Ghana has the best French Toast!

Ironic if you think about the fact that Burkina is a French speaking country and Ghana isn't...

So back in June I traveled to Ghana with a few friends, Val, Shannon, Celenia and John. We visited Busua, Akwiida, Cape Coast and Kumasi, spending almost all of our time relaxing on the beach. It wasn’t really hot when we were there, but we actually really enjoyed the nice and cool weather after our weeks of 100+ temps in Burkina.

One of the first things we noticed after crossing the border into Ghana was the number of children wearing shoes. Even in a somewhat small village/city. Everyone had shoes, and they were nicer than cheap flip flops!! After a couple more days in country, we started noticing that very few people wore pagne (local fabric) clothes; most people were wearing western style clothing. In Burkina, it is not at all uncommon to see a woman wearing simply a piece of fabric wrapped around as a skirt. Even in the capital city, this is not an uncommon sight. But in Ghana, I think I only saw two women throughout the week who sported the simple pagne skirt.

One thing we often talk about amongst volunteers is how buff Burkinabe are, men and women! Every woman in my village has the most muscled arms you can imagine. And every boy over the age of 8 has a well defined six pack. In Ghana this was not the case: we saw almost no well-toned arms, and everyone seemed to be carrying a few more pounds around the waist. I am certain this difference is due to richer diet and a less physical labor required, but it really struck me how obviously healthier Ghanaians looked.

After living in Burkina for a year, my perceptions of what is “normal” most definitely have changed: What is normal body size, what is normal to expect in a grocery store, what is a normal level of cleanliness for children, etc. And Ghana once again shook up my ideas of all of these. The grocery stores had so much more to offer!! (it still is nowhere near an American store though). It’s funny, because just before leaving we were talking about the movie Green Zone and how everything in the war-torn city looked nicer than Ouaga :P

Because of the big differences we noticed in Ghana, I looked into the gap in income between the two countries. According to CIA World Factbook Ghana’s GDP per capita is $2500 and Burkina’s is $1200 (and the US’s is $47,200). Even more interesting: Ghana’s unemployment rate is 11%, while Burkina’s is 77%!! (US is 9.7%). So it’s one thing to be told I’m living in one of the poorest countries in the world, and it’s another thing all together to think that a country with a per capita GDP of $2500 has it made :P

In Burkina, the common mode of transportation is a small motorcycle (called a moto). In big cities there are enough of these to completely fill the streets and cars are rare. In Ghana there were cars everywhere!! Motos were rare and roads were better condition.

Anyway, back to vacation-y things. One of the days we were staying in Akwiida, three of us biked to the nearby Cape Three Points. The cape claims to be the closest landmass to the intersection of the equator and the prime meridian (0 degrees for both latitude and longitude), aka the center of the world! One look at a map argues that there are probably closer points, but it is certainly one of the closest on the continent! While the bike ride would have been much more fun on bikes that weren’t really crappy, it was still rather enjoyable (and kind of scary going down some of those hills!)

Our second to last day was when we headed to Cape Coast, and I really wish we would have spent another day there. Yes, it was a little more touristy, but it had a lot of cool things to offer that the smaller places we were staying didn’t have. We did get to see the castle in Cape Coast and we noticed that the part of the castle that you only see from the ocean hadn’t been white washed as recently as the street view side :)

Unfortunately, after our relaxing week, we had to spend over 24 hours in transport getting back in to Burkina. Transport was just as awful on the way there, but this time there wasn’t a beach at the end of it :/

Also, I probably gained about 5 lbs that week from eating, drinking, and relaxing to my heart’s content. And I’d do it again in a second :)