From Russia with love

I still need to pinch myself to check if it’s true but yes: I really, really did make it to Moscow! The journey itself was surprisingly hassle-free. My place of departure had me a bit worried about possible loss of luggage –and I was already mentally rehearsing my best Naomi impression- but it seems they have at last figured out how to run an airport without having to reroute the luggage through Italy first. The customer officers on the Russian end also seemed not the least bit fazed by my double visa and so before I knew it, I found myself standing on the Red Square.

My first impressions of Moscow are on balance very positive. The outskirts of the city that we passed through on the way from the airport frankly look drab: filled with big blocks of communist-era concrete without even the faintest glimmer of joy; ugly, grey, multi-storey monsters that symbolise that infamous Soviet building style. But downtown Moscow is a whole different story. The tiny bit of it I have seen so far is colourful, bright and beautiful. For some reason it feels very… European. It reminds me a bit of places like Vienna with these pastel tinted buildings. The Red Square, however, is unmistakably Russian. The St Basil’s basilica, popular backdrop for many news reports, is so over-the top colourful that it is hard to believe it is not some bizarre form of Russian humour. The Kremlin walls, on the other hand, are deadly serious. The tragic-comic Lenin mausoleum somehow hovers between those two extremes. I hope I will have time to explore all further later on.

I will be working here in Moscow until tomorrow. Then we leave for a week for a city south of Moscow, nearer the Ukraine border. I will be back in Moscow by the weekend after that so look forward to spending that time discovering some of the wonders Moscow has to offer.

До скорой встречи!

Moscow 25 June 2008

Behind enemy lines

O dear, that was not how it was supposed to go. Like the rest of the Dutch I too had been somewhat gripped by Orange fever. I am hardly a football fan, and to be honest I had never even heard of half the players on the team, but it was too contagious not to be infected. And now it's over... The hard part for me will be that, starting Wednesday, I will have to endure the ridicule from behind enemy lines. I think I have no choice but to realign my loyalties with the team of our national traitor no. 1: go Guus!

Holland - Russia: 1-1

It really does look like three is a charm. This time around I have the visa (with the correct dates), I have the flights (non-refundable) and so far nobody has cancelled anything! Fingers crossed that it stays that way. So -if all goes well- by this time next week I will actually be in Russia. I just hope they will still let me in after we kick their behinds this Saturday!

Plot twist

Yes, you are correct. That is indeed a copy of the shiny Russian visa that as of this afternoon brightens up the pages of my passport! So how come I won't be in Russia within 2 days from now you might well wonder.

In a bizarre twist of events now that the visa is ready, the rest of my arrangements have fallen through. The confirmation of my visa arrived at a time this afternoon that in Moscow fell after working hours. By that time the Russians had already postponed all interviews and cancelled all other bookings. As it turns out, at such short notice it was impossible to arrange everything. So... we have rescheduled. Now -if all goes well- I should be in Russia by the last week of June instead. But who can spot the catch on my visa?

Aaaaaargh

Well, yesterday's question of who was right remains unresolved as today the agency wasn't even able to get my application INTO the embassy at all! Without the required form they wouldn't take it in with their other applications afraid that it might damage their reputation with the embassy. Instead, they sent a courier to go stand in the regular queue for mere mortals. The same 25 metre long queue that was my reason for asking them to do it for me in the first place indeed. I don't know if I should be reassured by the fact that evidently I am not the only one stuck on the wrong side of the iron gate or not but the result is that I still do not have a visa. We'll give it one more try on Monday but if that doesn't work the whole trip is off. Again. To be continued...

Catch 22

After all of the delays, postponements and cancellations last year it is still a bit hard to believe but, if all goes well, by this time next week I will be in Russia. If all goes well, I will at last be walking the streets of Moscow. If all goes well...

"Why so gloomy", you ask? That would be because so far nothing about this has been straightforward. Of course there was all of last year's trouble. Then this year things again got pushed back from April to May to June. However, in the last couple of weeks the project finally picked up some momentum. Dates were fixed for the second week of June. Enthusiastically I set about getting everything sorted and armed with my paperwork I showed up at the Russian embassy. Unfortunately I wasn't the only one with that idea. The queue covered a good 25 metres of the pavement and at 12:00 the iron gates shut mercilessly. Luckily the university recruits an agency that, for a fee, takes over this tedious process sparing me second trip.

