Out and about

Listening to the 1983 Japanese/Armenian synthpop album “Utakata no Hibi”, I am trying to make sense of this our first day in Ghana. The morning started off with a walk across the lovely campus grounds followed by the conference opening ceremony at the Legon Center for International Affairs and Diplomacy. Then, I had hope to meet an old friend but for some reason she did not appear on her panel so I had to contend with the other presenters talking about security norms, African regional peace and Zimbabwe’s “military assisted transition”.

The afternoon was spent on the hot sticky streets of Accra, discovering that the National Museum was closed for renovation but still had the most fascinating garden with sculptures of one-armed military officers, bikini breasts and smoking chess players.

Afterwards, I tried to go for a run which was quite a challenge with all the potholes and the traffic suddenly appearing from unexpected directions. At least my Suunto watch was kind enough to exaggerate my speed for the first 400 meters so I got an accidental and underserved PR.