Sunday, June 30 Accra

We've had power outages at random times which have thwarted my posting. Today, in the intensely Christian nation, everything is closed, so I've spent the day doing laundry and reading. Most of my hostelmates have fled northeast to a festival. Tomorrow is a national holiday, Republic Day. I plan to move my location down to downtown Accra (this place is in the suburbs) tomorrow. Then on Tuesday morning, the first business day of the week I'll see if I can get a Cote D'Ivoire visa. If that is possible then I'll be obliged to stick around Accra for a few days while they process my application. In the larger picture these two lost days won't matter but for now I'm very impatient to get on the road.

Someone once propagated plants here. 

Yesterday I spent several hours exploring Ghana University. I was most interested in the Botanical Garden. The university is expansive, maybe too big. Why centralize all public education in one place? Why not put some of the schools about the city? The area around the school is surprisingly infertile to commercial activity, unlike most other university towns I've visited. There was one modern, nearly empty supermarket across the main highway. Other than that there wasn't much.

I stood outside one of these lecture halls and tried to listen but all I really saw was some kind of supply-demand curve on the blackboard. How the students in the back could hear or see anything is beyond me. The students mostly looked like students anywhere, bemused, moderately attentive, eager for a diversion (like the white guy hanging around outside)

A long-neglected potting shed. Someone undoubtedly removed the glass  long ago. 

The botanic gardens, I read in my Lonely Planet guide, are neglected. And they are. Some of the decaying buildings bore the name of the university botany department but my sense is that no botanist has been in the gardens in years. A terrible shame. Reminds me of the gardens in Yerevan, Armenia. Same thing. In Armenia they had the excuse that the gardens were a remnant of Soviet leadership and thus tainted. Since I was at the school on Saturday I didn't meet up with any professors and couldn't find out why the gardens are ignored.

Students are the same everywhere. A sign on a university building. 

The gardens are fairly large, perhaps tens of acres, though I saw only a handful of people in the park, mostly congregated near an entrance adjoining a major thoroughfare. I sometimes wish I could get a job as savior for the world's botanical spaces. I bet there are many. For a couple hundred thousand dollars you could bequeath a treasure to future generations.

Friday, June 28 Accra

I couldn't sleep last night for no apparent reason. I wasn't ill. The weather was quite cool. I just couldn't sleep. So I spent today around the hostel on the internet or reading my book. Nothing of consequence to relate. A nice, lost day.

a small photo essay about Accra, June 27

One of the innumerable Christian billboards. I'd say 10% of Accra is Muslim, the rest in-your-face Christianity.

I took about 20 pictures but only half of those somehow made it so I can't provide much here. But it's a start:

in

No problem buying booze in Accra. 

This sign would not be out of place anywhere in the States.

Local fashion.

More Christian advertising.

Half the buildings (those that can be called buildings) are unfinished. I've seen dozens like this. 

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.

Wednesday, June 26, Accra

How many hours did I travel? I've lost track. I'm not even certain I have the day correct. I'm in a hostel in Accra, a clean, walled compound. I'm too tired to write much for now. I left New York at 9am on Tuesday and here I am at 9am a day later, but I think the time difference is 4 hours, so it took me about 20 hours to get here. I'll post more later today.

I got some sleep and now can start to think about what I've observed. Accra, not surprisingly, reminds me of Dakar up the coast. When we landed, before dawn, I was shocked to see the physical extent of the city, endless lights off to the horizon, one of the many urban sprawls that populate the Third World. The cab ride from the airport to my hostel revealed a swirling, thrashing mob of humanity all seemingly in competition to survive. Everyone demands money; there is no relaxed commerce in Accra. Driving is a blood sport with little quarter given by anyone. Not much different from Los Angeles, I guess, but here we're competing for life not just to get the best manicure.
I'm beginning to realize why I liked Zimbabwe so much. There a third of the population has migrated south to South Africa for opportunities not available at home. That leaves a less crowded, less hectic nation behind. In Ghana there is no such release valve. You make it here or you starve. 

leaving for Africa tomorrow

One last day in the U.S. before departing for Accra tomorrow. I left the Bay Area on Wednesday night bound for Vermont to visit Susan Ohanian, an writer I greatly admire. She graciously hosted me for a day enduring my speechifying about education and feeding me gourmetishly.
Yesterday was my annual trek to Shakespeare in the (Central) Park trip. I didn't properly charge my phone so I have only one photograph of the park:

We saw A Comedy of Errors, one of the Bard's lightest works. Fun as always to sit outside and take in such fare. It rained a bit during the second half of the play but no one was deterred.

2013 travels introduction

I'm off to New York, Vermont, Pennsylvania, and West Africa this year. I don't begin the actual trip till Wednesday night, June 19 but to get things rolling I'll provide a few photos of Coyote Hills Park in Union City where Melody and I galavanted yesterday.