Week One, Ghana - Wow, This Is Actually Pretty Crazy

Alright. So, first of all, let me start by saying that no matter how many pictures I take/edit/post, there is absolutely no way to convey what Accra is like through pictures alone, especially not mine. It's because Accra is so, so much more than just what one sees, and all five of my senses have been completely overwhelmed by the new and foreign experiences to be had in this developing city and country. Accra is not just the bumpy dirt roads and the goats roaming the streets and the strangely omnipresent sponsored walls and the garbage seemingly everywhere but in the garbage cans and the small houses held up more by faith than the tin and wood scraps they're made of. Accra is waking up at five forty-five in the morning to the sun streaming through the windows and the sounds of sweeping and people chatting in the street and a rooster that you can't ever really remember -not- making some sort of noise. Accra is the overpowering stench of the open sewer systems baking in the sun alongside the sidewalks assaulting your olfactory sense for one block to be miraculously replaced by the pleasant smell of people leisurely cooking some sort of meat or dough or something over charcoal pits for the next. Accra is noticing that the local dish that you're attempting to eat with your hands has a consistency similar to Play-Doh. Accra is smiling and waving at the little children calling "Obruni, obruni," in a sing-song voice not because they're racists, but because you are literally one of the first people with light skin that they have ever seen. Accra is learning how to shake one's hand while snapping your fingers on their hand. Accra is amazing, overwhelming, and one of my favorite places that I have ever been to. And I have the strange feeling that I'll be typing a similar sentence quite a lot in the coming months. Here's the full (tentative, as "Ghana Time" is a nebulous subsection of the space-time continuum enveloping Accra where everything happens anywhere from thirty-three minutes to three hours later than it should) schedule of what I did with my short week in Ghana.

Day 1, Oct. 3rd - Arrival in Accra

Day 2, Oct. 4th - Intro Lecture on Culture Shock, Dinner and Quiz night at office

Day 3, Oct. 5th - Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park

Day 4, Oct. 6th - Visit to New Life Orphanage to help teach and play with the children, Ghanaian cooking lesson

Day 5, Oct. 7th - Renovation at the playground in the Osu Children's Home, Visit to the Internet Café

Day 6, Oct. 8th - Depart to Cape Coast, Visit to Cape Coast Castle, Drumming and Dancing

Day 7, Oct. 9th - Visit to Kakum Forest and Hans Cottage, return to Accra

Day 8, Oct 10th - Visit to Arts Market, Depart for Airport

And that's that. So, I guess starting at the beginning would be a good place to start, eh?

Arriving in Ghana, the first thing I noticed was the lack of armed guards hanging around the airport. It seemed strange, as arriving at the train station in Paris I couldn't take my eyes off the many men in green-camo slacks carrying AK-47s. The closest thing I saw to any aggression in the Accra airport was the look the security guard gave me as he explained for the third time that I should place my left hand on the fingerprint scanner instead of my right. The thing that stuck out the most on that first night, however, were the street sellers. It gets dark pretty early here, so it was the dead of night when I arrived at 9:00 PM. And there we were, driving along the main highway at a fairly quick pace of seven miles an hour when a woman balancing a large bucket of bags of plantain chips walked down the middle of the highway to our car and called out, asking if anyone would like to buy some. And that was just the beginning. For miles, men, women, and children (all balancing large bundles on their heads with zero trouble at all) were weaving back and forth between the cars driving along the largest road in the city in total darkness, save for the headlights of cars.

Just like this, but when it's really dark

The things they were selling ranged from snacks to scales, bags of water to belts. I couldn't help but wonder how many hours they had been doing this and how much longer they would keep at it. With this thought heavy in my mind and the fumes of the very visible thick exhaust weighing heavy in my lungs I arrived at our gracious host's house and fell asleep soon after crawling into bed and forgetting her name. Our host is an amazing woman, beyond just being a totally awesome host. Mrs. Victoria Afrifa is her name, and she was a schoolteacher for underprivileged children and the first wife of the 3rd Head of State, Akwasi Afrifa, until he was executed by the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council – accused (with an “apparently incomplete” investigation) of the crimes of corruption, embezzlement, and using his position to amass wealth.

And that's about as far as I got when I had to leave the Internet Cafe. I thought that posting what little I had was really lame (just the first day and no pictures? What a tease!) so I decided to finish this over the next days weeks months and just post the whole thing in Cape Town, with pictures and captions and all that jazz. Then I got bogged down with work. Then I caught a gastrointestinal virus and went to the hospital. Then I jumped off a bridge. Then I got super busy handling the cases of asylum seekers from Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Then I typed some more excuses – but I’ll get into the details about all that in the next posts. Anyways, sorry for the long wait!

