10 reasons to love Ghana

Getting a bit emotional about the fact that I am leaving soon. First, I’m leaving from my hometown here, and my whole life here, and then a bit more than week later I am leaving the whole country. Can’t really even think about it, as every time I do, I get this way too intense and hollow, sad feeling, almost like physical pain. Reminds me nicely (hehe, sarcasm) of the times when I had to leave from Hong Kong, or when I had to leave from Australia. Absolutely horrible feeling, that just can’t be explained.

Anyway. So, to think about nicer things, I wanted to make a list of things I love in Ghana. There are actually millions of reasons to love Ghana, but it was a bit easier to limit the list only to 10 things.Obviously, here I am focusing on good things. Coins always has two sides, and every single thing I have listed has its negative sides too – but I don’t want to focus on them now. Maybe, on one of the days when I’m so fed up with certain things, I’ll have the right mood to write about things that are not always so perfect and nice, just to balance it out. Because, let’s be realistic here. There’s no place in the world that would be paradise all day every day, year after year. 

1. People

Ghanaians are amazing. Kind, polite, happy and always so helpful. Just today I was dragging this huge bag of water pouches, and man it’s heavy. There were some boys playing basketball close to my house, and one of them ran to me and asked if he could carry the water bag for me. This is Ghana; every time I have something heavy, or not really even heavy, just something to carry, I always get offered help. 

People are helpful in so many ways – whenever I am travelling, people around me are making sure I know where I am going and that I know how to get there. It would be absolutely impossible to get lost in Ghana. And the hospitality - people invite you over, bring you food, cook for you and want to make sure you are enjoying of your time. 

People living around me are looking after me, always ready to help me and making sure I have everything I need. I get offered a dinner, and if (from their perspective, I’m not really) I look lonely, they ask me to come over, or come to keep me company. I have this feeling of being looked after, but not too much. I feel like, if I need, there’s always someone to turn to, there’s always someone to talk to, and there is always someone to help me if I have any kind of issue.  Alone in Ghana definitely does not mean being lonely in Ghana – there’s so much love and so much caring around me, and as cliché as it sounds, I feel kinda blessed.

   2. Weather

Weather has been pretty much perfect for the past 2 and half months. We have reached the rain season, but it doesn’t really show. It sure is raining, during the night, or during the workday. Some odd days it’s raining a bit more, but never the whole day. One day it was raining for coupe hours without any break, and that has been the record so far.  Evenings after work & weekends are usually always sunny and nice, warm but not too hot. Temperature is constantly something between 27-30 degrees, which is just perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. Sometimes on a rainy day it gets a bit humid, but never crazy humid, like for example in some countries in Asia. Few weeks ago, the temperature went down, it was only +23 degrees (in the evening though), and I was freezing! Not sure how I’m planning to survive in Finland. But luckily, I still have almost 2 months to get prepare myself for that. Probably now when I have told you how amazing the weather is, it is going to be raining every single day until I leave.

   3. Food

Firstly, it is so easy to be vegetarian/pescatarian in Ghana. Every place I have been to, have options for everyone, except not sure about vegans. But anyway, it has been simple and easy, there is always either food option with fish or option that is purely vegetarian. I don’t understand what people meant when they said it might be a bit tricky to be vegetarian in Ghana – it is definitely not a problem. At least I haven’t encountered any problems, and I have been to quite remote locations and to random places. Probably it would be a bit trickier, if I wouldn’t eat fish, because that they use here a lot. 

Besides being vegetarian friendly, Ghanaian food is GOOD. Delicious. One thing I’d like it to be, would be spicier. But other than that, it is perfect. Quite heavy, oily and sometimes unhealthy, but yummy. Different kind of beans, chili, tomato sauce, onion are common ingredients in Ghanaian food. Plantain in different forms and rice (I’m so fed up with rice though) are common sides, and usually the food is just big plate with these things mixed together. 

    4. Language

      More than 80 languages and dialects are spoken in Ghana. More than EIGHTY ( 11 of them are official local languages)! Insane. One of them is British English, which makes Ghana easy country for expats to live in. Even though, the British English you’ll encounter here has nothing to do with the British English you think about. I love the way they speak English here. I thought that I’m quite good in understanding different accent, thanks to living abroad before and having friends from many different countries. But Ghanaian English is something different, and it took me good couple weeks to start to understand properly when people were talking to me. From their perspective, I was speaking way too fast and I have american accent. From my perspective, I could just not understand much of anything, especially the kids. But luckily one gets used to new accents quickly, and I think now it’s safe to say that 99% of the time I understand them and they understand me. Here are few examples of how people speak English in Ghana. I love it, it’s so different and bizarre!

 > In Ghana, when they say for example ”ask” or ”task”, it is here ”aks” or ”taks”. For     example: I was AKSING him to help me.

