Living the Highlife–Not Really

Where’d that money go again? I thought after my first look at the Ikando house.

Pictures

Pictures might be worth a thousand words, but those thousand words might not always communicate the truth.

Before deciding on Ikando, I looked at pictures on its website and Flickr. I wanted to make sure that I’d stay in a decent living space for six months. While the pictures I saw of the bedroom and grounds of the accommodation were nothing to perform cartwheels over, they did satisfy my need to know that my money would help place me in a well-kept place.

If only the last statement was completely true.

Talking Walls

If Ikando walls could talk, they would probably tell you that they wish to be scrubbed down with soap and water. The walls hint that they were once blindingly white because some spots are brighter than others. But, if you slide your finger on a wall, you just might get the dust collected from volunteers past on your digit.

I touched a wall in my room as a gesture to tell myself “You’re in Africa! People in movies always touch walls as some sentimental moment.” But, a grimy-feeling hand was what I got instead of some spellbinding, surreal moment.

So much for my movie moment.

Downstairs

The living and dining rooms aren’t too shabby, but they could also be tidied up a bit.

The cushions for the sofa have definitely been sat and slept on as permanent dents are part of the décor. I’m sure part of the reason why the cushions look so worn is because the housekeeper, Adiza, sleeps on the sofa almost every night.

I am concerned about injuring my behind while sitting on one of the unsteady wicker chairs. Only two of the six dining room chairs don’t wobble or make you feel like you’re too heavy once you take a seat.

The cluttered dining table is so high that it makes me feel like a kid sitting at the grown-ups table for Thanksgiving. Soap and water have also been distant cousins to the table because my grey shirt was smeared brown marks after resting my elbows on the table.

Stepping into the kitchen is like stepping back in time. The refrigerator, gas stove and pots and pans remind me of my late maternal grandmother’s kitchen from the 80s, except there is no strong smell of beach or vinegar. Plus, I’m pretty sure that my grandmother would’ve asked one of my uncles to fix her kitchen sink if she had to place a bucket underneath the pipe and turn knobs under the sink to make water run.

There’s a box atop the refrigerator that monitors the temperature of the refrigerator. If you leave one of the refrigerator doors open, you’ll hear a beeping sound. This is much different from my ice-making refrigerator back home. I have a feeling that I will miss ice, especially in my iced tea.

The stove looks like a modern gas stove of the 80s. It is tiny, and it requires you to light a match to start a flame. This is very dangerous for an accident-prone person like me. I’m positive baking won’t be a common practice during my stay.

Is This Camp?

My bedroom accommodates four people. I was a little surprised to see bunk-beds because the pictures I saw online were single beds with canopies covering the. Oh, well for the accuracy of the website.

I’ve been on a firm mattress or two before. My mother loved firm mattresses. However, the bed and pillows here are the hardest I’ve ever touched. If Bedrock were a real town, the mattresses and pillows here would definitely be a few of its products.

There is only one working shower out of two bathrooms. You have the choice to take a shower in the bathroom with the working shower that has low water pressure, light and toilet. Or, you can opt to brush your teeth in the bathroom with only a working sink. Decisions…

Should you ever run out of water for any reason, don’t worry. Two water bins occupy each bathroom to help you take a bucket bath.

Yes, I’m living the highlife in Ghana.

 

Where are the People?

 On the Ikando website, about nine staff members are listed. Of those seven, only one, Kwesi, is actually here. What happened to the other six?

Kwesi lives full-time at the house, and his role does match what is one the website. For my first few hours in Ghana, he was a pretty good guide. Hopefully, he’ll be as helpful for the rest of my stay.

We have a security guard here who I’m sure is beyond AARP age. He has no gun. No baton. No mace. But he does have a newspaper, a lawn chair and eyes that enjoy taking pleasure in siestas. I will certainly die should a crazy person lurk around Ikando.

Apparently, we have a new housekeeper, Adiza, who is not featured on the website. I find her to be a bit of an oxymoron since she is a messy housekeeper. Whose four pair of flip-flops are scattered around the dining room floor? The housekeeper’s. Whose toothpaste is sitting in the windowsill?  The housekeeper’s. Whose dirty dishes are in the sink? The housekeeper’s. I hear she’s a good sweeper.

There’s a staff member who answers e-mails and manages the house. I’ve only met him a few times, but I can definitely say that he is a well-dressed man who likes silver pinky rings. I am certain that some of my placement fee went to something on his body instead of the broken entrance door handle and kitchen sink. But, I’m just speculating.

Neighbors

Directly across from the Ikando house is an abandoned house lived in by a family. A lady who makes fufu and okra stew has recently opened up shop in front of the abandoned building, and it looks like there is another shop or restaurant that will open soon right next to her.

Less than a minute’s walk away is one of Ghana’s top newspapers where I initially wanted to work. I’m still not sure what the whole story is behind my nonexistent placement there. Other major, local businesses also share office space with the newspaper.

Should I ever need furniture or a seamstress, I can mosey right on down the road to see a carpenter making coffee tables and a seamstress making dresses with kente cloth.

If I should need eggs, African art, a haircut or grilled plantain; all I have to do is visit the local shops on the corner. Almost everything can be found on the corner. If not, I can just walk a few minutes up to Nima market and buy a whole meal for less than $10 USD.

 

Yay, Me!

 The Ikando house could definitely use some improvements, but I am mindful that I do have some luxuries that many in the city do not have.

Accra is a city on the rise, but issues from lack of resources can make the quality of life less than desirable.

77.6 percent of houses in Accra have indoor toilets, but only 30 percent have flushing toilets and only 20 percent have indoor plumbing.

While it will be harder for me to wash my thick hair with poor water pressure, I’m appreciative that I can flush a toilet.

