GHANA
Oh Ghana, Ghana, Ghana. The first bitch-slap of many I shall receive on this exhaustive circumnavigation. I’m once again stricken with solemnity as my visit draws to a close. This time it’s all about being a stranger, a white boy, a tourist with no apparent value than a few extra Cedi. It also makes me ask the question “What am I doing here?” Have I come to learn, appreciate, or have fun? Ideally I guess the answer would be all three. How hard is that? Really fucking hard. If I just wanted to have fun I’d have a large Star beer in my hand wherever I went and let my intoxication determine my ventures. If I just wanted to learn I….well thinking about that just gave me a migraine. I never get migraines. If I wanted to appreciate I could just sit on the sidewalk and watch life pass by. So I guess a combination of those would be to sit on bench on the side of the road with a beer in one hand and a textbook about Ghana in the other. That would accomplish those three criteria, wouldn’t it? I could try it. Playing it through in my head, it doesn’t sound all that bad.
I get constantly asked by Ghanaians how I like Ghana. I always reply the same way. I smile and tell them it’s wonderful, I love it, the people are so nice. My friend Melissa likes to add the word beautiful to the laundry list. I leave it out. It isn’t beautiful. It’s really dirty, it smells like urine a lot, and nothing I’ve seen so far would, to the average person, constitute beauty. Maybe some other part of Ghana, but not where we’ve been. But I like it when they ask, because at least it seems they’re interested in having a conversation, in sharing thoughts and ideas. Too many times will a seemingly friendly person come up to you, shake your hand, start a conversation and then turn it into a money-making exploit for themself. After my first full day in Accra experiencing that over and over again I came out jaded and angry. For the rest of the trip I found myself becoming increasingly unfriendly, refusing to make eye contact, shake hands, or even reply to a kind greeting.
Day 1:
This was a day of independent exploration in Ghana’s capital, Accra. We were told Ghana only receives a half dozen or so cruise ships every year, and Semester at Sea accounted for two of those. Unsurprisingly this means Ghana has no cruise ship ports. Therefore our ship had to berth at a shipping port in Tema; about an hour west of Accra. Melissa and I got off the ship around 10am and immediately boarded the SAS-provided shuttle to Accra. The shuttle left at 10:30 and arrived a little before 11:30. We exited the buss and were immediately greeted by our first “friendly” locals. They shook our hands in traditional Ghanaian fashion, which involves snapping your fingers as you pull your hands away (not as easy as it sounds). They proceeded to ask our names, even having us write them down on pieces of paper for them. I quickly realized why. These guys were “weavers”, young guys who make a living by befriending a tourist, learning their name, and then weaving it into a custom-made bracelet. It sounds nice, and in many ways you’re forced to do it once just so other “weavers” will see it and forego hassling you.
After disbanding from the pack Melissa and I walked the nearby Byblos Hotel. We had looked it up beforehand and decided to look into getting a room for the day so we could keep our stuff somewhere and have a sort of “home base” since making trips back to the ship didn’t seem realistic. We got a room, found an ATM to take out some Cedi, and then went for a walk down Oxford Street in Osu, the main restaurant, shopping, and nightlife area of Accra. We were very hungry so we asked a couple locals for dining recommendations. We were told Frankie’s was the best spot. When we got there we realized this was the “best spot” for white people. I don’t think any of the low-income locals ever ate there. It was quite pricey for Ghana, but the food was very good. And we could rest assured knowing the food was probably safe as well. I had the chicken shwarma and onion rings. Melissa had some chicken skewers with a tasty sauce. It was good. Of course twenty minutes after we sat down a hoard of SASers walked in, followed by another group as we were paying our bill.
We quickly made our escape and flagged down a taxi to take us to the Arts Center, basically the tourist shopping arena of Accra. It’s a maze of shacks and stands selling t-shirts, masks, drums, jewelry, and other Ghanaian handicrafts. It wasn’t very crowded, which was probably a bad thing for us. As soon as we stepped into the first pavilion we were snatched up like bait. This was worse than the straw market in Nassau. They not only take your arm and drag you, but they will blockade you from leaving, and withhold merchandise you already bought just so they can show you more. I bought a t-shirt and backpack from first guy that coerced me to his stall. I literally had to yell at him to give me my stuff, I didn’t want a painting too. He did give me a free bracelet. Of course later I found out how much I overpaid for the backpack. Oh well, it’s part of the experience. After pulling Melissa away from her salesman we meandered for a while buying a few other things. These times we were much smarter with our bargaining. You literally had to start at twenty percent of their starting price. Eventually it got quite fun. After our reckless shopping we got a couple Star beers and relaxed. We got a cab back to the hotel, by this time it was around 5pm. We were told the malaria comes out at 6. We were still wearing shorts and hadn’t put any bug spray on yet.
