Day 7 - Rain, Potholes, and Other Random Items

Today has been a pretty low key day, hence I can get caught up on talking about some of the random things that I have noticed down here.

Rain - When it rains here, it rains. There isn't your wimpy little "a few drops here and a few drops there." Can you say torrential downpour? When it rains here, everything shuts down. It is almost as if time stood still (except of course for the people who are out walking along the roads and have to continue on in the rain). This morning we had one such of these rain storms. Luckily for us, we were inside when it happened. We were sitting here when all of a sudden it hit. It was almost as if the spigot was turned on. We hurried to shut our windows before the rain got blown in. The power was out several times today. Luckily today it was cooler, but many days when the power goes out we sweat to death because the fans can't be run. This will be discussed in a later post, but only one small room of where we are staying has a/c. It is the room where the batteries are charged, hence the need to keep the room cool. Andrew and I have a ceiling fan in our bedroom, and it does a decent job to keep the air circulating.

The roads here could use some serious repair. Regardless of where you drive, you are bound to encounter many a potholes in the road. Andrew (who has an engineering background) tells me that the reason is because of the way that the pavement is laid. Whereas pavement in the US is 8+ inches thick, here it is only 2 inches, hence it has a tendency to break easier. As you are driving down the road, you have to constantly dodge the potholes. This past weekend as we were driving, I was given the nickname of fighter pilot, primarily because of the way that I drove (i.e. dodging all of the potholes). It probably didn't hurt that I was dressed up in my green safari shirt with tan khakis. In addition, I asked by a local if I was a marine. Go figure!!!!

So here the local Ghanaians call white people Obroni (pronounces o bro knee). When we walk down the street, the little kids will run up to us and call us obronis. It is interesting.

So I finally had a chance to sit down with Whit today and learn a little more about the main project that I will be working on. Burro has been operating for a little over a year. The business is starting to generate some traction and will possibly be looking to raise some funding at some point within the next 6 months. I have been tasked with the responsibility to help them prepare for this round of funding that they may look to raise. First and foremost, I will be helping them to prepare their 5 year financial forecasts. From there, I will help them put together some presentations so that they can pitch the company and possibly look to raise the round of funding.