The End. . .But First!

Thursday, December 6, was my last day of work. So, until I get into the final section of this final blog entry, entitled “reflections,” this entry will read like a typical travel blog: a recitation of the things I’ve done and the places I’ve seen in the past week. My days of armature policy analysis or erudite (good word, Flores!) cultural analysis are finished (and, as I’ll explain later, they went by too quickly). In any event, I had a pretty interesting (and exhausting) week of travel, so if you are interested in reading about it, as the Ghanaians say “you’re invited.”

Cooking Dinner

Thursday night after work I went shopping in the market with Elsie to buy ingredients for palova sauce, my favorite Ghanaian food (for additional information on palova sauce, see the blog entry entitled “food blog”). After shopping for the ingredients (and there were a lot, but the whole grocery tab came to less than $3) we went back to my place to cook or, more accurately, Elsie cooked. And what a cook she is! It was the best darn palova sauce I’ve had in Ghana, and considering the lack of kitchen supplies and meager kitchen facilities, quite a feat. It’s a pretty complicated dish, with several different types of oils, several different types of fish and, of course, the chili powder that makes all Ghanaian food so tasty or, if not tasty, then spicy. Here is Elsie cooking:

Elsie explained that she learned to cook when her mother sent her and her sister from their village in the Volta region to live with their aunts in Accra. The aunts, like all wicked aunts, required Elise and her sister to cook, and if the food was bad, there were unspecified repercussions. Her aunts were so punitive when the meals Elsie and her sister prepared were less than spectacular (I guess) that her sister became a great cook, she now works as a chief in a restaurant. Elsie did not go that route, but she is working on a degree in business administration (or something like that) but, thanks to the wicked aunts, she cooks like a pro!

In exchange for cooking dinner, I gave Elsie a bible (New Testament). Yes, a bible. Like many Ghanaians, Elsie is a very religious Christian. Unfortunately, she only had a bible for home use, but not one she could bring to church with her. That one was stolen. I thought it was odd that someone would steal a bible, but, as I quickly learned, it makes perfect sense because bibles are really expensive in Ghana. The bible cost me $16 dollars (they started at $25) which makes it one of the more expensive things I’ve bought here. During the negotiation I realized that I have no idea how much a bible is supposed to cost—as far as I know, in the U.S., bibles are given away for free, no? Negotiating for a bible was a strange experience, needless to say.

Ismael Lo

The Ismael Lo concert was excellent. I bought the tickets in advance, but that was unnecessary. (You can take the boy out of New York but you can’t take New York out of the boy). There were plenty of tickets available. In fact, as far as I can tell, I was one of the only people who had actually purchased tickets (let alone advanced tickets). Most of the audience was diplomats, guests of the French Embassy. Considering that Ghana is an English speaking country surrounded by Francophile countries (Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali, Niger, among others) the French Embassy’s attempt to mitigate American and British cultural influence by bringing in great French speaking African musicians is pretty ballsy. The “Alliance Frances,” a cultural institution here in Accra supported by the French government, has some of the most interesting cultural programs in town. I’ve seen a handful of great traditional dance performances and concerts there. Got to give it to the French.

Anyhow, the point of all this Francophile talk is to say that Ismael Lo sings in French and African languages, so I have no idea whether his lyrics are as lucid as Dylan’s. What invites the comparison to Dylan is Lo’s use of a harmonica, which is most certainly not an African instrument. But, African or not, it works really really well and the concert was the best I’ve seen in Ghana. If its any indication of the musical offerings of Niger, Mali and Senegal (where Lo is from) those countries are certainly on my itinerary for a future trip. In fact, there is a big musical festival in Mali in late January that some people I met are headed to. Sounds like a good time, for next time.

After the concert I hit some of the bars in Accra and, I’m happy to report, that after nine weeks of hanging out in Accra, I know or almost know just about everyone who wants to be known (and there are some people who most certainly don’t want to be known). So go me!

Turtles!

On Friday December 7, “Fisherman’s and Farmer’s Day” (or Pearl Harbor Day) I headed out to a beach in the western part of Ghana with some new friends. I can’t tell you how far from Accra is was, but it took 6 hours, three tro tros and one shared taxi to get there.

The arduous journey was well worth it. The place we went to is an “eco-lodge” called the “Green Turtle Lodge.” What being an eco-lodge means, in practical terms, is that there are no disposable paper products, the toilets are self composting (but surprisingly not smelly) and all the power needs are met by solar power. The solar power was somewhat problematic (although no more so than the usually power grid in Ghana, which is unreliable at best) because the solar panels only store enough power to last until about 10pm. Then its lights out. Not that anyone would notice: there were not many lights at the Green Turtle Lounge. In fact, there were no lights at all in my tent on the beach.

Anyhow, it was really cool to hang out on the beach for a few nights: the food was good, and so was the company (Norwegians!):

The place is called the Green Turtle Lodge because it is located near a sea turtle nesting ground. Usually, the name is just a marketing gimmick. However, from October to January, mature turtles lay their eggs on the beach and baby turtles hatch. On Saturday night, that’s exactly what happened: hundreds of baby turtles hatched a few feet from our beach bonfire! Now, the way these turtles work is that a mature turtle will lay hundreds of eggs and hundreds of baby turtles will hatch. Only about 1 percent of the baby turtles will reach adulthood. Many die right there on the beach before they can even reach the ocean. But not these lucky baby turtles! See, these turtles had the good fortune of hatching a few meters from where about 25 European (and one lowly American) eco-tourists were having a big old beach party. So, needless to say, we gathered up each and every baby turtle and made sure they safely made it to the ocean, even those baby turtles who were headed in the wrong direction, away from the ocean. (Darwin be dammed!):

There are a few theories for why the turtles hatched so close to us, the most plausible being that our bond fire heated the eggs and caused them to hatch. Another explanation is that the mixture of drunken traditional drumming and Dutch and Swedish folks songs was so unpleasant that the turtles could not take it any more and had to leave, even if it meant hatching prematurely (remember, there was no music because the solar power had run out). Hey, I would have done the same if I was more sober, as I imagine the baby turtles were. This was the scene shortly before the turtles hatched:

In any event it was a pretty cool experience. While at the Green Turtle, I took walk to the local fishing village to check it out. Its always fascinating to see these places, although the level of poverty is, as I’ll talk about a little bit later, shocking. Unfortunately, I can’t take any pictures of these places, first because the people don’t like to be photographed, and, second, because if you bring your $200 digital camera to a poor fishing village, there is a good chance that it will stay there. The problem is not in the village, but on the walk on the beach to and from the village which, like many beaches in Ghana, is known as a crime hot spot. It’s a pity.

Tamale

On Sunday, I took the trip from the beach to Kumasi. The first stage of the trip was essentially hitch hiking and the second stage was by super uncomfortable tro tro. As I should have expected, transportation options in semi rural parts of Ghana are limited on Sunday. Oops! In any event, on Monday morning I met a German friend, Stephan, who is volunteering near Kumasi and we caught the 7am bus to Tamale, the capital of Ghana’s northern region.