When we got back I turned on the TV and saw the mostly horribly acted and dubbed soap opera I’ve ever seen. I fell asleep to it. Around seven we left to go to dinner. We were told Country Kitchen was a great spot to taste true Ghanaian cuisine. It was a ten minute walk from our hotel. When we got there I noticed two things, first was the beauty of the restaurant considering how ugly the walk there was. It was all under a large, outdoor pavilion structure. The second thing I noticed was the other SAS students and professors congregated at a few tables. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who heeded the recommendation. We sat down, ordered some interesting juice drinks, and began pandering over the menu. With some help from our waiter we ordered chicken with joloff rice and tilapia with banko. I didn’t know what banko was but it sounded interesting.
As we waited for our food we watched the finals of the Africa Football Cup game being played on a big screen. It was Côte d'Ivoire vs. Zambia and it ended with an eight shot shootout between the two teams. It was very exciting. Zambia won. We got our food; the chicken and rice was great, the tilapia was delicious, the banko was…interesting. It is basically a stiff white mound/blob made from cassava and cornmeal. Later I learned it is also fermented. Yum. I tried to eat most of it but even that was hard. You had to eat it with your hands so they gave me a bowl of warm water to wash my fingers in. That part was fun.
An interesting thing happened as we realized we probably weren’t going to finish all of our food. In the US we’ll get our food wrapped up or just let it get thrown out it if there’s not too much left or we simply didn’t like it. We’ll even tell people “Think about the starving children in Africa” to guilt people from wasting food. Well…now we were actually in Africa. So that cliché phrase took on an entirely new meaning. So we were left wondering what to do. Wrapping our food up really didn’t make sense because we had no place to refrigerate or reheat it. Also, all that remained was some rice and a shit ton of banko; a food I wouldn’t mind never seeing again. So what did we do? We bagged up our food and took it with us. Assuming we were just going to end up throwing it away.
As we got back to the hotel we scouted for a place to have a couple drinks before getting a taxi back to the boat. We ended up at Venus (pronounced like Venice) Bar adjacent to our hotel. We sat down, looked at the pricey cocktail menu, and ordered a couple drinks. The so-called “host” of the bar began talking with us, but sort of in the money-making way I mentioned above. He said he was going to take care of us and get us a good cab driver he knows and trusts. I kind of rolled my eyes but we agreed on a fair price so I didn’t care. It wasn’t until after we were in the cab and he straight-up asked us for money “to get a beer” that his intentions became clear. We already gave him our Country Kitchen leftovers. Oh well. It was another disappointing encounter, and not the best way to end our day. Fortunately our cab driver was a genuinely nice guy and we had a great conversation with him about Valentine’s Day and Ghanaian women (he’s not a fan).
As we were driving into the port our cab got flagged down by a security van. They told us we had to go with them and they’d take us to our ship. It was a little odd, but we complied. We paid our taxi driver and hopped in the van. As we drove, the two security guards started asking us where we were from and so forth. Eventually one of them asked Melissa to write her name and contact information down. She was a little creeped out so she wrote a fake last name and address. All that mattered was that they did in fact take us to the ship and we were still alive; an interesting end to a very interesting day.
Day 2:
This day was a slow day. I woke up feeling quite sick. I wasn’t sure if it was the water in the hand washing bowl from last night’s dinner or something else. But I had a three day trip I was to leave for at 7am so I powered through. But when all thirty of us arrived at the port gate and there were no tour guides to be seen, that definitely did not make me feel much better. I waited for forty-five minutes before throwing in the towel. I walked back to the boat defeated and ill. I was also relieved; the thought of driving for four hours with a nauseous stomach had been scaring me. I got back to the ship, popped a couple pepto, and took a much appreciated nap. I woke up around noon feeling much better. I went to get lunch in the eerily empty dining room. A few minutes after I sat down to eat the Assistant Dean, Dean Stewart, came and asked if he could sit with me. Of course I obliged. What proceeded was a quite in-depth conversation with topics ranging from how the price of oil may lead to Semester at Sea’s future demise to his vacation home in Glaveston, Texas (he’s from Houston) to the legalization of marijuana (he brought it up, not me). It was a very nice discussion.
Later that afternoon I went out with a couple people to find an internet café. Overall it was a nice, slow day. I needed to recuperate.
Day 3:
Since I didn’t go on my trip the day prior I found myself with a couple empty days. So this day I decided to try and hop on the Semester at Sea trip to Kukum National Park. Lucky for me there were eight spots left. We got on a bus for a 3.5 hour drive to Cape Coast (home of the slave castles). We had a bathroom stop on the way at a nice-looking restaurant. I got the mango, passion fruit, pineapple juice. It was simply some of the best juice I’ve ever had. The company that makes it is called Blue Skies and they make it freshly every day, bottle it, and send it out immediately since there are no preservatives. The result is an amazingly refreshing, nutritious, and tasty smoothie-like substance. I’m going to miss it.
