Sweet home Takoradi

I just realized I haven’t really introduced the town (city?) I’m living in, and I have been here for already over a month! So, I guess better late than never, here’s little info package of my lovely hometown in Ghana.

I live in Takoradi, also called Sekondi-Takoradi, as this is city connecting twin cities, Sekondi and Takoradi. Takoradi is the capital of the Western Region of Ghana, located at the coast of Ghana. We are about 4 hours from Accra (by bus), and 1-1,5hrs from Cape Coast. Pretty nice location, right next to the sea, far enough from the busy capital, but still big enough city to not to be boring.  Close to awesome surfing spots, close to beautiful nature and empty beaches, which seem to be getting more and more beautiful after one another.

Takoradi, such as most of Ghana I guess, is funny when it comes to landscape and environment. One moment, you are in the dry and dusty area of the city, where everything seem to be mix of grayness and red sand (which is everywhere) and soon-to-collapse-looking buildings, and then next minute you reach the beach and are surrounded by baffling greenness, palm trees and the sea. Our apartment, sort of in the middle of nowhere but still quite close to everything, is surrounded by such a lush garden! Palm trees, cocoa trees, grass, colorful flowers and so on. So pretty. Then, 2 minutes in taxi and you are in area that seem to be like a different world.

We live about 10km from the city center, so not too far. I feel like nothing here is too far, everything is accessible by trotros and doesn’t really take long. Except, when there are traffic jams due to heavy rain or  unknown reason, as it sometimes (regularly) happens.

Market circle is located in the city center, sort of like the heart of the city. From market circle, one can find anything needed. Fabric. Tomatoes. Chili. Spices. Credit for phone. Cleaning stuff, clothes (new and second-hand). Bread, jewellery.. anything, you name it. Okay, except milk products. But anything else, seriously, can be found from the city center and especially from around  market circle.

What else. Well, then there’s the beach I just recently discovered, super lovely! Then, KFC. Amazing, huh? But here, KFC is fancy restaurant – not a shitty fast food chain, but relatively expensive restaurant and unknow concept. Probably in 10 years one can find also McDonalds, Starbucks and garbage like that.

Oh, airport. Takoradi has an airport, expected to be international airport one day in the future (I wonder when). With about 80€ one can get flight to Accra, which takes about 40 minutes. Quite tempting option to hot and sweaty 4 hour bus ride.

Mall, of course we have a mall here. Takoradi mall has just opened recently this year, and is still waiting for it’s full bloom. Grocery store Shoprite is there, that’s where I can find the milk products and all the other stuff that isn’t sold at the market circle. Besides Shoprite, Takoradi Mall is filled with empty business space, with only few spots occupied with random stores. One of them is selling wigs, one electronics, one seems to be perfume store, and then there’s hairdresser/nail salon. And café, which did not have coffee last time I asked.. Or they did, but instant one, so that does not count. And PIZZERIA! Like, real, proper pizzeria from which you can get actual real pizza, I had chance to try one slice the other day and was so surprised. Pizza is very expensive though, so I guess I can live without pizza for few more months...

Then there’s Coffee Corner, love that place. Decent coffee, decent sandwiches, air condition and free wifi. All I need on the days when I work on my thesis or do work stuff. 

Then, there are few hotels and bars. I have been only to Stellar Lodge and Raybow Hotel, which both have nice bars. Champs bar at Stellar Lodge was actually a party bar, with karaoke and so on, and entrance fee later on the night. Fun vibes, but super rude staff! Raybow Hotel's bar seemed to be more chilled, live-band and drinks sort of outdoor bar, liked it a lot! Another bar, where I have actually been only during daytime, is Vienna City Beach. Chill bar/restaurant right at the beach, they also have a pool which is nice addition! During the days it's pretty quiet, which makes it perfect place to work, if I don't want to stay at my office. No wifi though. During the evening, at least on weekends/holidays I guess, the bar gets more crowded and I'm sure it's fun place to have a little outing at!

Don’t be scared of what you don’t already know.

I experienced quite variety of reactions when I told people I was going to Ghana. I was expecting that; therefore, I didn’t actually tell anybody about it until I had received the travel grant and signed the work contract. Some were really excited, some were confused and immediately asked why on earth I would like to go to Ghana, and then there were people who started telling me how dangerous it is and that if I reeeeeaally go I have to be very careful. And, FYI, these people had never been to Ghana, or actually anywhere in Africa. I got loads of travel and safety tips from people who, sorry to be blatant, had no idea what they were talking about. Luckily, majority of the reactions I encountered were positive! 