As some of you know, Tamale was the city where AJWS thought that it was a good idea for me to be alone in for 5 weeks. Whether or not I would have survived my solitary time in Tamale is an open question. My initial impression is that Tamale is not a bad place. Living in Tamale would have been a more authentic Ghanaian experience, and, as I talk about later, there is something to be said for that. Tamale is busy but not chaotic and, unique for Ghana, it even has bike lanes. Its also a bit of an NGO theme park (which requires having many aid workers like me to get all that serious aid work done). That being said, it’s a dusty mess and, like most of the north, is sort of out of the way. (Think of it as being Syracuse to New York City). I spent a day and half there during which I walked around the market, saw where I would have worked, checked the internet and had two good meals (including a pretty good hamburger at the “Jungle Bar” which I would recommend, although, again, after 10 weeks and 50 hamburgers, its an open question as to whether I would be so enthusiastic).

In general, the north of Ghana is a neat place. Its certainly more typically African than the south, with a lot more of those traditional circular mud huts with thatched roofs that are common in other parts of Africa (think of Darfur, but intact). Those types of buildings are scarce in the more developed southern part of Ghana these days. The landscape is dry savanna, not the deforested jungle common in the south. Its also a very Muslim place, and I made a point to see the allegedly oldest mosque in Ghana which is about 4 hours away from Tamale, and is located near the road to Mole National Park (more on that later). It dates from the 15^th century, but no one knows exactly when. (The mosque itself is sort of lame and you can’t go inside unless you are Muslim and over forty. Also, because there are not so many visitors, those who make the trip are quickly surrounded by touts, which is an annoyance). Here is me at the Mosque:

Once you get a good look at the houses, the mosques and the landscape, there is not much to see in northern Ghana. The one major tourist attraction in the north is Ghana’s premiere national park: Mole National Park. And Mole was the focus of Stephan and my tip to the north.

Mole National Park

The trip to Mole was itself and adventure. We were told there was an 8am bus (by two different people). That would have been perfect. That bus was either canceled or non existent, which, since the bus never showed up, is a distinction without a difference. We were told there was another bus at noon, and there was. But it did not leave until 2:30. I won’t go thought the list of half hearted excuses the bus company provided for why the bus was not leaving, but they were pretty comical. The bus was mainly locals, and it was only the westerns who seemed bothered by the unexplained and unnecessary delay (there was a German (who was super agitated) and Danish couple (less agitated) and a few Swedes (taking it all in stride)). We all did, eventually, get to Mole in time for dinner.

It was worth it. Mole is the closest you can get in West Africa to the safari experience that southern and eastern Africa is famous for. And, at $2.50 an hour for a guided walking safari (plus a $4.50 entrance fee to the park) its much much cheaper than most safaris in other parts of Africa. Obviously, the fauna is not as spectacular as other parts of Africa, but I got the feeling for what it would be like to be on safari. We saw quite a few elephants:

Where were the elephants going? For a swim!

You don’t have to go on safari to see the baboons; they come right to you. Here is one hanging out on the balcony of the lodge:

I also took a driving safari, which was nice but a bit of waste since all the animals, with the exception of the elephants, scatter when you drive past them. So all you really see are running animals.

Yesterday, I made the long return trip to Accra. The original idea was to stay a bit longer in and around the north, but once I realized how unreliable the local transport is, I decided it was better to return to Accra straight away. Otherwise, I would probably not get to the beach for the weekend, which was also part of the very ambitious original plan (let alone making my plane on Monday night). Besides which, both my ipod and my camera seem to be acting up (the camera refused to work about half the time and the LCD screen has broken, so I have no idea what I’m photographing). I’ve also finished all the novels I’ve brought (8 books in 10 weeks, not bad!), so the tro tro trips are long and boring until I can by another book in Accra. In any event, I feel that the books, the ipod and the camara are all giving me a signal that it was time to go back to Accra and, I shutter to say, come home.

[Of course, as I mentioned, I’m not coming home before I take one last trip to the beach. This promises to be a big weekend. Many of the “professionals” I’ve met are having a big blow out before, like me, everyone heads home for the holidays. However, unlike me, most of them will be returning. I’ll have to tell you about the beach weekend in person, next week. This is my final blog entry.]

Reflections

Anyhow, I would be remiss if I did not reflect on my 10 short weeks in Ghana. So, if you will indulge me, here it goes.

Because I’m an American trained lawyer, my preferred form of analysis is scathing criticism (rather than, say, constructive inquiry). So let me start with my one principal regret—that I did not have a more authentically African experience. By that, I mean that I lived and worked in Accra, not in a more rural part of Ghana and, aside from the people I work with, I did not become friendly with any Ghanaians.

As for living in Accra, my regret is premised on the fact that volunteers and aid workers who live outside Accra meet more Ghanaians and develop relationships with more Ghanaians simply because there are fewer other westerns around. That maybe right, or may not be. Its hard to say. What I do know is that almost every volunteer I met based outside of Accra is placed with a friend, and, had I tried to work out side Accra, I would have been alone, so I’m not sure I would have made it for the full 10 weeks. But, then again, you never know until you try.

As for meeting and befriending more Ghanaians, the truth is, that most Ghanaians I met wanted nothing to do with me. (Can you blame them?) I’ve been told that, for Ghanaians, hanging out with westerns it is sort of a taboo. The Ghanaians who hang out with westerns are either, typically, sex workers (male and female) and Rastafarians, who are sort of outcasts in Ghanaian society. [I don’t want to offend anyone here—I did meet a few very cool professional Ghanaians, although they made no effort to seek me out and our interaction has been limited to bars frequented by westerners]. It’s not like I did not try: I actually started out going to a lot of local spots. I was pretty much ignored at those places; the only people to pay any attention to me were the prostitutes (who are very nice, by the way) and the Rastafarians. I would meet some people occasionally, but the conversations were limited (“you are welcome” and “feel free” and “what is your mission in Ghana?” and, depressingly, “my dream is to go to America”). I’m not so offended: after all, when was the last time I struck up a conversation with a random tourist in New York? I imagine that the people who make a habit of talking to tourists are pretty weird. But who knows?

Note that not meeting more Ghanaians is really only half a regret, because, as you might imagine, the Americans and Europeans who I met here are an interesting group and I hope to remain in touch with them. Likewise, I only half regret spending so much time in Accra. After all, I’m a New Yorker and New York City is very different from the rest of America. Therefore, I assume its only appropriate that a New York lawyer comes to Ghana and has about the most cosmopolitan experience you can have in Ghana (live music, clubs, ethnic food, weekend trips to the beach) even it is not an “authentic” experience.

