Things to learn...

Well, it is Saturday morning....early Saturday morning...no such thing as sleeping in when you are in Ghana. Which is fine with me because I'm a morning person.
We went to bed knowing that the pump isn't working so there isn't any water. I guess this morning we will learn what it is like to live in a forth floor flat without water.
Thank goodness we have lots of help because I don't think I could manage a bucket of water on my head on flat ground, let alone up the stairs!

I also learned something about reduce, reuse, and recycle the other day that I found interesting. We were at the new mall in Shoprite (a new modern supermarket) and Tony bought 4 small bottles of beer. He was thrilled about not having to bring in the empties...I was confused and thought he was happy he only paid 1 cedi 20 pesawas for each beer and that there wasn't a deposit charge but later it was explained:
Probably 90% of the beer and minerals (pop) that are consumed in Ghana come in glass bottles. The interesting part is that you can't buy beer or pop without bringing in empties. So, if you go to the store to buy a crate of 12 beer you have to bring 12 empty beer bottles with you.
No empties, No beer!
This makes the empties very valuable so you never see glass bottles tossed aside and people are careful not to break them.
I wonder if this will change with the introduction of new supermarkets that don't follow these strict rules. In a city that has so many people and so much garbage even this one small rule is keeping bottles off the street.
It seems things are constantly changing in Ghana and who knows what the future will hold. We have been talking a lot about the huge change brought on by cellphone companies. I mentioned before that everyone has a cellphone and it really has become a necessity in Ghana. They are fairly cheap here to buy and to use. In Ghana you only pay for the calls you make not the incoming calls. (yes, we are getting ripped off in Canada)
Because of the way billing works for cellphones, Ghanaians have a term called "Flashing". If you don't have many units on your phone you call the person you want to talk to and hang up after it rings once. That means you "flashed" them. If they want to talk to you they will call you back and then they pay. So sometimes when you are leaving a friend they will say to you "I'll flash you later".
With traffic being such an issue it would be impossible to be travelling around visiting people for every thing you need to do and land lines are expensive and hardly used in residences here. It makes sense that everyone have a cellphone.
The unfortunate side of it is that cell phones ring loudly here and everywhere. There doesn't seem to be any cell phone etiquette here. Phones ring in church, in restaurants, on suspension bridges in National Parks...pretty much everywhere and people answer them and start chatting. It just doesn't seem to fit within a culture of traditions and respect. Who knows what the future will hold. I look forward to our next trip to Ghana to see all the changes...