You Know You’re In Ghana When…

What should have been a fun filled week of Rotary International Health Days and visiting the Ghana Maritime Academy for a three day field trip with my nautical science class instead resulted in me sleeping for 17 hours every day as I tried to get over an infection. That all being said, I’m healthy again, and in honour of being in Ghana for 2.5 months, I have constructed a “You Know You’re in Ghana When..” list. Should you ever come to Ghana, you’ll experience this list for yourself!

You Know You’re in Ghana When…

• you get excited when you do not need to bring your own toilet paper to the bathroom
• you are named after the day you were born (I’m Yaa, for Thursday).

• you refer to everyone as if they are related to you.
• similar aged people are “brother (name)” and “sister (name)”
• people old enough to be your parents are “uncle (name)” and “auntie (name)”
• elders are “grandparent (name)”
• the bugs are HUGE.

• many shops are named after something biblical.
• “Blood of Jesus Barber Shop”
• “Moses Prostate Cancer Center”
• reliable internet is somewhat challenging to find.
• the currency being used is the Cedi. 

• you start to believe your name is “Obrouni” (foreigner).
• you know what a “squatter” is. 
• the pineapple juice is delicious.
• you frequently experience dumsar (power outages or “on and off”).
• the locals say its cold when it is below 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
• you take the TroTro instead of a bus. 

• you know the hand signs for TroTros.
• you’re constantly meeting people named Kofi and Kwame.
• you cannot escape marriage proposals.
• your diet consists of rice, chicken, and more rice.
• funerals are fun and people bring strangers to them to celebrate the deceased moving on.
• you find yourself hissing at waiters and not getting slapped for doing so.
• you frequently see advertisements pertaining to HIV/AIDS and ebola.

• it’s okay to tell your friends to “flash” you.
• taxi drivers get insulted when you put a seat belt on (if there are even seat belts in the car) because you are in insulting their driving skills.
• you bargain for anything and everything.
• there are no hooks to hang your handbag in the bathroom.
• people get upset with you for paying for or eating with your left hand.
• you buy food from the top of people’s heads rather than a super market.

• your professors don’t come to class because it is raining.
• coffins are wooden and made into any imaginable shape. 

• people urinate on the “do not urinate” signs.

• people are surprised you do not personally know President Obama.
• homosexuality is considered a sin; however, it is normal for men or women to walk around holding hands 
• xylophones and seprewas are used in traditional songs.

• Ghanaian friends who can hardly afford their own school fees will refuse to allow you to spend a single pesewa (“cent”) while visiting them.
• not having exact change ruins your day because exact change is almost always necessary.
• everything you eat is red.

• it’s rare to meet a local who knows how to swim.
• you know pictures simply can’t do Ghana justice.

Bargaining Tips

If you want to learn to bargain like a Pro, come to Ghana!

Thursday we went to Koforidua, the capital of the Eastern Region to visit the Thursday Bead Market. The drive there looked like my home county back in California (Sonoma County) minus the vineyards. There were beautiful green pastures for miles. Life in Accra does not allow for much access to greenery. Most of the areas where there would be grass, people walk on too frequently so there are a lot of dirt patches instead. 

We went to the Bead Market on a field trip for my Twi class. Twi is the most common local language spoken here in Ghana, and we went to the market to try our chances with bargaining. Usually supermarkets and malls have fixed prices for merchandise in Ghana, but everything else can be bargained for, from the taxi rides to the people selling toilet paper and live animals on the streets in between the traffic lights. In order to bargaining, it is best to know the local language. Twi comes in handy for two main reasons. First, because I am white, people assume I am a rich foreigner. Telling them in the local dialect that I am a poor student helps because they realise that my ability to speak Twi likely means that I am in fact living in Ghana (rather than a tourist trying to get a deal). Secondly, Twi is helpful because not everyone (especially not all merchants) speaks English, so in order to bargain it helps tremendously to communicate in Twi.  

To bargain in Ghana, there are a couple things to keep in mind:

1.    Just like everywhere, the seller is always trying to make a profit. If you look or sound foreign, be prepared to spend longer getting the price down because it started much higher than it might for  a local person. When setting the starting price, merchants hope that foreigners don’t know the value of a fair price, so they often set the price exceedingly high, hoping that even if you bargain it down, they will still get a large return on the profit. This happened to me my first week in Ghana (all study abroad students have to have at least one memory of getting cheated in a sale, right!? ). The merchant was selling beautiful elephant oil paintings. He started the price at 60 Ghana cedis (approximately $14). Earlier we learned to try and cut the initial starting price in half. After some bargaining I got it down to 40 cedis ($10) and I was very proud of myself. I had bargained and gotten a deal! Or so I thought. A friend of mine got on the bus with the same painting… that she only paid 10 Ghana cedis for. Now every time I look at the painting, it makes me grateful that I have improved my bargaining skills.

2.   It’s not rude to tell people “ Mepaakyew mepe se wo sisi me!” or “Please, you’re cheating me!” Other common expressions include “Te so” (Reduce the price) and “To so” (or give me a dash, meaning now that we have agreed to a set price for a set number of items, be sure to throw in a little something extra for free). A little bit a Twi goes a long way! 

