February 15, 2012
Stuck in traffic. Again. We are on our way from Accra to James Town and I'm convinced I could've walked there faster. Half of us are in one taxi and the other half is in the other, including our tour guide. Hopefully I can ask him all of my lingering questions about his country and culture.
Regarding slave castles: "How did you feel when you first went there?"
"I went as a child and when I went back I had a real feeling of how it felt. I had an emotion and took it as how it felt. I was unable to put myself in their place"-our tour guide referring to the slave castles and dungeons.
Why does it frustrate me so much that the Ghanians don't really speak English? Even though tier official language is English and the schools are taught with English grammar and science, they have a rough time understanding me when I speak. I get frustrated, then they get angry. I know I should accept them speaking Ewa or Twi they learn not in school, but on the streets. To me, not knowing how to speak and understand phrases in English in Ghana is like not being able to understand Spanish in Miami.
Today, our "tour guide" brought us to the lighthouse in James Town, the British part of Accra. We climbed the lighthouse then walked through the small fishing village. The village on the beach has everything the modern person needs to survive—food, running water, showers, etc. We saw where they bring in the fish and a few of my friends took a boat ride into the water. While they were in the hand-carved canoe, we hung out with the locals and took pictures. We gave the kids toffees (lollipops) and the swarm started. The children and the parents followed us until we left the fishing village.
We were walking on the street and we met Emmanuel Ashie. He owns a school called Christ the King of Kings Preparatory School. It has students from pre-K until 5th grade. We followed him to the school and were allowed to go inside and meet the students. It was lunchtime so it was a little out of control. Each grade was in one 'room' in a large warehouse-style building on the street right next to the lighthouse. The rooms were sectioned with pieces of wood that you could see from one classroom to the other. We visited each room and gave the kids candy from Ghana and Canada. The black boards had evidence of a western culture. They were learning English grammar and everything on the board was written in English. I only met a few teachers. Where are these teachers educated? Ghana University? Is a teacher a prestigious job? Some children were very outgoing and spoke to us in English while we were visiting while others were very quiet and could barely understand us.
After we played with the children and they made fun of us while we took pictures of them, we left the school to walk to a restaurant. Another thing I noticed in the school was that they displayed the student's grades with their ranking and whether they passed the class or not. The grades were according to rank and out of about 20 students, at least 4 failed and not just because of the grades, but also because of the grading curve.
The restaurant we went to after the school was far, but it was very nice. It reminded me of a local's bar in Jupiter. It was called The Rising Phoenix (www.the-rising-phoenix.com) and it was right on the beach. Since it was a local's hangout a lot of people were smoking ganja despite the sign that told them not to. There was no meat served at the restaurant because the owner did not think the animals in this world were treated correctly. After I at my veggie burger and jaloff rice, we (me, Jill, Melissa, Colleen, and Cam) left.
We took a taxi with our tour guide to the town of Nema. Nema was even scarier than the fish town of James Town. The people were more welcoming but the surroundings were more shantytown-like. We got handed off from Nathan (our original tour guide) to a local guide named Charles Sablah. He took us through alleyways and brought us to where he lived. His room was one bedroom with a fridge, bed, and small bathroom. He said he was lucky because his room had running water and most people don't have that in Tema. After we took pictures in his room for his "couch surfer" pictures, we continued to walk through Nema. We went to a courtyard that consisted of a local family and their offspring. A lot of the parents didn't want us to take pictures because they were worried we were going to put the pictures in a calendar and sell it in America.
The children were excited to see their pictures again as their mothers cooked dinner. The dinner was a white sort of mush that they said was cassava and maize. I'm glad the food was not being cooked for me. Once Charles brought us to his family, he put us in a taxi back to Accra.
Nema was split into two sections—Christian and Muslim. There was only one church and once you passed the church, the whole atmosphere changed. The music was different as well as the smell of the cooking in the Muslim section.
The traffic was horrible, again, and we got in a gridlock. The driver got out of his car (which we nicknamed Mario Kart) and yelled at the drivers that weren't moving. We finally got out of the gridlock after a couple curse words were exchanged and our car barely missed hitting a tro tro (public bus) and falling into the gutter. We sped out of the town of Nema and sideswiped a local which we understood was named Daniel. Yelling ensued but we kept driving. We told our driver about the 'point system' when we hit someone or something and he found it very funny. We got back to Accra somewhat safely then waited over an hour at the Citizen Kofi for our shuttle back to the ship in Tema.
The Ghanians really like Obama. They have American flags with Obama's face on them. When I asked some people if they liked him, they were hesitant. It is not custom to talk negatively about Ghana's government, so I think they were uncomfortable. Our past three presidents have spoken in the Freedom Arena in the Millenium Square in Accra. It is a large, open space with many seats. When I first saw it I thought it was a racecar or horse track. It is where they celebrate their Independence Day on March 5th. It will be their 55th anniversary this year.
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