Chill Out!

Hello everyone! Salut tout le monde!

Well, it's still pretty hot in Accra, seems like the weather here doesn't change much. It's just us, the sun, the heat, the humidity, and at times it cools down with a quick rainfall at night. Overall, it is nice to have the opportunity to go swimming outdoors every day and do the beach on weekends. Eva absolutely LOVES the beach! Playing in the sand and getting burried, making castles, jumping over waves, and all that good fun! She talks about it all the time. Last weekend we drove West (towards Ivory Coast) about 5 hours to stay at the Safari Beach Lodge near Dix Cove & Busua beach. We slept in rustic-style huts, pretty much waking up with our feet in the sand every morning and sleeping with the doors wide open to let the ocean breeze flow in. There was minimal power, no AC, something they call a "toilette seche" (a deep dark hole, that doesn't stink but reminds me of a port-o-potty -V, you'd never be able to use this!), and an open-air shower outdoors - that was nice! It was very nice and relaxing for us to get out of the city although a bit hot and humid to sleep at night for preggers here. I like to sleep in cool air so luckily there was a fan on above us. Charles took friday off as it was a long wkend for Ghana since Sunday was the country's National Day.

Just to add in: Here are a few pictures of Eva and friends at her daycare this Friday celebrating what they call "International Day" in honour of Ghana's National holiday since most of the children attending Gingerbread House come from countries all over the world.

We travelled with 3 other Canadian couples, whom one of the spouses works at the embassy. It was a great way to get to know other nice spots from those who have been here a longer. On the way up, about 3hours out, we stopped at a dairy farm owned by an Australian/Ghanaen couple, that our friends knew sold fresh milk, butter, yogurt and cheese. They breeded Australian with Ghanaen cows to make a sort of hybrid cow that would produce better-tasting, healthier dairy products. And they were right, whenwe got home last week, we tasted everything and it was great! Even fresh milk! We had not tasted any since we've been here. Plus, it gave Eva a little break from the long car ride and let her see the cows.

We spent most of the time on vacation beaching it in the sun and relaxing. Eva and her little friend Alexiane, really enjoyed flying kites for the first time on the beach! They also tortured a poor dying crab, trailing it along on a boogie board. It was cute.

Eva is growing into quite the little lady too! She's starting to understand the meaning of waiting her turn and figuring out the concept of time. Like she'll ask if she can do something "next weekend?" or if we can do it "tomorrow?" things like that. She doesn't fight us as much anymore when she wants something so it's nice to see that she may be growing out of her "terrible twos" sooner than we thought. She's still as obsessed as ever with Dora though, and Princesses, and puppies, ...and babies! I think she's looking forward to having a baby in the house but may not fully grasp the concept yet. By the way, if I haven't mentioned it yet, it looks like it's most probably going to be a girl. So Eva will have a little sister she can play and share everything with. The little one inside of me is starting to kick more and more now. Eva's understanding that she has to be careful not to jump on my belly and mentions things like "for the baby?" often. She is also playing more independently and getting along with Becky (our nanny/maid) much better now.

I have been doing great. I feel much better this time around since being back from my trip to Montreal in Jan-February. No more nausea or morning sickness. It really rejuvenated me and I knew what to expect when I got back to Accra. The crazy order-less lineups, bumper-to-bumper traffic, staring locals, etc... I sortof find myself just shrugging my shoulders at it all. It doesn't bother me as much as it did at the beginning. We are here now, for a limited time, and so we might as well make the best of it while we can. It will be my 30th Bday in 2 wks and we were thinking about having a li'l shin-dig here to celebrate. BBQ and a few friends, should be quiet but fun. It also helps knowing that I am coming back to Canada to spend the summer and we have a big vacation planned for 2-wks beginning of May in Belgium with my parents. We'll all be staying at Charles's parents place in Arlon, on the border of Luxembourg. We will be visiting our friends Julien & Julie (who came to our wedding) in Brussels; maybe get to see Bruges and some other nearby towns and possibly go to Frankfurt to see another couple that are friends of ours from Charles's University days spent living in Marseilles. I think Eva is looking forward to being with ALL 4! mamies and pappies at the same time! What a lucky little girl! :)

I am also starting to work on Monday on a 2-wk contract for the Canadian High Commission. The competition went out last week and I was selected. It involves doing reviews of locally-engaged staffs' medical files, sorting through requests, analyzing, compiling data, and presenting the findings to Charles's boss. Nothing too crazy but it'll give me something to do, a bit of $ and make time go by faster until our departure April 29th. So I am quite happy about starting that and being able to work from home, on my own time. It's quite ideal for the circumstances I am in at this time (being 5 1/2 months pregnant and having to care for Eva afternoons since daycare finishes at 1pm).

Charles has been doing well too. I think he's really looking forward to going on vacation. It'll be his first real one since Christmas. He has been doing a lot of overtime, has even reached his maximum for extra days off so is now cashing it in as he does it. For example today, we are Saturday and he is working all day supervising repairs and whatnot at work. So this weekend Eva and I are taking it easy, chilling out indoors because it gets a bit too hot for me outside all day. We'll probably go to the pool on the compound. We'll make some home-baked bread (...and we may try making bagels), Eva likes cooking with us -FYI, the bread here tastes really bland and sortof empty. They don't make it with milk or eggs, just water, and I'm not even sure if they put butter, so it does'nt have the same consistency or taste as back home.

Next wkend will be a busier one for us, Saturday morning (the 20th) we're bringing Eva to an easter Egg Hunt at the Canadian High Commissioner's residence with lots of other kids and parents from the US and other embassies. Eva will enjoy that. That night, Charles and I will be having dinner just the two of us at the Grasscutters (a British Pub in the UK's embassy) for a special St-Patrick's Day dinner. Becky will babysit Eva for us so we can have a little night out together alone. ANd on Sunday, we have an Art Exhibition to go to at one of Charles's American colleague's house. Should be interesting.

So that's that for the time being! We are doing pretty well apart from the intense heat and a house full of unreliable utilities such as electricity/water/gas/etc. not to mention the things that cease working/break down every week. You just have to laugh and chill out! (plus, I don't really care that much because it isn't really MY house so whatever...).

Take care folks,

Sending you all our love from Accra, living on the generator,
Laura, Charles, Eva (+baby) xoxo ;)