The second-biggest power in West Africa, the second major Anglophone country, the second birthplace of West African hip-hop.. but how Ghana wishes it had nothing else in common with the great Nigeria. "Nigerians are responsible for all the crime in Ghana," locals swore to me, echoing a view that I suspect has some currency throughout Africa. While I would hardly ascribe to it myself, comparing calm, aesthetic, touristy Ghana with Nigeria does bring to mind the expression, "The Anti-Nigeria".
Still, I'm not convinced that the countries are quite the polar opposites that Ghanians would have me believe...
Still, I'm not convinced that the countries are quite the polar opposites that Ghanians would have me believe...
Quote: David was changing money shortly after our arrival in Ghana (on the gas-thirsty van). There was, as it turned out, no power, for which the money-changer profusely apologized. We were more than used to it, so no need. But as everyone who's anyone in Nigeria has a generator for exactly that problem, David joked by way of a response, "What, don't you have a generator??"
The response highlights the fundamental difference between the two countries: "What's a generator??"
David was stunned. "You know, a generator.. for power.." (how to explain a generator?) "Haven't you ever been to Nigeria?"
"OOHH that... no."
New Hygienic Lows: I have fallen so low that I get excited if, when washing my hands in a white sink basin, the water runs clear after only a few seconds.
Best thing eaten: One word: PANCAKES. When I found out that our hotel had both pineapple and banana pancakes on the menu, I tried one for lunch and the other for dinner. And then again. And again. I actually never ordered a meal in that town that didn't include pancakes. Mmmm, pancakes.
Moment of Cleverness: When you are usually on the outsmarted end of the outsmarting, you are perhaps permitted the occasional gloat when you find yourself on the other end of the deal.
Deposited from our minivan-bus at the bus stop 8 km away from our destination of Elmina, we were beseiged by taxidrivers offering to shuttle us for steep fares. I wanted to wait for a bus instead, as the route was a regular one, and as soon as the next pulled up I went to the herder to find out if it was headed our way.
Always trust the first answer, and his first was yes, until a frenzy of exclamations in Akam from the taxidrivers suddenly changed that to a no. Nope, wasn't going our way and never had been, didn't even know where Elmina was, what's Elmina? we had better take one of these taxi chaps..
Instantly suspicious, I cast a glance at a passenger in the front seat. "Elmina?"
"Yup," he confirmed, destroying in one word the taxi-herder cabal, and we hopped on in.
The brief incident didn't exactly inspire me with faith in the tricky herder; I grinned at him in a wily way to show him I knew what he had been up to, and he grinned back with a hint of hang-dog "You caught me". Then without missing a beat (or losing his grin), he quoted the price - 1 cedi (100 pesados) each.
I took a gamble, and decided to bluff it out. I grinned back and replied, "Oh, no it's not, it's nowhere near that..." and made no move to pay. He couldn't prove anything either way, so I just sat there, estimating what the fare likely was. It couldn't be less than 25 pesados, but was probably not much more; I counted out a bit of small change and decided to wait him out. Seeing my apparent certainty, he lost his nerve, caved, and let slip the real price, 40 each. Yessss I thought to myself quietly, and nonchalantly paid the exact price.
Exiting the van, I crowed to myself, The scammer, scammed! ..but in fact, we didn't actually scam anyone, unless you count side-stepping a scam as a scam in itself. (Hmm.. now there's an idea.)
Music: Now I didn't conduct a scientific study or anything, but I would bet that 9 out of 10 self-respecting Ghanians solidly consider their hip-hop superior to anything produced by that country in whose shadow Ghana curses her fate to lie, Nigeria. Sarkodie, 4x4, Trigmatic, Reggie Rockstone - I heard several of these greats at a night out in a hip-hop club headlining DJ Black, a West African legend. From the little I heard, Ghana does seem to be a serious contender to all the P-Square and 2face Nigeria can boast, but it's almost impossible to find even pirated versions of their albums outside the capital. So, I'll be leaving Ghana with a long list of names I'll likely never hear again, and one lone Sarkodie album that I love.
The fruitless search through several cities has left me bitter enough that I will give Nigeria superiority on this one, and if any Ghanian defies it, let them send me a freakin' album so I can hear what the country has to offer!!