Remember When I Used to Post Here?

Yeah, you’re not the only one.

I have been slack, lame, and just plain ratchet when it comes to this site. No excuses.

Overit.com

By the time December made its quick arrival, I was annoyed with the length of time it took to post pictures using Ghana’s agonizingly slow internet. I was also over the inconsistent internet connection at Ikando and my internships (Yes, internships–plural. You read that correctly. A post will follow soon with an explanation).

The Conversation–Not With Hill Harper

The anxiety of posting on here became fear-inducing.  Not knowing who might or who might not read this blog was almost paralyzing. 

This is the internal dialogue of how this blog came to miss so many posts and weekend trips:

I want a job when I return home. Will future employers read this? What if there is a typo? What if my AP style still needs work?  What if no one cares about what I’m doing in Ghana?  What if I offend someone? What makes what I have to say so important over the countless other bloggers who post whiny, stream-of-conscious pieces? What if this does absolutely nothing for my aspirations of becoming  writer? Where is the depth in my posts?

Getoverit.net

Honestly, I still continue to have this conversation in my head, and I still have failed to produce adequate answers to my fear-of-the-unknown woes about this blog. Yet,as my mom used to say during one of my bratty or indecisive moods, “Piss or get off the pot.”

I’m getting back on this blogging pot. Some question marks, maybe a few typos here and there, and possibly a job offer (Get the hint, employers?) are all in the future of this blog.

Now, on to the next post….

Red-Red

I cooked my first Ghanaian meal!

Well, I mostly watched it being made, but I did help chop some onions and tomatoes for the red-red.

Red-red is fried plantain served with black-eyed pea stew. Chicken or fish is also sometimes part of the stew. The recipe is called “red-red” because the plantain is fried in red palm oil, and the tomatoes give the black-eyed pea stew a red color.

Nima Market

To get the ingredients for our meal, Kwesi took Eimi (pronounced “Amy”) to Nima Market, not too far from our house.

Just like Makola Market, Nima Market was chaotic. Smoked fish sellers shaded the street, and the food’s aroma was extra powerful under the merciless Ghanaian sun. Toothpaste, body wash, crabs and peppers were available for low prices should Eimi or I need them. Goats were running free among the abandoned cars and tro-tros that need a look under the hood.

But, unlike Makola Market, Nima Market was less overwhelming to me. Nima Market was less overwhelming than Makola Market because it was a Sunday. The other reason, I think, is Nima Market isn’t a tourist destination like Makola. The sellers and shoppers were more relaxed and far less aggressive. I was even able to take a picture of the street!

Why is that one Black?

Kwesi is well-known around our home, and people are used to seeing him travel with foreigners.

When we stopped in front of a plantain seller, he did all the talking in Twi as I paid for the plantain that we were going to fry for the evening. The lady looked at me, pointed and started talking to Kwesi in Twi again before we left to buy the other items for the night’s meal.

Kwesi walked away laughing. He said that the woman couldn’t understand why I was black if I wasn’t from Ghana. “People just don’t know. If they’re uneducated, there’s no way for them to know. You look just like a Ghanaian,” he said.

I was shocked. Doesn’t every black person know that there are black people all over the world? Granted, at that time, I had been in Ghana for a little over a week, and I had my fair share of people speaking Twi to me and laughing at me once they realized I am not a Ghanaian.

This is how a typical conversation is for me after it is known that I don’t know Twi:

“Are you a Nigerian?”

“No.”

“Are you a South African?”

“No.”

“Ah! Black-American?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I see.”

We left the market to prepare the meal, but I left with a trace of sadness in my throat, wondering how many Ghanaians didn’t know about blacks in other countries.

Cooking Time!

We might have bought more stuff, but these are the main ingredients in our red-red:

• Pound of rice
• Five tomatoes
• Three onions
• Two large cans of tomato paste
• Three cans of shrimp
• Four large plantains
• Pound of black-eyed peas
• A half-liter of palm oil
• One smoked fish

First, we had to sift through the black-eyed peas. Kwesi said that you can end up eating a rock if you don’t sift through the peas!

Kwesi sorting through black-eyed peas

Second, we peeled and chopped all vegetables. Then, we opened the cans of tomato paste, added water and dropped the vegetables and smoked fish into the pot.

Next; Kweis, Adiza, the housekeeper, and her friend cut the plantain and soaked them before frying them in palm oil.

Prepping Plantain

Yum! Fried Plantain!

Lastly, we ate!

Guys Who Don’t Go Away & Kokrobite

My third weekend in Ghana was spent shopping at Osu and listening to reggae on the beach in Kokrobite.

On Our Way to Osu

Osu

Shouts of “My, sister, come have a look,” and “Too black, too strong,” made up the background noise. I had two obrunis with me, Eimi and our new roommate Julie from the U.S.A., which attracted even more yelling street merchants. “Obruni” is the Twi word that means “white person or foreigner.”

One guy just wouldn’t go away. “I like your style. Take one of my pictures for a piece of your heart,” he said, comma while pulling out a painting from his raggedy book bag. The more I kept walking away, the more he kept walking with me to convince me to give him my number.

“I’m not giving you my number, and I don’t want yours,” I told him.

We agreed on one thing after our constant back-and-forth: We would both be at Kokrobite (pronunced “ko-crow-bee-tay”) Beach at night.

“If I see you, I see you. If I don’t…Oh, well…,” I said before continuing on my mission to find beaded earrings.

Big Milly’s Backyard

Kokrobite Beach is located about 15 miles outside Accra. Local reggae artists and other acts perform live reggae music there on Saturday nights.

