I managed to stay up through the day. Our house standing on property of my father’s, is located in an area of Accra called Kaneshie. Later on my mother had a second house built behind it, where we stay while the caretaker, Aba, lives in the front house. She has two kids, a girl and a boy, Nana, 5, and Jojo 3, respectively. I brought them each an outfit from the States and Jojo lost no time in putting it on as well as his military camouflage shirt. He wants to be a “soldier” when he grows up. 
JOJO, MILITARY COMMANDER
JOJO AND NANA
JOJO IS THE TOUGH GUY. THE OTHER ONE IS ME
Jojo and his sister are sometimes a little too much for my Mom with their boundless energy. They constantly come to the door and call out her name, “Aunty Pearl! Aunty Pearl!” After they got a little rambunctious in the house and driving poor Mom to distraction, so I took them outside to play to allow Mom return to sanity. In between the two houses are a startling number of people hanging around, and apart from Aba’s husband and her two children, I have no idea who they are. Undoubtedly many are extended family, but Aba also does some trading out of the yard and so some of it might be business related. Aba and the family do all washing by hand, and all clothes are hung on a clothesline.
I was now well and truly sticky and the first order of business was to have a shower - COLD. Trust me, in this weather a cold shower is a beautiful thing and a good way to stay cool. We run the fans all the time but leave the air-conditioner till the night. Remember electricity is a precious commodity here, and blackouts do occur. Like the Colorado River, the water level of the Volta River that powers Ghana’s Akosombo Hydroelectric Dam, is way down. Since I’ve been here, there’ve been no blackouts, but I remain respectfully in conservation mode - short showers, and turn the light off behind you.
Next? FOOD! I was famished. Aba the caretaker had made us some delicious kontomire stew, which is made from cocoyam leaves and palm oil - fish or chicken can be added. By the way, palm oil is highly saturated, which is probably why it tastes so rich and good. Non-fat diet for 6 months when I get back to the States!
After this, I took a taxi to an Internet cafe, this one called Busy Internet, from where my blogs will originate. The facilities are just fine, with lots of terminals as well as Wi-Fi and a room for laptops. The place is usually packed, at least during the day. Next door is the Busy Cafe, whose food I haven’t sampled yet.
Speaking of food, what kind of food do Ghanaians eat. There is generally starch of some kind - yam (not what we call sweet potato), rice, plantain, fufu (yam or plantain pounded to a smooth, tenacious consistency) and so on, with a stew, e.g. palm oil, groundnut (peanut) stew, kontomire, etc. Another popular meal, often sold by roadside vendors, is “red-red”, which is ripe fried plantains and black-eyed peas prepared with…yes, you guessed it, rich, red palm oil. This is a cheap meal and popular for lunch among office workers. If you are “unbeanz”, i.e. unemployed, you can survive on this meal.
Last night I bought some kelewele, ripe plantains chopped into cubes and deep-fried with ginger and red pepper. It is heavenly. Like I said, non-fat diet for 6 months.