accident-free days
I am back in Accra, and officially on 20 accident-free days. Hannah has outpaced me and is currently on 40. Impressive. (The row of zeroes on my side of the chart, as previously explained, denote the days I spent being too nauseous to stand up, which meant they didn’t officially count as days of any kind.) Also impressive was Hannah’s first tortilla, which she cooked today with me stepping in every now and again to add massive amounts of salt.
Hannah's first tortilla
Auntie hates seeing the salt go in the pan, but likes the tortilla when it’s done. She can’t figure out where the salt goes. We think it may be magic.
Accra is less hot, since it’s now the rainy season, but much wetter even when it’s not raining. The air is wet. Ick.
I am recuperating and getting ready to go back to Tamale on Sunday. Then to the Upper East region on Tuesday, probably, to go and do my survey in Bolgatanga, Bawku, possibly Garu, and Navrongo. More buses… my favourite. But it’s nice to be in our room in Accra, and not to be sick.
My achievement for today has been to get a new modem, one that works this time. Tigo’s GPRS proved useless at normal times of day – as with the internet cafes, you can only get online at times when few people were trying to connect, ideally between 4 and 6.30am. But fortunately my GPRS modem was stolen – it was the only thing I was happy to lose. Now I am using a bright shiny 3G modem from HSDPA, which cost me 100 cedis less than the useless Tigo effort. I got a regular sim card from Zain, whose new network has the most chance of actually allowing one more than a dial-up speed for data transfer, and for 25 cedis a month I am able to actually connect and do normal things such as check my email. So Linnet 1, Ghana 0. At least for today.
Filed under: Accra, March | Tags: connectivity, Ghana, GPRS, technology, Tigo
I went down to Tigo today in search of GPRS. I had been reading bloggers’ updates on the GPRS situation while I was in England last year, and had figured it would cost me an arm and a leg. Which it does – but only to get connected. Once you have the modem (250 cedis) and the sim (77 cedis, of which 60 are credit you can use) it’s really cheap – 1.50 cedis a day, with no restrictions on either time online or data. There appear to be three providers who do GPRS in Ghana at the moment, Tigo, MTN, and OneTouch. They all offer much the same deal, about 300 cedis to get going, then post-paid access where you use what you use, then they email you a bill the next month. The modem is unlocked and can be used anywhere, so in theory when I get back to the UK I can get a sim for it and use it there. Although I think the UK has the broadband version, and this is dial-up, so I would probably keep it for Ghanaian use.
I got Tigo because I heard they had the best coverage up north. Castro, the guy who set up my modem for me (take your laptop to the store and have them do it for you, don’t try this at home) had had the task of going all over northern Ghana with his laptop, checking that you could get reception everywhere, and apparently you can. Fortunately, he had noticed internet cafes on his way – it turns out I have to go all the way to the Ivoirian border, as there are a couple right there. It should be interesting – between Tamale and the border is the country’s biggest wildlife park. I’ll get to see elephants!
Anyway, GPRS good. Elephants good. Generally, a productive day.
In other news, it looks as if the rains are coming early this year in the north. The districts up there are investing in boats to rescue people. Perhaps I should get a dinghy…