This morning I came into the office fully expecting to be all sorted by the end of the day. I ordered my tickets and a courier to get my documents to the visa handling agency. So far, so good. And then the call from Russia comes... apparently my trip would have coincided with a public holiday shutting down office life for a week. Oops. The big shock, however, was that instead of pushing the dates back, this time they were pushed forward! A quick call learned that the flights had not yet been confirmed so we could still move those. Of course the visa application form had to be revised though. An hour later we were back on track. And then the call from the agency comes... one of my forms is not correct and they need an official letter from the Ministry confirming my invitation. The problem there is, the letter does not exist. The confirmation was given over the phone and there is nothing in writing. The agency is certain the Russians will not approve my application without it, my host organisation is equally certain there will be no problem. I will find out who is right tomorrow.

So by this time next week I should be in Russia. If all goes well...

The coping cycle

Phase I: DENIAL

No, it cannot be... not so soon already? But didn't I only just graduate? Surely this cannot be right. Somebody has made a mistake, it has to be. Check those dates again!

Phase II: ANGER

No mistake, you say? Well, now that just isn't fair. What did I do to deserve this? I'd like to have a word or two with whoever decided that! It is just totally unacceptable.

Phase III: BARGAINING

But can't I stay 29 just one more year? Six months? I promise I will seize every day of it. Come on now... please?

Phase IV: DEPRESSION

That's it then. It's all downhill from here on now. I can see the wrinkles already. Go away, leave me alone.

Phase V: ACCEPTANCE

Not that bad, you say? Honestly, you promise? Well, in that case:

Birthday Party 2008

After all, a girl only turns 29 twice, right?

The final one

It already feels such a long time ago that I reinvented myself by enrolling in business school. I submitted my thesis eight months ago and have had my results for quite some time as well. The only thing I hadn't done yet was graduate. However, as of today, I am officially an alumna of 3 different universities, all vying for my donations and my loyalty (but mostly my donations).

Each of my graduations has been unique in some way. The MSc chemistry was fun for its small scale and personal touch. The PhD...well, that's just such a special day the way we do it in the Netherlands, nothing can top that. And now this one: the most pompous of them all. Never before have I shared my graduation with several hundreds of people. Never before have I had an orchestra present. Never before have I had a little old tailor help me into my never-before worn robes.


The black robes and the purple hood in the back (which you can't see very well in this picture) are the official colours for MSc degrees at Imperial College. The pink V-shaped bit in front is characteristic of the business school. It all looks and feels very Harry Potteresque, minus the wand.

The day was good fun even though the actual ceremony gets very tedious after the first two hundred graduants or so. At least I got to walk across that stage of the Royal Albert Hall, had my name horribly mangled by the announcer and stood attention to God Save the Queen. But that's it. I have done this in all forms and varieties now. There is nothing more to try. Besides, I'll need to start making a lot more money before I can afford to become alumna of any more institutions!

Graduation 17 May 2008

The art of conflict resolution

The year 1978 marked an important turning point in the field of public health. No, the fact that it also happens to be the year I was born has nothing to do with that. While my mum was changing my nappies back in Holland, somewhere in the former USSR some of the world's public health leaders were gathered at a major international conference to produce what was to be known as the "Alma Ata Declaration". In a nutshell, this declaration urged all governments to work towards "health for all" by setting up and strengthening systems of primary health care.

Now why am I telling you all this? The fact is that ever since then a debate has been going on between proponents of this primary care based strategy and people who believe in the strength of so-called vertical approaches. To understand what is meant by that, picture for instance a dedicated polio immunization campaign or a malaria eradication programme. Such approaches are dedicated to only one purpose; they have their own health care workers, their own funding, their own priorities. There are some obvious advantages. Vertical programmes tend to be much simpler to manage, there is a clear link between action and effect and somebody can take the credit. The trouble is that having a number of these isolated pillars of care in a country can become very inefficient and drain the general health services of resources. Furthermore, the priorities of all these programmes may not be in line with national ones, particularly when external donors are involved.

And so the debate has continued for the past 30 years. The strange thing about this debate is that it seems to be a lot of rhetorics and emotion but very little evidence. So, the reason I have been working my a*#e off lately is that this week a number of bigwigs in the field are gathering to discuss how we can move beyond this deadlock and start having a more productive dialogue. My job was to help supply the evidence and analyse which approaches have been most successful under particular conditions. As you can imagine it's a fairly high profile piece of work and I am very pleased to have been able to chip in. I really hope to get my hands on more assignments like this. I just hope that the deadlines can be a bit more ... healthy.

