We're off to India (Delhi-Rishikesh-Goa-Mumbai) for the holidays. To all my readers: I wish you a happy holiday surrounded by friends and loved ones, and a 2007 where your dreams finally become reality..
Read more...At times like this, when people en masse are despairing of the system that reproduces itself aggressively, its good to try to take a step back and look at some longer term patterns. Here's my initial attempt:
1. Political reform. As many have commented, the new President Yar'Adua (who can be bothered to wait till next year to call him that?) reminds them of Shagari and the descent into hell that was the 1980's/90's. Underneath that innocuous exterior, who knows what lies? While Katsina's public finances may have been prudently managed, what development has actually taken place in the state in recent years? It does not look encouraging. Where in the North are their case studies of progressive development?
It seems that in terms of political structures, genuine reform that takes away the huge power vested in the Presidency, creates fiscal federalism and promotes accountability is a long long way off. Don't expect to see the governor immunity clause challenged in the next administration. Massive corruption in the public sector will be business as usual. Nigeria will continue to be pre-ideological, run by big men on a patronage/client basis.
2. Economic reform. There are grounds for more hope here. But how dynamic the reform continues to be depends on whether something similar to the capable technocrats (Soludo et al) around at the moment are still in place. Perhaps some will be persuaded to stay on. Let's see what happens with the EFCC- a continued role for Ribadu is absolutely crucial. The banks still have a massive step-up operation ahead to compete with the bigger banks on the continent and offer genuine service to Nigerian businesses and general consumers. There are still many more essential building blocks yet to be in place - a credit ratings system, reform in the insurance/re-insurance sector, epayments infrastructure, a legal framework for electronic transactions etc etc.
3. Inward investment. China, Korea and India will continue to compete for big infrastructure projects in the next administration. Allowing naira to leak outside the economy is good - the economists will tell you - because it allows for massive infrastructural spend without being too inflationary. Whether it is so good from a job-creation/skills transfer perspective is quite another matter. The power situation should improve steadily in the next ten years - although it will still remain woefully inadequate by global standards. We can look forward to at least two big rail network projects - Lagos northwards to Abuja and Kano, and Calabar to Maduguiri. Meanwhile, global investment flows look set to increase as part of this infrastructural improvement - again a lot of the money coming from Asia, with South Africa and the donors lagging behind. My own personal favourite - IT infrastructure - does not look set for any major improvements - the current administration has a very poor track record in this regard.
4. Creativity. The one area that keeps me continually excited in Nigeria is the development of the arts. Cinema especially looks set to boom, as new cinemas (in Tinapa and Abuja) continue to make the theatrical-release model ever more viable. Expect a revolution in production values in the next 5 years, as cinematic distribution begins to challenge the worn out video/Nollywood model.
5. Education. The foundation stone of any society, the education sector does not look likely to improve in the near or medium term future. The current plan to privatise all institutions of learning is deeply misguided and will fail. The general melt-down will continue, as the Federal Govt's allocation for the sector falls 15% or more below UN recommendations. Nigerians without silverspoons in their mouths and a ticket to a school abroad will find it ever more difficult to compete with their fellow Africans, let alone globally. Another lost generation will follow hard on the heels of the current crop of 18-25 year olds.
So Jonathan Goodluck surprises everyone as the VP running mate (see also here). Given that his wife is being investigated for money laundering, and given the parlous state of Bayelsa state (all swamp and dilapidation), it does not Look Good. The long-hoped for technocratic secondary role has not been filled. It is difficult to optimistic about ongoing reform given this arrangement.
That said, I've always believed that countries get the 'leaders' they deserve. No one complains in Nigeria, and everyone is quick to jump into a collective self-delusion mentality when the money and the owambes start to flow. At Lagos airport, a sign says Welcome to Nigeria, the happiest country on earth (or similar). It should really say, Welcome to Nigeria, the most self-delusive country on earth.
A testimony to the culture of non-complaint. The new airline (owned by exactly who?) Arik Air already has a reputation for being hideously late on all its flights. The plane to take me back to Abuja last week was 1 1/2 hours late before it arrived. When finally we all had boarded, the pilot apologised for the delay, which was 'due to problems with the new security screening arrangement at the airport.' What a load of horse shit. The new security arrangement at Calabar airport added another 10-15 mins of delay to the 1 1/2 hours that was Arik Air's responsibility. I complained to the air stewards about this disengenuous 'apology' - no one else did. Everyone just sat there, a picture of bovine docility. If you don't complain, you get all the Bad Luck you deserve..
