A MAG is a Modern African Girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things which may interest a MAG.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Doré Fasolati, this week's subjects: Perfume and the morning, Accessories, Wine, Today it's full moon again.

Perfume and the morning.

We associate certain scents with mornings. Coffee, juice, tea, toast, sausage, eggs, pancakes, strawberry jam, maple syrup: we recognize them all. Even a faint whiff can summon a crystal clear mental picture of the smell’s origin. Same is for wearing perfumes in the morning. Make sure to have fresh Lemon citrusy scents readily increase the production of serotonin, giving your mood a boost and making it much easier to get up and moving.

Peppermint. Peppermint isn’t just for toothpaste. When you diffuse peppermint oil in the morning, you’ll enjoy a clean, fresh, zippy start to your day. Rosemary. Rosemary is great for fatigue in general, making it ideal for morning diffusing. You can also look for a blend that contains rosemary and eucalyptus for a herbaceous treat.

Eucalyptus blend contains notes of rosemary and citrus to give your home a revitalizing scent. Basil is beautiful when the sun is rising. It blends nicely with citrus oils but even on its own, basil helps you focus, making your mind sharper and your body more energetic. Ginger. Ginger is great any time of day for a quick energy lift – and you’ll love waking up to this warm, spicy, vibrant aroma. Cinnamon. Especially in the fall and winter, diffusing cinnamon aroma oil sets the stage for a happy, cosy day. It’s hard not to want to get out of bed and embrace the morning when cinnamon is the first thing you smell.

Accessories. Until the mid-nineties, there was no locally produced bottled or sachet water in Ghana, and people drank water from the tap. This is (still) perfectly safe, our water company puts so much chloride into the water that any bacteria gets killed. Some used to boil that water before drinking, both for extra safety and to get rid of some of this chloride flavour. Some used water filters. Rainwater was also used, for cooking and for hair washing, to avoid chloride. And if you were on the road and thirsty you bought a cup of water from a water vendor. All that changed around 1995 when Voltic started selling locally produced bottled water, and sachet water followed soon, the first ones quickly nicknamed Yoomo Foafo, and often this was, and still is, just the same chlorinated tap water, now packed in a plastic sachet. So these days it is a common sight to see people hold a plastic sachet or a half-litre plastic bottle with water, differences in class should remain... Too common for many, so we now have little aluminium flasks, about a quarter of a litre volume,

which keeps the water cool, like mini thermos flasks. Still too common for some, so they come with designs. And are sold for around 800 ghc (with a fashion brand name printed on them), I saw some nice ones at Max-mart in Accra for about 450 ghc. Not common indeed, and so is common sense. Not common.

Wine is traditionally made by fermenting grapes, and grapes cannot grow in our warm humid tropics (they would rot away before getting ripe because of the humidity, and during its “dormant period” the wine ranks like a cool/cold climate), so all our wine is imported. Lots of it from South Africa, where they have a milder climate, and from France, Italy, Spain, and the US (these 4 are good for 50% of world production). Wine is a sensitive product, which is alive and which matures over time (for better or for worse, just like humans) and is normally stored in cool underground wine cellars at 11-14˚C, storage temperatures should never go over 24˚C as otherwise, wines begin to oxidize, which negatively affects the flavours. So, imagine a bottle of wine shaking for 2-3 weeks on the vibrations of the engine of a transport boat, and then baking in a container in a harbour for a week or so at 90 degrees Celsius. So, our wine contains lots of sulphur which assures that nothing matures or changes anymore. Not necessarily bad for your health, sulphur occurs in wine naturally as well, but it is this excess of sulphur that can give you a very severe headache the next day, like a nail in your head. Nicknamed Chateau Migraine. So, to end part one of this story, taste your wine, if you like it take a glass or 2, but don’t waste your money on expensive so-called crus, which may have the same label as the original one but which has lost 90 % of it's character. And now the surprise. Part 2. (and there is a part 3). Last week we had 2 excellent bottles of dry Ghanaian wine. And no headache. A cocoa wine and a coffee wine.

At the Sai Wine and Champaign bar here in Osu, 6 Koi Street, in Accra, right under our noses. They also sell cashew wine. Produced in Ho, in the Volta region. Bravo. Not cheap, but many wines in the restaurants which start with a 'Le or La” are not cheap either. The service was good, and most of the snacks were quite acceptable. We recommend. Part 3. (and there will be a part 4) A certain Alex van Duinen, which sounds Dutch, maybe South African, I haven’t found much on him, claims that Ghanaian areas above 1000 mtr high are excellent for growing grapes and thus for making wine. He says there are 471 towns and villages in Ghana where grapes could be grown. He even produced a map, check the web. Anyway, we intend to visit Ho and find out more about that Cocoa wine and if we are going to have our own wine yards soon. Part 4: We make palm wine, which is alive and needs to be drunk quickly (but drink it slowly) or distilled into akpeteshie for keeping. And we make wine out of corn, asana, out of mangoes and pineapples, watermelons, and much more. That's the problem with us, if it is not from overseas it's not good. Even if it is a straight Chateau Migraine red, 1983, Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC)

Today it's full moon again, the months are flying by. Meteo predicts dry weather over the weekend with a bit of clouds, beach walk nights for me. See you there.

Lydia...

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