A day in the life

Hey everyone,

I spent the last entries giving you a sense of the crazy stories and interesting things I've been up to, but this time I want to give you an idea of what it's like to live here day to day in Accra, Ghana. This entry is a combination of different stories, so this didn't all happen in one day, but it'll help you see what life is like.

I wake up, it's exactly 5:58am, somehow I've managed to wake up right before my alarm now as I wake up at 6am everyday. Every night I'm asleep by 10pm because that's when everyone else in the house goes to sleep. The luke-warm water of the bucket shower is a welcomed wake-up as I use my imported bar of soap to lather up. When finished, I head over to the table and slice myself two pieces of bread and prepare some miloh (Ghanaian hot chocolate). Now it's off to America House, about a 10 minute walk-I pass by my friend Abigail at the corner and greet her with "Ehti Sen" (how is it?). Upon arriving at America House, I realize the taxi to Legon isn't here yet, so I sit and wait. Getting to class is always variable because I take a shared taxi and it doesn't normally arrive until about 7:15 when I have a 7:30 class and it can take anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes to fill up with other passengers. I can never be sure of when I'll get to campus regardless of how early I leave. Thankfully, this morning it's here in time to get me to campus in time. I drop off by the front gate and wait for the train of goats to finish crossing my path. Up ahead I spot the newscorner, a spot of sidewalk where a man has set out the newspapers. Like more pedestrians, I hover over the papers reading the front page until the man comes over and says, "Are you going to buy that", then it's time to shake my head and leave.

I arrive in my POLI 306: Africa and the Global System class and sit next to my friend Rachel. Right on time, the lecture begins with todays topic being The Affect of Globalization on Africa. He begins, "Despite the affects...the affects of colonialism...Despite the affects of colonialism on Africa...", unfortunately, he is reading pages 24-26 of our reading word for word as the entire class copies it down. Somehow, my classmates don't make copies of the reading and so have no idea that he's reading word for word or that the past 4 weeks have been just chapter one of this book word for word. Nonetheless, the class perks up with questions every once in a while which are mainly, "Can you say that again", "How do you spell that word". Overall, it wasn't interesting as I just followed along in the book underlining the paragraphs he read verbatim. Many classes in the University proceed in this fashion of people copying down the lectures words without critical analysis or questions.

Nonetheless, it's only 9:30 and I have the whole day ahead of me. My mission for the afternoon is to find for myself a pair of decent quality sandals to use as I prepare to travel for 6 weeks by myself through West Africa (more about this later). I decide to head down to Makola Market in downtown Accra. Walking out of the university, I stand at the tro-tro station by campus waiting for a car to say "Accra, Accra, Tema Station". After nearly thirty minutes one arrives overpowering the calls of "Circ Circ Kaneshi Station". I push and chove my way onto the tro-tro competing with other people standing at the roadside for the rare tro-tro. On the way on board, I loose my flip-flop and have to push my way back to pick it up, and thankfully am still able to get on the tro-tro. Soon after getting on the tro-tro the mate turns around and collects 45 pesuas (approx 30 cents) from everyone on board. I'm stuck between two large ladies and the one on my left keeps asking me to move over so people can get behind her, but because of the size of the lady on my right I can't move anywhere. It's starting to get hot, so sitting in the middle away from the windows, I sweat up a storm that I continuously dry off with my shirt.

The tro-tro stops at Tema station and I alight. I walk through crowds of people and small stalls by the road selling everything from bags to Okra to snails. Finally I arrive at the market, which is essentially an endless maze of alleys with stands lining both sides selling food, imported goods, bags, Chinese shoes, Fufu pounding sticks, pots and dishes. I walk through the maze realizing that there's a slight pattern to each section and some areas have more shoes than others. I start walking down an alley with alot of sandals and stop at at least 4 tables to view the sandals. They're mostly poor quality, mainly held together by glue and nothing like the quality of Teva. I actually see two shoes labeled with Timberland and Teva, but they are obvious knock-offs illegally named. I'm left with a choice between Tita, Sport, or the aptly named "Made in China" sandal with no brand name. At the fifth stall I decide that I can't find a shoe that will last me 6 weeks so I buy a cheap Sport brand for about 5 cedi ($3.50). I am amazed to see how much of the Ghana population works in this informal sector. Given the few businesses I see, it's almost as if 70% of people in Accra are in the informal business of selling something.

