dotFAF.com

March 22nd is World Water Day so no better time to give you an update on Water drive 2010

We've about 8 months before embarking on our crazy little jaunt from London and along most of West Africa so we're stepping up our fundraising events.

If you're not up up to speed with what we're trying to do here's a quick summary:

Fred Frimpong [that's me] and Kwame Anane [you may know him as Raxy] are driving from London, UK to Accra, Ghana to raise money for Water Aid.

The trip originally was scheduled to start in October 2010 and to last 5 weeks but we've changed the dates to allow us to spend Christmas in Ghana. Would be a shame to go all the way there and have to turn back around without having some Christmas goat!

Yeah so we're heading out on November 13th 2010 now.

On the fundraising front, we'd like to let you know that we are officially asking you to donate to our cause. You can do so via our Just Giving page:
http://www.justgiving.com/waterdrive2010

Just Giving takes all kinds of card payments as well as PayPal. All the money collected goes directly to Water Aid so you dont have to worry about any of your donation going to fund our trip.

Water Aid operate in 26 countries in mainly Africa (including Ghana) and Asia and use the money raised to help provide clean drinking water and water hygiene education for those that need it most.

As a challenge to myself, I will be having my Afro shorn off if we manage to raise £1000 by my birthday 2nd April so get donating all of you that made comments about my hair being unmanageable. A year's worth of Afro is indeed unmanageable so have a heart and don't let me have to carry this for much longer.

And dont forget the next sip of water a child in a village somewhere in Ghana takes would be free of germs and other unsavoury stuff thanks to your donation.

Let's get donating!

He's almost through his third week and already Okoree's starting to shape up his own personality. We're figuring out everyday what he likes and what he's not particularly fond of. Little habits he's forming. How he likes to be held. The calming effect water has on him.

My best so far is watching him dream. He gets through many emotions that can easily be read of his little face. Ranging from smiling, smirking, frowning to full-on angry in the space of seconds.

It's all well to read about infants and foetuses dreaming but it's a whole different feeling watching your own little boy do it.

Of course the ability to dream also comes with the ability to have nightmares. He's woken up in a startle [without any loud noises setting him off] and started crying a few times while sleeping on my chest.

You really gotta wonder though, what sort of nightmare could a 3-week old have? I suspect it's to do with breast milk running out but my boss has a theory he's reliving his circumcision.

Anyone else got any other suggestions? Now would be a good time for me to work on my baby-talk interpretor prototype I have lying around.

Deep in thought

WAKEY, WAKEY SLEEPYHEAD!

Tuesday 9th February 2010. Sometime past 6am and I'm roused from my sleep by Efuwa. She's pacing around and looks to be in pain. I'm not woken up fully enough and so it wasn't clear to me when she mentioned she thought her waters had broken.

"Huh?"
"I've got really bad cramping and I think my waters have broken"
"Oh ok!"

What to do. What to do. There had been previous false alarms as Ef had "mistaken" the show for something else. I quote mistaken because I think it was more wishful thinking than a genuine mistake. Getting to the end, she just couldn't wait any more. How much of a split that was between her wanting him out so she could go and be a "young girl" again and how much of it was her wanting to finally meet the little Konkontibaa, we'd have to ask her.

I'd later find out that the cramping has started around 4am. Efuwa hadn't given it much thought since the last week had been pretty much full of cramping and excessive kicking by you-know-who. Our expectations on when he'd finally turn up had shifted so many times in the last month of the pregnancy but we were both in agreement that a Valentine baby [his expected due date] was not a good thing.

I, in all my infinite knowledge, had predicted the baby would actually come 2 weeks early making him a January baby. We'd also heard from a lot of midwives in the antenatal sessions we attended that first babies usually were late. By this time and in light of my prediction haven't failed to materialise, I had resigned myself to Konkontibaa turning up a whole two weeks late.

It looked like this little one had a plan of his own though, he was coming and there was no stopping him. In the meantime, Efuwa as cool as a cucumber decides to take a shower first and see what happens. Maybe this was just a false alarm and was going to pass.

After her shower she suggests we call the hospital and see what they say. Between then and us making the call, her demeanour prompted me to ask, "So you think this is it?". Yup! We were go! Mommy said so.

Efuwa's mum was around and was pretty calm in all this but you could never tell with her, she'd probably manage to stifle a scream even if you were sawing off her thumb. Granny kept her cool even as the hospital Triage asked us to come in for a quick check.

DRIVER BANZA

After a quick cup of tea we headed out in the 15-year old Nissan Micra. We'd bought it right after moving in [December 2009] for the very reason that I needed to be driving regularly before our baby arrived. Only Efuwa and I were going in for the check-up, and it was still impossible to read what her mum was thinking. Just as well that the hospital was all of 5 minutes away from the house because I don't think she would have managed to keep calm.

I was very much focused on making sure all my eggs were going to arrive safely at the hospital in this £500 banger but I think all the relief was Efuwa's that I got us there and back with only the only complaints being hitting a few speed bumps too quickly.