Although Kokrobite is a short distance from Accra, taking a tro-tro on busy Accra’s Saturday nights made our journey feel as if it were 100 miles away. The majority of out time on the tro-tro to Kokrobite was spent waiting in traffic. The rest consisted of a stop on the side of a residential road for our tro-tro driver to take a whiz while a woman selling plantain walked up to Julie’s window seat and asked, “Obruni, will you buy something?” making the tro-tro driver and the other passengers erupt in laughter because Julie was the only white person on the tro-tro.

After reaching our first stop, we were unsure about the next tro-tro to take to actually reach Kokrobite. The directions we received from our housekeeper weren’t as descriptive as they should’ve been.  We asked about four people how to reach Kokrobite from Old Barrier (where we were) before a taxi driver pressured us to get in his cab for only 2 GHS.

We arrived in a dark community that only used candles for lights. I was hesitant, especially after our cab driver magically jacked-up the price to 2 GHS apiece instead of the original agreed upon 2 GHS for all three of us.

I tripped over rocks, sank into mud and cursed myself for not having a flashlight to see my way to reggae on the beach. I was pissed.

When we finally reached the area for reggae, we were stopped and told to pay 5 GHS for entry into Big Milly’s Backyard. Ugh! I didn’t know there was a fee. Beaches should be free, I thought.

Once we entered, we were surprised to find that Big Milly’s Backyard wasn’t as packed as we thought it would. Small pockets of British and Australian obrunis clustered at the two bars and the one restaurant on site. Locals hanging around, specifically the men, flirted and smiled in obruni women’s faces.

I thought reggae night would be more of a local favorite because Kwesi and Adiza, the housekeeper, regularly attend. Instead, I thought I was in Europe for a second because of the sea of blonde hair and blues eyes. Then again, it might be that we just happened to attend the touristy night at Big Milly’s Backyard.

First orders of business were to find something to eat and to get a drink to wash away the stress of getting to the beach. We ran into the annoying guys from Osu, and they showed us where to buy something cheap.

Egg sandwiches, smoked fish, chichingas and kenkey, all for 2 GHS or less, were sold on the beach outside of Big Milly’s.

One bar sign boasted that it served “The Best Pina Coladas This Side of the Equator!” Because I’m a champagne and frozen drinks type of gal, I hurried over to see what drink I could have that would make dancing with dirty feet more fun.

I saw a chocolate-smoothie mixed drink and decided to order it. The bartender was out of chocolate. I then ordered a strawberry daiquiri. He was out of strawberries. Pina Colada? Out of the mix. I settled on a banana colada that had a laughable amount of alcohol because I couldn’t detect a trace of alcohol in my drink. . So much for good alcohol.

Making the Drinks

Using Filtered Ice in the Blender

Sipping on a Colada

Like most events in Ghana, the music playing didn’t start on time–about two hours late to be exact. In the meantime, I had to have a conversation about personal space with one of the Osu guys people call “Calabash” because he plays that kind of drum. My words had absolutely no impression on him as he still tried to wrap his arm around me and place his cheek on mine. Yuck! I eventually just started pushing him away and bumping his head away with my hand. Still, he didn’t get the message.

Julie even had to correct the other pesky Osu guy, James, about putting his short arm around her 5 foot 10 frame.

On the bright side , I did score a bracelet made from the old British currency once used in Ghana from a guy who was “interested in knowing about Lay-tee-she-ah.” Before that, I had a conversation with a gorgeous-faced college student who was trying to sell me the same type of name bracelet that I bought in Osu weeks ago. His whole sales pitch was about being black, being home in Ghana because I’m Black and needing to buy a bracelet from him because I’m black. Yes, I’m black, but he should probably come up with a better sales angle that doesn’t state the obvious. Just a thought.

Coin Bracelet from a Stranger

Locals were around, but you didn’t want to be bothered with the lot that showed up.

The night’s events began with an acrobatic performance that I couldn’t catch well on camera. Children were doing flips, dancing and walking on their hands. One adult performer put a burning stick in his mouth and rubbed it all over his body. The same performer put the head of a live snake in his mouth before placing the snake in his crotch. A local obruni man in the crowd then put the snake in his mouth after that! Gross!

Acrobats

Fire Juggler

Smooth music then flowed from the speakers, and people were slowly moving to the dirt ground dance floor. More mid-tempo and high-tempo songs were performed as more alcohol was consumed to encourage people to dance.

For a woman at Kokrobite that night, dancing by herself was just not an option. It was amusing to see women get up to dance alone, then get pulled next to some guy swaying his hips against her. The women would either ignore the guys or try to slowly dance away with each foot step.

My roommates and I remained seated for a good part of the night because we didn’t want to be assaulted by someone’s sweaty private area grinding on us. But not dancing is not an option in Ghana.

Eimi was grabbed by the nice guy who bought me the coin bracelet. Julie and I then jumped in as if we were about to double-dutch together. We stayed close to one another and just danced away if we felt a hand on our waists or shoulders. It was a fun time.

Eimi Dancing with the Guy Who Bought the Bracelet

I was surprised at the amount of American music being played by the later bands. The atmosphere was more reminiscent of a relative’s backyard celebration than a Ghanaian reggae beach experience.

Dancing and Posing (That guy behind me just wouldn't go away.)

Yellow Stain Beach Resort

The annoying guys from Osu walked with us to help us find a hotel for the night and to protect us from the purse snatching that had been reported earlier.

The Dream Beach Resort was anything but a dream. The first room we saw had wires galore hanging out of the walls. The second room’s fan was on the verge of electrocuting us because it was hanging detached from the ceiling and hitting a nearby wire that also hung from the ceiling.

