Our original itinerary for our first day in Ghana had us taking a grand tour of the main sites of the Accra. True to third-world form, nothing went as planned today. Nothing.
The four hour delay at JFK put us behind our tour schedule before we landed. After clearing customs, reporting someone’s missing suitcase, and loading up the little 20ish passenger tour bus, we drove to the hotel to meet the other half our group. There are 17 people on this trip: 2 professors (one with his wife and youngest daughter), 1 TA, and 12 MPA students. Six people flew out a week early to spend some time in a tiny island village named Big Ada—location of one of the first Empower Playgrounds. Beyond the terrifying food (fish soup and oysters, complete with heads and eyes and other nastiness… every single day), they had a blast and regaled us with tales of horrifying seafood as we had a brief orientation at the hotel.
After checking into our rooms at the hotel we headed out to lunch at some super local restaurant. They had fish heads. I didn’t eat one. I ate this instead:
Getting off the plane in Accra was awesome. I walked from the cold recycled plane air into a wall of solid humid heat, which instantly brought back memories of Egypt—it feels just like June or July in Cairo. I had forgotten about the constant, overbearing, debilitating African heat. I keep wanting to chicken out and hide in air conditioning, amazed that anyone can even survive in this heat, but then I remember that I survived (and loved) this crazy hot weather. We walked all over the place in the Egyptian heat. We went mosqueing in Islamic Cairo in July. We even went to the Pyramids at noon in August (stupid, yes).
Now that I’ve been here for a while (two whole days!) I think I’m reacclimatized and have fully accepted that my clothes will dripping wet for the next two weeks. I’m loving the heat again and have missed it horribly. Come on future State Department or USAID hiring staff—send us somewhere hot and exotic!
The heat hasn’t been the only thing to make me homesick for the Middle East. So much of Ghana is like Egypt. The hordes of taxi drivers outside the airport (although not nearly as many as their Cairene counterparts). Empty plots of land with “This property is owned” or “This land is not for sale” spray painted on the wall (هذا الارض ليس للبيع). Taxis and buses overloaded with local decor or religious stuff.
Middle Eastern vehicles are plastered with Islamic sayings (الØمد لله, الله اكبر, Praise the Prophet, etc.); Ghanaian vehicles rival their Islamic counterparts with phrases like “Victorious Triumphant Jesus,” “O Lord Deliver Me,” “Holy Ghost Fire,” “God is good,” and other evangelical Christian phrases. Members of the Church even get into it—some members’ cars have “Priesthood” or “Book of Mormon” decalled on the back windshield. Like the Middle East, even corner stores get into it. We drove by the “Satan is vanquished” cell phone store today. Awesome.
The interior of our little tour bus is even identical to the big AUC commuting buses, which is kind of uncanny.
Unlike the Middle East, there is almost no visible police or military presence. No police with ancient AK-47s picking their noses while guarding speed bumps. There is also far less visible corruption. I have been asked for tips, but it’s nothing at all like the stupid Middle Eastern baksheesh. I’m sure there are required tips for getting official government documents, but I doubt its as extensive (and painful) as the Mugamma.
On the other hand, the poverty in Ghana is overwhelmingly worse than Egypt. It actually seems to break my theory my statistical research from last semester, where we posited that good governance drives economic growth. In our measurement of governance (which ranged from -12 to 12; -12 meaning horrible governance and 12 meaning fantastic governance), Egypt scored stinking -2.5 while Ghana almost scored a 1. Although it’s better governed, Ghana’s economy performs horribly compared to Egypt—its 25 million citizens are by far poorer and less healthy than the 80 million Egyptians up north.
And you can definitely tell. The outskirts (and the inskirts(?) too) of Accra are filled with village-like slums with open sewers, tons of livestock, and unpaved orange dirt roads. The rooftops aren’t covered with satellite dishes—just antennae. It’s like if every tiny village in Upper Egypt were transplanted into downtown Cairo and were 10 times poorer and less developed.
The poverty here is incredible.
Accra also feels less safe than Cairo, Alexandria, or Amman. Every relatively well-to-do compound has walls covered in razor wire and broken glass. Our bus got broken into in broad daylight. There seems to be more of a visible problem with drug and alcohol abuse (which I’m sure goes on in the Middle East, but is far more muted since it’s haram and everything…).
I’ve heard from a few people that Accra is their least favorite part of the country, so I’m excited to see some more of Ghana. It’s a fascinating place and I’m totally jealous of all the diplomatic and development expats here. Someday…
The flight to Ghana was initially pretty uneventful. My dad drove me and Matthias up to the airport at 5 stinking o’clock in the morning and we met up with a couple other people from our group in SLC before boarding the flight to New York. I entertained myself with Despicable Me and Pirates I, all the while ignoring the book I’m supposed to be reading for this trip/class. Oh well… plenty of time for that later :)
I was kind of worried about getting to JFK on time—we only had a little over an hour before our flight to Accra and CNN (now rebranded as HLN apparently) was reporting one hour delays for flights going into New York. Eek.
