KMJ travels

I spent today staffing our CFO, Alex, as he went on various meetings with financial folks in the Accra area.  I had anticipated just hanging out in the car with Ron while he went on his meetings, but he actually invited me to join them which was nice and turned out to be pretty interesting.

Our first stop was EcoBank, a regional bank throughout west Africa and slowly moving through the rest of the continent.  We arrived at the bank a few minutes early and checked in at the reception desk.  20 minutes later when nothing had happened, I checked back in with the receptionist - “oh, his office is in the other building.”  Right.  Next door we went, now 15 minutes late, and they kept us waiting an additional 10 minutes.  Finally we got it in.  The is an example of our phrase of the trip:  TIA = This is Africa.  When the unexplainable happens, TIA.

Next stop was the US Embassy, where we met with Susan, the chief Econ person, currently on a 2-year post in Ghana.  The US Embassy is a huge compund, fairly new - just opened in June 2007.  It looks like a huge american government building.  Entering security we had to present our passports and surrender any electronics (cell phones, ipods, cameras).  Crazy.  Susan was an interesting person to meet.  She is actually from the Eastside and went to UW.  She is also a former Olympic figure skater, having competed in the 1976 and 1980 games for Italy.  I can’t believe she grew up in the northwest though - she had this incredible frenetic energy that had both Alex and I thinking she should be a New Yorker.

 After the embassy visit, we went to Le Tandem for lunch and then over to this big Artists Gallery to do some shopping before our final stop of the day, the Bank of Ghana.  Again we arrived a few minutes early which was valuable as it was quite a maze of stairs, halls and elevators to get to the Deputy Governor’s office.  Once we finally made it up there at 3:00pm, his assistant greeted us with a stern “We expected you at 11:00am.”  We both made a couple of apologies as I pulled out my packet of notes to check things out.  Luckily Carly was on the top of her game as always and had provided me with printed confirmation letters for all three meetings, including this one, signed by Anna, saying they would be delighted to see us at 3:00pm.  Anna responded with a big “hmmmm…” at her mistake.  This final meeting was the most productive of the day I think, and Professor Bawrumia was very engaging.  More improtantly, he had some very cool cuff links - pink and black blown glass it seemed, which matched his black suit and pink tie.

It was neat to sit in on these meetings, and I really appreciated that Alex not only invited me, but engaged me in the conversations as well, especially when it came to global health stuff. 

Back at the hotel, the evening was spent hosting a roundtable discussion with some of our grantees, and then into bed early for our 5:30am departure to Tamale the next morning.