Nigeria can test anyone's mettle, and dampen the most exuberant spirits. Every layer of society is infected with strange forms of malaise; dis-ease is everywhere. If you live here, you better have a strong immune system (ethical and otherwise) or you'll quickly sink in one way or another. The local newspapers, awful products at the best of times, are now showing themselves to be the mechanisms of greed and disinformation that are their true colours. Almost all of the content is planted by some big men or other. The only stories that are not paid-in-full are of the schlock-horror variety: a bushy area near a busy road in Ikeja with where women are taken to be raped every night (torn underwear litters the scene); 20 people shot dead in eight separate armed robbery attacks on banks in Lagos in one day last week etc. If any one of these stories occurred in the West, there'd be inquests and analysis and endless discussion (witness the ongoing East Anglian prostitute murders). Here, as soon as they appear they are yesterday's tragedies and silently forgotten. One only hears police sirens in Nigeria when a big man is being carted from A to B - never would you hear the police rushing to the plight of an ordinary mortal.
Nigeria brutalises and is brutalised (just listen to the way many if not most Nigerians talk to their servants like master admonishing slave). It is like a post-conflict zone, without the conflict ever having taken place (or was slavery the original sin?). Humanity loses its humanity and perhaps even its animality in the process. Even in the brightest sunshine, the country seems to sit under a permanently stationed cloud of immorality and gluttonous impoverishment.
Nearby, the hand-choppers have been playing loud music through their loudspeaker all night (perhaps this is the initial prompt for my mild despair this morning). Most of the time, it is Northern/hausa music which would be interesting to listen to were it not so loud and so continuous. Bizarrely, they put on some dancehall/reggaeton music every now and again. Perhaps this is what their governor listens to on his pleasure trips to Sin City etc.
Talking of Big Men - all the gossip is of Odili or Godfather Uba taking the VP slot. They have ill-gotten gains enough to pay their way in, the trouble for both of them is that they are overly tainted material - the EFCC is strongly on the Rivers State governor's case (he'd have to dismantle the organisation immediately to have any peace), and Uba's role for Obj in his business dealings in the States would only lead to questions dogging him wherever he goes. On the other hand, Duke seems all of a sudden to be a spent force (but let's wait and see), which seems to leave Nnamani as the only remaining viable candidate.
But politics in Nigeria is as boring and tainted as it is in the UK right now. Quite what gives Blair the right to a final pontificatory ramble round the Middle East, with the cash-for-peerages row and the Saudi bribes-for-arms scandals is anyone's guess. Goods have rarely been so damaged.
I need to get away from the depravity of it all. Human beings are continuously disappointing, especially in Nigeria right now.
They played exuberantly all morning as a small crowd gathered outside the Ebonyi State Governor's lodge round the corner from our house. The Zamfara State lodge posse just up the street looked on quietly. Everyone is allowed their time to make noise.
In the past few nights, ever more okadas have returned to the streets (one even drove into me - the third time this has happened). One wonders why the little guy's directive is slowly being eroded. Is it just a temporary phenomena - to enable the PDP to ferry the troops about town? Or is it that Abujans have the end of his reign in site? One thing is for sure, the okadas will return in force, either before El-Rufai leaves, or immediately after.
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Abuja is completely mad at the moment. The fuel shortage continues (although the queues aren't what they were a few days ago). Meanwhile, this weekend, we get to find out who will be president next year. The PDP primaries are coming to a head. Who wins the primaries 'wins' the presidency, everyone knows this- INEC's activities are mere window dressing. The city centre of Abuja, also known as the Hilton, is complete chaos - hundreds of police, thousands of 'Big Men' wearing all kinds of hats. Odili gave out N50million in there today alone, apparently. Billions of naira in persuasion money will be spent in the next 48 hours. It seems like the whole of Northern Nigeria has descended on Abuja - men who wear agbada and only speak hausa are everywhere. There are traffic jams everywhere, and serious car crashes every few hours (Northerners are the worst drivers in the country in my experience) - a car nearly fell off a bridge this afternoon, the vehicle left dangling near the Ministry of Finance. It will be best not to go out tomorrow except for emergencies.
