What's it like to live and work in Ghana?

Answer 1

Hi, I live in Ghana, so I guess I can answer that.

Days start very early, usually before dawn, with roosters crowing all over the place (yes, even in the capital city!), as well as hawkers walking up and down the streets announcing their wares... sellers yell "tea bread" so you can come out and buy your bread, and shoe shine boys bang their boxes rythmically, so you can get your shoes fixed up for the day.

Off to work before the sun comes up, as traffic is a mess. Streets and roads infrastructure cannot support the number of cars, taxis, buses and trucks plus the hawkers who tie up traffic selling their goods (toilet paper, fried plaintain, newspapers, tissue boxes, candies, etc). You can sit in traffic up to an hour, even if it is only a 5 mile trip.

You can buy your day's breakfast and lunch from a street vendor. Restaurants are few and far between, and very expensive, not really meant for the locals. Breakfast might mean porridge or waakye (rice and beans), or bread and tea. Lunch could be light soup with fish at a chop bar, or kenkey (fermented corn dough) with fried fish and hot pepper. Both relatively cheap, about $1.50 for the soup/fish, and maybe $1.00 for the kenkey and fried fish. Washed down with pure water sachets (sold for about 5 cents), or a Coke (25 cents) or a beer (75 cents).

At the end of the day, back in traffic to get home. Many people are still traveling when it gets dark, which is around 6:15. We have over 12 hours of daylight every day, but it gets light and dark very fast, there is practically no dusk.

If you're lucky, when you get home you will have electricity. Ghana is suffering with a severe energy problem, as our hydro dam is below the minimum level. Consequently, you have "lights off" every 2-1/2 days for 12 hour stretches; always from 6 to 6. After you've bought food at the market (not a supermarket, a real outdoor market), you'll cook dinner or eat what you've bought from a local vendor if you're too tired. Wash your dishes and have a shower (usually in cold water, as most local homes do not have hot water heaters). You iron your clothes before you go to bed, because you never know if you will have lights on when you awaken.

The weather is hot, we are now at the end of the year's last rainy season, and it will get increasingly warmer between now and Christmas.

It's actually a bit tougher than in major US cities like New York or Washington (I know, I've worked in both). Harder to get around, lack of road infrastructure and mass transit (a couple of buses and trotros are about it). No public bath rooms (you don't want to go there), no shopping malls, no public libraries, no fast food restaurants.

Hope this gives you an idea what it's like on this side.

Barb

Answer 2

Don't know and I don't want to know either. Can't think of anything worse than living in a hell hole like that.

Answer 3

well if you are white its great