1-It stays HOT. I used to laugh when Kwame would talk about the "cool" season. I get it now. April-ish to October-ish (so American Spring and Summer) we get African monsoons and the temp is a welcome 85 with 70% humidity instead of 95. Watch the video below in Picture in Picture if you can so it's a little bigger and you can see the trees blowing in the wind. I'd say this is a lighter rainfall for Ghana's rainy season.
Now that it's November, it rains sometimes but the temp and humidity have definitely crept up!
2-Music in Africa is UNMATCHED and so underplayed in America! I loved Afrobeats before I came but now I also know about Amapiano (South African) and Daddy Lumba (Ghanaian artist--this song is an old school staple!) and Bloody Samaritan (I cannot get enough of this song!!). Wherever I go, I hear music that I typically hear at "home" (so, Black spaces) or not at all in the U.S. On the radio, in stores, at dance class, etc., I hear the music I named above as well as traditionally African American genres like gospel, R&B, and jazz and it's amazing. There's pop, and soft rock, and surprisingly quite a bit of country too. It just doesn't dominate the airwaves. I don't hear a lot of music from other cultures though, so there's that.
3-And now I know so many more dancehall grooves and dances to go with all the new music! Hips and bodies here are so loose and I am desperately trying to figure out how to be less stiff! I don't know how to explain it but most Ghanaians can not only dance but they have a freeness of body that I have never experienced. I am stiff but also, so in my head and self-conscious about my body. But in dance class, everyone of every size and shape moves with so much freedom! Here’s a snippet of what my Dancehall Divas dance class is like: such a workout but so much fun! Here’s also a playlist of some of our songs.
4-If ever in doubt and you need to say something in Twi, "I'm coming" means all the things!
I'm coming means: hold on, excuse me, be right back, hold that thought, I'm looking for (it), and give me a minute. It 's taking a while to get used to this but I also like trying it on sometimes. For example, a store clerk might say, “I’m coming,” when I ask for something. But they don't stop what they are doing. And I be like, are you gonna help me?! And they be like, yes, just finishing. And then I’m like, ohhhh you mean, hold on a sec!
Or I ask Kwame to explain something and he walks away and says, "I'm coming." and I’m like but you’re actually going away, not coming! But it means, brb in that case.
Me ba! In general conversation, standard writing rules and spelling aren't a big deal so I don't know the official spelling but no one here cares?!
5-It's freaking beautiful! I will allow her to show herself off ;)
View from my room at the C Resort in Pram Pram where the Dancehall Divas went on a Girls' Weekend to celebrate 7 years of dancing and diva-ing.
Kwame at Labadi/Sandbox Beach
Me in Aburi, an area up in the hills about 45 minutes outside Accra
Akosomba in the East, near the border of Togo. This is where we went on our honeymoon last year! Speaking of which, next week we celebrate our first year of marriage. Some experts say the first year is the hardest? Not that it was easy but we navigated A LOT and we are going strong <3
6-There is enough. I recently started following this girl on tiktok who is a freegan which means she gets most of her life supples from dumpster diving and spends very little money. She posts daily the things she finds in and near store dumpsters. The amount of perfectly good items--from fresh produce to bread to candles to electronics to bedding to plants to cleaning supplies—the US is disgustingly wasteful. Perfectly fine unused brand new things being thrown away because we have too much. Anywho, back to my point. In Ghana, I used to get frustrated when I'd go to a store and they'd say, "it's finished." At first I was frustrated because I am churched and when Jesus said "It is finished," on the cross, that was it! It had a such a finality to it in my world. Now that I'm used to it in Ghana, it is commonly used to indicate something is out of stock. And I hear it a lot. It might come back, it might not, no one really knows or cares. So this Amazon Prime delivery loving girl has gotten used to not having everything immediately. And I am surviving just fine! And I don't mean to take away from the fact that there are many people who do live in poverty and food scarcity is real. What I am trying to say is, no one freaks out about running out of things. The over abundance and sense of entitlement and expectation that I can have what I want when I want it is not the norm here and I love it.
7-There’s no real zoning rules so there’s lots of eclectic combinations of infrastructure: buildings, roads, etc. While there are some true slums and some truly affluent areas in and around Accra, most neighborhoods go from paved road to dirt road, developed shops to unused land with overgrown bush to a partially completed building, from one block to the next. It's just life in Ghana and there isn't a great sense of judgement or labels placed on things like this. In the U.S. we'd immediately think this is a poor/wealthy neighborhood or this is a good/bad neighborhood and things just are what they are (more or less) here.
8-Uber (and Bolt and Yango) drivers don't have the best customer service. You can request Lite, Regular, or Comfort rides. Comfort means newer, cleaner car, and AC is a part of the package. Of course there are differences in price. Often Comfort drivers will refuse to turn on the AC or say it doesn't work. One driver recently told me, it's cooling down and not too hot so the open window is fine. I asked, "so the price of my ride will then be discounted because you can't provide the service I'm paying for?" He said no. So I said, "then it's not fine" and I made him stop and let me out. These kinds of situations are a common occurrence so you just have to be on top of things or you can get taken advantage of I've started to (but sometimes forget) send a message once the ride in confirmed and let the driver know that if the AC isn't working they should cancel the ride because I expect that service since I'm paying for it. Luckily, I also have found a driver who lives nearby who I ride with often and so I usually don't have to bother with other driver's foolishness too much .
9-Though Ghanaians are boisterous and lively (we African Americans got it honestly) in general, in public professional spaces they tend to be incredibly soft spoken. What happens when you go to a restaurant in the States? A hostess with either too much energy, volume, or attitude is there to greet you and ask you a bunch of questions. Here, it seems that the customer initiates communication. Like, I stand there waiting to be asked how I can be helped or if I'd like a table for X number of people and it never comes. And once they do start to speak, it is so low in volume. And we all wearing masks. And music is playing. And other guests are at their tables being loud and enjoying themselves. Yet there is no attempt for the hostess to increase speaking volume! And because I speak a different dialect of English, it's hard to pick up on tonality and rhythms in pronunciation to guess what's being said. So, I feel like a dumb American forcing folx to conform to my needs just so I can get a table. #smh
10-Finally #10! Anything can be on a truck bed...I've seen cows,--alive ones and piles of dead ones (sorry if that's a bit graphic for my vegan and animal loving friends)--giant furniture, benches bolted in as seating, and...people. Just chillin: