RC and I joined other early-bird members of our tour group outside of the hotel. To the right of the hotel, a watermelon vendor was ready for business BEFORE 6 AM. Talk about a strong entrepreneurial spirit.
As a matter of fact, there were many people up at that time, just milling about. Then, I looked across the street.
Beside the restaurant where we’d had lunch was a disco. I’d fallen asleep to the various beats that penetrated through the closed hotel windows. Was this the mass Monday morning walk of shame?
Our morning walk started promptly after 6 AM. Dr. Kofi set a casual pace along the street over a variety of urban terrain with very few sidewalks, and the occasional rooster.
At our turn around point, Dr. Kofi bought softball-sized doughnuts for the group. Although they were much larger in size than the doughnuts I’d eaten in Tanzania, they tasted the same.
While waiting for him to complete the transaction, I took a picture of the hot sauce billboard. Not only am I a hot sauce enthusiast, but I loved the proximity of the sauce’s name to a curse word and its potential effect on one’s digestive system.
I nibbled on my doughnut back at the hotel. That didn’t ruin my appetite for the hotel breakfast buffet, consisting of fresh fruit, pastries, spicy ramen, and beef and chicken sausage. One of the servers delivered my omelette to the table.
After breakfast, we filed into the hotel conference room where Prof. Kofi Akpabli, senior lecturer at Central University, gave us some background facts about Ghana. Although I jotted down notes, at times I was sleep writing. So, charge it to my jet lag and not my heart if I recorded incomplete thoughts:
- Ghana ~ same size as Oregon with the population of TX.
- Public universities are well-funded, but more private universities fill in the gaps with 94 of them.
- Colonizers couldn’t eliminate chieftaincy.
- Northern Ghanaian chiefs sit on animal skins. Other chiefs sit on stools (thrones).
- Funerals: people wear traditional colors: black, white and red. Traditionally, women don’t wear makeup, but that’s changing.
- In 1961, Peace Corps makes Ghana first country where volunteers were placed.
- Obama visited Ghana first before Kenya as president.
- A version of the March on Washington occurred in August 1963.
- Big 6: Oanquah, Nkrumah, Qbetsebi-Lamptey, Ofori-Atta, Akufo-Addo, Ako-Adjel.
- Ghana has a rare type of lighthouse and the other is in Michigan. The Ghanaian one is older.
- Ghana has warmth, colorful vibes, round the clock hustle and bustle, poor and good infrastructure; peace and safety; delicious cuisine, people who look like you.
- “Consult the old lady” expression means to use a pragmatic way to solve a situation.
- Chiefs are men, but follows a maternal line. Women are behind the scenes, especially the Akan.
- Colonizers told African kings that they had to be chiefs because King George was the only king.
I bought two of his books, Tickling the Ghanaian and The Prince and the Slave. The first book explained cultural phenomena, which I readily saw/experienced while touring the country although I’d read about not chewing fufu too late to be implemented. The second book was a play, depicting the complexities of the slave trade and change of fate on the African continent.
(Please click on individual pictures to see the full view, then click on the browser back arrow to return to blog view.)
During the second lecture, my notes were even more sporadic:
- In 1884, European colonizers demarcated the African continent among themselves. Used indirect rule to exploit resources.
- 1897: Rise of nationalist groups.
- 1945: Nkrumah conference about independence.
- Big 6 arrested because three British soldiers killed since the British fired upon peaceful protesters.
- Members of parliament elected from different provinces.
- 3 E’s: Economy, Environment, and Emerging rights.
- China has large presence with cheap products, which kills Ghanaian products.
- Gold, Mg, bauxite, diamonds.
- Funny how POTUS complimented Liberian president’s English-speaking ability since it’s an English-speaking country.
Our first excursion was to the W.E.B. DuBois Museum, which included his former house, exhibition area, and final resting place.
DuBois, historian, sociologist and civil rights activist, was the first Black person to receive a PhD from Harvard in 1895.
The irony didn’t escape me that as one of the cofounders of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), DuBois lived his final years outside the States.
