'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

Walk in - Roll Out. Houston hosts Holli
I landed in Houston for the second time in my life. The weather was gorgeous. Nothing else was…I witnessed mile after strip mall infested mile to the hotel, to town, to the airport, and in between, I witnessed these: - FLAT. F. L. A. T. - A speed bump might be considered a mountain in Houston.

The Modern Mission
In a random European Airport, under the harsh lights, at some ungodly hour, somewhere between the comfort of home and the great unknown, a group are huddled together for reassurance, uniform in cotton t-shirts, with big eyes and sturdy backpacks from Bass Pro Shops. Eager beavers, goats before the slaughter. Their t