As an apology, have a picture
 of one of the nicest buildings in Ghana

The second day started off with breakfast at Miss Afrifa's, as did the rest of our days in Accra. This was what was laid out on the table for us each morning: sliced bread, jam, hot water, sugar cubes, tea bags, coffee, and either eggs scrambled with diced peppers or hot dogs (“sausage”) cut up and stir-fried with sliced peppers and onions. It was a pretty nice way to start the morning each day, actually. Anyways, after that was the introduction to Ghana and the "lecture" on Culture Shock. This turned out to be one of the wonderful staff of Projects Abroad, an Irish woman named Anna, sitting with us and chatting about her experiences and answering our questions. Definitely not what I expected and more than what I could have hoped for. After that, Amanda (who would be with us for most of our time in Ghana and turn out to be our go-to-girl for everything, especially when it involved the aggressive merchants of Oxford Street) took us to a place with ATMs and a currency exchange counter so we could get some Cedis (pronounced like CD) and then out to lunch at a local Spot Bar, with the sign over the front door reading: "Motto: The Best Spot Bar in Accra!" We sampled many of the local dishes like red-red (a plantain and red bean dish), joloff rice, banku (gooey blobs of corn and cassava dough) with shito (a very spicy sauce made from local peppers), fried plantains, fried chicken, and rice with fried fish (chinam). After our heavy, filling lunch, it was back to the Projects Abroad Offices to talk/learn a little more about Ghana and our time there until the other volunteers showed up for Quiz Night. It was a good time meeting all of the (surprisingly numerous!) other volunteers and staff members of the Projects Abroad Accra team, but wasn’t anything noteworthy. What was noteworthy was seeing much of Accra in the day, the most striking things being the sheer amount of garbage everywhere (mostly the plastic bags that purified water is sold in, since the tap water is not safe to drink) and the open sewer systems that ran throughout the whole city. They’re basically just uncovered channels in front of every home and building (although on the major streets they’re generally partially covered with planks or stones) that are used to dump waste into from buckets inside, since having running water is rare, and for those who are lucky enough, it’s very common for it to just not work for much of the day. In theory it all flows to the ocean – in practice it bakes in the sun and overflows in the rain. You do not want to fall in.

This is one of the larger, cleaner ones

Day Three was devoted entirely to the Kwame Nkrumah National park. Well, it wasn’t originally planned that way, but the traffic in Accra is a constant hamper to how much anyone can get done in the city. There isn’t as much to write about as there is to show you with pictures, so I’ll add the information in the captions. If you want an explanation that actually goes in-depth with literary devices such as cited facts and coherent sentences, however, you would be better served on Wikipedia.

The first thing we did was go into this building...where we weren't allowed to take any pictures. Sorry.


It contained all of Mr. Nkrumah's books, photographs of all of the important people he met, and quite a fair bit of furniture and clothing from his original office.

After the brief history lesson, we ventured into the giant stone Atari logo that is the tomb of
Kwame Nkrumah (and later, his wife).


The structure is supposed to represent the trunk and roots of a tree, as Nkrumah planted the seeds of greatness for Ghana, and it is now up to the citizens of the country to branch out and make it truly great.

Standing on the other side of the tomb is a large bronze statue of Dr. Nkrumah himself, and beyond that...

...is a massively long fountain with sculptures of traditional Ghanaian musicians announcing the arrival of a king.

All in all, it was a nice, relaxed, touristy day.

On the fourth day, we went to New Life Orphanage.

Kids. My favorite.

We were told that the first half of the day we would be helping teach the kids at the school nearby, and after we left briefly for lunch, we would return for the second half of the day to play with the kids in the orphanage. It was only my third real day in Accra, but something in the back of my mind told me that trying to make any real solid plans for anything in Accra just wasn’t going to work out. And then I saw the school: made of nothing more than concrete and wooden scaffolding molded into the general shape of a three-story school house. And then the kids swarmed us. Within a few moments I had given out my name at least a dozen times, had multiple children climbing on my back, and I wasn't entirely sure where my glasses had gone.

I wasn't kidding when I said swarm.

The whole first floor seemed to be much more interested in us than in learning much of anything – and that included the teachers. I was pleased that no one was really angry with us for our interruption, though I couldn’t help but wonder how much good we were really doing. We brought arts and crafts supplies, balloons that inevitably flew everywhere (the schoolhouse gets quite windy, having no windows and all), and a  basic sort of plan of what to do with the kids, but honestly, the only thing I felt we had taught the kids was that “white people sometimes come with fun things.” I asked Amanda if, perhaps, in the future, the funding for the stuff we had for the kids could go for something that may last a little longer or have a more solid impact – new markers or erasers for the whiteboards or some footballs or Frisbees or something for the kids to play with during their free time, at the very least. The answer I got in return was something along the lines of, “let’s talk about it later.” So it goes.

