Friday was as dry as dust. The sun never fully emerged from the hazy milky sky, and remained a pale white disc. The outline of the mountain was barely visible as a slightly greyer patch against the sky. There has not been a drop of rain since I returned from the Christmas rain. The washing I had put out to dry in the passageway on Thursday evening already felt bone dry to the touch and had taken on the reassuring texture of cardboard.

After cocoa and porridge I worked on my laptop for a little over an hour, finishing off summaries of the cocoa growing community interviews we carried out before Christmas. This had been hanging over me since my return and only a number of more pressing matters had prevented me from completing them sooner. There was a brief break in the power supply while I worked, but my battery had enough charge for this not to be a problem. I walked over to the Department of Agriculture offices in the Ministries complex with my pen drive, so that the notes could be printed and photocopied in advance of the next project team meeting. The director had travelled north for the week and I would need to find William to arrange the copying. The extension officers had gathered for their regular meeting and were sitting chatting in the conference room. There was no sign of the meeting started. Part out of concern for my health and part out of curiosity about the mysterious life of an ‘obruni’, they asked me if and what I had eaten this morning. My answer was satisfactory and they told me that William was at the department’s e-commerce centre further up Ministries Road.

I found William with a couple of the department’s national service personnel. They were having a reading day, William explained. The computer was being serviced and they reckoned it would be able to take my pen drive by noon. I left, saying I would return then. They said they would be reading until three.

I walked over to the bike workshop near the Shell filling station. Last spring David, from the U.S. organisation, Bikes not Bombs, arrived in town. With some support from the Emmanuel Foundation he set up a bike workshop with the aim of training some of the local persons with disabilities (PWDs) to maintain and build bicycles and eventually run their own business. Much of the funding comes from donated bicycles collected by Bikes not Bombs (http://www.bikesnotbombs.org/) in America. Containers full of bicycles are sent to Ghana. Part of each shipment is sold immediately to local bike dealers to provide capital to the run the workshop and the rest are worked on by the trainees.

I knew a new shipment was due from the port at Tema, but it had actually arrived at 1 am that morning. By the time I arrived, the lorry had been unloaded and the yard was full of hundreds of bikes – racers, mountain bikes, hybrids, children’s bikes and even a tandem. I offered to come back later and help move the remaining bikes into the workshop store. I bought a Daily Graphic – more news of President Mills’ cabinet selection and emerging details of the previous government’s controversial management of the economy – and returned to the house. I changed my clothes. I had been wearing a batik shirt for traditional dress Friday, but put on faded T shirt and shorts for handling the bikes.

I returned to the town centre and deposited the computer files on the Department of Agriculture machine. It turned out for some reason I could not entirely fathom, the copying would have to wait until the Director’s return on Monday. I bought yam chips and pepper sauce and ate them before returning to the workshop. Although only a couple of dealers had been told about the delivery, nearly every dealer in the district must have arrived by now. The bikes were being piled up around the site as sales were negotiated. David was pleased with the amount they would make and how little he had to get involved in the process. There were some lively debates between the dealers but it all ended amicably. The dealers began to remove their purchases. Some were wheeled away individually, others were stacked precariously on hand carts and dragged out, some ended up in the back of Astra estate taxis (maximum load of about 7 bikes) and the majority left in piles on flat bed trucks. I helped carry the remainder into the store. By 5 pm, the yard was empty again. When I arrived David had offered his wrist rather than his oily hand to shake. When I left, my hand was nearly as grubby as his so we shook.

We made arrangements for him to meet me at St Joseph’s Hospital the following morning. The previous week I had travelled to Accra in the hospital ambulance to collect ten wheelchairs being temporarily stored at the VSO office. Behi, a VSO volunteer in the Central Region, had met the donor and had marshalled requests for chairs from other volunteers in the south of Ghana. Unfortunately the chairs had had a somewhat protracted stay with the customs authorities at Tema, but they had finally been released. The chairs were essentially in flat pack form and David had agreed to help me assemble them. It looked like they would be relatively easy to put together, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

It was dusk by now. The sun had turned a pale orange, and the sky had taken on a rather thick yellowish tinge. I crossed Jackson Park and headed for home. I seem to live on the route to almost every school in town and groups of children in assorted primary coloured uniforms seem to spend the entire day milling around and drifting back and forth. Most are keen to politely greet me – “Good evening. How are you?”, “Good evening. I am fine. How are you?”, “We are fine” - and some want to embark on more in detailed conversions. Sometimes we exchange names (one member of the group is usually called ‘Richard’. He is pushed forward, he smiles and looks sheepish) and they ask my address. At this point I usually say I live here and point vaguely in the direction of my house. I have yet to receive a deputation of schoolchildren, but at some point my luck will run out.

Despite the odd sachet of water during the day, the Harmattan left my mouth completely dry. I stopped at the bottled drink store. I asked for a cold Pepsi. A bottle from the chiller box was produced and opened. I was invited to sit in the one available chair. I sat and drank, put the bottle in the empties crate and paid the 40 Gp. As I turned the final corner for home and an evening meal, I waved at the tailor working at his sewing machine on the first floor balcony of his house. He waved back. Until recently he worked in a ramshackle, wooden construction beside the road, but just before Christmas it was demolished and now the foundations for a more substantial building have been laid. His twin daughters waved too, just tall enough to see over the balcony wall. They are always identically dressed and, having a tailor for a father, usually in something different. They are always excited to see me and jump up and down. Sometimes they are too excited to even shout, “obruni, obruni, obruni”. We waved and smiled and after a few moments they started to say “Bye. Bye”. I took this as my cue that the conversation had ended and it was time for me to move on.