John Evans Atta Mills

Today was an interesting day in Ghana to say the least.  President, John Evans Atta Mills, who was elected in 2009 and has been campaigning for reelection this December 7th, passed away unexpectedly this afternoon due to poor health.  Having been here for just over a week, I am in no way qualified to explore the ramifications of Atta Mills' death, but I can say that the people I spoke to were genuinely shocked.  There is a sense that within the party, his death was expected, and the media here have been reporting heavily on a doctor's visit he made in the US earlier this summer.  The VP was sworn in as president this evening and as his first act as president, he has declared a week of national mourning. 

Some people seem to be genuinely reeling from the news.  At the same time, I was surprised how little the course of daily life seemed interrupted by the news.  Street vendors continued selling food, people continued to catch buses, and a photography opening that I had been planning to visit seemed well attended.  I suppose this is all to be expected.  After all, people have to get home from work, have to eat, and have to make money.  The US has not experienced the death of a sitting president since just after Ghana won its independence, but having heard about the day Kennedy was assassinated, the sense of shock that comes with a leader's passing does not seem so foreign to me.  Still, I really wish I had already been here for long enough to have a real sense of what's going on, what people are thinking about.  I suspect that although I am present for this historical moment, I will never really understand it because I don't have enough context to make sense of the events and commentary surrounding this national tragedy. 

Ambolley

I saw this man play last night backed up by a 9 piece band of guys all young enough to be his sons.  Crucial listening.

You can hear a sample here:

We are all products of our environments

The other day, I was talking to a couple of my new Ghanaian friends, both about my age, and they told me that they cannot distinguish white people from Asian people.  You do see a few white and Asian people around on the street here, especially in more international neighborhoods like Osu and commercial centers like the central market, but most Ghanaians have little if any direct contact with them.  I thought it was funny because in the United States, we consider the difference so obvious.  However, since white and Asian people are both relatively fair skinned and because some white people have black hair, Ghanaian people who have had little exposure to members of either group have trouble telling them apart. 

A walk through my current neighborhood

The alley in Atico where my motel is

 The street nearest that alley

Saturday roadside sound system with heavy bass, Atico

 Graphic Road, a major thoroughfare, where the street pictured above intersects it, Odokor

Smog check on Graphic Road

 A radio tower viewed from the same vantage point

And another

NB: I want to upload higher resolution photos but with the internet speed here, that's not very practical.  My apologies...

A Taste of Home

One of the main formats for food here in Accra is soup that contains some floating meat, typically goat or tilapia, and a mashed up, sticky starch mixture to dip in the liquid.  The most common kinds of starches are called fufu and banku.  The soup bases include okra and palmnut and often contain ground chiles and fish for seasoning.  The other day, I tried banku with okoro (i.e. okra) soup for the first time and was surprised how much the banku reminded me in its taste and texture of the tamal, which should be familiar to any lover of Mexican cuisine.  There are some differences, to be sure.  Although the baknu contains cornmeal, it typically consists in equal parts of cornmeal and cassava.  Rather than wrapping it in a corn husk and steaming it, people here ferment it and then mix it with hot water to form it into a sticky, cohesive mass.  As a result, it sticks to your hand and doesn't crumble, and it has a distinct sour dough flavor more akin to injera than tamal.  However, the cornmeal flavor is present as well, and the way its shape conforms to the plastic bags in which it is usually served is also reminiscent of tamales.  Of all the familiar foods that I expected to find over here, this was not high on the list. 

Banku as pictured on a restaurant's advertisement

Another funny parallel between Ghanaian and Mexican cuisine is the similarity between menudo and pepper soup.  Both are heavily spiced with ground chiles and given texture by oft-neglected cuts of meat: tripe in menudo and cow's feet as well as bony chunks of goat in pepper soup.  While menudo is given an extra burst of flavor with lime juice, pepper soup is heavy on the ginger.  Their most striking similarity is that both are considered hangover cures.

Development and Election Year Politics

As part of my quest for a job, I met earlier today with a man named Pastor Offer who has had a lot of experience working in radio.  We got to talking about politics around the world, especially back home and here in Ghana, and he gave me some very interesting insights into the Ghanaian system.  As both of our countries have elections coming up this winter, we talked a lot about campaigns and election year politics.  One of his anecdotes was too good not to share.

There was a Ghanaian politician who wanted to please his constituency in the lead up to an election.  In one of his districts, the residents had electricity but no street lights, so he decided to install a series of lights up and down some major avenues to bathe the area in a beautiful, warm glow.  When the election rolled around, he was shocked to discover that he had been defeated.  When some reporters went out to investigate the reason for the apparent upset, one resident explained that the people in that area live in very small, cramped concrete units that get uncomfortably hot at night.  To remedy the situation, the residents had taken to sleeping along the avenues, and the darkness that had once graced those streets provided them privacy in their more intimate moments.  That particular man claimed to have been conceived on those very streets, and added that rather than losing privacy in their sex lives, the residents might have preferred increased access to safe drinking water.  Apparently the out of touch politician is a global trope. 

My First Impressions of Ghanaian Hospitality

On my first full day in Ghana, I was absolutely blown away as I encountered the friendliness and generosity for which the Ghanaian people are known.  Although I only got my phone this morning, my contact list already has four entries.  The first was a man I met while waiting for an interview at a media company.  He himself worked in advertising, but as we got to talking he mentioned that he had some friends at a couple of newspapers and that he would be happy to talk to them on my behalf as well as look for a tutor to help me learn Twi.  As he left, he asked the man next to him to see to it that I was properly directed to Accra's central market where I wanted to pick up some interview-appropriate clothes.  That man in turn gave me a crash course in the phonology of Ghanaian languages, helping me pronounce a number of common consonants that are absent from English.  He sent me off in the right direction and told me where to catch a trotro (a big van that basically functions as a bus) that would take me towards the market.  On the trotro, I asked a fellow passenger where I should get off to get to the market.  As it turned out, the last stop was quite close to my destination, but instead of simply directing me there, he insisted on taking me around to buy every single item that I needed and even asked me to leave the haggling up to him.  After about half an hour or so, he left me in an office of the cellular/ internet company MTN where I waited to buy an internet modem, but only after recommending some radio stations and papers that I might apply to and taking my number with the promise that he would send me more information when he got the chance. 

As I was waiting for a trotro to take me back to my hotel in Odokor, a taxi headed the same direction filled up with people so I decided to take advantage of the diminished fare and jump in.  One of the other passengers in the taxi, a self-employed electrician named Sampson, became concerned about the price and comfort of my accommodations (pictured above), which are both adequate.  He insisted on leaving the cab before it reached his destination so that he could take me to another restaurant/ motel owned by a friend of his, which was a bit more expensive but also considerably nicer.  The owner was out of town but for about 20 minutes we talked to one of the employees who, at my new friend's insistence, said he would do all he could to give me the same rate that I'm currently paying.  Although I've yet to hear back from the motel, Sampson seemed quite confident that I would get the desired rate as a result of his adamancy and friendship with the owner. 

Although I had heard that people in Ghana tend to be very friendly and welcoming, I couldn’t help but be surprised by the profound kindness shown to me by so many complete strangers.