Trip to Ghana

Our school break was in June, and after grading exams and completing reports we had weeks of free time.  We decided to visit our friend Rose in Ghana.  Hey, we're on the same continent, right?  It should be easy.

When discussing arrangements for our visit, Rose asked if we already had visas.  Oop!  No.  So, we went in search of how to get them.  Internet was no help.  Is there a Ghanaian embassy or consulate in Tanzania?  Nope.  Finally we learned that we could possibly get them on  arrival at the airport.  Rose's businessman brother kindly supplied us with a letter stating that he would be responsible for us during our stay.  It turned out that his letter made all the difference in the attitudes of the immigration officials who supplied the visas.  They went from suspicious to cooperative in an instant.

We flew into Accra at night and were amazed at the size of the city.  It has a population of over two million, and twinkling lights extended far into the distance.  We learned that the city is growing rapidly, due to people moving in from rural areas in search of opportunity.

Rose met us and took us to her lovely home in a suburb of Accra.  She put us into a guest room with the best bed we have slept on in a year.

We saw many similarities between Ghana and Tanzania.  The people are friendly in both countries.  People live in similar-looking houses, which are not built of wood because they would be destroyed by termites before they could be completed.  Instead, the houses of those who can afford it are usually built of cement block, even interior walls.  The more well-off add wall finishes, tile floors, and ornate ceilings.  Middle-class and wealthy homeowners live in walled compounds with gates and sometimes gatekeepers.  Crime is a factor in housing construction in countries where there is much poverty, as well as the fact that local police cannot always be relied on for protection.

Those able to afford it have a main house in the walled compound and a smaller one for servants' quarters.  The people who live in the small house may actually be servants or may just be younger members of the extended family.  In any case, homes at any economic level need a lot of help to run.  Even those who can afford modern appliances experience power outages.  A washing machine and dryer are not labor-saving if there is no electricity to run them.  Convenience foods are rare, expensive, and less tasty than meals made from scratch.  Hence the need for help running a household.  And, (looking back at my economic training) when labor is cheaper and more reliable than labor-saving devices, people have household help.

Rose took us on a tour of Accra, which is a cleaner and more modern city than any in Tanzania.  We were also surprised and pleased that all of the street signs and billboards were in English!  Ghana's national language is English, but there are many tribal languages as well.  We visited a textile market that was full of the colorful and textured Kente cloth.  I did not buy any then, as I noticed that people do not use it for everyday wear.  It is only for special occasions.  We went to Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park, which contains the museum and tomb of the father of the country.  I found myself affected more than I had expected by the museum, which held, among copies of his books and some of his furniture, photos of him with John F Kennedy, Mao Tse Tung, and Fidel Castro:  people right out of the headlines of my childhood, during a turbulent time in history.

Another day we visited a dam east of Accra that provides electricity to most of the country.  It was an impressive spot.  Along the way we noted that the small towns and villages, with their tiny shops and street vendors, look very much the same as those in Tanzania.

Mid-week we did some shopping and errands with Rose, and had lunch at her sister's beautiful home.  Rose's many sisters and brothers--some of them cousins-- form a close, extended family, complete with nieces, nephews, aunties, and uncles.  Older people are shown deference in the culture and it is the duty of children to help their elders.  As a senior myself, I approve of the system.

At the end of the week we took a trip to Kakum Forest, which lies a couple of hours to the west of the city.  The traffic is so heavy that it took us 90 minutes to clear the suburbs.  Kakum is a rainforest preserve with rope bridges suspended from treetop to treetop.  We were told that no one had ever fallen from the bridges, so, with some misgivings, I made my way across them  I found that looking down was not so scary, as all I could see was the tops of smaller trees.  The worst part is when the twenty-somethings in front of me got playful and rocked the bridge.  I spoke to them sternly (Hooray for the culture of respect for elders!) and they stopped.

On our way back to Accra we stopped at Cape Coast Castle built hundreds of years ago for trade.  The fort was used as an assembly point for captured slaves waiting for ships to take them to the west.  It's a solemn spot, but the coastline there is beautiful, similar to Cinque Terra, in Italy.

The next evening we boarded our plane back to Tanzania, happy to have been able to visit our dear friend and to have met some of her family.  We plan to see her next in just over a year, in Florida.