One of his beliefs was that elite Blacks, who he called the Talented Tenth, would racially uplift all Blacks.
I’m a believer in the 80/20 rule which dictates that only 20 percent of production yields 80 percent of the results. I don’t merely expect the top ten to be productive, but all of us. No one is so untalented that they cannot contribute something to the cause.
Moreover, the formally educated don’t know it all. Lived experiences and oral tradition greatly contribute to knowledge and progress. Why else should one travel and purposely go out of their comfort zone?
I intentionally packed and wore a T-shirt that depicted the cover of my first book, Tribe of One. The one tourist picture I knew that I wanted was to pose with DuBois’ portrait while wearing it.
When our museum guide led us into his personal library, she said that she’d decorated the space with curtains to depict W.E.B. DuBois’ name. Some of us got real close to the curtains to see if the pattern spelled out his name. After a while, she revealed that since the initials of his first and middle names spelled out “web,” the design was full of spider webs.
Throughout adulthood, especially after graduating from college, I’d juggled creative projects. At no point in my life did I ever think that I had enough money or talent. Only the lack of time invested into a project prevented it from being completed. So, when I read the below quote, I readily agreed that time was the only resource someone needed to do great things.
Since I’d packed light, I hadn’t brought one of my books with me to place with his. From one writer to another. Although I write fictional novels and mostly nonfictional blog posts, I felt that DuBois’ activism helped pave the way for me to have a voice.
For lunch, we went to a richly decorated, upscale restaurant.
Despite the extensive menu, I ordered a traditional meal: fufu. In all the reading I’d done prior to visiting Ghana, no where do I remember being advised not to chew it. Fufu had a very soft texture that I could have easily swallowed it. Call it force of chewing habit. Perhaps servers didn’t advise me due to previous tourists reacting badly after being told not to chew fufu. Whatever the case, it was still delicious.
After lunch, we visited the Kwame Nkrumah Park. Dedicated to Ghana’s first president after independence in 1957, the park recounted how Ghana was the first sub-Saharan African country to free itself of British rule. Different tour groups, from local schoolchildren to we foreign visitors, gathered in front of Nkrumah’s statue to chant one his famous quotes, “Forward ever. Backwards never.”
Next stop: Black Star/Independence Square. Known as the “Lodestar of African Freedom,” the black star, featured in the Ghanaian flag and on various architectural structures, symbolized the emancipation of the country and the African continent.
On our way to dinner, we passed two buildings which had rooftop bars. Their coloration reminded me of the 60s. Although we’d passed by them several times before, I hadn’t bothered to look at the top since the design itself was so striking compared to the rest of the Accra cityscape.
Many found the dinner buffet too spicy. Not only did I love the well-seasoned food, but I also added black pepper sauce. We topped the meal off with vanilla and strawberry ice cream which had a flavor reminding me of lip gloss. As stuffed as I felt, others surprised me, talking about going to the restaurant across the street from our hotel.
I napped on the bus trip back to the hotel. Perhaps others did as well since no one initially seemed enthusiastic about the welcoming ceremony as we filed into the conference room where we’d started off that morning. Yet, things turned lively when support staff gifted us kente cloth sashes with our names on it. (I removed names on most of the pictures below.)
A few days prior to visiting Ghana, I’d watched a late-night comedian where Chance the Rapper was one of the guests. I nearly jumped out of my recliner when he said that he’d visited Ghana, which helped influence his latest album. He recommended that when in Ghana, try KFC. He assured us that their chicken was much better than what we ate in the States.
As a matter of fact, when RC had first visited Ghana, someone in her tour group pointed out Chance the Rapper. They had been souvenir shopping a large market at the same time as he. She hadn’t known who he was prior to that encounter.
One of my cousins and a niece took an Uber to KFC. I was too jet lagged to go, but I asked my niece to bring me a piece of chicken. The seasoning was delicious, but the chicken itself wasn’t all that better than in the States. Then again, I only tasted a drumstick. My niece reported that the chicken breast was really good.
I’ll save that experience for the next visit.