Meanwhile, a minor triumph this evening. We went to see Rag Tag (see a previous post) at Bolingo Hotel. It felt like a victory to all who went to see it that a film like this can still be shown in rampantly in self-denial Nigeria. In a glorious juxtaposition, downstairs, there was an anti-nudity fashion show (see the flyer to the left). A tall and very pretty woman, borderline scantily-clad, handed it to me. At first, I thought she was a million-naira per night courtesan come to make hay while the whole of the PDP bigs it up in FCT, but then she explained she was a fashion designer. I explained to her and her male organiser friend that I belonged to the PNP - the Progressive Nudity Party - and that therefore their event was against all my core political beliefs. You should have seen the look on their faces.
Meanwhile #2, big congrats to the Director of Rag Tag Adaora for a thoughtful and provocative first film. Long may she prosper. And congrats to her old man for being so supportive.
I was taken on a tour of Tinapa yesterday by the project manager (he works for Arup). The experience was a little underwhelming - not surprising given that it is merely a large scale business park. There is no 'wow' factor at all. I expected a vantage point over the whole area, but there doesn't seem to be one.
Imagine being taken on a tour of an Amazon logistics warehouse, then photoshop the background with tropical plants, and you get the idea. Talking of Amazon, I mentioned the possibility of it being the ideal base for them to penetrate West Africa. From his response, it seems like it was the first time the idea has ever been mooted. Very strange, given the complete lack of access to books in the sub-region and the size of the untapped market.
Most of the space is devoted to wholesale warehousing (as in the image to the left), with a strip of retail between the huge sheds. The only cover for the retail strip is a row of palm trees - not the best choice for providing shade or shelter, given the hot sticky climate and the very heavy rainfall for several months of the year. I would have covered the retail strip with canvas, or used more shade-providing trees (palms are among the worst - as the City of Los Angeles has just decided). So the entire effect will be less Bluewater (or Sun City, let alone Dubai) and more TNT logistics operation. Architecture there is not.
For launch in March, there will only be one hotel up and running - a 2-star South African chain with only 200 rooms. So the effect (combined with the Casino and fast food joints) will be quite down-market. I might have started with a higher class hotel - as all brand experts know, it is easier to create lower niches for sub-brands, rather than try to raise a sub-brand above the level of the main brand (think Mercedes A class). Still, it is early days for consumerism in Nigeria, and people seem to love downscale brands (Argos and Primark are held in high esteem by many). I'm sure it will be successful, and more than hit the initial target of 10,000 visitors per month.
Given that the focus is on wholesale, it must be a worry that there are not adequate transport links from Calabar in place - apart from a monorail to the airport. The Lagos-Calabar motorway is a distant dream, and the Korean-backed Calabar-Maduguiri railway line has only just been contracted. But it is early days - in ten years time both links will be in place, and there will be at least a couple more higher-standard hotels there. The next big thing will be real estate that lies just outside the park but connects to it. They are guaranteed to be hot items in the next couple of years (you heard it here first!)
Here is a shot of Film City, a state-of-the-art film studio/production facility at Tinapa. It is 100% owned by an Israeli company. I'm not sure there will therefore be any opportunities for participation or involvement by local film production companies, which is a shame.
Calabar museum was constructed by the British Council in the late 19th century. It has a good narrative on the arrival of the Portuguese, the beginnings of slavery, the switch to the palm oil trade etc. Unfortunately, the power to the building was low when I was there so it was hard to read a lot of the exhibits. Upstairs is a fascinating space - the residential quarters of the main administrator for the region. Its a shame that they don't allow photography and yet do not have any postcards of the upstairs interior. It is easy to imagine early twentieth century colonial life wandering through the rooms. Most poignant was a hanging curtain-fan, which a young servant would operate by a pulley. The servant himself had to sit behind a screen, so they colonial masters would not have to see the servant while they lounged about and ate. Our guide used the expression 'colonial masters' a lot.
At Ikom, in the North of Cross River State, there is a mysterious circle of stones known as the Ikom monoliths, right on the border with Cameroun. They have moved one to the grounds of the Calabar museum. The stones have been dated at 200AD, but may be older. About 3 feet high, the design on the front is extraordinarily beautiful. We must be thankful the British didn't find them in time to steal them away to the British Museum and keep them locked in some dingy basement. My tour guide tells me they have found similarities between one of the nearby local languages and the language spoken by the Ancient Egyptians.. One thing is sure, one of the main ethnic groups in the State, the Efik, migrated over 500 years ago from Sudan, so there may just be a link with Nilotic cultures..