And then there was light

Helloooo? Is there anybody out there?

I wouldn't blame you if you have all abandoned me by now for I sure have been pretty negligent of you. What can I say? I'm sorry. For the last couple of weeks I have been buried alive. Buried under a mountain of work so high that I am surprised it didn't crush me all together. Working days of 10 hours gradually slipped into 11 hour days, then 12 hour ones and this week I one day even left the office at 10pm! The building takes on a whole new appearance at that time of the evening, let me tell you. For weeks my world became smaller and smaller until I reached complete tunnel vision. My dreams were filled with paragraphs and tables and that was on good nights. Falling asleep when your brain cannot switch off anymore can be tricky.

But now I have reached the light at the end of the tunnel. Squinting I step into the bright real world. I am alive again. Hello world, remember me? So now what do I do...?

Tulip fever

I really, really meant it last year when I said "Next year I will definitely try to be there again" but things don't always work out the way you want them to. Fenced in by non-negotiable deadlines, I will once again spend Queen's Day in laborious London instead of anarchic Amsterdam. So, like last year, yesterday I once more dug that orange top out from under a pile of more frequently worn clothes to join the London version of Queen's day. We in London have to celebrate it a few days early though, as unfortunately over here we can't get the day off for it.

At least it looks like this year London had one up on Amsterdam. The weather yesterday here was gorgeous. It was the first real Spring day we've had in months, blessed with sunshine and warm temperatures. The forecast suggests that you guys back in the Motherland may not be so lucky this year. So basking in the sun we sat, surrounded by the other orange people, listening to Andre Hazes' songs and eating a patatje met. For one day a year I am not ashamed to set free my inner Dutch girl. Something true for many of us Cheese Heads in London apparently as once again I ran into some familiar faces! London can sometimes suddenly be very small.


The walk afterwards -by sheer coincidence- let us straight into a magnificent tulip garden. It wasn't part of the celebrations and I didn't even know it was there but it certainly was an appropriate find. The fitting ending to such a delightfully Dutch day of course was dinner at the local Pancake house with a starter of bitterballen. Stuffed beyond belief on this healthy diet of saturated fats, I look back on a great day but not without some secret hope that maybe next year...

Queen's Day in London 2008

Run like the wind

My new flat is practically on the doorstep of Battersea Park. As one of the biggest (and most beautiful) parks in London this is prime running territory. For weeks now the park has seen ever swelling numbers of sweaty sports maniacs congregating for their obligatory laps. Some suffer alone, others travel in packs. At first I thought it was just the spring weather that had urged these people to dust off their running shoes. It is more than that though. This weekend running is London's number 1 religion as thousands of fanatics take over the streets for the London marathon.

I must admit, I don't really get marathons. A number of my friends have done them or intend to do them but, although I admire their tenacity, I do secretly think they are a bit loopy. Let's not forget: the man accredited for first accomplishing this feat did not live to collect any medal. It is unnatural, unhealthy. Why anybody would deliberately put their body through this pain is beyond me. Then again, I am a real couch potato these days so who am I to judge?

There are 6 men in London right now who seem not the least bit impressed by those 42.195 kilometres. After all, there are no lions. Did I just say "no lions"? Indeed. Amongst the participants will be 6 Maasai warriors who intend to run and dance their way to Buckingham Palace wearing full warrior gear and traditional footwear. Used to running and hunting for days on end a little marathon poses no challenge to them. They are doing this to raise money for their village and to bring fresh water to their families. Of course I do still think they are loopy but their cause is a worthy one. I wish them happy hunting.

Brown paper packages

Even when they are not tied up with string, they are still amongst my favourite things. There is nothing like coming home after yet another 10 hour working day to find one of these little gems waiting for you, especially if they contain one of my other favourite things: books. Although most of the time I prefer getting lost between the shelves of my local Waterstones, occasionally I allow myself to get lost between virtual bookshelves instead. Study books and books that are hard to come by tend to appear on my doorstep in those beige wrappings.

