Thoughts about Ghana, nearly 3 months later

It’s been a while since I posted here, but I wanted to post today because I have a few things to say about Ghana and Takoradi.

First, a new video that our team started in Ghana and finally finished a few weeks ago:


Another IBM team just left Takoradi this weekend. There were 11 or 12 of them (there had only been 8 of us) and they lived in the same place (Valley Beach Hotel), working at different companies. I followed their blogs every weekend and one of the guys from Italy wrote about “African time.” Here was the comment I left for him because he specifically wrote “We're so lucky, our life is so much better, we all think. But are we so sure of that? How can we tell?” and I felt compelled to respond:

While many Americans and Europeans grow frustrated with
the concept of African time, I quite enjoyed not being a slave
to time. I live and work in southern California, and having
been home from Ghana for a few months, I am still trying
to figure out how to make my life less of a "rat race."
Each time I go to Africa, I have similar feelings of "We're
so lucky, our life is so much better, we all think. But are
we so sure of that? How can we tell?" I have "concluded"
(too strong a word, but the best I have) that East and West
Africans have it right: they value people over possessions
and relationships over results, and in the end that's more
important than what most of us consistently strive to
attain. I'd sacrifice some of the creature comforts (not
all!) for more real life. And I think that next time I go
to Africa, I may never leave.

Finally, I had to laugh when I read some of the blogs. They were talking about their overall experiences in Takoradi, Ghana, living exactly where I lived (one of them probably lived in my room!). You know how when you fall in love with someone, you wear rose-colored glasses and you don’t notice his/her faults, or you notice them but they don’t annoy you? After you guys have read how much I loved Takoradi, I just had to paste some blog entries from the IBMers who live/work in North America:

* Driving in Takoradi is reminiscent of watching a very complicated ballet – one that Barishnekov himself would be proud of. There are traffic lights on virtually all of the corners of downtown Takoradi, but none of them work. Not one. And nobody with whom I spoke could ever remember when or if they ever did. Rather than approaching this as we do in the West (treat as a 4-way stop, allow those on the right to proceed first), the residents all plow straight into the intersection as if it were a round-about (traffic circle). Right of way is established by a series of nods, waves, and gentle & friendly toots on the horn. At any given time in downtown you will hear several car horns tooting. This seemingly chaotic approach seems to work very well – I saw no accidents while I was there, and there was traffic all the time.
* Goats are everywhere. They wander casually through the streets and the back alleys. Together with chickens, they are domesticated and roam freely throughout the city. Unlike dogs, however, these cute little goats that you see frolicking in the streets will soon be dinner for some family.
* To me, it is like I have stepped back in time to between the 1950s and the 1970s (depending on the situation).
* The local television stations cannot get the sound mixing right – the sound is either deafeningly loud, or so soft that you have to turn the volume up to maximum just to hear what they are saying. This becomes a problem when you switch the station to one with the sound mixed in the opposite way – you effectively blow the TV speakers and your ear drums out.
* The telephones (land lines) are push button, but when you press a number (like 7, for example), it will make the sound as if you had dialled it on a rotary dial phone. It is exactly as I remember it when we switched from rotary to push-button phones in the late 1970s. A more modern example is that of mobile phones. Blackberries and iPhones are not really prevalent here but everyone seems to have snazzy cell phones. Most people, however, appear to have 2 and sometimes even 3 mobile phones. The primary reason for this, as it was explained to me, was that no one provider is consistent or reliable enough, so you need to rely on more than one provider. Each provider requires you to carry different hardware.
* The service industry is as it was in North America in the 1970s. People are very friendly, but they do not anticipate or predict what a customer may want. Srini likes hot milk with his morning coffee. We stayed at the hotel for over 3 weeks, and after the second or third request, one would expect that hot milk would be provided automatically for him. Every morning for three weeks, without fail, Srini had to request his hot milk for his coffee. Every three or four days, corn flakes were put out for those who wished to have them for breakfast. No milk, though. Every single time the Corn Flakes were serviced we had to request that a jug of milk also be put out - it was not done automatically. This is not a knock against the hotel – this is pervasive throughout the country, and the hotel is just one example.
* Things are generally inexpensive in Takoradi, but trying to get change from a purchase can be a painful experience. The bank machines give out money in 20, 10, and 5 Ghana Cedi notes, but it doesn’t help much. If you try to pay for anything with a 20 or 10 Cedi note, you will struggle to find merchants who can easily give you change. Taxi drivers, restaurant wait staff, downtown merchants, at museum gates, or with tour guides – you name it, they all struggle to find correct change. They do not open for business with a mindset that they will need to provide change.

I supposed those comments offer you a more realistic view of Takoradi than my own love letters did :) I enjoyed it so much there that these minor inconveniences didn’t at all detract from the joy I experienced there. I am still wistful, and optimistic that I’ll be able to get back there some day soon. The best word I have is that I felt CHERISHED when I lived in Ghana.