Day 12 - The Ghanaian Sports Bar

We have settled into a bit of a routine now that we are into our second week.  Breakfast is served in the hotel lobby.    Depending on whether we are going into Accra or working from the ECG training centre up the road our breakfast time varies.  One of the larger tables is "our" table so you can generally find someone to eat breakfast with.  Then off to our individual assignments

After work we generally meet up somewhere around 7 or 7:30 for dinner.  Our Chief Fun Officer (CFO) aka Francis, our liaison officer, is generally available to choose an eating establishment, hail down the 3 cabs required to get us all there, negotiate a price with the cab driver and direct the driver to the correct location. 
However today the routine changed a bit.  It seems that 3 of the 4 guys on the team had left early to visit a local the pub.  Apparently there was a not-to-be missed soccer game starting around 7:00 PM It was a Champions League game - Arsenal versus Barcelona.

The rest of the team joined the guys while the game was in process.  You can picture a male dominated sports bar, all captivated by TVs suspected in the corner of the bar all cheering loudly for their teams and jeering their bar mates who happen to be cheering for the opposite team.  It was a familiar scene for any Canadian hockey fans - only this was Ghana and the sport was soccer. 

The 3 original pub patrons
Ranga (India), Jorge (Mexico), Denis (Brazil)

Now picture the rest of the CSC team entering this same bar.  Our CSC team is primarily females and can be compared to the league of nations.  Nine of us entered together (2 from Germany, 2 from Canada, 1 from India, 1 from Japan, 1 from USA 1 from China and our Ghanaian liaison officer).  I think the restaurant management were surprised to see us, to say the least!  I don't recall seeing another female person in the bar prior to our arrival.

The rest of the CSC team in the sports bar

The bar owners deserve huge credit for accommodating us - they rearranged tables and patrons and pulled in chairs from storage.  The pub's menu even included burgers and fries!

I'm not sure which team won - (Kerstin, my German counterpart, says it was Barcelona) but there was much celebration by one group of patrons and disappointment in the faces of the others.  But for the CSC team, it was tremendous fun for all!  And so ended another day in Ghana.