Accra with less traffic

Date Written: January 23 2011

We also took a complete tour of Accra since there was supposed to be less traffic on Sunday afternoons. I suppose there was since our stopping times at traffic lights were pretty minimal. We had a delay getting started because a dorm room door would not lock and the front desk said that it would be fixed tomorrow. I am not sure of the solution they were presented but I was glad that our program director was with them to sort it out.

Once we got on the road, we made a quick drive up to exactly where I had wandered about earlier this morning. This time, I went inside the complex and we were shown our program director’s office as she is a UG administrator in addition to running SUNY Brockport’s program. Hopping back into the buses, we drove into Accra proper, flying by Max Mart, 37 (tro tro station), Circle (tro tro hub) and other landmarks which I have gradually become more familiar with. We drove through downtown, home to a quite a few high rises, mostly office buildings and hotels, as not many Ghanaians live in high rise apartments. We also saw many of the landmarks of a capitol city such as the various Ministries (Ghana is a parliamentary democracy headed by a President, more on this later), monuments such as Independence Arch and Ghana’s first football (soccer) stadium which was right on the ocean.

We also drove around the American embassy. After the 1998 Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, USG (US Government) devoted a large sum of money expanding security for the roughly 265 Embassies, Consulates and Diplomatic Missions worldwide. Many of them were located in intercity areas and were not easily expandable, so they were moved to a different location, sometimes far away for the city center. Embassy Accra looked imposing as it sprawled several city blocks and was surrounded by high, barren walls. In a few weeks, I will have a look inside although no pictures as there were many signs discouraging photographs for security purposes.

We flew back to Legon (the suburb where the UG campus is located) for another wonderful Ghanaian meal.