I understand that unknown is scary, and that it is normal to be worried about your loved ones. But I also find it very annoying when people let stereotypes affect their worldview so strongly.

Country in Africa must be dangerous, like this quite random person told me, that Ghana is extremely dangerous place to be. I asked this person to tell me one fact about Ghana. Got silence as response. This person didn’t even know the capital of Ghana, or whereabouts Ghana is in Africa. But this person was 100% sure that Ghana is dangerous.

 

I dare to claim that I have been to more dangerous places than Ghana. At least, I have travelled to places where I have (usually by accident) ended up in very dodgy areas I should not have gone to. But those are stories for some other time. The thing is, that basically any country can be dangerous if the person travelling in that specific country is not equipped with common sense and knowledge about the country and its different areas. So, as simple as that, figure out some basic facts and tips before going, and be sensible.  Like, figure out where to go, where not to go, where one can go but should be a bit more cautious at, where you shouldn’t go after dark, where you shouldn’t go during the weekend, how to behave, how to handle different situations in different cultures, how to talk to people and how to dress and so on. 

“Is there something specific one should pay more attention to – lots of pocket pickers in some area, or some particular way scammers try to lure tourists in difficult situations? This bar has dodgy reputation, maybe shouldn’t go there? This is reliable taxi company, use that one.” You know, things like that. Very simple facts that can easily be found.

Of course, things can still happen – no matter how prepared one is, things may and most probably will go wrong (at some level) at some point. But this can happen anywhere, even in the countries that are perceived to be “very safe to travel to”.

I guess my point is, that it is frustrating when people don’t even try to find out actual information about things, but just assume something and declare these assumptions as a fact. If you have a smartphone and internet connection, it does not take long to google a bit about country, and one can learn lots in few minutes. Or by just asking around, by being open-minded. Don’t assume, rather ask!

 

I have been in Ghana for over a month now (EEEK! Time is going too fast), and I have felt safe here. I have learned what to do, what not to do and where obroni (white) girl can go and when.  If I go out later in the night, I don’t go alone, and if I’m travelling home from my weekend trips, I leave early enough so that I’m home before it’s pitch black out there. Sun sets around 6pm, so for example if I’m coming home from a trip on Sunday, I aim to be at home latest around 6.30pm.

People here are very helpful, and as obroni I stand out in the crowd quite clearly. This is good, but also sometimes slightly negative thing. Good, since everybody’s assuming I have no idea where to go, which makes my life easy. People are always pointing out which trotro goes where, taxi’s and trotros are stopping and asking whether I need a ride or not, people offer to walk me to my destination so that I find the right taxi station, restaurant, hotel and so on.

Naturally, some of these people have ulterior motives, and they want for example money, my number, address and marry me. Actually, I haven’t been asked for money that often, maybe once or twice. 

But, a lot of men come to talk to me, very quickly either asking for my number and my address or whether I could marry them or not. That’s why I wear a wedding ring here (so if you see me wearing it, I am not engaged or married FYI). It really helps a lot. 

I mean, sometimes it’s quite funny when people come to ask you to give your number/marry them. Like the other day, I was coming back home from Busua, and I was sitting in a trotro waiting for it to fill up. One older man came to talk to me, saying that his friend, very young-looking boy, was too shy to ask me for my number so he was asking for him. Everybody in the trotro was following this situation, and when I lifted my left hand and showed the ring, they all went “aww nooo, obroni is married!”. Even the trotro driver was very disappointed. But it was somehow so funny situation, like a soap opera scene with lots of eyes following how it develops, and when they realized that “I’m married”, it was mix of disappointment and amusement -  we all had a good laugh. Also, a new man entered the trotro at some point of the journey and immediately commented something about me and how obroni should marry the young boy, but before I had chance to answer, the driver already shook his head and laughed that unfortunately this obroni is married. The man was laughing and asking, if I’m sure I have a good husband and don’t want to change him for the young boy, since “Ghanaian men are really good husbands”.

Anyway, so far I have got the feeling that Ghana is safe country to be and travel at. For example, I have had no issues when traveling somewhere alone. You just must know what you are doing and where you are going, and make sure not to travel (at least not alone) at night-time. 

