On Friday night Mie (pronounced Mia) arrived from Copenhagen, the 4th summer intern for SUSA. So yesterday we did a lot of sightseeing in Accra. We went to the Makola market, the biggest one in downtown Accra. It was like the one I went to in Kumasi, except much cleaner. We didn’t buy anything but walked around a bit; once you actually get inside it’s actually less crowded than the perimeter on the street. I think this is because a lot of the food stuffs are sold on the street and those are the most popular items. All kinds of vegetables, live snails, live crabs, chicken pieces, goat, smoked fish, everything.
After the market we went to Jamestown, a fishing village on the coast. It’s sort of advertised as a timeless village, meaning that it hasn’t been modernized; it’s still a traditional village. Honestly it reminded me a lot of Prampram, except I think it’s poorer, judging on the building materials of the houses. I was able to get some good pictures though; I’ve been reluctant to take a lot of pictures at our research site because the health center will continue to work in the area and didn’t want us taking lot of pictures. At Jamestown they are most used to tourists and we went with a guide. We first climbed to the top of a lighthouse and got a magnificent view of the surrounding area and coast. From there we sort of picked up a guide who took us through Jamestown for an hour or so.
On our way to getting a cab to independence square we stopped for a few minutes to watch some men drumming and lots of children crowding around wanting to dance. It was very sunny so we kept moving to find some shade and a taxi after a few minutes. We walked around independence square and down to the beach there, where we could see were we had just been at Jamestown, and had a better view of the Christiansburg fort where the government resides.
Finally we went to a shop called Wild Gecko near campus that we’ve been meaning to check out for a few weeks. It was a little more expensive than the cultural center we went to a few weeks ago, but had some different things as well. Then we took a cab to the mall where we ate Chinese food at our new favorite restaurant and Mie got some groceries.
Today we slept in and did some work. I’ll try to post pictures when I get better internet.
It’s crazy that I’m only here another 2 weeks!
The adventures and day-to-day life of a Hokie that enjoys traveling, nature, people, and public health.