That brings me to a second regret: that I relied too much on AJWS and did not do my own planning and diligence before coming here. It’s a long story, but as some of you know, the original plan was for my friend Peter to spend three weeks alone in Tamale, for he and I to have four weeks of overlap, and then for me to spend six weeks alone in Tamale. That was an absolutely crazy plan and, for reasons I won’t get into, did not happen. I’m a little annoyed at AJWS for sort of misdirecting us like that, but I’m also to blame for not thinking that through well enough. Basically, as I’ll explain below, Ghana is really not (yet) set up for casual visitors, and without a good “facilitator” or support network (for example the company or NGO your working for, the study abroad program you are apart of), most westerns are lost (unless you just want to be tourist). Since I arrived here without any support network, and the person who was supposed to be my facilitator turned out to be a complete idiot, I was on my own. I think my first few blog entries reflect that overriding bewilderment, and it took a few weeks for me to get my bearings.

And that brings me to my third and final regret: I regret that Ghana is a tough place to visit and live. Its poor poor poor. The infrastructure is decrepit (roads, swears, health care, sanitation, etc) and if you’ve never been exposed to poverty on this level, its shocking. Because this place is so poor, and because westerns are so easy to spot, as a western, you’re often being stared at by somebody: on the street, in tro tro at the chop bar. This is especially jarring for New Yorkers, like me, who thrive on anonymousness and where staring is a social faux pas. Also, as you might imagine, as welcoming as the Ghanaians are (and they are very welcoming) there is always a suspicion of westerners, since Ghanaians have, time and again, been screwed over by the west (and they continue to be). I also found some parts of the Ghanaian culture to be a little off putting, namely the habit of people to be very confrontational when they argue. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve seen a lot of shouting matches over seemingly trivial matters that simply having a calm discussion could settle. (And this coming from a New Yorker!) Because most westerns prefer to make a reasoned argument rather than immediately beginning to shout (over three people who have already started shouting at each other) westerns and Ghanaians rarely argue like that (at least I never did). But the Ghanaians are constantly quarreling. I guess that’s a cultural reason why so many NGOs need to invest so much in peace building. But its odd.

I also think that Ghanaians need a good lesson in business ethics, namely the well established principal that once you agree to a price, barring some real modification of the circumstances, you don’t change that price. That happened a few times to me, in cabs, at restaurants, at the market, at tourist sites. Most people give a smile when they tell you a different price than what was just agreed on, maybe hoping you’ve forgotten the price on the menu or the price you agreed on 10 mins earlier. When that happens, I, of course, somewhat calmly reasoned the issue (with varying degrees of success). But I can see that if the Ghanaians tried to pull that with each other, there would be a shouting match. Although I don’t know what a lot of the commotion is about (its rarely in English) I assume that’s what going on.

Another annoyance is the business about bad and no information—people just making things up or perhaps hoping that they are right, but not really knowing. There is a general imprecision about everything, which is not such a big deal, but it grated on me a bit. People miss meetings, and nothing happens on time. Another element is that that, in general, no one bothers to check the veracity of gossip and rumors, which, again is not such a big deal, but is something that gets to you after a few weeks here and are looking for some real information about one thing or another (or just looking for directions).

And then, when you talk about what a tough place Ghana is, there are things that have nothing to do with Ghanaians but are weird psyches that many westerns carry around. For example, its hard not the be self conscious and suspicious when your walking around caring a quantity of cash equivalent of most Ghanaian’s salary for an entire year (not to mention other gadgets, like an ipod and cellphone) and some guy drinking an Herbal bitter at the nearest spot is staring at you. Also, there is a feeling of guilt about living so well while others are living so poorly. I’m not talking about enjoying an expensive dinner while others are eating peanuts (or less) which is a guilt we can all have in NYC. I’m talking about using a toilet when 70% of the people in Accra don’t have access to one. (Talk about not having a pot to piss in!) Its at a whole other level.

So those are my regrets: that I spent too much time in Accra, did not meet more Ghanaians, and that Ghana is poor (and all the things that go along with that). But in spite of all that (and in some weird way because of it), this has been an absolutely fantastic experience. First off, I met some awesome and fascinating aid workers and students who are doing important work that I was only vaguely aware of before I arrived here. Partying in Accra and at the beach was a great time, sort of a long summer vacation with a purpose. What is better than that?

Even more important, almost all the Ghanaians I have casually met (and, thought work, I’ve met quite a few, all of whom are outside of the tourist trade (to the extent there is one here)) have been fantastic people. Ghanaians in general are some of the nicest people you will ever encounter. I can’t help but be effected by their clam demeanor, quiet pride, and happy disposition. For example, who else would walk around a bus station in 90 degree heat with a tray full of pineapples on their head and still smile? Who else would be able to keep dancing and smiling when the power goes out? Where else would all the passengers in a hot, crowded tro tro, start laughing simultaneously (at a joke I never understand) or singing along to a song on the radio? I’ve seen Ghanaians do all those things.

In any event, if the rest of Africa is anything like Ghana, I’m convinced it would be the best place in the world if was not so damn poor.

So was the experience worth it? Unequivocally, yes. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone (especially couples) who can manage to get away for a few months to do something like this. I’ve learned a lot about Ghana, about West Africa, and about Africa in general. I’ve learned about the politics, the culture and just the general way Africans think about their place in the world. I’ve learned that there is a lot more to learn, and, just as importantly, that I’m interested in learning it. I’ve learned things about American and Western culture too, and about my self. Most important, I’ve learned that there is a whole wide world out there both not so different, and very different, from my own. Its been a challenge, but learning all those things, even without the great times I’ve had, has made these 10 short weeks worth it.

Thanks for reading. See you all soon!

Moving Along. . .

Transportation Blog

Food and transportation are the two things no visitor a country can avoid. I’ve already written about the food, so now I’ll write a little about transportation in Ghana, at least my experience getting around Ghana.

Each morning and afternoon, I take a tro tro to and from work. Tro tros are private buses, basically. My ride to work is about 20 minutes, with traffic, and it costs 25 cents. (Actually, due to escalating fuel costs, the price went up to 27 cents, but sometimes they don’t bother to collect the additional two cents). I find the tro tro reliable, although far from comfortable. For one, there seems to be some type of competition among tro tros for who can stuff the most people in. Whereas you might put 15 passengers in one of these vans in the States, in Ghana you put 24 passengers. For another, there is no air-conditioning, and if you are not by the window, its pretty stuffy. Although its hard to get a real feel for the comfort level, here is a picture of me and two friends, Matt (from New Jersey) and Nicola (from the U.K.) with me on a hot cramped tro tro:

And here is a pictures of a tro tros in action:

That little guy jumping off the tro tro is the conductor. He collects the fare and announces the next stop. Conductors tend to be very skinny young men, I suppose so that they don’t take too much room that could go to paying customers. When the tro tro is very crowded, they ride on the outside, even when its going 100 miles and hour. When you want to get off the tro tro, you say something that sounds like “mate, bus stop!” At that point, the tro tro will stop at the next possible place where you won’t be killed trying to step off the tro tro. Sometimes a full stop is too much to ask for and they will just open the door and expected you to sort of jump out while the tro tro is in motion. Tro tros are supposed to have routes, but in reality they tend to deviate for any reason: traffic, sun, etc. I’ve noticed that they are better at taking you to a general area than a precise location.

