MONDAY

05|24|10

Today was our first day into Cape Coast for work. The sun falls and rises very early so waking up early isn’t a problem. Up at 5am and went for a walk down the road into Elmina with Nick. It was really refreshing and I think it is something that I want to continue doing while I’m here. We took a taxi into town which takes around ten minutes depending on the traffic. When you hail a taxi you must point in the direction of where you’re going. Once a cab comes up you have to first ask if it is shared, if it isn’t shared it will cost more money. If the cab is shared you must tell them that you will pay 80 pesewa; anything more and their trying to rip you off. Once you’re in you have to tell them to drop you off at Becanu. This is a central spot that they all know which is close to the office.
The Global Mama’s office building is in an old church, the architecture is really interesting. The building is two levels and the surrounding garden is large and fenced in. We met a lot of the staff, mostly the quality control crew. There is one office which is air-conditioned; this is only to keep the computers cool so they don’t crash. They use that office to talk to the US office and to make and follow different orders.
After a quick look around one of the quality control workers, George took us around Cape Coast to show us around to help us get acquainted. Our building is off the road closest to the sea. We are very close to the Victoria square; this is similar to an outdoor auditorium where people can gather for festivals or to listen to public speakers. It also looks like they play football matches here. Continuing along we stopped at the Oasis which is a bar and restaurant. It is right off the water and is a good place to watch live acts like acrobats and drummers. We took a stroll from the Oasis onto the beach. There was a large crowd gathered and we were intrigued to see what they were up to. We found that they were all fishermen and they were going through their nets to see what they had found. One boy had grabbed a crab out of the net and they seemed to want to get rid of it. I bravely held it, only long enough to take a picture though because it began to wriggle a lot and I wasn’t going to get nipped.
Next we headed towards the Cape Coast Castle, its 9.50 Cedi to take a tour which I will like to do very soon. We continued walking in through town. All of the streets look the same, lined with mini shops selling mostly the same things. I can’t begin to tell you how intense the streets and market are. There are people everywhere trying to sell you anything they can. The smells are rather intense aswell. The sewers are open on every street so the smell is overwhelming. People use them as toilets and as a place to throw garbage. They are also a feeding ground for the street animals. These sewers make it for really dangerous walking conditions. Cars on the street drive so close to you; they’re constantly beeping, I think sometimes for no good reason too. So while you’re trying to ignore the people talking to you and trying to sell you things you also have to watch out to not get hit by cars all while watching where you step because the last thing you want to do is fall into one of those sewers. Most of them are not that deep(maybe a foot or two) so the fall wouldn’t b too bad. But I can visualize myself walking into one and cutting my legs open and getting some horrible infection from whatever is floating in them.
I forgot my water bottle so today was the first day I tried a Pure Water. They are small .5 liter sacks of purified water. To drink them you bite off a corner and suck. Some of the main places we stopped were at the supermarket, the Heritage House, the market and the fruit stand. The supermarket reminds me of the flea market back home; they had wide variety of thing you can buy; we mainly go there for food items. The Heritage House sticks out among the rest of the buildings here. It looks rather new and well kept. Here is where you go if you are trying to plan a trip somewhere. We stopped in to ask about Kakum National Rainforest and to see when would be a good time to go. The market will probably be a place I don’t frequent often. The overwhelming smells of meat and fish are too much for me. I would like to go back at some point though because with the meat and fish there was also an abundance of fresh vegetables which looked really tasty. George took us to see the lady that they buy fruit from and the bread lady. For just one Cedi you can get a fresh mango and she’ll cut it up there for you. You can also get watermelon, passion fruit, apples, oranges and bananas. The bread here is also very cheap (one small loaf for 60 Pesewa). On some days if your too busy to leave the office George told us that there is a woman that brings watermelon and bread directly to the office.
After seeing Cape Coast we took a short break before we learnt more about the Quality Control Process. Walking around in the sun makes you more tired than expected. The workers first must inspect the fabrics for dying problems. If there are any inconsistancies in the dye or the color doesn’t match close enough to the desired color the fabric isn’t suitable. Also if the print has any inconsistancies a section is then taped off and the seamstress knows to try work around it. Once the seamstress sews the product the product has to go through inspections to make sure that all the sizing is correct. Each measurement must be within ¼ inch of the pattern. The workers also check the seams and zippers to make sure there aren’t any imperfections. Each piece of fabric and garment goes through every inspection twice, first through the men’s inspection and then the women will go back and inspect again. They say they do this because the women will pick out what the men didn’t notice. Any of the products that have imperfections cannot go out in an order and will end up at the Global Mama’s store and be sold for a little bit cheaper.


Our first assignment was to fix a problem on the existing Meredith dress. The US office had said that there were complains that the fit around the neckline and shoulders wasn’t fitting well and the sleeves fell down easily; the armhole was also too small. The US office asked if we could fix the order which was to be sent out at the end of the week. Once we came up with a plan the new pattern would be sent off to the seamstress where she would have to take the dress apart and use the new pattern pieces we altered. For the last part of the day we discussed how we could come up with the quickest and most efficient way to solve the issue. Once we decided what to do we re-patterned the piece before we left. Tuesday is Africa United national holiday so we wanted to make sure that the alterations were given to the seamstress by Monday so the new Meredith dress would be ready by Wednesday when we were back at the office. Before we left one of the women came round selling this ice-pop bag. It was frozen ginger and watermelon juice. It was incredible!!
That night when we got home Ellen gave us our first Fante lesson. We learned how to pronounce each letter of their alphabet and learned the numbers one through ten. I’m looking forward to learning more from Ellen. After lessons we made our way over to Eli’s spot where we had Gari Fotor for dinner. On the way I grabbed a Cider to drink with dinner from the corner shop. It is a spicy vegetable stew with gari. The only way I can explain what gari is like would be to say that it’s somewhat like a dry couscous. Dinner was really great, and filling. Each night we have been going to bed just after dinner. The sun goes down really early and since the days are really long we are all wiped by 8 or 9 o’clock.