On the way back to Tema Station I weave my way through the crowds to the hackles of Whiteman and Obruni. Some are a little more desperate and try everything, one man calls out "Hey Whiteman...Obruni...Second Jesus". Eventually I turn around laughing at the fact that he called me second Jesus, most likely because of my longer hair and the facial hair I've been growing. I eventually return to Tema Station and stop at a large cart of bootlegged movies. Ghana has a very active sales scene of Hollywood movies that are bootlegged. In fact my host brothers' favorite movies are Matrix and Batman, we just watched Batman this weekend for the second time in a month. Regardless, I am particularly admiring of the sets of Will Smith, Bruce Willis and Denzel Washington. For the cost of 6 cedis ($4), I got about 30 movies ranging from Will Smith's MIB, Enemy of the State, Independence Day to Willis's Die Hard series, Sixth Sense, and Lucky Number Slevin to Washington's Deja Vu, Training Day and Remember the Titans.

Attempting to find the America House car in the jungle of tro-tros I ask mates who directly with their fingers mainly telling me which way to walk. Directions in Ghana are mainly hand pointing, there's no street names, no turn left here and right here, just "go that way". When you do give directions it's more like "Take a right at the Adenta billboard, a left at the big red crate, and look for the house with the red gate". Finally, I find the America House car and take a sit. I'm surrounded by Ghana's business people that have stocked up at Makola for their own sales. Under my legs I have a set of unidentified boxes belonging to the person behind me and under the seat in front of me is an Army's ration of brown tubes called Bayere (yams). My feet are mainly immobile as I can't spread forward due to the yams or backward due to the boxes. As the car is filling, business people stop by the car selling Yogurt, Pure Water, flashlights, steering wheel covers, miracle drugs, and bible verse books. I've already bought my items for the day, so I don't need anything, but I do buy a pure water for about 3 cents. Everyone in the capital drinks water from small sachets that have 500ml that are 5 pesuas (about 3 cents). Finally the car fills up and we are ready to leave. As if wanting to break the wonderful silence, a baby in the back starts crying. Attempting to block out the annoying sound of the baby behind me, I stare out the window. I take note of the "Ghanaian bumper stickers"-essentially every tro-tro and taxi has put a phrase on the back window with some yellow stickers. Some of the more interesting have been "Clap nice for Jesus", "Cry your own cry", "Oh friend, why?". It's interesting to observe how open religion is in this country. Most tro-tros say something from the bible or praise Jesus, whenever I get on a bus going long distance a preacher stands up and blesses the bus before we go, for meetings at my internship we'd pray before beginning. Christianity is a definite part of life and involves itself in so many different ways.

Thankfully, this tro-tro doesn't have any problems getting home. In a different story, my tro-tro yesterday had broken down in traffic so the mate paid everyone back the money and we had to find a new ride. Of course we were on a corner with literally 100 other people waiting so it took nearly an hour to get a new ride and even then I had to push and chove to get on it. I get down at America House with most of the car an walk home. It's right around 6:00 so it's time for dinner. I knock on the front gate and my host sister Ama opens the door. I greet her in Twi "Maadwo, ehti sen?" and site down outside the house. Seeing Jen, I let her know that I'm here and ready to eat so she warms up my dinner. Tonight it's Banku and Okra Stew. The banku is a large ball of fermented Kassava and corn dough that is your silverware for the stew. I dip my hand into the banku, take a small piece with my hand, dip it into the stew and eat it below the stew slips out of my hands. It's a struggle at first, but eventually you master the technique.

After a tiring day, it's time to sit down for the big family activity: watching our favorite TV station VIASAT 1: Your Number One Entertainer. As is the case for every Monday through Friday the nightly lineup is Hanging with Mr. Cooper, Cosby Show, Friends, and then CSI. In between the shows, this station offers very few commercials and tend to spend more time advertising its own shows and movies. As a result, we know what movie is on at any day of the week because we've seen the commercial at least 5 times. Nonetheless, we get sick of the commercials advertising Oprah which is on at 5pm and the movies as a whole which is easily a 2 minute segment. By the beginning of CSI at 9pm, the family gradually peters out. Some members start heading to bed during the show and other hold out to the end. Typically it's me and my host mother and maybe my host sisters that last until the end of the show. Jen and Ama lock up the house around 10 and we all head to bed.

So in between the crazy stories that I've shared with you the past couple months, there are those little things that are interesting that happen everyday. I hope that this entry has helped you understand some interesting things about Ghana and what's it's like to live here.

All the best,
Ben