What can brown do for you?

You know those UPS commercials in all these different exotic locales, with crisply uniformed workers, riding around on motorcycles, rickshaws, camels to deliver equally crisp UPS envelopes? Yeah, this morning, one of those envelopes was mine, speeding its way to Accra on a motorcycle (they tie the packages down to the back of the seat, lol), airmail to Amsterdam, overnight to Memphis, then home to Florida. All in four days. Man, the speed of commerce...

I was able to deploy 53 surveys today, and got a nice tour of the Port of Takoradi, which is decidedly quieter than Tema. Got to meet all sorts of cool people: the harbour master, chief pilot, master engineer, civil engineers, stevedores, tugboat captains, the Gordon's fisherman, you name it. Had to answer many questions about life in the US and at Harvard, and they were very receptive to an American coming over to research ethnicity at the ports. I even got a snazzy research clearance letter. :) Maybe I'll frame it on my wall or something.

I learned a lot about survey logistics while at Tema (i.e. put a specific collection date on it, specify categories more specifically, front/back printing) so things are going a bit smoother here. Which means I might make it back to Accra a week early so that I can take some nice overnight trips to Kumasi, Eastern Volta and maybe even Mole National Park and Tamale! An actual safari adventure complete with minibus rides over ridiculously bumpy dirt paths. Can't wait.

In other news, I specifically asked my hotel if they had washers and drying machines. They said yes. Which apparently meant no. They can handwash for me, but they hang it out to dry. Ummmm, no. I'd rather not end up with these guys. Yeah, despite what the article says, they're pretty common in Ghana, too. Looks like I'll be doing laundry out of the sink/shower for a couple of weeks. Maybe it's just me, but I think that makes fieldwork even more awesome. Or I'm just succumbing to the heat.

Also, BBC World News: still awesome. Though I'm not such a fan of their Asia Today series: the presenter has the world's heaviest Filipino accent. Even though I'm Filipino, it still sounds really annoying. Maybe it just conjures up repressed bad childhood memories or something. And then there's the Hardtalk programme, which featured interviews with the South Korean president (talking about ROK's beef with US beef) as well as FW de Klerk on Mbeki's (lack of) handling of the Mugabe situation. Actually, de Klerk just sounded kind of senile. The BBC also has this great European correspondent with the best accent ever, whose name is Bethany Bell. I think I just really like her name, actually. I guess you could say it has a good ring to it.