I had just started reading Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh when my parcel arrived. This is a book that I picked up at the Spui book market before I even moved to London but which has been sitting on my shelf ever since. I have been a bit wary about it as I have read Rushdie before to mixed effect. Midnight's children I still found somewhat enjoyable although very difficult but Fury put me off Rushdie for a very long time. The only reason I finished it was sheer determination not to be defeated by a book! Then last year, amidst raving reviews, I decided to give Rushdie one last shot with Shalimar the Clown. I don't know if Rushdie is like an expensive whiskey that you only learn to appreciate over time or if my own grasp of literature has improved but I absolutely loved this book. Rushdie uses language not merely as a tool for telling a story but uses words and sentences like a painter uses colour. It is not the individual images that matter but the painting as a whole. What before had seemed like endless digressions and pointless ramblings suddenly all connected. Enough reason to give Rushdie another chance. But now he has been temporarily suspended by the arrival of my brown paper package.

One of my new acquisitions is Nina Siegal's A little trouble with the facts which I read cover to cover in a single day. It's a wonderfully witty story about once high-flying Style reporter Valerie Vane who tries to redeem herself as a serious journalist by investigating the murder of a well-known graffiti artist. You will probably not have heard of Nina Siegal yet as this is her debut novel. I didn't just stumble upon her book either. Nina moved to Amsterdam around the same time I moved away from there and nearly ended up living in my apartment. She is still living in Amsterdam, working on her second novel. If she manages to capture Amsterdam in the same way she did the world of journalism she has definitely got a new fan.

Two other of my more recent reads that deserve mention come in the direct aftermath of my Ghana trip. My trip to Elmina prompted several of you to recommend Arthur Japin's De zwarte met het witte hart. I have just finished it and wish I had read it before going to Ghana. It's a poignant tale, based on a true story, about two Ashanti princes uprooted from their familiar world to be educated in the Netherlands. The two boys respond very differently to this new and often unwelcoming environment. Reading it made me feel much the same way as I did walking around Elmina castle. Embarrassed about a past that isn't quite mine yet somehow also is.

The other book is Giles Bolton's Poor Story. Working for the same organisation that was the reason for my own trip, Bolton explores why Africa keeps getting shortchanged in the global economy and why our aid money is not being used in the most effective way. The latter issue is particularly interesting to me as it reverberates with one of the projects I am currently working on. In the mean time, the one bookcase that occupies my shoe box has become so full that even double parking my books is no longer a solution. I better go easy on those brown paper packages for a while.

Easter snooze

Sorry I dropped off the radar (read: RSS feed) there for a bit but I do have a really good excuse. That is, I have been not busy enough. Uh? Not busy enough? Indeed. I have been too lazy rather than too busy.

To my pleasant surprise my employer has been generous enough to add on two more days to what was already a blissfully long Easter weekend. I haven't set foot in the office since last Wednesday and don't have to go back until tomorrow. Don't get me wrong -I like my job- but after weeks of 10 hour days and deadlines that are somehow always yesterday it is really nice to have a break.

My initial thoughts were that I should make the most of this time by getting out of London. Prohibitive flight prices quickly put an end to that notion. Then I figured I should explore London further; walk around, maybe see a museum or two, stimulate my cultural side. The miserable weather has been my perfect excuse not to do any of that. Instead I have spent many happy hours on my bed, watching lowbrow movies such as Shrek 3 and Harry Potter V, sipping tea and eating chocolate. Comfortable in my cocoon while outside the watery snow flakes dance.

Tomorrow I'll return to my deadlines and long days but today I celebrate the third day of Easter. Now where is my egg?

Hidden treasures

Enough of politics for a little bit, entertaining as it is. It cannot always be about tickling the left side of the brain; the right side needs stimulation too.

Last weekend I ran into a marvelous little treasure in the most unexpected of places. As a surprise for my grandfather's 97th (indeed: 97!) birthday I had flown back to the Netherlands and spent a weekend in my native Amersfoort. I cannot say I feel a lot of kinship with the city but it is undeniably a pretty town. Just how pretty it can be I discovered under the attic beams of the local cobbler! My shoes needed desperate mending and, it being the only pair of shoes I had brought with me, the cobbler was kind enough to fix them for me while I waited. Amazingly, I then learned that he and his twin brother are well-known local artists with a gallery above the store. In socked feet I browsed through their beautiful paintings of an Amersfoort as I have never seen it. Snow covered and idyllic, these paintings evoke images of a time long gone, yet feel as true a reflection of the city as can be. Beautiful colours, wonderful lines.



