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| A typical street in Accra (actually in Nungua, a suburb of Accra) | Another typical street. | Murals at Aba House, the place where I stayed in Accra | Concrete crocodiles on the balcony at Aba House |
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"God First Frozen Foods" It's very common for businesses to have a religious themed name, e.g. "Jesus Saves Automotive". I saw this sign on the street and couldn't resist snapping a photo. |
Ghanaians often carry things on their heads, which is a very ergonomic way of carrying things. However, this woman rather startled me... | ...as did this man. I've never tried balancing things on my head, but now I'm tempted to try... |
I asked, "What's that?" My guide looked at me and said, "Haven't you ever seen a cow before?" Well, yes, but not with a hump... |
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A view (from above) of a busy market street in Accra. This is Accra's main market, approximately 5 acres of tiny little stalls selling everything under the sun, in a crowded warren with barely enough room for two people to squeeze by. "You are in a twisty little maze of market stalls, all alike." |
Coconut oil is an important part of Ghanaian cooking. Here Bobbo the weaver (whom I stayed with for five days while studying Ewe weaving) and his family are cracking coconuts to be made into oil at the mill. This huge pile of coconut meats (including the full bag in the foreground!) produced one large tub (7 or 8 gallons?) of coconut oil. Coconut oil is clear, viscous, and smells wonderful. | Here the woman is mixing ground coconut meat with water, and letting the resulting coconut milk drain into a basin. | She lets the cream rise in large pots, then skims it off and boils it to produce coconut oil. |
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| Market day in a small town near Aflao. | A woman in the market, selling some kind of meat/offal. I wasn't sure what and she didn't speak English, so I couldn't inquire. | The goat market in a small town near Aflao. Adult goats are quite small, about the size of a largish dog. They're very cute. | I can't weave, Ma, there's a goat in my loom! |
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| Cotton growing wild near Lake Volta. | A Ghanaian iron, stoked with charcoal. I'd never seen a non-electric iron before! | One of the big staple foods here is cassava. Here, a plant has been uprooted to reveal the cassava root. | Cassava and green plantains (or maize, or yams, or other starches) are pounded with a giant mortar and pestle into fufu, a Ghanaian staple. Fufu is cooked without water and eaten with the fingers, usually mixed with some kind of soup or stew. I tried fufu, but didn't like it much...too messy to eat and I'm not fond of Ghanaian soups. |
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| A small town on the way to Tamale (northern Ghana). Note the mud huts. | I'm told that the mud/adobe houses are actually quite practical, as the thick walls keep the heat out during the summer, so it's nice and cool inside. | Another photo of a small town. Many of these have no water supply, so they must walk to the nearest lake for water. I often saw young women/children with cans of water on their heads. | Closeup of a mud wall. It has been partially covered with some kind of plaster, but the original adobe is on the left. |
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| Cacao (the bean from which chocolate is made) is Ghana's top export crop; they are the world's second-largest producer of cacao. Here is a cacao pod growing off the tree. Cacao trees are unusual in that the fruits grow directly from the trunk, not hanging from branches; this is called cauliflory. | The traveling tiger decides he likes cacao pods! | Me in a Ghanaian loom. |