The “well-kept rooms are very good value” claim that the Bradt Guide boasts for the Dream Beach Resort is far from accurate. No soap, washcloths or towels were provided, and the shower was just a hole in the wall that shot out water. Moreover, I discovered a suspicious raised, yellow substance on my pillow and sheets. The help desk couldn’t be called because there was no phone in our room. Good times.

What was that yellow stain?

View from the hotel restaurant

Surprise!

The next morning, we awoke, hoping that we were free of the Osu guys. We got up early and ordered French toast at the hotel’s restaurant, thinking we were free to have girl chat and enjoy our time as tourists together.

Psych!

Not too long after we sat down to order our food, we saw James walk up to greet us. Damn! Damn! Damn!

When the waitress brought our coffee and hot chocolate, James began to scrape his teeth with a piece of wood and spit his plaque while I mixed my cocoa powder and water. Yum!

We politely masked our annoyance as we ate French toast with Laughing Cow cheese and admired the beautiful scenery around us.

Instant coffee is the only type of coffee I ever see people drink.

French Toast and Cheese

Surprise Again!

My roommates and I headed toward the water to check out the beach that was shaded by the night sky when we first arrived.

The scenery was overcast and beautiful. The salty smell of the ocean flooded our lungs, and we were happy to take a walk along the beach.

Fishing boats lined along the shore like seashells. Smooth, tan sand exfoliated our feet with each step. Fallen coconuts were pleasant finds. Laughter from children practicing backflips filled the air.

It was indeed a good morning to be in Ghana.

One of the many fishing boats on the beach that day

Coconut

All was pleasant until Calabash showed up from out of nowhere. The corners of his eyes still had crust from his rest and so did the corners of his mouth. Still, he was trying to hug me—morning breath and all. “Personal space,” I said with my “talk-to-the-hand gesture.”

I was truly annoyed, but tried to enjoy taking in my first glimpse of a Ghanaian beach.

Fishing Time

As we walked along the beach, we noticed people facing the ocean and pulling on something with all their might.

James, one of the Osu guys, told us they were fishing.

The people who live in the area wake up very early every morning to go out into the ocean to cast a large net. When the sun rises, the fisherman and others in the community help pull in the net of ocean creatures. Sometimes, whatever is caught is given to those who helped.

Julie pitched in pull the net. Eimi has fun taking pictures of a little girl who enjoyed being photographed. I watched the muscles of the shirtless men pulling the net flex like a Total Gym commercial. (Almost every man on Kokrobite had an insanely ripped body. Who knew that catching fish could make you look like a track star?)

When the net was finally pulled ashore, the net-pullers called my roommates and me to take a look at what they caught. I was surprised at how friendly they were considering we all had our cameras out to photograph their efforts.

The net mostly held small fish and shrimp. James, Eimi and Julie pulled apart shrimp and ate them fresh out of the net. I was unable to talk myself into eating one because the water quality is questionable in Ghana and shrimp are really unappealing when they’re alive and not in cocktail sauce.

Fishermen going to sea

Pulling the catch in

The Catch

Eimi, Julian and James ate these shrimp.

Kids who wanted their picture taken

We continued our walk on the beach with James and Calabash following right behind us. Being next to the ocean is always a calming experience for me. But being followed doesn’t necessarily set the reflective mood that I like to have while on the beach.

Julie and I left to meet someone I met earlier in the week, and Eimi stayed to have drumming lessons.

On the bumpy tro-tro ride home, I contemplated about how many Calabash-like guys I would have to endure.

Rolling with It

On the first test run to my work, Kwesi and I met with Juliana Y.K. Arhin, the founder and manager of Life Bridge 68 Foundation.

About Julie

Ms. Julie, or Auntie Julie as most people call her, started Life Bridge in 2004. Since then, she has created an income-earning school with 10 students and one on scholarship. She also pioneered an innovative waste competition for Ghanaian children called Kids Against Waste (KAW). KAW is a national program that gives participants the chance to create artwork out of waste materials found in their communities.

In addition to running LB68F, she also serves as the vice president of a coalition of Ghanaian NGOs that promotes waste management in Ghana.

She is quite a busy lady who is also married with three children.

I have to say that she is by far the nicest person that I’ve met in Ghana. Her presence is calming, welcoming and almost imposing, as she stands 5 feet 11 inches tall.

Reading Club?

I expected to work for Ikando as the Reading Club Coordinator under the supervision of Ms. Julie. At our initial meeting, Ms. Julie informed me that the Reading Club was suspended in July to focus more attention on other projects.

So much for me helping people learn to read.

She told me that I would be responsible for writing reports and articles and creating newsletters for her organization. This is not what I expected at all, and I wish that Ikando had informed me before I left the U.S.A. However, as I’ve learned since coming to Ghana, you just have to roll with everything and leave expectations at the back door.

Kids and Cribs in My Office

We Just Want to Play

On the bright side, I am beyond overjoyed that I get lunch every day! The school prepares traditional Ghanaian lunches for its students, and Ms. Julie generously offers me a meal every day.

I get to have groundnut soup, kenkey or banku as options for my lunch. Auntie Edith (Most Ghanaian teachers are called “Auntie.”) always tells me what my lunch is made of and how to eat it like a Ghanaian. I usually eat alone because the teachers are usually feeding the younger children. But, I often have the company of a napping child in one of the four cribs in my office.

Not only am I happy that a cooked lunch will help me manage my strict food budget for my six months here, but I am also excited to taste different Ghanaian meals every day such as red-red or waakye.

Check out the pictures of my lunches below from my first week of work!