I'll bet your cobbler can't do that!

Criminal minds

My office operates an open floor plan. On the busiest of days we have about 12 people sharing that space, yet for all those big brains churning it is usually quiet like a crypt, safe for the sound of fingers rattling on keyboards. I don’t particularly like working in dead silence so I do what a lot of us do: I plug in to the radio. To keep my mind properly confused that is usually Dutch radio; staying in touch with what is going on back in the motherland I guess. Most of what I hear only fleetingly passes through my brain and doesn’t stick but today I heard a Postbus 51 commercial that had me lift those fingers of the keyboard and take notice:

"In the Netherlands we are working together to prevent people from developing terrorist thoughts. See what you can do at Nederlandtegenterrorisme.nl."

Please do me a favour and read that again. Notice anything odd? That is right: it doesn’t warn for terrorist actions; it doesn’t even urge you to be watchful for terrorist activity; it says you should be aware of terrorist thoughts. Welcome to the world of the Orwellian Thought Police. I can just imagine the red phones ringing hot with dutiful citizens reporting their neighbours for saying scary things like Allah Akbar or for buying fertiliser, bleach and a kitchen knife. In addition to a debate over freedom of speech, it now seems we also need a debate about freedom of thought.

I wonder what the logical extension of this is. Under what law would we prosecute people for harbouring terrorist thoughts? Perhaps even more importantly: what exactly IS a terrorist thought? Am I having a terrorist thought wondering what it would take to blow up the White House? Or perhaps if I publicly expressed my sympathy for certain undesirable causes? I am considering putting in an order for the Anarchist's Cookbook just to see what happens.

Would it be a coincidence that this message hits the airwaves just as paranoia is reaching uncharted heights? A penny for your thoughts.

Nothing to fear but fear itself

... the only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural address, 1933

As with many famous quotes this one too has taken on a life of its own to brake free from its context. President Roosevelt uttered these words to persuade the American people that the power to overcome the Great Depression was within them, if only they stopped being paralysed by fear of the Depression. It is essentially the circular reasoning of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you stop being afraid, that what you are afraid of will go away. Economic theory holds that there is something to be said for Roosevelt's call to confidence. Recession and economic downturn are very much dependent on the mood of the day and much less so on cold, hard facts and figures. The question is if it holds true in other sectors as well.

Michael Moore built an interesting, albeit somewhat oversimplified, case in his award-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine that fear is what is driving American society over the edge: people have guns because they are afraid of people who have guns who are afraid of ... and so on and so on. A self-reinforcing spiral of fear. Fear is also what is gripping the Netherlands these days. Everybody is holding their breath to see what will happen when Geert Wilders' movie Fitna will be released. Nobody really knows yet what this movie is about but it is expected to be a heavy-handed accusation against the Quran and Islam. It is feared that this will incite reactions in the Islamic world similar to that provoked by the Danish cartoons in 2005. There is fear that Dutch embassies in Islamic countries will find themselves under attack, that Dutch business abroad will suffer and that the country itself has a bullseye for terrorist attack painted on its back.

I am not naive. I know there are people out there crazed and outraged enough to cross the line between lawful, proportionate opposition and unlawful, disproportionate action. I lived a mere 5 minute walk away from where Theo van Gogh got his throat slit and had a note pinned to his chest warning Ayaan Hirsi Ali that she would be next. One of my former colleagues was startled to learn she had been teaching chemistry to terror suspect Samir A. shortly before his (second) arrest. All this is very real. Still, I cannot help but wonder if we are building our own self-fulfilling prophecy with this mass hysteria. The message it seems to be sending is that this movie is apparently such a big deal that it calls for a likewise response.

I am a firm believer in freedom of speech so if Wilders wants to make his movie, that is fine by me. I am, on the other hand, also a firm believer in the freedom to ignore that speech. Can't we all just shrug our shoulders over this and agree everybody is entitled to their opinion even if we don't agree? If only we could all stop being so afraid of each other...

Another year goes by

A year ago today I used this blog to draw attention to the kidnapping of Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian presidential candidate fighting for a better future for her country. One year on she is still being held somewhere in the Colombian jungle. Her campaign manager and friend Clara Rojas was recently released after a much publicised intervention by the Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. This has sparked renewed hope that Ingrid Betacourt too might be released soon. The truth, however, is that the two women were separated by the FARC a long time ago and nothing is known about the current whereabouts of Betancourt. Footage released some time last year shows her looking gaunt and severely worn down by the now 6 years of captivity she has had to endure but at least it showed she is still alive.

