What a Weak

Health Week/ Fitness Week / Budget Week

Sounds like fun right? Well we had to do it. Madeleine (fellow AYAD/housemate/friend) and I embarked on the challenge after money was flowing through our fingers daily, after weeks on end of burgers and pizza and zero exercise (eating/drinking not included in the exercise).

As usual health week was pretty dire and I think we made it until Tuesday, somehow managing to justify a pizza in there and also pancakes. But it is a good start, and helps to prevent the onset of the Tamale Tyre.

Fitness week was a bit easier. Up each morning egging each other on to keep up the push ups and the cardio, we went bike riding, did 15 minute work outs and chose to move not to sit. Good good but tiring!

So budget week was the real eye-opener (I think I pretty much knew I’d fail the other 2!). Living here must be incredibly hard for the locals. If you think about the income of the locals, a good wage (ie full-time at the Apple store in Accra) is GHc60 per week ie. AUD$30. So we thought we’d try to stick to that. Firstly we totaled up our rent, security guards, cleaner and gardener staff. Already we were well over the budget. So we thought we’d try to do budget week not including these expenses. Then we needed to pay electricity – GHc60. Oops. And Gas – GHc100. Dam.

·         Vegetables GHc20 per week (AUD$10)

·         Transport GHc10 per week (AUD$5)

·         Eating out GHc20 per week (AUD$10)

The all-important 1Cedi note

Basically the bills totaled up really quick before I even felt like I was spending! 

Shopping Option A: From the car window (a personal favourite)

Shopping Option B: From the ground/street

Then there was a long taxi ride to get us to the Eid festivities and also a roommate’s birthday which meant present/dinner/drinks too. So it was an eye-opener and a lesson to be a bit more careful.

The thing that created the biggest impact on me was the cost of vegetables and fruit. It’s not affordable at all to anyone that isn’t on a decent wage, and prices are set to rise higher when the harvest is over, and the dry season sets in (basically, soon). I read somewhere that Ghanaians used to have a diet with plenty of fruit and veg, but now the traditional food is basically just meat and starch. It’s rare to see a vegetable in a dinner dish, and fruit is imported, rare and expensive. I couldn’t even bring myself to imagine how you would apply basic nutritional public health messages to Ghana when the affordability is so ridiculous.

3 Capsicums = GHc2 (AUD$1)

4 Onions = GHc2 (AUD$1)

A day’s wage already for some people. What would you prefer, something filling or healthy?

Other options include Eggplants, Cabbage, Carrots, Tomatoes and Squash.

Individual items are cheap, but when you total them up for a family of 15 that you need to feed (as is the case with our guard Mohammed), you simply can’t afford it.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but it is just so lucky that there aren’t more nutritional problems in this country with the food supply as it is. I have planted some tomatoes, cabbages, lettuce, lemongrass, basil and spring onions, hoping to keep me happy for a while (and occupied). More on food to come of course, but this I guess is an introduction to why the food is the way it is!