6. Around Town - One Two Twi

hanging around in accra is pretty good fun, and between the taxi rides, restaurants and local bars we have started to learn some basic words in twi (one of the languages spoken around accra). like most places, the effort of learning a few words in the local language is well worth the positive response received from locals. 

unfortunately there is no public transport system, so taxis are the only way to go. although they are relatively cheap, there seems to be a negotiation process each time which is more of a 'who cares less' than a negotiation. the person who acts as if they care least about the fare seems to win....not quite the batna approach. it goes a little something like this 

me: hi, how are you today

driver: eh, how are you too

me: i'm good, are you busy

driver: ehhh

me: we're going to east legon, we go everyday for 3 C

driver: oh no no no too much traffic at least 10C

me: no, that seems too much, we pay 3 everyday let's just go for 3

driver: oh no no no at least 8 C for this time

me: ok, have a nice day i will go to someone else

driver (beeping the horn): ok give me 6

me: no thank you i will keep going, the most i'll do is 4

driver: ok ok, come in

once in the taxi and the dance of distraction is over, we can get down to discussing more important things like what day of the week we were born. for instance kofi or kwame means that you were born Friday or Saturday, which explains why a lot of ghanaians have those names...i am a 'quesi' or sunday born.

i will leave you with one of my favorite bumper stickers.... if you get it, please explain it to me: 

'god's time is the best time'

two black stars

eternal flame of ghana's independence (aka jeremy)

5. Weekend 2 - West Coast Ghanarhea

cape coast castle

after just over a week in the bustling capital (accra) it was time to get out of the city and head west. we decided to check-out the cape coast which is about 3 hours west of accra. sadly, the cape coast and elmina are the origins of the slave trade. the castle there was the final point of 'no-return' where millions of enslaved africans were sent to europe, the caribbean, and the americas.

given the mixed past of the area, and the fact that the dutch, danish and british all took turns controlling the coast, there are some facts but the complete story is not detailed. one part i found particularly interesting, was the distribution of slaves from africa. about 12 months ago, we were on a plantation in charleston at the 'slave houses' and objected as our guide threw out the comment 'some slaves lived here, but nowhere near as many slaves made it to america as the caribbean and europe' - turns out he was not entirely wrong, although i am still not sure i agree with his sentiment. whilst the europeans were first to end the slave trade, it doesn't quite erase the fact that they created it and sold ten times more people in their final years than in the first one hundred.

to get there we hopped on a mini-bus which provides you the benefit of air-con, a window that works (so that you can open it to buy stuff from hawkers) and a your very own bus-preacher. as a religious society, no journey in ghana would be complete without a customary prayer at the beginning of your trip. what we didn't realise in this instance, is that the prayer would last about an hour and be followed by a request for funds.... regardless i do think there is something very nice about starting a drive on the somewhat dangerous roads with everyone taking a minute to think about safety and the fact that our lives are in the hands of the driver. the odd part is that the immediate response from the driver was to go 150km on the wrong side of the road... perhaps he has heard the prayer a few too many times?

carrying the burden

balls of steel

the slightly less depressing part of this weekend, was heading kakum national park. the park is only about 30 mins from the coast and provides the opportunity to take a canopy walk about 40m above the ground. it was somewhat scary / wobbly, but pretty safe and a pretty fun day out. it also gave us a chance to put our river runners to the test as we 'briskly walked' through a lot of mud to get up there.

canopy of death that was actually pretty safe

4. Week 2 - Do the Rice Thing / Part 1

after a couple of days in ghana, we were introduced to our project and work for the next couple of months. our 'clients' are two 60 year old women (aunty becky and aunty aggie) in a small town north east of the capital accra. they are pretty incredible women who over the past 30 years have built up businesses from nothing to something relatively substantial today.