National Weakness: Chivalry seems to be a bit thin on the ground in Ghana. Notable examples include a would-be suitor who, I can only suppose, was attracted by the challenge presented by increasingly blunt rejections, and several assholes in different cities under the impression that physical force via a passing woman's arm is an appropriate means for getting her attention - with the added benefit that it literaly forces her to stop walking and face you. All are valuable specimens of study, but the prize goes to the memorable gentleman who, while working up the courage to make a move at aforementioned hip-hop club, knocked my just-tasted drink off the table and onto my lap, dousing a rare clean pair of pants with stickiness and scattering shards of glass all over the floor.
Gravity-challenged myself, I am no stranger to the awkward embarassment that followed for the guy, and immediately laughed it off as just 'one of those things'. I also expected any of several reactions on his part: profuse apologies, attempts to help clean it up, most notably an offer to replace a drink I had bought myself and planned to nurse. But maybe he should get credit for trying unsuccessfully to get his friend to buy it. (The friend's natural response: "What, I didn't spill it!")
So, I was sticky-pantsed for the rest of the evening, and not in the British sense. Despite later attempts to put his arm around my waist, that was the closest Mr. Drink-dasher would be getting to my pants that night.
Worst Moment: David has a theory that in traveling through Africa, you are often forced to choose between idiots and scam-artists. Follow a friendly stranger to the bus stop only to arrive at his friend's pricey car-rental; listen to the receptionist's affirmatives to the question of two-bed rooms, only to find yourself in a room with one bed.
The taxi drivers in Accra are the worst I have ever encountered in my life. A typical Accra taxidriver conversation goes as follows:
Deposited from our minivan-bus at the bus stop 8 km away from our destination of Elmina, we were beseiged by taxidrivers offering to shuttle us for steep fares. I wanted to wait for a bus instead, as the route was a regular one, and as soon as the next pulled up I went to the herder to find out if it was headed our way.
Always trust the first answer, and his first was yes, until a frenzy of exclamations in Akam from the taxidrivers suddenly changed that to a no. Nope, wasn't going our way and never had been, didn't even know where Elmina was, what's Elmina? we had better take one of these taxi chaps..
Instantly suspicious, I cast a glance at a passenger in the front seat. "Elmina?"
"Yup," he confirmed, destroying in one word the taxi-herder cabal, and we hopped on in.
The brief incident didn't exactly inspire me with faith in the tricky herder; I grinned at him in a wily way to show him I knew what he had been up to, and he grinned back with a hint of hang-dog "You caught me". Then without missing a beat (or losing his grin), he quoted the price - 1 cedi (100 pesados) each.
I took a gamble, and decided to bluff it out. I grinned back and replied, "Oh, no it's not, it's nowhere near that..." and made no move to pay. He couldn't prove anything either way, so I just sat there, estimating what the fare likely was. It couldn't be less than 25 pesados, but was probably not much more; I counted out a bit of small change and decided to wait him out. Seeing my apparent certainty, he lost his nerve, caved, and let slip the real price, 40 each. Yessss I thought to myself quietly, and nonchalantly paid the exact price.
Exiting the van, I crowed to myself, The scammer, scammed! ..but in fact, we didn't actually scam anyone, unless you count side-stepping a scam as a scam in itself. (Hmm.. now there's an idea.)
Music: Now I didn't conduct a scientific study or anything, but I would bet that 9 out of 10 self-respecting Ghanians solidly consider their hip-hop superior to anything produced by that country in whose shadow Ghana curses her fate to lie, Nigeria. Sarkodie, 4x4, Trigmatic, Reggie Rockstone - I heard several of these greats at a night out in a hip-hop club headlining DJ Black, a West African legend. From the little I heard, Ghana does seem to be a serious contender to all the P-Square and 2face Nigeria can boast, but it's almost impossible to find even pirated versions of their albums outside the capital. So, I'll be leaving Ghana with a long list of names I'll likely never hear again, and one lone Sarkodie album that I love.
The fruitless search through several cities has left me bitter enough that I will give Nigeria superiority on this one, and if any Ghanian defies it, let them send me a freakin' album so I can hear what the country has to offer!!
National Weakness: Chivalry seems to be a bit thin on the ground in Ghana. Notable examples include a would-be suitor who, I can only suppose, was attracted by the challenge presented by increasingly blunt rejections, and several assholes in different cities under the impression that physical force via a passing woman's arm is an appropriate means for getting her attention - with the added benefit that it literaly forces her to stop walking and face you. All are valuable specimens of study, but the prize goes to the memorable gentleman who, while working up the courage to make a move at aforementioned hip-hop club, knocked my just-tasted drink off the table and onto my lap, dousing a rare clean pair of pants with stickiness and scattering shards of glass all over the floor.