The intracity tro tros are, for the most part, unmarked, so you don’t know which tro tro goes where. The tro tro destinations is given by the conductor, by hand signal. So, for example, an index finger pointed up means that the tro tro is going to the main station in central Accra and the index finger making a circle pointed down, means the tro tro is going to Nkrumah Circle. Other than those two, I can’t, for the life of me, figure out most of the hand symbols. So I ask. Unfortunately, Ghanaians are notoriously bad when it comes to giving directions. Part of the problem is the informality and imprecision of everything: no one knows distances or directions. So when you ask “where is the tro tro station” someone will say “after next,” or “beyond the distance.” I find those directions extraordinarily unhelpful. There are also no street addresses in Accra: everything is done by reference to landmarks. So, for example, I live in “Theodora’s House, Ring Road, near Laboni Junction in Osu.” I can’t give anymore precise an address than that. Mail? Forget about it. Everything goes to a post office box.

I take tro tros on basic routes, but if I have to go anywhere complicated, I take a cab. Taking a cab, by the way, is also sort of a crap shoot since the cab drivers rarely know where they are going. Once you agree on price, the general rule is that they will drive you around all night until they find the destination that they promised they knew. It usually involves stopping a few times and asking other cab drivers. There are also shared taxies, which just means that you see a taxi going in your general direction and jump in. I’ve done that a few times, but its not the best since I’m often unsure of where, exactly, the cab is heading. Outside Accra shared taxies are the common mode of transport and tro tros are hard to come by on some routes.

The intracity tro tros seem to be pretty well driven- the traffic slows them down and they don’t often drive on the wrong side of the road, blow stop signs, back up into on coming traffic (although all those things happen). In contrast, the intercity tro tros are driven by suicidal maniacs. Before most intercity trips, someone leads the tro tro in a prayer to ask Jesus for a safe journey. (Sometimes, a preacher actually gets on the tro tro and preaches). However, after the prayer, the driver proceeds to drive like a mad man. My suggestion is that rather than saying a prayer, someone should do a recitation of the basics of safe driving. Maybe a combination of the two. Something like “dear Jesus, please inspire the driver to drive on the correct side of the road, NOT to overtake traffic on a blind curve and to stay under 120 miles per hour.” That would be something I can say “amen” to. Friends of mine have reported that tro tros are used to transport live animals, so there is likely to be a live goat or chicken at your feet. I, personally, have never scene that, but I have another two weeks here, so who knows.

The consensus seems to be, and I agree, that three hours is about as long as anyone can spend on a tro tro. After that point, the heat, the uncomfortable seats and the lack of ventilation (and possible presence of live animals) is too nauseating. For longer journeys, people take State Transportation Company (“STC”) intercity buses, which are pretty much like any bus you would find in the west. Unfortunately, they are usually very crowded and they often play some Nigerian or Ghanaian movie at top volume, which is extremely annoying to anyone who wants to read, sleep or listen to music. I tend to be the only one interested in doing those things, so no one else is bothered. Also, I’ve taken the intercity STC buses four times, and twice the bus broke down. I have never been on a tro tro that has broken down. Go figure.

Update

Friday I did some shopping in the main market with Elsie. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, the markets around here are really exciting places. If you can bear the oppressive heat and frantic crowds, you can get pretty much anything at the market, from live chickens to silverware to clothing to pirated software and movies. Of particular interest to me are the rows of rows of stalling selling counterfeit designer goods (most produced in China). Everything you can possible imagine is there, and you can dress yourself in designer clothing from head to toe at a fraction of the price that the real thing would cost. I want to believe that these products are identical to the real thing, if not actually real—after all, the real thing is made in a factory in China also, perhaps the same one—but that can’t be right. There is no way the factories have such poor control or that Puma, Diesel, Polo, Lacoste and D&G are letting their finished products out on the black market, although its easy to be convinced otherwise. Luckily, I have a system: I set a $10 limit on any counterfeit product. If someone will sell me a counterfeit Lacoste dress shirt for $10, I’ll take it. But anything more, and I might as well buy the real thing for $65 at home (the guys won’t go below $20 for the Lacoste shirts, FYI). I bought a knock off Diesel watch for $3 (the only thing I lost so far has been my watch), and a knock off soccer jersey for $4. Apparently, I overpaid for the watch. An Indian business man I met at a bar told me that he can import, from China, a crate of three hundred knock off Diesel watches for $100 (that’s 30 cents a watch, for the lawyers reading). He also explained that the vendor probably made 50 cents on the sale, which is a small fortune for the vendor because he probably only makes $1 a day. That seems to be the general attitude of all the foreigners who do business here: pay the Ghanaians as little as possible because they are so poor that a little bit of money goes a long way. That is what happens in a globalized economy where the Indian business man’s money moves around freely, but the poor watch vendor is trapped making his $1 a day in Ghana. I won’t make any normative judgments about that- its an economic transaction between rational actors— but something strikes me as a bit unfair.

There are, by the way, real designer clothing available at the market, its just used (or “second hand” as we politely say in the U.S.). That makes the market here the world’s largest thrift shop. With a little time and a lot of stamina, anyone who wants to look like a Williamsburg hipster could have a field day shopping for tee shirts, hats, sneakers and faded jeans. Some of the stuff, especially the used jeans and the used shoes, are pretty nice. I can’t help but think that some of the items magnanimously given to charity in North America and Europe ends up in hanging from a stall in Accra’s Markola’s market.

On Saturday, I went with some new friends to Anomabu, a town about two hours from Accra. I had plans to cook lunch in Accra with Elsie and a friend of hers, but I’ve learned that plans with Ghanaians are often canceled or modified, so I thought heading to beach with some other westerns was a better bet. It was the right choice: the beach was a great time. Hopefully, I’ll get another chance to cook with Elsie.

The “Anomabu Beach Resort,” where we went, is very nice and very relaxing. No shoes are needed for the entire weekend, and no reason to leave the beach, since the waiters will bring everything out to you. If I have one issue with the resort its that the place is little bit of a colonial throwback. There were absolutely no Ghanaians on the beach (or at the resort). In Ghana, that’s a pretty major accomplishment: every other beach I have been is full of vendors selling stuff, and fishermen working. In fact, right next to the resort, although not visible from it, is a working beach full of fishermen (and trash). So while the locals were using the beach a few meters down as a toilet, garbage dump and fishing factory, the whites were sun bathing and frolicking in a very warm ocean. What a world! Here is a picture of me on the tourist beach, one of the waiters cutting fresh coconut (which they give away for free) and below it a picture of the locals working a half kilometer away:

The resort was a bit more upscale than the backpacker haunts I’ve been frequenting. However, to keep it in perspective, where as I’ll usually spend $30 a day for meals, drinks and a room at one of the backpacker beach resorts, this one cost me $50 a day. Basically, at a place like this, you get professionals, not professional travelers. A lot of the cars in the parking lot had diplomatic plates, and my friends were German and Dutch graduate students and interns (Europeans companies seem to be a lot more into paid interns than American companies) and American and British aid workers. Not to say the professional travelers I met at the backpacker places were not a blast (after all, my status is somewhere between aid worker and tourist), but if I was here for a longer time, these are the people I would spend my time with (the minimum stay among these people is like six months). And like any good beach holiday, there was a lot of drinking:

It was not all brainics and diplomats at the beach, and there were some professional travelers around. Namely, a huge overland bus full of Swedes and Norwegians that had driven from Sweden, across Europe, the Mediterranean Sea and across the Sahara Desert and ended up at the Anomabu Beach Resort on the same weekend I did. What luck! Some of the Swedes enjoyed bathing topless. Again, what luck! (Sorry guys, no pics of that). Put all that together, and you have the receipt for a really good weekend.

