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Jim's Ghana Trip: Feb 2005
Here are some light-hearted observations on Ghana...comments etc. to jim@christie.se 1. The food-Banku with Fish. Banku can be eaten everywhere in Ghana-except for the Alisa Hotel, where I ordered it one time, only
to be told 45 mins later that they didnt have any banku.  Banku is, I think, a wheat based carbohydrate, quite heavy and spongy in texture. Stodge of the highest order in fact.
It is usually eaten with a hot tomato sauce and grilled fish. The dish is served with a bowl of water for washing your hands in, as Banku is designed to be eaten
by hand (actually the right hand). So you break a bit off, whereupon it sticks to your hand. Then you dip it in the sauce, and this
neutralises some of the power of the sticking agent in the banku. Then you eat it, actually it tastes pretty neutral. Bit like dough. Then the banku makes its way to your stomach, when in about 3 mins it (a) expands to 12 times
its original size and (b) solidifies into a solid concrete block of food. So you get really full up on this and it burns quite slowly in the stomach, so it will
keep you going for a really long time. Add the fish to the equation and you've got a pretty healthy meal that lasts a long time in the system. 2. Street Hawkers.
Every place you have traffic jams in Accra, which effectively means everywhere you have streets,
you have people that sell to you "in-car". Sometimes this is very handy, e.g. when you want a drink of water or a packet of chewing gum or a newspaper. But it can be a bit obtrusive and as a foreigner it takes a little bit of getting used to. During my stay the government had a crack down on the hawkers and the traffic flowed much faster: from listening to the radio it seems that hawkers are seen as quite a nuisance in general.
However Ghana seems to be a tough place to make a living and I'm sure the street hawkers would prefer to find another way to make their living if they could. I cant believe that street hawking is an easy alternative to a "real" job. But there is an amazing array of goods sold by the street hawkers.
Here are three good examples:
1. Ironing board
 2 Calculators (very popular), and economy pack toilet rolls.
 3. Jump leads, garden shears / toilet brushes, steering lock.
 3. Hairdressers.
Hairdressers are ubiquitous in Ghana, and hairdressing and general beauty care seems to be the "opium of the people".I would say the proportion of beauty salons to head of population is like for pubs in Britain,
karaoke bars in certain Asian countries, fast food joints in the US and motorway toilets in Germany. And actually, in general I would say that Ghanains are pretty well dressed & groomed, especially
compared to your average Brit (and especially those that are from Gloucester ). The funny thing about the haidressers are the signs-which are hand painted. Some of them are really good.Othes are really not good at all.
"Appointments not always neccesary".
 4. Religion-Ghana's other, erm, "opium of the people".
Religion-both christianity and islam-seems to be quite important in people's lives in Ghana.
This is reflected in marketing of companies and products. Many companies have religious references in their titles. The funniest one I saw was " Great Lord Jesus Metal Works and Fabrication". I didn't get the camera out in time to snap that one, but here's one that I did get.  5. Drinks in Ghana.
They have a curious market for malty drinks in Ghana-and I'm not talking Ovaltine.
Guiness have put out a drink called "Malta Guinness" which is an alcohol free malt drink. It tastes like guiness and slightly flat coke mixed together-and its actually pretty good if you let it stand for a couple of mintes and let the bubbles go down. At first though, its strange: two familiar tastes, guiness and coke, but in combination. Its like eating chocolate coated brie-two things that you really like but don't expect to taste combined. 6. Thats it!
A few more pics of Ghana....
Getting a few beers in for the footy...
 Truck stop...
 Baby-bjorn Africa style..
 Nice and cosy!
 Street caff
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