Whatcha Ghana Do When They Come For You?

Sunday

So I tried to go to church Sunday morning, which turned out to be a slightly more arduous endeavour than expected. First off, this church is all the way on the other side of campus, about a 25 minute's walk right there--and it was 97 degrees outside. At freaking 8am. I think if I had gotten there on my knees it would've been a bona fide pilgrimage. And then I learned that mass was actually at 9am. After burning about 1000 calories I didn't really feel like waiting for an hour, so I hung out for a bit, made an offertory donation and then headed home without going to mass.

Judging by the rest of the day, I probably should have gone to mass.

That afternoon, Emma, Esther and I decided to head into Accra to check out a show at the National Theatre as well as the National Cultural Centre and Independence Square. Because I'm lazy, I'm just going to point you here, for a description of events. And because Emma's a better writer than me.

The National Cultural Centre (really just a huge arts & crafts market) was borderline absurd. Before we even got inside the gate, vendors were harassing us to look at their stuff. They are relentless, and they all want to be your madanfo (friend). Ahhhhh. I'm not a big fan of getting pushed around, but we decided to give one of the guys a chance. Turns out I scored some free African drum lessons, which was pretty awesome, and got to look at some nice handmade wooden Ashanti masks and carvings. Turns out I can bargain down a medium-sized drum from 100 to 20 cedis. :) I'm going to have to buy a second suitcase to bring back the stuff I'm getting. Totally worth it.

After escaping from the National Cultural Centre, we decided to walk down to Independence Square, where there's a collection of Soviet-era statues (think Goldeneye) as well as the Flame of African Liberation, lit by Kwame Nkrumah himself.

We didn't quite make it there.

Maybe 300 metres from the entrance, the three of us start getting followed by these two young (maybe 12-13 years old) boys. I don't really think too much of it, as they're keeping their distance and we're on a main road.

And then it became like something out of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Two more kids joined them. Then a few guys. Probably a few dogs and cats. Then more guys. Until we're being followed/surrounded by around 12-15 people. The creepiest part was that everyone was totally silent and just staring blankly. No catcalls, no cries of "obruni" (white person). At this point, we decide to hail a cab back to Legon, which luckily came to our rescue not a second too soon. And then it looked like the crowd was about to hail a cab of their own!! No joke! But they didn't get into anyone and we were able to get back safely. But seriously, this was in the middle of Accra in broad daylight! Craziness.

That night we went to the Paloma Hotel for some nice food and live jazz, which was pretty cool. Some of our people watched the Euro 2008 final (woooo Spain!), and we headed back around 9pm or so. Sure enough, one of cabbies didn't have his license, so half of us had to switch cabs at the gate. Typical.

Seemed like a normal enough night, right? Until we found out upon returning at the hostel that two people from a different delegation had been ROBBED AT GUNPOINT. Right on the university campus! They lost lots of important stuff, and we were (and still are) quite on edge. Oh man. Luckily they complied, and weren't hurt. :( Never a dull moment in Legon.

Monday

Today was fairly productive. I mailed off some postcards :), and set off for Tema Port around 10am. I was able to retrieve 38 of 41 pilot surveys, and it looks like I'm getting some decent variation in responses. Good stuff. I'll start some of the analysis today (read: relearning ordered probit...), so that stuff is going well. Though I wasn't too happy about spending 8 hours in Tema for one set of surveys, and swallowing like a pound of dust during my tro-tro adventures. Oh well, all part of the experience. :)

I'm off to Takoradi on Friday! woot woot

Oh, and the Canadians left early this morning for a village in the North. I miss them already :(.