Travelogue Warning: It's Random August 27, 2001 (More photos coming as soon as I can grab someone's digital camera!) We have been out to restaurants often. The first day, we went to lunch in the next neighborhood, called Labony. Ours is Osu and it is the land of obruni, which means white people. (People pass and call out "obruni, obruni," in a way that is not antagonistic but just seems to celebrate the way we're obruni and isn't that funny.) I ate Red-Red and fried plantains. Red-Red is a mashed dish of hot peppers and black-eyed peas. All food, even soup, is eaten with one hand. Most food is oily (palm nut oil--not exactly heart friendly), so this makes for another good excuse to forego a manicure lifestyle (although the women here are always very much "put together" and do manage to have nicely manicured nails . . . I guess it's just going to be my excuse). So far, I have been stomach-stable. Dessert is not part of a meal here, unfortunately, since there would seem to be so many coconut possibilities. Beer is the popular beverage. I suppose that's thanks to this being an anglophone country. Geekhalla is very safe. We have tall walls with spikes along the top and guards around the clock (although they seem to sleep soundly at the watch desk). We're right next to the U.S. consulate office, which is also heavily guarded. There is a ceiling fan in my room and windows with screens on two walls. There is a lot of noise outside from the chickens, goats, and children, but it's not disturbing since it is so unusual for me. Rose has been cooking lunch all week, and she prepares, very lovingly, vegetarian versions for me of whatever she has made for everyone else. Yesterday we ate Jollof Rice, which is like dirty rice, and another traditional dish which consists of boiled yams topped with a stew made of a small green leaf and the ground-up powder of a kind of seed which looks like a pumpkin seed. In the afternoon on Wednesday, we went on a unique adventure. First, we piled into a tro-tro (a mini van that serves as public transportation (although it’s a private enterprise without regulations) and sports a unique tagline--like "Wear Jeans, Get a Life" or "Trust No Woman Except Your Mother") and then collected more Ghanaians on the tro-tro whom Stophe knows. We went through other parts of town to collect many young people. They were dancers, and we were accompanying them to their lesson and meeting on the outskirts of town. They are led and taught by a man named Bernard Woman, who is often in the U.S. teaching traditional African instruments. Bernard first gave us pito, which is fresh home brew made of millet. It was good, but we were warned that it would really do a number on our stomachs, so I had only a half of a gourd shell-bowl. We had to dump a bit out on the ground for our ancestors before drinking. Next, Bernard and his fellow musicians set up in the middle of the yard and began a gorgeous concert while people seemed to pour out of the house and assemble in dances around the musicians. They grabbed us after an hour or so and tried to get us to learn the steps. I think I should have taken more pito. It was gorgeous, though, when they were leaving us out of it. Also, it took place on Bernard's land, which is next to a hill and surrounded by the kind of green forest you imagine cover Coastal Africa. One great thing (for me, that is) about Accra is that it is one large flea market. I needed towels, so Joshua, a young man who works in our house, took me to bargain for them at the traffic circle. Later, I did find a book shop in a building in the obruni district. It sells old magazines and used book. There were around five hundred books and twenty or thirty magazines, yet five guards stood throughout the little shop. The devaluation of the currency here is so bad that people (including me) have to carry stacks of bills in plastic bags in order to carry enough for a market trip. The stack of bills needed for a meal (well, a moderately-priced meal) is a tall. On Thursday we had a scavenger hunt around Accra. We were given a list of restaurants to find without having directions. I chose the highest point earner, which was a place called Maluwi. I was not too adventurous and just got in a taxi to go there. I decided on the price of the ride before I got in as is customary here. It was 8,000 cedis (about $1.20). I rode through the absolutely fanciest part of Accra, where there are all of the houses that must be owned by ambassadors or rich expatriates or military leaders . . . the French embassy and the like. It looked like some parts of upper-class Houston, since everything is walled in and there are a team of guards at each gate. Anyway, after that we came back into a poor area with shacks and beheld Maluwi. It was closed, and I'm sure the driver knew this when I got into the taxi, since he didn't look at all surprised and was ready to tell me he would take 60,000 cedis to take me back. I just held my ground and told him that I would gladly pay more, but not that much more, and otherwise I would walk (mainly because I wasn't carrying enough cash). He backed down and we went on to a place called the Riviera Hotel. Driving up, I saw the sign was in good condition and I thought maybe I was too much of a yuppie for choosing to go there and not the dirtier chop shops in town. The taxi driver tried once again to get me to pay him 60,000 (it had been a five minute trip), but finally settled on 30,000, which was still about twice the price. But it was cheap at twice the price, so it was fine. I walked into the hotel and was directed to the restaurant on the other side. I went there, walked further, and looked over the balcony to see an enormous (truly, as big as the pool at the Chavez Center), empty swimming pool. There is a crumbling, three-tier diving structure at one end and broken down cabanas all around it. The hotel must have been built during the time of Soviet alliance, since the architecture has the grand, hard feel of some parts of Eastern Europe. It looks like post-apocalypse Beverly Hills. I walked around the pool and looked back up at the hotel to see that there were only three rooms that weren't boarded up or just open for birds flying in the windows. Still, they serve food and drinks on the patio. I ordered a soda water and sat next to the pool. I have to bring a camera next time. It was lovely to listen to the waves and look out and the solid blues of the sky and water after days of sensory overload. It was peaceful until up came the pseudo-Rastafarians (beach bums, literally) came up over the rocks and up to the side of the concrete that marked the hotel territory. The waiter came over to me and said I had to be careful and not to let them harass me, but that it would be fine to sit where I was. I tried for a while to read while being shouted at, but then gave up and went back up to the patio. Still, it was a good find and I think I will go there often for the bizarre setting and ocean air.