they are known as aggregators and they fund  farmers to produce rice which they receive  unprocessed, they process it and then sell it to retailers. they are something of a middle-man, however they are effectively the backbone of the industry as they provide the credit / funding to the farmers in order to grow rice. the banks will not go anywhere near the farmers, so without their funding there would be no rice industry. they keep few records, manage large numbers of workers and networks of farmers and retailers. they basically run the business in their heads. they are pretty sharp but need to industrialize as their business and the industry expands and they require more and more financing from the banks. no computers, internet or powerpoint, just a notepad and a pen. its back to basics and very real... enter two white people who have spent the past ten years in offices.


nicola and i spend a couple of days/ nights a week up near the village with the ladies and their businesses to get to understand them.  we have few friends in the area - a taxi driver (eugine) who picks us up from our hotel every morning and delivers us to the towns closer to the farms. I am pretty sure we are paying him a weekly wage for our daily ride, but i guess that's the foreigners 'tax'. I leave nicola at auntie aggie's and carry on to becky's farm. I then jump on a motor bike on a dirt road for about 20 mins to get to my farm...the driver somehow manages to avoid the pot holes and get me the safely.


the project's mission is to increase food security in africa. we have been seeking out local rice where ever we go...maybe our biggest achievement will be eating local rice breakfast, lunch and dinner!

my rice family (becky and evelyn)

nicola's rice aunty (aggie)

3. Week 2 - Greeting and Peeing

one of the most noticeable things in our first few weeks here, has been the constant greeting and peeing that goes on as part of everyday life in ghana. greeting is a mandatory activity that is  incorporated into daily life - everybody just does it. peeing on the streets on the other hand seems to have been embraced by many but is optional.

everyone greets everyone all the time. saying 'hi' or nodding to a person passing you on the street is not enough. you need to follow-up with a 'how are you' and often a handshake that makes a clicking noise. if you are really greeting properly you will add some form of compliment. otherwise you are considered rude. at first i found this a little confronting as people are constantly coming up to greet you. my post new york assumption is that if someone is coming up to you, they either want something from you or mean to do you harm. it has only taken two weeks to get over this and appreciate the positive sentiment and enjoy the extra 30 seconds allocated to saying hello properly. the first few days in the office and out at the field were a little difficult, as i greeted about 200 people... but now i am running around greeting and touching everyone in ghana!

once you are past greeting people and trying to catch their eye to ensure you greet them properly, you start to notice that people are peeing everywhere. i have been to india and other places where public urination is common, but ghana seems to have taken it to the extreme. i am not sure whether its the frequency, timing or bizarre methods used here, but it is definitely more noticeable than in other places. some techniques witnessed to date include the:

• free willy: for the younger generation a political statement of freedom made whilst pointing to the sun
• peek-a-boo: for the more experienced public urinator, keep the winky in the cave and directing the stream through the zipper hole 
• one-eyed-trouser snake: for the older, perhaps less hygienic individual this involves somehow bringing the snake down the side of the trouser leg and discretely draining yourself
• stand-up for women's rights: for the most experienced and confident of women in today's volatile and ever-changing world, there is the upright stance

fortunately from what i have seen ghanaians keep the greeting and peeing separate. my biggest fear at the moment is that someone will come up to us in the street with 'the old greeting-peeing double'...

2. Weekend 1 - A Frican Good Time

we were fortunate to have gone to the office on the friday before we officially started, because it was the final day for some of the summer volunteers. it was a great chance to meet the last group who were incredibly nice and invited us to all their farewell activities and weekend plans. the weekend began on friday night with the pan-african street dance championships. it was one of the most surreal experiences i have ever had. think 'americas next dance crew' meets the world cup in africa. a huge convention centre fitted with stadium seats and a judges table... there was a dj and the teams wore their national flags as outfits. we were directed through the VIP section where we were seated out the front and provided food and drink all night... so i was sufficiently drunk as we watched the countries battle for pan-african street dance supremacy?! ghana made the finals but lost to the kenyans in the third and final round. a heartbreaker for all of ghana. 

