Accra's Quirks

Being a developing country, life in Ghana is very different from the United States. So I am going to share with you a few things about life here in Accra!

Palm trees at night

Ghana does not currently have the capability to meet the electricity needs of the country. Therefore here in Accra every so often we get "lights out." This means suddenly and without warning the electricity will stop working because they have cut it to our area in an attempt to conserve power. Lights out can last anywhere from 20 minutes to 16 hours, or longer (though I have yet to experience a longer time personally). Unfortunately for us loss of electricity does not just mean a loss of lights. It also means a loss of internet and a loss of running water (sinks, toilets, showers, etc).

Having running water in your house is expensive here (and as part of an NGO we are always cost conscious) so the loss of running water doesn't change things too much. We have a standing "if its yellow let it mellow" policy in order to conserve. However, half the time the toilet wont flush anyways, so we also seem to have a "even if its not yellow let it mellow" policy. When showering we also try to conserve water. We will turn on the water just long enough to get wet, turn it off to suds up and shampoo, then turn it back on to rinse. We have a giant bucket of water next to the shower so if we do have a long lights out we can use that water to clean.

Oxford Street in Accra

I have perfect vision, but have taken to always wearing glasses here. There is a lot of sand and dirt in the streets so dust tends to get everywhere and it was starting to irritate my eyes. There are also many other interesting things in the streets, such as stray goats and chickens. I personally think the little goats are adorable, though I haven't managed to snap a photo of one yet! You also have to be careful when walking on the streets. It is a delicate balance of not getting hit by a car while at the same time not falling into one of the gutters that line every street. These gutters are several feet deep and contain a mixture of street run off, garbage, and things you don't want to know about! The cars and pedestrians here have a kind of synchrony that somehow seems to work though.

One last thing I have noticed here that was really interesting was the tag "export quality" on many of the food items at the grocery store. Ghana exports all of its top quality products, so here saying that something is "export quality" means that it is good quality. It is the same in the Global Mamas store in Accra. While the items there are good quality, many of them are for sale there because they did not meet the standards for export into the U.S.

Me in front of the Global Mamas store!

Well that is all for now! Tomorrow I will try to post photos of the store once we finalize the new shelves! We had several long days of construction and rearranging but the store is looking really great!