It s difficult to imagine what her family and that of all the other hostages are going through. We can only hope that by the time another year has gone by, Ingrid Betancourt and all the others will have been reunited with their families.

Home sweet home?

Well, that's it. I'm back in grey London which feels markedly colder than when I left it almost two weeks ago. I am still feeling a bit shell-shocked to be back here, having only so recently been sweating it out under the sub-Saharan sun. I spent yesterday paying one last tribute to Accra by visiting the 'tourist attractions'. It does give you a good feel for how far behind the local tourist industry still is that I managed to do all this in just about three hours and that was on foot.

The National Arts Centre is a highly inflated name for what is basically an open craft market where you can buy wood carvings, beadwork and above all kente. I had no intention of buying but wondered around a bit nonetheless. Although window shopping alone is of course not much appreciated by the local stall holders, I was surprised how easily they gave up when I made it clear I was only looking. The Istanbul Bazaar was much harder to navigate. I paid tribute to Ghana's founding father at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial and tried to get close to Osu Castle. Unfortunately, the presence of a certain someone in Ghana made it impossible to navigate this part of the city with police patrolling everywhere. The Ghana National Museum, finally, turned out to be a rather odd assembly of Ghanaian artefacts mixed with random replicas of Greek statues. Much as I encourage you all to visit Ghana, I would recommend you aim to spend not too much time just in Accra.

And now I am home. At least, I am back in London. It's a bit strange to call it home for I have actually spent more nights in my Accra hotel than I have in my current room so far! And there I had a nice shower and WiFi access, two things that are still lacking where I live. At the current weak dollar it is even cheaper. Still though, I cannot deny that I am quite happy to be back in the land of plenty.

The End of a Journey

It is my last day here in Ghana. I have finished my interviews, which means I am a free woman today. My flight is a redeye so I don’t have to be at the airport until late this evening. My hotel, on the other hand, is kicking me out by noon so I will have much time left to explore Accra one more time before I head back to cooler climates. Having meandered my way through the city for over a week I feel I have seen much of what there is to see. Even my souvenir shopping is largely done already as I am not inclined to stuff my –shoebox sized– room any further with wood carvings and also, Accra is not exactly the Walhalla of shopping. I will probably head over to visit some of the last things on my must-see list.

During my time here, I have shared much of what I saw with you but the number of impressions exceeded what I could keep up with in this blog. Just to give you a flavour of the things I was not able to write about:

• The first time somebody makes that hissing ssshh sound at you, you find it offensive. Soon enough though you realise it is simply the Ghanaian way of saying ‘hey’ to get your attention.

• Ghanaians drive Dutch cars. I don’t mean Dutch brands (are there any?) but vans that actually still have the Dutch advertisements printed on them: Verse vis van Vishandel Smit or Loodgietersbedrijf Jansen, een vertrouwde naam. It turns out there is a lively trade in second-hand vehicles between the Netherlands and Ghana!

• A smoking ban would not meet with any resistance here. In fact, it would go practically unnoticed: Ghanaians just don’t smoke. Even drinking appears to be uncommon. Given the sheer number of homeless people I have seen, it is remarkable to see so few drunks or druggies. Every country has its own set of problems I suppose.

• Coca-Cola rules the world. Even in the tiniest of villages along the road, stalls are still covered in those red-and-white advertisements. On the local TV I saw a villager in the North of Ghana being interviewed about the draught there. He shrugged and answered they always still had Coca-Cola and, if necessary, he would wash himself with it. That’s the power of marketing for you.

I could go on but basically I think you should come experience it for yourselves. I have found Ghana, at least the part of it I have visited, to be very accessible and welcoming to strangers. Even for a woman travelling on her own, Ghana feels quite safe. Unfortunately I have not had a chance to see the fabled beaches further east but I have been told they are breathtaking and worth a visit in itself. Ghana does not yet have the developed tourist industry of, for instance, Thailand but it makes up for that in authenticity if that is what you are after. The current government has committed itself to making Ghana a middle-income country by 2015. Having seen some of the country for myself I don’t consider that a very realistic target but one that certainly deserves a try. Tourism is perhaps one way of helping it get there.