At
Kotoka International Airport, where we landed, I had a pleasantly
painless and rapid transit through customs. The baggage carousel was
smoother and quieter than in US airports! I had been dreading some sort
of prolonged interrogation by customs officials and an invasive
examination of the contents of my luggage, but far from it. The first
official actually smiled and welcomed me to Ghana, and then I walked
straight out without anyone requesting to see my bags. For a moment I
thought I was doing something wrong - it can’t be this easy,
can it? When some uniformed man stepped up to me just before I exited,
I thought, “uh-oh, this is the trouble I knew was coming.” But he only
wanted to double check that my luggage and ticket stickers matched - or
that’s what he said, anyway. It was mighty suspicious though, when he
asked me if I had a little “something” for him, i.e. a tip, or “dash”
as it’s called here. For checking my luggage tags? I don’t think so. I
brushed that away.

My
mother was waiting outside the airport for me with Solomon, the taxi
driver she hires for periods during the day, and her face lit up when
she saw me. There’s always that slight anxiety that your loved one
somehow didn’t get on the flight. The air was very warm and close,
rather that sharp and searing. I instantly began to pour with sweat.
Before going home, we detoured to a friend’s house, and on the way
there I tried to figure out where I was. Remember, it has been about 20
years since I’ve visited. Some spots came back to me, others didn’t.
The difference is the degree to which new buildings have gone up.
Traffic is a kind of controlled chaos with right of way entirely
dependent on the goodwill of other drivers - except at traffic lights
and intersections that have traffic policemen directing the flow. There
are really no rules except be good enough to give way to another driver
as he or she tries to cut in. Taxi drivers make liberal use of their
horns, and taxis, recognizable by their yellow front and side panels,
seem to make up almost a quarter of all cars. The vehicle exhaust on
the street could choke a rat, especially when you’re in
bumper-to-bumper traffic. If you don’t have air-conditioning, you’re
obliged to breathe it because you can’t possibly roll up the windows
without perishing in the heat.

 

The
other means of transport for the masses is the “tro-tro”, minivans that
hold a dozen or so people and are often of dubious roadworthiness.

For the well-off, Benzes and BMW like anywhere else, but SUVs have made an obvious entry in the realm of flash.

Meanwhile
it seemed mobile phones were almost as ubiquitous as taxis with persons
of every stripe with a phone glued to his or her ear. I saw one dusty,
ragged young guy looking poor and downtrodden except he was chatting on
a mobile. That had me reassessing him and wondering what the story was.
The phone was costing him so much he couldn’t afford clothes?   

After
leaving our friend’s house, Mom had to make a stop at a supermarket -
she is a shopping machine no matter what country she’s in. The
supermarket had something from everywhere - sardines from Spain, wine
from South Africa, and huge bags of potatoes from I don’t know where.
Many of these things can be produced in Ghana, but the effect of
“opening the markets”, as the International Monetary Fund and World
Bank often imposes on developing countries, has the effect of foreign
goods wiping out the local competition. Practically every item was
available, from corn flakes to olives to soda and orange juice, just
not in the vast variety and quantity as in the States.

On
the way back home Solomon stopped at a Standard Chartered Bank so I
could get some cash from the ATM - and by the way, they’re called ATM’s
here too. The monetary unit is the cedi, equal to is 97 cents or so,
and that makes the conversion very easy.

THIS STANDARD BANK IS ALONG RING ROAD. SEVERAL GLASSY, GLOSSY BUILDINGS LIKE THIS ARE GOING UP ALL OVER TOWN