Bookends: Leaving Ghana

As we left the beach at Kokrobite to spend our final days in Accra, little did we expect that the end of our time in Ghana would prove similar to the beginning (or at least the coming and going parts). Our first afternoon in Accra we checked into the Date hotel, recommended by the travel guide as the best budget hotel option in the city. While it wasn't too unpleasant, all we can say for Lonely Planet's sake is that we hope the competition in this category is extremely weak. At lunch we tried pepper soup, checking off another traditional dish (one that we'd been reading about in Ben Okri's The Famished Road) from our list, and then checked internet at Busy Internet, a huge, slick internet cafe that I think claimed to be the largest in Africa.

That evening we had our first Servas (the world peace hosting organization that we signed up but had so far been unsuccessful in contacting people) interaction, meeting up with Lionel and Dolly, an early-30s middle class couple. They picked us up at our hotel and bought us dinner at Papaye, a popular chicken restaurant in the Osu neighborhood (Accra's high end neighborhood, but which still has a lot of elements, like street vendors, which make the claim that it's just like London's Oxford Street seem a little exaggerated). It was great to talk with them, and we were the first Servas people they had interacted with as well, and we hope that it was a good start in Servas for both parties!

The next day we went to the museum, which had a variety of traditional cultural artifacts (including a necklace of human teeth from the Congo) on display. The most interesting parts for us were the exhibits on the slave trade. One followed the slave trading ship Fredensborg on its triangular route from Denmark to Ghana to the Carribbean and back towards Denmark, where it sank and was discovered in the 1970s. The evidence of the ship's records and daily life that was retrieved from the ocean floor made for a compelling and harrowing story. While Denmark was first nation to outlaw slavery (in 1792?), they had transported tens of thousands in the years leading up to then.

That afternoon, we met Henrietta, our first actual host with Servas, who picked us up at our hotel and took us to a business networking event at the British High Commission (Embassy, in American-speak) where she works. We drank a beer in the social room at the junior officers' residence area, and listened to an update from the High Commissioner (ambassador) on Ghana's upcoming 5oth anniversary, China's involvement in Africa, and the events in Cote D'Ivoire (which he asked the audience not to view as a positive long-term development, despite the fact that so many businesses are currently relocating from Cote D'Ivoire to Ghana). We then listened to speakers from the Ghana Stock Exchange and someone from the Commission on corporate social responsibility, while the audience reacted in a stereotypically boorish and rude manner. Afterwards we learned about some of the extreme and blatant discrimination that occurs in the High Commission office itself, some of the examples being that Ghanaian employees are payed something like 1/6 of British employees, and Ghanaians are not guaranteed parking spaces. After the event we drove to Henrietta and her husband Kojo's home over unpaved roads with huge craters.

The next day was Thanksgiving. Kojo, who works in marketing for billboards, took us with him to a meeting with the Jaguar car dealership, and then for a quick tour of the Coca-Cola bottling plant where his cousin works before we meet up with John from Sogakope and went to collect the dress and shirt we'd had made with local fabric. Our lunchtime meal on Thanksgiving consisted of pizza and beer at a gas station rest stop area. When we returned to Kojo and Henrietta's home, a friend of theirs took us to an internet cafe, where we used the Skype program (calling through the computer) for the first time. It seemed like it took a long time for us to find the internet cafe, and shortly after we did, the power went out. We perservered, and although the power went out again we were happy to hear our family's voices (and sad we couldn't be sharing the holiday with them!). When we returned home late, Henrietta made us banku and tilapia, the same as our very first meal in Ghana.

The banku was the first thing that made us think of a bookend, since we assumed it was our last meal in Ghana. Unfortunately, the more significant bookend was our trouble leaving Ghana, just as we'd had difficulty obtaining the visa to arrive. When we went to the airport the next morning, they told us that they don't do electronic tickets. We're unsure where our paper tickets are and what happened on the travel agency's end, but long story short we were able to rebook, should get a refund on the unused tickets, and actually ended up getting to Cape Town both earlier and with less time waiting around in the airport. So, like with the visa, what was at first a very frustrating experience worked out ok, and taught us a little more patience and flexibility. The rest of that afternoon we ate lunch with John, who was nice enough to stay with us while we rebooked, then went to an internet cafe and hung out in the same chain restaurant we'd eaten lunch at yesterday, and actually finished a crossword puzzle together. Returning to the airport that night, 12 hours after we were first there, we were glad to finally be getting on the plane but also very glad for the time we did spend in Ghana.