Akwaaba! First days in Ghana.

I arrived in Accra, Ghana about 2pm on Sunday, and after a day of many adventures and confusions, I was exhausted and had already fallen asleep for two minutes. I arrived thinking I'd be alone, but after being hissed at many times at the airport, a man named Emmanuel picked me up and without many words brought me straight to Dyane's place where Siera had been staying for about a day. Hissing is a way of getting someone's attention. Then we went to our hotel, which is called Catters Hostel. Cold showers, no internet, but air conditioning and 6 Ghanaian TV channels work. We're plopped right on a street that comes off the highway which connects to the Accra mall and is always bustling with traffic. Our street consists of some road side shacks and shops, in which families live off to the side in basically the bush of our hotel, a "night club" and a delicious Turkish restaurant. A little bit farther on is our soon to be favorite place, "Chez Afrique".

The first day, Sunday, Siera and I went to the mall to buy phones, which was an experience in itself. We really didn't know what we were doing. Fresh off the plane, after visiting the phone place 3 times, my first meal was pizza. I'll backtrack a little bit because as soon as we left our place for the mall, we realized we even barely knew the hotel's name. In Ghana, you don't rely on addresses, as there aren't many, and instead you name the place and what is nearby. Our friend at the hotel grabbed us a taxi, so we didn't have to overpay for the "Obruni" (white person) price. And we were off and soon realized how little we knew about the area. So on the way back, it was quite an adventure finding it. Our cab driver most definitely wanted to just forget about us. Cabs here, though, are crazy. If there is a space on the road, they will fill it with their cab. Traffic laws aren't so much a thing. Also, let me explain something about the term "Obruni", first. It's not meant to be offensive, it is most certainly not the equivalent of a racist term for a white person. It's mostly endearing, coming often from the children who sometimes do not believe you're real (thinking you're a ghost) or otherwise shout "Obruni obruni!" at you and smiling. 

So without wifi, Siera and I ended our first day together in Accra by falling asleep to a juicy Ghanaian soap opera.