Adventures in Ghana: Part 1

May 13
We arrived in Accra (pronounced awk-RAW or AWK-raw) around 8AM after about 20 hours of travelling. It was really humid when we stepped off the plane, and I found it a little hard to breathe. We went through customs with no problems. I laughed when I saw a sign that said “Ghana welcomes all visitors. Ghana does not welcome pedophiles.” Too bad for all the pedophiles who thought Ghana was going to welcome them. I wanted to take a picture of it, but I also didn’t want to get in trouble with the customs people, so I didn’t.
We next went in to get our bags. That was an interesting experience. They have little baggage carts for free, and there was absolutely NO room around the baggage carousel because everybody pushed their cart right up next to it. In the US, as everyone reading this should know, we try to give people a little room so they can get in and get their bags, and the carts are generally away from the carousel. I was a little bit annoyed by this. We got our bags just fine, and as we left the airport there were guards checking everybody’s claim tickets to make sure nobody was taking bags that didn’t belong to them. I found that comforting.
As we left the airport, we were accosted by several “helpers” who pointed out the sign to our hotel shuttle, which we already saw, and then wanted us to pay them. I was annoyed by this, but I also felt sad for them because I know they didn’t have any money or job skills, which is why they were preying on travelers. When we finally got to our hotel, I felt tired and overwhelmed. I felt like every person in Ghana thought I was rich and wanted to take my money for doing nothing. I didn’t want to go anywhere, or do anything.
After resting for a bit, we went for a walk to the nearby mall. At the mall, we got some water, some malaria medicine, a cell phone, and an alarm clock, and it was very nice to be able to get around on our own. We ate some pizza at our hotel, which was surprisingly very good, and we went swimming in the hotel pool. It was very relaxing, and I felt much better about being in Ghana.
That evening, we went to the Accra temple dorms to meet up with some MPA students who were staying there. It was really nice to be with other BYU students and to get our bearings. We ate dinner with them and had a very nice time.
May 14
We woke up fairly early and went to listen to a presentation given by some MBA students (here for a different project than the MPA students). They were presenting findings of some research they had been doing to a microfranchise organization called HealthKeepers. We went to a French bakery for lunch and wandered around Accra with them. It was helpful to go around with them because they were used to Accra and knew how to get good deals on taxis. At some point during the day I remembered it was my birthday. We went to the temple again for dinner with the MPAs. We got some good advice on how much to pay for souvenirs in the Accra area, and saw the kinds of things that were available, as they were all packing up to leave the next morning. My family called, and it was wonderful to talk to them even though we are so far away. I don’t know how much it cost, but hopefully not too much. Anyway, it was worth it to me and was a fabulous birthday present. We were able to do a session in the Accra temple that evening, which was truly wonderful. It was a great day.
May 15
Jason Fairbourne, Peter’s boss and the one who arranged for us to come down here and work, arrived this day. We ate another pizza, went to the mall a couple of times, bought some plastic laundry hamper things for our project in Tamale, and went to a part of the city called Osu for dinner. Here we were accosted by a few vendors, and we bought our first gift. Sara was the only one to request a specific gift, so we bought her the flag she had asked for. The gutters in this part of the city smelled AWFUL, much worse than the gutters in the rest of the city. It became very obvious they were an open sewer when we walked past a man, facing the street, urinating into the gutter in plain view. We went to an Indian restaurant for dinner with some MPA students who were staying longer than the rest of their group to work on another of Jason’s microfranchsie projects in Accra. We tried to go to reggae night on the beach, but they charged a cover fee and we were tired, so we just went home.
May 16
We woke up at 4:00 AM to get ready to fly to Tamale. We left the hotel at 4:30, and our flight left at 6. You have to be ridiculously early to the airport in Accra, especially for international flights. If you don’t arrive 3 hours in advance (for international flights), they may give your seat away. The airplane was about the same as any small plane you might find in the US. I wasn’t afraid at any time. They did provide us with in-flight snack and beverage, which surprised me on such a short flight. We arrived in Tamale around 7AM.
Welcome to Ghana Part 2: Tamale
Tamale is in a beautiful region. Although a Ghanaian at the Accra temple told us it was “dry like Salt Lake City,” it is still humid here. Just not quite as humid as Accra. Our home here is a new (as in, not quite finished) hotel known as Bab’s Palace. It is really nice here, in many ways nicer than our hotel in Accra. Everything here is clean and nice and new. The downside is that the internet goes out daily, the hot water in our room does not work, and the bathroom always smells. I took a cold shower yesterday, but it wasn’t so bad. Supposedly Peter figured out how to get the hot water to work in our room. Even if he didn’t at the very least we can take hot showers in the room next door whenever its occupant is out of town. I will do a separate post with pictures of our home later.
I like the city of Tamale much better than I liked Accra. Accra is way too crowded, and the traffic is horrendous. Tamale has beautiful scenery, fewer people, and it isn’t as hot or humid. Also, we can walk down the street in Tamale without being accosted by beggars or salespeople. For the most part people just treat us the same as anybody else, which is really, really nice. There are definitely fewer modern conveniences in Tamale than Accra. There is no grocery store in Tamale, and there are only 2 restaurants where we can safely eat (there might be more, but according to Jason there are only 2 restaurants where we do eat). That’s okay, though. At least there are those two.
On Sunday, May 17 we went to a football match at the Tamale Stadium. We entered through the VVIP entrance, and ended up not having to pay for tickets for some reason. I really enjoyed the game. Neither team was very good, and it was as fun to watch the fans as it was to watch the game. A man sitting in front of us was wearing a shirt that flared out at the waist, as if it were a little girl’s dress. Both times when the local team scored a goal, he made his shirt twirl around in celebration, and I thought it was funny. Everybody got soooo excited when Tamale’s team scored a point; you would have thought they had just been given a million dollars or something. Also, some of the people sitting on the tier below us got really upset about something, and nearly started a brawl. I was happy they subsided, but I think Peter and the other student working out here were disappointed.
Yesterday (May 18) and today (May 19) have been pretty boring. I have played several games of solitaire (with real cards, I don’t have my own computer) while Peter works. Yesterday we made a couple of outings to go out to lunch and to tour the workout facilities at the Tamale stadium. There is a 25-cedi membership fee and a monthly fee of 5 cedis to use the facilities. One Ghana cedi is about 80 cents US, so when I’m shopping I usually just consider one cedi to be one dollar and then I never overspend. Things in Tamale are mostly cheaper than they were in Accra, which is nice.
Every evening since we’ve been here we have watched a couple episodes of Alias on a projector in the living room. Peter and I didn’t bring any movies, and so when Jason goes home and takes his ipod I don’t know what we’ll do in the evenings. Maybe play more games, or maybe we’ll go to sleep earlier.
So that is our life so far.