Happy 55th birthday, Ghana!

Last Tuesday was independence day in Ghana! My friend and I got up super early and took a trotro into Accra to independence square, where we heard they hold a parade every year. It was very formal, not really quite what I was expecting. It was basically a military march around the square. And then President John Evans Atta Mills gave a speech, though I could neither see nor hear it. But some cannons were fired and some planes flew overhead  trailed with red, yellow, and green smoke, so that was pretty cool. The ceremony ended before lunchtime, so we met up with a few other people in my program, along with one girl's host brother and his friends. They showed us around the area for a bit. We sat and watched this brass band in a park for a while and then this random Ghanaian family came up to us, gave me a baby, asked us all to take a picture with them, and then invited us to the beach. We didn't go. But I thought that was a little strange. Another example of the super-friendliness of Ghanaians. :)

Later on the girl's host brother took us to an art market a few blocks away. Markets in Accra are a bit stressful for me. You can't really just leisurely browse and pick out what you want. You're pulled in about 6 different directions by people saying "come, oburoni, I'll give you good price! Sssss Hello! Sistah!" (Hissing is how people get each other's attention.) But anyway while we were there my friend met this dude who pulled us away to show us his shop where he makes African drums. We met the guy's brothers too and they all played drums for us and then spent a while teaching the two of us how to play, which was really fun. Then after that we just got lunch and I caught a trotro back to campus. So that's how I spent my Ghanaian independence day. But I guess going to all the events around here isn't really the norm. Most people just stay home with their families and just relax and enjoy the day off, or go to the beach or something like that. There were a lot of people at the ceremony in the morning, but not nearly as many as I expected there to be. Also, the traffic on the way there was virtually nonexistent. The trotro drive that usually takes about an hour and a half on a typical Tuesday only took like 20 minutes.

Speaking of which, I don't know if I've mentioned how bad the traffic is around here…it's pretty ridiculous. When I was still going to the police hospital twice a week, I had to leave by around 6 to get there by 8am. Now it's a little better with my new internship because I go in the opposite direction to a smaller city called Haatso instead of heading to Osu, which is a much busier area. But the commute always kind of relaxed me in the mornings. It's funny, because I would normally be super annoyed by traffic in the US, but here I can just sit back and listen to the radio on the trotro, which is usually some sort of reggae station. I only get annoyed if I'm on a particularly uncomfortable trotro or one that's packed beyond capacity, or if the radio station playing is one of the twi talk-show stations and it's so loud that I can't hear myself think. But besides those situations, I'm getting really used to this system. I like it because it's really cheap and easier to use than the metro buses in Madison. All you have to do is wait for one to show up that's going in the same direction, and get on. You don't have to look up bus times, or routes or schedules or anything. There's just a million of them so you know you'll catch one eventually. In fact, I should start my own trotro system back in Madison with my van. Ten cents anywhere around campus, 30 cents to the west side, 40 cents to the east side, 60 cents to middleton or other suburbs. And my trotro will have to have a name like the ones here do. They're usually plastered with religious sayings or whatnot, but I think mine will just say something bucky-related to cater to my campus passengers. But I'm still only going to play reggae, to give people a true trotro experience. And wear down the van so much that the door is literally held on by a frayed rope.

I also don't mind traffic because it's fun sometimes to just look out the windows and see what people are selling on the street. You can actually buy almost anything imaginable out the window in traffic. There are numerous people selling sachel waters (purified water in bags), fruit, fried dough, bread, mints, gum, plantain chips, hard boiled eggs, sodas, and then more random stuff like sponges, razors, toilet paper, towels, jewelry, sunglasses, and toys. One guy tried to sell me a musical caterpillar that lights up. He was really persistent, too. And I saw another guy selling mini toy guitars one time. (I've been going through guitar-playing withdrawal so badly lately that I actually considered calling him over so I could buy one. But I decided that would probably be a little weird.) But it's pretty interesting. At first I thought the whole system was kind of odd, but if one day you leave home realizing you've forgotten something, there's really no need to go back because worst case scenario, you can probably just buy whatever you need on the street. It's even better than a convenience store because you don't even have to get out of your car. When I get back to work at Walgreens, I'll have some new ideas for how they can up their sales. I'll just hawk our suggestive sell items on East Washington. Although I'm sure that's illegal. Which is lame.

Anyway, happy belated Ghanaian independence day to all. Hoorayyy