THE STREETS OF GHANA

THIS IS THE VIEW I HAVE MOST OF THE TIME WHILE TRAVELING. 

There is always very heavy traffic and bad roads...some MUCH worse than others. I love the many hours we spend in the car because it gives me a chance to see all the shops and people along the roads

A marketplace near where we live. We walked there to get produce but took a Taxi home. 
It's not an easy walk!

Almost every street is lined with wall to wall make- shift stores and people selling one thing or another. They cook right there are on the side of the road in a big black pot (see in picture above) or on a bonfire.

I feel a little awkward taking pictures.  I don't want to embarrass anyone so I do my best to be discreet. Sometimes people are happy to have their picture taken,
 
I wish I had brought a little photo printer so I could share pictures.



Each of the following pictures was taken on my way to and from church last Sunday. We live just a block from the church so this is our neighborhood.

Man in traditional dress sweeping his walk

A neighborhood restaurant.
Bob is threatening to try it out.  Those are chickens roasting over a fire.
They smell good and we are meat deprived!

Making banku

These ladies are making banku.  It's a mixture of  mashed dried corn and water that is cooked in a pot and stirred constantly for a long time to cook. (kind of like baking maybe?) They then take a piece with their fingers and dip it into a spicy sauce and eat. Sometimes everyone is eating out of the same pot.

Notice how nice this woman looks.
I have seen many dresses that I'd love to own, very classy!

 This car wash is an area where you can drive your car off the road and men will wash it. 

Isn't that what a car wash is?

 Places with these umbrellas sell phone and internet credit.  

In Ghana there is basically a "pay as you go" policy in most everything.  We must load minutes on our phone and internet in order for service to continue.  We learned that by "experience" when we ran out of minutes and had to wait to be taught how to get new credits.

To add credit to our phone or internet we buy a card, scratch off the silver which covers the number, take the back off both devices to remove both the batteries and sim cards.  Then we put the internet card into the phone, replace the phone battery and back and activate the phone.  We press *123* and enter the internet number and press "call or send" It tells what is now available. Once all the cards are entered (they are sold in small increments so we need several with all the calling we do)

Once the numbers are entered, then we must "bundle" the credits by calling *700#2 and go through a series of steps to choose a package, reply and send. Eventually it shows we are done.  Then we take the back off, battery out and remove that sim card and replace the phone sim card, internet sim card, battery and back in both devices

EVERYTHING IN GHANA IS A PROCESS!

more later...;