Published to journeytosolidarity.org by Jay Breitlow. Photos courtesy of the author.
From a pale Midwest American guy’s perspective I have observed Ghana to be truly an amazing place. One month of observations (according to Breitlow) and this is subject to change with interpretation. So with out further ado, Ghana is…
-A woman leaving the shopping mall, pushing the cart with one hand and drinking from a can of Heineken in the other.
Sunlight changes to monsoon in the blink of an eye with this ominous sign
- always 95 degrees Fahrenheit and hot and humid in the shade, everyday; unless the sky is open and dropping monsoon-like rains (then it drops to 85)
-never a wonderful place to drive, unless you can maneuver an endless supply of potholes with a car that feels like you are driving a shopping cart backwards with a water cannon strapped to the bumper while you wonder if the people around you are lunatics.
-where you go out to eat and expect to wait 30 minutes for your order to be taken, one hour for the preparation and another 30 minutes for you to receive the check… if you are lucky
Backyard hibiscus flower.
- colorful. From the flowers that make your olfactory glands happy to the beautiful traditional African clothing to the bright uniforms of the school children. The hibiscus flowers here are also used to made a tasty TASTY juice!
-a place where stoplights are optional, but eating with your right hand, and only your right hand is not optional. Pass the salt with your left hand and you just insulted the whole table.
-where a white boy goes running with his shirt off and everyone from the Army soldiers to the ladies selling fruit giggle and yell ‘obroni!!’ (Twi for white man). The correct response back is a smile and ‘obibini ete sen’ (Twi for hello black man, what’s up?)
- a culture that burns rubbish on the side of the road, so yes it is normal to see fires on the street and no my house was not on fire lastnight.
In the middle of a downpour, this man is wearing his sunday whites (neck to toe white). How amazing is it that his stand is in the middle of a red stream of mud and the sugar cane costs 10 cents a stick. I gave him a dollar and he rewarded me with the photo
- very Christian. Sunday roads are nearly always devoid of traffic, but filled with church goers in their Sunday best (see photo to the left)
Doctor Kwabena with Francis (a local Ghanaian) and his "Traditional Surf Board"
bizarre by Western standards when it comes to funerals for people over 70. The services are always on Saturday (but he wake is Thursday and Friday all day) and everyone treats the service as a celebration of the person’s life and not as a melancholic event. Under 70 and it’s the opposite and everyone dresses in Dark Red and black.
-is great for surfing with a ‘traditional Ghanian surf board’ (See photo below and to the right)
-where the hot peppers are grown by the devil himself out of spite for the human GI tract.
-protected by police that do not take ‘bribes’, but often require you to buy them a tea or a water before you can pass checkpoints.
-Regardless of where and how you live, you put your best foot forward. That means that Sundays require you to dress up in your best clothes for church, and that the remaining work days the locals sweep their front porches with palm fronds.
-Wonderful.
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