It was the scary excitement I only remember experiencing when I was a little girl. Like when we would play hide and seek in the middle of the night during primary school camp. But actually, a bit more of an excitement of something you knew were not supposed to be doing as a child. Like looking in all the closets of other peoples bedrooms (would there be something sex related??) Or like copying someones answers in a test while the teacher was walking behind you.
But this time the children were 30 and 34 and sneaking around inside the UN building in the evening. There was nobody there, except one poor man hoovering every single chair of the room of the United Nations General Assembly. But he had left the door open. So when he turned his back we sneaked in and looked around in the massive room with the hundreds of chairs. We whispered and shivered. We were standing in the room on top of the Security Council, where hundreds of resolutions have passed or where rejected. Where life changing decisions on the future of people and countries were made.

We pretended to be the Netherlands’ and Ghanaian delegation (or was it the Russians, for the historians amongst us?).

















Then we hesitantly walked up to the speaker’s desk on the stage. The place where Kofi Annan used to stand. Where he stood when he called for action on how by 2015 we should reach the Millennium Development Goals and have made the world a better place to live for all of us.
It felt weird standing there, knowing that Kennedy once stood on those same cm2 too. And Gorbatsjov and more recently Obama. People who changed history. I gently touched the wood they must have touched as well while they were speeching and tried to imagine what they might have thought and how they felt. I imagined they were nervous, knowing that the whole world was watching them. I already felt tremendously intimidated and fairly awkward. And the cleaning man hoovering the chairs wasn’t even watching me.

sweat and sour home

I violated the number one blog rule: Write on your blog at least once a week or you lose all your readers.

But I think I had some good excuses. I turned 30, again, drove around beautiful Friesland in an old VW camper van and all my friends were camping in my parents garden and surprised me (and made me cry with happiness twice). My sweet grandma passed away and we had to organise a funeral with good wine and food to honour her life. And then I went to New York, the city where it’s just impossible to find time to check your emails or write quietly on my blog. I did a great course at the New York University, but besides that –or should I say more importantly- I enjoyed three weeks of uninterrupted loving company of my dependant spouse (official UN terminology for the greatest boyfriend on earth).

Needless to say I wasn’t overjoyed to wake up this morning alone and jetlagged and ready for work. On the bright side however, my dear colleagues lifted me up and spun me around in circles and for once didn’t say I gained weight after travelling. Besides, it’s much cooler here than the heat wave of New York and the road people have been starting to fix the scary potholes on my way to work. So, cleaning out my inbox now, unpack my new clothes and enjoying quiet Accra-life with lots of sleep.

Nu nog even alles wat op de grond ligt in mijn slaapkamer in een koffer proppen en ik ben er klaar voor. Niet vergeten scheermesjes uit de badkamer te halen. En oordopjes in handbagage te stoppen. En paspoorten te checken. En verder wat meer lokaal gerelateerde dingen doen als teiltje onder lekkend dak zetten, een trui zoeken ergens deep down under in mijn kast om mee te nemen, m'n eigen vuvuzela kopen en etensvoorraad afsluiten voor levensgrote kakkerlakken.

Oranje oase, fasten your seatbelts as I’m on my way!

30

Turning 30 is the best thing you can possibly imagine. At least in my case. I loaded my car with girls and took off to the beach. There we met some more lovely ladies -and a few men- ate chunks of cheese and watched the sunset. No cleaning up the next morning, no puke in the bathroom, no ash in your bed. I wasn't even the tipsy running hostess on heels that I normally am at my own parties. Instead, I reached this rare euphoric stage of happiness that occurs when you have your friends around you, there are boogy boards, waves and of course Kelly's homemade apple crumble.

Cheers to the belly botton

The 19th of June is my new years' eve. I contemplate on my year, I make plans like drinking less on school days and going for runs more often and I check with myself whether I’m on the right track.

This years new year’s eve is going to be too busy for that though. Not only will there be 2 football matches to watch Saturday, I’m also going to sleep in a beach hut with a lovely group of friends (and a lot of wine). So I pre-contemplated today and made some resolutions and plans for the new year and the new decade.

First of all I started with something radical. I took out my belly button piercing. Wanted to do that for a long time, but wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this one and only tiny little teenage rebel action. But the thought of being a woman in her thirties with a Britney Spears piercing suddenly made me rip out the whole thing this morning.

The rest of the plans are all simple. I am going adapt to the African time mentality of taking it easy and not thinking too much about tomorrow, let alone next year. I do however allow myself my secret pleasure of looking at funda.nl and dreaming about my future married life with 2 kids and a rose garden. Other new year’s resolutions:

I will dye my hair as soon as I find one grey hair. I will start cleaning my face after wearing make-up (starting when I don’t live on the equator anymore, here I gave up make-up in a minute). I will go dancing more often. I will spend more on food and good wine. And most importantly, I’m going to try to keep living the life I want and not settle for less. Cheers!

Go Black Stars!

Weinig prullaria hier. Een paar tshirs en van die toeters die iedereen nu blijkt te hebben. Jammer trouwens, die toeters. Ik hou meer van meezingen en het meedoen met de wave vanuit je huiskamer/cafe of waar ik dan ook kijk. Maar alles lijkt nu platgetoeterd te worden.

Tshirt die je hier kan kopen zijn zeer curieus. Er staat meestal de naam op van de beste Ghanese speler, maar die is nu geblesseerd. Schijnt te komen omdat zijn vader boos is dat hij hem niet genoeg geld geeft. De goeierd had z’n pa wel een huis gegeven, maar dat was te weinig en nu is het algemeen bekend dat de vader de knie van zijn zoon heeft bevoodood. Dat klinkt angstaanjagend en dat is het ook. Hij kan 6 maanden niet spelen de stakker. En er schijnen echt prikpoppetjes, mensenharten en vermalen apenschedels aan te pas te komen.

Maar goed. Straks dus wedstrijd van de Black Stars onder het genot van een biertje en wat geiten kebab. Hopelijk helpt mijn eigen voodoo (duimen), want denk dat het een fantastisch feest gaat worden als ze winnen.

SATC2

‘Did you put on some weight?’, my colleague asks and she smiles. ‘I would swear you got a little bigger’. I know, I have written about this phenomenon before, but I’m still not used to the shocking bluntness. Of course by this time I know how to react appropriately. I smile back, say I love the food too much here (yeah right) and call my friends to have a strictly non-Ghanaian girls night where we all tell each other we look fabulous. And nothing else.

And this time we actually had a great occasion.

Worldwide groups of over excited women have been queuing these past two weeks to see the new Sex and the City movie. As even Accra has a movie theater (also known as ‘the cool box’, due to the airco that is always on 15 degrees) we put on our highest heels and got all in the mood to meet up with our 4 old friends. And old they were. Plastic surgery literally was in your face. We laughed and gossiped, criticized and discussed afterwards the outfits and the haircuts, the botox and the shoes. It didn’t look like any of them ‘got a little bigger’ though. But who cares about those things anyways. The movie lacked any kind of story line, but with my almost- Manolo-Blahniks from Invito and a group of fantastic, glamorous women around me; what else do you need than a cosmo?