We got to the triage at around 8am and didn't have wait for relatively too long before we got confirmation that indeed the waters had broken and a promise of an 80% chance of seeing the little guy before the end of the day.

"Go home, take some pain killers, have a bath. Come back when the contractions are 3 minutes apart"

You what? Contractions? No one told me about any contractions!

Well it turns out that by checking and confirming the dilation of 2cm, it had triggered contractions. Oh so they weren't making that up in the antenatal sessions.

Okoree: "Where's all my amniotic fluid gone? I wasn't quite done with it!"

In the last month that I haven't posted a proper update, we've been busy completing the purchase of our first house and slowly turning it into a home.

The last time I mentioned our house hunt, nothing was going particularly well but we soldiered on with the next house we found albeit always with a fear that it might fall through at any moment.

Our fears of being stuck in the Ealing flat for longer than necessary didn't materialise as things suddenly sped up with the process in the lead up to Christmas. By the middle of December we already had moved and even managed to spend our first Christmas in our new house.

The house is further west into London not particularly close to anything but close enough to transport links and Heathrow airport for it not to be considered the "boonies". We're officially residents of the London Borrow of Hillingdon where almost all the houses we looked at over the previous year were situated in.

So here we are now, 8 weeks into home-ownership. A few thousand pounds spend of fixing things up and another few thousand of money we don't have due to be spent on making it ours but still with a huge sense of accomplishment. Of knowing that it would take something well and truly calamitous to f--k this one up.

As if starting the new year in a new house wasn't anxious enough, we're now 12 days away from the expected due date. Simply translated, Konkontibaa is due any moment from now. To put in far simpler terms, next month by this time, I'll be a father (stop giggling at the back!)

Not a day goes by without well-meaning people calling/texting/emailing to ask how you're doing and whether the baby was here yet. The general panic that ensues if you fail to respond within a set time is rather sweet. "Is he here yet?", "Are you at the hospital?", "Are you guys alright?". As if I wouldn't tell close family and friends about something like this!

Anyway, right after moving in, Efuwa's nesting instincts kicked in. If it weren't for the fact that we were literally living out of boxes she would have done the whole house by herself. It also didn't help that we we've been sharing the house with workmen and salesmen from kitchen, wardrobe and bathroom companies since day 1.

Baby Room: I yam penting de worlu

Strangely enough, the only people she seems to be able to tolerate in the house are the workmen (electrics, kitchen, floors, plumbing) and that's including me :p I hope she'll get on with her mum who's just arrived in the UK today to help with her first grand-child. I wouldn't want to be caught in-between the crossfires of any clash between these two.

So there's my long update. The next time you hear from me, I'll probably a new father and we'll be saying goodbye to Konkontibaa and saying hello to...

Sent from my Windows® phone.

Posted via email

First set gone into a tie break

Sent from my OmniaPro

Posted via email

For the second time this pregnancy, Efuwa has been asked to give up her seat on public transport for people that think they are more deserving of the "priority seats".

The first time was around 4 months when a chavvy-looking lady by Ef's account refused to sit on any of the freely available seats on the bus. I'm guessing she'd been looking forward to sitting in a priority seat since she hit her teens two years ago because she stood there huffing and puffing waiting for someone to offer her one of those before finally railing on Efuwa for being blind to her plight.

The bus driver eventually had to step in and ask her to take one of the freely available [but sadly] non-priority seats. That didn't stop her though from cussing out loud and accusing the driver of being racist to her in her own country. It all ended with her finally being chucked off the bus.

Fast forward to yesterday and 7 months into the pregnancy. Efuwa's already worried her bump isn't big enough. I call it ma tricki wo because you cant tell from behind that it's a pregnant woman. Add to it the fact that she hasn't put on as much weight as some would expect a pregnant woman to have and people still cant tell she is.

This time, a man decided to play hero for his pregnant wife by asking Ef to give up her seat and got pissed off when she refused. I believe his response was "Are you having a giraffe" which is faux cockney rhyming slang for "having a laugh".

"No I'm having a baby!" was Ef's reply but he obviously still wasn't convinced until she got off the bus at which point he run up to her to apologize.

Nice story you're saying? Well it would be if only Ef hasn't now got it in her head that the baby is too small. I have to convince her now that it's not the bump that is the problem but the fact that people expect pregnant women to be fat especially in today's London.

Essentially, she's worried that people don't think she's fat. My advice for her is to shed a tear for the lady that is constantly being offered a seat on the train and bus because people think she's weeks from having a baby.

So here's how you can help. If you see my wife, please comment of how big she is!

Posted via web

E2T3CSBJC95A  SYAKTTSDRB4G 

Courtesy of Ef and her daytime listening to Rainbow Radio at work I have this story of a woman calling in seeking help on ways to rekindle the fire in her marriage:

Fire in the hole!

Ghanaians do love our euphemisms! What are your favourites?