Back to business: its my last week at work (Thursday (tomorrow) is my last day because Friday is “Farmers and Fisherman’s Day,” a national holiday). So this last week at work I’m finishing up my Alternative Dispute Resolution manual, revising the GHANSA constitution, doing some research on aid effectiveness issues (why, I don’t know) and, finally, doing some legal research regarding forming a charity in the UK (which I’m totally unqualified to do, but I’ll give it my best shot). From next week, the office pretty much shuts down until after New Year. (Its good to see that slacking off in the Holiday Season is a universal thing). Related to nothing, here was the scene outside the Development Institute office yesterday morning:

Speaking of the Holiday Season, there are few decorations around here and none of the overblown commercialism that is a hallmark of the American holiday. As you might expect, there is absolutely no indication that Hanukkah is this week. (Hey, before I forget, Happy Hanukkah!) I noticed that some of the street music that is ubiquitous in Accra has switched from bad R&B to Christmas songs. For example, today I was walking to the tro tro in 90 degree heat (at 8am) to the tune of “Jingle Bell Rock.” Its strange. Also, exchanging gifts is not big around here. Rather, people buy themselves clothes and have a big party with friends (not family). Hence, the only evidence of Christmas I’ve seen is at hotels and restaurants, imploring people to make a reservation early, sort of the way that restaurants want those early New Year’s reservations back home.

On Thursday night I want to go to a concert by a well known Senegalese singer named Ismael Lo, billed as “Africa’s Bob Dylan.” This weekend (and next weekend) I hope be at another beach resort. During the week, I will be up to the north at a national park with a German friend of mine. I’ve been toying with the idea of changing my ticket (if that’s possible) and staying in Africa another week and seeing some more places. But then again, having three whole weeks off in NYC before I start work is also pretty darn tempting (and I miss all of you, of course). It appears that most of my new found friends are either not interested in making the trip or are clearing out of Ghana for the Holidays, so I’d be traveling alone at least until I met some more people. So I’ll probably come home, resolving to return to Africa soon (with some of you, I hope).

Be well!

Nickles, Dimes, More Guns, and Football

Guns in Ghana: Part II

The first time I wrote about guns in Ghana, I used sort of an irreverent tone because it was unthinkable that, in this peaceful country with super friendly citizens, people are making and stockpiling small arms for some future tribal conflict. I was wrong. In fact, it’s a very real problem, and parts of Ghana are armed to the teeth. Whether or not everyone starts fighting is anyone’s guess, but the problem of small arms is real and it needs to be addressed. And so, to prove what a big problem small arms are in Ghana, I went to another meeting, this one sponsored by people who believe in stricter gun control. It was also attended by come heavy hitters from Ghana's security services, and some well respected Members of Parliament. It was interesting to see that the traits of bureaucrats and politicians are a pretty consistent across cultures.

The meeting was sponsored by a group called the Ghana Action Network on Small Arms (“GHANSA”) which is a branch of the West Africa Action Network on Small Arms (“WAANSA”), although they seem to share all the same staff and resources. Again, I was the official note taker. However, I’m also a known constitution writer, so I’m part of a small group charged with writing GHANSA’s constitution. Writing constitutions is like riding a bicycle: once you learn, you never forget. Or so I hope. . .

Small arms are things like shot guns, assault rifles, pistols. Basically, any weapon that can be operated by one person. Kofi Annan, the former U.N. Secretary General and perhaps the most famous Ghanaian in the world, has called small arms “Africa’s weapon of mass destruction.” That might sound like a little bit of an exaggeration since small arms are, by definition, rather small. However, when you look at the impact that small arms have on countries, think Sierra Leon and Liberia and Sudan and Somalia and Rwanda, among others, you realize that small arms really can destroy a country.

Tragically, most countries in West Africa, Ghana included, are rife with small arms. The gun problem is not new to West Africa; anthropologically, tribes have a cast of warriors whose job it was to defend the tribes, and those people, at least for the last few hundred years, had guns. Guns were also used for some ritual purposes. Likewise, West Africa has always had its share of wars, but these were small wars and rarely threatened the cohesion of a country (or colony). In the last 20 years or so, partially due to Eastern European countries selling off their cold war arsenals to the highest bidder and partially because Russia needed some cash, guns have flooded into West Africa. Sometimes, and often in Ghana, the guns are domestically produced by skilled blacksmiths. (The blacksmiths, by the way, are trying to legalize the production of small arms in Ghana, which, as I posted awhile ago, is one of the dumbest ideas, ever). In any event, however the guns got here, tribes all over West Africa have pretty substantial arsenals. With all those guns around, someone is bound to start a fight, and when they do, as in the case of the aforementioned countries, the conflict spreads and literally swallows the country whole.

One of the things I learned at this meeting is that, in the West, we tend to think about these conflicts as about oil or diamonds or some weird geological struggle against militant Islam or communism or whatever. Those might be the reasons why no one tries to stop the conflict, and it might be the reason why some people keep it going, but its rarely the cause. Look at it this way: the Africans who fight those wars are not fighting for oil or diamonds or Islam or communism. The tribes fight because, if they don’t, the other tribe will get their lands and they will end as up refugees or worse. However, since most people in the west don’t know a Ewe from a Fante (two of Ghana’s 50+ tribes) its best we think of the conflict in terms we understand, namely oil and diamonds and geopolitics. Otherwise, most Westerns would care even less. However, westerns are still responsible for the destructive nature of these tribal conflicts: the guns that have made these conflicts so destructive are manufactured (and sometimes distributed) by western countries (and Russia and Eastern European countries).

Most West African countries don’t have the capacity to deal with issues of tribal conflicts and guns. They just wait for a conflict to erupt and hope that it does not swallow the country. In only a few countries, Ghana being one, “Civil Society Organizations” and government (with the help of volunteers like me (maybe)) have reached the point where they can actually do something to prevent these inevitable conflicts. “Peace building” is a big field in the NGO world, and, although I was only recently told this, its actually the main mission of the Development Institute, the organization I’m volunteering with. Who knew? Disarmament is only one part of peace building. A lot of the work has to do with detecting potential conflicts and resolving them before they get violent. Addressing issues like the use of child soldiers, resettlement of refugees and empowerment of women rights are also part of peace building.

