From my first night in Accra, Saturday, July 18, 2015:
Well, I'm standing here in the never-ending customs line in Accra, Ghana. I would take a picture to show you, but photography of any kind at the airport is illegal. Let's just say that I landed an hour ago and am perhaps half way there. Of course, Zak (the Ghanaian national) has already gotten past customs, picked up our checked baggage, swapped stories with his friend who is scheduled to pick us up, and consumed a massive pile of fufu. (In actuality, I don't really know BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN IN THE QUEUE FOR OVER AN HOUR!!)
The two flights have been looooooooooong and it wasn't until I got two Benedryl into Z that he actually slept. The gate where we landed in Amsterdam was cluttered with tall, white blondes pleasantly chatting away in some Northern European language. As we took a train and walked to the international terminal where we got on our flight to Accra the people got shorter and blacker, but still pleasantly chatting away in what I assume were local African languages (I did recognize Twi amongst them).
Before I made it to the customs line there was a check point to verify that no one had a fever. They did a thermal scan of each person. No ebola here!
That's where I stopped writing in line because even though I still had another hour to go to get through customs and pay for my visa, I was being hailed to the front of the line by Zak and a customs officer. He said he could get me through quicker for $150 cash. Cool. I hand him my passport and he goes to get the visa. Zak is going to go get the luggage that he has already claimed, but on his way he said, "just tell him you only have $120." OKAY! Here we go! I am now in a foreign country, paying for favors, renigging on my agreed upon favor, and now have to tell the GIANT customs officer who has no lack of goat (or anabolic steroids) that I am doing so while my Ghanaian National boyfriend is nowhere to be seen. Awesome.
I handed the officer the $120 and said, "I only have $120." He gave a flash-face of disgust (thank you "Lie to Me") and directed me to go with a cursory head nod. Phew!
This is the kind of corruption that is so prevalent in Ghana. All of that money will go straight into the pocket of a corrupt customs officer rather than into the Ghanaian government. If he does this even twice a shift, he will make more money than I do in the US as a teacher with multiple advanced degrees and 15 years of experience. In reality, he probably does this up to 10 times a shift and supports all of his family including extended family (plus I hear anabolic steroids are RIDICULOUSLY priced in Ghana, so there's that).
Once we made it through customs and found our luggage, there were four additional check points. One to check that we had a stamp on our passports, one to verify that our luggage was ours, one to open a couple pieces of luggage to make sure we weren't smuggling in anything illegal (a very official chalk marking on the outside of the bag verified of such), and then another one to make sure that our bag had the needed "chalk mark." Ghanaian government and security at it's finest.
We left the terminal to a caucophony of noise and lights; it was like Time Square on New Year's Eve mixed with the Red Carpet of the Oscars and I was Angelina Jolie. There were hundreds of people behind barricades yelling and greeting. Someone, who I know know as Kofi (one of Zak's good friends), greeted me with a warm smile and vigorous handshake. I didn't know if he actually knew us, or if he was just offering to help us with our bags and get us a taxi. I just followed Zak. There were four or five local fellows who were helping us with our stuff as we walked to the cars (one for our luggage and one for our persons). Turns out that only two or three of them were part of the plan and two were hired to help for 10 Ghanaian Cedi's each (about 3 bucks).
We drove through town and I was struck by a few things. First, the roads were HORRID. There are so many pot holes that it is like riding in Mario Kart. It is worse than the taxis in Costa Rica and I can totally see why Zak is so eager to use the horn while driving. If you don't use your horn you will either get hit or kill a pedestrian. In fact, Spero (one of Zak's good friends who was driving us) has rigged his car to make honking more easily accessible; he rewired the windshield washer fluid to be the horn. So you just have to pull the wiper lever towards the steering wheel for a horn. Genius. In the days that have followed that first night I have noticed that nearly 50% of road are unpaved, holes and divots are filled with whatever they can find often using coconut husks/shells as filler, and you can expect to hit bottom at least five times per ride (and not the kind of hitting bottom where you graze the bump in the road cause you are loaded down, the kind of bone-rattling hit that you are sure will cause the car to break in half).
The city is dark at night. There are almost no street lights and because electricity is expensive the businesses don't use very many lights. There is so much light pollution in the US that you don't even realize how dark the night should be. It should be no surprise that one of the places we passed that was fully lit was the Accra Ghana Temple. It was beautiful and my spirit earned to be there. Jesus Christ is the light and we are drawn to the light. I feel like I have a slightly better understanding of the spiritual darkness that exists in the world simply by virtue of the literal darkness I saw in Accra.
There were stands selling corn, banku balls, vegetables, water, etc. It reminded me of a very poor part of Mexico. The poverty was apparent and you could see the hunger in their eyes. Some were asleep on the side of the road, many without unbroken sandals, and all without an understanding of life outside their small world. There are so many that have physical disabilities (a shorter leg, a knee that buckles, a deformed limb), but they all continue their lives and work even if just a little bit slower than their peers.
We went to a place called ZooZoo to get something for me to eat. I opted for grilled chicken and fried rice. It was very good! And not so spicy that I wanted a fire extinguisher for my mouth (more on that later).
Zak and Spero got me to my hotel, the Golden Egg Hotel, by about 11pm. The Buttonwillow Days Inn was only slightly nicer. To be fair, it was clean and I felt pretty safe to be left there. There was AC, a shower, a TV, a toilet, and a bed. Sounds good to me! A piece of Ghanaian ingenuity and frugality, the keycard to open the door also had to be put in the AC to make it work. So if you were out of the room, the AC couldn't be on.
The bed was a wood platform with 2-3 inches of latex foam. I was so sweaty (although it's not terribly hot, the humidity is 90%--ALL OF THE TIME) that I just wanted to take a shower and sleep under the AC. But turns out the sleepiness was more pressing than the sweatiness as I crashed until my phone rang at 7:30am asking me which beverage I wanted with my breakfast, chocolate, coffee, or Lipton. Chocolate please!
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