Photo Credit: One of the many children who stole my camera.

We soon left for lunch, promising all of the kids that we were coming back. When we returned, school was in the process of wrapping up, a process which our presence completely and totally interrupted. Chaos enveloped the first floor once again, and this time I nearly-stealthily (the one little boy who noticed nodded and grinned when I whispered not to tell anybody) excused myself to check out the upper two floors. The second floor held the older students (approximately 10-17) who were quietly and earnestly studying the more advanced topics of algebra and STDs. The topics of the day were solving for χ and the transmittance of HIV through virgin sex. The third floor was full of nothing but empty rooms, construction materials, and broken desks.

One of the classrooms on the second floor. All of the other pictures of the upper floors have really creepy lighting.

I went back downstairs just in time to have my glasses stolen again and for school to get out for the day. As other children returned to their homes, myself, the other volunteers, and the orphans walked back to New Life, where we found a TV crew setting up their equipment. Apparently, contestants from a popular Ghanaian game show (in the style of “The Apprentice,” I was told, as if those two words would command complete understanding from any American) were tasked with going to a non-profit organization and making the most memorable day. As luck would have it, one contestant chose to hire a…comedian or some sort of TV host or somethingorother (I still don’t quite understand what happened that afternoon) and have a dance party at New Life. So, we clapped and danced and sang with the orphans and staff members and were on Ghanaian TV. Apparently. Later that night, we had a Ghanaian cooking lesson and dinner at the Projects Abroad office from the Ghana Country Director and his wife. The resulting food was both the tastiest and the spiciest thing I ate during my time in Ghana. Home-made joloff rice and shito. There isn't really a whole lot more to say. It was really good food made by some really cool people.

Yup.

Photo Credit: Amanda Lopez

I just realize I haven’t yet mentioned anything about the other volunteers on this trip.  From Right to Left we have: William “Billy” Turfitt, a Conservative Republican from Warren, Pennsylvania, Macrina Garcia, a sassy graduate of Loyola University Chicago from Cleveland, Ohio, Kayla Lehne, a Colorado gal from Parker, Mary Patterson, a quiet, reserved girl from Connecticut, Tyler Karhalios, an ambitious future Stanford student from Sacramento San Clemente (Sorry, Tyler!), California, and Alixe Vance Varnel, a self-proclaimed tomboy from Vancouver, Canada. So, all white and very nearly all American. Definitely not the sort of people I expected to have signed up on the same crazy trip that I did, but I certainly don’t have any big problems with ‘em.

So, yeah, with that over with...the next day was dedicated to the Osu Children’s Home! It was much nicer than the schoolhouse we were working at during the previous day and reminded me very much of my elementary school back in California. Except with chickens running around. And a garbage pile on fire. And the open sewer channels. And the humidity. And the children running in and out of class with minimal supervision. And the broken glass and rusty scraps and overgrown weeds and deteriorating paint in the playground. Actually, the only things that reminded me of that little school back home were the presence of young children and the fact that the buildings all had solid walls with actual windows and doors. An uncommon sight for buildings not owned by the government or a corporation.

But really, it was a pretty nice place

Our work had been outlined for us the previous day: "fix up the playground." It was definitely in need of fixing-up, as the aforementioned qualities should have illustrated. However, the tools we were given for the job didn't quite seem up to par. With three cans of paint, a jug of paint thinner, seven old paintbrushes, three shovels, and a wheelbarrow, I felt somewhat dismayed that our fixing up would be more of a temporary affair, lasting maybe just long enough for the next volunteers to arrive and do the same thing all over again. Setting those thoughts aside however, I set about putting the best effort I could into our work and proceeded to inhale far more than a healthy amount of paint thinner. Then, after sitting down for a short time, I put my best effort into painting over the decaying layers of paint on one of the swing sets. It was obvious that this same task had been attempted at least three times in the past, as the few patches that actually showed any metal gleam revealed three (and possibly more - it was hard to tell) layers of paint. The previous coats were quite thick, thus it took much effort to even cover the poles with a single, uninterrupted color. An even coat would be impossible without more time and more powerful tools. After spending a solid half of the day successfully coloring two swing sets, a slide, a see-saw, a spinning thing, and something that nearly represented a circular playground thing made out of scrap metal embedded in the ground, we departed for a lunch break.

Serious Business.

As you may have noticed in the above picture, there was a rather large pile of sand in one corner of the playground. This was the main focus of my (and Billy's, because we're the only males and blah blah pseudo-sexist minority bullshit) next task while "the girls" finished up with the paint (and getting all giggly from the paint-thinner). We were to spread the sand all along the ground, since patches of grass, dirt, weeds, and glass don't really make for the best playground terrain. We were to accomplish this through the use of our few shovels and the wheelbarrow. This turned out to be a much harder task than one would initially anticipate. Not for any real reason, mind you. Moving sand with a wheelbarrow is just harder than ya might think. With the both of us working our hardest, we got about 2/3 of the playground nicely covered with sand while the rest of the painting was finished up. Then, after "entertaining" the children for ten or twenty minutes, we were off for an easy night of R&R.