The Efik were also middlemen who profited hugely during the slave trade. The tourist guide laughed sheepishly when I asked her about this..
Stands in the graveyard at the top of Marina. Mary was a Scottish missionary who lived in Old Calabar (as it used to be called) from the late nineteenth century until her death in 1915. Her memory is cherished in the city for having led the movement to abolish the killing of twins. A friend's father has friends who were saved from this fate by her. Her grave is the cross on the left of the image (seen from side on).
The graveyard was sadly locked when I was there (hence the angle of the photo - taken from the gate), but peering over the fence, it seems like a tranquil place, the only noise the gentle susurrus from the surrounding trees - the perfect resting place for a noble soul.
The old town of Calabar is charming, if a little down at heel. At the top of the hill on Marina, there are fabulous views across the Cross River estuary. At the moment, the place is more or less a slum. I'm sure as Calabar develops, the place will be gentrified, and the big men will build houses with columns there.
Down a ravine towards the river's edge in Calabar old town is the Thursday market, a bustling and fragrant space, and an excellent place to buy fresh fish.
At Christmas time, there is almost a masquerade on every street in Calabar. All the civil servants are on holiday for the whole month, so there is a festive air across the town.. This one did a very interesting shuffle dance for the camera, twisting and whirling and making the ground rustle with his deft footwork.
I drove down to Marina and hung around the memorial. The air was heavy with the sweet smell of Sensimelia, as groups of men sat smoking under the shade of tin roofs.
A bunch of young boys were digging sand from the shore, some of them playing about nearby. I'm very happy with this picture - it neatly expresses the exuberance of youth.
Duke is fond of this phrase, as a way of gathering consensus around the efforts to pull Cross River out of the mire. This recently erected sculpture, looking out over the majesterial Cross River, is a beautiful visualisation of this saying. Its one of a number of thoughtful public works around the town. A traffic island has gigantic versions of the Ikom monoliths nearing completion.The INEC boss has announced that voter registration will close as planned in 2 days time. According to estimates, only 4 million have been registered to vote so far. This means that at most 5% of the electorate will be able to vote next year. I still don't know anyone who has registered. One wonders why there is any attempt to maintain the falsehood that there will be meaningful elections. The money could be better spent on infrastructure projects, rather than the pretence of democracy. It's hard to see how genuine elections could actually take place, given the patronage nature of the society.
Read more...There's hardly any petrol left in Abuja. The situation has been deteriorating for the past couple of weeks. Long queues build up to the remaining garages that are selling. Someone might be able to provide an explanation of why one of the major oil-producing nations has fuel shortages in its capital, but whatever they say, it ultimately will make no sense. Still, if the apocalypse ever comes, Nigerians will not panic, like the well-tended beings in the West. They are used to crises and shortages coming and going from nowhere.
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I met Joachim some months back. A writer friend of Tobias (Tobs' blog), he spent three months or so travelling around Nigeria. He took over 900 photos, most from a car window. They give a fascinating waist-high view of contemporary Lagos Life. Here is just a tiny selection of my favourites.
I woke up to a pedicure and manicure on our balcony at 8am, with foot and hand massage and plenty of unguents. Tropical bird sounds trilled and fluted from the nearby trees. De-cuticled, I lost myself in the different types of swaying branches against the blue of sky- a huge bamboo tree in the middle distance, a mature almond tree in next door's compound. Tropical living at its best..
Soon we shall be in India - Delhi, Rishikesh and Goa..
Is unbelievably uncustomer-centric. Here's my own example: I am an Executive Club member, but as I put my address as Nigeria when signing up a couple of years ago, my Executive Club office is in Joburg (there is no Nigeria office). A while ago, I applied for a BA Amex card (you get extra miles if you use it to buy tickets). I received the card recently, along with a letter saying that the card would soon be invalidated given that my Exec Club membership is not registered in the UK. Now, about 9 months ago, I thought I had transferred my Exec Club membership from SA to the UK (it took a lot of effort - the South Africa office are not easy to get on the phone - I had to fill in a form and post to them - they don't do email communication. I sent the letter off while in SA to make sure it got there). So now I find out that I am still registered with the SA office and I cannot use the new Amex card. Either the letter never arrived, or it was not actioned.
