Pictures above: A great business name; picture of Oxford Street, which is near my new place.
The past week has been full of excitement and change-
On Monday I started my job at Ghana Center for Democratic Development, an NGO that focuses on government accountability and democratic development in Ghana. The office has about 30 people working there in all, and seems like it has a very strong reputation for the work it does. They’ve already given me quite a bit of work, such as researching answers to a 12 page questionnaire about different facets of Ghanaian government. In the US, while many places have “casual Fridays”, CDD-Ghana has “Africa-Wear Fridays”, which means you can wear more traditional African clothes. I unfortunately don’t have African wear, so maybe they’ll let me wear jeans on Fridays instead.
There are a few interns there, and one of them just completed her first year of law school, like me! I have to admit, one of the hardest things about the first few days was not really having any friends to talk to who were also new to the country, so having her around to chat with has been wonderful. And it turns out she lives in Osu, which brings me to my next point…
On Tuesday evening I moved out of the hotel and to Osu, a part of Accra which is close to the coast, and a much easier commute to work. To get from work to the hotel was taking me around 1.5 hours, and that included going part way by taxi because I got so fed up with it tro-tros. Now the commute is an hour or less, and more relaxing.
Also, Osu is more of an upscale area compared to where I was staying. There are some ridiculously overpriced grocery stores ($8 for a bottle of salad dressing!), shops, and restaurants. There are also the same sort of street vendors that seem to be common everywhere around in Accra.
One thing that continues to boggle my mind is how a very upscale economy exists alongside a very inexpensive business sector. For example, it’s not at all uncommon for there to be a very new, well lit, air-conditioned store, and then right next door or across the street there is a small shack, maybe on a concrete slab, selling food, or even just a simple stall or table with fruit laid out. I could go to Mama Mia- an Italian restaurant near my new house- and get pizza for $16 (and it’s not even that big of a pizza!), or I could go to a street vendor and get a delicious lunch or dinner for around $2. The combination of rich and poorer, right next to each other, is thought-provoking.
I heard it would be the rainy season, and now I’m starting to appreciate what that means. Depending on the area of town, when the rains come, traveling can be messier since a lot of areas are simply dirt, and walking becomes a muddy mess. Also, lots of potholes = lots of puddles just waiting for a tro-tro to come by and splash you as you’re walking. As Sex and the City fans know, the show opens with Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) walking in Manhattan and getting sprayed with water as a bus drives by a puddle. Luckily, I have yet to meet a similar fate.
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