Blogs from Greater Accra, Ghana, Africa - page 69

Hey guys, I have arrived safe and sound in Africa. I'm on my way to my ghanaian dancing and drumming lesson, so this will be brief, but a few highlights to think about... -on my plane over they were deporting a prisoner from Amsterdam back to Ghana so he was handcuffed to the chair like 8 rows behind me and the flight was delayed because he was making a scene -last night we went to "mentor", the ghanaian equivalent of Canadian Idol. We were special guests and so they made people give up their seats for us... of course we were also the group of the only caucasian people in the room. It was horribly awkward and peopel were speaking Twi all around us angrily. -Kersten (our country coordinator) dislocated her knee on saturday night so ... read more

As drunk as I was I still had something to remember, the place to meet for the following night. I got Jo to shout it into my camera as a video so I would remember. But first I needed some food to recover so I heading back to Osu for a bad coffee, terrible sandwich and dodgy cake. For about £4, but thats hangovers for you. I didn't get up until about 2pm so it was already late. I just hung out reading in the food court, watching the kids have birthday parties reading on the phone. I went to use the net for a while too and send a few mails. Haven't been using it much as its so damn slow and the PCs are horrendous too. Welcome back to the ninties in some cases.... ... read more

Next day I nearly managed to get up in time, but not quite. My jet lag from working nights at the weekend was still killing me, and I was still in that dump. I wasn't really sure what to expect from the country but it was kind of weird after SE Asia, with wall to wall tourists, to see only a few 'burundis' (white people) out and about. Still Ghanaian people would regularly stop and chat with me, taxi drivers were quite cool, once you established the fare. Woe betide anyone who jumped into a Ghanaian taxi without asking the fare, as then they have you over a barrel. But a typical conversation goes: Do you know how to get to the museum? yes, get in how much? its ok lets go how much? I ... read more

Later the next day, much later, i had a better crack at it. The hotel was a dump and I didn't want to eat there. After about two hours of walking I finally found the restaurant I was looking for. People were very friendly as I walked around confused, saying hello and waving, nice country I thought. The waitress at the 'Orangery Restaurant' was friendly too, I don't think the Ghanaians like to see people sitting on their own so we had a nice chat. A group of 3, then 2, white girls came in to eat, the first whites I had seen since I left the airport. I was slightly relieved it wasn't just me supporting the tourist industry! I had 'Ghanaian' food, ie expensive tourist crap, but I didn't know any better. It ... read more

It's been a while since I updated this site. Frankly I have no idea where to begin. I've been travelling around the southern part of Ghana. I've been pretty sick pretty often: first there was malaria, which was a very new and interesting experience, and myriad stomach issues, and possibly some psychological side effects from the anti-malarial meds I'm taking. It serves as a great education about all the things the human body can do. So I'm going to do this posting in two parts. The second part is the "travel blog" part, the part concerning things that have happened, the part concerning illness and longing and belonging and travel. Skip ahead to it if you like. The first part is a rant. It starts here: Almost as long as I've been in Ghana I've had ... read more