened a cupboard to get a cup for coffee…only to discover that the cupboard shelf had collapsed under the weight of the cups we had unpacked onto it the day before. Sigh. Okay, I’ll deal with that after I get the kids off to school. And then the power promptly went out. I stood there in the dark for a few moments, but thankfully the generator kicked on. Okay, phew. 1 minute later, the power goes out AGAIN. I distinctly remember putting my elbows on the counter and my head in my hands, piles and piles of unpacked boxes surrounding me in the dark, collapsed shelf above and to my left. Breathe. It’s okay. Its just a TIA kind of day.
• When your husband eats an entire mouthful of ants. I know, I know, WHAT? True story. I’ve told tales of our ant sagas before, but we (mostly) conquered them after the first few weeks. But when the rainy season began a couple months ago, they tried to escape the deluge by overrunning our house again. One evening, Don had brought a plate of food into the living room. He ate all of it except the cookie on the plate, and left the plate on the end table. He got busy doing something with kids, and later reached over (without looking), grabbed the cookie, and ate it. And moments later was trying to figure out why his lips and mouth were stinging. At the same time I wandered into the living room, grabbing the plate to bring it to the kitchen. And found it COVERED in ants, which in just the span of minutes, had crawled under the living room windows, across the floor, up the leg of the end table, and onto the plate. Don was absolutely mortified of course. I half felt bad but also kinda wanted to burst out laughing. I would have expected the kids to somehow get a mouthful of ants, not the husband! This. Is. Africa. Sometimes, you accidentally eat some ants.

As frustrating as some of these moments are, they’re all part of the grand adventure! They keep us laughing (not always in the moment, but usually…eventually). And they make us so appreciative and grateful for where we came from and all the things we’ve always taken for granted. Keep following for more TIA moments, as I’m sure we’ll encounter plenty more in our second year in Ghana!