This easy night would be short-lived, however, as we had to be up and ready to depart for Cape Coast at the busy hour of 5:00 AM. The drive there was long, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't spend a good amount of it tuned out listening to my 'tunes on the iPod. I made sure to keep my eyes open for the whole ride though, and while I wasn't able to snap any good pictures, I did get a good eyeful of some very intriguing sights. For starters, the further that we drove away from the city, the more rural it got - and rural Ghana is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. Well, the bits that have nothing but plants on them are, anyways. All the other bits are completely covered in garbage, poverty, or both. There were two things that really stuck with me from this drive, though: the first were the trucks. Three big semi-trailer trucks, all wrecked and moved just far enough off of the road such that they weren't touching the asphalt. One of them was rusted nearly beyond recognition, but the other two looked like they hadn't been in service for more than a few years before their fatal accidents. The second thing(s) that stuck out to me were the road signs. We passed somewhere around twenty of them in total, and they were all on the side of bends in the road. The only difference between the signs was the numbers that were printed on them. The lowest was 7 and the highest was 23. "CAUTION! DANGEROUS CURVE! x PERSONS DIED HERE!"

Most of the way wasn't nearly that depressing, however, and looked much more like this

After a nice little lunch stop that consisted of a home-cooked meal of pancakes and pineapple, we eventually arrived at the Cape Coast Slave Castle for a dual-action depressing/interesting history tour/lesson. This is similar to the memorial in that it is much better explained in my terms through pictures and in historical depth through Wikipedia.

We started our tour here, inside the castle.

Then our tour guide threw us into the depths of the male slave dungeon. It was just as dark as it looks.

Next up, we walked out the Door of No Return. Named so because it was the last place that the slaves would walk in Africa before being forced onto boats sailing to other countries. 

The area outside the DOOR OF NO RETURN was quite pleasant, actually.

Lastly (as far as significant pictures go), we went into the punishment chamber. That door you see is 400 years old and still manages to do its job of keeping all of the fresh air and light out while keeping all of the heat trapped in the cell.

These two pictures are of the same thing. The latter one just has the electric lights switched on.

There are tons more pictures of the castle, actually, but to prevent this blog post from eating up all of the internets here at the office and being longer than my Grade 12 research paper (although it's very likely I've already passed that by now - sorry, Carole!) I'll let'cha check those out over on the Photobucket Albums (when they're actually up there, which will be soon).

After a bit of free wandering around the area, we drove up to the little Projects Abroad Office located in Cape Coast for some grub. Then, a drumming and dancing lesson at the Ghanaian Foundation for Development of Culture and Heritage. The foundation headquarters consisted of a one-room office, an internet cafe (for desperately-needed extra revenue), and a dirt patch outside for the performers to show off. They're a traveling group of kids who are completely amazing at both traditional drumming and dancing - their short performance/lesson for us quickly drew a very large crowd from the surrounding area. Unfortunately for any of you, the dancers were completely impossible to capture in a picture, not that any could do them justice anyways. I'd link you to their website, but the "account for domain fodachgh.org has been suspended."

These guys rule.

Afterwards, we turned in for another short night of rest ending somewhere between the hours of "early" and "too early." It sure was pretty, though.

Kakum Forest and Hans Cottage were the last two items on the list for Ghana (I have neither pictures nor anything interesting to say about the last day and the craft market - sorry to be anti-climactic). The forest was, well, an African forest. The super cool thing about Kakum was the canopy walk.

Eight bridges. 300 feet. No survivors.

Except for everyone who's crossed the bridges. As sketchy as they can look (and feel and sound), they apparently do routine checks and have yet to have a single or break of any sort since the bridges' completion in...the seventies, if I recall correctly. They've been around a while. The whole walk was very pretty and a whole lot of fun.

I'm definitely not starting to run out of words...look! A tree!

Lastly, we ate lunch and sought shelter from a sudden intense downpour at Hans Cottage, an area known for its crocodiles.

This little guy took about fifteen minutes to wake up by of stirring up the fish with pieces of bread.
He didn't look too happy about it.

Thus, our crazy, crazy week in Ghana concluded with a grumpy crocodile.

Well, it really ended the next day when we flew back on the plane...but planes are boring. Grumpy crocodiles are much more fun to write about. And, yeah, that's about it.

See you next week (translation: before next year) so I can tell you all about how "Ghana Time" is actually "Africa Time" and very much applies to South Africa and is another totally valid excuse I haven't used for being slow.