Ghana Day 2

The second day I was in Ghana it was Valentine’s Day! So HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!!!!! I got to spend the day with my awesome roommate Hannah. Well, first we decided to sleep in. We were in no rush. We just wanted to spend the day together with no agenda or schedule really. When we finally decided to leave we actually met up with two of our other friends who had the same idea we did, Kadian and Cole. So, the four of us got to spend a girl day together!!!!

                We first had to negotiate down our taxi ride into Accra. When we finally agreed on a price we took the almost hour car ride, due to traffic, to Mahkola Market in Accra. This is a local market that is for both tourist and locals. It was so strange to see tourist items like masks and beads right next to fresh fish and pig hooves. It was so interesting! This was definitely a culture shock to many of us. Many of the people were very pushy; constantly placing items in your hand and expecting you to pay for them. After we spent some serious time looking around we decided to head out of the market and go to the National Theatre.

                One thing that we all noticed in Ghana was that there are almost no street signs! This made it very difficult to look at our map to figure out where we were going. Not having street signs also made us have to stop more frequently to ask for directions which made us a walking target for people to try to sell us things. I found myself thinking goodness I just want to get where I’m going. Life in America is so fast paced that when I arrive in a country that moves at a more relaxed pace I find myself getting inpatient. This is something that I really worked on in Ghana. I just had to relax and enjoy the sights and sounds that I was experiencing. I mean when will I get to come back? Well, after many wrong directions we ran into another family from the ship who was going to the same place and they actually knew where they were going! So we all joined together and arrived at the national theatre! Wow, this place was beautiful!

                The theatre architecture was influenced by Chinese design, however, the inside was an artwork gallery of the history of Ghana. A very nice man named Charlie gave us a tour and even showed us the inside of the auditorium. Wow, this auditorium holds 1,500 people. Imagine Memorial Hall, but twice as large. One person on stage looked like an ant. We got to spend over an hour in the theatre looking at all the artwork and asking questions about the theatre and Ghana. When we finally could not think of any more questions to ask we thank Charlie and began our journey outside again in search of the Cultural Center.

                After we finished playing Frogger with the traffic we finally managed to make it to the Cultural Center. Right outside the Cultural Center  we met this wonderful vendor. This lady was so kind and her artwork was so beautiful!!!! She was so nice and we really got to speak with her and how she makes her artwork. We spent almost 20 minutes with her and when it was time to go she stood at her vendor spot and waived goodbye to us as we walked into the Cultural Center.

                The Cultural Center was insane! The vendors there were over bearing. They all called us “my sister” we were “family” until we didn’t want to buy anything from them and then we were just “another tourist”. It made it difficult to really talk to anyone. The few things that I purchased there were absolutely beautiful. I cannot wait to get home to show people. Some of the stories I heard about the artwork was really cool too. I enjoyed hearing what each sign meant and where, if I were to buy something, I would put it in my home to get the most out of what each sign meant and such. The Cultural Center was almost like a fort. It was a 3 and ½ sided building (really like a fort). It was an off white building. It was so strange because it looks like a tourist attraction, but there were many locals there also. After a good amount of time at the Cultural Center we decided we wanted to check out the mall.

                Now, before you think I’m crazy my friend Cole needed to go for her Economics class. We thought it would be cool to see how a mall in Ghana was different from those in America. They had a lot of similar stores, but everything was more expensive. One store that I saw was a teacher store. It was so interesting to see how similar the items in the store were compared to that of a store like this in America. The prices were way more though. It was still very interesting to see.  Another interesting store in the mall was a grocery store. Imagine putting a smaller version of Wal-Mart in the Dayton Mall; that’s kind of what it was like. I was able to get some chocolate made from Ghanaian coco. It was delicious!

After we did some shopping we were pooped. It was almost 6pm by this point. The group of us came back to the ship and grabbed some dinner, took showers (it is so muggy here you are literally sweating from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed!) and watched a movie. I know it doesn’t sound very exciting, but after a day of being addressed by vendors we were exhausted.