So, final day in Accra, headed to Jordan Nu Library in the Volta region tomorrow. I have to say that I feel on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster with this city; sometimes I like it, other times I cannot wait to get out of here and get to the village. In our travels to get to books stores, libraries, banks, etc., we've been able to take in quite a bit of the city. Laura and I keep talking about the difficulty of trying describe this sprawling city so full of contrasts. Here's a bit about some of the different parts of the city we've been to these last few days.
After that first night at the beach place we moved to a great little area on the west side of town, called Asylum Down (don't worry Mom, that doesn't mean it's next to the Accra version of the Vermont State Hospital :-)). The New Haven Hotel is great, has a nice little courtyard where we take our breakfast and there's a cheap restaurant attached. And it's only a block away from one of the major roads and a key tro-tro station. Some of the sights and sounds of our awesome spot: a bird that for some reason sounds like a vibrating cellphone, a very large church/mission across the street with music so loud into the night sometimes you think there's a nightclub nextdoor, skinny kittens hanging out in the courtyard, and hearing the rhythmic pounding of fufu around lunchtime.
Another area we visited was one of Accra's biggest markets, Makola Market. We just walked through it today, but it was just as sprawling as the city itself. Almost every inch of sidewalk was covered with stalls or blankets spread out with sellers' goods. In Accra's market places and trotro stations, there are so many people you'd think that every one of Ghana's 24 million residents must be there at that moment. They make NYC and DC subways at rushhour seem spacious.
This evening we got to go visit Lucas' sister, Melanie, again. She lives in West Legon, north of the city center and in sort of a "suburb"-y area. But don't go picturing white picket fences and cul-de-sacs; fewer of the roads are paved up there, so deep red dirt colors the landscape. Melanie's colorful one-bedroom house is situated away from the main road, in a dense grove of plantain trees. Chickens run around between the other houses in the grove, and a huge home next door appears to have been halted mid-construction (half-finished houses are a common sight here).
I could go on talking about the "rich" areas of town where government buildings and expats live...but this is long enough already!
On another note, today I had my first successful "purchase something off of someone's head out the window of a moving trotro" moment! I bought us a bag of water (yes, that's a BAG of water). We were pretty pleased with ourselves.
We probably won't have internet access up at Jordan Nu, so this may be the last post for a while. It's unclear whether we will return in a week or on Wednesday. We may try to do a mini-camp after school, similar to the summer camps FAVL held this summer. However, this is pending community approval, so we'll see what happens. But stay tuned for stories about village life!
In the lull, I recommend checking out the FAVL website and blog to learn more about this awesome organization (http://www.favl.org/blog).
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