3.   Remember, you always have the power to walk away. Just because you started bargaining does not mean you have to purchase the item. And the best part is, often walking away will force the seller to give you the price you wanted.

Using these tips I spent 37 Ghana cedis for the whole day (just over $9). If I had simply paid the original prices stated by the merchants, I would have paid over 100 Ghana cedis for the day! 

I’m proud to say that I have learned a lot from my past bargaining mistakes and that I now know how to scope out a good deal here. Though I am worried about when I go back to flea markets in California… I don’t think people would appreciate me trying to cut the prices in half or me telling them that they’re cheating me! 

The Volta Region

Ghana has so much to offer. This past weekend we had the opportunity to venture to the Volta Region, one of Ghana’s ten regions. Most known for Mount Afadja (the highest mountain in all of Ghana), the Volta region is full of mountains, waterfalls, and greenery. We visited the largest waterfall in West Africa, Wli Waterfall, as well as a Monkey Sanctuary… but more on that later!

The drive to the waterfall consisted of the normal singing of Ghanaian songs, and at one point due to the rain we got temporarily stuck in the mud. We all felt bad for our bus and van drivers, Uncle Daniel and Uncle Soloman, because they had to get out on the mud road during the pouring rain to try and push the vehicles out of the gloppy mud. At this point it was pouring rain and there was a roaring thunder and lightening storm. On the bright side though, we got to see some beautiful lightening! You know those calendar photos where there is a gorgeous mountain in the background and somehow the photographer got lucky enough to shoot the photo at the EXACT right moment to get the most beautiful photo of lightening that you have ever seen? Photos such as this one:

That’s what it looked like. It was beautiful. Using the “lightening distance” method (i.e. counting the seconds between the lightening and thunder) we determined we were 1/5 of a mile away from several strikes of lightening… which was scary because we were planning to go hike up the largest waterfall in West Africa. The program coordinators reassured us that everything would be okay, and they were right! 

After the 45 minute hike to the bottom of the waterfall, despite it pouring rain, most everyone went swimming.

I decided to test my rain jacket (it works!) by wearing it around the waterfall. I’d say it was a successful decision because while everyone was freezing cold on the 4.5 hour bus ride to the hotel, I was a lovely temperature. The bus ride to the hotel was only supposed to be 2.5 hours, but due to Ghana’s lack of street names and limited Google Maps access, we made a wrong turn that took us in the wrong direction for almost an hour. When we finally got to the hotel is was very foggy, which is a type of weather I had yet to experience in Ghana. For the first time since coming here, I was cold (relatively) while I was outside. It was very refreshing. 

The next day we ventured to the capital of the Volta Region, a city called Ho. In Ho we got to feed the wild Mono monkeys who live in the Tafi Atome Monkey Sanctuary. Initially I did not have any interest in feeding the monkeys. I have never particularly liked monkeys and I wasn’t to fond of the idea of them surrounding me; however, it turned out to be magical. Upon arriving, the sanctuary staff told us that we would not be playing with the monkeys, but rather the monkeys would be playing with us. The Mona monkeys, commonly found throughout West Africa, live in families, with the elder of the group be called the “Grandpa.” He is often the biggest monkey and makes decisions for the group. There are many superstitions revolving around the monkeys, such as how if two monkeys jump on you at the same time you will give birth to twins, if there are three you will have triplets (and so on). Twins run in my family, but fortunately for me the monkeys say I won’t be having any. It is also said that humans can never see a dead monkey, and that monkeys will barry each other upon their deaths.

The monkeys are very smart. If a banana was already peeled when it was presented to a monkey, they would not eat it for fear of it being poisoned. If a banana fell in the dirt, they would use their noses to rub off the dirt and the proceed to eat. And if you just stood there holding out your banana, they would jump on you without any notice, steal your banana, and run away. 

Once the monkeys landed, they wrapped their tails around our necks for support. The lucky ones in our group got to watch the monkey eat the banana as it sat on them rather than have it just steal their banana. 

After playing with the monkeys and doing some shopping, it was time to venture back to Greater Accra. But unfortunately it was not that simple. After driving for an hour or two, the air conditioning in the bus started to malfunction, and the windows refused to open. So there you had it, 20 University of California and California State University students sitting in an oven during the hottest part of the day in West Africa. It was almost a blessing a few moments later when the bus broke down because it allowed everyone to get off of the bus. Although it was blistering hot outside, it was nothing like being crammed in a bus with no AC and closed windows. We were stranded on the side of the road in a small village somewhere in the Volta region for just over two hours. The villagers were very friendly and accommodating. They helped repair the clutch on the bus and walked us to various hidden shops where we were able to buy lunch. 

The weekend was very eventful to say the least. Auntie Rose (the UCEAP Program Coordinator) was kind enough to have hot pizza waiting for us after the long journey home. Wli Waterfall and the Mono Monkeys were just two things Ghana had to offer that I never dreamed I could experience.