Lets All Go to the Movies

Kags and I had a nice day. We slept in, and then took a tro-tro to Nkrumah Circle. At one point on the tro-tro of 30 people, a random man stood up and started preaching something in one of the regional dialects. I asked the girl sitting next to me (who couldn't help but laugh at the speech) and she said he was talking about "youths". Then he started selling his pamphlet, entitled "How to have a successful marriage" or some such name, to people on the tro-tro. The girl who was laughing, bought one.

Then we headed to the National Museum to see some cool artifacts (chief stools/staffs), photos of traditional dance, paintings by local artists, and other stuff. The museum was very hot with poor ventilation, so we didn't stay too long; although it wasn't large enough to necessitate a long visit. Then we walked through town, headed through the market and then walked through Usher Town and James Town. At Usher Town, we visited Fort Usher. The fort is closed to visitors, but if you pay a "fee" to the caretaker he'll give you a tour. It was interesting to see, since the fort was initially built by Dutch and much later used as a prison by the government of Ghana (holding political prisoners including past Presidents during coups), and then most recently used to house some Sudanese refugees. The outer design was similar to other slave forts we've seen, but much of the building had been updated as a prison. There were still many paintings on the prison walls (Jesus, girls in bikini's, etc.) from prison period, and some of the Sudanese had written in Arabic on the walls. Think Shawshank Redemption meets Slave Fortress meets refugee camp. Kags liked the raw feel of it (not as sanitized as the other forts we've visited which were cleaned up for visitors), but I had trouble disentangling the history. I felt like it was mainly a tour of a prison, especially since we didn't see the underground tunnels used to transport slaves and part of the fort was closed off for renovation (for when it will be open to the public, sometime in the next couple decades).

Then we tro-troed it home for dinner and a movie. There's a theater that just opened up near Korle Bu and we went to see Lumumba. We were worried that a Ghanaian theater would get stifling hot, but when we stepped into the theater we found out that we were back outside. The whole thing was a large courtyard, with screen at one end and rows of benches. It was kind of like a sit down drive-in. And with the breeze it was a very enjoyable experience. At around 50 cents for a show, we'll probably head back at some point.

PS You may wonder why all the posting tonight. It's mainly because the power is once again out this evening and thus we have sought working fans in the internet cafe.

"Hey, White Boy"

Yesterday Kags and I headed to the area of Accra around Usher Town (named for Fort Usher nearby) since it was a hospital holiday on Good Friday. It was Good Friday so much of the stands were closed, but this was also kind of relieving as it made things a bit calmer. There was still a fair amount open and we did end up wandering through the market. Kags bought some scissors. The locals kept calling out to me "hey, white boy" and some of the children have just wanted to touch us or shake hands. At one point a woman grabbed my arms and tried to drag me to her stall, but I was able to shake her off. While we've been here we've been drinking 450ml bags of water which are much cheaper than a bottle of water and seem to be more for locals (tourists tend to drink bottles). We saw and advertisement for bags of liquor which Kags says he wants me to get. Unfortunately we couldn't find them for sale.

We also made it to Fort Usher and the Atlantic Ocean. It was very nice to see, only a couple thousand miles from home. We couldn't get a tour of the Fort yesterday but we might return.

We've been taking taxis around here (usually 2-4 dollars for each trip) but we decided to try a local tro-tro. There seems to be a cab for every person in Ghana and even more tro-tros. It's pretty much a van that functions like a bus, travelling fixed routes in the city. The driver navigates and the driver's mate calls out to people to let them know where it's going. As a foreigner all of the destinations sound like gibberish. But we happened upon a sign indicating that Korle Bu was straight down the road. So when the next tro tro stopped and yelled gibberish, we asked "Korle Bu" and they nodded in affirmation and we got on. We were shoved in with a bunch of other people, but as crowded as it was, it was still comfortable. Then when we recognized the buildings we were passing we got off. The ride only cost 40 cents for both of us. A huge savings. Don't know that I'll ride many more tro-tros though as so many of the streets don't have names (a map of the area pretty much showed a bunch of unlabelled streets) it would be easy to go right past our destination and not recognize it. But as I said above, even if that happened, it's never hard to get a cab.

PS We finally have power and water back again. I was able to watch part of the Jetson's on satellite TV yesterday.

Next up, Kags and I are taking a bus to Almena to see the slave fortresses. We'll try to head out today and catch a bus back tomorrow in time for rounds on Monday.