The point is, as customer, do I give a flying fart which Exec Club office I am registered with? Why can't I do all this tedious bureaucracy online? When I ring the UK Exec Club up, they have no information about me (they don't have access to the SA Exec Club database) and politely insist there is nothing they can do to help. A friend can tell even more tales of dis-integrated informations systems woe with BA. It is astonishing in this day and age that BA has such a clunky, uncustomer-friendly IT system. Why they don't have one integrated Executive Club database accessible from any office is beyond me.
The papers are full of full colour full page memorials to the children who lost their lives a year ago in the Sosoliso tragedy. The millions of naira the newspapers earn from this ad revenue should ideally be spent in some philanthropic way - contributions to a memorial at the Loyola Jesuit school for example. Unfortunately, their perspective is purely making-money, so this will not happen. It seems completely immoral to profit from this tragedy in this way, but when have Nigerian newspapers had any concern in this direction?
Another difference between Ghana and Nigeria - as soon as you land at Accra airport, you find all the information displays working. I have never seen such a sight in a Nigerian airport, in line with the country's distaste for providing basic customer-friendly information. Even the newish Virgin Nigeria area at Murtala Mohammed Airport lacks the most basic information - one arrives not knowing when the next flights will be or how full they are. Forget about having any form of electronic real-time display, there is not even any printed matter on flight times.
The staff work at a snail pace and regularly stop to gist one another (a Nigerian pasttime), meaning that one has to queue for one to two hours just to purchase a ticket. A late-middle aged Egyptian woman trying to get on a flight to Kano was consistently rebuffed by the staff - one of whom declared, 'I have the right not to serve you'. In the end, the flight was delayed by half an hour and she could have easily got on the flight, but was refused. She left the airport in tears. As several of my fellow passengers commented, 'Virgin Nigeria is slowly becoming Nigerian Airways.' Further evidence of VN's inability to provide basic information to customers lies in their new airmile promotion scheme. None of the adverts indicate what benefits there are to accruing the airmiles, nor does the scheme work online. Weirder still, Virgin Nigeria's airmiles are not connected to Virgin Atlantic (or vice-versa). Another odd thing is that VN has banned the use of Ipods on board - quite why is a mystery (its not as if there is any electro-magnetic disturbance). It is a shame that the Virgin brand is now associated with an increasingly uncaring and dysfunctional company. The model the airlines have in Nigeria is still based on the catch-a-danfo model. You turn up, you have no information about when the vehicle will leave, the plane never ever leaves on time, the whole business of getting on the plane must be as stressful as possible...
One other palpable difference between Ghana and Nigeria is the body language of whites. White people in Accra look relaxed, they saunter about, they take public transport without a moment's thought. They resemble holiday makers anywhere in the world: at ease with the world, strolling and wandering here and there. In Nigeria (especially Lagos), the atmosphere is thick with worry: white people are quick to dash into cars from car park to car park, their movements are circumspect, there is an air of anxiety. Of course, Ghana earns massively more from tourism than Nigeria and has a much better developed tourism infrastructure, with far better quality resorts along the coastal route. One underlying difference is that armed robbery is a rarity in Ghana - although people are poorer and the economy much weaker (when one arrives in Accra, one becomes a Cedi millionaire instantly), Ghanaians are for some reason more at ease with themselves as a people. Cocoa is nothing like the curse of oil.
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Woodin is the epicentre of the Nigerian woman's dreams in Accra - heaven being unlimited time and credit in the shop. Any society wedding worth its salt involves trips to the fabric mecca of Ghana. Woodin's own brand cloth is similar to dutch-wax but slightly thicker and rougher in feel with trademark design patterns. The shop sells Woodin, dutch-wax and indigenous wax-cloth. The only discernable difference between the last two being that the former is made in Holland and much more expensive.
A sign of Nigeria's complete economic dominance over Ghana is the fact that the shop is always full of Nigerian women (shopping for that up-coming owambe). I wandered round and I heard Yoruba in every corner. A woman by the name of Dupe with a hard face and a voice deeper than mine perused the shop in furious concentration. Other women shopped in groups, yard after yard of fabric stroked, surveyed and purchased. We bought six sets of six-yard wax, all for under US$100. The Nigerian in me purred.
Just as the French like to claim Simenon, Brel, Magritte, Reinhardt, Herge et al as their own (even though they are all Belgian), so too Nigerians take Star and Gulder to be icons of Nigerianness. Not so. As I learnt last weekend, both are in fact Ghanaian in origin. In Ghana, they sell both in smaller half-litre bottles, which is much more civilised.