Most of the meeting was dedicated to educating interested organizations about the Economic Cooperation Organization of West Africa (“ECOWAS”) Covenant on Small Arms and Light Weapons, Their Ammunition and Other Related Material (“The Convention”). The Convention requires West African countries to adopt stricter gun control laws, and monitors arms procurements by governments in the sub-region. Its been adopted by ECOWAS, and now it needs to be adopted by at least nine member states. There needs to be some lobbying to get that happen because countries are not excited about changing their gun laws and are giving up a little bit of sovereignty to a multi-lateral organization. (Sound familiar?). It’s a well written convention and most of the people at the meeting were on the ball, so I think ratification (at least by Ghana) is likely.

By the way, there is also an international treaty on small arms, called the Arms Trade Treaty, which is currently being debated in the U.N. Its similar to the various treaties that govern nuclear proliferation, and puts in place a monitoring regime to control the flow of small arms around the world. Unfortunately, the countries who sit on the Security Council and have the final say on the adoption of the ATT, Russia, France, Britain, China and the good old U.S.A., happen to be the largest small arms producers in the world. Unless their domestic producers can be convinced that the ATT will not put a dent in their bottom line, U.N. action on small arms is not likely.

The other result of the proliferation of small arms is crime, or, as the Ghanaian say “armed robberies.” Crime featured prominently in the discussion. In Accra, in fact, crime is more a priority than tribal conflicts: like any large city, Accra a mix of different people, most of whom have put there ethnic loyalties aside. Its also where a lot of the attendees of the meeting live, and many had been the victim of crimes, recently. Types of violent crime that were unheard of in Ghana 20 years ago, namely highway robbery (setting up road blocks and robbing passing cars) and home invasions, are becoming routine in some parts of Ghana.

So what are the police doing about it? Well, not much. A police superintendent addressed the meeting. After telling people what they already new (that crime is out of control in some areas) he explained the limitation of the police’s ability to combat crime. And the limitations are pretty all encompassing: intelligence, competency, and logistics. Is there anything they are doing right? Nope. In fact, the police are part of the crime problem. For one, police corruption is so bad that some police officers actually rent their weapons out to criminals to commit crime. Second, no one will give the police any information about crime since the police are as likely to tell the criminals who is informing on them as to investigate the tip. Most people who had been victims of crime stated that the police were totally uninterested in helping them, let alone investigating the crime.

Actually, the police are out looking for armed robbers. Really, they are. I can attest to that, personally. Two weeks ago, my friend was pulled over. I was in the car. The police officers who pulled us over (actually, they just blocked the road and commanded us to get out of the car) explained that they were searching for armed robbers. After a thorough search of the car, they did not find any guns or evidence that we were, indeed, armed robbers. What they did discover was that my friend did not have a driver’s license (its still unclear to me if he forgot his license at home, or simply does not have one). He also did not have a fire extinguisher in the car, as every car in Ghana is apparently required to have. Whatever the infraction, its beside the point: we could have been driving around with a trunk full of cocaine. See, the police were not actually looking to prevent crime. Rather, they were looking for a bribe. His lack of a license (and fire extinguisher) cost him $30, which he paid on the spot.

I was asked by one of the participants at the meeting why nice homes in America are not surrounded by high walls, as they are in Ghana. I explained that, although we have crime in America, most people trust the police to do something about it and don’t feel the need to fortify their home (although some do). What the meeting taught me is that honest policing is an important part of crime fighting: if people don’t trust the police, and the police force is not honest, then you will never solve the crime problem because people won’t work with the police and police officers will spend all their time looking for bribes rather than fighting crime. Ghana is a long way from having an honest police force and is a long way from solving its crime problem. However, there are a lot of good people in Ghana who can make a difference. Unfortunately, at the moment, they are not police officers.

Dime Store Monetary Policy

Still on the topic of crime, someone is stealing my money here in Ghana. But its not a Ghanaian. No, its by my own government. George Bush and the Republicans are making my time in Ghana 10% more expensive.

How? It works like this: because of the irresponsible tax cuts and a pointless war (both brought to you by the Republicans with the help of some less than principled Democrats), America has a tremendous budget deficit (the difference between what the government takes in and what it spends). A responsible administration (i.e. one not headed by a half wit) would close the budget deficit by raising taxes or cutting spending (one way to cut spending is by not spending $1 trillion on a pointless war). Unfortunately, the Bush administration takes a third approach to closing the budget deficit: borrow borrow borrow.

Bush’s “borrow and spend” policy is, in reality, called the “weak dollar policy.” Its a pretty simple policy: keep spending, keep borrowing and, because there is no fiscal discipline, no one has any confidence that American assets are worth anything, and stays away from them, including dollars. If the government wants a strong dollar, low taxes and lots of spending (wants it all!), it needs to raise interest rates on government bonds. Unfortunately, raising interest rates slows economic growth. For a few reasons, it is out of the question at the moment. So our government keeps spending and borrowing at low interest rates and the value of the dollar keeps dropping. Granted, no one except foreign investors and Americans who travel abroad give a damn about the value of the dollar. But have some compassion: it costs me 10% more to get drunk in Accra while discussing this administration’s sorry excuse of monetary policy with gloating foreigners. On the other hand, if the value of the dollar continues to drop, maybe some Chinese engineer will take pity on me and buy me a beer.

Sorry, I had to vent.

Update

This past week has been pretty exciting. Wednesday I went to the finals of a “Four Nation Tournament” featuring the Ghana national team. The game was a lot of fun, and the stadium is not that big, so every seat is a good one. There were more people standing outside the stadium (it was a big party) than inside the stadium because tickets were priced at a whopping $10 each (you get two matches for that price: the first place match and the second place match). Ghana took first place, although I was later told that there would have been a riot if Ghana did not win, since they are a lot better than Benin, the team that took second place. Anyhow, here are two pictures:

Note that they don’t serve beer in the stadium, which makes it the only place in Ghana where beer is not readily available.

On Thursday, while everyone at home was eating a Thanksgiving dinner, I went for Chinese food. Then I played some trivia at one of the expat bars. Friday I went to a play at the National Theater, which was pretty good. The play was sponsored by the Ministry of Health and was free. Before the play, the Minster of Health, or someone who represented him (it was unclear), gave a speech about healthy living and the importance of preventive medicine. The play itself was a retelling of a Ghanaian legend in which a woman loses her arm and is mercifully given a new arm (by a sea serpent). Seems to me that losing an arm and then miraculously getting a replacement arm has nothing to do with preventive medicine (its actually the opposite), but no one else, least of all the Minister of Health, was bothered. Also I finally got my passport back on Friday, although I had to go to the Immigration Service twice in the same day to make that happen.

