Accra Market, Labadi Beach, African Fair Trade

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I finally made it into Accra a week or two ago. We took a tro-tro into the city, and I have never had as many near crash experiences in my life. On the way there we passed the Presidential Palace. It is such a different looking piece of architecture, lots of glass and looks to have some Chinese architectural influences (ill post pictures later). Anyways Accra is a massive street market that sells everything and anything! It is about 5 times as crowded as NYC and all you hear is “Obruni (white person), but this!”, or “obruni come over here”, or "obruni what do you want” aside from the constant hawking people also grab your arm and tell you to come with them, or will tug on you shorts and ask is they can have them. After about an hour in the market I find that I am mentally overwhelmed and tired and just wanted to get out.

Two Saturdays ago we took a trip to Labadi Beach. The waves were huge but the water was dirty. It is a shame they don't have a some sort of recycling infrastructure here because there was so much trash on the beach and in the water. Just like the market the beach was also overwhelming and the hawking of goods and nicks knacks never ends. For the entire 5 hours that we were there I don’t think we had 5 minutes to just sit and talk because someone always wanted to sell us something whether it be artwork, bracelets, or even animals. It was crazy. Although I was able to hold a bush monkey for like 2 minutes until it attacked the Ghanaian that was sitting next to me because she moved the juice away, because the monkey keep drinking it. To escape the hawkers we took a walk on the beach and found that there were two boys trying to sell these three little puppies. They were the cutest think I have ever seen. They told us they would sell them to me and my friend Mary for 150 cedi, but we were able to bring them down to 5 cedi after about 30 minutes of barging. We were just about to buy them until one of our friends talked some sense into us and told us that they were probably sick and there was no way we could actually take care of them, and that we would have to leave them here when we left. There were also lot of performers at the beach trying to make some money. There was a group of four Rastafarians that we singing Bob Marley and they were amazing, so far it is the best music I have heard since I have got here. There was another group of acrobatic/circus kind of people. As we were watching them eat broken glass, we were told that they have to travel to the northern regions of Ghana to get special black magic and voodoo medicines that allow them to do such crazy things without getting hurt.

On Sunday we went to the Africans Fair Trade Market in Accra (think outdoor civic center, and it the place that George W. Bush went on his visit to Ghana a few years ago and tried to dance).Anyways we went to visit a friend named Isaac who studied in Germany with Franciscka, another international student from Germany. Isaac now works for some German cooperation that researches GDP and other economic issues that deal with the food industry all over the world, right know he is researching the cocoa industry in Ghana. We sat down with him in his office and he told us about the exportation of cocoa and the families that farm it, as well as some good old American politics. He said that many Ghanaian loved George Bush and that he has helped Africa in so many ways, and that if you ask a Ghanaian if they liked Bush, about 70% would say they loved him. I found that interesting because when you ride down the streets of Ghana you see so many Obama signs still up from his visit a few weeks ago, and whenever you say you are an American the Ghanaians will smile and shake you hand and say “Obama!!" Isaac also told us that many Ghanaians were upset that Obama stayed in Ghana for less than 17 hours, as opposed to Bush who stayed there for 4 days. Many people also think that the main reason Obama came to Ghana was because of the newly discovered oil in Ghana.

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