Kenkey (Fermented Corn)

Groundnut Stew with Talapia

Red-Red (Fried Plantain and Black-Eyed Peas)

Kontomire (Pronounced "can-toom-ray") Stew and Yam

Something Rotten in Accra

When I looked at pictures of Ghana before I arrived, I imagined inhaling the smell of fresh pineapples and passion fruit on the street. The warmth of the sun on my forehead would enliven my spirit and connect me to my ancestors. Breathing the air in Ghana would be part of my privileged journey to my roots.

Wrong.

I am certain that I shaved off at least two years of my life within a few days of being in Ghana.

I knew that I would live in a city that’s rather westernized. But I didn’t realize how the Western influence would combine with Ghana’s lack of adequate infrastructure to create such a malodorous capital city, Accra.

Royal Influence

Ghana was colonized by the British for 113 years before becoming independent in 1957. British colonies were established around the coastline and even in some northern parts of Ghana. You can still see the subtle British influence in Ghanaian education and culture. Ghanaians learn the King’s English in schools, and many Ghanaians have tea and bread for breakfast like the British. Also, many obruni (Twi word for “white person or foreigner”) people I see walking around are British visitors.

I was certain that a country with strong British influence, excluding the atrocity of exporting human lives, would be a sharp mirror-image of the British. After all, aren’t the British “refined,” with their proper English and proper time for tea? Surely the air in a Ghanaian city would be proper for breathing.

Not necessarily the case.

Walking down the streets of Accra can be an airborne hazard to one’s health.

Seconds of Fresh Air

Inside the Ikando compound, where I live, banana trees, hibiscus bushes and wild grass create pleasant aromas. But each morning, I leave the compound, walking through the gates and into  the smell of the rest of Accra.

Flowers at Ikando

Flowers Growing on the Walls

Ikando Banana Tree

The smell of sand warmed by urine from the open sewer less than 40 feet away make its way to my nostrils.

Open Funk

Open Sewer Near Ikando House

Open sewers are the norm in Ghana.

You’ll always see empty water sachets, bags that are sold with water in them, black plastic bags and Styrofoam containers floating in the murk.

Since animals runs free here, chickens and goats often have fun hanging around the sewers because they might luck-up and find discarded food.

What’s worse is seeing a man or boy hanging by a sewer. You might think that they are waiting for someone. Nope! They are peeing directly into the open sewer. I once saw a man wash his son’s butt with his bare hand and a small bucket of water as his son squatted over a sewer after making a bowel movement. I never see anyone use hand sanitizer afterward.

Gutter with Trash

Large Gutter Near Ring Road

Past the sewer smells, my nose gets punched with jet-black vehicle exhaust at a well-travelled car junction.

I estimate that the majority, maybe 80 percent or so, of the cars on the roads of Accra are at least 10 years old. Yes, there are newer cars on the road that boast names such as Mercedes, Lexus and Hummer. However, looking for such a car is like looking for Waldo at times.

Currently, no vehicle or air regulations exist to improve air quality in Ghana. While the Ghana EPA has been trying to assist in the establishment of vehicular emissions regulations since 2007 to help Ghana’s cities have cleaner air, nothing more has been done to improve the air quality for Ghanaian citizens.

Part of Ring Road on a Busy Day

You can inhale the exhaust and smoke from a ’92 Kia Sephia, government dump truck and a city bus—all at the same time. Walking around is like chain-smoking a cigarette.

City of Cooks

As I continue down Ring Road Central, a major street in Accra, the scent of grilled plantain and the spice of chichingas, extremely spicy grilled meat on a kabob with onions, fill the air. Street cooks are hoping to make a sale. My mouth salivates at the sweetness of a cooked plantain, and my throat burns in memory of my last swallowed of a chichinga. I can smell the herbs and onions in the stews from various restaurants, and I think that Ghanaian food is comforting, like the soul food of America’s south.

Attack of the Pits

My fat-girl fantasies of eating are usually interrupted by the smell of a man’s armpit.

As men pass me on their way to catch a taxi or to work, I feel like a groundhog in a county fair, constantly whacked on the head with funk. One pit after the other punches my left nostril, then my right. I wonder when the buzzer for this smell-abuse game will end, but my buzzer rarely sounds.

If my buzzer does sounds, another game begins with the scent of outrageously strong cologne. Ever wander through the cologne section of a department store when all perfume bottles have been sprayed at once? What about standing next to your grandfather, who still thinks he should bathe with Old Spice cologne after washing with Old Spice body wash? There seems to be no in-between for funk and cologne.

On rare occasions in my few days in Ghana, I have smelled men who have applied just the right of cologne. I imagine walking up to them to say I appreciate the discreet efforts they have taken to smell good.

I am positive that smelly armpits are every bit as endemic in Ghana as malaria. Deodorant seems to be as obsolete as the use of hand-sanitizer. Walking the streets of Accra remind me of the dread I felt in my high school gym when the door to the boys’ locker room was left open.

What makes matters worse: Extremely strong cologne used mask the underarm odor!

Ambling down Ring Road is like opening a box of arm-pit chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get.

Ring Road After Lunch Hour

In America, deodorant is as every bit a necessity as soap and water. In Ghana, I am starting to wonder if it is a luxury as I encounter so many individuals who are obviously without it.

I’m not sure if the last statement is entirely true because of the circles in which I travel. I have not yet been to the nicer areas of Accra where there is no trash, closed sewers and beautiful men wearing three-piece suits under the Ghanaian sun while smelling as sweet as a papaya.

Ghana has many natural resources, such as gold, diamonds and timber. It is also the No. 2 exporter of cocoa in the world, and Ghana recently struck oil. I am still trying to understand why Ghana’s economy, with so many resources, still heavily relies on foreign support. And why, with so many resources and support, the God-awful sewers can’t be closed.

Oh, well. As a stranger once told me on a musky tro-tro ride: “This is Africa.”