Cheapy cheap

First, I need to explain what trotro is:

Trotros are like “public transport” here. So, basically they are equivalent for a bus, but they just happen to be mini vans, fitting maybe about 12 people in, depending on which kind of trotro it is. Some of them are nice ones, almost “fancy”, and then some of them look like they will break down in any minute, or look like they have been robbed  very thoroughly multiple times, left with nothing but steering wheel and seats. One trotro (photo below) was started like stolen cars in movies – with the cables, not sure what happened to the keys of the car. But, it was pretty cool.  Surprise surprise, trotros do not have line numbers, like “oh okay we need to take trotro number 54 to get to Agona”. No. You just need to ask, or usually the cashier boy will tell you where the trotro is heading to. Climbing in the back seat of trotro requires gymnastic skills and flexibility, since the trotros are tiny, full of people and probably not designed to carry that many persons. And I have not manage to exit trotro even once without hitting my head, the roof is just so low. But, trotros are awesome!

Trotro

 So, let’s talk about money. I don’t have much of it, not now and probably never will, hehe. But, here it’s not a problem. My euros are quite a lot here actually, making me almost rich. Like, with for example 20 cents one can get lots. Like, taxi ride to the trotro station (1km). Last time I took a taxi from the train station to home in Jyväskylä (also 1km), it cost me about 12€.. 

Hmm, what else. With 20 cents, one can get 2 bags of bissap juice. Ice cream. Bag of popcorn. Doughnuts. Bread. If you double that amount, you can get for example avocado(s), depends on where you buy them from, pineapple, mango(s). I’m not sure what you can get with 20 or 40 cents in Finland, some tiny lollies maybe? Maybe a fruit, like apple or something? Not much anyway. You can’t even dream of taking a bus, not to mention taxi, with 20 or 40 cents. I think in Jyväskylä the cheapest bus ticket is something like 2,80€? Here, A TAXI from the city center to home (more or less 10km), costs about 4-5 euros. If you trotro home, it's about 35 cents. Trotro from Agona to home, which is about 15km or so, costs 40 cents. Shared taxi from Busua to Agona (probably about 10km), is 70 cents. If you want to treat yourself and take a private taxi, then it’s way more expensive, costs as much as (almost) 3 euros.

Cedes

Pesewas

Somehow, very quickly, you get so used to the cheapness of things that all the sudden things seem expensive. Like, we went to have dinner in Indian restaurant and I think I spent about 10€ and it seemed like a lot! Even though that price included a soft drink, delicious and HUGE main dish & rice (ate that for 2 days!) and garlic naan bread, it still felt a bit expensive. Which is crazy, since that was one of the cheapest and one of the best Indian dinners I have had for a long time.

On Sunday, when leaving from the Butre beach, we had to take a “private trotro”, because trotros do not really operate on Sundays there. It cost 50 cedes, so something like 9€, meaning 4,5€ per person, and for a while it felt really bad to pay “that much”. You just get used to it, which makes sense. On our way to the beach we payed about 80 cents for the same journey, so paying almost 5 euros of it now felt like a rip-off, even though it’s not much.

Huge breaad: 6 cedes (1€)

Water bag (0,5L): 20 pesewas (0,035 cents)

Ice cream <3: 1 cede (0,20 cents)

Night at decent room, right on the beach, costs about 10€. With that you get clean room, with private toilet  and shower, and ceiling fan (important) so basically all you need for sleeping! Of course, there are expensive options as well.  If you want to get fancy and if you feel like spending lots of money. It’s really not difficult to find a hotel with rooms that are “standard priced”, like twin room being 100€ per night. So for the people who have too much money and they are looking for places where to spend it, there are options too!

Then, internet and stuff. I have prepaid sim, so I buy credit I add on to my account whenever I run out of data. 1000MB (expires in 7 days, but usually runs out faster than that since there’s no wi-fi anywhere), costs about 2 euros. If I make whatsapp calls (which I don’t really do hehe), that naturally uses data quite a bit and I run out of it in no time.  My favourite café (and also the only one here), has free wifi so if I need to make mandatory “mom and dad I’m alive” – calls, I do them when I go there. 

But, in conclusion, since I pay for internet on weekly basis, it’s about 3€ a week. It’s cheap, and since I don’t have unlimited data, the plus side has been that I can’t use internet and thus my phone that much. It is actually very refreshing to have days when I barely use my phone! But then, there are occasionally times when I end up using the data, planned to last for the whole week, in 24 hours... Whoops. Luckily does not happen very often since I have good books to read, and often plenty of other activities to do! (Btw, updating this blog uses huuuuge amounts of data, mostly the part when I add photos!)

