Oprah Out-earns a Country: my birthday and the poverty of a continent
This morning while nursing my mini-hangover (the aftermath of Grey Goose on ice, lots of sushi, unknown quantities of red wine and Irish coffee to finish), I happened upon the bill from my birthday dinner.It turns out that to feed a lovely crew of 12, along with our share of drinks and sweets, we spent the equivalent of 10 months salary of my gardener.Wow, that really puts things in perspective. Filling the bellies of 12 people in one evening… added up to 10 months salary for an average Ghanaian?!Besides feeling like a true Expat – in every spoiled sense of the word – it sparked my interested to take a look at the disparities that abound all around

40 begins with life...
I woke up this morning pretty much like any other. The alarm sounds, we hit snooze for 10 minutes, cherishing every last second of cuddliness before the second alarm, and then the forcing of the feet to hit the floor, stumbling crusty eyed into the washroom. Face wash, pee, brush teeth and so the day begins.

'Tis the season - Ghana supermarket style
When I moved to Ghana all those years ago, I had to leave behind all my Western consumerist obsessions – Diet Coke, Kraft Dinner, chocolate bars - even boxed breakfast cereals for my little boy were things of another world. Firstly, they weren’t available. Second, even if they were, on our volunteer ‘stipend’ we wouldn’t have been able to afford them.But there were always days when, buried in the blur of culture shock, we all longed for a ‘taste of home’. There was a small Lebanese grocery store called Kwatsons that we'd visit, at the top of the Osu main strip, just admiring all the

Toilet Politics, Oil and the Malibu Mansion
I was going to write the other day, on World Toilet Day – which was on Thursday. Not because I wanted to highlight the sad reality that a vast number of people on the continent where I live have no access to proper sanitation, including toilets…I was going to write on that day because I heard, on the same BBC radio broadcast, another story about yet another massively rich, corrupt African stashing his billions abroad.In other news, yesterday I heard the flabbergasting news that the EU is donating $1 BILLION to Nigeria

Death to Uncle Ben!
I make a mean chili (con carne). It’s true (ok, people tell me it’s true so I choose to believe them). And the amazing thing about this fact is that it’s one of the only things I can cook. Well. My culinary skills are quite limited. You’re about to find out just how limited…So it’s a lazy Sunday, the diet starts tomorrow (as usual), and I peel myself off the couch, inspired out of nowhere (but for the looming supper hour approaching), to make some chili. (I am usually off the hook for this task, as we have a cook who comes from Monday to Friday... I know, I know... spoiled).I was humming away to myself in my sauna-cum-kitchen (in the house we inhabit, whi