Thursday, June 27 Accra

It's fitting that I have no photos of Accra yet (I'll try to remedy that in a few hours) since I learned a bit about life in Accra yesterday.
1. Power failures are a regular part of life. We had one last night that started at 7:15 and ended around 10:30 pm. For me it was a wonderful bit of serendipity. With nothing else to do the four current residents of the Crystal Hostel sat around a table and talked for three hours. We have a Canadian and a Dutchman, and an American, all males--not counting me--staying here. We have another, female, resident, a Brit, but she is in Holland doing an interview for a PhD program today. {Did you know that all university lectures in Holland are done in English?}She returns tomorrow. We also have a party of 24 arriving tomorrow. I'm looking forward to that.
Topics of discussion included a)the prospects of Edward Snowden; b) marijuana laws in Holland vs. the U.S.; c) a primer--for the benefit of non-Yanks--on Edward Kennedy and his pivotal role on the Supreme Court; d) European university shopping. Did you know that Istanbul attracts a significant number of European students due to low costs?

2. Traffic in Accra sometimes seems to come to a complete halt throughout the city, or at least as far as the eye can see. I witnessed that last night while I searched for food. The main drag near our hostel was at a standstill for as long as I was there. One of our guests said it took him 90 minutes to navigate from the airport to here, a distance of about two miles.

3. Accra people are incredibly kind. Everywhere I've gone so far I've had people spontaneously stop me to explain things to me. Last night I tried to buy a meal. Before I even got the words out a young girl stopped me to inquire what I needed. When I said, "rice and beans", she patiently explained that the place in front of me had no rice but that if I followed her she'd show me a place better stocked, which she did. I had a bagful (they put it in small plastic bags for take out) of rice, salad, and some kind of green stuff that looked like spinach (but probably wasn't). Due to the power failure I couldn't really see what I was eating, but it tasted good.

I slept past 10 this morning. I'm resolved that today will be a transition day, that I'm not obliged to go anywhere or do anything. I need to write my column for San Leandro Patch and I have a book to read (Nikola Tesla:  My Inventions and Other Writings). I'll probably go for a brief walk to take some photos. Otherwise ain't much happenin'.

4pm: now I have a couple photos, taken from the roof of our hostel:

Accra grows laterally, adding tarpaper shacks as needed. I wonder who "owns" this land?

 I should add that we spent some time last night talking about sewage in Accra. One of our tenants is a Canadian working on a water treatment facility. He noted that that the work proceeds at a glacial pace. But what was most interesting is that the facility (state of the art) is hooked up to only two places, a school and another public building. No way has been devised to get private residences or businesses to join since it would cost them money. It looks as if Accra will have a modern treatment plant that treats very little.