Reflections on Ghana

(Bob:) We spent four days in Ghana in West Africa, and two statistics will immediately make clear a lot about the country to people who live in Oregon. The Ghanaians themselves describe the size of their country as being about the same as the state of Oregon. Ghana, however, has 23 million people. Since I consider Oregon -- at least the Portland area -- overcrowded at present and there are only 3.5 million people in all of Oregon, you can make your own comparisons.

And all these people tend to live in single story homes, shantytowns or huts; there are few multistory apartment buildings.

The capital, Accra, has about 4 million people, so it’s among the smaller of the cities we have visited on this trip.

Even with all these people, you still find plenty of open spaces. One of our days was spent touring Accra, and the other three driving through the countryside -- 4 to six hours of driving a day -- so we got to see a little of the area around Accra.

You become very aware of your whiteness in Ghana. In three days of travel outside Accra, I saw 3 white people not from the ship. Vegetation is lush, but with few tall trees. You find mostly tall grasses, bushes and low palm trees, and banana and plantain plants.

Ghana is just north of the equator, so is very hot and humid. The rainy season is just starting there.

If you want to go into business in Ghana, the best bet seems to be to start a Christian church or school. Churches are everywhere (60 percent of Ghanaians are Christian, 17 percent Moslem), and people love to advertise their religion. There are many, many, many businesses with names like Jesus Loves Me Auto Parts and Praise the Lord Fast Food. There are also many technical schools advertising for students -- everything from language schools to computer schools to truck driving schools. Also a number of “remedial” schools.

Ghana has about 40 tribes, each with its own language, but the official language is English, from the days when England was the colonial power. Ghana was the first black African country to become independent in 1957. It has had several military coups since then, but now appears to have a generally stable, democratic government. (I loved one campaign slogan I saw on a sign: Vote BHP Party. So Far, So Good) This was the first African country visited by Obama last year, and the Ghanaians are very proud of that.

The people are very friendly. They were always smiling and helpful, although pushy when trying to sell you something. Our guide said Ghanaians are only pushy with Americans because they know they can get away with it with us; they don’t try those type of sales tactics with Europeans. We are too willing to make eye contact and engage in conversation.

Ghana is a true Third World country with a high rate of poverty: 54 percent of the population earns less than $2 a day. Many people appear to be trying to make ends meet by setting up roadside stands to sell a variety of items or by trying to sell to cars stuck in traffic. They make very delicious bread that is sold that way. It‘s about 75 cents a loaf U.S. for a big loaf. It’s a good thing I ran out of Ghana money (called cedis), or I would have bought 100 loaves and ate them all. (It’s also perhaps a reflection of how sick I am of shipboard food.)

The women, and some men, can carry an enormous amount of stuff on their heads without using their hands. The women who sell bread usually have it in tall glass cases on their head, or in baskets. (See accompanying photo of a woman who sold me a loaf of bread.) They can keep it balanced on their head while running alongside slowly moving vehicles and conducting business transactions with the riders.

Much of agriculture is slash-and-burn. The smoke in the air was very bad at times. Cacao is the big cash crop, but a lot of things are grown.

Ghana also appears to be the road construction capital of the world. Roads everywhere are being worked on -- perhaps not the correct word. More like under construction, with actual construction work visible only in scattered places. It’s said that the Chinese are helping fund a lot of these projects, since they are interested in many Ghanaian resources, including bauxite, manganese, and new and large offshore oil deposits that are just starting to be developed.

There is also one major road construction project in Accra, which our guide said was funded by the U.S. when George Bush was president, so the highway will be named for him. I told the guide that I guess that meant you could only turn right off that road and that it ran off a cliff after a few miles, but he didn’t understand the joke -- or perhaps I wasn‘t joking.

Anyway, with all the construction, plus many, many speed bumps, travel is very slow. Our six hours of driving one day probably covered about 220 miles. And that’s six hours of very bumpy travel. We thought that was bad until we heard about the Semester at Sea trip to a national park farther north where they have elephants; those folks spent 15 hours of driving each way.

We did purchase some crafts and visited some historic sites in this very hot country, mentioned in other posts. We are now in the Atlantic, traveling west and south toward Salvador, Brazil, where we arrive in a few days. This morning we crossed south of the equator again. We arrive in Florida May 5 and are back in Canby the next day.