Gravity-challenged myself, I am no stranger to the awkward embarassment that followed for the guy, and immediately laughed it off as just 'one of those things'. I also expected any of several reactions on his part: profuse apologies, attempts to help clean it up, most notably an offer to replace a drink I had bought myself and planned to nurse. But maybe he should get credit for trying unsuccessfully to get his friend to buy it. (The friend's natural response: "What, I didn't spill it!")
So, I was sticky-pantsed for the rest of the evening, and not in the British sense. Despite later attempts to put his arm around my waist, that was the closest Mr. Drink-dasher would be getting to my pants that night.
Worst Moment: David has a theory that in traveling through Africa, you are often forced to choose between idiots and scam-artists. Follow a friendly stranger to the bus stop only to arrive at his friend's pricey car-rental; listen to the receptionist's affirmatives to the question of two-bed rooms, only to find yourself in a room with one bed.
The taxi drivers in Accra are the worst I have ever encountered in my life. A typical Accra taxidriver conversation goes as follows:
Me (leaning over passenger window): Hi, do you know where such-and-such is?
Driver (slight hesitation imperceptible to the untrained eye): Yes.
Me: You do? You know it? Such-and-such?
Driver: Yes, of course, get in.
(price haggle, agreement, we get in. 30 seconds later:)
Driver: So ....you know where it is?
Me: What? No, you do..?
(awkward pause.)
(awkward pause.)
Driver (gazing at me with blank look): So.. which way?
After several frustrating days we learned to take the wildly swerving tro-tros, local bus-minivans that fly around the city on somewhat regular routes for delightfully low prices. If we believed that the idiots were the worst of the taxis, however, we were wrong, and on our way out of Accra we met with the other brand - the scammer. After leading us on a bizarre route past our destination, over our cries of, "That's it..", he brought us to his own hood, where he and his buddies invented an imaginative narrative of white-man-trickery and delivered it to the astonished crowd, who then helped them rob David of four times the agreed price. Physical violence threatened to solve the issue in its own way, though the Arbiters prevented that from occurring. The Arbiters, who believed they were only restoring justice, at least ensured that we were only robbed of a small amount of money. Still, that was definitely the most awful moment of Ghana.
After several frustrating days we learned to take the wildly swerving tro-tros, local bus-minivans that fly around the city on somewhat regular routes for delightfully low prices. If we believed that the idiots were the worst of the taxis, however, we were wrong, and on our way out of Accra we met with the other brand - the scammer. After leading us on a bizarre route past our destination, over our cries of, "That's it..", he brought us to his own hood, where he and his buddies invented an imaginative narrative of white-man-trickery and delivered it to the astonished crowd, who then helped them rob David of four times the agreed price. Physical violence threatened to solve the issue in its own way, though the Arbiters prevented that from occurring. The Arbiters, who believed they were only restoring justice, at least ensured that we were only robbed of a small amount of money. Still, that was definitely the most awful moment of Ghana.
Best Moment: Forget the dirt, forget the scams, forget the occasional inconvenience, the single most difficult thing about traveling is being eternally dog-less. Not only to I have to put up with months of no dog-time, but most of the dogs I see are either in tough shape or ferile.
As usual, the religious paradigm via dogs and cats held in Ghana, and we found dogs as pets far more often than in Muslim areas. Best of all, our hotel in Cape Coast actually kept three dogs on site whose apparent purpose was to wander about, get patted on the head, sit at your chair while you ate/read/napped, and fall asleep on your shoes. A darling little spanielish-mix-of-something-or-other did all four. Sigh.
Could I live here: I loved Accra. While Ghana might be a bit boring in comparison with its more eccentric neighbors, I could easily see myself settling in Accra for a while. I would whizz around the city aboard the efficient tro-tros, take cheap lunches at curbside on-the-spot-kitchen stands, benefit from the academic community at one of West Africa's most prestigious universities, and go to live DJ hip-hop clubs at night. (And given a couple months to search, maybe I'd finally find that blasted 4x4 cd!)
"Traveling in Ghana was kind of like reading a book I'd already read," David commented shortly after we left the country. He kind of has a point there; Ghana didn't really bring any alarming surprises to the table, and we didn't expect that it would. Plenty of foreign tourists wandered with us through the slaver castles of the coast and the Asante museums of the center, and in many ways it didn't feel much different than going on holiday in the States. All the same, it is a very comfortable place to be, relaxed, welcoming, and organized, and I think even the pickiest of tourists could have a marvelous time here.
... Let's see how Côte d'Ivoire measures up.
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