the next day we started out really early in the morning and drove about 2 hrs out to Ada where there is a harvest festival every year. we were lucky that one of the guys had made friends with a girl at his cafe whose grandfather was the chief of one of the local villages, so we were treated to a celebrity welcome. we walked the streets before the parade and met her family and saw the town. we had lunch (local food is soup with fufu or banku... but chicken and rice seems the safest option for now). then we went back to town to prepare for the parade. it was only our second full day in the country, so we were over-stimulated by all that was happening around us. in particular, the constant greeting that goes on. we were greeted and touched individually by several thousand residents. then we went to check out the parade from a first level balcony owned by our hosts family. the 'building' was from the 1800's and felt like it might fall apart at any moment, but it provided a pretty good spot to watch the parade. each local areas chief is carried through the city on a platform that represents their area.... guns are fired as the are carried through the streets.... all in all a pretty amazing spectacle. on the way out someone showed me a group of people making banku (local doughy stuff). i made the mistake of stopping and starring too long and was approached by a lovely lady who forced me to try fermenting fish. at first it was salty and kind of tasty, then the ammonia hit the back of my throat as i smiled and said 'delicious'...

 clearing the streets before the parade         

 carrying the chiefs in the streets

1. Day 1 - T.I.A.

we have had an awesome start to the trip and our flight here from istanbul was hilarious. we were on turkish airlines and amongst about 20 white faces (obruni's) on the flight. for some reason the turkish airlines crew count everyone on the plane by hand, and only once counted and all passengers are seated will they take off. much like israeli's on el-al, ghanaians on their way home will not be told how to behave. this created a 90 minute exercise that looked more like a slap-stick comedy than an international flight. the hostesses would walk in threes up and down the aisles trying to count passengers. the passengers would then stand up and walk around which was met with a 'sir please take your seat we cannot leave till everyone is seated and counted'. of course the hostess would lose count and have to start again. as soon as that passenger sat down another would get up, so back to the beginning they would go. this went on for some time, until others decided to intervene. across the flight you had hundreds of people shouting in an african accent (almost sounds jamaican at first) 'why dont you sit so we can go, why don't you listen'. suddenly it was a free for all with people shouting at each other until all are seated, counted and we're ready to go. at this point it was too much for the kids who'd been waiting 90 mins and had to go to the bathroom. one was allowed permission to stand-up and run to the toilet... this was a signal for all to get up and go to the toilet. i did not know there were this many passengers on the plane, let alone children because suddenly the aisles were filled with 5-10 yr old kids all lining up to go the bathroom.... of course this meant we could not go anywhere for a little while longer. 

finally we got moving and the flight was not that bad. we were fed, slept, read and thought we were on the home stretch. someone must have been hungry and went to the kitchen at the back of the plane to ask for a sandwhich. when one person discovered the kitchen was open, this indicated to the rest of the plane that there was a free food handout at the back. the entire plane stood up and ran to the back... i am surprised the plane did not turn straight up from the shift in weight and fall out of the sky! you had about 200 people rushing to the back, grabbing 5 sandwhiches and bottles of wine and then cradling them in their arms to get back to their seats. the guys next to us literally had 4 sandwhiches and 4 bottles of whine and could not fit them in their bags. the other 20 white faces and us sat still and looked at each other in shock as the hostesses were robbed of their food. 

then we landed at the airport which is literally a big room with a carousel and 2 doors that say exit. there is a mad rush when you land, because all bags go on the same carousel... you see people grabbing bags and then others coming up to grab the bag from them saying 'this is mine'. for foreigners here for the first time you can imagine that we did not know what was going on. suddenly there was a shout 'all bags are unloaded'. of course our bags were nowhere to be seen and we assumed the worst. the only good thing was that about 50 others were standing around without bags, so either there was a lot of missing bags, or another load to come. fortunately the announcement was premature and we found our bags, met our driver and were on our way to the hotel.... we made it in one piece!