Name Game

I might be Ghanaian!
Well, that’s at least what I’ve been told by quite a few people. My last name, Beachum, is, according to some, “very Ghanaian.”

 

From what I’ve been told, there are quite a bit of Fante, an Akan ethnic group that originates from mid-Ghana, with my same last name.

 

Who knew?

 

In high school, my favorite history teacher asked my Honors History class to find the origin of our last name and to see if we had a coat of arms for it. From that class, I learned that my last name was of British origin, not Ghanaian.

 

Considering the strong British influence of Ghana through colonies and slavery, I’m still certain that it is a British name.

 

From the history that I’ve read about Ghana, the British were in support of the Fante during their strife between the Ashanti, the largest Akan ethnic group in Ghana. The British found the Fante to be more agreeable and inviting than their Ashanti foes. Thus, I am sure, interracial relationships were a result. The British were always up to something in history, weren’t they?

 

From the little bit of family history that I do know, my great aunt was a slave. And, according to family members, our last name is more likely the result of a former slave master passing down his name to generations. Considering that most enslaved Africans were not allowed to keep their names or culture, and they were renamed by their owners, I think my last name is more likely the result of some slave owner who passed his name along to his slaves to identify them. My family, like most Black-American families, just chose to keep it.

 

My real Ghanaian name is Adjoa (pronounced “ad-jew-a”), meaning “Monday-born.”

 

In Ghana, many Akan ethnic groups like to name their children after the day they were born. The pronunciations and spellings of the names differ depending on your ethnic group and language. For instance; Kwesi’s name, my Ikando guide, is a Fante name. However, since we’re in Accra and Ga people are the dominant ethnic group with many Ga speakers, he is often called “Quarshie” (pronounced “kwer-shee”). If he were Ashanti, his name would be Akwasi.

 

What is your Akan name?

 

Day	Female	Male
Monday	Adwoa, Adjoa	Kojo, Cudjoe
Tuesday	Abena, Abina	Kwabena, Kobby
Wednesday	Akua, Ekuwa	Kwaku, Kweku
Thursday	Yaa, Yaayaa	Yaw, Yokow
Friday	Afua, Efua	Kofi, Yoofi
Saturday	Kwame, Kwami	Ama, Awo
Sunday	Akosua, Kisi	Kwesi, Akwasi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Weekend

My first Saturday in Accra started with uneasiness and ended with a smile.

 

The other Ikando volunteer, set to leave in days, had travelled to the Cape Coast, and Kwesi, the Ikando staff member who lives onsite most of the time, had gone to the beach for the weekend. I had an Internet connection but no Internet pass code to use the Web. Boo!

 

I took a sleeping pill to adjust to the time shift, but I couldn’t stay asleep. Walking alone to explore the city just didn’t seem an option to me at the time because the scary blogs I had read warned against women walking alone in Ghana. I was wide awake in another country where I only knew how to get food and phone credit.

 

I worried that my first weekend would just be time spent reflecting on whether I was brave or stupid to be in Ghana. Thinking I had made a mistake coming to Ghana was not an option since I couldn’t boast of even a week in Ghana.

 

Luckily, a friend of mine lives in Ghana!

 

Rose

 

I met Rose four years ago when I was a communications intern at the National Organization for Women in Washington, D.C.

 

Since then, Rose has studied gender and sexuality in Western Europe, blogged for Feministing, interned at the White House and was graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in public policy. She currently works in Ghana for a prestigious journalism agency while living with family members. She is a first generation Ghanaian-American.

 

She is quite a busy “sister,” her favorite word to use in reference to other women.

 

She took me under her black feminist wing when I was an intern, and we had some adventures together: We drove to West Virginia in support of Megan Williams, shouted at rallies for the Jena 6, and we drove door-to-door in rural South Carolina to urge people to vote for Barack Obama in 2008.

 

Have you ever looked at someone and thought to yourself, I want to be just like you when I grow up? That’s what I say to myself when I hear about Rose’s new work ventures or when I listen to her stream-of -consciousness lectures on black feminism and the effects of patriarchy. She is my black feminist hero.

 

Panic in the Taxi

 

I called up Rose and agreed to meet her and her friend at the University of Ghana’s pool.

 

I stuffed anti-diarrheal meds, hand wipes and my camera in my backpack before heading out the door to get a taxi.

 

When I asked the driver how much it would cost to get to the pool, he paused, processed my question and answered “15 Cedi!.” I thought the price was a bit much because the Ikando “security” guard told me that a cab should be no more than 5 GHS. Maybe the guard was wrong, I thought.

 

I looked around and saw no other taxis on my street. I hesitantly got in the car, hoping that I wasn’t getting ripped off.

 

Rose called about 15 minutes into my cab ride. She asked me where I was, how much longer I would be and how much the cab driver was charging me. When I told her the price, she gasped and told me to call her when I arrived because “she might need to tell someone off.”

 

I was pissed. I was being overcharged and to top things off, the taxi driver wasn’t sure about where the pool was. “You’re ripping me off, and you don’t know where the hell to go! I’m about to go off! I’m about to go off!” I yelled at him as his eyes indicated that he knew he had been caught trying to cheat me.

 

He made a few wrong turns before turning into a security checkpoint to ask for directions. I was scared when he got out the car and started pointing at me. I have read horror stories about the corruption of Ghanaian officials, and I was worried that I was about to be the star of one of those tales. I fearfully called Rose to tell her that we were at a checkpoint, but I shouldn’t be too far away from the pool.

 

The taxi driver got back in the cab and said, “Pool is right around the corner.”

 

“It better be,” I warned, as if he was about to faced serious consequences.