For example:

3 avocados 5 cedes (0,85 cents)

bag of coriander  2 cedes (0,35 cents)

10 eggs  6 cedes (1€)

Indian food for two people (two main dishes + rice, and naan bread) + home delivery (10km), 126 cedes (21€)

For ex. Pineapple: 2 cedes (0,35 cents)

Fabric: 3 yards (2,70m) 30 cedes (5,80€)

Butre beach

People who follow me on instagram have already seen plenty of vids and pics from this place, sorry for the spam! I just wanted to share this perfect location, if you ever go to Ghana and end up in the West, I’d recommend you to visit Butre & Hideout Lodge!

I wonder who built this bridge.
 A bit scary, but the only way to get to Hideout Lodge from the Butre community

French press-coffee for breakfast *drool*

Butre beach is right next to Busua, the beach & town I have posted about before.

Butre is just a bit smaller, and more remotely located. Which means, it’s super chill place, perfect for relaxing! I could l and finish my thesis here.. no distractions. Actually the swedish girl I met, was finishing off her Bachelor’s thesis at Hideout Lodge, can’t think of any better place for doing that!

We stayed at Hideout Lodge, fairly big lodge with sort of ”bungalows”, treehouses and dormitory rooms. The best thing about this place is, that there were hardly any people around, and that it is right next to the beach, or actually it pretty much is ON the beach. I love when you can hear the 

sound of waves when you go to bed, and wake up to the same sound. 

There are some activities one can do at Butre area, but we decided not to. So what I did, was layed on the beach, read my book, listened to music, walked on the beach and met super cute dog (highlight of my trip), met new people from Sweden, New Zealand and France, ate plenty, and also had few drinks which was niiiice! This is where I tried the Kpoo Keke for the first time, French/British guy, who has been here for quite long time already, shared some with us.

Weather was super warm as usual, we only got some rain on Sunday afternoon, when we were about to leave anyway. On Saturday evening the sky was  clear, accompanied by full moon and stars, so it was incredibly beautiful. Add ocean view and sound of the waves. P a r a d i s e. 

The only downside is that the waves at Butre beach aren’t good enough for surfing, so I didn’t get chance to surf on the weekend.. but I guess I’ll manage, it’s weekend now and I think I’m heading to Busua tomorrow, yay!

Unexplainable

Food and drinks in Ghana has been interesting experience so far. One can find a lot of different cuisines from here – Indian, “European” (which usually means weird pizza), Lebanese, American (there’s even KFC here in Takoradi) and so on. And then there is the local food, of course. Which I haven’t had chance to try that much yet, but luckily, I do have plenty of time to try (almost) everything. Ghanaian food (at least the dishes I have tried) has interesting, very different and difficult to explain-taste. I won’t be able to explain them very well, but at least you’ll see some photos of the food and learn what’s in them. To understand what I mean by the “interesting taste”, you will just have to come here and try it by yourself!

Ghana-style restaurant. Liking the name here

Food here is usually mildly spicy, accompanied by rice and often does not look very nice, but tastes good. I haven’t experienced any super spicy dishes yet, not even sure if they have really spicy Ghanaian dishes. Would like to try them though, if there is any. The spicier the better!

Okay, here comes the dishes & drinks I have tried so far.

Let’s start with very simple food, such as yams chips – they look so plain and tasteless, but they actually are really good and way better than normal fries. Especially when they come with two super tasty chili sauces, red chili sauce and shito (black chili sauce). Yummy!

Yams chips

Then there’s bissap (also colled sobolo)– a weird “medical” drink. This one is sold every day at our school during snack time, and I guess it’s a thing Ghanaians drink a lot. Bissap is red, has interesting, sort of berryish taste to it, but still it’s not a berry drink. Bissap is made from dried Hibiscus flowers, water and I guess they add some spices on it too. The school principal told me that bissap has plenty of health benefits and referred to it as a “medicine drink”, so obviously I had to google it.  So, turns out that (google says so, so it must be true), bissap drink can reduce blood pressure, decrease cholesterol level, help in weight loss (much needed here) and treat cold, as it is packed with vitamin c and antioxidants and so on. 

It has a weird but good taste, and I love it on a hot day when it’s fully frozen and just slowly melting, perfect icy refreshment! I’m officially addicted to it now.