Saturday night I was at Korokobite Beach, and I’m happy to say that, five weeks later, the party is still going strong. There were even a few of the same people from five weeks ago, and it looks like they never left their bar stool in the intervening five weeks. Go figure. I also met some interesting people who I’ll probably see again this week in Accra.

Unfortunately, my trip is winding down, just when I was really getting into the swing of things (note- if you are going to move somewhere and try to make friends, stay for more than 10 weeks). I return to the states in three short weeks and I plan to travel to the north of Ghana for the last week. I’ll be in Accra this weekend, and I’ve lined up a few fun events, including cooking dinner at my house with a friend or two, something that’s completely foreign to me since I don’t cook in Brooklyn. Always a new experience. . .

In any event, if anyone has any requests for souvenirs, or some other Ghanaian/African novelty they can’t find in New York, let me know and I’ll see if I can get my hands on it. Ceremonial stools? Drums? Kente cloth? Masks? I’m taking orders! Let me know.

Food Blog

One reader asked me to write a little about what I’m eating here in Accra. Yes mom, they have food in Ghana, lots of it, and some of it is quite good. Its also Thanksgiving this week, so I’m told, so food is on everyone’s mind.

Ghanaian food is simple and filling. The base for most dishes is a doughy stuff made with either maze (corn) and cassava or plantain and cassava. Cassava, which I don’t think is too popular outside Africa, is a root vegetable. In West Africa, out side of large cities, you can’t go more than a few meters without running into a Cassava plant: they are everywhere. The yam and cassava is called “fofou” and the maze and cassava is called “baku.” The fofou or baku is served in a tasty soupy sauce: sometimes the soup is made with peanuts, sometimes with snails (that type is a weird green color) and often with a spicy tomato based soup. Its usually served with meat or fish. The fish is a small fried fish (although you can also get smoked fish). It’s a whole fish (or, if the fish was big, half the fish) served with the bones. I’ve gotten pretty good at filleting the fish, although it’s a pretty annoying process. Other popular meats are goat and chicken. Goat is too chewy for my taste, and it’s a real fight to get it off the bone. Crabs are also popular with some dishes, but I can never find the meat in the crab, so I end up just tearing the thing apart, which many Ghanaians find pretty amusing but does nothing to get me fed.

In any event, all the dishes look very very tasty when they’re boiling in large pots. Unfortunately for me (and most westerns), those traditional dishes are eaten with the hands, and as temping as they look in the pot, when it arrives on the table and you need to stick your hand in to eat, it loses a lot of its appeal. However, the Ghanaians love it. Elsie, the office assistant, usually joins me for lunch and gets fofou. Here is a picture of her eating fofou with goat meat. She is washing her hands before the meal:

I was told that you can get any of those soupy dishes served over rice. That’s wishful thinking. In reality, sometimes they will give you rice, sometimes not. There are also dishes that are rice based. For example, rice and its palava sauce, which is a spinach type vegetable mixed with palm oil and salted fish among other ingredients. There is also something called “gravy” which is just a spicy tomato sauce served over rice. Anything that can be served with rice can also be served with boiled yams. So here is my lunch of boiled yams, palava sauce, and a fried fish:

One dish without rice, yams, baku or fofou is called “red-red.” Its plantains and beans in some type of sauce and its really filling although it tends to be very oily. Its usually served with fried plantains, to complement the plantains in the red-red, I guess. You can also just get an order of fried plantains, but to Ghanaians that’s sort of like ordering mash potatoes and nothing else. Pretty much everything is spicy, which I like. If you don’t like spice, you’re in trouble. Also, you don’t drink water during the meal, only after.

The above dishes are available in “chop shops” and “catering services.” In Accra and other big cities, there are Indian, Chinese and Lebanese restaurants, owned by natives of those countries, respectively. At most of those places, the food is pretty good, even by New York standards. I’ve had really good Indian, Chinese and Lebanese meals. In Accra are also two or three pubs that serve burgers and other pub food, some of which is also pretty good. Those places do a brisk business serving comfort food to westerners. Outside Accra, anyone looking for Chinese food, Indian food or western food eats at a hotel’s restaurant. Sometimes the food is good, sometimes its barely edible, and, as has happened a few times, sometimes its just plain not available.

In Accra and everywhere, there is a lot of “fast food” around. I’m not talking about Taco Bell or MacDonald’s. Fast food is usually fried chicken with fried rice or jallof rice. Jallof rice is spicy fried rice with out the vegetables that are in the fried rice. The fast food always comes with small salad, topped with ketchup and mayonnaise. Its not advisable to eat the salad until you have been here for a while and are used to the various micro bodes in the water. I also can’t stand having ketchup and mayo on my salad, so I try to ask for no salad, a request which is sometimes understood, and which sometimes is interpreted as meaning I want EXTRA salad with EXTRA mayo and ketchup.

Some of the fast food places are stand alone, but most are associated with the local “spots” (bars) where you can bring your fried chicken and fried rice and eat while you drink. Every “spot” will also have a guy barbecuing meat skewers and hot dogs served on sticks, doused in chilly pepper, which, as far as I can tell, is the only cow meat around. Unfortunately, the beef skewers tend to be full of grizzle. After a few beers, no one seems to mind the grizzle, which is probably why those guys are always grilling by the local “spots.”

Booze, by the way, is in abundance around here. In fact, there are probably more bars (“spots”) in Accra than there are in New York, and people also set up mini bars on street corners, in parks, even on highway medians. If there are any regulations on serving alcohol, they are not immediately apparent. In addition to beer, the “spots” serve these god awful herbal drinks and “bitters.” Herbal drinks and bitters are the type of thing that only a hard core alcoholic or frat boy would even think about drinking. I’m not sure why, but any liquor, even the international brands, somehow taste different and leave you a little quezzy. Only at the fanciest places can you get imported stuff up to international standards—which we take for granted in New York. In terms of beer, the only recognizable brand is Guinness, which is brewed in Ghana. The big local beer brands are “Star,” “Club,” “Stone” and “Castle.” None of it is bad, but its also not very good. What it is is cheep: a large beer is usually a dollar. Amstel, Heineken and another Dutch beer called “Guilder” also have a small presence. Amstel and Heineken are very expensive, so most people stick to the local stuff and “Guilder.” People seem to drink beer at all hours—when I walk to the bus (“tro tro”) at 7:30am, there are people sitting at spots drinking a beer. Maybe I’m missing something, but beer seems like a perfectly fine breakfast drink.

Accra also has a really health club scene, with lots of drinking and a good amount of drugs. I’ve gone to three clubs: not bad places, but the music is usually really loud and there are a lot of good looking local ladies who may or may not be prostitutes. These women are aggressive, which might be a cultural thing, or might be that they are really really into white guys. I don’t know, but I’m not interested in finding out whether they are or are not prostitutes, especially because I try not to carry much cash on me, I can’t use an ATM here, and I can’t imagine that Ghanaian pimps are very pleasant people. (Yes, yes: having sex with prostitutes is also immoral and unhealthy). The one place that did not have any prostitutes was all Lebanese people and assorted foreigners; I liked it, but it felt a little strange to come all the way to West Africa to repeat an experience I could have in NYC any night of the week. There is also lots of live music, and when I can figure out where and when the events are (not an easy task) I try to go. Those shows are great and its usually free or like $1.

