Africa For A Weekend 9: Ghana🇬🇭

Enjoyment.

Africa For A Weekend - Episode 9, in Ghana🇬🇭 was characterised by the word "enjoyment".

What was meant to be a solo trip ended up becoming a group trip because a few of my friends and mutual friends happened to be in Ghana at the same time. Coincidence?

Enjoyment is great, but the main purpose of these trips is to learn more about the different countries that make up the African continent, quickly and immersively.

So, what did I actually learn about Ghana?!?!

Oh boy, I learned a lot.

African real estate is real:

A few of my friends who happened to be in Ghana with me are also active in real estate in Ghana. I got to see some of the projects they were working on and talked numbers. The numbers were big (but confidential). What this taught me is that there is indeed real money in real estate, at least in Ghana. My friends have a unique advantage because they have studied, live and work abroad in Europe & the Middle East, as a result, they were able to invest their relatively larger incomes to buy the relatively more affordable Ghanian real estate on their incomes. This is a great example of geo-arbitrage. Leveraging high income from more developed nations and investing said income into developing nations for higher returns, albeit with slightly more (but completely manageable) risk.

Ghanian culture is super laid-back:

The first thing I noticed upon arrival, is how laid-back Ghanians are. When leaving the airport in many African countries, I'm used to being swarmed by people trying to sell me their services from SIM cards to taxi rides. This did happen to some extent, but no one was nowhere near as forceful. Also, stuff like services in hospitality were slow-paced too (expect to wait a while for your food). This laid-backness does hurt them to some extend in external PR. My friend and I discussed the fact that despite Ghanians being arguably as successful as Nigerians internationally, they aren't recognised as much simply because they aren't as "loud" as Nigerians and thus get noticed less. One additional thought I had was that maybe Nigerians are overrated! Maybe Ghanaians are really the chosen Africans (even above Ugandans like myself); it's just that Ghanaians are meeker an humbler. Ghanaians have been able to go shoulder to shoulder with Nigerians despite being almost 10x smaller in population, (and height👀). Nigerians are just loud and there's many more of them to amplify this loudness.

Super safe streets:

This was a major highlight of my Ghana trip. The fact that the police were everywhere on the streets at night. Setting up roadblocks to check on vehicles passing by, ensuring no crimes like kidnapping occur in the city. This high police presence reminds me of my time in Rwanda, which is known as the safest country in Africa and sixth safest in the world. This does wonders for making citizens feel secure when moving at night, especially women and young people. If you come to Ghana, you'll feel pretty safe.

Accra comes alive at night:

I honestly haven't quite seen a city that transforms at night as much as Accra does. The difference is literally night and day. For example, during day time, Accra is a modest humble city full of family-friendly things to do like restaurants, gift shopping, beaches. But at night, it's as if the devil wakes up to start his night shift. Accra goes from family-friendly to family-endly - things go down at night that can end family relationships. Around 1am is when the bars and clubs get started. Sex workers come out freely, and intermingled with police. The street kids who ought to be asleep by then, also roam the streets with the police, prostitutes, and public. This was especially prevalent on Ghana's Oxford Street in Osu. But of course, this makes perfect sense; the reason everyone comes out at night is because Accra has become a sort of party town, with many tourists roaming around after midnight - and of course, as unfortunate as it is, the locals need to make money somehow, either by begging or offering their services.

Jollof rice review - food poisoning:

One of the reasons I was excited to come to West Africa was to finally compare jollof rice and settle the infamous debate between Ghanian and Nigerian jollof. All was well and I was eating Ghanian jollof rice daily and enjoying it a lot. Until one fateful day where my friend and I ate from the wrong restaurant. A day later, we were stuck in our respective beds for a whole day, suffering from all the messy symptoms of food poisoning. This really threw a spanner in the works of my jollof journey, as it somewhat did give me PTSD from jollof rice - which doesn't help since I'm only halfway through the journey (next stop: Nigeria🇳🇬).

More extortion by police:

Ghana broke a record for the largest single amount I've witnessed being extorted by police from a tourist. As sad as it is, I've seen police extorting people in many African countries now. Uganda, South Africa, and now Ghana. It's almost become a game I track. In the other countries it's usually a small $5 to $50 extortion job. Ghana came in at a whopping $500 after negotiating down from $10k!!! How did this all happen? Unfortunately, this time it wasn't me getting extorted, so details will not be shared to protect the identities of those involved. Just know that Ghana police managed to make 1.5x their reported monthly salary in a 30-minute extortion - which would make sense why they'd lean into this particular side-hustle. The silver lining here, I guess, is that they eventually settled with $300 because this was all the cash that was available in that particular ATM, saving the victim $200. Sidenote: I notice that all these extortions typically happen after midnight, late at night. Usually the police stop you in dark areas in the city with no street lighting, so they use their flashlight (for added dramatic effect, I'd imagine). They also start by pulling your car over and doing a stop and search and trying to find a good excuse to arrest you. Once found, then negotiations begin - "Go to jail, or pay me". If you want to avoid getting extorted this way, avoid these scenarios.

Taxis take ages to arrive:

Whether using Uber or Bolt, taxis would regularly take 10+ minutes to arrive. Contrast this with other countries like South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, and others I've been to where taxis take 1-5 minutes tops. This made hopping from one place to another, especially at night, really tedious. A better idea would be to hire a private driver, which is actually very affordable in Ghana.

Prostitutes are people too - hear me out:

Preface: Note that I did not use the service of any so called "prostitutes", however I did interview a handful to get an authentic look into just how real life can get in Ghana. A lot of the women in this line of work actually left the difficult circumstances in nearby Nigeria, like weakening currency, overbearing corruption, lower security, and poor infrastructure like unstable electricty, all to seek greener pastures in Ghana. Despite the fact that this line of work is highly stigmatized in the west, this is actually the harsh reality for a lot of women in developing countries who have limited job opportunities. A lot of the women that do this are simply "normal" women who are earning money because they're experiencing financial challenges, or because they want to save money to go back to school, get a better job, and even start a family in the future. The fact that this line of work is so absurd in the west is really a privilege of our advanced societies that allows people to meet their basic needs through government assistance or welfare, which these developing country governments do not provide, at all. Very sad.

Overall:

I'd say Ghana is definitely a country I'd visit again, it has a lot of potential in real estate, a strong focus on safety, and is actively attracting foreigners to come and live or invest in Ghana. However, there are still challenges with poverty and unemployment, which would be great to tackle because there are a lot of young people with a lot of potential but no opportunities.