I LOVED Ghana. Aside from the accumulation of dirt and dust in my nose and ears, thanks Harmattan winds (and thanks, Chemester at Sea!), it was awesome. Our first day was absolutely nuts. We woke up and went to breakfast at 8, like usual, and it took us over two hours to clear customs. After the waiting two hours, I had to wait in line to get the currency, because I couldn't get any ahead of time in the States. We got off the ship, hoping to catch a shuttle from Tema (our port) to Accra but we had just missed one by like 5 minutes so we had to walk around a bit. There was a little market outside by our ship that we looked around and I placed orders for bracelets from some man whose name I still have trouble saying (although I never bought them, he was never there when I went until right before on-ship time. And at that point I had no money left. Sorry, dude. You'll find other Amanda's and etcs). So P, L, M, and I take a shuttle to the taxi stand and I don't think anything I learned in pre-port could have prepared me for this. Men came into the shuttle to try to promote their taxis and have us get on them. We found a nice guy who took us to a bank for P, L, and M to take out money and we decided it would be more fiscally responsible to take a tro-tro, the minibus system of Ghana.
Let me tell you, the trotro was an experience. There were literally 4 or 5 people per row and there were 7 in the bus, including the front row where the driver was. The man who worked with the driver to collect money stood and I was convinced that he would fall out, and he almost did once or twice. L made friends with the woman next to her and asked the way to Mokola Market, the one place we wanted to go. She told us we'd never find our way there on our own and she had us follow her. We walked from the Tema TroTro station in Accra to Mokola Market, weaving in and out of vendors and walking in traffic. When we thought we had finally gotten there, we hadn't. We continued to follow Tina on her errands, stopping at Western Union to pick up money that someone was wiring her from Australia and entering the back alleys of this market to pick up lotion and hairbrush. At one point, we genuinely thought we were going to be taken, not our only times we thought this throughout the day. We went our separate ways from Tina when we had had enough and it was not all we thought it would be. There was an exorbitant amount of food being fried, cooked, and left out in the hot sun so we were over it.
We left and made our way to the arts center and I got into my New York City mode. When I'm like this, I don't want to deal with anyone until I'm at the place I want to be. The girls kept lollygagging and I was getting so fed up and then another man selling items on the street said he would take us there because that's where he was going too. P & L said okay and told us we'd go with him and I just didn't want to deal with it at all. He took us to the backside of the market where they made all the items: thoughts of being taken and trafficked part II. He took us into his drum store at first and I said "no, I don't want anything, it's all beautiful, thank you" and they DO NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER. Day 1 of getting fed up. I told him I didn't have money and walked away and he brought me back into the shop and then gave P, L, and I drumming lessons. Which I suppose was cool but then he wanted us to buy his drums. I wasn't buying drums in the first place so he was SOL. Another one of his friends came up to us to sell us his paintings, "the finest paintings in Ghana. Called travelers paintings. They're acrylic on canvas so you can bend them and they won't crack." He tried to offer me 80 cedis EACH for two. These paintings are literally two feet high by six inches. I only bought them because one said "Amanda" on the bottom and the other one was pretty. I bartered it down to 75 cedis for the two of them, still a CRAZY ripoff. Not the worst of the trip though.
We walked through the market after and they took us to the shops of their friends. When I'm shopping, I don't want to see that every place has the same merchandise. If I'm carrying a bag of something, I've already bought what you're selling in your store. Leave me alone. I understand they need to make their livelihood but on the other hand, you turn off customers. I bought a tribal shirt for FOURTY CEDIS. Another grandiose ripoff but whatever. I wound up really liking the guys we met though, although it doesn't really sound like it. It was an amazing experience and everyone should try it.
We got extremely hungry and proceeded to make our way to Osu, where the shuttle to the ship was and instead of eating in the restaurant we were advised to eat in, we ate at a "Chicken Inn", a fastfood restaurant of Ghana. It was interesting to say the least. We all ate the same meal: value burger with chips for 5 cedis. The chicken was so spicy and some of the rolls had mold on them. It was whatever, we ate around the mold and gave up eating. Dinner on the ship was sublime though. We walked around a little longer and went into the Koala Market, the most westernized supermarket they have. The prices were sky high, as almost everything was an American or British brand. I only bought a dairy milk bar because I've got to take advantage of eating those when I can!
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