Back to the food: there are really no Ghanaian desserts. There are some cookies made with plantains that are really dry and taste like bad butter cookies. People eat a lot of locally made frozen yogurt and ice cream, served by boys with bikes and bells. Also, although not strictly dessert, fresh fruit is pretty abundant. Tons of women walk around the city selling fresh fruit from trays on their head. Its pretty impressive:

I forget what that lady had (it looks like she had nuts or dry fruit), but most of the “market women” have a head full of pineapples, tangerines, papaya, watermelon, bananas. (As a general rule, as long as it has skin, its ok to eat). I wish I had more pictures of market ladies with their goods on top of their heads, because it’s a pretty common sight around here. But, as you might expect, the ladies get very pissy when you take their picture, even if you pay or buy something. I refrain both out of respect and because a lot of those ladies can probably kick my ass. Another picture:

When not buying things off of women’s heads, there are a few western style supermarkets I can go to, which are pretty good. They stock brands from all over the world since there customer base is from everywhere. So the hummus is the same as you find in Beirut, the sausage is what you find in Frankfurt, the pasta sauce is from Rome and the Betty Lee cake mix is what you would find in Atlanta. There are also supermarkets that specialize in Indian and Chinese goods. Its all pretty expensive (the American products are about twice the price), and since I’m here for only 10 weeks, there is no reason for me to spend much time at those places. However, one supermarket is owned by Lebanese people, so they have awesome olives, which I enjoy.

These supermarkets are not for average Ghanaians. For the time being, most Ghanaians shop at outdoor markets. These are pretty exciting places, but I find that shopping there is not a pleasant experience. First, a lot of the stuff looks very unappetizing- how many goat legs and smoked fish do I really need? Also, there is no refrigeration for the fish or meat. (I never really thought about it, but I assume that we go to great lengths to refrigerate fish for some important reasons. Those reasons are lost on the Ghanaians, I guess). Another problem that bothers me, but no one else, is that all the vendors (food, dry goods, and clothing) have pretty much the same thing. How do you decide who to buy from? Yes, economists, I know that one of the ways to determine who to buy from is price (who ever is the lowest). But that creates another problem because to get the best price, you have to bargain. I like to bargain as much as the next guy, but bargaining over every little thing is trying. And finally, its usually hot as hell in these markets. Here is Elsie at the market (although she confided that she prefers the supermarket):

I think I’ll buy some souvenirs at the markets and some boiled peanuts, since I can’t get those at the supermarket for some reason, but I think I’ll stick to the supermarkets to the extent I need to buy any real food or cleaning supplies. However, I’m aware that the “supermarketfication” of Africa threatens to put all these market women out of business, and that is going to cause a lot of pain.

Now, a word about prices. My lunch is always $1.60 and a nickel for “pure water.” The fast food will cost you about $2, but its less out side Accra. The fruit is between 20 cents and 60 cents because the lady who carries the stuff around on her head will charge you whatever she thinks you can pay. (I know I’m being ripped off, but I don’t mind. The only thing that gets on my nerves is the “change game” where they say “no change, buy another!” How many pineapples do I need, lady?) Large beers cost a dollar, a shot of the herbal liquor (if you dare) is like 40 cents. A beef skewer is 30- 50 cents. At a chop shop or a canteen, you can eat and drink yourself into a stupor for no more than $4 dollars, and that’s high because this is Accra. The Indian, Chinese, and Lebanese restaurants and the western style pubs charge international prices. At any of those places (except some very cheap Chinese places), a meal, with a beer (or two) will cost about $12.

To put some of these prices in perspective, many professional/middle class Ghanaians make about $400 per month ($4,800 per year). I don’t know how the taxes work, so I don’t know if that is before or after taxes. Nevertheless, it’s a good salary here: the per capita GNP is $380 per year, or a little over a dollar a day. So spending $12 on a meal is extravagant. There are a few lessons from this: first, you can see why people are so interested in coming to America and Europe to work menial jobs that pay $300 a week and, conversely, why a meal and drinks at a bar in the U.S. costs $25. Second, if you’re a westerner looking to make some good money and don’t mind a few disreputable types hanging around and having to bribe a few dozen officials, pick an African capital and open a pub serving western food. It’s a gold mine, as far as I can tell. Third, despite being a New Yorker, I now regard that $6 chicken tikka masala and a $2 nan bread as an expensive treat. But hey, I’m a New Yorker who is volunteering for 10 weeks.

At one of those expat pubs (one of the gold mines) there is a weekly trivia game, and last week my team won. The prize was $30 toward our tab. The non-prize is that when you win, you have to prepare the quiz for the following week. So I have to meet with my team to come up with some questions. We each have to put together a round, I think. I had some ideas that revolved around American pop culture, but I was advised not to make it “too American” because people get pissed. So my idea is a round where you have to match up the bad guy with the film he was featured in. I know for a fact that bad guys are a literal rouges gallery of international super villains, so there is no way I can be accused of being “too American.” I’ll show them non-American!

Otherwise, last weekend I was in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city. I met a German friend who lives in the area, and we went around. It was fun, Kumasi is a nice town, but nothing to write home about (literally in this case). It’s the historic capital of the Ashanti empire, so there is lots of history. Unfortunately, the British burned the entire city down in 1874, so any structures of historical significance are long gone. There is a military museum in Kumasi but all it has are some dusty pictures and guns captured by the Ghanaian military in various campaigns, like when they served as peace keepers in Rwanda and the Congo. Also, as part of the British army, Ghanaian forces helped drive the Germans out of their African possessions during World War One, and the Italians out of Ethiopia in World War Two, so there are lots of old Italian and German guns on display. It really should be called the “museum of used guns.”

Otherwise, all is well. The World Bank is recommending an investigation of the landfill project I worked on, which is a small win for the people of the community. It also seems like the landfill part of the project was so badly bungled by the AMA and local bank people that the whole thing might be scrapped, which is a total win for the community, if it happens.

Today I went to another conference on guns. It was really interesting—these are the people who want stricter gun laws, and they have the support of the government, so a few important ministers and members of parliament showed up. Since they don’t like guns, I learned a lot about ethnic conflicts and crime in Ghana, the two things that guns exacerbate, and things that these guys really wanted to talk about for that reason. I’ll report all about it in my next blog. Finally, there is a big soccer game on Wednesday and I’m going to try to get a ticket and go. It’s the finals of an small international tournament, and Ghana is playing Benin. Hope I can get a ticket- the tickets are not sold out, but also not available. I don’t know what that means. I think I’m going to the beach again this weekend, my first time in a month. Have a happy Thanksgiving, everyone!