 

I saw nothing that indicated a pool was nearby. All I saw were random spots of grass, dirt and remnants of abandoned buildings. I panicked and yelled at the driver, “You better not be taking me somewhere! I’m really about to go off on you. You better take me to the damn pool, or I’m going to act a fool in this cab!”

 

The driver got angry and drove back to the main road to ask people where the pool was. Everyone pointed back in direction from where we came. “See? It is there! It is there,” he said to me.

 

We drove back and finally saw cars and people in swimwear. Praise his name, I said to myself.

 

I called Rose, and there she was waving and smiling at me in her royal blue swimsuit and shoulder length dreadlocks. I was relieved to see a familiar face.

 

While I got out of the taxi, Rose began giving the driver a good tongue lashing in Twi, the dominant language in Ghana next English. The cab driver yelled back, and all I understood was a lot of “debis.” (“Debi” means “no” in Twi.)

 

Rose’s friend, a native Ghanaian, said I should pay the 15GHS to avoid problems. I quickly pulled out my 15 GHS to get rid of the taxi driver.

 

A Brief Tour

 

While Rose showered to wash off the stench of chlorine, I sat outside her stall so we could chat about our future, past dysfunctional relationships with men and life in Ghana. Then, it was time to see some of Accra before grabbing a late lunch.

 

The first stop was Accra Mall, the largest shopping mall in Ghana, started by South African venture capital funds managers.

 

It isn’t different from any other mall found in the West. I actually forgot that I was in Ghana for a second because of the modern décor and the masses of people moving from one store to another. You can buy furniture, clothes made from Kente cloth, chicken fingers and fries and Iphone accessories from the i-shoppe. The only thing you can’t buy is authentic Ghanaian chocolate.  There’s a chocolate store in the mall that only sells Belgian chocolate. What kind of foolishness is that?

Rose Trying to get Internet Credit

 

Rose Trying to Pick Out Chocolate

Belgian Chocolate Shop in Accra Mall

Next, we stopped at a restaurant Rose’s friend Edmund suggested. The restaurant is near Lagone, a wealthy suburb of Accra. There, I had my first authentic Ghanaian meal.

 

Rose ordered chichingas, spicy meat kabobs with onions, as our appetizer. If I had any sinus or allergy problems, the spice from the chichingas definitely cleared that up. I felt a tear trying to burn its way out of my eyeballs as my mouth boiled with the gradually building spice of the chichinga, but I gulped down my water to hide my lack of spice tolerance.

The Spiciest Meat Ever: The Chichinga

 

For our main course, we had fufu, pounded cassava and plantain, in soup. Fufu is usually eaten with the hands and not chewed. It doesn’t have a strong flavor, but it is can be a little sticky. Edmund and Rose finished their fufu with no problem while I struggled to eat barely half of mine.

Wash Your Hands

 

Fufu with Goat Meat in Tomato Stew

Edmund Eating Fufu the Ghanaian Way

Afterward, we sat in traffic at every turn before reaching the natural hair salon. Rose needed to get her dreads twisted, and Edmund wanted a haircut. I was surprised that such a place existed because I had only seen women wearing Ceasar cuts, wigs, braids and extensions. We waited around  for a little over an hour hoping Rose’s stylist would squeeze her in, but it didn’t happen because the barber was so swamped with other clients. Supposedly, making appointments at a Ghanaian hair salon is pointless since people don’t adhere to time schedules.

 

It was time to eat again before my first Saturday in Ghana ended. We ordered from a street cook Sprites and waakye (pronounced “wa-che”), which is rice and beans with beef. The girl cooking just stared at us for about five minutes before even thinking about taking our order. It was almost as if we weren’t there, and she just looked emotionless as she was filling others’ orders. Customer service really isn’t a bright spot in Ghana.

 

Getting Ignored by the Street Cooks

 

Shower Time

 

I spent the night at Rose’s family’s house and woke up to a breakfast of heated-up waakye and the Sprite I bought the night before. (Waakye is common breakfast food in Ghana.) Sprite goes well with every meal, I think.

Waakye

 

We had the luxury of running water and flushing toilets in her family’s house, but we had to take bucket baths for warm water.

 

Rose’s uncle boiled a large pot of water for us to use. Rose mixed the hot water in a bucket of cold water for her bath and left some hot water for my bath. She does this every day with a sponge, a type of netting that most Ghanaians use for bathing.

 

Memories

 

Watching Rose prepare her bucket bath sent me to one of my earliest memories. When I was 2 years old, my mother boiled water to wash me in a steel pan before we attended my grandmother’s funeral. Three women dressed in black crowded into my grandmother’s bedroom in her Florida home as t primped to look their best at the final appearance of Aredia Ward. I sat in a steel pan in front of a mirror as my mother and cousin lovingly washed me.

 

Rose then showed me how to wash panties by hand, and I chuckled to myself as I thought about what my mother might say: “You didn’t have to go to Africa to take bucket baths and wash clothes by hand. Hell, we used to do that back in the day.”

 

 

 

Necessities

After getting acquainted with the Ikando house and all its quirks, Kwesi took me to get some necessities.

 

Money

 

The most important stop on our outing was the Foreign Exchange Bureau, also known as the ForEx. Currently, one American dollar is equal to about 1.48-1.50 Ghana Cedi, depending on which ForEx you visit.

 

I turned in $100 USD and received 150 GHS and some change. The dollar was up that day, and I was rich!

Ghanaian Change

 

This is the front of some pesewas.

 

 

 

12 GH₵

Phone

 

The next necessity was a cell phone.