When we got to Kukum we were given a park pass, once again given bathroom time, and told to congregate in a specific area with our guide for the day. When we were all there we began our short hike to the main attraction, the canopy walk. The main reason you go to Kukum is to trek across seven narrow, wobbly, Indian Jones-esque bridges connected between nine very tall trees. It was quite an adventure and very fun. I just wish our time in the park was longer. Afterwards we were quickly shuffled out to go to lunch. We had lunch at a very clean hotel restaurant. It was pretty good. For dessert they gave us a crepe with ice cream which was delicious. After lunch we were to go on a walking tour in Elmina. In reality we got a bus tour of Elmina with a minor pit-stop outside of Elmina Castle. I didn’t even try and listen to our rather uncompelling tour guide. Instead I looked out over the dirtied river and its many fishing boats. I spotted a young, naked African boy swimming in the river, weaving through the plastic bags littering the waterway. As he neared the bridge some of his “friends” started throwing pieces of what looked like bread near his head. Then, out of nowhere, one of the boys began peeing off the bridge, butt-naked, into the river before jumping in. It was a gasp-inducing moment and later manifested itself into a nice poem for my class. After collecting my thoughts we re-boarded the bus and began our 3 hour drive back to the ship.
After getting back to the ship and eating dinner I hung out for awhile before heading out to Manilla bar with a couple friends. This was considered the best hangout in Tema by students and crew alike. The local prostitutes also frequented this spot making for quite an interesting dynamic. I didn’t stay for too long.
Day 4:
This day was almost identical to my first day. A few friends and I took the shuttle to Accra, ate at Frankies, and went to the arts center. Only this time we didn’t get a hotel room and visited the Global Mamas store, a fair trade handicrafts collective. There’s not too much to talk about.
At night Kevin and I decided to go to a place we heard about called “Cozy’s Spot”. It was supposed to be a small hole-in-the-wall drinking spot that was away from all the other SAS kids. We left around ten and got a cab to take us. As we drove I witnessed out driver snort cocaine while driving. That was a bit frightening. We had him take us to a hotel we heard was across the street. I paid him the seven cedi we agreed on but was then told that was not enough anymore since we stopped at an ATM. I didn’t agree to this, mainly because the bar was only 5 minutes away and I felt we already paid too much. As we got out and began walking away he followed us with his car. We decided to go into the hotel where surely he wouldn’t be able to harass us. After sitting in the hotel for five minutes, watching his car parked outside, we saw him walking towards the entrance. He came in acting very subdued, trying to reason with us. At this point I had a reality check. Was arguing with this coked out cabbie really worth 1 dollar? I decided to pay the man. I don’t regret it.
After getting out of that situation we walked across the street to try and find Cozy and her infamous spot. We walked through a small archway and found it. It was basically a small shed which sold beer, juice, and snacks and had a few plastic tables and chairs in front. They played music and the only other people there were a few locals. It was perfect. Our hostess, Florence, set up a table for us and got us our first round of Star. Sitting their on the side of a road and sipping on our beer was just blissful; a perfect last night in Ghana.
After hanging out and talking with Kevin for forty-five minutes or so we struck up a conversation with the only other guy there. We forgot his name, but we know he’s from Côte d'Ivoire. We hung out with this guy for a long time, talking about everything; politics, religion, sports, America, Africa, literally everything. He even talked about how he was a Christian and said that God “blessed the white people” as he violently rubbed his skin. That was hard to hear. He even said he liked George Bush and Kevin and I told him why he shouldn’t. He said he doesn’t like Muslims so he was happy when we went to war. He was so engaged with us. He hung on every word we said and tried to capture it perfectly. He said he loved our “tone” and wanted to talk just like us one day.
Eventually we convinced the hostess, Florence, to come sit with us and began talking with her. She was very funny. She had a very western-sounding accent and even did impersonations of some SAS girls that had come by earlier to get some water. At this point we were having a really great time, so much so that Florence decided to break out the beloved palm wine, a true West African specialty. The trick to drinking palm wine is to not smell it.
After another thirty minutes of laughing with drinking and resisting to go to a bar called “Biggies” Kevin and I decided it was time to go. Another glass of palm wine and we would’ve been in real trouble. We said our goodbyes, exchanged Facebook names with Florence, and headed to the street to hail a cab. It was very sad leaving them knowing I’d most likely never see them again, but I didn’t want to think about that. It was too sad.
Day 5:
I had an FDP to the same Global Mamas store I went to on day 4 for my Globalization and Development class. Basically one of the founders talked to us for thirty minutes and then we shopped. We also had a stop at Makola Market which was quite interesting. I had the best mango I’ve ever had. We got back a couple hours before on-ship time and said goodbye to Ghana.
