First Week: Check

So first of all, welcome to my blog! Credit to Annie for the awful pun in the title. Some of you may know how hypocritical I feel starting this blog, since I have long had an open aversion to abroad blogs.  However, this seemed like the best way to let a bunch of different people know what I was up. And I suppose it’ll be nice to have a record myself of my time here. So….without further ado, here I am, posting my first entry. (Sorry for no pictures - next entry I promise!)

Things I have learned my first week in Accra:

Ghanaians love music. LOVE MUSIC. I live in a bit of a “party” area and there is always loud music outside my window every day of the week until at least 2 am. It starts up again at 6 or 7. I am not sure how this is possible, but it is. This, along with the multitude of dogs in the area that howl for a good five minutes every time an airplane goes by, means that it is never quiet. However, I’ve already partly gotten used to it, and the music is a lot of fun, particularly my new favorite song, “African Man.” This is one of the few Ghanaian songs in English and it’s everywhere – it was the first song I heard when I got in the car that picked me up from the airport. Here are the lyrics:
    I want an African man.
    A strong black African man.
    I need an African man.
    A strong black African man.
    (Repeat x infinity)
Seriously.

Just ignore the honking. I guess this kind of goes along with the noise thing, but the cars honk CONSTANTLY here. This is particularly true of cabs, who if empty (and more often than not they are empty) will honk at you multiple times if you are walking on the street to alert you to their presence. Imagine that in New York? The honking also comes from the fact that there are frequent four way intersections with no traffic lights, so cars just honk as they go through them. Traffic in general is pretty insane and it makes me glad I don’t have to drive here. In high school some of my friends used to play the No Stopping game (it’s pretty complicated: drive as long as you can without stopping) and from what I can tell, all of Ghana plays the No Stopping game constantly. A few days ago I was chatting with a very nice cab driver and I mentioned how confused I was the first day or so why everyone was honking at me. He laughed and said I had to learn to “ignore the nuisance.” At the risk of sounding majorly corny, I think this is good advice for the whole year. There is a lot of nuisance that comes with living in Africa, but if you can just ignore the little nuisances, it is truly special.

Street names mean absolutely nothing here. Like no one, not even people who have lived here their whole lives, know the names of the road they live on or pretty major thoroughfares. I learned this when I was taking a cab to work my first morning and assumed that since I had the address, the driver would easily be able to deliver me there. Absolutely not. He just looked at me blankly and I had to get my apartment-mate who luckily knew where the office was to give him the real directions. Everything is by landmark. So I live “down from Papaye by the radio station.” Even stores advertise like this – there is a big billboard for a restaurant that instead of an address has “behind Koala supermarket.” And the tro-tro stops (I’ll get to the tro-tros later – basically the buses) are all like this too. To get to work, for example, I take a tro-tro to the “Shangrila Hotel” and then another one to the “curve after Chinese” (I still don’t know where the Chinese enters the equation, but that’s what I was taught to say).

Ghanaian food is very tasty. I haven’t had that much yet, but so far I’ve been quite pleased. Jollof rice (a spicy rice) is delicious, and they make all sorts of yummy stews. I honestly have no idea what they are composed of but they taste good so who really cares. Plantains are very popular and really good either fried or boiled. My favorite from the first week is a dish called “Red red,” meaning red plantains and beans in a red sauce. Yum. On the street you can also buy all sorts of fruit for really cheap, so I’ll definitely be getting my daily fruits and vegetables. You can even buy a coconut. They cut it open with this giant knife and you stand there on the corner and drink the juice out of it. You know, no big deal.

I think I’m going to like my job. I don’t want to write too much about work on here since it is a public blog, but so far I really like my office and the people all seem great. Everyone eats lunch together at this big table outside which is a nice way to socialize with your coworkers and talk about things other than cashew prices. They’re really excited to have a native English speaker so I’ve already gotten a lot of writing and editing tasks. The second day I was here, I got the assignment of being in charge of the July issue of the quarterly newsletter. This is lucky though, because it means that I get to travel this week to a brand new cashew processing factory in the northern area of the country to write a story about it, so that’s pretty cool.

A cold shower, after the initial shock, is really just as effective as a hot one. And that’s all I have to say about that.

Things I have not learned:

How the tro-tros work. Tro-tros are the system of “public transportation” here that are identical to the mini-bus system in South Africa and similar systems in most of Africa. They are basically vans crammed with as many seats as possible that go on set routes and are very cheap to ride. Now, I was tempted to put the tro-tros in the “things I’ve learned” category since I can now navigate my way to and from work (requiring two transfers each way), but this is really only due to very careful instructions from my co-worker Marian, and I still have no idea how the system as a whole works, or more importantly, how everyone else seems to know how it works. The vans drive along and the driver or his assistant either yell something unintelligible or, more commonly, move their hands in some fashion that signals where that tro-tro is going. To my eye, every hand gesture is more or less identical and involves waving of the wrist. However, to Ghanaians, they clearly have obvious differences. There are also several central stations where you can get tro-tros going in all different directions. At the stations, people line up for each destination. Except there are no signs. They just KNOW which line means where. So it’s all very confusing. One other thing about tro-tros though, which I kind of love, is that they often have these very big slogans painted on the back that include: “Jesus is the lord,” “Be the person that you are,” and my personal favorite “Yes we can.” (If Obama god forbid loses in 2012 he should really just come to Africa because they WORSHIP him here. So you see, I clearly fit right in.)

Basically everything else about this city. But it will come.