     

Bissap/Sobolo

Banku with okro stew. That is our lunch on every Wednesday or Thursday. Weird, very weird food. The okro stew is slimy, a bit spicy and nobody can really tell what’s in it. Seafood usually, like that one tiny crab I had in my okro stew the other day.  The texture is not the nicest, slimy food is a bit gross, but I like the taste. But, I eat it super wrong; with rice. Okro stew is supposed to be eaten with banku, something one just possibly cannot explain. Banku looks a bit like mashed potatoes, is usually served in a plastic bag, and it smells funny. Probably, because it is made of fermented corn – you can really taste and/or smell that there’s something fermented in that dish – and cassava dough. And I think you are supposed to eat it by hand – take some, dip it in the soup/sauce and off you go!

I’d say that banku is like Finnish salty liquorice. You need to be/get used to it in order to like it, since the taste is so incredibly bizarre. So, either you love it, or you can’t stand it. There are not many types of food I hate, so I don’t want to say I can’t stand banku, but I can’t say that I like it either... Maybe I will learn.

     

Banku in making

Okro stew

Then, everyone’s favourite food here. Fufu. I have tried fufu only once, and I think I did not do it right. It is supposed to be eaten by hand, just like banku, and it is supposed to be swallowed immediately, just like banku. I actually tried this with banku yesterday, and it really works – use your hands, take some banku, dip it in the slimy but delicious okro stew, put it in your mouth and swallow it. No chewing, nothing. So weird way to eat food, since we have been taught to chew food properly before swallowing it. But it really does make the taste of the whole banku-okro combination very pleasant actually. 

But, back to the food I was talking about. Fufu is made of cassava and green plantain flour, it’s white, thick and very sticky. It’s like wallpaper paste. Liisteri. So, I don’t know how one can eat it by hand. But I’ll find out! Fufu is usually accompanied by soup, either palm nut soup, ground nut soup or light soup. I have no idea what light soup is, but that is what I had with fufu. It was very tasty, tiny bit spicy and had some fish in it.  Next time(s) I want to try palm nut soup, and the ground nut soup. So, plenty of fufu tasting ahead!

You can't actually see fufu in this, it's under the soup!

Hausa koko, also known as “spicy millet porridge” (millet = hirssi). The school owner has nice habit of bringing us some food sometimes, usually fruits or snacks (like doughnuts), but one day he brought me breakfast; Hausa Koko porridge, some slightly spicy, deep-fried thing (bread? chicken? Mix of those two? I have no idea what it is) and then Bofrot, Ghanaian doughnut which is really yummy.

Edit: That slightly spicy deep-fried thing that tasted a bit like chicken was Koose. Koose is “spicy bean cake”, so it is vegetarian yay! And really good. Usually served with the “porridge”. Addicted to this one now too.

Porridge in a bag, and bofrot and koose!

Plantain (keittobanaani) in all kind of forms. I absolutely loooove plantain, it’s so delicious! Especially plantain chips.  Plantain is also such a good accompaniment with food, like the other day, when we tried fufu, we also ordered very delicious bean sauce with fried plantain. Plantain is slightly sweet, has really nice texture and works kinda in the same way as potato would. A bit like sweet potato, but still not quite. Very well explained, good job me. Shortly, it’s amazing. Try it if you haven’t yet.

Plantain & red bean sauce. Plantain really looks like banana!



Plantain chips, crispy and tastyyyy

Alcohol. Haven’t really drank much at all while I’ve been here, some odd beers on the beach or at dinner, but that’s about it. I have been craving for wine since I arrived here, but still haven’t had any. Maybe this Friday I will have some (I say this every week). 

I have tried local beer, Club Lager. Club is light and  “easy to drink” kind of beer, it’s watery in a good way and fresh, thus it’s perfect in hot and tropical country like Ghana. I like it a lot, but the issue is that it is always served in a huuuge bottle, and I have two problems with that: 1) I can’t drink it fast enough, so it gets warm and disgusting in no time 2) I can’t drink that much of beer.

Another local drink I tried is Kpoo Keke. It is made of atadwe and ginger. Somebody tried to explain me what atadwe is, and if I understood correctly, it is some sort of plant, or a nut. And that it is believed to boost fertility and good for one’s sex drive and so on. Go figure. 

Anyway, Kpoo Keke tastes just like the healthy ginger shots one can have in hipster cafes, you know? So delicious, and devious as you can’t really taste the alcohol (18%) in it. Could just have one shot every morning with breakfast and have no clue that there’s alco in it!

So that’s it. Things I have tried so far. Not many, so there is much more to come, and I CAN’T WAIT!