Obrunis in Accra: Tour de Tro-Tros, Markets, Antelopes and More

Sunday Jun 6: Fairly eventful day. We began the morning by getting up at 7am to following Justice (he is our guide/babysitter/troubleshooter/everything extraordinaire for the next 6 weeks) to his church for mass. Though I have never been religious, I have always found religious ceremonies and rituals very interesting – this one was no exception. Picture one of those movies based in the American South, a scene in a black church, though this time with churchgoers dressed in a mix of Western or African clothing. The church was really a shelter, the pews were simple plastic chairs, but all this was temporary while the real church is being constructed right next door. For now, the children are having their Sunday school lessons in the half constructed church. We took a few pictures with the kids, who were clearly openly curious about us – staring and smiling – and seemed perfectly happy to pose for us. Quite frankly, we were just as curious about them. The church we went to was a Pentecostal Church. The people are clearly devoted to their religion – a few were openly crying as they were praying, many were rocking back and forth to some inner rhythm, and everyone sang and dance to the hymns (and interestingly enough, also on their way to the collections box to pay tithe and to give donations for missionaries). Interesting too is that it seems like people here likes to give really religious names to their businesses – like "God is Good Bakery" and "His Lordship's Photo House".

After that, we met Mavis, one of the University of Ghana students that will be accompanying us when we're not with Justice, and I think also on some of our weekend trips. She took us on a tour of Accra and surrounding areas on tro-tros. Tro-tros are essentially refitted vans that contain upwards of 10 people depending on their size (and the size of the people in them). Just imagine a van, one up from the 7-person caravan that we usually see in Canada, usually pretty beat up, especially on the inside, and lined on the inside with random materials like pieces of carpet or vinyl house sidings, just to name a few. Don't be deceived though, these tro-tros are actually very hardy – at one point, we were driving for at least half hr on dirt roads with giant potholes, there were so many that it was pretty much impossible for driver to avoid them. Very bumpy ride, as you can well imagine, but not so different from the "three legged chickens" that I used to ride when I was visiting my grandparents in rural China, which were essentially 3-wheel mini-pickups with a canvas top over a metal frame in the back, which will carry both people and cargo.

We went to quite a few of the major markets: Makola Market, Kaneshi Market, and Medina Market. First stop was Makola Market – clearly an older area, judging from the buildings, I'd say it probably saw some good times in the 60s (really reminds me of some of the really old areas of HK, which dates to around that time period). The key thing I remember was the main tro-tro terminal that's located there. The markets are essentially a collection of makeshift and permanent stalls and shops, selling everything you can imagine, including in one case, individual packets of flavoured condoms – a big mop bucket of them with very graphic packaging. Our guide tells us that a lot of the hawkers (legal or illegal) tend to be migrants from other parts of the country who come into the city to find work and make money. The pattern seems to be that wherever there is a market, there'll be a squatter district/shanty town – it could be a collection of people just sleeping on one patch of land together, or it could be a labyrinth of makeshift houses that just stretches on. Interesting that these people seem to be on pretty good terms with the local police – at Makola Market at least, I saw them smiling and waving at each other, also not uncommon according to our guide. Apparently, there were efforts to remove the shantytowns and illegal stalls a few years back, but there were so many people doing it and there was such a large political backlash that the government decided that it's better to just let them be, and let them make their living rather than try to make them leave.

At Kaneshi Market, we saw live snails. Big ones. They were the size of my hand, and roughly the thickness of a roll of loonies – at first I thought they were already dead and was just sitting on the tray. Then I saw their little eye tentacles move, and started to see them move forward on each other's shell, which kind of weirded me out. We'll meet their brethrens again later on, in a bowl of soup, when we went to Adenta, where Mavis's aunt and uncle lives. They made a big bowl of soup with crab, antelope, snail, and fufu in it – fufu is a doughy food that's made from cassava roots, which had been boiled and pounded into dough form. The antelope was farmed, the meat was kind of tough, not really sure what the flavour was because it was overwhelmed by the taste of crab (and what I can only assume is the taste of the snail – I couldn't bring myself to trying it once I saw the live ones). I can't say I was a fan, really wasn't fond of the texture of fufu (which was really sticky), and I just can't handle the snails. We spent some time at the house, playing with the kids and talking to Mavis's uncle, who is a lawyer and had studied in Norway, then we took the tro-tro back into town.

My apologies for the lack of pictures. Internet here is kind of slow at times, but I'll be working on uploading some pictures as soon as I can. In fact, I'll try in 5 minutes. To be continued.