5-16 Theodora Office and views

 After our arrival to our apartment we had eaten the dinner prepared for us by Mary and Ann - jollof rice and chicken.  And then pretty much collapsed.

Mary will be our driver for this week in Accra.  She picked us up Thursday morning and drove us to the new Theodora office.  The office enters into a kitchen where the ladies can prepare lunches or heat things up.  There are three other rooms and two bathrooms, one with a shower.  All the ladies have a desk in the main room except Mary is in the back room.  One room is set aside as a conference room and has a large round table and a Michael's nap sofa.

I was greeted with hugs from all the ladies.  Eva had volunteered to arrange my day.  First I was to sit with each lady as they explained to me what they did.  It was difficult to hear as the room is not that large and is crowded with all the desks.  Everyone was talking and moving around.  But I managed to hear what each person wanted to tell me and offer a couple of suggestions for job efficiency.

The kitchen

Lunch was brought in from a place that does Western style food.  My chicken sandwich was really a chicken salad sandwich except all the ingredients were separate.  Sliced eggs, mayonnaise, chicken chunks on white bread.  I only finished half - but the rest was quickly claimed and it did not go to waste.

In the afternoon my assignment was to sit in the back room while the women came in one on one to chat with me.  I did not know what to say - so asked for a brief synopsis of their story.  It was a very emotional day to say the least.  Let's just say there were a lot of tears.  Hopefully some joyful ones.

Then around 4pm the local board members started showing up.  I was officially welcomed by Jonas and the rest of the board.  I also received a plaque with many Ghanaian symbols on it.  You see these symbols displayed on billboards around Accra.

                                       

During the day I took photos of scenes around the office from our second floor office.

A tro tro stops to pick up riders.

Yes - you do see many folks carrying things on their heads.

Traffic here is like in SE Asia.  Road signs are suggestions.  People do obey the traffic police when they are around to direct traffic.  But as you see above driver just goes when he sees enough space for the car.  Go slow, ease into traffic when there is a break.  No body goes fast in Accra.  It is impossible as the roads are filled with pot holes and there are many many speed bumps even on the main roads.

Justina showing off the power meters.