I wonder how long the list would be of famous people who are mistakenly thought of as Nigerian would be. As a starter, one could start with David Ajayi, the much-admired (and Ghanaian) architect.
While in Accra, we went to Jazz Tones (not sure where it is in the city, but everyone knows it). It's a lovely hang out - essentially a jazz club that is also an extension of an African-American lady's living room. The bleach-blond woman in question sits at the back surfing via a huge old-skool 19 inch monitor. She swivels in her chair every now and again to survey all that is hers, then sometimes turns to face a mirror and apply a little make up. The band were pretty good, rolling through standards in a soft-bop type style. I took quite a few photos of them. The proprietor was somewhat discombombulated. She came up to me and asked me if I was a journalist. I told her I was a tourist. 'But its my band. Its my band!' she repeated with a Southern twang. I shrugged my shoulders and she went away. Our friends told us she is a little loopy.
Near our table, a group of young students sat - Ghanaian students and white French boys. They laughed and chatted and took photos of one another. The whole table was at ease and full of excitement. Later, in the dappled coloured light of the porch, two of the French boys flirted with two of the girls as they smoked. All I could think was that such a gathering would never take place in Nigeria these days: young minds and bodies and energies circulating in a cultural exchange. How much more receptive Ghana is to outsiders.
The first 3 days this week were spent on the Everyday Leadership course we organised with the Elemental posse here in Abuja. The event was an inspiration for all who attended (50 people from an assortment of organisations) - just look at the smiles in this picture. I filmed 12 testimonials after the course - it was incredible how many people said their lives had been utterly transformed for the good thanks to the course. The course looked at internal sources of positive attitudes and thought processes on Day 1, practical tools for vision-realisation on Day 2, and dealing with difficult local issues on Day 3. It is astonishing that only 9 weeks ago I had not heard of Elemental (I met them at a friend's birthday lunch in Islington). I'm inspired that we managed to pull off such a transformative event in an almost impossibly short space of time. Fate was at work in the invisible support that emanated out of the ether at exactly the right moments (beginning with the spare queue ticket a woman gave Tom at the Nigeria High Commission - he would not have got his visa if not for her random act of kindness). The hugely successful outcome has a) changed my perception of Nigeria (and Nigerians) and b) given me the confidence to develop the Nigerian offering for next year. The trainer, Tom Fortes Mayer, is incredibly talented, able to transform disappointed lives in hours. If I sound like a convert to their method that is cuz I am. If you're based in London, why not go along to their weareOne event coming up later this month? Click here for more data.
After a couple of days in Osogbo. Abuja has nearly run out of petrol, so there are queues stretching into the distance. I'm dog tired. I have not had time to write for days so my blog is hopelessly behind reality. How can I catch up?
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We stayed in an area called 37, at our friend Abena's boss' place, in the guest quarters. The compound was tropical bliss - ashoka trees and huge palms, a swimming pool and bar, a terrace on the first floor.. Bats circled in their thousands above. Strange to see so many in broad daylight, their reptile flesh glinting ominously in the sun.
Abena had filled the fridge with goodies (including soya milk- her thoughtfulness and generosity should win a global award) and a huge bowl of fruit. The paw-paw in Ghana is different to what you find in Nigeria - it is smaller, the taste sublime. Mangos meanwhile are just coming into season, with the greenish tang of new fruit at a new moment. As I munched on some flavouricious cashews, I reflected that everything felt easier here.
The final day, day 3, of our transformational leadership programme is tomorrow. The first two days have been fascinating. Sadly, Nick couldn't make it over due to a nasty bicycle accident, but his other half Tom has been more than brilliant. Nick and Tom are the duo behind Elemental, a transformational leadership company based in the UK. We have 50 or so participants who in the past two days have gone on an inner then outer journey towards a complete transformation of their lives. Its been exhausting but powerful. It's hard to blog because I'm in the middle of my own path and strange obstacles are popping up. But its all good. I'm finally seeing that the boundaries between personal healing and organisational healing are arbitrary projections. My head is too full of thoughts to even begin to write them down just now...
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Still too busy to blog about our Accra experiences - save to say it was lovely to be in a totally different West African space. Here I am with our beautiful friend Abena and Bibi at a great restaurant called Buka in Accra. The yam and stew was excellent..
Just got back from a lovely little Cassava Republic tour to Ghana. Loads of stuff going on and lots to write about. More later. For the moment, all I can do is publish all the comments to previous posts.
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