Western Africa!

We arrived in Ghana at around 8 AM on Sunday, April 11.   Clearing the ship didn’t take too long and we were off of it by 11 AM.  It was like being back in India.  Our ship’s position- according to the TV in my room- is 00 Degrees or right on the Equator!!!   You can imagine how hot and humid it is…it’s completely draining!

Accra is about forty-five minutes away and luckily the ship has a shuttle service for us.  Where the ship is berthed is simply a harbor.  Nothing exciting.  We were spoiled by the harbors in Cape Town and Port Louis.  So, after several hours of waiting inside the ship we finally got on a shuttle and were in downtown Accra.  Walking around was fun and we didn’t go anywhere too special.  We hit a few markets and a nice place for ice cream.  The heat really is just unbearable and it isn’t the cleanest place.  It’s not India dirty, and the poverty isn’t as bad, but it comes very close.  Sewage running in the streets and trash is everywhere.  You also can see just how much “developing” this developing nation is doing.   It seems to be in a transition period.  Construction, billboards, and many other signs like this all spell out development.  I bet if I come back here in ten years Accra will be a very different city. 

For dinner we went to an interesting place called, ChurCheese.   It was a lot like Chuck E Cheese (I think that’s the spelling) back home.  It had a play area out front for kids and then an arcade inside.  Yes, a bunch of twenty-year olds really went here.  The dinner was good; I had pizza.  Ghanaian food is very, very spicy and I’m not too keen on that. 

The first thing I noticed about Ghanaian people is how friendly and pro-America they are!   One guy came up to us and just started talking to us.  He weaves bracelets and made one for all of us for free.  He just wanted to practice his English.  He told us about all of his friends in America, more likely tourists he’s met.  He really wants to go to the U.S., but he has the same problem many other people who I’ve encountered on this trip have: he can’t get a visa.  We spent about 2 hours talking and walking around with him.   As we were walking around a lot of other locals just came up and started talking to us.  They all just asked questions about America and they are especially interested on hearing about President Obama.  “He came to Ghana!” At least ten people told me today.

During the 2008 election there was a campaign poster for Obama that pictured his face and the word “Hope.” I’m sure you’ve seen it.  Here you really see just how much the word “hope” means.  Ghana was the central loading station during the slave trade.  A few hours down the coast are slave dungeons and you can go to ports where the slaves were loaded for their journey to the Americas.  These nice, friendly people that I met and spent a good part of my day with would have been slaves a few hundred years ago.  The fact that the United States of America, the only superpower in the world, now has a black president (after a long history of putting down black people) truly is a source of hope for the people of Ghana, and something they should be proud of.

Tomorrow I’m off to a Ghanaian school and I’m very, very, very excited to see another foreign school.  Then we’re going to Big Milly’s, a resort.  It has beaches, sun and fun.  Something like that.  The beaches here are supposedly gorgeous and I’m excited to swim in my old friend, the Atlantic Ocean.   It’s also going to be a very cheap few days.  A taxi ride anywhere in the city costs 5 cedis, which is about $3.  We booked a suite at this resort and it’s costing everyone less then $10 for the night.