“Under the cover of darkness…”

We flew into Accra under the cover of darkness. As the plane descended on the city I looked through the porthole that was the plane window and thought to myself that the city didn’t look that different from any other Canadian city. It had lots of flickering lights in the distance although a bit dim perhaps. One immediately apparent difference was the lack of tall buildings that chop up the Canadian skyline, which could be nice I thought.

However, I soon found that the darkness can be deceiving thing indeed and hid much more.

After getting through customs and immigration and exiting the airport it was very clear this was a new place. The bustling of people and taxis drivers calling to get in their cab “my brother where are you going?” was a bit overwhelming at first. Luckily Louie, Katie, Tom and Melissa (long term EWB OVs) were awaiting us at the airport and they coordinated cabs to get us to our hostel. I immediately thought of the other short-term volunteers that had no one awaiting them and wished them the best as I counted my blessings. As the cab made its way through the city I got my first glimpse and a small picture of Ghana. Open sewers and lots of people and vehicles everywhere made it interesting for negotiating the fully loaded cab through the city. The cab driver seemed to have no problems and with many horn honks along the way we arrived at the hostel “Expo 67”.

After we dropped the bags off we left in search of some food. At this point we had been traveling for about 21 hours with only a bit of airplane food and what little sleep could be found on the plane. Oh I forgot to mention that we flew KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. The best part was drinks were included so I had a few Heinekens along the way only to help me sleep of course. We also had a lay-over in Amsterdam so I got a chance to stretch my legs walking around the city. The city was pretty much still asleep as it was 7am on a Sunday morning when we got out of the plane.

Now back to Accra:

However the hunger drive and eagerness to see a bit of the city overcame the urge to sleep. So my first tro-tro experience began after being in country for less than 3 hours. We walked down the street to the tro-tro station to await a ride. Although it was dark, the litter on the street and in the sewers was apparent and impressive in quantity. Accra is a bit of a dirty city. For those of you who are unfamiliar with tro-tro travel as I was up to this point I will go into a little bit of a description. A tro-tro is pretty much any vehicle that is not a bus or taxi that Ghanaians think they can make some money with by driving people across town. The tro-tro realm ranges from only slightly crowded minibuses to customized covered trucks with extra fold out seating to cram as many people in as possible, an aura of sweet in the air and virtual no view and no personal space. That aside it is an interesting experience and the cheapest was to get around town. Also tro-tros typically wait at a stop until they are full before they proceed on their route. So any hope in getting into a half full one will only mean you are going to wait longer at the stop until more people cram in. So the idea is just to get into the fullest one. Anyways we were lucky and got into an only relatively full tro-tro and made our way to “37” were we could get some food and cash out some Cedis.


At the bank the idea is to cash out the maximum amount in order to avoid banking charges. So I pushed the 800,000 cedis button and about 30 seconds later the machine spit out about and inch and half tall stack of 20,000 cedis bills. At “37” we had some mangoes which are the greatest mangoes I have ever tasted. They are much smaller than the ones available in Canada but much sweeter with a richer flavour. One problem was that it is difficult to buy 1000 cedis worth of mangoes with a 20,000 dollar bill. Everyone apparently doesn’t have any change. Anyway after the mangoes and some other foods which I was unsure of their origin we headed back to the hotel for some much needed sleep. Tomorrow the trip continues to Tamale.

God Bless and take care,
Jason