Days 6, 7 & 8: I Have Named My Desk “The Fourth Republic”  

My office desk also has a chair, which is no small deal. It is the best office chair I have ever seen. It has recline capabilities, and it is dressed in faux-leather. The fake leather does not sweat in the heat.

The heat is not so bad because the office has air conditioning. It is the only air-conditioned building that I know in Accra except for the Golden Tulip Hotel (which also uses water for superfluous purposes like a swimming pool and toilet bowls that flush).

This is my office: The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD) – a, foreign-sponsored, domestically administered, political think tank located in the New Airport District of Accra. You can’t tell from the picture, but there is a second newly-built four-story building behind the white one. That’s where I work. I’m on the Election Watch Commission, working to ensure that the December 2012 Federal and Parliamentary election in Ghana happens peacefully. There is genuine fear here that the election results, whatever they might be, will meet civil unrest. The discovery of oil in the west and increased fighting between the Asante and Ewe tribes (who tend to vote for the NPP and NDC parties respectively) is cause for concern.

Observation #6: Ghana Has Not Heard of Sleeping In    

Accra is hot, populated, and clad in only narrow streetways. The average Ghanaian businessperson is awake by four in the morning and on the road by six, keeping just ahead of the traffic and the sun. I am not nearly so prompt. But I am up by 6 a.m. and on the road by 6:45. I make it into the office by 7 a.m. and I check out at 6 p.m. I beat the morning traffic with a five minute carpool cab ride. And for those who judge the 4 km cab ride, remember that Ghana has no sidewalks. And the streets have impromptu holes for sewage. They are unpaved and uneven. And that I work in heels.

The office has a betting pool on how long it will take one of the interns to trip into a sewage hole. It happened to two of the McGill interns last year.

Observation #7: Interning is Static

Not to mention comprehensive. Before I can do any polling, any work with the Afro barometer, any inspection of election sites, any policy recommendations, reports – before I can even edit the English of any CDD document – I have 1,200 pages of background reading on the history of Ghanaian democracy (or military dictatorship: it’s a fifty year binary, with the exception of the Jerry Rawlings regime who served 9 years as a dictator and 8 years as a democratically-elected president. And yes, they were consecutive.) I need a thorough background on the ethnic demographics of Ghana, the history of ethnic conflict, constitutional reform, civil-military relations, the chieftain system (because in addition to the federal and local branches of government, Ghana also has traditional chiefs), and a background on election violence as well as the issues at stake in the election. After that, polling data from the elections since 1992 is advisable. I think there is a romanticism to reviewing data from every year since which I was born.

But before that, on my first day, I got sent to a Round Table conference on the politics of becoming an Oil Producing Nation (worries about the ‘resource curse’ with unnecessarily long comparison of Ghana to Tunisia's contemporary political climate. Because oil is the problem there). Then, I sat in on a constitutional review meeting. The people in that room were building the Fifth Republic from the weathered articles of the 1992 (Fourth) Constitution.

My job is almost as cool as the West Wing. Only the 90s instrumentals and elaborate banter are lacking. 

Days 3, 4 and 5: Welcome to Kotobabi Down

 “Welcome” is “Akwaaba” in Ghana, for the record.

I moved into to Rosa’s Compound in Kotobabi Down on my third day in Accra, on the 10^th of May. The compound is a magnificent white guest house located in Kotobabi Down – a district of Accra known as the “new town”, located near the New Airport District where I am working. The New Airport District is home to government offices, foreign agencies, and the best of Ghanaian street food.

Kotobabi is a neat cross-section between urban and rural life. The streets are red earth. Stalls line the main road (High Road) selling fresh fruit and vegetables. Tiny children peak out from all corners of the roadsides. Ghanaian goats (which are particularly miniature goats) amble down the street. And there is even a little grass, which is a rare feature for Accra.

Rosa’s Compound is run by a large wonderful woman named Rosa who owns two such houses in Accra. Ours is big, clean, wifi-ed, with thick white walls and a population of entirely expat students. Laura and I live together in the main building, with Tukeni and Val living across from us in the guest house (with our windows facing directly opposite. Good morning.)

