Day 18 - Kerstin's near collision

We spend today working at the ECG training centre which is approximately 10 minutes walk down the  road from our hotel in Tema.  Despite various offers by ECG to pick us up and drop us off, we have been walking the distance ourselves to get some exercise. 

Today, Kerstin and I were the only two from our 6 person team to work from the ECG training center.  The day was quite frustrating because the power went out around 10:30 AM and did not come back on until shortly before 2.  In Canada if the power was out that long it would make news headlines.  Here everyone just shrugs and goes about their work as best as they can.  We worked until our laptop batteries gave out on us then went shopping.  The irony of the situation is that our client is the Electrical Company of Ghana.

The power came back on around 2 so we were able to get some work done in the afternoon.  We left work shortly after 5 PM to head back to the hotel.

Our travels to and from work take us along a worn pathway on the side of the road.  On our way home this evening there were 3 men walking towards us - they were in their early 20s and fairly well dressed.  Kerstin and I were deep in conversation and did not pay much attention to them. 

As we got closer to the 3 men, the one man said something to his buddies and 2 of them  carried on towards us.  The third man, stopped, loosened his pants, turned his back to the traffic and began urinating!  He was standing smack in the middle of the path we need to walk on and was barely 10 feet in front of us.  He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that 2 women were walking towards him.

In order for us not to get Pee'd on we had to veer off the worn path  which put me into Kerstin's path and Kerstin onto the road.  As luck would have it, a bicyclist was passing by us at just the same moment so Kerstin's untimely venture onto the road almost caused an accident.  The bicyclist yelled, with arms and legs flailing    Kerstin screamed and jumped back onto the path .  By this time our urinating male friend had finished emptying his bladder and gone merrily along his way completely unaware of the chain of events that he had caused.  Kerstin and I laughed so hard we had to stop walking before we resumed our trek back to the hotel.

Kerstin by the ECG training centre
you can see the walking path in the backgorund

Back at the hotel, our misadventures have become known as our "peeing man incident".  In honour, we have started a new list where we now record how often we come across urinating men on the streets.  Only in Africa!!