 > Please. Here, the word please is used A LOT. It’s polite, and that’s why used a lot in a sentences where I wouldn’t normally use it. For example: How was your day, please. Did you get home, please. Please, are you okay? Please I am fine. And so on, so shortly, lots of please. People also say thank you and sorry a lot - Ghanaians are very polite! Like my friend here, ALWAYS says thank you when he leaves my house. I never know for what, but hey no worries mate, you are welcome! 

 > Chop money. Ghanaians don’t spend money, but they chop money.

 > Sorry; here sorry is used when people are regretful that something happened to you. So they say sorry to actions that they are not responsible for. For example, I slip because I am clumsy and I don’t pay attention - the person I am with says ”I am sorry”, like its their fault I slipped. But it’s not what they mean, it’s more that they mean ”poor you”. Took me a while to get used to this!

    5. Atmosphere

What I have experienced is, that atmosphere in Ghana is so chill. ”Go with the flow”- seems to be the way of living here. There are no strict schedules, no timetables for trotros, they simple depart when the car is full. People come to work when they can, meetings happen when they do and so on. It’s almost like the concept of time doesn’t exist here - everybody’s always late, and when I say always I mean ALWAYS. Luckily I had mentally prepared myself for this, so it hasn’t been as frustrating as it could have been for a person coming from a country of schedules, timetables and where being late is just rude. Imagine organizing a workshop that should begin at 8.30am, and the last participants comes around 9.05. And that’s early, only 35 minutes late! This is why my workshop does not have set time - I make sure everything’s ready in the morning, and start when everybody’s there, simple as that. I wonder how I’m going to survive when I go back to Europe. I’m already stressing about the domestic flight I have here in Ghana - it’s a flight, meaning I really have to be at the airport on time and I guess the plane is actually going to take off according to its SCHEDULED time. Makes me anxious to think about schedules and times; here you simply can’t  ”be late” from bus(trotro), since it leaves when it leaves and the next one comes right away. 

   6. Nature

It’s sooooo beautiful here, and so versatile. I haven’t seen the Northern part of Ghana yet, but soon I will and I’m sure it is going to look different from the Western Ghana. You have seen the pictures, and especially you who follow me on instagram have seen plenty of photos and videos of nature here. Just beautiful, so green, so different than in Europe, and TASTY. I mean, those bananas I can get from the backyard, or those damn delicious cocoa pods growing at the front yard. And the fresh coconuts that are growing in the palm tree next to the cocoa tree. And the possibilities Ghana’s nature is offering; you may go surfing, hiking or for example canoeing. You can go spotting waterfalls, or elephants. You name it. It’s simply amazing!

    7. Beaches

Beaches in Ghana were a total surprise to me. I didn’t know what to expect, and I have been amazed to see beaches that are just absolutely stunning. So calm, quiet, beautiful and peaceful! I don’t know why, but I couldn’t picture a Ghanaian beach before coming here. I guess I didn’t think they could be anything special, compared to the amazing beaches I have seen on my travels around the world. But I was wrong! And you know what I mean, I think I have posted about 1 million beach photos here.. sorry.

   8. Fashion 

I heard this saying ”every road in Ghana is a fashion runway”. True, so true! Colorful fabrics, amazing dress designs, mostly everyone has their clothes made by a seamstress/tailor so everybody’s just looking great in their outfits. Ghanaian’s fashion sense is just something else. While you are sitting next to them, wearing your boring clothes, being all sweaty after a long day, Ghanaians look amazing. If I only had more space in my backpack.. I would have had so many dresses and outfits made for me. I love walking around the town and just watching ladies in their beautiful and super colorful outfits and of course their hair is always looking impeccable. Guys look nice too, but I think I see way more colorful and pretty outfits on girls than boys. Boys dress up mostly just for church!

    9. Nothing works, but then everything works.

Everything is sort of chaotic, messy and confusing, but at the same time life is so simple and straightforward here. Planning things is challenging, organizing things is challenging, anything related to timing is challenging, finding certain things is not easy, and usually things happen very slowly. But nevertheless, in the end, it all turns out well and everything works just fine. Maybe it's not the easiest and most efficient way to reach the aim, but anyway yo'll get there, it will happen, just maybe in a different way and schedule than you planned first. It's reassuring to remember, in the middle of chaos, that it (whatever it is) will work out just fine!

   10. Trotros 

Gotta love trotros. The best and cheapest way to get from place A to place B. Trotros are fun, sometimes uncomfortable, but mostly just so simple way to move around here. Using a trotro costs basically nothing, and I have always reached the destination safely, no matter if it was 10km or 70km away. And big plus for the funny texts they have on the back of trotros. Very entertaining to try to spot the funniest ones!