Other compound residents include Ayolah who studied healthcare in the UK and is currently examining infant mortality in Ghana. Natalya, who is a master’s science student researching water purity. And Jeff from Wisconsin doing his PhD on West African slums. There is apparently also a mysterious German man doing his PhD in West African decolonization whom I am angling to meet.

Observation 3: The Market Place is Not for the Light-Hearted

The main market in Accra  is a ten minute trotro ride from Rosa’s. It’s hot, sweaty, and smells like fish. The stalls are crammed together, with each manager screaming for you to buy his yam not her yam. Shrimp, wine, laundry detergent, etc. is available cheap, fast, and competitively.

Haggling is not a thing I have learned. But Tukeni is pretty damn good at it. Peanut butter is also mysteriously sold by every stall. It sits in a plastic translucent jar, totally unmarked. But they swear it’s peanut butter. 

The market also has its casualties. Today I got goat in my hair. As the butcher cleaved a goat in two, so did my hair graciously receive what the goat’s insides had to offer. (Retroactive post: we never ate the goat.)

Observation 4: Everybody is Beautiful in Ghana

People in Ghana tell you that you’re beautiful all the time. It’s like a recreational activity. You walk down the street, and strangers by the roadside tell you how beautiful you are – men, women, young or old. Sometimes they take your face into their hands and tell you how beautiful you are. They should be on a Dove commercial or something.  Or maybe I should.

(Just kidding. Also, to be clear, that picture is a Dove advertisement.)

Observation 5: When it Rains, it Pours.

For real. Think monsoon season brought to you by old Bollywood.

Days 1 & 2: Crystal Hostel and Darkuman 

I slipped into Accra in the dead of night on the 8th of May, into a hostel in Darkuman that contained only myself, four Barcelonians, three dogs, two cats, one rooster, two coconut trees, and more lizards than I could count. The picture on the left is of my hostel.

Darkuman is a clustered shantytown on the outskirts of greater Accra. There is one main road from which all others branch -- Darkuman Road, which Crystal Hostel borders halfway up the hill. Crystal is planted between an elementary school, a Guinness bar (Guinness is clearly an Accra favourite) and situated across from a hut that read 'Licensed Chemical Sellers // Beautify Shop'. Darkuman never dies -- at any time in the night there is some window shop lit selling food. For the first two days, I purchased most of my meals on Darkuman Road for about 50 cents each.

Observation 1: People are really nice in Accra. Really really nice. 
Whenever I walk down the street, everybody says "hello", "good morning", "how are you". It's considered impolite not to say something to the people you pass on the street. And if you respond to people's greetings, then they often you engage in some form of passing conversation. You get to know people quickly, and learn things about them quickly (I was known in the hostel as "little brown girl who sleeps a lot." That's okay. I like a healthy 8 hours.)

People are also really willing to help you.


On Day 2, I got lost. And by lost, I don't mean a minute form of confusion. I was making anxious laps around Darkuman Road, still two miles from the hostel, looking for the front entrance. There was an autobody shop across the road from which shirtless men were emerging like clockwork asking me to marry them. I returned home five hours later.  I returned on the back of a tro-tro (which is a metal sheet van transportation service that does not stop moving when you're supposed to get on. You have to hop.) between an old man named Ben and a young woman named Sandra who adopted me, held me obligated to four games of checkers, then took me home.

Observation 2: It's hot. 

The temperature has not dropped below 28 degrees. Everybody wears pants; bare knees are not kosher. My bedroom has an overhead wooden fan that chugs along earnestly, and still emits but a breeze.

Africa and my hair have yet to become friends. My hair is now twice its natural volume, three times as curly, and barely makes it past my ears in length. I kind of look like Sarah Jessica Parker in the third season of Sex and the City, when she cut her hair short but it maintained previous levels of poof.

I am uncertain it is the best look for either of us.


I'm having a lot of fun.
Also, I'm learning a lot about ECOWAS. That is one boss regional trade organization.