 

My Verizon phone will not work while I’m here because it has no SIM card slot. I hoped to get an old phone from a past volunteer to save on some money. Ikando’s welcome packet said there would be used phones available. However,

 

Kwesi, the onsite Ikando staff member, and I went to Vodafone, one of the major wireless providers in Ghana, to get a cheap cell phone. On our way, we passed vendor after vendor selling cell phones. There were phones from the earlier part of the millennium as well as high-tech phones, such as the BlackBerry and the iPhone.

 

I’m not sure why we didn’t just buy a used phone since I heard vendors shout low prices, such as “10 Cedi!” and “15 Cedi!”

 

When we reached the Vodafone office, I gave my passport to an outside Vodafone representative. He punched some numbers to register my new phone. He then opened up the inside of his jacket to show scratch-off cards used for adding credit to phones.

 

The wireless and Internet business in Ghana is just like pre-paid service in the states. To add credit, or “top up,” you pay for a scratch card to add airtime to your cell phone or other wireless device.

Doesn't this phone look like it would've been popular 10 years ago?

 

Food

 

While I wish Ikando provided at least one meal a day, it doesn’t. I am responsible for buying and cooking all my food.

 

Instead of going to one of the local markets to buy food, we went to Koala Market, one of the many Lebanese-owned grocery stores in Ghana.

 

Inside, Koala doesn’t look very different from grocery stores in America. There’s a meat section, bakery section and aisles of canned goods. Almost everything I buy in America can be bought at Koala. The only difference is the price.

 

Rice, Nutella, pasta and pasta sauce are all cheap items I use back home, but that is not the case here. Since almost everything in Koala is imported, all the foreign food, including cheap American brands, is expensive. Rice can run about $5 USD. Ramen noodles that I can normally buy for about 50 cents back home cost about $3 USD here.

 

I grabbed a loaf of bread, Ramen noodles and Diet Cokes with the hopes all three items would me for at least a week.

 

Bag Water

 

In Ghana, foreigners are warned to avoid drinking from the tap because of poor water filtration. Drinking tap water can cause nausea, vomiting and intestinal infections.

 

To have clean water for drinking and brushing my teeth, I bought a bag filled with small bags of water, better known here as “sachet water,” from a yellow hut near the Ikando house.

 

Sachet water is just treated drinking water in a small plastic bag. People usually tear off a corner with their teeth to create a hole to drink. You can taste the chemicals. I’m not sure if that’s because of the packaging or because of the different technologies used to treat bottled and bagged water.

Large Bag Filled with Sachets

 

Sachet

Drinking from a Sachet

What Next?

 

I ate a slice of bread with Nutella spread, and I wondered how long my few groceries would last.

 

The weekend was approaching and I had no map of Accra, sense of where I was or a reliable staff person onsite. My first weekend was a road paved with question marks. What do you do your first weekend in Ghana when you don’t know where to go or how to get there?

I’ve Arrived

Plane Ride

I spent 11 hours on Delta Airline planes from Atlanta to Accra.

I have never been on plane with so many passengers for that length of time. Usually, crying babies and people who don’t cover their mouth to sneeze or cough make cringe. You can’t tell a baby to watch her noise level, and it’s hard to tell a stranger that he is polluting the limited air available on you flight.

Quite a few babies that could not be quieted even if Sesame Street’s Elmo had arrived to pacify their needs. I was blessed that Delta provided earphones. People who didn’t cover their mouth with their elbow, but I was fortunate not to be near them.

Besides my bewilderment about how to operate the airline television and my lack of leg room, I rather enjoyed my flight.

I received dinner and breakfast, and I was able to watch the latest movie in the X-Men installments. I’m actually looking forward to what movie I can watch on the return flight in February. I rarely go to movie theaters in the U.S. anymore.

State of Confusion

Upon landing, I was confused.

I stood in what was supposed to be a line (No geometry scholar would agree it was a line) for about an hour before I had the opportunity to present my passport and press my digits on a fingerprint scanner for a Ghanaian airport guard. Both actions were hard for me to follow because I couldn’t understand the guard’s English under his heavy accent.

I also couldn’t comprehend the Ghanaian guard telling me to pose for a picture. He just pointed and said something so fast that my Southern ears couldn’t keep up. I ended pissing off the guard because of my failure to understand him. Then, I was yelled at by a Japanese man who kept trying to cut in line and knew nothing of personal space.

Ghana and I were off to a good start.

I became lost and confused in the baggage reclaim area. People crowded around the signs that indicated the luggage of different flights. I stood in line for a flight from Ethiopia for about five minutes hoping to reclaim my baggage. I then stood in another line for flight that landed from Nairobi.

I couldn’t move a couple of moments after that because there were so many people moving in the opposite direction from me with their luggage and luggage carts. I was pushed out of the way like a housecat a few times, and my toes crunched under the pressure of heavy luggage carts rolling on them. I was grateful I wore hard-toe sneakers.

My purple suitcase was on the last reclaim machine. It was the only bag left by the time I got to it.

Yet again, I was confused.

I saw people walking toward the airport exit and people getting their baggage checked. There were no clear signs about where foreigners should go, so I thought I should get my baggage checked, too.

As I placed my large suitcase on the examination table, the baggage clerk turned to two of her colleagues and spoke another language before asking for my passport. She glanced at it, handed it back to me and laughed with her colleagues. The only thing I understood her saying was, “You are too small for your bags.”

Google Accuracy

One of the men she laughed with picked up my purple suitcase and told me in broken English to follow him to the exit. Oh my goodness! This is just like all the Google material I read about Ghanaian people and their hospitality. I didn’t even have to ask him to take my luggage. Google is always right, I thought.

The kind stranger then inquired why I was in Ghana and asked if someone was going to meet me. I gave him the number of the Ikando staff person who was supposed to meet to pick me up from the airport because my cell phone no longer worked in Ghana.